"Neoconservatism" is a globalist, empire-building philosophy at its root, and really has nothing to do with terrorism -- or a war against it (whatever the heck that is supposed to mean -- at all. Your formulation has it exactly backwards and so libels neoconservatism. The "philosophy" is not a rationalization for the pursuit of empire but the reaction to evil empire. So it was with communism and so it is now with the Muslim jihad.
The attack of 9/11 led most of us to conclude, as has the author, that we are at war with a maniacal, suicidal, and murderous philosophy which is aggressively seeking to make the world Muslim-or at least make the Muslim world Islamist. There are those among us who arrive at a different conclusion. You are apparently among them. John Edwards has called the war on terrorism, "a bumper sticker war." The author points out that George Soros wants to fight the war by issuing writs of mandamus. In each case these dissenters would let the means dominate the ends. In other words, use of military force is so repellent to them that it should not be employed even in defense of the nation. They camouflaged this with an argument that there is no existential threat, that Islamicists have no desire or ability to attack America with weapons of mass destruction. In George Soros' case it is entirely possible that he is animated more by an extreme left-wing point of view which starts from the presumption that it is America which is evil and unworthy of defense mainly because the nation stands as a bulwark against one world socialism.
I say that while the argument that these terrorists are seeking to murder swathes of Americans with weapons of mass destruction, perhaps even thereby succeeding in establishing a kind of sharia in America, are not conclusive, they are highly persuasive and, anyhow, the downside of John Edwards being wrong would be catastrophic. I will take my chances with the downside of the neocons being wrong.
Once you abandon John Edward's and George Soros' position and accept that the threat is real and potentially mortal, then the question becomes that which the author has sought to address: what is the best way of defending the nation.
That is not empire building, that is Homeland Defense practiced abroad.
You -- and the author of this article -- have completely mischaracterized the relationship between neoconservatism and the so-called "war on terror."
This is from your post:
The attack of 9/11 led most of us to conclude, as has the author, that we are at war with a maniacal, suicidal, and murderous philosophy which is aggressively seeking to make the world Muslim-or at least make the Muslim world Islamist.
This is from the last paragraph of the original article:
That, after all, is why George W. Bush, searching urgently for a response to the events of September 11, stumbled into the arms of neoconservatism, unlikely though the match seemed.
The author's statement is a complete farce. George W. Bush certainly didn't "stumble into the arms of neoconservatism" after 9/11. Those neoconservatives were firmly planted in the U.S. Department of Defense long before 9/11 -- for the sole purpose of orchestrating the overthrow of the Ba'athist government in Iraq. The events of 9/11 simply gave this administration the political support it needed to engage in a military campaign in Iraq that it had every intention of doing anyway.
The notion that neoconservatism has anything to do with opposing "Muslim jihad" or "Islamism" is really silly. Over the last 15 years the U.S. government has basically engaged in a deliberate campaign to topple a largely secular regime in Iraq while at the same time protecting a ruling royal family in Saudi Arabia that has been one of the single biggest financial supporters of radical Islam throughout the world.
I'd also point out that the neoconservative movement has openly supported several globalist, empire-building initiatives that are completely at odds with this whole idea of fighting terrorism and opposing "global jihad" -- namely: 1) their open support of the Clinton administration's military campaign against Serbia on behalf of a radical Islamic element in Kosovo, and 2) their baffling (from your standpoint, but not from mine) support of the Chechen separatist movement.
That is not empire building, that is Homeland Defense practiced abroad.
With all due respect, this administration exposed this whole idea of "homeland defense" as a complete fraud when it sent 130,000+ troops halfway around the world to prop up an Islamic government in a Third World sh!t-hole while at the same time pushing for an open-borders policy and the normalization of 15-20 million foreign invaders right here at home.
Once you abandon John Edward's and George Soros' position and accept that the threat is real and potentially mortal, then the question becomes that which the author has sought to address: what is the best way of defending the nation.The neoconservatives believe that secular democracy must prevail worldwide, ultimately, or man's increasing technological power of destroying himself will prevail.
The nation's defense entails the world's "defense".
A respectable position. Disagreements arise as to how to achieve that universal victory of secular democracy.