Serious question. And if not, why not? I’m talking specifically about the whole thing where the US submitted “proof” Iraq was making nuclear weapons- some nations didn’t buy it, and didn’t join the “coalition of the willing”, and were chastised by the US for not doing so.
I put this here even though there is a factual answer, due to my addtional question “should they have”.
C’mon, are you serious? Apologizing for past blunders, and dredging up all that unpleasant stuff, reminding voters of your mistakes, is something most politicians would avoid at all costs (not just our current Administration).
On top of which, I don’t think the current administration has ever admitted to any error. Cheney keeps dragging out the implication that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11.
Also, by “why not” I meant in the political sense- is there a protocol for admitting or not admitting mistakes of this type, even if you agree you made an error? Or is just “not done”, due to the political ramifacations and what not? Like with apologizing to the Japanese for the WWII internment camps, decades later- was it not done earlier for any specific reason? Does a certain amount of time need to pass, historically?
Politically, would it be better to say “my bad”, so that a country may “forgive” you and back you if you need their support on a legitamte future endeavor?
I’m not really aware of any prominent incidents in which states apologize for past wrongs. The leader’s of Germany have consistently gone over the top (if that’s even possible in this regard) to apologize for Germany’s actions during and prior to World War II–but that’s exceptional because it’s something that to my knowledge is very unique in world history. States don’t tend to apologize.
They smooth things over in the background, through diplomatic channels.
I believe that is yet another thing that Bush will leave for “future presidents” to do. 
But I doubt that will ever happen.
Martin Hyde: There have been lots of apologies issued by the US and/or the states, but mostly for past deeds to people living on US soil (Slavery, WWII internment, Lynchings, just to name a few off the top of my head).
I was more or less under the assumption we were talking about one state apologizing to another state. I think most of us are aware, for example, of Ronald Reagan’s official apology to the Japanese American community over the internment issue.
Even in the context of foreign relations, I did not say it never happened, just that the few examples I could think of were so exceptional it suggests it’s not a normal practice.
Just to be clear, I was responding to your statement that…
Which was not specific.
I agree that it’s not an everyday occurance, even in the more general case.
I also said:
In the same post, though, which while it may not have been 100% clear, I think made it apparent I was talking about the field of international relations. Especially since that was what was germane to the thread.
Um…are you saying that the US made up the ‘proof’ about Iraqi’s (supposed) nuclear programs…or that this was the main reason other countries didn’t join the ‘coalition of the willing’?? Because, afaik, it was other countries (namely the UK and Italy IIRC) that provided the ‘proof’ about Iraqi’s intentions wrt nuclear weapons (which turned out to be wrong, by and large), and I doubt whether it had much impact one way or the other on those countries that chose NOT to join. The fundamental disagreement was with what should be DONE about Iraq (invade? Sanctions? Harsh language? Nothing?).
The reason the US ‘chastised’ other nations for not joining had to do with politics. To be perfectly honest with you, much as I think the war was a mistake, I don’t think the US will or should apologize. We did what we thought was in our best interest…so did those nations that chose not to involve themselves. C’est la vie.
A good thing too…there IS no factual answer to this. Its all going to be opinion and speculation. Some people will say that they THINK the US should do this, some that they THINK the US should do that. What will the US actually do? Gods know. Depends on what happened between now and the next Presidential election…and who is at the helm when we shake the dust of GW from our boots. Your guess is as good as mine (or anyone else’s)…
-XT
I believe Kennedy apologized for the Bay of Pigs fiasco even though Eisenhower started it. It was another example of the problems poor intelligence could get us into. Yet Kennedy took the blame.
My impression is that in international relations you usually tacitly admit to your accusations having been wrong by ceasing to state them.
I have noticed that the US right has dialed back the anti-German propaganda wrt Iraq since about the 2005 change of government in Germany - which is curious if you think about it because the substance of German policy wrt Iraq and the mideast did not change at all. The former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (much reviled by the US right) put his job on the line in to send troops to Afghanistan and did not sign up to Iraq. The present Chancellor Angela Merkel (much caressed by President Bush and his partisans) follows the same policies (she even is more overtly critical of Guantanamo) - but apparently Schröder’s ousting proved a good opportunity to mend relations without doing that terrible thing, admitting fault.
The same thing may well happen regarding France: Mr Sarkozy’s Iraq policy will be substantially the same as Mr. Chirac’s but it’s a good opportunity to go easy on the anti-French rhetoric, pretending to the US public that France has seen the light.
That’s a popular misconception. Eisenhower did not start the Bay of Pigs invasion. The CIA cooked up the scheme during the Eisenhower presidency. The plan developed under Eisenhower was fundamentally different than the one implemented by Kennedy. Point in case, the plan cooked up during the Eisenhower presidency did not even call for a landing at “Bahía de Cochinos” ("Bay of Pigs*.)
A lot of the poor decision making and changes to the overall plan that happened under Kennedy have been attributed to Kennedy’s relative inexperience in dealing with such matters, and his over-reliance on advisers and the CIA. Many people point to his mishandling of the Bay of Pigs incident as a valuable learning experience. When he handled the Cuban Missile Crisis he took specific actions to prevent groupthink, and in general made sure that he and his subordinates didn’t fall into poor decision making traps that they had the year before.
*Bay of Pigs is generally not considered the correct translation.
The closest we will get to an apology to France is to drop the term Freedom Fries.
Really, we don’t need to apologize. France- as an example- didn’t join us because they thought we were wrong, but because they were making scads of $$ selling weapons and such to Saddam- not to mention they want to align a bit with the Muslims.
So, we asked them to join for purely political reasons and they refused for political reasons. No one is occupying the “moral high ground” here - even though we were wrong.
Yeah, right…
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/blair/etc/script.html
And when time showed that the French were correct, it makes no logical sence to bring the $$ into the front, you are assuming groups that would be in favor of the $$ (French businesmen) would had the same incentive as the people in charge of intelligence in France.
Dang that 5 minute edit limit, I meant to say that:
Time showed that the French were correct, it makes no logical sense to bring the $$ into the front, you are assuming that the groups in charge of the intelligence in France operated with the same $$ incentive as the French businessmen.
Quite. It’s perfectly okay to insinuate that Europeans acted because of economic interests but pose the perfectly reasonable hypothesis that an Administration hand in glove with special energy interests might have had oil in there as part of the calculus for war and Righties act like you’ve insulted their mother.
This goes without saying.
Well, yes and no. It’s not the only reason but it’s a pretty good one, don’t you think?
Depends on what you’re talking about in particular.
The most well known were the fraudulent Niger yellowcake documents. It’s not known exactly where they originated – they can be traced to Italy, partly to France, and some former intelligence sources say even the United States, but that’s not important. The important thing is that it was widely known to be fraudulent in both the U.S. and Europe. The IAEA debunked it with a Google search for crying out loud. Lots of experts in the U.S. were quite angry that it was cited as a fact in Bush’s infamous State of the Union speech. Why would the administration knowingly include false information in a major policy speech? Let’s ponder.
There was some other information our friends supplied with major qualifiers. We were asking for anything related to Iraqi WMD and they were happy to supply us in order to help. What was out there was paltry, to say the least. The administration cherry picked the hell out of everything it got and often ignored the warnings of the suppliers. A good example is the informant code-named “Curveball.” Sure, German officials said he was basically a deranged alcoholic and he lied about everything he ever said regarding his role as an Iraqi WMD engineer and his schooling and this was all known before the war but hey, let’s include him as a source!
All of the above and more was pooled into the October 2002 NIE. This was the government’s summary for the intelligence on Iraqi WMD to present to skeptics. It was received with much criticism and was good for nothing much than a laugh.
I’d tend to agree, although I’m sure if it was shown that Iraq actually had WMD some more countries may have gone along, but that’s speculation.
As for apologizing to other countries, what about apologizing to Iraq? Sorry we destroyed your entire society. Our bad. I don’t think Hallmark makes that card…
Right. They did. Just like our Intel groups gave our Pres what he wanted to hear. There was so miuch Intel on thisissue that you could read and assort it selectively and come out with any desired result.
*Blix *thought there were WMD- before he got back in, that is.