Posted on 10/24/2005 7:38:27 PM PDT by baseball_fan
Snip
"I thought we ought to make it our duty to help make the world friendlier for the growth of liberal regimes," he said. "You encourage democracy over time, with assistance, and aid, the traditional way. Not how the neo-cons do it."
"How do the neo-cons bring democracy to Iraq? You invade, you threaten and pressure, you evangelize." And now, Scowcroft said, America is suffering from the consequences of that brand of revolutionary utopianism. "This was said to be part of the war on terror, but Iraq feeds terrorism," he said.
"There may have come a time when we would have needed to take Saddam out," he told the New Yorker. "But he wasn't really a threat. His Army was weak, and the country hadn't recovered from sanctions."
"The real anomaly in the Administration is Cheney," Scowcroft said. "I consider Cheney a good friend -- I've known him for thirty years. But Dick Cheney I don't know anymore."
Snip
Scowcroft told the magazine that nearly two years ago he had a "terrible fight" with his protege, current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, over U.S. policy snip
Snip
Scowcroft told the New Yorker he was concerned about Wolfowitz's unwillingness to contemplate bad outcomes. "What the realist fears is the consequence of idealism," he said. "The reason I part with the neo-cons is that I don't think in any reasonable time frame the objective of democratizing the Middle East can be successful. If you can do it, fine, but I don't think you can, and in the process of trying to do it you can make the Middle East a lot worse." He added, "I'm a realist in the sense that I'm a cynic about human nature."
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
Also, part of the New Yorker Scowcroft article is the Q&A , "The Republican Rift": http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/articles/051031on_onlineonly01
Scowcroft has been trying to undermine this Administration from Day One.
" "What the realist fears is the consequence of idealism," he said. "The reason I part with the neo-cons is that I don't think in any reasonable time frame the objective of democratizing the Middle East can be successful."
So, basically, Mr. Scowcroft, you are no different from the hand-wringing appeasing liberals then?
We should listen to Scowcroft, after all, he is one of the many foreign policy makers that made 9/11 possible.
Pssst! .... We are NOT a democracy.
The constant use of the term "democracy" is proof in itself of the success of the socialist movement in the USA.
"Democracy is indispensable to socialism."
- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.
---Alexander Tytler
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."
- H.L. Mencken
"Democracy is the most vile form of government... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention ... have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property ... and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
- James Madison
Well...isn't he special???
Chrissy Matthews was drooling over him tonight...so I knew this article would be bad...
I loved how he practically gloated over "40 years of peace" in the Middle East...
Yeah, Brent...1983 was the year the barracks were blown up in Lebanon....1979 Hostages in Iran....etc. etc...yeah, peace my butt, Mr. Scowcroft.
Oh sure, Brent
"You encourage democracy over time, with assistance, and aid, the traditional way. Not how the neo-cons do it."
You really should do it the way liberals do it, seeking/extorting financial aid for election and re-election campaigns, giving enemies nuclear reactors and so on and so forth.
By the way, Brent, what is the Dim party's exit strategy for two well known conflicts which they initiated? Notably, WWII and Korea? It seems to me that we still have troops in both Germany and Korea. So what's up with that, Brent? Huh, huh, huh????
This is reality: The Middle East is a seething cesspool. Iraq was/is a high risk operation. History tells us there's a good chance it may fail. If it fails, it won't matter because the result will be the same as if we hadn't tried at all. Bush took his best shot. We'll know within the decade how it all turned out.
"This is reality: The Middle East is a seething cesspool. Iraq was/is a high risk operation. History tells us there's a good chance it may fail. If it fails, it won't matter because the result will be the same as if we hadn't tried at all. Bush took his best shot. We'll know within the decade how it all turned out."
From what I can read between the lines, Scowcroft was saying there was a third way after Afghanistan:
"Scowcroft believes that Iraq was a sideshow to the war on terror, and that America should have focussed its attention on resolving the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians. Once the decision to go to war was made, he supported it, but with deep trepidation."
http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/articles/051031on_onlineonly01
Why would Scowcroft be saying this now when Iraq has just had a vote on their new Constitution, Lebanon is going democratic, Syria's tyranny may be overturned? To make a statement about the Israeli / Palestinian negotiations, warn us away from invading Syria or Iran?
Nicely stated.
At least Scrowcroft's backbiting makes it clear how hard the Establishment wants to restore the pre-9/11 slumbers of the body politic. After all, they're now 'embarassed' abroad by the 'cowboy culture' of America, not to mention that paid Saudi sinecures for US diplomats and profitable consultancies for former National Security appartchiks (Kissenger, Eagleburger) with foreign dictators (Milosevic, Assad) are now much harder to come by.
All of the old Establishmemt types grew up and managed a world in which they feared the assertion of US power because a) it would lead to nuclear war, or b) to a 'quagmire' that the US public would not support.
Of course Reagan proved them wrong about (a) and (b) was always a slander against the American people, blaming us (or the military) for the disgusting incompetence and cowardice with which the Establishment fought the Vietnam War.
The nerve of the American people is much stronger and more patient than the arrogant intellectual and moral laziness of our transnational elites.
What do think he means by 'neo-cons'? The Establishment and the Left just believe we could return to our holiday from history if the Jews would just not be so, so, inconvenient, and, instead, simply offered their necks up to the Arab knife.
I think if the US decides to embark on a Wilsonian type foreign policy she will need a large ground force to enforce the crusade. The first fault I see in the Rumsfeld approach is our Army/Marine Corps is too small and our budget deficit is too large to attempt such a policy. We have the technology and management skills to defeat the insurgents, but like Britain victory will come at a financial cost. The second fault is GWB did not mobilize the country for war. He tempered the American anger after 9/11 and hoped we will wrap the war within several years. Unfortunately the war evolved into a Sunni insurgency aided by jihadist and Iran. GWB allowed the MSM define the image and did not create a popular patriotic resistive barrier against the leftist sedition/defeatism. In less than 4 years after 9/11 we went from 70 percent approval for war to barely half supporting the war despite the great military and political strides made in Iraq. Right now I believe we have a 50 50 chance of losing the war. Right now if I was China, Iran and other potential adversaries, I would conclude that the US is incapable of taking protracted war with light casualties (2000 KIA in three years versus China 10000 KIA in a one month in border war with Vietnam in 1980, Iran 700 000 KIA in their nine year war with Iraq (1980 to 1989)). Due to our MSM, the Democratic Party, the American left in our college faculty and the ACLU, our country is portrayed to the world as a paper tiger.
You make some valid points. But Bush is playing the cards he was dealt. It's debatable how much a leader can mobilize the American people (at large) to sacrifice. We're caught between a harsh world and our desire to be left alone and live the "American Dream."
Yeah and we got an up close and personal look at how well that worked on 9-11-01. You, like the Clintonians, were part of the problem. Brent, shut your idiotic mouth and be grateful we do not jail you for gross incompetence! Do not dare to whine at better men who are FIXING a problem YOUR incompetence helped create.
We know now. It just some of us want to hide their heads in the sand and deny that Bush was absolutely right and the Neo-isolationists "realists" completely wrong
Okay, so what are we?
"...Right now I believe we have a 50 50 chance of losing the war...if I was China, Iran and other potential adversaries, I would conclude that the US is incapable of taking protracted war with light casualties..."
So how do you play your hand given the emerging threats?
Germany was a democratic nation long before World War II, and after having two atomic bombs dropped on them the Japanese were in no position to object to whatever kind of government the U.S. wanted to impose on them -- even if it meant naming Ronald McDonald the new emperor.
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