Matt Yglesias

7 Responses to “A Path Out of the Desert”

1. Andrew Says:
   August 28th, 2008 at 5:51 pm

   I had exactly the same reaction to A Threatening Storm. I just wish every time Mr Pollack was on TV or wrote an OpEd, his byline would include the fact that he wrote a 528-page book all about how dangerous Iraq is. That he seems to show no shame for his role in the Iraq War means I probably have no interest in his current work as well.

2. Eric Says:
   August 28th, 2008 at 6:01 pm

   He was flat bullshit wrong in The Threatening Storm. (And honestly I’m stunned anyone bought its arguments.)

   A more brutish society than ours would pay this with exile into the desert. Instead, we are genteel and let him publish more cockamamie books. This guy needs a pasture.

3. Don Williams Says:
   August 28th, 2008 at 8:16 pm

   I think it is hilarious for Mr Rodenbeck to know that Kenneth Pollack gets his paycheck from the “Saban Center for Middle East Policy” and yet to still expect Pollack to be an objective analyst. In my judgment, Pollack is a whore for Israeli billionaire Haim Saban and hence, a whore for the Israel Lobby.

   This is the guy who was telling us he had “the intelligence” , that Saddam was working hard on building nukes and that we needed to take Saddam out quickly because Saddam was probably close to success. Does anyone think Pollack was driven by a respect for the Truth — as opposed to lying to America for the benefit of Israel??? In my opinion, a deliberate lie that has resulted in 4100 dead American soldiers.

4. Jim Henley Says:
   August 28th, 2008 at 9:09 pm

   The pattern of Pollack’s usages and omissions of defector testimony in his Threatening Storm-era writing on Iraq is impossible to construe as good-faith error, given what he must have known about their debriefings in his official capacities during the Clinton era. I put it as delicately as possible in my pre-war takedown of Pollack - too delicately - but he lied. It’s that simple. It’s safe to assume he’s lying now\, and will be lying the next time.

5. sunsin Says:
   August 29th, 2008 at 12:40 am

   Saban Center for Middle East Policy

   I kept on reading that as the Satan Center for Middle East Policy.

6. otto Says:
   August 29th, 2008 at 10:09 am

   Will Pollack get an administration job under Obama? Sadly, yes.

7. The Fool Says:
   August 29th, 2008 at 1:07 pm

   If there has ever been an “intellectual” — and I use the term loosely — with blood all over his hands its Pollack. I also red his book in about November 2002 and was initially swayed. Fortunately I kept paying attention and by early February 2003 I had figured out that Bushco was full of shit. The aluminum tubes had a lot to do with it. So did Glen Rangwala’s debunking of Powell’s disgraceful speech before the UN.

   Here is the heuristic I used: Whatever else was true Bush had told several lies about Iraq. Someone with a strong case doesn’t needlessly endanger their position by lying on top of their strong case. Hence, if you detect lying you can strongly infer that there is not a strong case to be made on other grounds.

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