In Lieu of an Actual Post on the 10th Anniversery of the Invasion of Iraq

I offer the following words from Jim Henley, writing on the fifth anniversary, about how he (and, it should be noted, so many, many others) managed to get the Iraq war right when so many of those in power (including the media & other power centers than government) got it wrong:

What all of us had in common is probably a simple recognition: War is a big deal. It isn’t normal. It’s not something to take up casually. Any war you can describe as “a war of choice” is a crime. War feeds on and feeds the negative passions. It is to be shunned where possible and regretted when not. Various hawks occasionally protested that “of course” they didn’t enjoy war, but they were almost always lying. Anyone who saw invading foreign lands and ruling other countries by force as extraordinary was forearmed against the lies and delusions of the time.