Boot the naysayers

Max Boot reminds us of how wrong so many were a dozen years ago regarding Operation Desert Storm. Boot kicks each one:

Sen. John Kerry: "I do not believe our nation is prepared for war. If we do go to war, for years people will ask why Congress gave in. They will ask why there was such a rush to so much death and destruction when it did not have to happen."

Columnist Robert Novak: "It is probable that after Bush orders the first shot fired, anything that looks American throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe could come into the cross hairs of a rifle sight or be blown up by a car bomb."

Former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski: "The United States is likely to become estranged from many of its European allies."

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy: "It'll be brutal and ugly. The 45,000 body bags the Pentagon has sent to the region are all the evidence we need of the high price in lives and blood that we will have to [bear]."

Former President Jimmy Carter: "The devastating consequences will be [felt] ... for decades to come, in economic and political destabilization of the Middle East region."

Herodotus tells a story about the King of Lydia. Croesus sends messengers to ask the Oracle at Delphi about going to war against the Cyrus the king of Persia. The Oracle reveals that "if he made war on the Persians he would destroy a mighty empire." And indeed he did, for he destroyed his own, and he was taken prisoner by Cyrus.

Our modern-day pecking hens are no better than Navius' birds at foretelling the fortunes in war.