How To Combat Revisionist Historians

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Atrios looks back at his archives in this post. Makes you wonder why few newspapers ever do pieces where they look back at what the newspaper was thinking at specific points in history. Easy-to-access blog archives might make it tougher for revisionist historians to make sweeping claims about the general mood of the country during specific periods. Statements about the Iraq War like, "Everybody thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction" will become tougher to make as bloggers can point to posts they made back in the day to show that, indeed, there was significant controversy over that point. Even if the blogging movement does nothing else, it will at least give us a running record of opinions within the context of time. It's interesting to think about the potential value to people in the future.

I Signed the Petition

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I recently signed this petition calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Why? Because I think that in order to succeed in Iraq, we need to show the Iraqis that we believe in freedom and basic human rights for all individuals, not just pay lip service to it. The torture allegations have set us back significantly, damaging our credibility and demonstrating that we don't really believe in the principles we claim to hold so dear. Of course, the credibility issue is secondary to the issue of making Iraqi prisoners suffer pain and humiliation that no human being should be forced to endure.

The fact that these types of things have been going on longer than most people had initially thought, coupled with the fact that Rumsfeld has taken a lackadaisical attitude toward doing the right thing, makes me believe that he's been asleep at the wheel or, even worse, dismissive of the impact the torture has both on the people being tortured and the world at large. I say axe him.