Prescient and Patriotic

Writing in The Nation last April, Eric Alterman wrote an article headlined Prescient and Patriotic: America's Honor Roll.

George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq has proven so colossally counterproductive it almost beggars belief. This is finally, belatedly, reflected across a spectrum of opinion that includes virtually everyone who is not in the Bush inner circle or on the Washington Post editorial board or the Weekly Standard masthead. Speaking for the bedrock institutions of the establishment on The Charlie Rose Show recently, Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, admitted, "There's no question that it's helped to weaken America's standing in almost every other country in the world. It's just added to the notion of an America out of control, an America that doesn't know how to deal with the world." Jessica Matthews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, added, "The war has cost us deeply in credibility, in respect.... even our closest allies don't trust what our next instincts would be."
. . . I've picked a short (representative) Honor Roll of people in a variety of fields whose prescience and patriotism led them to risk their positions and/or prestige in public life to warn their nation of impending catastrophe:

To read the list, go here.