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US Neo-Conservatives Jubilant Over WMD Agreement
Independent (UK) ^ | 12-22-2003 | Andrew Gumbel

Posted on 12/21/2003 6:09:08 PM PST by blam

US neo-conservatives jubilant over WMD agreement

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
22 December 2003

After months on the defensive because of the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the neo-conservative hawks responsible for the Bush administration's doctrine of pre-emptive warfare were quietly jubilant over the weekend following Libya's climb down over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and other significant gestures by Iran and Syria.

The Libyan leadership's decision to abandon its weapons programme was a vindication, they said, of the long-standing argument that invading Iraq would give other countries an unambiguous signal of what they could expect if they pursued positions of defiance towards the United States.

The assertion of US military might, Pentagon advisor and noted hawk Kenneth Adelman told The Washington Post, "scares the bejesus out of rogue dictators" - and the breakthrough with Libya proved it.

It has been a morale-boosting few days for the neo-cons. The capture of Saddam Hussein last weekend was followed first by an Iranian agreement to allow surprise United Nations inspections of its nuclear facilities, then by an announcement by Syria that it had seized $23.5m (£13m) apparently intended for al-Qa'ida and that, in turn, by Muammar Gaddafi's undertaking to dismantle Libya's biological and chemical weapons programmes under international supervision.

"It's always been at the heart of the Bush Doctrine that a more robust policy would permit us to elicit greater cooperation from adversaries than we'd had in the past when we acquiesced," said Richard Perle, another noted hawk, also in an interview with The Washington Post. "With the capture of Saddam, the sense that momentum may be with us is very important."

There may be plenty of room to disagree with the hawks' arguments, not least because of their inconsistent attitude towards United Nations weapons inspectors (rubbished on the eve of the Iraq war, now central to the successful oversight of the Libyan and Iranian deals). There is the question of who should take credit for what, since the Iranians appear to have been talking to the Europeans - hardly neo-con favourites - rather than the Americans. And it is unclear, too, how the US tough line might reap similar dividends with North Korea, the pariah state closest to the actual production of nuclear weapons.

In domestic political terms, the hawks have moved into the ascendant, at least for the moment, and pushed their critics and adversaries back onto the defensive. President Bush made the clear link between the flexing of US military muscle in Iraq and the latest diplomatic windfalls when he said on Friday: "These actions by the United States and our allies have sent an unmistakable message to regimes that seek or possess weapons of mass destruction."

The field of would-be Democratic challengers said little or nothing about the Libyan breakthrough over the weekend, in stark contrast to the aftermath of the Saddam capture, when Howard Dean, the front-runner, said he did not think the arrest had any beneficial knock-on effects for US security, and his adversaries scrambled for positions somewhere between his and the Bush administration's.

The raw assertion of American power has always been key to the neo-cons' calculations on Iraq, much more than the given justifications for war regarding WMD or the need to rid the world of a brutal dictator. They, together with key political figures including Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, put it at the forefront of a new global security structure they began formulating after the first Gulf War in 1991. It was central to the so-called Project for the New American Century, the blueprint for the Iraq invasion written in 1997.

Mr Perle said yesterday: "It's nice to have a good week every once in a while."


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: agreement; jubilant; kenadelman; neoconservatives; us; wmd
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Hawks every where.
1 posted on 12/21/2003 6:09:09 PM PST by blam
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To: blam
neoconservatives??

shouldn't EVERYONE BE HAPPY?? Are the DUer's upset by the agreement??

2 posted on 12/21/2003 6:11:50 PM PST by GeronL (Saddam is out of the hole and into the quagmire!)
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To: blam
Can someone please define the term "NEOCON"?

If the term means new conservative, just when did they become conservative and what were they before?



3 posted on 12/21/2003 6:17:39 PM PST by Doninnj
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To: blam
Gee, they even bitch when we do it THERE way, through diplomatic channels. Bwhaha
4 posted on 12/21/2003 6:22:16 PM PST by Normal4me
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Comment #5 Removed by Moderator

To: Doninnj
Neocons are liberals who were mugged by reality.

Some of the best known were formerly New York intellectuals, many of them Jewish, such as Norman Podhoretz. The term has morphed somewhat over the years, but that was the group to whom I think it was first applied.
6 posted on 12/21/2003 6:28:11 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Doninnj
Can someone please define the term "NEOCON"?

It's a slur, and is apposite to "Paleo-con" which typifies someone who would never have gone to Afghanistan, or Iraq, or anywhere else.

They'd sit here and let us be killed.

It also is a contrast to a liberal, who talks, and talks, and talks, and talks, while people who only understand violence make fools of us.

So, I'm a neo-con, and damn proud of it!

7 posted on 12/21/2003 6:28:26 PM PST by sinkspur (Adopt a shelter dog or cat! You'll save one life, and maybe two!)
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To: Doninnj
I understood what a Neo-Con was back in the 80s, when Kirkpatrick and Podhoretz and Wolfowitz et al really were Neo. But how do you differentiate them now? What wide policy gaps are there between veteran Conservatives like Cheyney and Rumsfeld on the one hand and Wolfie and Perle on the other? Are we back to the "Jewish question"? The people I personally know who use the term seem to mean it as a thinly-veiled sneer at Jews.
8 posted on 12/21/2003 6:29:07 PM PST by speedy
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To: Doninnj
NEOCON = Jewish Republican
9 posted on 12/21/2003 6:33:15 PM PST by SubMareener
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To: speedy
It's a veiled reference to Jews. One need not be neo anything to be jubilant at the news of a terror state giving up its WMD.
10 posted on 12/21/2003 6:34:54 PM PST by thoughtomator (The Federal judiciary is a terrorist organization)
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To: blam
"In domestic political terms, the hawks have moved into the ascendant, at least for the moment, and pushed their critics and adversaries back onto the defensive."

In these times it is better to be a hawk than it is to be a sheep.

11 posted on 12/21/2003 6:36:39 PM PST by blackbart.223
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To: speedy
"The people I personally know who use the term seem to mean it as a thinly-veiled sneer at Jews."

I didn't know that. I've always sensed that there was a meaning that I wasn't getting.

12 posted on 12/21/2003 6:42:20 PM PST by blam
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To: blam
the neo-conservative hawks responsible for the Bush administration's doctrine of pre-emptive warfare

I get it. Bush is a pupet for the neo-cons? The more they try to make Bush look bad, the more they look like complete and utter traitors. It's going to be a good election in 2004...

13 posted on 12/21/2003 6:45:34 PM PST by ItisaReligionofPeace (I'm from the government and I'm here to help.)
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To: Doninnj
Neo-con

"--As neo-con godfather, Irving Kristol once remarked, a neo-conservative is a "liberal who was mugged by reality". True to that description, neo-conservatives generally originated on the left side of the political spectrum and some times from the far left. Many neo-cons, such as Kristol himself, have Trotskyite roots that are still reflected in their polemical and organizational skills and ideological zeal.--"

and

RUSH

--"This is a way for people to sneer at the motives of a Krauthammer or Podhoretz, even though they're nothing more than conservatives like any Christian, Muslim or agnostic in the movement. They call Christian conservatives "the religious right," and they call Jewish conservatives "neo-conservatives." Think of it that way, and recognize it for the insult it is. I'd also recommend to you a two-part call from a conservative, Miriam, who happens to be Jewish, in the audio link below. You can also listen to Mark, who says he's a conservative who opposed the war. He tried to use an Algore analogy to questioning the religion of Bush's advisors.----"

14 posted on 12/21/2003 6:45:41 PM PST by malia (BUSH/CHENEY '04 *A Cherished Constitutional right - the right to vote and have it counted - once.)
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To: Doninnj
The only ones who accept that word, of course, are the self-described 'paleocons.'

Perhaps we all base our judgments on what is conservative based on what we ourselves think is most important. Hence a so-called 'paleocon' wants to see women and children machine-gunned at the border because they hate the idea of a brown-skinned person committing a misdemeanor with impunity, but I would call them 'knuckle-dragging neanderthals', not 'conservatives' since the inestimable value of human life is the basis of our rights and system of self-governance. Hence a self-avowed libertarian calls himself 'conservative' because he wants to legalize recreational poisons and lauds the 'right' to be irresponsible, to commit sodomy and own or make pornography, but I would call them 'moral-liberals' rather than 'conservatives' since conservatives are big on personal responsibility and upholding moral truths which reinforce the family structure, which in turn is the foundation of our society.

In turn, they would claim that human life has no value, that there are no moral truths, that irresponsibility is something to be praised, and that the family unit is the bane of society, or that society is the bane of the individual, which alone should be all-important, at least in their minds.

15 posted on 12/21/2003 6:46:01 PM PST by Cultural Jihad
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To: Doninnj
Defining neocon is not the best way to go about understanding it. They are hawks who want to use US military preeminence a certain way. 9/11 created the opportunity. Cheney and Rumsfeld are on board.

Any hawk who would use the US military simply to defeat the enemy and get out is no neocon.

16 posted on 12/21/2003 6:46:36 PM PST by NutCrackerBoy
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To: speedy
The leftists (liberals) are actually some of the least tolerant people around. They also appear to have a much higher percentage of anti-Semites.
17 posted on 12/21/2003 6:47:09 PM PST by ItisaReligionofPeace (I'm from the government and I'm here to help.)
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To: blam
Since most of the original group of prominent Neos were Jewish intellectual recovering Liberals, it seems to have developed this code meaning. When I hear people talk disparigingly about Neo-Cons, it usually precedes a scathing verbal attack on Israel and how we "let" Israel determine our foreign policy.
18 posted on 12/21/2003 6:47:27 PM PST by speedy
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To: aculeus; general_re; hellinahandcart
A dreadful week for Andrew Gumbel & Co.

Let us rejoice.

19 posted on 12/21/2003 6:49:52 PM PST by dighton
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To: ItisaReligionofPeace
No question about it. It's head-spinning how quickly the left has become more openly anti-Semitic. I am sure our response to 9-11 accelerated this.
20 posted on 12/21/2003 6:49:55 PM PST by speedy
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