A great read...

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http://www.amconmag.com/3_1_04/cover.html

A bit lengthy though.

 

Yes, an interesting article. I don't care for Pat Buchanan - heck, I would've voted for Clinton if Buchanan had won the '96 nomination - so I'll admit to an anti-Buchanan bias from the outset. I haven't read the Perle or Frum books, or much of their other writing, so I can't say whether or not Buchanan accurately characterizes their spirit and substance.

But I can reassure Buchanan on two points.

First - if America's imperial project in the Middle East succeeds, the result will be an Arabization of America's foreign policy and a precipitous decrease in support for Israel. America was pro-China for decades (partly thanks to extensive missionary work), 'til our military started mingling with Japan and South Korea. The same thing will happen with Iraq and co. For all the talk about the US "Americanizing" the world, the process works in the other direction. We can already see it in the way that Bush talks about "peaceful" Islam and upholds loyal American Muslims.

Me, if I had my druthers, Israel would give equal citizenship to the Palestinian population so they could live together like one big unhappy family. It worked fitfully with Britain and Ireland for a century, it could work for Israel, too. (Then again, I'd also just as soon make Iraq the 52nd state after Puerto Rico, so I'm not exactly a trustworthy source.) But isn't it ironic - looking at the Buchanan quote in the site header - that the Israeli-Palestininan issue is the one area where Buchanan's ethnic isolationism suddenly turns to "open borders", while the neo-conservatives suddenly turn against "globalist...open borders" in favor of separation?

Second - the US is not in a war to end terrorism per se, but massive terrorism. Buchanan is right - we'll never be able to eliminate the lone gunman, the suicide bomber, or totalitarian terror. But we can raise the costs for high-death acts, such that we can deter al-Qaeda and its imitators from anything more ambitious than the occasional discotheque destruction. And we can't raise those costs without targeting states that either protect terrorists (Afghanistan, Iran) or are overly casual with the weapons that could wreak those high-death acts (Iraq, North Korea). Interpol warrants can't even get Liberia's Charles Taylor, much less a Mullah Omar; international treaties didn't stop Pakistan from selling out world safety for its own perverse ambitions. (Interesting, incidentally, that the Sunni Pakistan would assist the Shi'ite Iran and the heretical Libya. So much for Sunni-Shi'a antagonism precluding WMD cooperation.)

Me, I think terrorism is obscuring the fact that this century's real threat will be the same-old, same-old threat of state-on-state warfare. But the terrorists chose to open the century, so we have to squish them first before returning to realpolitik.

As for the French statist rationale - "ultima ratio regum, the last argument of kings" - it ain't a bad argument, actually. As the old saying goes: "Ideas have consequences, but so do guns."

 

The very consequence of a bad idea can be a gun too: The neocon phantasy of reshaping the middle east was stopped dead by the Iraq failure and caught the US in an obligation to stabilize the country THEY broke. Oops. Such a great plan, but who could have predicted the Iraqis *not* loving the US and US tutelage? I mean, the US are the good ones, right? How can anyone sensibly resist to be saved by them, the bringers of light - or doubt in their cause?

Nicely said, the whole article is here: A Tragedy of Errors, by Michael S. Lind, just one of a series of good critics and analyses of Perle's & Frum's writ.

It was quite right from Perle to demand that after the flop of Iraq heads should roll. But he was pretty outrageous demanding them to be the ones of the chiefs of DIA and CIA - generously overlooking his own role - as one of the three main proponents of that silly invasion.

Another good one is here: Twilight of the Neocons, by Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke:

And the faster the better.

 

Well, the US should pick its allies and enemies more carefully, eh? It turns out Iraq didn't have the hyped weapons, whereas the US has gotten into bed with a country that does, and as you say, has no problem "selling out world safety". Thing is, the nuclear genie is out of the bottle, and all it takes is one unscrupulous profiteer to "spread the wealth", regardless of a nation's policies (just how did the Soviets get theirs?). And while Hussein was no doubt a ruthless dictator, he was not actively supporting terrorism against the US - nor do I believe he'd been insane enough to sell the means of his own destruction. I haven't forgotten WHO the terrorists were. Just how many states is the US going to wage war against to stop an amorphous organisation that's spread around the world?

Edit: A few of Buchanon's quotes:

I was wondering when they'd notice.

I agree - the relationship is becoming quite the liability.

A very good read indeed. I can't believe I'm actually in agreement with Buchanon. Strange days indeed.

[ March 02, 2004, 19:15: Message edited by: Sojourner ]

 

I just re-read William S. Lind's article, Trajedy of Errors, I stumbled about him mentioning an anthology by Irving Kristol, the so-called "godfather of neoconservatism", published in the neocon AEI. Searching the web I found that quote from it:

For the neocons lies, disinformation and propaganda on the own benighted people are necessary tools to promote their causes. In their world they are the enlighted leaders, the new class, personifying America's virtues, who guide their unwitting people through the darkness. There can hardly be a doubt about their sincerity when they say it. That is to say, they are ideologues to the bone.

Endangered med students in Grenada, WMD in Iraq - who cares as long as nobody asks? Maybe the difference is that Grenada was a *small* intervention where Iraq is a full fledged war + occupation of a large country. It takes a moron to be surprised by the amount of scrutiny the war was met with right from the start.

Ideology sweeps aside real world when it interferes with it. This is underlined by how the neocons handled the silly scepticism of the pros in the intelligence community - they simply made up their own ideologically realiable intelligence shop, the OSP.
So, considering their indifference to reality, do they lie when they lie? Do they maybe believe what they say? Or do they care anyway? Who can tell.
And after all, the ends justify the means - they are fighting World War IV, against, well, whoever, France, militant Islam, an emerging EU or China and re-emerging Russia at least.

I have rarely read the contempt for the own people, the hoi polloi, displayed as clear in a neocon publication. I doubt that there is a place for autocratic elitists like them in a democracy.

[ March 03, 2004, 20:25: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Picture this: The conservative agenda creates its own monster - neoconservatives. At first, it's a good thing, because it allows the conservatives to overwhelm the body politick with patriotic and flag-waving zeal. But like all monsters it finally runs amok. Now it is a real political liability. But who can the conservatives blame? Yes, Liberalism! Even though such nonsense has no real test in reality, let's blame it on the Liberals - those we can pin with the big "L" word.

That's when you know you have found the real bottom-feeders in the American political arena. Anything that is "evil" in America is in someway connected to "Liberalism." But we have just opened this stinking cesspool. We know that John Kerry is about to experience an almost billion dollars worth of negative ads on the media waves that will drag out the "L" word in every scene. So hold your nose and get ready, because we have not heard the last of the Liberal Labeling Machine of Team Shrub.

 

The "liberalism with sharp teeth" is one of Max Boot's lines. He also likes to dub his imperialism as "hard Wilsonianism". Well, I didn't see much to of Wilson's emphasis on multilateralism and international law (he invented the League of Nations) or the right of self-determination of the people (the neocon stance on palestinians is sort of incompatible here) in the Bush doctrine and actual foreign policy.

The neocons promoting global democratic revolution sound to me more like the 4th international rather than liberalism, much less as they seemingly mean to impose that noble goal at gunpoint of US arms. Diplomatic comporomise only corrupts the purity of American Values. I'm not kidding, that's why some neocons oppose the UN: They say it corrupts American Purity (they've never been to Vegas or a red light district I presume) and virtues (long live Enron!) * Fullmooners anyone?

So: Liberalism - with sharp teeth? Not really. It's in fact Jacobinism - you know, this ideology that made the frenchmen run amok with zeal after the revolution. They just had to liberate Europe from their backward rulers - until they got their well deserved punch in the face at Waterloo.

They created Germany in the process, France's nemesis for the rest of the century and the half of the next. The neocon seem caught in the illusion that everyone wants to live like the Americans do. Well, the Islamic World evidently disagrees. The neocon war on what they perceive as militant Islam could as well be the galvanising element *starting* the clash of the cultures we fortunately don't have now.

Buchanan hits the nail on the head when stating that the US are nowhere near being overrun by evil militant islam.
Considering that - what is Woolsey's World War IV then about? Well, it's a at least a good excuse to spread the global footprint. The US now have bases in Kyrgizthan, close to Central Asia's oil rich countries. It's all about control and influence on strategic resources.

By controlling oil they can pressure those most dependent on it: China and Europe. The US finished off Russia by pressing the arms race (SDI as just one example), sabotage, luring them into Afghanistan and denying Russian oil revenues by talking the Saudis into dumping oil to keep the prices too low for russia to profit - all accelerating Russia's economical collapse. Keep that in mind when again someone babbles about two competing systems and only one surving, as evidence about the US ideological superiority. No one played dirtier in the 1980s than the US did.

Oil is just a weapon too precious to always have to ask OPEC and the Saudis to exercise pressure. Direct control is much better: Be reminded, diplomatic compromise corrupts the purity of power politics

The end of the cold war must have been both a big party (Fukuyama wrote his infameous and triumphant essay on the end of history then) and a terrific threat for the neocons - THE EVIL SATAN communism went away. But they used their time in the 1990s to ponder about who they could picture as the the new one: They found "militant islam" and a number of others, namely the UN, France, emerging Europe and China and a someday-re-emerging Russia. Their enemies are interchangeable.
ATM Iran is a favourite next threat because a mullah can be easily drawn as a comicbook villain, like Bin Laden or Saddam were before, and Ghaddafi in the 1980s. Saddam was a convenient excuse to have troops at the gulf. Now we have the war on terror. Given that one's ever won, they'll likely stay - because of Saudi-Arabia? Or Iran?

They need enemies, because as long as you can scare the US public to shake in their boots you can easier justify high military spending and start minor and larger wars - all to pre-empt whatever, all while expanding the US footprint over the globe.

EDIT: Interesting in this context are recent statements by retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, former Iraq administrator:

Fine, but why exactly is it "necessary" ?

* Yes, I *am* stereotyping but that I can't help - the notion of the US being pure, exceptional innocent always makes me sarcastic.

[ March 05, 2004, 10:13: Message edited by: Ragusa ]