Quick Guide to Bushist/Klingon Roots

[Gary Sisco]

How neoconservatives conquered Washington -- and launched a war
First they converted an ignorant, inexperienced president to their
pro-Israel, hawkish worldview. Then 9/11 allowed them to claim Iraq
threatened the U.S. The rest is on CNN tonight.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Michael Lind

April 9, 2003 | America's allies and enemies alike are baffled. What is
going on in the United States? Who is making foreign policy? And what are
they trying to achieve? Quasi-Marxist explanations involving big oil or
American capitalism are mistaken. Yes, American oil companies and
contractors will accept the spoils of the kill in Iraq. But the oil
business, with its Arabist bias, did not push for this war any more than it
supports the Bush administration's close alliance with Ariel Sharon.
Further, President Bush and Vice President Cheney are not genuine "Texas oil
men" but career politicians who, in between stints in public life, would
have used their connections to enrich themselves as figureheads in the wheat
business, if they had been residents of Kansas, or in tech companies, had
they been Californians.

Equally wrong is the theory that the American and European civilizations are
evolving in opposite directions. The thesis of Robert Kagan, the
neoconservative propagandist, that Americans are martial and Europeans
pacifist, is complete nonsense. A majority of Americans voted for either Al
Gore or Ralph Nader in 2000. Were it not for the overrepresentation of
sparsely populated, right-wing states in both the presidential electoral
college and the Senate, the White House and the Senate today would be
controlled by Democrats, whose views and values, on everything from war to
the welfare state, are very close to those of western Europeans.

Both the economic-determinist theory and the clash-of-cultures theory are
reassuring: They assume that the recent revolution in U.S. foreign policy is
the result of obscure but understandable forces in an orderly world. The
truth is more alarming. As a result of several bizarre and unforeseeable
contingencies -- such as the selection rather than election of George W.
Bush, and Sept. 11 -- the foreign policy of the world's only global power is
being made by a small clique that is unrepresentative of either the U.S.
population or the mainstream foreign policy establishment.

The core group now in charge consists of neoconservative defense
intellectuals. (They are called "neoconservatives" because many of them
started off as anti-Stalinist leftists or liberals before moving to the far
right.) Inside the government, the chief defense intellectuals include Paul
Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense. He is the defense mastermind of
the Bush administration; Donald Rumsfeld is an elderly figurehead who holds
the position of defense secretary only because Wolfowitz himself is too
controversial. Others include Douglas Feith, No. 3 at the Pentagon; Lewis
"Scooter" Libby, a Wolfowitz protégé who is Cheney's chief of staff; John R.
Bolton, a right-winger assigned to the State Department to keep Colin Powell
in check; and Elliott Abrams, recently appointed to head Middle East policy
at the National Security Council. On the outside are James Woolsey, the
former CIA director, who has tried repeatedly to link both 9/11 and the
anthrax letters in the U.S. to Saddam Hussein, and Richard Perle, who has
just resigned his unpaid chairmanship of a defense department advisory body
after a lobbying scandal. Most of these "experts" never served in the
military. But their headquarters is now the civilian defense secretary's
office, where these Republican political appointees are despised and
distrusted by the largely Republican career soldiers.

Most neoconservative defense intellectuals have their roots on the left, not
the right. They are products of the influential Jewish-American sector of
the Trotskyist movement of the 1930s and 1940s, which morphed into
anti-communist liberalism between the 1950s and 1970s and finally into a
kind of militaristic and imperial right with no precedents in American
culture or political history. Their admiration for the Israeli Likud party's
tactics, including preventive warfare such as Israel's 1981 raid on Iraq's
Osirak nuclear reactor, is mixed with odd bursts of ideological enthusiasm
for "democracy." They call their revolutionary ideology "Wilsonianism"
(after President Woodrow Wilson), but it is really Trotsky's theory of the
permanent revolution mingled with the far-right Likud strain of Zionism.
Genuine American Wilsonians believe in self-determination for people such as
the Palestinians.

The neocon defense intellectuals, as well as being in or around the actual
Pentagon, are at the center of a metaphorical "pentagon" of the Israel lobby
and the religious right, plus conservative think tanks, foundations and
media empires. Think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
provide homes for neocon "in-and-outers" when they are out of government
(Perle is a fellow at AEI). The money comes not so much from corporations as
from decades-old conservative foundations, such as the Bradley and Olin
foundations, which spend down the estates of long-dead tycoons.
Neoconservative foreign policy does not reflect business interests in any
direct way. The neocons are ideologues, not opportunists.

The major link between the conservative think tanks and the Israel lobby is
the Washington-based and Likud-supporting Jewish Institute for National
Security Affairs (Jinsa), which co-opts many non-Jewish defense experts by
sending them on trips to Israel. It flew out the retired general Jay Garner,
now slated by Bush to be proconsul of occupied Iraq. In October 2000, he
cosigned a Jinsa letter that began: "We ... believe that during the current
upheavals in Israel, the Israel Defense Forces have exercised remarkable
restraint in the face of lethal violence orchestrated by the leadership of
[the] Palestinian Authority."

The Israel lobby itself is divided into Jewish and Christian wings.
Wolfowitz and Feith have close ties to the Jewish-American Israel lobby.
Wolfowitz, who has relatives in Israel, has served as the Bush
administration's liaison to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Feith was given an award by the Zionist Organization of America, citing him
as a "pro-Israel activist." While out of power in the Clinton years, Feith
collaborated with Perle to coauthor a policy paper for Likud that advised
the Israeli government to end the Oslo peace process, reoccupy the
territories, and crush Yasser Arafat's government.

Such experts are not typical of Jewish-Americans, who mostly voted for Gore
in 2000. The most fervent supporters of Likud in the Republican electorate
are Southern Protestant fundamentalists. The religious right believes that
God gave all of Palestine to the Jews, and fundamentalist congregations
spend millions to subsidize Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

The final corner of the neoconservative pentagon is occupied by several
right-wing media empires, with roots -- odd as it seems -- in the British
Commonwealth and South Korea. Rupert Murdoch disseminates propaganda through
his Fox television network. His magazine, the Weekly Standard -- edited by
William Kristol, the former chief of staff of Dan Quayle (vice president,
1989-1993) -- acts as a mouthpiece for defense intellectuals such as Perle,
Wolfowitz, Feith and Woolsey as well as for Sharon's government. The
National Interest (of which I was executive editor, 1991-1994) is now funded
by Conrad Black, who owns the Jerusalem Post and the Hollinger empire in
Britain and Canada.

Strangest of all is the media network centered on the Washington Times --
owned by the South Korean messiah (and ex-convict) the Rev. Sun Myung
Moon -- which owns the newswire UPI. UPI is now run by John O'Sullivan, the
ghostwriter for Margaret Thatcher who once worked as an editor for Conrad
Black in Canada. Through such channels, the "gotcha!" style of right-wing
British journalism, and its Europhobic substance, have contaminated the US
conservative movement.

The corners of the neoconservative pentagon were linked together in the
1990s by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), run by Kristol out
of the Weekly Standard offices. Using a P.R. technique pioneered by their
Trotskyist predecessors, the neocons published a series of public letters
whose signatories often included Wolfowitz and other future members of the
Bush foreign policy team. They called for the U.S. to invade and occupy Iraq
and to support Israel's campaigns against the Palestinians (dire warnings
about China were another favorite). During Clinton's two terms, these
fulminations were ignored by the foreign policy establishment and the
mainstream media. Now they are frantically being studied.

How did the neocon defense intellectuals -- a small group at odds with most
of the U.S. foreign policy elite, Republican as well as Democratic -- manage
to capture the Bush administration? Few supported Bush during the
presidential primaries. They feared that the second Bush would be like the
first -- a wimp who had failed to occupy Baghdad in the first Gulf War and
who had pressured Israel into the Oslo peace process -- and that his
administration, again like his father's, would be dominated by moderate
Republican realists such as Powell, James Baker and Brent Scowcroft. They
supported the maverick senator John McCain until it became clear that Bush
would get the nomination.

Then they had a stroke of luck -- Cheney was put in charge of the
presidential transition (the period between the election in November and the
accession to office in January). Cheney used this opportunity to stack the
administration with his hard-line allies. Instead of becoming the de facto
president in foreign policy, as many had expected, Secretary of State Powell
found himself boxed in by Cheney's right-wing network, including Wolfowitz,
Perle, Feith, Bolton and Libby.

The neocons took advantage of Bush's ignorance and inexperience. Unlike his
father, a Second World War veteran who had been ambassador to China,
director of the CIA, and vice president, George W was a thinly educated
playboy who had failed repeatedly in business before becoming the governor
of Texas, a largely ceremonial position (the state's lieutenant governor has
more power). His father is essentially a northeastern moderate Republican;
George W, raised in west Texas, absorbed the Texan cultural combination of
machismo, anti-intellectualism and overt religiosity. The son of upper-class
Episcopalian parents, he converted to Southern fundamentalism in a midlife
crisis. Fervent Christian Zionism, along with an admiration for macho
Israeli soldiers that sometimes coexists with hostility to liberal
Jewish-American intellectuals, is a feature of the Southern culture.

The younger Bush was tilting away from Powell and toward Wolfowitz
("Wolfie," as he calls him) even before 9/11 gave him something he had
lacked: a mission in life other than following in his dad's footsteps. There
are signs of estrangement between the cautious father and the crusading son:
Last year, veterans of the first Bush administration, including Baker,
Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger, warned publicly against an invasion of
Iraq without authorization from Congress and the U.N.

It is not clear that George W fully understands the grand strategy that
Wolfowitz and other aides are unfolding. He seems genuinely to believe that
there was an imminent threat to the U.S. from Saddam Hussein's "weapons of
mass destruction," something the leading neocons say in public but are far
too intelligent to believe themselves. The Project for the New American
Century urged an invasion of Iraq throughout the Clinton years, for reasons
that had nothing to do with possible links between Saddam and Osama bin
Laden. Public letters signed by Wolfowitz and others called on the U.S. to
invade and occupy Iraq, to bomb Hezbollah bases in Lebanon, and to threaten
states such as Syria and Iran with U.S. attacks if they continued to sponsor
terrorism. Claims that the purpose is not to protect the American people but
to make the Middle East safe for Israel are dismissed by the neocons as
vicious anti-Semitism. Yet Syria, Iran and Iraq are bitter enemies, with
their weapons pointed at each other, and the terrorists they sponsor target
Israel rather than the U.S. The neocons urge war with Iran next, though by
any rational measurement North Korea's new nuclear arsenal is, for the U.S.,
a far greater problem.

So that is the bizarre story of how neoconservatives took over Washington
and steered the U.S. into a Middle Eastern war unrelated to any plausible
threat to the U.S. and opposed by the public of every country in the world
except Israel. The frightening thing is the role of happenstance and
personality. After the al-Qaida attacks, any U.S. president would likely
have gone to war to topple bin Laden's Taliban protectors in Afghanistan.
But everything that the U.S. has done since then would have been different
had America's 18th century electoral rules not given Bush the presidency and
had Cheney not used the transition period to turn the foreign policy
executive into a PNAC reunion.

For a British equivalent, one would have to imagine a Tory government, with
Downing Street and Whitehall controlled by followers of the Rev. Ian
Paisley, extreme Euroskeptics, empire loyalists and Blimpish military
types -- all determined, for a variety of strategic or religious reasons, to
invade Egypt. Their aim would be to regain the Suez Canal as the first step
in a campaign to restore the British empire. Yes, it really is that weird.

A version of this story appeared in the New Statesman.


- - - - - - - - - - - -

About the writer
Michael Lind, the Whitehead Fellow at the New America Foundation in
Washington, is the author of "Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern
Takeover of American Politics."

[Gary Sisco]

I have been in substantial agreement with this analysis for a long time. Very good work.

My only quibble is the repetition of the mythology of Bush being "raised" in Texas. One wonders when this could have taken place, given his blueblood schooling in New England and summers in Kennebunkport. What, was he "raised" in adulthood?

I mean, not that I would find this altogether unbelievable....

[Pete C]

My only complaint is he left out Gordon Blewis.

[Uli]

Good article. Thanks C. I just hope that it is not too optimistic in it's assessment on how estranged this policy is from even old time Republicans. When I see cats like Dole jumping on the Bushi party line on cnn, I am getting a bit scared.

[Tanager]

I hate to say, "me too," but to Uli's post: "me too." It's nice that W's dad and Powell aren't wild about this direction. It's nice that senior GOP pols might not love it, either. But it doesn't do squat as long as noone says/does anything to reign in this posse.

Frankly, this is all believable and scary as hell to me.

[Sergio Zamora]

I read this articloe when it was posted to a marxist list I subscribe to.

It's an interesting piece, and there's much to agree with (I'm glad the author took pains to diffentiate between neocons who happen to be Jewish and the average Jewish person). I don't agree with everything, however. What Trotskyist background did Wolfowitz come from? Also, juxtaposing the neo-con agenda with Trotsky's (very broad and flexible) theory of permanent revolution is way beyond a stretch. Maybe the parents of these guys were involved in Trostkyism or similar left ideologies, but these guys? I think the author is making an overgeneralization of the "jewish new york intellectual" milieu.

Other than that, I suspect he's right about the actual ideological distance between the neo-cons and the average American conservative. Unfortunately, these groups seem to share enough common goals that at least now they're in full cooperation.

I don't see how this could last, though. Everyday, the reactionary nature of this regime becomes more evident, and more and more coming into conflict with the interests of working people who may currently be all over the political spectrum. This will only be exacerbated as we find out more about what's been going on in Iraq.

[Tanager]

Originally posted by Sergio Zamora
I don't see how this could last, though. Everyday, the reactionary nature of this regime becomes more evident, and more and more coming into conflict with the interests of working people who may currently be all over the political spectrum. This will only be exacerbated as we find out more about what's been going on in Iraq.

I hope you're right, but I'm less sanguine.

You want scary? Now these clowns are pushing to have the Patriot Act's enforcement and surveillance provisions made permanent (they current expire in 2005). Not renewed, permanent.

I wonder if Americans give a shit about their own liberty anymore, or if we've truly become witless sheep.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Thanks Gary. Great article. I'll print it out for all my co-workers who seem to think this war is the equivalent to the Super Bowl. Our team versus there team, cheerleaders (the media) included.

[Tanager]

Something this administration might need to use more often:

[james harrigan]

Lind said Yes, it really is that weird.

Thanks for posting this, Gary. It is very convincing, and lays out very clearly and rationally what I have been thinking about incoherently for a long time. For a long time I have been trying to figure just why we are going to war, and this story, that it is the project of a very small group of pro-Israel ideologues with non-economic interests, is the only one that is internally consistent.

For me, the last remaining puzzle is why Blair went along with it. I genuinely don't get it. My personal but unconvincing theory is Munich syndrome: every post-war British PM is haunted by the specter of Chamberlain's "Peace in our time" speech after handing over Czechoslovakia to Hitler, and Blair didn't want to have the same historical stain on him in re Saddam.

I'd like to hear the leftist response to this perceptive point by Lind:

Quasi-Marxist explanations involving big oil or American capitalism are mistaken. Yes, American oil companies and contractors will accept the spoils of the kill in Iraq. But the oil business, with its Arabist bias, did not push for this war any more than it supports the Bush administration's close alliance with Ariel Sharon. Further, President Bush and Vice President Cheney are not genuine "Texas oil men" but career politicians who, in between stints in public life, would have used their connections to enrich themselves as figureheads in the wheat business, if they had been residents of Kansas, or in tech companies, had they been Californians.

[Pete C]

Originally posted by james harrigan
Quasi-Marxist explanations involving big oil or American capitalism are mistaken.

I agree with that statement, specifically, but I do believe that American political/cultural hegemony is at the heart of it.

[Gary Sisco]

Empire (hegemony) is at the heart of it. And messianic megalomaniacism as well. If it was oil, they'd have taken last time, let's face it. They could take all of the mid-east's oil anytime they liked, if they wanted it that bad. There isn't a military force anywhere that has the ability to challenge them to any significant degree at this point. One of the reasons why we can look forward to random terrorism for years to come, here as well as overseas. It's the only military option for those who object.

Omar -- The truth is that many of the neocons (not to mention the neoliberals) did in fact have their youthful roots in the 4th International (SWP, mainly) during the 40s, and did come from the anti-Stalinist communist (or fellow traveler) movement from those years. That's the simple truth. Lots of people, it seems, find a reason to vere radically in the opposite direction of their youths. Bookchin is one of the few from those same movements and generation who continued to move *leftward* with his antiStalinism, and is still moving leftward today. (One must also remember that during the war, WW2, the CP being then allied with the US and other "democracies" and vice versa, the CP helped finger and imprison *many* American 4th Internationalists, who were opposed to the war and opposed to the labor functionaries agreement to make peace with the capitalists during the war.) Be that as it may, their history in the statist left also helps to account for their authoritarianism, which is extreme. Was extreme then; is extreme today.

[Sergio Zamora]

Originally posted by Gary Sisco
Omar -- The truth is that many of the neocons (not to mention the neoliberals) did in fact have their youthful roots in the 4th International (SWP, mainly) during the 40s, and did come from the anti-Stalinist communist (or fellow traveler) movement from those years. That's the simple truth. Lots of people, it seems, find a reason to vere radically in the opposite direction of their youths. Bookchin is one of the few from those same movements and generation who continued to move *leftward* with his antiStalinism, and is still moving leftward today.

Gary,

I realize that many trots and sympathizers turned to the right (Burnham, Eastman for example), especially after ww2. Not to mention the New Lefts like Horowitz.

However, from this very specific sect that we now call 'neo-conservatives', specifically guys in the inner circle like Perle or Wolfowitz, are there any ex-trots?

And I agree with Pete, except for the cultural hegemony part. If cultural hegemony is implemented, it'll be the same kind of distorted Americanism (sans the idea of individual political choices) that other colonialized people have experienced. They've basically stripped any pretense from this endeavor: this is colonialism pure and simple. And the objective is political hegemony and to politically weaken potential and actual competitors in this realm: Europe, China, etc.

For this, thousands of Iraqi civilians and soldiers lay dead or seriously wounded. And this is just the beginning.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

What I find funny is all the "post-Saddam" commmentary that I've been hearing on TV. A lot of it surrounds the need for this Administration to mend the bridges it burned diplomatically.

They don't get it.

This crew doesn't give a damn about foreign opinion. Their whole point is that the rest of the world has no choice but to follow, and if not, so what?

What will amaze people is all the ass-kissing the French and Germans will be doing in the next few months to get back into the good graces of the Bush administration. Everyone loves a winner.

[james harrigan]

Originally posted by Sergio Zamora
... For this, thousands of Iraqi civilians and soldiers lay dead or seriously wounded. And this is just the beginning.

yes, and as a side effect, all the surviving Iraqis are free of Saddam (or soon will be). Whatever feelings you have about the motives for the war, can't anyone around here take any pleasure in the fact that the fascist Baathist regime is history? Whatever is in store for the Iraqi people is virtually certain to be much better than Saddam. I'd also be willing to bet that fewer Iraqi civilians have died in the past three weeks than died at the hands of Saddam's regime in any single year of his rule.

[Monte Smith]

I'm sorry, maybe I am just not following the philosophic psycho-babble.

What happens if everything you say is true and the end result is still a better life for the Iraqi man on the street and greater security for the global economy?

[Uli]

Originally posted by Monte Smith
I'm sorry, maybe I am just not following the philosophic psycho-babble.

What happens if everything you say is true and the end result is still a better life for the Iraqi man on the street and greater security for the global economy?

If THAT happens, then a wonder happened. Who knows, maybe the moron is blessed. I would not put my money on it, tho.

[Sergio Zamora]

Originally posted by james harrigan
yes, and as a side effect, all the surviving Iraqis are free of Saddam (or soon will be). Whatever feelings you have about the motives for the war, can't anyone around here take any pleasure in the fact that the fascist Baathist regime is history? Whatever is in store for the Iraqi people is virtually certain to be much better than Saddam. I'd also be willing to bet that fewer Iraqi civilians have died in the past three weeks than died at the hands of Saddam's regime in any single year of his rule.

They're replacing Sadam with imperialist colonization and a puppet regime at the whims of the government that has terrorized them economically for the past 12 years only to finally slaughter them, destroy their country with bombs, and morally humiliate them. Whoopee. No, to answer your question, I don't know that whatever is in store is better than Hussein.

[mke]

It's a bit rich to take a kind of utilitarian-based moral high ground when the US has a history of aiding Saddam in senseless wars and internal repression, and when UN sanctions were maintained well after it had become obvious that they were not hurting Saddam, but merely killing thousands upon thousands of Iraqis through lack of medical and other supplies.

Will post-Saddam Irak be better? That's not a real question.

Better for whom?
In what ways?
Who will benefit from this "new and improved" Irak?
Who will lose out?
What will be the international diplomatic repercussions of this war?
Will terrorism subside or increase?
Does this signal the beginning of a period of constant large-scale warfare for the US?
If so, is that the beginning of the end of the American empire? (IMO, yes, as constant war would over-extend and eventually weaken the US, and it's just not a good way to run an empire)


War trivia:

Which is the deadliest conflict since WWII?
Hint: it's one no-one seems to care about.

[Gary Sisco]

What I'd like to know is why so many Americans seem to be hellfire and brimstone ready to impose democracy everywhere and anywhere but right here in the USA. Especially this current Gang-In-Charge, which has historically sought to stamp it out, wherever it managed to rear its head for a moment.

That's the only political goal I ever had.

And the one the very smallest number of Americans I've met have ever shown any real interest in. I can name them, they are so few, when it comes to anything but idle chatter that has absolutely nothing to do with the way they live their lives in the actual world.

[Tanager]

I know very little about 20th century leftist movements, so I can't comment on that part of this discussion.

It is, however, reassuring to know that the hawks' motives are ideological, and I can therefore stop trying to understand what practical purpose they'll serve with respect to common schmucks like me.

Seriously, this both enlightening and depressing.

[Gary Sisco]

This was a war that was entirely ideological, and had nothing whatsoever to do with Sept 11 (apart from it having supplied a ready pretext and emotional willingness to kill), as it has already been revealed in the mainstream press that the war planning had been going on, at least, since the summer of 2000. This was a war of conquest in classic empire-building style.

It won't be the last, either, if the American people are stupid and sick enough to reinstall this Gang-in-Charge.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

James,

I like Saddam going down. I'd like to see Kim go down in N. Korea, Mugabe in Zimbabwe, etc. Everyone likes seeing the bad guy get it.

But the point of this thread (it seems to me) is to explore the way Bush and crew spun the US into a war that risked thousands of lives and potentially billions of dollars.

There are dictators all over the world that deserve to get kicked out so if I'm going to risk all those lives and all that money I want to know why this particular dictator?

[Gary Sisco]

I had a conversation with a friend today, a friend from way back, who said he felt like he felt when Somoza fled for his life, and when the wall went down in Europe and etc. When I reminded him that those events were brought about by the people who *lived there,* on their own, and in Somoza's case against the will of the US, he had nothing to say but that blank stare that logic too often imposes on American faces.

For myself, I know this for a fact and you can take it to the bank: No people that won't fight for their own freedom won't have it for very long. It's not something anyone "gives" to you. I mean, look at the US itself, if you need to look any farther. Ain't more than one in a half a million here that would take up a rifle to defend his own freedom (or hers). This is clear just from the current state of the society.

All tyrants' power is limited by the tolerance of the people in question. Nothing changes that. No words. No bullshit sound bytes.

That same friend was all jumping up and down over McCain last time around. I reminded him to always remember that politicians are liars and will say whatever they need to say to keep power. He scoffed and told me "this one's different." Now, he can't stand the guy because of his reversal on gun control. All I can say is that I'm damned sick of saying I told you so.

"Never beg a politician
to grant you a favor
for they will always
control you, forever."

(Bob Marley)

[Il Anto]

I do agree with much of what is said in the article. However, is it possible that the Bushist think-tank percieves the conquering or "reforming" the Middle East as possibly expanding our markets
for the American and Western European corporate elite?

How they are factoring in the vast Anti-American passion that is now at its most rampant level, I do not know. Maybe they really do feel that God is "on their side". Madonn', I hope that's not the case.

[Gary Sisco]

Well, of course, the expansion of markets is always on the minds of capitalists; its their raison d'etre, after all. I was just saying that if this was a war for oil alone, as the many vulgar marxoids would have it, why didn't they just take it the last time they were there? The combined militaries of all the oil countries in the region could not prevent such a thing. The US simply has overwhelming military force, globally, now. The Russian military is in near disarray, rarely even paid, and can barely take care of its second war against the Chechnyans, so they're not going to be interfering with anyone. China hasn't the ability to project force any significant distance; what they have is bodies, lots of them, for an infantry no one in their right mind's would want to deal with. Ask any Korea Marine.

No, I think this crusade is very much a messianic mission on their parts, particularly Perle and Wolfowitz, and at the same time, for some of them, Rumsfeld in particular, it's a personal thing writ large. He wants it forgotten that he was, and happily, Raygun's personal emmissary to Saddam Hussein while he *was* using weapons of mass destruction against tens of thousands of civilians, and that he was personnally very much responsible for making Hussein a regional power to begin with.

The hell with whatever scraps of weaponry or ammo they may find in warehouses here and there. What I'd like to see is the warehouses full of Iraqi documentation of Rumsfeld's missions back then and what they entailed and who said what to whom in return for what. I'm sure old Rummy already has a team looking for that shit on a search and destroy mission. Can't blame him, really. I wouldn't want it public, either, if I were him.

There was a reason, after all, that Stalin's first victims were the Bolsheviks themselves. They had a memory of actual events and his actual party status and history (thug and bureaucrat, despised by Lenin). That memory had to be disappeared before his Cult could be erected. Trotsky was merely the last one murdered, as he was the hardest one to get to.

They also, frankly, finally had their chance to have vengeance on Powell for Gulf War I and to schtupp and humiliate the brother once and for all, by making him not much more than a familiar television face on the sidelines of the actual decisionmaking. Being a good soldier, he did was he was told and swallowed the humiliation. He's not going to rest well for many years, I'd guess.

[Pete C]

Originally posted by Gary Sisco
Ain't more than one in a half a million here that would take up a rifle to defend his own freedom (or hers).

Does that include the ones whose definition of freedom is not paying taxes?

[Gary Sisco]

Frankly, and sadly, yes, it does. Otherwise it would be a much larger ratio of people not willing to fight. Or even struggle.

Any nitwit can fly a flag of his antenna.

[Dr Dave]

I'd hardly call myself a Marxist, but I'd like to know more about how Bush and Cheney aren't "real oilmen." Who cares, if they're doing the bidding of real oilmen? I'd guess that the truth of the situation lies somewhere in between. Wolfowitz has certainly been on the Iraqi warpath for a long time now, but what's the difference between being messianic and being interested in controlling oil supplies? One motive can dress in the clothes of another. It's quite convenient for Cheney, for example, to claim to be "liberating" Iraq while his former employer cashes in on contracts to rebuild the country's infrastructure. Is he messianic? Is he a greedhead of incredible magnitude? What's the diff? How the hell do we STOP him?

PS: I did greatly enjoy the suggestion that Rumsfeld fears the existence of documentation regarding his dealings in Iraq.

[patricia]

Originally posted by Gary Sisco
Frankly, and sadly, yes, it does. Otherwise it would be a much larger ratio of people not willing to fight. Or even struggle.

Any nitwit can fly a flag of his antenna.

I agree with both those statements. I also agree with your earlier one, which I have also made, that lasting "regime change" is not something given, but must come from the people who wish to be liberated. The "Liberators" cannot and must not stay forever, becoming occupiers. The citizenry are happy to be free, but since they couldn't bring about their country's freedom, can they maintain whatever this turns out to be?? The major players in this are still, for the most part, at large. Will Iraq need to be liberated again, or worse, will retaliation by the missing tyrants be visited on the countries which ousted them from power??
Sept 11 was often, erroneously I think, evoked as the rallying cry. It's not out of the realm of possibility that a similar attack could happen again. As I've often said, anyone can kill anyone.
Wars are organized and have parameters. Terrorism doesn't. Again. Where are the "Big Fish"?? They seem to have evaporated.
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Fetish hentai