American Neo Conservatives pushing War?

[belinda]

http://abc.net.au/4corners/content/2003/transcripts/s801456.htm

This link is to a transcript of a TV show recently broadcast here. What I want to know, is this concept of the neo-conservatives pushing for a war for their own reasons being debated or even noticed in the US?

Certainly more likely than the "blood for oil" line...


(edited for spelling)

[subgenius]

By of all people Pat Buchanan:
Buchanan Charges Neocons With 'Warmongering'
Tue Mar 11 2003 11:53:48 ET

In this week's AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE, editor Pat Buchanan issues a controversial, 5000-word indictment of the 'War Party' of Bennett, Kristol, Podhoretz and Richard Perle.

MORE

The magazine will hit newsstands and bookstores tomorrow. With quotes and citations, Buchanan alleges:


'War Party' ideas and plans for an attack on Iraq had been 'in preparation far in advance of 9/11, and when President Bush was looking for a new front,' the neocons 'put their precooked meal in front of him. And Bush dug into it.'


Richard Perle wrote a paper urging Israeli PM Netanyahu to dump the Oslo Peace Accords and target Iraq -- five years before 9/11.


Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith urged Israel to ditch the Oslo and take back the West Bank though 'the price in blood would be high,' three years before the Camp David talks.


Pentagon official David Wurmser urged the U.S. to act in concert with Israel to 'strike fatally...the regimes of Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Tehran and Gaza' -- nine months before 9/11.


Bennett, Kristol, Podhoretz 'seized on the horrific atrocity [of September 11] to steer America¹s rage into all-out war to destroy their despised enemies, the Arab and Islamic Œrogue states that have resisted U.S. hegemony and loathe Israel.'


The neocon vision is 'to conscript American blood to make the world safe for Israel....[They] seek American empire and the Sharonites seem hegemony over the Middle East. The two agendas coincide precisely.'


Buchanan charges Max Boot of the WSJ and Lawrence Kaplan of New Republic with 'playing the anti-Semitic card....to fend off critics by assassinating their character and impugning their motives.
http://drudgereport.com/flash1.htm

[corplinx]

"neo conservatives" sounds so neat

[aerocontrols]

Yes we are pushing for war with Iraq. I, for one, have been doing so since 1998.

It seems to me that it's fairly common knowledge if you're an American who is paying attention.

MattJ

[subgenius]

Originally posted by belinda
http://abc.net.au/4corners/content/2003/transcripts/s801456.htm

This link is to a transcript of a TV show recently broadcast here. What I want to know, is this concept of the neo-conservatives pushing for a war for their own reasons being debated or even noticed in the US?

(edited for spelling)
Thanks for asking.
You have to understand that the US is behind the world in objective in depth news reporting/analysis, despite all the BS whining about the "liberal" media (a total distraction technique).

[Frank Newgent]

Originally posted by belinda
What I want to know, is this concept of the neo-conservatives pushing for a war for their own reasons being debated or even noticed in the US?


Yessiree. (http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/030317fa_fact)

[a_unique_person]

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: When Saddam Hussein and his regime are nothing more than a horrible memory, the United States will remain committed to helping the Iraqi people establish a free, prosperous and peaceful Iraq that can serve as a beacon for the entire region.

JONATHAN HOLMES: And 12 days ago, the President officially signed on to the vision. The man who came to office declaring that American forces should not get involved in nation-building has committed his country to the most ambitious nation-building exercise since Macarthur ruled Japan. Significantly, Bush was speaking to the members of the neo-cons' own think tank - the American Enterprise Institute.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions. America's interests in security and America's belief in liberty both lead in the same direction - to a free and peaceful Iraq.

JONATHAN HOLMES: To many foreign-policy veterans in Washington, these visions smack almost of fantasy.

DOUGLAS FEITH: We've begun our thinking. We've laid down some principles.

JONATHAN HOLMES: Two weeks ago, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee gave the Administration a bi-partisan grilling. It was grossly underestimating, the senators clearly felt, the risks and likely costs of the commitment that America is now making in Iraq.

SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN, DEMOCRAT, DELAWARE: Are we gonna make sure we don't do what we've done in Afghanistan? We have now safely committed the fate of Afghanistan, in a large part, to the warlords. To state the obvious, Iraq is a heck of a lot more complicated, a heck of a lot more sophisticated and they live in a neighbourhood that is very, very, very, very complex.

JONATHAN HOLMES: The Administration hasn't warned the American people, the senators complained, of the need for a long and expensive postwar occupation.

SENATOR RICHARD LUGAR, REPUBLICAN, INDIANA: A huge number are not with us on what we're talking about today. In other words, they haven't even come to the table of understanding.

JONATHAN HOLMES: It's being overoptimistic about America's likely reception in Iraq.

SENATOR RUSSELL FEINGOLD, DEMOCRAT, WISCONSIN: The United States may well find itself asserting authority over what may well be a substantially hostile people.

JONATHAN HOLMES: And it's left America's allies deeply sceptical of its postwar vision.

SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN: Every European leader I've met with the last year is worried you don't have any plan. Because they've heard all this rhetoric about no nation-building, heard all this rhetoric about we're warriors, we're going to fight the war and leave. They've heard all this rhetoric, and guess what. They believe our rhetoric. Fortunately, we don't. But they believe it.



like i've been saying, the quick fix in afghanistan ignores the reality of life under the warlords. the promise of nation building in Iraq may be so much hot air after the 200 Billion is spent on invading it. Many conservatives want nothing more than to go in, 'kick butt', and get out.

[Kodiak]

I knew it wouldn't be long before the conspiracy theorists started showing up... :rolleyes:

This neo-conservative (whatever the hell that means...) is pushing for Iraqi compliance...

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
Many conservatives want nothing more than to go in, 'kick butt', and get out.

and many liberals have never seen a Republican-proposed military conflict they didn't automatically hate...

Where was the outrage and condemnation when Clinton went after Milosevic?

Oh yeah...I forgot that France and Germany begged for us to deal with Kosovo... :rolleyes:

[Frank Newgent]

High integrity and your democratic morality?

http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/030317fa_fact


Four members of the Defense Policy Board told me that the board, which met most recently on February 27th and 28th, had not been informed of Perle’s involvement in Trireme. One board member, upon being told of Trireme and Perle’s meeting with Khashoggi, exclaimed, “Oh, get out of here. He’s the chairman! If you had a story about me setting up a company for homeland security, and I’ve put people on the board with whom I’m doing that business, I’d be had”—a reference to Gerald Hillman, who had almost no senior policy or military experience in government before being offered a post on the policy board. “Seems to me this is at the edge of or off the ethical charts. I think it would stink to high heaven.”

Hillman, a former McKinsey consultant, stunned at least one board member at the February meeting when he raised questions about the validity of Iraq’s existing oil contracts. “Hillman said the old contracts are bad news; he said we should kick out the Russians and the French,” the board member told me. “This was a serious conversation. We’d become the brokers. Then we’d be selling futures in the Iraqi oil company. I said to myself, ‘Oh, man. Don’t go down that road.’” Hillman denies making such statements at the meeting.

[specious_reasons]

Originally posted by corplinx
"neo conservatives" sounds so neat

Yup, it was coined in the 90s by the Republicans, generally defined as the young conservatives that came into power with Newt Gingrich in 1994.

I have to deal with insults all the time because of my liberal leanings, but you're getting huffy over a term the neo-conservatives coined to describe themselves? :rolleyes:

[aerocontrols]

Originally posted by specious_reasons


Yup, it was coined in the 90s by the Republicans, generally defined as the young conservatives that came into power with Newt Gingrich in 1994.

I have to deal with insults all the time because of my liberal leanings, but you're getting huffy over a term the neo-conservatives coined to describe themselves? :rolleyes:

I think you've got your history wrong. Neoconervatives (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002840) are older than the 1990s.

Neoconservatives were originally a band of liberals who broke with the Democratic party in the 1970s. Many regular conservatives don't like being called neoconservatives because

1) They aren't neoconservatives since they don't share many of the neoconservative's goals

2) They think that many people are using the term 'neoconservative' as Pat Buchanan is: A reference to Republicans who have allegiance to Israel over the US.

MattJ

[specious_reasons]

Originally posted by aerocontrols


I think you've got your history wrong. Neoconervatives (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002840) are older than the 1990s.

Neoconservatives were originally a band of liberals who broke with the Democratic party in the 1970s. Many regular conservatives don't like being called neoconservatives because

1) They aren't neoconservatives since they don't share many of the neoconservative's goals

2) They think that many people are using the term 'neoconservative' as Pat Buchanan is: A reference to Republicans who have allegiance to Israel over the US.

MattJ

Fair enough. The definition I gave was written by someone who, at the time, identified themselves as neo-conservative. It strikes me as quite likely that that person got the definition wrong. It was David Brock, after all

...or even more likely, neo-conservative means different things to different people. I wonder how many "neo-conservative" movements there are.