Letters to the Editor
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Kamiya can't admit he's wrong
Gary Kamiya's review of Robert Fisk's new book is a partial mea culpa for Kamiya's own misguided support of the U.S. post-9/11 misadventures in the Middle East. But he still can't let go completely. Like many liberals who should have known better, even though he now admits the war went horribly wrong, Kamiya uses the excuse that it could have or should have gone right, if only the U.S. had pursued a more competent policy.
Of course, when making this argument, Kamiya ignores what he himself writes just a few sentances earlier when presenting Fisk's perspective. The U.S. went into Iraq and Afghanistan for all the wrong reasons. And so, no matter how "competent" we might have been in managing the post-invasion process, the final outcome was and is inevitable. Israel, unlike the U.S. was quite competent in its management of the West Bank and Gaza after the 1967 war. That didn't change the outcome one little bit.
Ironically, Kamiya and liberals like him echo the extreme right's arguments about the war in Vietnam. If only we had managed the Vietnam war competently, we could have won, they claim. Does Kamiya believe that as well? If not, what is the difference? That the Vietnam war was run by Democrats and the Iraq war by Republicans?
Fisk's central point is that intentions do matter. Fisk was dead on about this war from the beginning. Kamiya wasn't. Why should any reasonable person listen to Kamiya's historical analysis over Fisk's? It is Kamiya's ideology (and ego) that get's in his way. Fisk discarded those long ago, and lets people and events tell the true story. That is why Fisk is one of the few remaining great and true journalists.