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The "Neo-con" rubric of the left is there attempt to establish a definable bogeyman with a "conservative" appellation. Inherent in the project is their occupation with such definition so to avoid having to consider the merits of any particular foreign action, and to avoid reconsideration of their anti-american historical narrative which requires any evil in the world to be reponsive to an American malfeasance. Thus, for example, you'll will never see them quote Osama. Although relevant, quoting Osama does nothing but challenge their prejudices, an endeavor they are wholly uninterested in. Instead they are more interested in preserving their own contrarian and reflexive anti-American identity with the mirror of foreign events fashioned to their convenient assumptions.

The "neo-con" explanation started with crypto-anti-semitism selective identification with certain supposed Jews in the administration. This was generated by La Rouche and perhaps a Buchanan piece or two. Confronted with non-Jews like Cheney and Rice, and unable to sustain a totally paranoid racist discourse holding that Ledeen, et al. is pulling Cheney's strings (though some Arabs and English can maintain this fiction), some libs adopted the "neo-con" rubric, but expanded it to Cheney, etc. Perhaps the commonest characteristic of this identification/definition project is the avoidance of asking any of these people if they are "neo-cons", let alone analyzing their views in context of Wahhabism, Caliphatism, ME politics, Kashmir, etc.

The historical parallel of the retinue of ideas they define is not only Wilson, but other self-identified non-conservatives such as JFK and LBJ. Also, the views of the defined "neo-cons" is not different than modern libs who want to "change" the world, they just don't like the tactics, and protraying America as a beneficient or even neutral actor interferes with their meticulous grooming of their anti-american historical narrative, a project which is threatened by reality and pesky foreign actors who aren't saying what they wish they would say.

I agree with you precisely, the use of the temr "neocon" is simply an attempt to pigeon-hole us so that they don't have to address the issues.

I laugh at the earnest writers who invoke the term "empire" with regard to the US. They use a word they only half understand to describe something they don't understand at all, but imagine somehow that they sound sophisticated doing it. Considering their target audience, it probably works.

As for neocons, there is nothing "neo" about it. If you believe in the founding principles of the republic, and you are prepared to defend them, you are not "neo" anything. The arguments among us tend then to be rather utilitarian, as some of us contend that in a given instance it is better to stear clear of a particular conflict, while others of us prefer to strike at a time and place of our choosing rather than wait. Thats it. Thats the big difference.

Of course, when the stakes are as high as they are, that difference can loom large, but it is nothing like the difference between us and those who don't believe in the founding principles at all and are not prepared to defend them anywhere anytime. They are left looking pretty useless in the aftermath of yet another terrorist strike, and their only recourse is to hope to drive a wedge between the true-believers who are prepared to fight today, and the true-believers who want to hold their fire a little longer.

As for the whole nation-building issue, no one on our side of the line wants to be the world's social worker. But while some of us want to steer very clear of getting caught up in the internecine quarrels of another state, the others want to be very sure we don't leave another Afghanistan in our wake. The worst thing in the world is to leave a vacuum. Not rebuilding Germany after 1945 would have guaranteed another NAZI regime and another war. Was Truman a neocon, or was rebuilding Europe an act of self-defense? Was not engaging Afghanistan more insistently than we did during the nineties an act of prudence, or did it guarantee that we would have to be back a decade hence? In the latter case, I recognize that there was actually little we could do after the Soviets pulled out in the face of the warlords, but the fact of the vacuum and its consequences leads many of us to the judgement that we dare not let it happen again.

Thats not empire, anymore than is Germany a part of the US empire today. The US doesn't have an empire, and is not going to have an empire. The existence of Pepsi cans in Andean villages is not evidence of an empire. It is evidence of the kind of voluntary exchanges that are what we are all about. An interwoven network of voluntary exchanges is not empire no matter how many times you say it.