A Canadian pro-war editor realizes he's been hoodwinked.

[JohnyCanuck]

Lorrie Goldstein editor of the right wing Toronto Sun has seen the light and now realizes the pro-war camp has had the wool pulled over their eyes. Mr. Goldstein apparently took the Bush administration's warnings about WMD at face value and was also quite upset with the Chretien government for standing Dubya up and turning down the invitation to the Iraqi invasion party.

I sent him an email with some links to DU threads on the Office of Special Plans and PNAC and advised him that if he had been a regular visitor to DU it's unlikely he would have been hoodwinked by the Bush Co. spin and propaganda in the first place.

He indicated to me via a return email that he was already aware of much of this stuff from the Toronto Sun columns of the anti-neocon conservative author Eric Margolis.

In case he stops by for a visit. Hi Lorrie :hi:

Here is a snip from Mr. Goldstein's column today.

Those of us who supported the invasion of Iraq believing Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction he was poised to give to terrorists need to admit something. We were wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Like a 12-step program, where you can only start the road to recovery by admitting you have a problem, we have to admit U.S. and British intelligence about Iraq was awful, at best, and, at worst, the George Bush and Tony Blair administrations cherry-picked or lied about the intelligence they had.

Just as one goes through five stages in dealing with death as Elisabeth Kubler-Ross describes in On Death and Dying - it is only the final stage, after denial, anger, bargaining and depression - which many war supporters have already gone through - that brings peace. That is acceptance. Those of us who accepted the stated basis for this war were wrong.

No matter what some judge says in Britain about the questionable reporting of the BBC, or that Blair and his minions did not "sex up" the rotten intelligence they had on Iraq, and no matter what some inquiry ordered by Bush may eventually find out about what was behind the massive failure of U.S. intelligence on Iraq - the reality is this: U.S./British credibility has been shredded. It will be years before the U.S., as the world's only remaining superpower, will be able to garner international support for launching pre-emptive war in the name of fighting terrorism. None of which is to say the U.S. may not do it anyway, just that the rest of us will be a lot more skeptical about going along.


We were had.

[Melsky]

1. Excellent

Nice to see someone who has the courage to admit they were wrong!

[glarius]

2. I'm not surprised that Goldstein has admitted the error of his ways

I've seen him several times on a talk show from Toronto and although he is a right wing conservative, I've noticed that, unlike most right wingers, he seems very fair-minded and willing to allow other points of view.....I'm glad he has had his eyes opened about Bush....

[Minstrel Boy]

3. It takes courage

to admit such a mistake, especially when you're the editor of a right-wing tabloid. But he'd already credited himself by keeping on Margolis, who week after week writes some of the best geopolitical analysis anywhere.

I wonder how the Toronto Sun's target readership will respond.

From Margolis's recent column:

By challenging war propaganda, I became the object of attacks by colleagues at this newspaper chain, and by other media pundits in the U.S. and Canada.

Each week, I was flooded with hate e-mail.

"Don't be on the losing side," a close friend warned last year. "Why risk your career and reputation by insisting Iraq has no WMD?"

Why? Because I was absolutely convinced of my position, and I passionately hate propaganda of all kinds - especially when it comes from western democracies.

"Do you feel vindicated?" a radio show host asked me last week. "You predicted a year ago that no WMD would be found in Iraq."

Not vindicated. Just dismayed.
http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_feb1.html

[Interrobang]

4. Wow...

That's the first truly intelligent (as opposed to glib or clever) writing I've seen from the Sun (ptu!) in ages. I prefer the Toronto Star, but since the chain canned their EIC, who knows what it's going to turn into...

[JohnyCanuck]

7. Good suggestion

On edit: This should be a reply to post #5

I just sent an email to the editor at commondreams.org with a suggestion that Common Dreams might want to see if they could put it up on their web site.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Has this article been submitted to commondreams.org?

[iverglas]

6. good idea, hope Johnny Canuck does it

Heck, maybe some actual mainstream media in the US will reprint it, eh?

Ah, we Canadians are so funny. ;)

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