Posted on 09/24/2003 7:53:08 AM PDT by u-89
Excerpts from -
Grand Designs
'Imperial America: The Bush Assault on the World Order' by John Newhouse
Reviewed by Peter Hitchens
"John Newhouse makes a brave attempt to explain and understand how this happened, how a president devoid of curiosity about the world, allied with some leathery old pseudoconservatives in search of an enemy whose evil would emphasize their virtue, attacked and invaded a country that was no threat to the United States and that nobody now knows how to manage. This useful book is packed with compelling little details showing just how many wise and experienced people warned others at one time or another that Iraqi regime change was needless at best, dangerous at worst."
"Most important of all, he [Newhouse] does not quite grasp -- as I suspect only conservatives can -- the real nature of the neo-conservative or pseudo-conservative impulse. He almost does. " 'Conservative' is the term normally applied to members of the Republican Party's hard right. 'Radical' would be far more appropriate," he says."
"Regrettably, he does not follow this through, rapidly switching to standard default mode and speaking of the president as belonging to the "hard right." Had he followed his instincts, he might have seen that the ideological drive for the Iraq war was something entirely new among the supposed right."
"Many conservative Americans have accepted without question the support of Britain's Labor government for the Iraq war, and have likewise welcomed the unexpected endorsement that regime change has won from a number of the more intelligent radical leftists in the United States. It is as if a group of well-known arsonists had joined the Fire Department, and everyone was too polite to comment on it."
"What Blair has in common with the pseudo-conservative White House is a need for an ethical justification for their existence, and a contempt for the national sovereignty of countries other than the United States. American pseudo-conservatives, having lost or preferred not to fight the great cultural and moral battles over marriage, education and morality, and robbed of a genuinely evil empire by Mikhail Gorbachev, scan the globe for replacement Kremlins to confront and overthrow. In this they are egged on by ex-Marxist secular globalists who despise national sovereignty and conceal a loathing for all faiths in a scorn for Islam, and by liberal imperialists such as Blair, who view the non-European, non-American world as a kind of park where they can exercise their atrophied consciences. Thus do we do good unto others, these days."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Peter Hitchens needs to talk to his brother, who happes to have actually visited Iraq after the fall of Hussein's regime, to find out what is going on in Iraq.
To Hades with the lot of 'em.
--Boris
As things stand now, "rebuilding Iraq" is just dumb. We never blew much up to rebuild in the first place folks!
What we are doing is laying down an infrastructure with a military excuse. You can only reconstruct what you obliterated in the first place.
The entire Arab world hated Saddam, but loved their own palace encrusted derrier's to do much about it. Now they are scared that democracy in Iraq will threaten their hold on their riches and are sending Jihaddy Johnny's into Iraq to slow us down by the thousands.
It's vital that the US fails in Iraq. For us to succeed and give the people of Iraq a decent place to hang out would mean that we are not the great satan, we are a good thing. By default, the Moslem Cleric's and tyranical goofballs robbing the peoples blind in the arab world will be outed for what they really are.
Whenever there has been a change of management in the Arab states it's never been pretty. This is what to expect.
After the British were driven out, the entire gift of civilization, health care, fresh water, electric lighting, schools, and roads were ruined in a matter of weeks.
I know it was a movie, but it's pretty much spot on as far as how Islamic rulers keep control over the people.
You keep em in the stone age and on their knees five times a day.
Pathetic to see a talent that I had previously respected turn to seed.
LOL!
The solution to Arab instability had been a regional issue and we could tolerate that. Now that they have taken it global, they will pay a severe price which may just include the wholesale destruction of a long overdue culture with little to no redeeming value other than oil. We pretended their oil concern was respectable long enough. Time to set the record straight.
> Pathetic to see a talent that I had previously respected turn to seed.
As I read your post I was thinking the same thing - about you. Over the years I had noticed some rather impressive displays of knowledge by a poster called Cincinatus so I consider it a shame that you fail to appreciate the point of view of those conservatives who oppose the war on Iraq. Notice I did not say "agree", I said "appreciate" meaning understanding the premise even if disagreeing with it.
The key phrase in the article is pseudoconservative. Those opponents of neoconservative do not see their policies as conservative at all and that is why they oppose them. As Hitchens says conservatives never saw nation building as an idea they could endorse. The concept of peace through strength has been turned into peace through conquest, occupation and reeducation. Sounds like something the old Soviets or Trotskyites could endorse, oh I forgot Trotskyites formulated this policy. The WOT was used an excuse to enact plans for redesigning the mideast and advancing US corporate interests long in the making. If it was strictly an action to destroy the perpetrators of 9/11 we would be hunting down al Quaida to the last man and then addressing the issues that underline the grievances which begot the terror campaign. The world was with us when we started on that course. The disapproval came when we decided to expand our mission. That tactic may be lost on the American public but the world's leaders understand exactly what is going on. So do some conservatives.
Yes and that is why they oppose the plan. There is a long list of countries that this administration plans regime change for. We also plan on having permanent bases in the area so we can project force with greater effect than we already have. Also we will have our hand on the worlds economy by having our hands on the oil spigots. This factor is not lost on others either.
Our meddling in Arab affairs and military presence in the gulf was what got certain groups against us to begin with. Larger forces in the region and killing a lot of people in the process of regime changing will only inflame even more. We're stretched now and hoping we can conquer and pacify one country at a time. That is a dubious calculation. The region might not sit back while we take out the next on the list and each quietly wait their turn. The plunge in the market today was because of S.A.'s announcement of cutting back oil production. That was most likely a warning shot across the bow.
The US must be able to sustain at least four theaters of major war on all distant parts of the globe, or our goose is cooked Bubba.
America can never strategically afford to be spread thin. We need to be an endless supply of smart, efficient, unyielding force of the most viscious killers and machinery of war imaginable.
That my friend is what keeps the peace. Not soldiers playing soup kitchen and babysitter in some diseased hell hole of which the leaders of said hell hole use food as a weapon.
The Wesley Clarke Cafeteria squads have no place in this world.
Kubayah on NPR hour is a tired song.
As for being stretched thin - we are. It might feel good to blame Clinton but that does not alter the fact. Rumsfeld thought we could take Iraq with 40,000 men and scoffed at those generals who said we'd need 150-200,000 to keep it. He also wanted to keep rolling on into Syria but was told no more war till after the election. Time has shown his optomism to be in era but still there are plans for Syria, Iran and others and that's not counting the spectre of N.Korea haunting us. If they were a coordinated axis of evil like we were told they would move against us simultaneously and we would have to resort to nukes to keep our armies from getting wiped out. Technology only goes so far then numbers tip the balance. We would not have time to draft, train and deploy the troops in case of the emergency I suggested. Then of course there's the economic factors to consider in such a scenario as well. Why do you think Bush went to the UN with hat in hand looking for money and troops? We are stretched that thin and just proved it to the world.
Do you remember the Egypt-Israeli War? Do you know what the organized fighting forces are like in Arab nations? The tanks were being driven by Egyptian idiots who were not even told there was a war. They were told that if they drove into Israel there were women and money waiting there.
Arab nations do not have fighting forces of any signifigance. They pose too much of a security risk to the management.
I went to flight school in the 70's with many of the pilots flying for Arab countries today. They were all the relatives and children of royalty.
I do agree with you on our misguided policies. We have no business medling in Arab affairs. They should be left to their own misery and to eat oil.
One needs a tough stomach to just sit by and watch while Arab Royalty becomes wealthy beyond comprehension, lives the good life abroad, but puts on the bedsheets and rally's the home sandbillies to kill jews and infadels on the public occasion. But our dog ain't in that fight.
The only caveat to my isolationist view toward Arabs is that they brought the fight to us. If you do not understand what that means in Arab posturing, it means there is no turning tail and running and to the Arabs, there is no turning back. They started it. If we do not finish it, they will just keep coming because we are weak.
IMHO Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are locations where the WMD's are hidden. They serve a greater purpose at the present time being "Around" but yet amorphous enough to stay out of our radar.
Yes Bush blew it by taking so long. Those weapons are now ten times more dangerous and are in the hands of fanatics who would sooner see their children tortured to death than to roll on those weapons. Those weapons and their mystery is the only thing keeping Bush from going to the next Arab domino. My fear is that some of those weapons are already here either from shipping containers or in Mexico and Canada just waiting to be used if a wink and a nod is issued.
Contrary to your jeremiad, we are not in Iraq to "nation-build" and the neocon concept of power projection has nothing to do with Trotskyite "continuous revolution." We are in Iraq because of its strategic location. Look at a map. Iraq (and Afghanistan for that matter) both lie amidst a constellation of Islamic powers, all of which (in their own ways) are threats to us. The message of September 11th is that national borders no longer mean anything -- a couple of crazies, some box cutters and voila -- instant sneak attack. The neocons, for all that you guys rail against them, see this quite clearly. The only way to combat this threat at its root is to confront the nurseries of terror -- the rogue states that harbor forces inimical to our national interests.
The "America First!" paradigm of 1000-foot walls and Fortress America was obsolete in the 1930's and has only become more so since then. Make no mistake -- we aren't on some Wilsonian 14-points nation-building exercise. We have militarily defeated an obnoxious, anti-American regime and we will replace it with one more aligned with our national interests. And our very presence in this part of the world is causing extreme discomfort amongst those other rogue powers. And all of this is completely intentional.
You all can continue to bury your heads in the sand and whine about American "imperialism" is you want to. No doubt you will. But America is safer now than we were before the Afghan and Iraqi campaigns. Islamic terror organizations are scattered, disorganized, and gasping for survival. And we're just getting warmed up.
Speaking of aligning with the left as Hitchens duly notes elements of the left fully support the war so don't be so quick to call the kettle black Mr. Pot.
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