The Neoconservative Threat to International Order
They are evil. They are
setting up World War III.
Neoconservatism
ex
Wiki
QUOTE
Neoconservatism
is a variant of the political ideology of
conservatism which combines features of traditional conservatism with
political individualism and a qualified endorsement of
free
markets.[1]
Neoconservatism (or new conservatives) is rooted in a group of former liberals [
Mainly Marxist Jews in fact - Editor ]
who in the late 1960s, began to oppose many of the policies and principles
associated with President
Lyndon Johnson's
Great
Society programs.[2]
The term "neoconservative" was initially used in the 1930s to describe American
liberals who criticized other liberals who followed a path closer to Soviet
communism.[3]
The term "neoconservative" was popularized in the United States in 1973 by Socialist leader Michael Harrington, who applied it his opposition to the policy ideas of Daniel Bell, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Irving Kristol.[4]
The "neoconservative" label was embraced by Irving Kristol in his 1979 article "Confessions of a True, Self-Confessed 'Neoconservative.'"[5] His ideas have been influential since the 1950s, when he co-founded and edited Encounter magazine.[6] Another source was Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine from 1960 to 1995. By 1982 Podhoretz was calling himself a neoconservative, in a New York Times Magazine article titled "The Neoconservative Anguish over Reagan's Foreign Policy".[7][8] In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the neoconservatives were driven by "the notion that liberalism" had failed and "no longer knew what it was talking about, " according to E. J. Dionne,[9]
The term neoconservative, which originally was used by a socialist to criticize the politics of Social Democrats, USA,[10] has since 1980 been used as a criticism against proponents of American modern liberalism who had "moved to the right".[5][11] The term "neoconservative" was the subject of increased media coverage during the presidency of George W. Bush,[12][13] with particular focus on a perceived neoconservative influence on American foreign policy, as part of the Bush Doctrine.[14] The term neocon is often used as pejorative in this context.
2000s
[edit] Administration of George W. Bush
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The Bush campaign and the early Bush administration did not exhibit strong support for neoconservative principles. As a presidential candidate, Bush had argued for a restrained foreign policy, stating his opposition to the idea of nation-building[47] and an early foreign policy confrontation with China was handled without the vociferousness suggested by some neoconservatives.[48] Also early in the administration, some neoconservatives criticized Bush's administration as insufficiently supportive of Israel, and suggested Bush's foreign policies were not substantially different from those of President Clinton.[49]
U.S. President George W. Bush with the (at that time) President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak at Camp David in 2002. In November 2010, Bush wrote in his memoir Decision Points claiming Mubarak supported the administration's position that Iraq had WMDs in the lead up to the war with the country, but kept it private for fear of "inciting the Arab street."[50]
Bush's policies changed dramatically immediately after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Bush laid out his vision of the future in his State of the Union speech in January 2002, following the September 11, 2001, attacks. The speech named Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as states that "constitute an axis of evil" and "pose a grave and growing danger". Bush suggested the possibility of preemptive war: "I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."[51][52]
Some prominent defense and national-security personalities have been quite critical of what they believed was neoconservative influence in getting the United States to war with Iraq.[53]
Nebraska Republican U.S. senator Chuck Hagel, who has been critical of the Bush administration's adoption of neoconservative ideology, in his book America: Our Next Chapter wrote:
-
"So why did we invade Iraq? I believe it was the triumph of the so-called neo-conservative ideology, as well as Bush administration arrogance and incompetence that took America into this war of choice. . . . They obviously made a convincing case to a president with very limited national security and foreign policy experience, who keenly felt the burden of leading the nation in the wake of the deadliest terrorist attack ever on American soil."
[edit] Bush Doctrine
The Bush Doctrine of preventive war was explicitly stated in the National Security Council text "National Security Strategy of the United States," published September 20, 2002. "We must deter and defend against the threat before it is unleashed . . . even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack... The United States will, if necessary, act preemptively."[54]
The choice to not use the word 'preventive' in the 2002 National Security Strategy, and instead use the word 'preemptive' was largely in anticipation of the widely perceived illegality of preventive attacks in international law, via both Charter Law and Customary Law.[55]
Policy analysts noted that the Bush Doctrine as stated in the 2002 NSC document bore a strong resemblance to recommendations originally presented in a controversial Defense Planning Guidance draft written in 1992 by Paul Wolfowitz, under the first Bush administration.[56]
The Bush Doctrine was greeted with accolades by many neoconservatives. When asked whether he agreed with the Bush Doctrine, Max Boot said he did, and that “I think [Bush is] exactly right to say we can’t sit back and wait for the next terrorist strike on Manhattan. We have to go out and stop the terrorists overseas. We have to play the role of the global policeman. . . . But I also argue that we ought to go further.”[57] Discussing the significance of the Bush Doctrine, neoconservative writer William Kristol claimed: “The world is a mess. And, I think, it’s very much to Bush’s credit that he's gotten serious about dealing with it. . . . The danger is not that we’re going to do too much. The danger is that we're going to do too little.”[58]
[edit] 2008 Presidential election and aftermath
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John McCain, who was the Republican candidate for the 2008 United States Presidential election, supported continuing the Iraq War, "the issue that is most clearly identified with the neoconservatives". The New York Times further reported that his foreign policy views combined elements of neoconservative and the main competing view in conservative circles, pragmatism, also called realism:[59]
Among [McCain's advisers] are several prominent neoconservatives, including Robert Kagan . . . Max Boot . . . John R. Bolton . . . [and] Randy Scheunemann. "It may be too strong a term to say a fight is going on over John McCain’s soul," said Lawrence Eagleburger . . . who is a member of the pragmatist camp, . . . [but he] said, "there is no question that a lot of my far right friends have now decided that since you can't beat him, let's persuade him to slide over as best we can on these critical issues."
Barack Obama campaigned for the Democratic nomination in 2008, by attacking his opponents, especially Hillary Clinton, for originally supporting Bush's Iraq-war policies. He gave the impression he would reverse such policies. However, Obama adopted the main points of the Bush policy in Iraq, naming Clinton to the State Department and keeping Robert Gates (Bush's Defense Secretary), and David Petraeus (Bush's top general in Iraq), as well as implementing the Bush "surge" of military force. Yet by 2010, U.S. forces had switched from combat to a training role in Iraq.[60]
[edit] Evolution of views
Neoconservatism: Why We Need it is a 2006 book written by Douglas Murray. The book's main aim is to describe how neoconservatism offers a coherent platform from which to tackle ...
Isolationism In America
QUOTE
Non-interventionism, the diplomatic policy whereby a nation seeks to
avoid alliances with other nations in order to avoid being drawn into wars not
related to direct territorial self-defense, has had a long history in the
United States. It is a form of
"realism".
Non-interventionism on the part of the United States over the course of its foreign policy, is more of a want to aggressively protect the United States' interests than a want to shun the rest of the world.
Non-intervention, sometimes referred to as military non-interventionism, seems to some to be the antithesis of isolationism.[1] Maintaining the participation of the United States in global economic affairs is thought to likely boost trade and expand US diplomacy, in the view of Edward A. Olsen.[1]
Early background
Thomas Paine is generally credited with instilling the first
non-interventionist ideas into the American body politic; his work
Common Sense contains many arguments in favor of avoiding alliances.
These ideas introduced by Paine took such a firm foothold that the
Second Continental Congress struggled against forming an alliance with
France and only
agreed to do so when it was apparent that the
American Revolutionary War could be won in no other manner.
George Washington's farewell address is often cited as laying the foundation for a tradition of American non-interventionism:
The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
UNQUOTE
Believe the Wiki? Maybe. If it's political it's dodgy.
