Prescience

Jeffrey Goldberg, as some may recall, was the enterprising New Yorker writer who wrote up Kurdish propaganda a report on Ansar al-Islam and its alleged ties to Iraqi intelligence.  These claims were naturally entirely bogus, and this ought to have been obvious at the time.   

As noted by A Tiny Revolution, Goldberg also made some amazingly foolish statements five years ago this month, such as:

The administration is planning today to launch what many people would undoubtedly call a short-sighted and inexcusable act of aggression. In five years, however, I believe that the coming invasion of Iraq will be remembered as an act of profound morality [bold added].

At least he didn’t say six months!  That last line is remarkable, but this was my favourite one:

Their [i.e., opponents of the war] lack of experience causes them to reach the naive conclusion that an invasion of Iraq will cause America to be loathed in the Middle East, rather than respected. 

Those silly, inexperienced cretins!  They’ve certainly learned their lesson.

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