The Past, Present, and Future of Neoconservatism

[Le Kiwi]

The only white flag I have has little black checkers all over it, and I usually see it at the end of a race.

I recall seeing the German occupation forces waving something like a white flag, though. Maybe it was an old photo of heroic Resistance fighters and columns of French tanks (Sherman's, supplied by America, thank you...) accepting the nazi surrender of Paris ?

[cutter]

I am glad to see the neocons out of the shadows and proudly admitting to what they are, you can thank me for pulling yourselves out of the closet

Before I came along it was all just suggestive behavior of people with unfocused hate and narrow views, now it is structured hate with narrow views.

The sooner the extremists overstate themselves, the sooner they fizzle out for a solid 20 years or so, until the next generation tries to revamp it before realizing it's all B.S., then they can deal with the next generations learning curve.

Hopefully history will teach this one out of existence forever, but I doubt it.
Hate is too marketable, with a ever growing population it will be easy to find a ton of hate material of any race, political affiliation, or religions to focus a narrow view upon.
Not that anyone here takes small localized events and masquerades them off as a social standard for a large group of people...

[bigdog]

Whether or not a distinct neoconservative position could be discerned in the relatively calm 1990’s, everything changed, with a vengeance, after September 11, 2001.

As the second President Bush unfurled his “war against terror,” word spread that he himself had been captured by neoconservatives. What gave plausibility to this idea was that Bush’s new approach constituted a radical break with his own earlier predilections.

Less than a year before, he had come into office evincing little interest in international affairs and proclaiming that America should be a “humble nation,” with fewer global commitments. No more than a handful of identifiable neoconservatives occupied influential positions in his administration, and none at the highest tier.

There was unintended irony in the post-9/11 liberal caricature of Bush and Cheney as politicians who had haplessly allowed their administration’s policies to be hijacked by a few spookily effective intellectuals—this, less than a year after having been such master manipulators as to have allegedly stolen away the presidency from Al Gore.

But this was not the only grotesque charge leveled at the President. Another was that the “neoconservatives” in question were in reality a group of Jews who were attempting to divert U.S. policy in the interests of Israel. This particular bit of slander ignored, among other things, the fact that the neoconservative position on the Middle East conflict was exactly congruous with the neoconservative position on conflicts everywhere else in the world, including places where neither Jews nor Israeli interests could be found—not to mention the fact that non-Jewish neoconservatives took the same stands on all of the issues as did their Jewish confrères.2

However fantastical the conspiracy theories, and however polluted their origins, what is undeniable is that Bush’s declaration of war against terrorism did bear the earmarks of neoconservatism. One can count the ways.

It was moralistic, accompanied by descriptions of the enemy as “evil” and strong assertions of America’s righteousness. As Norman Podhoretz puts it in his powerful new book3 Bush offered “an entirely unapologetic assertion of the need for and the possibility of moral judgment in the realm of world affairs.” In contrast to the suggestion of many, especially many Europeans, that America had somehow provoked the attacks, Bush held that what the terrorists hated was our virtues, and in particular our freedom.

His approach was internationalist: it treated the whole globe as the battlefield, and sought to confront the enemy far from our own doorstep. It entailed the prodigious use of force. And, for the non-military side of the strategy, Bush adopted the idea of promoting democracy in the Middle East in the hope that this would drain the fever swamps that bred terrorists.

It is possible that Bush and Cheney turned to neoconservative sources for guidance on these matters; it is also possible, and more likely, that they reached similar conclusions on their own. In either case, the war against terrorism put neoconservative ideas to the test—and, in the war’s early stages, they passed with flying colors.

The Taliban regime was ousted from Afghanistan quickly and without a major commitment of American forces. More striking still, a democratic government was established in Afghanistan—one of the least likely places on earth for it. Muammar Qaddafi, the ruler of Libya and one of the world’s most erratic and violent dictators, abandoned his pursuit of nuclear weapons, and in effect sued to bring his country in from the cold reaches to which Bush had assigned terrorism-supporting states. Finally, Saddam Hussein was toppled from power in a brief campaign with minimum loss of life.

Even more remarkably, Bush’s advocacy of democracy brought an immediate and positive reaction around the region. The Lebanese drove out Syrian forces after a 30-year occupation. In an unprecedented development, elections at various levels of government were held in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and a handful of other Arab states (and the Palestinian Authority), including most dramatically Iraq itself.

The collective leadership of the Arab states, meeting at a summit, declared its commitment to “strengthening democracy, expanding political participation, consolidating the values of citizenship and the culture of democracy, the promotion of human rights, the opening of space for civil society, and enabling women to play a prominent role in every field of public life.”

[Le Kiwi]

What is missing from this desperate, spinning duck, shuffle and slide is the fact that the leading neo-conservatives are Dick "Darth" Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Apparently they hold impotant posts, or held, somewhere in the American administration......in fact, as you begin to understand who these people are, you will find that they hold ALL the power. The only obvious exception is the sock-puppet that some people think is the "Decider". Er, no. He "decides" what Dick tells him too...

Here, because Bigdogma would have it that the gripe against the neoconservative movement is some sort of conspiracy against the "Evil Choos", are some links that explain exactly who the neocons are, exactly where they are in the structure of Power in America, exactly what their plans are (invasion of Iraq, regime change or invasion of Iran and Syria, control over the oil, control over the strategic choke points around the ME, isolation of China and Russia, discreditation and eventual implosion of the UN and a full-spectrum Amerikan military domination over the planet, to enable neoliberalism to take complete control, backed up by unchallengable Amerikan military might in a gleaming "Big Brother" Neocon thousand year reich.) All this incidently dreamed up years before 9/11, or the strangely fortuitous "enabling event", a "Neo Perle Harbor", if you will....

US News / Special: Empire Builders / Neocon 101 | Christian Science Monitor
How Neoconservatives Conquered Washington – and Launched a War, by Michael Lind
Neoconservatism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neo-Conservatives and the Bush Administration / IPS Inter Press Service
AlterNet: All in the Neocon Family
Neo-CONNED!
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blument...08/03/mideast/
Neocons Converge Around Giuliani Campaign - Newsweek Politics - MSNBC.com
They’re Back: Neocons Revive the Committee on the Present Danger, This Time Against Terrorism
Project for the New American Century - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
US News / Special: Empire Builders / Spheres of influence: Neocon think tanks and periodicals | Christian Science Monitor
Category:Neoconservative think tanks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Phew !" That should give you all something to learn up on. As your horror grows, maybe you'll begin to understand why I react so virulently to these people. It's not, as some of you wrongly think, because I'm "Anti-American, anti-capitalist or anti-semite", but because what they are attempting is fascism. Basic, attractively-packaged and well-marketed fascism.
And I'm an anti-fascist.
You could also make the effort to read "It can't happen here.." by Sinclair Lewis, "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, and of course,"1984" (you were just WAITING for that, weren't you..) by Eric Blair.

[Le Kiwi]

"bump"

Any comment to make, Bigconned ?

[Area 51]

Maybe he's still reading.
Give him a chance.

[Area 51]

Originally Posted by cutter

The sooner the extremists overstate themselves, the sooner they fizzle out for a solid 20 years or so, until the next generation tries to revamp it before realizing it's all B.S., then they can deal with the next generations learning curve.

You've really nailed it there, cutter. They collapse like communism and all the other wandering ways. It gives you faith in humanity, doesn't it. It would be so much easier if all this crap would just disappear from our genetic code but we are still not far beyond cavemen and our negative impulses cause many to stray from the path toward common good. If you study history it seems pretty clear that humans are getting better at reducing these traits, but that may have more to do with standard of living than anything within us, I'm not sure. Compare Europe today with the previous 2,000 years; North America today with its 2,000, etc. We are making improvement. Most likely, it is a combination of things: like national borders, democracy, synergistic economies, intermarriage and migration, on and on.

Some people move along a little faster on the evolution trail. They are usually refered to as "progressives".

Then there are knuckle draggers; who may look like a chimp with pointy ears, that can't really talk very well, but manages to attain a high position in government. Letting others do the fighting and praising them as heroes is another trait.

[Le Kiwi]

I've just started reading this. BuzzFlash Review: The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Hardcover)

I think Bigconfused could do with a copy of it in his Christmas stocking, or whatever he celebrates at the end of the year. He could post it to XFBO, Matthew, ROver and Dan once he's finished reading it and is beginning to understand what's REALLY been going on...

Scott is not just some "Quack conspiracy theorist.." either, and I'm really starting to understand stuff from his writing. I was, I'll admit, happier being ignorant before, but this is vital reading.

Peter Dale Scott - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Use the wiki links to find out more.

[bigdog]

Crowning all these events was one crucial non-event: the absence, despite the almost unanimous forecast of experts, of further terror attacks on the United States.

But then, of course, the landscape shifted. Resistance and terror mounted in Iraq to levels that the U.S. and allied forces could not manage, and the entire war against terrorism bogged down.

Not only did Iraq itself devolve into a bloody mess, but gains on other fronts also began to fray. The Taliban intensified terror and guerrilla attacks in Afghanistan, Syria launched new depredations in Lebanon, Iran defiantly accelerated its drive for a nuclear bomb, and autocrats around the Middle East reneged on their pledges of democratic reform. The American public, originally supportive, turned against the Iraq war. Bush’s popularity plummeted.

Today there are signs that the “surge” of U.S. troop levels and the new counterinsurgency tactics designed by General David Petraeus will succeed in stabilizing Iraq, provided they are not aborted by congressional Democrats who, as the British writer Douglas Murray has put it, “want the neoconservatives to fail more than they want Iraq to succeed”—or, more accurately and more disgracefully, who want Bush to fail more than they want America to succeed.

Even so, it cannot be denied that the war has proved far costlier in treasure, lives, and American standing than its proponents imagined, and, at least for the time being, the loftier dream of Iraq as a model for its neighbors has turned to ashes.

But to what is all this to be attributed? According to one highly publicized article in Vanity Fair, several leading neoconservatives put the blame on poor execution of their ideas on the part of the administration.

This is not a very satisfying analysis. Complaints about government incompetence dog every administration, almost always with justice, and there is no convincing evidence that the functioning of the present administration has been worse than that of its predecessors.

More specific and more convincing targets for blame are a few key decisions made by Paul Bremer, the chief of the allied occupation from May 2003 to June 2004, and by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Bremer’s decisions—to disband the Iraqi army and to undertake a purge of Baath party members so sweeping as to dismantle the Iraqi government—have been widely criticized.

Whether it would otherwise have been easier to cope with the insurgency is hard to say, though the idea seems plausible. Rumsfeld’s insistence, backed by the President, on deploying to Iraq only a fraction of the troops requested by General Eric Shinseki, the Army Chief of Staff, seems more clearly to have courted trouble—a conclusion brought home all the more sharply by the apparent success of today’s “surge” in manpower.


In any event, the decisions about troop levels and about abolishing Iraq’s existing administrative structure had nothing to do with neoconservative ideas. The most that can fairly be said is that Rumsfeld was an ally of neoconservatives and that some among them, enamored of military technology or influenced by the Iraqi dissident Ahmad Chalabi, endorsed his choices.

Besides, whatever measure of responsibility may be placed on neoconservatives in this one matter, it pales in comparison to the errors of the realists in the George H.W. Bush administration who in 1991 chose to leave Saddam in power, and of the liberals in the Clinton administration who allowed Saddam’s defiance of his disarmament obligations to swell steadily over eight long years.

Together, these failures left the problem of Saddam Hussein festering for George W. Bush to confront in the aftermath of 9/11, when it appeared in a more ominous light.

[bigdog]

Is Rudy the most electable Republican?
October 7, 2007 • By William Kristol

Last week Rudy Giuliani said this: "Every poll shows that I would be, by far, the strongest candidate against Hillary Clinton. There hasn't been one taken in the last six or seven months that shows anything other than I'm the Republican that has the best chance to beat her."

If you take out the "by far," Rudy is basically right. In the most recent polls matching up the leading GOP candidates against Clinton, Rudy loses in the Rasmussen survey by 48 to 43, while Fred Thompson (for example) trails by 49 to 41. In the Fox News survey, Rudy is behind 46 to 39, while Thompson faces a larger deficit, 48 to 35. So Rudy does better.

On the other hand:

1. The difference in Rudy's relative performance and Thompson's really isn't that great. And it's not as if Rudy is defeating Hillary while everyone else is losing. They're all losing, in accord with the current generic gap between the parties. Indeed, six months ago Rudy was running 4 points ahead of Clinton (in the Real Clear Politics average), whereas he's now 6 points behind.

So the notion that Rudy would significantly outperform other Republicans in the general election, or that Rudy alone can magically save the GOP from defeat, or that longer exposure to him helps with swing voters - all of this is far from clear.

2. There's a greater likelihood of a third-party effort against Rudy than against any of the other likely GOP nominees. That third party won't get the 14 percent of the vote that a hypothetical pro-life third party received in a Rasmussen survey - and Rudy therefore wouldn't lose to Hillary 46 to 30, as the survey suggested.

But the third party question does suggest how rickety the electability argument is. Let's say a pro-life third party got the 2.74 percent of the vote Ralph Nader got in 2000, and let's assume that with another Republican nominee there wouldn't be such a third-party effort.

If the GOP nominee holds almost all those voters, then Giuliani's electability advantage basically disappears.

None of this is to say Rudy might not turn out to be the strongest candidate against Hillary. It is to say that this is less clear than Rudy claims - and that electability therefore is unlikely to work as a decisive argument for Rudy with Republican primary voters as January approaches.

[Area 51]

Originally Posted by Le Kiwi

I think Bigconfused could do with a copy of it in his Christmas stocking, or whatever he celebrates at the end of the year.

Kwanzaa?

[Area 51]

Originally Posted by bigdog

Besides, whatever measure of responsibility may be placed on neoconservatives in this one matter, it pales in comparison to the errors of the realists in the George H.W. Bush administration who in 1991 chose to leave Saddam in power, and of the liberals in the Clinton administration who allowed Saddam’s defiance of his disarmament obligations to swell steadily over eight long years.

Together, these failures left the problem of Saddam Hussein festering for George W. Bush to confront in the aftermath of 9/11, when it appeared in a more ominous light.

You just don't get it, do you? Can't you recognize the cost of our accomplishments? Daddy Bush weighed the possible outcomes and made a wise decision. Baby Bush made a leap into the abyss (and it's full of blood, sweat and tears). Yes, Saddam appeared in a more ominous light...but who was casting that light. I had my suspicions that they were leading us on about overblown threats and I was right. Can't say I said much about it though, back then.

[nero]

Originally Posted by Area 51

You just don't get it, do you? Can't you recognize the cost of our accomplishments? Daddy Bush weighed the possible outcomes and made a wise decision. Baby Bush made a leap into the abyss (and it's full of blood, sweat and tears). Yes, Saddam appeared in a more ominous light...but who was casting that light. I had my suspicions that they were leading us on about overblown threats and I was right. Can't say I said much about it though, back then.

You're amazing Cheech, to yourself. Back to your bong, go vaporize some hemp.

[bigdog]

Originally Posted by Area 51

Kwanzaa?

No, Tonto, I don't celebrate Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, if I did I would be a taller version of the late great Sammy Davis Junior!!

[Le Kiwi]

Bigblowhard said ;"No, Tonto, I don't celebrate Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, if I did I would be a taller version of the late great Sammy Davis Junior!!"

But you sure celebrate the neoconservative movement; which is like a bowel movement, but with more shit.

Wipe your mouth, Biglog, you're drooling. Gullibilitani is the next stooge chosen by the slinking neocon scum as they attempt to wiggle as quickly as possible out of accepting any blame for "Operation Iraqi Fiasco", or their invoked destruction of America.
Rumsfeld was the leading Neocon running the army, Cheney was the neocon Dark Lord, brooding over the whole movement, Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle and Ledeen planned it, Rove sold it to you, Kristol, Krauthammer and the rest of the propagandist filth slid it through your letterboxes, Moloch sold it through your eyes and ears, and basically most of you chumps fell for it.

PNAC.info
ZNet |Afghanistan | America's Bid For Global Dominance
Project for the New American Century (PNAC)-All about them

In the same way that denazification wrought some success in Germany, the USA needs to flush these critters out of the Pipes and remove the Steyn of this foul, fascist stench that reeks up from DC.

What does it take to get it through to you, that the disaster and FUBAR quagmire of this admin is SOLELY the responsability of the jerks who created it ?
It is NOT the fault of "Liberals" who tried to warn you, it is not the fault of the Military, who were given an impossible task and directed by morons, it is NOT the fault of the media, although their fault is in not researching enough and finding out who was pushing the buttons, and in doing their job as journalists better. It is not the fault of the Judges, the Legal system and all the defense systems set up to protect the Constitution, they were subverted, perverted and corrrupted.
It is entirely, totally and utterly the fault of the ideologically challenged idiots and arrogant fascists hiding behind the nomenclature of "Neoconservator" that has led you up the garden path. Way up.

Bigpost, again, because it IS important for you to justify your sources, use links, please.
Here is the source of your 3rd from last post. Just so we know.
Joshua Muravchik's October 2007 essay in Commentary Magazine, "The Past, Present, and Future of Neoconservatism."

You don't need to post a link to anything written by Kristolnacht. His stuff is as clear as dogshit on a brides dress.
Does your tongue get furry, posting it ?

[bigdog]

To point to an insufficiency of troops or to errors by Paul Bremer is of course no answer to more searching questions about the wisdom of the war itself.

At the outset, liberal critics—initially there were more of them abroad than at home—argued that UN inspectors should have been given more time to find Saddam’s hidden weapons of mass destruction, and that the U.S. should not have gone to war without the approval of the Security Council.

But the inspectors had been at their mission for twelve years, and there was no reason to believe they would ever accomplish it.

As we later discovered, the Iraqi regime had apparently destroyed its stocks of biological and chemical agents and concealed or destroyed the evidence it had done so, or failed to make a record in the first place.

Why Saddam would have deliberately invited the suspicion that he still possessed such materials remains the war’s great mystery—probably he did not want his enemies or his friends to know the actual state of affairs—but whatever the final truth may be, the inspectors were unlikely to have discovered it.

As for the Security Council, here we do hit on one of the signature issues of neoconservatism. Although neoconservatives are not necessarily unilateralists, they are certainly and pointedly distrustful of the UN (as are traditional conservatives). And they have reason to be.

America’s decision to invade Iraq after failing to secure the support of the Security Council cost it dearly in the coin of world public opinion. But should we resort to war only upon the Security Council’s approval?

Although some Europeans have articulated such a principle, in 1999, when Russia stood in the way of UN-approved military strikes against Serbia over the issue of Kosovo, NATO went ahead and bombed anyway, and all nineteen members took part. Surely, the stakes in Iraq were far higher than in Kosovo, even in purely humanitarian terms, all the more so in strategic.

Although the UN Charter gives the Security Council a near-monopoly on the use of force, that same charter also envisioned a mighty UN army that would protect every member against attack or even threat.

In return for this protection, the member states were to sacrifice much of their freedom to defend their own interests. But the army never came into being, so this part of the charter is a dead letter. Surely states cannot have surrendered most of their right to defend themselves once the other half of the bargain became null and void.

But arguments over the UN and the Security Council are only the tip of an iceberg. The larger and more general issue is how readily America should resort to the use of force and whether neoconservatives are too promiscuous or “trigger-happy” in this regard.

Liberal critics of the war, who grew more assertive and numerous as our effort in Iraq bogged down, reprised the dovish positions of the past 30 years. Over the course of those decades, the likes of Carl Levin and Edward Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi had opposed virtually every new U.S. weapons system and every stout anti-Communist policy—in other words, the very measures that led to victory in the cold war.

They also opposed the 1991 Gulf war to force Saddam out of Kuwait, and military action against Serbia in Bosnia. Never once did they acknowledge error or revisit their own mistaken judgments, although in each case the neoconservative critique of those judgments was proved right.

Are we now to suppose that, whatever may have gone wrong so far in Iraq, we can vanquish the forces of terrorism by restricting ourselves to the liberals’ favored instruments—diplomacy, foreign aid, and the UN?

_____________

[Le Kiwi]

quote=bigdog;423694]To point to an insufficiency of troops or to errors by Paul Bremer is of course no answer to more searching questions about the wisdom of the war itself.

At the outset, liberal critics—initially there were more of them abroad than at home—argued that UN inspectors should have been given more time to find Saddam’s hidden weapons of mass destruction, and that the U.S. should not have gone to war without the approval of the Security Council.

This would have been the sensible option. Putting the neocon advisors to bush into Gitmo for treason and warmongering would have been another.

But the inspectors had been at their mission for twelve years, and there was no reason to believe they would ever accomplish it.

As we later discovered, the Iraqi regime had apparently destroyed its stocks of biological and chemical agents and concealed or destroyed the evidence it had done so, or failed to make a record in the first place.

which was what the inspectors were saying, but the neos were shouting louder, and pushing their findings aside. The reason the war was launched was because the inspectors were close to publishing their report, and of course, the neocons couldn't have that, oh no...

Why Saddam would have deliberately invited the suspicion that he still possessed such materials remains the war’s great mystery—probably he did not want his enemies or his friends to know the actual state of affairs—but whatever the final truth may be, the inspectors were unlikely to have discovered it.


As for the Security Council, here we do hit on one of the signature issues of neoconservatism. Although neoconservatives are not necessarily unilateralists, they are certainly and pointedly distrustful of the UN (as are traditional conservatives). And they have reason to be.

Because the UN opposes fascism and totalitarianism, not to mention unneccessary war for oil...

America’s decision to invade Iraq after failing to secure the support of the Security Council cost it dearly in the coin of world public opinion. But should we resort to war only upon the Security Council’s approval?

Yes. If this isn't obvious to you now, there's not much hope for you.

Although some Europeans have articulated such a principle, in 1999, when Russia stood in the way of UN-approved military strikes against Serbia over the issue of Kosovo, NATO went ahead and bombed anyway, and all nineteen members took part. Surely, the stakes in Iraq were far higher than in Kosovo, even in purely humanitarian terms, all the more so in strategic.

Although the UN Charter gives the Security Council a near-monopoly on the use of force, that same charter also envisioned a mighty UN army that would protect every member against attack or even threat.

In return for this protection, the member states were to sacrifice much of their freedom to defend their own interests. But the army never came into being, so this part of the charter is a dead letter. Surely states cannot have surrendered most of their right to defend themselves once the other half of the bargain became null and void.

But arguments over the UN and the Security Council are only the tip of an iceberg. The larger and more general issue is how readily America should resort to the use of force and whether neoconservatives are too promiscuous or “trigger-happy” in this regard.

Liberal critics of the war, who grew more assertive and numerous as our effort in Iraq bogged down, reprised the dovish positions of the past 30 years. Over the course of those decades, the likes of Carl Levin and Edward Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi had opposed virtually every new U.S. weapons system and every stout anti-Communist policy—in other words, the very measures that led to victory in the cold war.

There is nothing "Dovish" in the opponents of OTT military spending. But a strong sense of reality, and a resistance to the "Culture of Corruption" that exists in the military/industrial complex, and the senators and politicians it buys through it's lobby-groups and "think"tanks. You'll also find that the army that defeated Saddam in 1991 was, er, the UN, and the force that is in Afghanistan is mandated by, er, the UN.

They also opposed the 1991 Gulf war to force Saddam out of Kuwait, and military action against Serbia in Bosnia. Never once did they acknowledge error or revisit their own mistaken judgments, although in each case the neoconservative critique of those judgments was proved right.

I would like to see the person you plagarised this off (no link, no source = plagarism..) justify this. Or you can, if you think you're capable, Bigplagariser. Go on. Prove it.

Are we now to suppose that, whatever may have gone wrong so far in Iraq, we can vanquish the forces of terrorism by restricting ourselves to the liberals’ favored instruments—diplomacy, foreign aid, and the UN?

Yes. Your imperialist dreaming hasn't worked, as anyone with half a brain knew it wouldn't. Whilst the overlying aim is perhaps noble, the methods and activities of the neocon cabal, not to mention some dubious hidden agendas and a LOT of blatent profiteering completely overshadowed any worthiness in the PNAC projects to rule the World. Time to shelve this 21st Century Reich project in the lead-lined box it was dragged out of by Irving Kristol.

[bigdog]

On the other side of the ideological spectrum, some conservative critics of the war have argued that we went to Iraq in pursuit of the wrong mission—that is, democratization.

As Charles R. Kesler, the editor of the Claremont Review of Books, puts it: “the case for toppling Saddam was much stronger than the one for staying indefinitely to buy time for the Iraqis to democratize.” And this, too, touches a signature neoconservative issue.

It is hard to picture what would be better today, either for the Iraqis or for us and our interests, had we just deposed Saddam and left. Numerous scenarios are imaginable, all of them grisly. Saddam might have been succeeded by one of his equally bloody henchmen, like the infamous “Chemical Ali.”

An ethnically-based civil war might have broken out, or the country might have devolved into anarchy like Somalia, except with infinitely more weapons available. Or Iraq’s neighbors might have torn it to pieces, with the largest piece consumed by Iran.

Perhaps Kesler envisions that we could have installed a benign dictator. This thought is not far from that of some neoconservatives themselves, who believe that we would have done better to place Ahmad Chalabi in power.

But whether it would have been Chalabi or Ayad Allawi (who served briefly as prime minister) or some other Iraqi to our liking, this would not have reduced our own burdens a whit. No such figure could have remained in power unless we shouldered the job of preserving him by force.

To the contrary, the measure of democracy that has taken hold in Iraq—along with the degree of legitimacy, however attenuated, that this has given to both the Iraqi authorities and our own continued presence—has made our burdens there so much the lighter.

Indeed, what with high voter participation and a degree of give-and-take among the various factions, democratization can be said to have received a decent start in Iraq. To be sure, the functioning of the Iraqi government has been inadequate, but more mature democracies have also faltered under the pressures of war and terror.

In the meantime, government on the local level, at least in areas relatively free of violence, seems to be functioning. What is apparent is that most Iraqis want democracy, but their wishes are hostage to a sizable minority of violent recalcitrants, backed by outside force.

A more profound criticism of the war in Iraq is that it was the wrong war in the wrong place. By attacking Iraq, so it has been said, Bush diverted us from completing the vital mission of pacifying Afghanistan and tracking down Osama bin Laden.

This critique, which became another staple of Democratic argument, has the advantage of sounding tough even while opposing the war. Barack Obama revealed a new variation of the theme when, in August, he announced that he would support bombing terrorist targets in Pakistan.

But what good would it have done to have had tens of thousands more U.S. troops in Afghanistan? From the perspective of “nation building” and other humanitarian concerns, Afghanistan after the removal of the Taliban was doing well—for Afghanistan.

A thousand things were wrong, but that poor and undeveloped country was progressing better than at any other time in memory. From a strategic perspective, perhaps a larger American force could have suppressed Taliban guerrilla activity more completely, but was this a mission for which we should have tied down the lion’s share of our deployable forces?

And what of bin Laden? By all accounts, he is not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan. There is still talk of U.S. forces attacking the tribal areas where he is believed to shelter, but this would be another nettlesome project. It would entail great military risk—Pakistan’s own army has done poorly in the region—and would possibly destabilize the world’s second largest Muslim country, a country that contains both a nuclear arsenal and large numbers of extremists.

Obama’s hypothetical bombing attack would more likely result in mayhem than in the death of bin Laden.

[247]

Folks, we have a winner!

Stupidest neocon post ever.

The invasion of Iraq (and resulting disaster) was the right thing to do because... *wait for it* ... the UN weapons inspectors had been hunting for WMDs "for twelve years and there was no reason to believe they would ever"... find anything.

Originally Posted by bigdog

At the outset (of the war) liberal critics—argued that UN inspectors should have been given more time to find Saddam’s hidden weapons of mass destruction, and that the U.S. should not have gone to war without the approval of the Security Council.

But the inspectors had been at their mission for twelve years, and there was no reason to believe they would ever accomplish it.

[Area 51]

Originally Posted by 247

Folks, we have a winner!

Stupidest neocon post ever.

The invasion of Iraq (and resulting disaster) was the right thing to do because... *wait for it* ... the UN weapons inspectors had been hunting for WMDs "for twelve years and there was no reason to believe they would ever"... find anything.

Gee, I wonder where all those WMD's went? Syriah? Or maybe they're burried in the desert? They've just got to be somewhere!

Wait, we've found a dozen old shells burried in a field! They don't work anymore and the gas has expired but damnit, there they are. Now we know the U.S. inspection team is way better than the U.N. team.