On the second to last day of the Dutch “mission” in Afghanistan, there is no more appropriate quote than this gem by Nick Mamatas:
Now, six, seven, eight years later, all one can do is take this as an admission that indeed, the far left was right in categorically opposing the invasion of Afghanistan, was right in categorically opposing the invasion of Iraq, was right about WMDs, “catching Osama”, the possibility of creating a stable Middle East or Central Asia powerbase, was right about virtually everything we claimed was going to happen in the wake of 9/11, and that all the Democrats who voted for war were wrong, all the people who voted for Kerry under his “you break it, you bought it” conception of imperial politics were wrong, and everyone who voted for Obama because he was against the “bad war” (Iraq) and in favor of the “good war” (Afghanistan) were wrong. Those kooky fringe people who waved the wrong kind of signs and booed Howard Dean and didn’t even argue “sanctions, not war” (i.e., slow starvation, not fast bombs) were absolutely right.
In Holland those “kooky fringe people”, even in 2001 numbered in the tens of thousands during the first demonstrations against the war as millions more people, ordinary people saw through the lies and excuses from the start. In the end, it did not matter much how we thought about it, or how much we opposed this war and the war on Iraq: our leaders had decided that those wars should be fought and our permission was not needed nor much wanted.