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Honestly. It was so satisfying to have an intelligent war supporter finally asked all the right questions about their initial & ongoing advocacy. To his credit, O'Hanlon submitted to & answered the questions. To his detriment, his answers, while plausibly phrased, don't remotely withstand rigorous (I was going to say "serious", but...just couldn't) scrutiny.
A few of O'Hanlon's quotes & positions that Glenn didn't cite/ deconstruct in his superb commentary remain (ahem) particularly worthy of closer examination:
O'Hanlon magnanimously decribes himself: "as an academic who always likes to go back to the evidence".
Strange then, as an evidence-based academic he is willing to accept anecdotal & unverified hearsay accounts, from vested interest sources, about the very conditions he purports to report. Doubly strange that his & Pollack's report about quantifiable facts like electricity supply & civilian casualties were in striking contradiction to Brooking's own, evidence based, Iraq Index.
O'Hanlon repeatedly, self-servingly describes his support for invasion as "nuanced" & (astonishingly) claims: "there was not an urgency about my advocacy." Hello?...Michael, it's about your February 2003 column in the Washington Post in which you said, about the war: "It is now time for the multi-nationalists to support the President." It. Is. Now. Time. NOW. TIME. = Urgent Advocacy, you mendacious tool.
In characterising his "nuanced" criticism of the occupation he says: "I've consistently advocated creating a lot more jobs...so I feel like I've made a useful contribuution in that regard." With Iraqi unemployment rates consistently ranging between 50-70% advocating a "lot more jobs" is the kind of "useful contribution" that a chimp with an abacus could provide.
In acknowledging his regrets, O'Hanlon bravely concedes: "I wish I had sensed that the Administration was being so blithe & Pollyanna-ish about what would happen after Saddam was overthrown..." And yet, and yet...fed blithe & Pollyanna-ish accounts of Surging Progress, on a DoD sponsored PR tour, O'Hanlon's wish for greater insight & scepticism, seems to have been remarkably short-lived.
Similarly, in acknowledging his credulity on Iraq'a WMDs, O"Hanlon justifies: "You are making an inference based on a strong body of knowledge, but not any ability to prove it". He continues: "So I think on that issue, there is an important lesson for how how to understand intelligence and it's one I've tried to digest myself."
Really? Seems to me O'Hanlon hasn't yet remotely digested the difference between proveable fact & the kind of "inference based on a strong body of knowledge" he continues to parrot, unquestioningly, on behalf of the DoD who orchestrated & stage-managed his Iraq tour.
