History's Fools (neo-con means "dangerous innocence about world realities"

[papau]

http://www.theatlantic.com/cgi-bin/send.cgi?page=http%3A//www.theatlantic.com/unbound/polipro/pp2004-05-19.htm

Politics & Prose | by Jack Beatty

History's Fools

In the wake of Iraq, the term "neo-conservative" may come to mean "dangerous innocence about world realities"

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Paul Wolfowitz could not come up with the right number when he testified on Capitol Hill recently—he was off by about 30% in his estimate of the number of Americans killed in Iraq, which at this writing is 786. He's a busy man. You can't expect him to remember how many young Americans have died for the ambition of his adult life. Had he been asked what they died for, he would not have repeated what he told Vanity Fair last year. He would not have said, "For oil." By now, on message with the rest of the administration, he'd have said, "For democracy."

Tragically, any good the US could have obtained from bringing democracy to Iraq has been vitiated by the mayhem Wolfowitz's obsession with toppling Saddam Hussein has inflicted on the Iraqi people—the 7,000 to 10,000 civilians killed, the torture victims, the populace so brutalized and humiliated by an occupation to which Wolfowitz appears not to have given a thought that over 80% want us out now. And those are just the short-term, intra-Iraq harms. Long-term, according to the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph Biden, US interests in the Middle East have been set back a decade by Abu Ghraib.

Shortly after September 11, Sir Michael Howard, the British military historian, issued what sounded then like an apocalyptic warning: that in the context of the "war of civilizations" between radical Islam and the West a US occupation of Iraq would be tantamount to a nuclear exchange between the superpowers during the Cold War. It sounds like realism now. The fallout from the photographs will poison Muslim minds against the US, and possibly against democracy, throughout this century. Before the war, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak cautioned that a US invasion of Iraq would create "a hundred Bin Ladens." That is likely to prove a conservative estimate.

COMMENT: Finally someone has written about Bush dumping from the list of foriegn policy priorities the containment of States that are nuclear-armed, so as to add at the top a pre-emptive war against "easy" Iraq, which was contained and deterred—and disarmed, thereby having as its legacy the memory of identifying the wrong enemy, attacking it for the wrong reasons (WMD), and by doing so strengthened our real enemy, the transnational terrorists of September 11 - a self-sabotage of the struggle against Islamist terrorism. I do wish the rich and corporate would hire competent help.



New York Times accidents and mistakes not mentioned in the recent Editorial mea culpa:

Whitewater "scandal"/hoax that lasted for six years and, indeed w/ Washington Post, still does not admit that Clinton scandals were lies -other than the sex cover up.
Wen Ho Lee "scandal" that was a fake.
All those lies about "Gore lies" in 2000.
The Clinton-crack baby front page above the fold.

[Malva Zebrina]

1. So many have written

so many have.

We will go to the polls to oust this idiot.

Too bad nothing was done to oust him before that.

as it is, he will safely, as has been his modus operandi all of his life, slide by any criticism and will strive then to make the name for himself as the "war president"

and as absurd as we know it is, sheep people will believe he was a Churchillian leader. They will name airports after him and it will not matter that he murdered thousands of innocent people and invaded a country, a weak and defenseless co9untry on lies. They will believe he SHOULD HAVE MURDERED THOSE PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY WERE A THREAT TO US.

It WILL NOT MATTER

Our children will be taught that he was a "war president" that he was a great and wonderful Mr. Murgatroyd, because the writers are and will be intimidated by the Bush rich and wealthy who will threaten them and their family and remove their livelihood if they do not.

They will salivate as they see the image of this idiot landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln with his codpiece prominently and purposefully displayed showing that he indeed has male macho balls that are bigger than anyone in the entire world, even the jolly green giant's, and they will think and believe that this stupid man, this unelected president, who stole the presidency was actually right to steal it, because he invaded Iraq and got their oil. We will reign over them brown skinned Muslims and Bush was the guy to do it, by golly.

Yippee--

I believe that is the truth.

[physioex]

2. Great article, Thank You...

But it is a bit optimistic to suggest that a major agreement in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is possible....