Free Republic

In Monday's Washington Post, Sebastian Mallaby argues that scandals like the abuse in Abu Gharib prison will be a messy component of the kind of wars we can't afford to avoid in the future--that is, if we want to win the broader struggle against terrorism, weapons proliferation, and the chaos engendered by failed states. Keeping our hands clean by refusing to act won't do ourselves or the world any good. In the October/November 2001 issue, "Goodbye to the Aircraft Carrier?" Max Boot argues likewise that U.S. leaders need to rein in their casualty aversion and face squarely the untidy wars...

AS IF TO demonstrate that a picture can be worth a thousand bullets, two sets of photographs released last week have done incalculable damage to the U.S. position in Iraq. The most remarked-upon pictures were those depicting sadistic abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. People all over the world who barely noticed Saddam Hussein’s far greater barbarism are twisting themselves into paroxysms of rage over the actions of a handful of Americans. Less discussed, but just as harmful, were the photos of Marines turning Fallujah over to a symbol of the “ancient regime” — a former Republican Guard general who, with...

Max Boot: The Gospel According to the Loony Left - Kidnapping Aristide. Plotting with Martha. Shooting ducks. The Bush gang has done it all. The military-industrial-neoconservative-Republican oligarchs who run the country have committed plenty of dark and nefarious deeds in the last few years since they stole the White House from Al Gore. They demolished Iraq just so Halliburton could make jillions cleaning it up. They helped the likes of Enron and MCI and Martha Stewart to bilk millions of working-class Americans out of their meager savings and to transfer their jobs to call centers in India. They put the...

A flourishing democracy takes root in South Africa. Cape Town, South Africa HAPPILY, I do not recall writing anything about South Africa in 1994 when the country adopted majority rule. If I had, I would no doubt have parroted the prevailing wisdom of sophisticated circles: There goes another one. Another African country descending into the heart of darkness. Another place where the economy will get trashed, ethnic violence will break out, and the middle class will flee. There was every reason to believe this would be the case. The African National Congress was stacked with card-carrying Communists, many of them...

Ted Kennedy delivered another stemwinder last week, accusing the Bush administration of lying its way into Iraq for political gain. Ho-hum. Nothing new there. But one paragraph caught my attention. In trying to buttress his charge that the president twisted intelligence about Saddam Hussein, Kennedy cited "Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a recently retired Air Force intelligence officer who served in the Pentagon during the buildup to the war." He quoted her as follows: "It wasn't intelligence — it was propaganda … they'd take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it...

The Kay findings point to its importance, not its demise Nations and alliances should move early to deal with crises while they are still ambiguous and can be dealt with more easily, for delay raises both the costs and risks. Early action is the objective to which statesmen and military leaders should resort. --Wesley Clark, "Waging Modern War" (2001) THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL PART of President Bush's National Security Strategy, unveiled in September 2002, was its mention of preemptive action against "emerging threats before they are fully formed." This has been described by foreign policy mandarins as a diplomatic earthquake...

John Kerry has done well so far because he's not Howard Dean: He doesn't have steam coming out of his ears every time he opens his mouth, and he does have national security experience. But now that he's the frontrunner, he will be subjected to the same kind of withering scrutiny that caused Dr. Dean to turn into Mr. Hyde. Kerry's military record is one of his strongest selling points for Democrats hungry for a credible candidate. Kerry, as he himself never tires of pointing out, is a decorated veteran. But so were Bob Dole and John McCain. Heroism in...

A cabal of neoconservatives has hijacked the Bush administration’s foreign policy and transformed the world’s sole superpower into a unilateral monster. Say what? In truth, stories about the “neocon” ascendancy—and the group’s insidious intent to wage preemptive wars across the globe—have been much exaggerated. And by telling such tall tales, critics have twisted the neocons’ identities and thinking on U.S. foreign policy into an unrecognizable caricature. “The Bush Administration Is Pursuing a Neoconservative Foreign Policy” If only it were true! The influence of the neoconservative movement (with which I am often associated) supposedly comes from its agents embedded within the...

A cabal of neoconservatives has hijacked the Bush administration’s foreign policy and transformed the world’s sole superpower into a unilateral monster. Say what? In truth, stories about the “neocon” ascendancy – and the group’s insidious intent to wage preemptive wars across the globe – have been much exaggerated. And by telling such tall tales, critics have twisted the neocons’ identities and thinking on U.S. foreign policy into an unrecognizable caricature. “The Bush Administration Is Pursuing a Neoconservative Foreign Policy” If only it were true! The influence of the neoconservative movement (with which I am often associated) supposedly comes from its...

The breathless revelation from former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill that the president was disengaged at Cabinet meetings -- like "a blind man in a roomful of deaf people" -- reinforces the old stereotype that George W. Bush is a taco or two shy of a combination platter. And, in a way, the charge is warranted. Bush definitely must have been asleep on the job to have hired a whiny back-stabber like the former Alcoa chief as his Treasury secretary and have waited two whole years before canning him. But this doesn't make Bush any dumber than Bill Clinton, who appointed...

He's won the public's backing in enacting his ambitious agenda and knows how to sort out good advice from bad – including Paul O'Neill's. The breathless revelation from former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill that the president was disengaged at Cabinet meetings — like "a blind man in a roomful of deaf people" — reinforces the old stereotype that George W. Bush is a taco or two shy of a combination platter. And, in a way, the charge is warranted. Bush definitely must have been asleep on the job to have hired a whiny back-stabber like the former Alcoa chief as...

The Monitor asked award-winning author, US military historian, and self-described neocon Max Boot to discuss the extent of neocon power.How much power do neoconservatives have within the Bush administration? Within Washington?The power of neocons is much exaggerated — unfortunately. On the question of Iraq their views generally won the day. Not because they were all-powerful but simply because 9/11 brought various doubters including Bush and Cheney around to the neocon point of view. But on many other issues the administration policy remains unsettled and neocons are by no means in the drivers seat. One example: Iran. The neocon position is...

<p>The most compelling evidence of the success of President Bush's trip to Iraq was the reaction of the opposition. No, not the Iraqi opposition--or "resistance," as the French have taken to calling it. I mean the American opposition: the Democrats and the news media.</p>

<p>The most compelling evidence of the success of President Bush's trip to Iraq was the reaction of the opposition. No, not the Iraqi opposition -- or "resistance," as the French have taken to calling it. I mean the American opposition: the Democrats and the news media.</p>

Having just returned from visiting our troops in Iraq, I couldn't help but see parallels with Vietnam. But not in the way you'd think. Usually Vietnam is invoked to warn of a quagmire, of an impending U.S. defeat against a guerrilla foe. El Salvador, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan were all going to be the "next" Vietnam before winding up U.S. victories. Now it's Iraq's turn to be seen, unfairly, as the looming quagmire. But the real parallel with Vietnam is the disparity between battlefield realities - American victories - and home-front perceptions. The media are portraying Iraq as a...

I WENT TO IRAQ in August, the day after a bomb had ripped through the United Nations compound in Baghdad, killing 23 people including the U.N. special envoy. I came home the day after another massive car bomb exploded at a mosque in Najaf, taking more than 95 lives including that of a leading cleric. Yet I returned more optimistic than when I went. Understandably, these attacks have caused apprehension, verging on panic, among U.S.-based commentators and politicians. A chorus of critics is already attacking the Bush administration for losing Iraq. During my trip I, too, saw plenty of room...

America, it is said, is the world's latest imperial power. Don't believe it WHAT is the shelf-life of an idea? Just a few short months ago, the talk—and not just in Washington, DC—was of empire, America's that is. Even before the invasion of Iraq, pundits of all stripes were casting aside their coyness to proclaim that America was the latest imperial power to bestride the world. Today, with tribulations besetting the new Romans in both Afghanistan and Iraq, their most recent conquests, the chorus has died down, but the idea is far from dead. Too many people have invested too...