Opposing most foreign military interventions is not the same as "peace at any price," and it is dishonest and disingenuous to say so. I served a decade and a half as an officer in the military, which is a whole lot more than any of the neo's you have listed -- combined. One of the things that I agree with the paleos on is that the neos are a whole lot better at sending people to war than they are at going to war themselves. I call that the mark of cowards, and whether you agree with me or not on that, I have earned the right to say it.
I am proud of my service, and I am proud of having served in RR's military when the Cold War was being won, even if I contest the idea that it was a foregone conclusion that we needed to be fighting it in the first place. The bottom line is that it needed to be ended, and Reagan ended it.
Prior to GHWB, no GOP president in the 20th century had gotten us into a war -- they all happened on Dem watches. Reluctance to spill American blood on foreign soil runs deeper in the traditional Republican mindset than you give it credit for, or at least it did prior to the Bushes. I think that Junior even had a bit of that streak at one point (remember "I want a more humble foreign policy?)
Part of what sealed my decision to exit the military was Somalia -- that effort proved that the new generation was going to go to war over virtually anything, even things that hadn't the remotest relationship to national security.
I voted and worked for W. We're lucky to have someone as good as him in this gawdawful age, and we won't see anyone as good as him in my lifetime. We still have hell to pay for all of this war stuff, but as you say, drum-beating is carrying the day in the GOP for any number of reasons. I'll mind my own business, work in my local community and in my garden, and recommend to my sons that they not join the military for as long as we're in the old European/French Foreign Legion mode -- not that I listened to my old man on that score!
Agrarian, initially I supported the invasion, and I still do in that I want to see a better Iraq prevail, and our boys to come home safe and sound.
I'm the daughter of WW II kids. My Mom was 11, my Father 17, when the US was straifing the Italian suolo with firepower. The Germans came into my parents village, forced them to leave their homes so they could garrison their soldiers, and as a consequence my parents lived pretty much in abandoned buildings and lean tos for about a year.
After the war with Iraq began and when the WMD weren't found I began to reflect on how easy it was to convince me of war, and that bothered me. Next time up, I hope to be a little more circumspect.
I do think President Bush has accomplished the herculean task of beginning to sow a little democracy in an area where nobody believed it could flourish. And, while admittedly it's a little too soon to be hollering mission accomplished, mission accomplished, I fervently hope that President Bush's strategy pays off. And finally, I want to say thanks for your service to our Country.
My Mom and Dad even to this day can recount their experience of war in such detail as to make me feel I'm seeing it along with them. But the victims of war are far too easily forgotten or assigned the task of shutting up and taking it.
Therefore, your first paragraph entirely missed the point of that to which you purport to be responding. The point is that there are a tiny handful of people who are legitimately known as "neoconservatives." They are refugees from the Democratic Party as it fell under increasingly communist influence as McGovern's forces seized control. They joined up politically with the New Right and other mainstream conservatives. The "neoconservative" contributions of intellect and articulate defense of cold warriorism against totalitarianism were welcome additions which were entirely in tune with pre-existing conservative policy.
What no one ever heard of until about 1986 were those who dishonestly call themselves paleo"conservatives." Their pantywaist foreign policy agrees with the crippled United States of the pro-communist New Left and of Osama bin Laden. Their "blood and soil" fantasies blandly mimic Mein Kampf or the local fatwas of neighborhood self-appointed Muhammed el Rootie Kazootie tyrants throughout Islamoland.
With all due respect, if you question the necessity of American resistance to communism (the Cold War), are you sure you belong on a conservative website? George McGovern piloted a bomber over Trieste in WW II. That did not make him a conservative. Hanoi John found himself in combat in Vietnam for a few weeks but the Swift Boat Vets for Truth had his number anyway. The Cold War needed to be fought and, if it needed to be ended, it needed to be ended in victory. Douglas MacArthur reportedly served in the military to the tune of three Congressional Medals of Honor starting with the pre-WW I Mexican Border campaign. He said: "In war, there is no substitute for victory." Ask Korean people or Filipino people what they think of MacArthur. They feel privileged to have been defended by him.
Sticking our heads in the sand while hoping that the bad men will go away is not a foreign policy or a military policy for free people. Neville Chamberlain is no role model for Americans. General McPeake has disgraced his uniform by supporting Kerry. So has Wesley Clark.
If paleo-ostrichism is not "peace at any price", outline the visible differences: facts, not editorials. Should we prefer that American civilians be killed on our own soil rather than our soldiers, sailors and airmen dying in foreign lands bringing the war to the enemy? Why?