Sometimes one gets no satisfaction whatsoever from being right

[womzilla]

I have been re-reading my Usenet posts from 1999-2003 recently (it's an odd hobby, but it brings me comfort), and I came across this from 3 November 2002:

If the administration has no idea what to do after invading Iraq, they shouldn't be invading Iraq. I believe that the administration knows exactly what to do after invading Iraq; in fact, I am sure that the administration has at least fifteen mutually incompatible plans for what to do after invading Iraq, and will proceed according to at least ten of them.

I didn't actually guess the worst--I had no idea exactly how bad the Iraq occupation would be. The best I can say is that at least my nightmare scenario has not yet come true:

It is not difficult at all to imagine a worse scenario than Saddam Hussein or his sons controlling some nuclear weapons. Here's one: The US invades Iraq, leading to a radical political whiplash throughout Western and Southern Asia, which leads to real revolutionary nutcases getting ahold of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and using them.

Comments

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

That is obviously a fake post, since all my conservative friends and the MSM keep claiming that the country was unanimously behind the messiah President back then.

Granted, I don't recall being so, but it must just be re-writing my memories.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

Pakistan's nuclear weapons worry me. I am comforted by one thought: That people in power desire to be in power. And if the nutcases get a nuke and the rest of the world even thinks they got it from Pakistan...well, many things might happen, but all of them involve the people in Pakistan who hold power, losing it.

[richardthe23rd.livejournal.com]

Since Pakistan already leaked nuclear technology to North Korea with no apparent ill effect, this premise seems doubtful.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

Well, as Kevin said, "...and using them." North Korea has not used nuclear weapons; there's even some doubt about whether they really have them. I was thinking of people like, you know, Al-Qaeda.