Lists, Lists, We’ve Got Your Lists
More end-of-the-year goodies; first, Cafe Hayek, with the “the dozen most pernicious economic myths held by non-economists” (I find number 8 to be particularly well-ingrained – and don’t miss the comments); next, from the left, we have Professor Juan Cole with the Top Ten Myths About Iraq in 2005. I’ve been tough on the Professor on numerous occasions, so I’m somewhat surprised to find I agree with many of his items, such as myth number 3 (The guerrillas are winning the war against US forces) and myth number 8 (Iraq is already in a civil war, so it does not matter if the US simply withdraws precipitately, since the situation is as bad as it can get).
That’s the thing about stereotyping people; seldom is one always right or always wrong (though Noam Chomsky probably holds the record for being wrong 99.999793% of the time). For example, just as I’m forced to give credit to one of my usual leftie scapegoats, Cole turns around and offers this spirited defense of the ‘false but accurate’ defense as memorably employed by CBS, among others. Tsk, tsk…
Hmmm… #8 is pretty darn good but I like #3 best.
Like you, I resisted visiting Cole’s site because of my long ago established opinion that his analysis is unreliable. But I went, cuz you made me, and found that his list is reasonable (not without faults) and one with which I can (mostly) agree. Most interesting is my impression that if you step back and take in his list in its entirety you get an image of Iraq and the Middle East that admits it is a complicated place that resists easy and static categorization. As to the ‘false but accurate’ bit – who but a partisan hack would ever subscribe to that childish view?
[...] Yesterday, I linked to Juan Cole’s 10 Iraq myths, with the surprising conclusion that I found much to agree with. I didn’t have the time or energy at that moment to deal with the one ‘myth’ I most strenously disagreed with, but Gateway Pundit has saved me the trouble. [...]
[...] Mark Coffey also agreed with much of the professor’s list. [Permalink] [Trackback URL] Trackback URL for this entry: http://acepilots.com/mt/2005/12/28/top-ten-myths-about-iraq/trackback/ [...]