Why I think we are at war

[The Duke]

First, lets establish who the neocons are in the administration.  Cheney isn't one, he is a paleocon and a realist (boy, the realists hit the jackpot when they picked that name for their school of thought on foreignpolicy!), who hates big government.  Rumsfeld is not either, he is another paleocon and realist.  Powell and Rice are not neocons, but realists from the Bush I admin who cut their foreign policy teeth before there was an internet for PNAC to put a website on.  Buhs is nothing, he has no foreign policy ideology.  Who are the neocons then?

Some would point to the second level poeple, the deputy secretaries.  Well, that would be people like Robert Zoellick, John Bolton, John Negroponte, and Richard Armitage, all of whom are regular old conservatives.  A case could be made for Bolton as a neocon in his heritage, but certainly his behavior in making policy towards Korea is not hawkish, and his PSI (Proliferation Security Initiative) is the only policy he took part in making that really bears any resemblence to neocon philosophy.  PSI avoids the international institutions that neocons view as a hinderance to freedom of action.  But even this marginally neocon policy still is very multilateral, just not in a formal sense.  There goes the case even for Bolton.

There are a few people at DoD who qualify as neocons.  Dick Perle (he served on the Defense Policy Board) is one, but he was fired almost a year ago for a conflict of interest issue.  Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith come to mind.  But to say that US foreign policy is driven by neocon ideology when the only place in the Administration you can find a neocon is at DoD, and even there only on a secondary level, is a little shaky.

What people often are never told about neocons is what they actually are.  People should look into the history of these guys, how they became Republicans, what they believe on domestic policy, and the like.  I am not sure if I think that most people have a good grasp of what these guys are.  They are basically big government Republicans, and their foreign policy isn't that different from traditional Republican foreign policy.

[classical liberal]

Dick Cheney is my idol.

We are at war because we are who we are and they are who they are.  The clash is inevitable given our difference and recently renewed contact (internet, satellite TV, etc).  They think that our culture is backwards, and we think that their culture is backwards; we are different therefore we hate each other.  As a result there is a war.  It's simple human nature: people fear what is different, people hate what they fear, people go to war whenever there is a large enough hated entity to justify such an investment.  The anti-War folks are either pansy-ass pinkos or people who think that the investment has a negative RoI.  While there are several instances where our investment could have been sweetened, IMHO it is still a sound investment.

[WMS]

Hey, all... i've been too busy to post for a long time, but just so you know, I am alive

The subject of the repressed photos of flag-draped coffins came up on another site I participate in, and I thought I'd post this little essay here as well:

People on both sides of the political isle don't understand what this war is really about.

This is not a war for oil. If our prime interest was really to secure Iraq's oil fields, US Big Oil could have just visited Iraq with several dumptrucks full of cash and said "you play nice, 'k?" Win-win situation all around.

This is not a war to protect the American people from terrorism. In a world in which our true threat is from Islamist extremists, a secular dictator is the least of our worries. If anything, it keeps us more safe, since Saddam was very good as tearing out all religious extremism at the root. Furthermore, Saddam was smart enough not to try anything stupid, as the world was watching him like a hawk. He was no immediate threat to us.

What this is really about is the neo-conservative ideology that American military might is the solution to the world's ills. The philosophy goes something along the lines of "Hey, we have the most powerful and advanced military in the history of mankind. Why aren't we f-ing using it?" The neo-cons honestly believe that we can make the world a Better Place through force. They have a grand vision that we can democratize and stabilize the world's trouble spots with a few F-14s and Bradley fighting vehicles. That decades- and centruies-old conflicts will be dropped once everyone has freedom and democracy. The intentions are good, but somewhere along line they have forgotten the consequences of invading an occupying a foriegn land, and that war, even with the best of intentions, is hell.

This is why our friends and loved ones are dying.

Now, to cover their asses, because they've gotten themselves tangled up in something they never really thoroughly thought through, they are trying to do as much PR damage control as they possibly can. They think that they are always one or two successful offensives away from ending the conflict, and if they can just candy-coat the war, they'll keep the American public on their side just long enough to finish operations. THAT is why the Bush administration is adamant about keeping these pictures from the public.

Maybe my analysis is incorrect, but things sure look that way with each passing month.

Good to see you back.

I pretty much agree with you, with the sole caveat that, as John D. Ford pointed out, I'm not sure this is really the neo-cons in action. Foreign Policy some issues back had a piece where one of the neo-cons made a pretty good case that they are not running things, but the traditional conservatives are instead.

Rumsfeld should resign just for botching the whole 'guerrilla war? there's no guerrilla war' bit...not to mention the entire woeful lack of postwar planning.

Others in this thread have all made very interesting points! This is one of the best threads I've seen at the Forum...