Steven Vincent Warned Me About Iraq, But I Didn't Listen

It's not like I had much of an excuse.

I had the guy practically to myself for a solid half-hour.

In very short order I was very impressed with his seriousness, integrity, boldness, and passion for the truth. I took advantage of my time with him to pump him for wisdom about the course of war in Iraq.

Even though he had journeyed to Iraq twice and spent three and a half months there. Even though he written a brilliant book about Iraq that had been published just a week before. Even though he had challenged my own thinking on Iraq by his sharp and deeply disappointed criticism of the U.S. coalition campaign in Iraq. I still didn't let it register that I should digest what he had to say with all the urgency I could muster.


[Note to readers: I wanted to write and post this essay about Steven Vincent over three weeks ago, but I haven't been able to finish it so far. So I have decided to post the beginning of it, and update it piece by piece until I have it completed.

I will also edit it as necessary to make it as seamless as I can. Not only will stuff get reworked and reworded, but whole pieces are liable to get lopped off and disappear forever. So don't be surprised if the end product has evolved into something unpredictably different by the time I'm done.]