Bomb Saddam?
How the obsession of a few neocon hawks became the central goal of U.S. foreign policy
By Joshua Micah Marshall
Imagine for a moment that you're President George W. Bush. At some point in the next several months you will have to decide whether to overthrow Saddam Hussein--not just to threaten and saber-rattle and hope something gives, but actually to pull the trigger on what could be a very costly and risky military venture. How precisely will you make that decision? It will almost certainly come down to a choice between which of two groups of advisers you choose to believe. One side is comprised of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, most of the career military, nearly every Middle East expert at the State Department, and the vast majority of intelligence analysts and CIA operations officers who know the region. These folks generally think that the idea of attacking Saddam is questionable at best, reckless at worst. On the other side are a few dozen neoconservative think tank scholars and defense policy intellectuals. Few of them have any serious knowledge of the Arab world, the Middle East, or Islam. Fewer still have served in the armed forces. In other words, to give the go-ahead to war with Iraq, you'd have to decide that the experienced hands are all wrong, and throw in your lot with a bunch of hot-headed ideologues. Oh, and one other thing: The last few times, the ideologues have turned out to be right.
To anyone who's followed foreign affairs for the last couple of decades, the names of the neoconservative hawks will be familiar--or, if you're a liberal, chilling. Their eminence grise is Richard Perle, who serves simultaneously as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, a heretofore somnolent committee of foreign policy old-timers that Perle has refashioned into a key advisory group. Of all the hawks, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz probably has the most powerful job inside the Bush administration. A dozen others hold key posts at the State Department and the White House. Most are acolytes of Perle, and also Jewish, passionately pro-Israel, and pro-Likud. And all are united by a shared idea: that America should be unafraid to use its military power early and often to advance its interests and values. It is an idea that infuriates most members of the national security establishment at the Pentagon, State, and the CIA, who believe that America's military force should be used rarely and only as a last resort, preferably in concert with allies.
posted on June 21, 2002 11:24:42 AM new"They cheered on (and in some cases aided) bloody proxy wars in Central America and Africa that did little to hasten the Soviets' demise, but plenty to brutalize entire populations and tarnish America's image abroad."
Precisely. Waste. And Hatred of America and Americans everywhere we go. The Hatred for us is so intense that now they fly airliners into skyscrapers. Americans wonder WHY? WHY do they do this? WHAT did WE ever DO to THEM?
Of course, the last time I pointed this out, there was the crowd who post in here about how we've never done a damned thing to earn the animosity of the world. Or, that Bush, rattling his saberchains at the world, is creating a picture of harmony through America's millitary strength. I still think that's BULL!
sp.
[ edited by Borillar on Jun 21, 2002 11:26 AM ]
posted on June 21, 2002 04:26:13 PM new
Molly's an all-American sweetheart.
I've heard and read so much evasive and dismissive rhetoric in reply to intelligent questioning over the past few months that when I read the excerpt below, the following imagine as analogy just more or less popped into my head.
Ken Adelman was recently asked on television one of those major "what if" questions and actually replied, "Don't worry about that."
posted on June 21, 2002 04:40:30 PM new
[i]"What the hawks hope is that the Iraqi people hate Saddam Hussein and will be delighted to see us show up and liberate them. Unfortunately, we'll have to bomb them first. In case you hadn't
noticed, this tends to make us unpopular. '[/i]
"Marshall reports, "When asked what would happen if America encountered an embittered civilian population after fighting a grisly battle for Baghdad, Perle replied with a question, 'Suppose the Iraqis are dancing in the streets after Saddam is gone?'" That non-answer is based on the false premise that if the Iraqis hate Saddam, they're bound to love us, which is nonsense."
That's what I just said a few days ago and Molly is right.
"Unfortunately, it seems more inclined to question the patriotism of anyone who asks questions."
