Posted on 10/30/2005 7:44:42 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
Now that Cindy Sheehan turns out to be a disaster for the antiwar movement -- most Americans are not about to follow a left-wing radical who insists that we are in Iraq for reasons of theft, oppression and empire -- a new spokesman is needed. If I were in the opposition camp, I would want a deeply patriotic, highly intelligent, distinguished establishment figure. I would want Brent Scowcroft.
Scowcroft has been obliging. In the Oct. 31 New Yorker he came out strongly against the war and the neocon sorcerers who magically foisted it upon what must have been a hypnotized president and vice president.
Of course, Scowcroft's opposition to toppling Saddam Hussein is neither surprising nor new. Indeed, we are now seeing its third iteration. He had two cracks at Hussein in 1991 and urged his President Bush to pass them both up -- first, after Hussein's defeat in the Persian Gulf War, when the road to Baghdad was open, and then, days later, during a massive U.S.-encouraged uprising of Kurds and Shiites, when America stood by and allowed Hussein to massacre his opponents by the tens of thousands. One of the reasons for Iraqi wariness during the U.S. liberation 12 years later was the memory of our past betrayal and suspicions about our current intentions in light of that betrayal.
This coldbloodedness is a trademark of this nation's most doctrinaire foreign policy "realist." Realism is the billiard ball theory of foreign policy: The only thing that counts is how countries interact, not what's happening inside. You care not a whit about who is running a country. Whether it is Mother Teresa or the Assad family gangsters in Syria, you care only about their external actions, not how they treat their own people.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I heard her on Friday I think it was...
Quote of the day (it would be GREAT if Tony got a sound clip of this (ping: Tony Snow) but she said "I just can't think this morning".
Anyway... during the 'milestone' of 2000 soldiers death, he called the terrorists in Iraq 'freedom fighers', said our troop were all unprepared and ill equiped for the task, and that we are loosing and can only win by cutting an running.
I only heard it on the radio (suspiciously CSPAN ran senate coverage on TV, only her on the CSPAN-RADIO) but it sounded like 3 people were there, no clapping after her 'speech' and he sounded like the usual goon.
>>>Realists prize stability above all, and there is nothing more stable than a ruthlessly efficient dictatorship. Which is why Scowcroft is the man who six months after Tiananmen Square toasted those who ordered the massacre; who, as the world celebrates the Beirut Spring that evicted the Syrian occupation from Lebanon, sees not liberation but possible instability; who can barely conceal a preference for Syria's stabilizing iron rule.<<<
Is Scowcroft really that cold-blooded? Wow!
If the "deeply patriotic" Scowcraft had been around in 1776, we'd still be a British colony. He dislikes regime changes. It's all status quo with Brent baby.
The "Real-Politik" approach got us twelve + years of instability in Iraq and another war was needed to finish the job.
He's just trying to Cover his six and draw attention away from the fact that he screwed up the first time around.
I hate when my preconceived notion of an "ist" is tested!
Brent Scowcroft?
Wasn't he part of the Carter Administration?
The only friends they have are anarchists,communists and democrats.
The only friends they have are anarchists,communists and democrats.
".. Brent Scowcroft has served as the National Security Advisor to both Presidents Ford and Bush. From 1982 to 1989, he was Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc., an international consulting firm. In this capacity, he advised and assisted a wide range of U.S. and foreign corporate leaders on global joint venture opportunities, strategic planning, and risk assessment..."
There's a difference?
Brent Scowcroft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Scowcroft
Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft KBE (born March 19, 1925 in Ogden, Utah), USAF (Ret.) was the United States National Security Advisor under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. He also served as Military Assistant to President Richard Nixon and as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs in the Nixon and Ford administrations. He also served as Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005.
Prior to joining the Bush administration, Scowcroft was Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc. He is the founder and president of The Forum for International Policy, a think tank. Scowcroft is also president of The Scowcroft Group, Inc., an international business consulting firm. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
In the course of his military career, Scowcroft held positions in the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Headquarters of the U.S. Air Force, and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. Other assignments included faculty positions at the U. S. Air Force Academy and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and Assistant Air Attache in the American Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
Scowcroft has chaired or served on a number of policy advisory councils, including the President's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control, the President's Commission on Strategic Forces, the President's Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management, the Defense Policy Board, and the President's Special Review Board (Tower Commission) investigating the Iran-Contra affair.
Scowcroft was a leading Republican critic of U.S. policy towards Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. [1] [2] [3] [4]. Scowcroft was criticized by others for his egregiously bad predictions on the Afghanistan War following 9/11.
Scowcroft had an aeronautical rating as a pilot and has numerous military decorations and awards. In addition, President Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991. In 1993, he was presented with the insignia of an Honorary KBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace.
He received his undergraduate degree and commission into the Army Air Forces from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He has an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University.
He co-wrote A World Transformed with George H.W. Bush. This book described what it was like to be in the White House during the end of the Cold War, as the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s.
Yeah, who cares if there's a bomb inside that ball.
>>>President Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991.<<<
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is going the way of the Nobel Peace Prize; to qualify you must have a warped perspective on life.
Cindy Sheehan is the intellectual giant of the left/liberalism. They just want to get rid of her because she's sucking up all the oxygen from Clinton, Reid and Pelosi.
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