« Tollbooth Trouble | Main | Problem Solved » The Search for an Enemy05 Jul 2007 01:31 pm James Fallows, reports that according to Gary Hart and Lee Hamilton, Lynn Cheney wanted to start a war with China back in the pre-9/11 era. According to Francis Fukuyama among Bill Kristol and his circle in the 90s "There was actually a deliberate search for an enemy because they felt that the Republican Party didn't do as well" in the absence of a pressing foreign threat, and the consensus was that the enemy should be China. These are crazy people. Comments (64)
Indeed, politics is a continuation of war by other means for these people. They have no respect for others' views of any stripe, or for reason itself--they're perfect sophists. Just watch Bill Kristol's mouth move, week in and week out. They don't believe in democracy or coalition-building politics--they want only to be in charge of a conspiracy of the righteous. It's about triumph of the will. First, they mindgame us; then if that fails, they pimpslap some useful examples--make George Voinovich cry, or off Tom Daschle via campaign chicanery, or simply jack you in an alley. And they really, really want to nuke some convenient alien nation. They're just jonesing for it--as if it will inaugurate some ultimate victory, clarity, closure, maybe even singularity. Glenn Greenwald's book, A Tragic Legacy, outlines the compatible metaphysics of these lunatics, which fate was so unkind as to bring together over our heads. 
Hey, at least Lynn wanted to pick on someone our own size.
good thing her husband's cooler head prevailed. much better to take on a third-world tinpot dictator whose military had been decimated by years of sanctions and border bombings. imagine how many more deaths they would have caused against a real enemy.
War as an aid to domestic politics. And China, too. Lawks. What a world.
I think Mexico is the next big growth area as far as national security threats are concerned. Think of the synergies that can be created by combining anti-terrorist rhetoric and anti-immigrant rhetoric. The political rate of return will be very handsome for the GOP.
Land war in Asia. My, these people are fracking brilliant.
Matt, You might want to amend the "quotation" from Fukuyama to reflect that he actually says "I think" at every stage he *speculates* about the Kristol/Weekly Standard approach. The way you have quoted it suggests that Fukuyama actually was part of conversations or something that confirm his speculation. The conversation he had on bloggingheads does not reflect any such first-hand knowledge of what motivated Kristol and company however. Perhaps Kristol is "crazy," but there's scant evidence in what you link to to establish it.
While we're at it, we can invade Brazil and try to conquer the Amazon. What a bunch of fucking idiots. The Fukuyama quote needs to be hammered into every foreign policy debate. These guys are so obsessed with not repeating Munich they find a new Hitler on every rock who, rather conveniently, can only be defeated by electing Republicans. If you spend your entire life trying to be a "Great Man of History," you just end of leaving a legacy of death.
Now you're just being unfair, Apprentice. I mean, the first Cheney grandson was born in 1994, and by 2000, it was no slam dunk for the Cheneys to have watched The Princess Bride with their grandchildren...... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Cheney
I don't know that this is really news. I mean, maybe it is in relation to Lynne Cheney, I dunno. But the right wasn't exactly shy about pumping up China as enemy du jour back in those days. I remember all these alarmist hardcover books on display in Barnes & Noble about the growing menace. It was so transparently artificial.
Bill, Fukuyama used to friends with the Weekly Standard / PNAC crew; in fact, he was the most respected neocon for simply being the most intelligent, engaging and interesting. The difference is he chose reality over party and ideology, while the rest didn't. What do you think was behind Brooks's "national greatness" essays in the Weekly Standard? The idea that we should engage in foolish foreign adventures just to feel good about ourselves has been very important to getting neocons into power.
This wouldn't have anything to do with the U.S. spy plane that was forced down after flying through Chinese air space, now would it? Nah.
"Crazy" isn't exactly the right word... I'd go with "amoral"
Agreed that this isn't really news. It was pretty clear this was what was going on during the spy plane incident Pocket Rocket alluded to. Weekly Standard had a real drumbeat going around that time. The funny thing about China is that according to last week's New Yorker, Rupert Murdoch, of all people, has long slanted his media coverage to be pro-China in order to advance his business interests over there. Evidently it didn't affect the Standard, but it might have been interesting to see how Fox News and the NY Post would have handled a confrontation with China.
That China was the replacement for the U.S.S.R. as a new cold war opponent in 2001 was pretty obvious. Pocket Rocket's pithy point is right on. Not only did the Republicans need another superpower to help cement their image as "serious" on foreign policy, but the need for vast new weapons systems would funnel huge sums of tax dollars to reliable Republican donors. It is a beautifully self-reinforcing system.
Oh I hope Kristol, Fukuyama, Cheney and the whole sick lot of them get grilled on this. [Probably only Jon Stewart will rise to the challenge, but it's worth hoping.] They would send tens of thousands of men and women to risk death and dismemberment just so they can win the next election. Just so they can pass more tax cuts. Treasonous, as far as I'm concerned.
I know I am very often guilty of talking in broad strokes, and it's definitely a failing of mine. But I don't think it's out of line for me to say that, for a great many conservatives, war is simply preferable to peace. And that's nuts.
It was clear at the time that someone wanted a war with China. During the spy plane incident, there was an Onion headline: "First chapter of Sino-American war of 2011 already written"
Re "These are crazy people." Just in case.
Explains why they believe - really believe - winning a war on terror is a losing proposition. bin Laden is more valuable alive than dead, after all. And that their incompetence might be more than just grand incompetence: it might be conflicted grand incompetence.
Re "bin Laden is more valuable alive than dead, after all" Which puggy Vice-President was on Kazakhstan's Energy Board in the 1990s is left as an exercise for the reader. Which Secretary of State had a Chevron oil tanker named after her is also left as an exercise for the reader.
Reality Man, You say "The idea that we should engage in foolish foreign adventures just to feel good about ourselves has been very important to getting neocons into power." Doesn't "reality" suggest otherwise? President Bush ran for office the first time around eschewing the kinds of ideas that were being espoused by the neocons; he promised a "humbler" foreign policy, remember? 9/11 brought a sea-change to the President's rhetoric and approach, and that gave the neocons there opening. But their ideology was then embraced (mistakenly, of course) by the so-called "liberal hawks" and by the country more generally, not "to feel good about ourselves" but to bring some good about in the Middle East. I take it that Kristol still thinks this a good idea, and that only the bungling of the Rumsfeld crew is to blame for things seeming otherwise. I disagree with him on this, and believe I was naive ever to have thought the Iraq War would bring a wave of democritization. But I don't think Kristol is "crazy" or "evil" for clinging to his idealism in this regard--I just think he's wrong.
But the right wasn't exactly shy about pumping up China as enemy du jour back in those days. I remember all these alarmist hardcover books on display in Barnes & Noble about the growing menace. It was so transparently artificial. True. But don't forget about scare-stories in prominent magazines like....The Atlantic Monthly. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200506/kaplan ("How We Would Fight China") "We" aren't fighting shit. That didn't stop the Atltantic from running this story from a third-rate neo-con hack, complete with racist cover photo of the "yellow menace" no less!
After the Berlin Wall fell there was a transparent search for the next enemy. The possibility of demobilizing was never considered (though there was some reduction in force I think). The candidates, as I remember, were China, Islam, "narcoterrorism", and "environmental terrorism". Timber interests still want to lump Earth First! and Greenpeace in with al Qaeda, and I believe that there have been some legal cases treating saboteurs as terrorists.
No, Kristol is indeed crazy. In the sense that his brain is functionally removed from reasonable and rational thinking, that is. And evil is just a linguistic construct to help us conceptualize bad behavior on a grand scale, bad in the sense of no benefit except to those who profit from death and suffering and destruction. Kristols idealism is so ignorant and inhuman that to hold that particular view is inherently insane. Just because he's articulate and mild mannered matters NOT in any part of this debate. People say G Bush is charming in person, when he chooses I would add, that doesn't make him any less reprehensible and contemptible.
P. Rocket: Dick Cheney in fact was the leading hardliner within the administration during the Hainan incident.
"There was actually a deliberate search for an enemy because they felt that the Republican Party didn't do as well" in the absence of a pressing foreign threat, and the consensus was that the enemy should be China. Well, some of us dirty fucking hippies have been saying this for years, and people look at us like we're conspiracy nutcases. once again, the DFH's are right.
No doubt she was under the spell of the "Blue Team," a group of pro-Taiwan China hawks that came out from the shadows a bit during the 2001 fighter plane crisis.
Doesn't "reality" suggest otherwise? President Bush ran for office the first time around eschewing the kinds of ideas that were being espoused by the neocons; he promised a "humbler" foreign policy, remember? Bill, "reality" isn't what comes out of George's mouth. Remember that the intelligence agencies had already been tasked in a full review of Iraq in hopes of ginning up conflict BEFORE 9/11. "reality" is what happens in the world of actions, not words. Perhaps your quotes were intended to refer to the faux reality of political talking points.
Crazy or not, Kristol must be feeling kind of crappy about how this is working out. http://www.newamericancentury.org/def_natl_sec_pdf_07.pdf Kristol in 2000: "A strong America capable of projecting force quickly and with devastating effect to important regions of the world would make it less likely that challengers to regional stability will attempt to alter the status quo in their favor. It might even deter them from undertaking expensive efforts to arm themselves for such a challenge....the message we should be sending to potential foes is: 'Don't even think about it.'" So when we barged into Iraq like a car full of Keystone cops we sure sent the wrong message. Iran and North Korea were not impressed. Yep, he's crazy. So in 2000 Iraq looked so much like Germany, Japan, the Dominican Republic and Panama to Kristol, that he could barely tell them apart. Ooops. His bad. Too bad other people's children are dying for his boo-boo.
As much as you'd like to make this into a neo-con thing, there was, and still is, a real fear among foreign policy realists of China's growing power. John Mearsheimer, for example, can't stand Bush, wouldn't be caught dead reading the Weekly Standard, and is certain China will be the next threat to American power. Personally, I'd rather have leadership that is looking around and aware of what the next threat is going to be. Unfortunately, there's one problem to the claim that Bush and the crazy GOP wanted a war with China. Back in April 2001, BEFORE 9/11, during the Hainan Island incident (the spy plane that crash landed in China), the Bush administration gave a groveling apology to Beijing. Not exactly the actions of someone looking for a foreign enemy to fight.
If the Bush admin wanted to ramp up conflict with China, they had the perfect pretext in the spy plane incident. Instead, Bush's testicles slithered up to his throat and trembled. Murdoch is but one example. The US business class has too much money to make off China to permit the US actually to oppose its rise. What the neocons would hope for is something like the situation with Saudi Arabia. As the leading promulgator of Sunni fundamentalism and the leading funder of Islamic terrorism, SA is a logical adversary of the United States. And it is portrayed as such in popular culture, being, along with Iran, the centerpiece of Arab demonization. But SA is actually our close ally for business reasons, which prevail. This sort of double game requires the public to tolerate a lot of cognitive dissonance, and is wearing thin with regard to SA. With China, it would be even more difficult, as China knows that, unlike SA, time is on its side, which gives us less leverage to keep the game within our desired parameters. Hence, China as the villain was inoperative; it would require actually acting against China, which the business class will not tolerate.
I don't think Kristol is "crazy" for clinging to his idealism in this regard What's that old saying about doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result? "More troops, more troops, stay in Iraq just a little longer!"
One could argue that the Democratic Party doesn't do as well in the absence of pressing "crises" (health care, global warming) that provide the pretext for statist, anti-market policies.
amazing isn't it, how worried so many different folks in the GOP were about the lack of a war or enemy to make them look better. and somehow, miraculously, the world's greatest justification for ongoing, never-ending war just happens to drop into their laps shortly after taking power. its getting to be too much of a coincidence to overlook shit like this anymore. between statements like this and the declaration in the PNAC that Americans would be unlikely to support the ongoing, never-ending war that the GOP wanted unless another Pearl Harbor happened. what, if anything, would anyone put past these people at this point. if dick cheney could blow up a part of an american city, and he knew it would help him financially and politically, does anyone anymore think for one second that he would hesitate to do it?
Nice to have this confirmed. The speculation has crossed my mind a number of times when I've had occasion to look back at that period. The signs of an effort to gin up a confrontation with China were there, and in retrospect they have the same stink of casting about for a reason to go to war that the run up to Iraq had. Not to mention the run up to Iran. Never had time to pull the references together and write it up myself, but I'm surprised it hasn't been pointed out sooner.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf Those PNAC guys could predict everything with 100 accuracy. I'm really glad Bush is still listening to them. From "A Report of The Project for the New American Century, September 2000" "The surplus expected in federal revenues over the next decade, however, removes any need to hold defense spending to some preconceived low level." "Today, the United States has an unprecedented strategic opportunity. It faces no immediate great-power challenge; it is blessed with wealthy, powerful and democratic allies in every part of the world; it is in the midst of the longest economic expansion in its history; and its political and economic principles are almost universally embraced. At no time in history has the international security order been as conducive to American interests and ideals." Among most important recommended strategies: "Reposition U.S. Forces to respond to 21st century strategic realities by shifting permanently-based forces to Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia, and by hanging naval deployment patterns to reflect growing U.S. strategic concerns in East Asia." They got confused here, and THOUGHT they were describing conditions in 2000. In reality they experienced a glimpse into the future that is stunning in its correctness. "Today’s force . . . suffers from degraded combat readiness; from difficulties in recruiting and retaining sufficient numbers of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines; from the effects of an extended “procurement holiday” that has resulted in the premature aging of most weapons systems; from an increasingly obsolescent and inadequate military infrastructure; from a shrinking industrial base poorly structured to be the “arsenal of democracy” for the 21st century; from a lack of innovation that threatens the technological and operational advantages enjoyed by U.S. forces for a generation and upon which American strategy depends. Finally, and most dangerously, the social fabric of the military is frayed and worn. U.S. armed forces suffer from a degraded quality of life divorced from middle-class expectations, upon which an all-volunteer force depends. Enlisted men and women and junior officers increasingly lack confidence in their senior leaders, whom they believe will not tell unpleasant truths to their civilian leaders. In sum, as the American peace reaches across the globe, the force that preserves that peace is increasingly overwhelmed by its tasks." I'm glad Bush is relying on their prognostications, yessiree.
LittlePig, Not sure how what I've said constitutes "talking points." To recap, I've called the Iraq War a mistake and acknowledged my own mistake in taking the liberal hawk position. Nothing in what I wrote depends in any way on the president's sincerity or his grip on reality, which I did not and would not defend. I made the point that the election that brought the neoconservatives to power was not won on a platform of feel-good combativeness, quite the opposite. I did not imply by that that the neocons had not hitherto hoped to take on Iraq--they never made that a secret. But they got into position to realize their long-held plans because of 9/11, and because of the ways 9/11 changed many people's thinking about the Middle East. Cowalker, I don't think any of the 2000 quotations from Kristol demonstrate his craziness. Here's what he needs to defend his ongoing view of the neo-con vision: the premise that Rumsfeld's war management was extraordinarily incompetent and ill-conceived from start to finish. Thus, he can argue, had a reasonably competent SecDef gone into Iraq with a real plan, the neocon vision would have turned out OK. I disagree with this, but I can't see how it's crazy. Don't you agree that, however ill-conceived the idea of war itself was, Rumsfeld's mismanagement compounded the problems we have over there? I'm inclined to think that the challenges to bringing about any kind of united Iraq are bigger than even the best of planning could have handled, but that's a hunch on my part, albeit rooted in lots of evidence. But given how awful our effort was, undermanned and underplanned from the start, I have to concede that this war does not represent a knock-down-only-a-crazy-man-could-claim-otherwise repudiation of the Kristol vision. If you agree that Rumsfeld was totally incompetent, then presumably your evidence for that view is how badly things have gone in Iraq. But if that's so, then it's a little more complicated than saying "see, we told you so!" to refute the neocon thesis that, but for Rumsfeld, things might have gone as they'd hoped.
One could argue that the Democratic Party doesn't do as well in the absence of pressing "crises" (health care, global warming) that provide the pretext for statist, anti-market policies. Posted by Fred | July 5, 2007 4:12 PM one would not get very far with that argument. name a single anti-market policy any dem has enacted in the past 20 years! ridiculous. what "crisis" got Kennedy, Carter, Clinton elected? none. ongoing problems like global warming, health care etc. continue to be pressing domestic issues because the Dems. are the only part that cares about them, that is true, but they care about them at great political expense to themselves rather than being the party of death and amoral warmongering.
Unfortunately, there's one problem to the claim that Bush and the crazy GOP wanted a war with China. Back in April 2001, BEFORE 9/11, during the Hainan Island incident (the spy plane that crash landed in China), the Bush administration gave a groveling apology to Beijing. Not exactly the actions of someone looking for a foreign enemy to fight. The spy plane incident was useful to establish China as a threat, not as a pretext for all out war. The obvious scenerio was a serious of similar "incidents" along with articles from Kristol and his ilk proclaiming the PLA as on the verge of military superiority (50,000 tanks! 2000 fighter jets!) to drive up defense spending. Again the desire wasn't for a hot war, but a nice, long, cold one.
If you go by PNAC doctrine, they do acknowledge that we are in big, big trouble in Iraq. http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf ". . . .these components [Army National Guard and Army Reserve] are meant to provide a hedge against a genuine, large-scale, unanticipated military emergency; the continuing reliance on large numbers of reservists for constabulary missions is inappropriate and short-sighted." Not a bad description of our current position in Iraq--a genuine, large-scale, unanticipated military emergency. Unanticipated by the administration, anyway.
I think Mexico is the next big growth area as far as national security threats are concerned. Mexico has the great advantage that its territory is contiguous with our own. That means short supply lines... over land! We open up a front "at a time and place of our choosing," capture territory, then expand our perimeters while the Mexicanos are having their siesta. It will amount to fighting the last war... okay, say, about five wars ago... just right for BushCo's average memory loss. On the other hand, Mexico is a pretty big country. It would take us only one or two Friedmans to completely muck up the War on Mexico, and anyway BushCo can't hold anything together for more than a few days at a time. Better to forget the whole Mexico thing. But don't despair. We can still attack Canada! Start by capturing their side of Niagra. According to my theory of literal interpretation of Eighth Grade History, the Canucks never had any right to that anyway.
In order to have an analogy, the Democrats would have to actively create and release a disease like "V for Vendetta".
They need to be Chauchesku'd.
Re the spy plane incident: One of the things 9/11 did was to put the Cheney/neocon faction firmly in the ascendant. Up to then, there was more of a balance between Powell and the relatively rational State Department types on the one hand and the Cheneyite radicals on the other. Achieving a diplomatic resolution to that incident was still regarded as desirable goal among the less insane members of the admin, who at that time still exercised some influence.
If it wasn't for idiots like Bill, crazy insane people would never get elected.
Bill, "... he actually says "I think" at every stage he *speculates* about the Kristol/Weekly Standard approach. The way you have quoted it suggests that Fukuyama actually was part of conversations or something that confirm his speculation. The conversation he had on bloggingheads does not reflect any such first-hand knowledge of what motivated Kristol and company however." Gotta disagree. I watched the Fukuyama vlog in question, and Fukuyama uses "I think" in a rhetorically polychromatic manner that, in context, connotes "I believe," "I remember," and even "I know," in addition to the speculation meaning. It all depends not only on the context but also on his tone of voice and facial expression. And when Fukuyama notes that he never thought the China idea was a good one, (sorry, that's the gist, not a quote), the reasonable deduction was that he was privy enough to to the original conversations that he could state what his opinion was at the time as well as later. I know nothing about the guy, but I know about language and usage, so that's my take on it.
Three things wrong with war with China...
"If you agree that Rumsfeld was totally incompetent, then presumably your evidence for that view is how badly things have gone in Iraq." Hard to believe that this invasion was Mission Accomplished only 4 short years ago. I remember the heated discussions on DU during the run-up to this war. Almost no one there debated the idea that the initial invasion would be anything but a tactical success. As a military exercise, Rumsfield "won" the race to Bagdhad. There was no serious defense of Iraq, because everyone knew that that the old Tiger of the Euphrates was pretty much completely defanged. So the sprint into Bagdhad was the easy, no-brainer part. The basic insanity was- Any sane SecDef would have bailed on this fiasco the minute the VP of Halliburton presented the business plan for Iraq in the secret energy meetings. Perhaps a more competent plan would have tripled the occupying force...but that would have simply delayed the inevitable by a few more years. If a bunch of armchair analysts in the peanut gallery could figure this out, where were the collective wise old pros in our government, media, and the military during the run-up? What was their excuse?
We can't subdue a country of 22 million or so, never mind China. We need a really small, weak country to be enemies with that we beat the shit out of six months before every election. Guiana? Burkina Faso? Sweden? Nepal? Come on, neocons, you guys are supposed to be great intellectuals. You can do better than this.
Nunya, Um, hard to argue against your argument. Roberta, Um, don't know what you "know" about "rhetorically polychromatic" professions of actual knowledge that take the form (in old fashioned semantic terms) of speculation (i.e., "I think" rather than "I saw," "I know," or "I believe"--ready to hand phrases denoting what you take "I think" to connote here), but my own epistemic bias against "knowledge" based on such inferences is, to say the least, a skeptical one. Innocent Bystander, I hope that I did not imply (polychromatically, in hi-fidelity, or otherwise) that I had any doubts about Rumsfeld's manifest incompetence. My point was that when one believes, as I do, that Rumsfeld was incompetent in conducting the war, then it's more complicated than it would otherwise be to make the claim that the disastrous results of this war demonstrate that NOBODY could have made good in Iraq. I actually believe that the Iraq War was a bad idea no matter who the SecDef was, but it's not totally straightforward to make that case when just about everything we did for the first few years (at least) was wrongheaded. But then, it has been persuasively argued (see Nunya above) that I am an idiot, so perhaps you should find someone smarter to engage on the question. Cheers, Bill
Anyone still doubt Dick's thermite bombs in the basement of the World Trade Center? If so, shame on you!
Gordon Nash in his The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America: Since 1945 made a point similar to Lynn: without a serious external enemy, the many strands of conservatism won't be able to stay together and thus the movement will will lose poltical power.
It's nice this particular bit of madness is being emphasized. But why is it news? Anybody read the Project for a New American Century manifesto? The whole point was supposed to be "containing" China. Reminds me of the wonderful bit in the Pythons "The Meaning of Life" where headmaster Cleese hands out an award for all those Old Boys who gave their lives "to keep China British." Also reminds me of a time I tried to set a pick on a 1200 lb horse to keep him from leaving his open stall without my permission. A big sweetie, he meant no harm. So he simply walked through me. Ever forgotten to set your parking brake and tried to keep your car from rolling downhill? Same sensation. Hey y'all let's set a pick on China!
Ignorant beyond belief, utterly lacking any sense of decency, ethics or morality, devoid of any humanity and these people are in positions of influence and/or power. And none of this is a surprise.
There was actually a deliberate search for an enemy Way back in 1990, I wrote that "Conservatives without looming enemies to fear mightily and battle manfully (the word is chosen deliberately) are a lost and sorry lot." Nothing has changed.
How lucky it was for the city, Vimes thought, that just when it had a dragon that needed killing, a king turned up. He thought about that for a minute. Then he turned it around. How fortunate it is, for a lad who would be king, he wrote, that he should have a dragon to slay to prove his bona fides. -- Terry Pratchett, "Guards! Guards!", 1988.
Bill: Cowalker, I don't think any of the 2000 quotations from Kristol demonstrate his craziness. Here's what he needs to defend his ongoing view of the neo-con vision: the premise that Rumsfeld's war management was extraordinarily incompetent and ill-conceived from start to finish. Thus, he can argue, had a reasonably competent SecDef gone into Iraq with a real plan, the neocon vision would have turned out OK. I disagree with this, but I can't see how it's crazy. Well, the quote I posted had Kristol referring people who doubted we could easily insert a friendly, democratic government into Iraq to our experiences in Japan, Germany, Panama and the Dominican Republic. You could probably make a case for Kristol being utterly ignorant rather than crazy. But given his education and contacts, I still think equating 21st century Iraq with post WWII Japan and Germany, the 1960's Dominican Republic or Panama in 1989 demonstrates a mental problem, namely refusing to acknowledge reality. Wouldn't the realistic comparisons have been with Lebanon and Israel? Even if someone more competent than Rumsfeld had been in charge, there would have been problems no one has yet been able to solve in the Mideast. This mental illness of denying reality is epidemic in the Bush administration. The most egregious example is Bush's fantasy that "History" will prove he was a misunderstood genius.
Cowalker, Please remember that this war was supported by more than neocons. This includes, for instance, Richard Holbrooke, who almost certainly would have been Al Gore's Secretary of State--was he crazy too? I realize that people who opposed the war all along were correct, but the idea that only crazy people would have disagreed with their assumptions is the more toxic problem in our body politic. Kristol has criticized the Administration for claiming things would be "easy" pretty much from the start--he did and does believe it would have been possible to install a friendly government, but it seems Richard Holbrooke and Madeleine Albright must have believed that too. Were they also crazy? I mean, they are pretty well educated and connected. I'm not sure it's worth further debating your diagnosis of "epidemic" madness. We don't disagree on the substance of Iraqi policy or the mistakes that have been made, so far as I can tell. I just don't have the inclination to assume and adopt the rhetoric that those who disagree with me are crazy, and one need not prefer David Broder-esque bipartisanship to lament the quality of political discourse where one cannot be a member in good standing of either party without foaming at the mouth about the other side.
Before 9/11 focused our attention on the Middle East, it seemed pretty clear to me that W was deliberately trying to pick a war with North Korea by rattling sabers and reneging on the deals we had made. But then a better excuse for a war turned up.
but it seems Richard Holbrooke and Madeleine Albright must have believed that too. Were they also crazy? I mean, they are pretty well educated and connected. There were filth, and if there is a hell they need a special circle built for them.
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Heads in the Sand
Of course, where Lynne Cheney is concerned, this is not exactly news.
Posted by Bruce Moomaw | July 5, 2007 1:48 PM