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Thursday,
March 25, 2004 |
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Neocons’
agenda is questionable
Patrick
Jennings is a junior economics major from Melbourne,
Fla.
You
may have been hearing various news reports about how the
Bush administration was itching to get at Iraq, even before
the World Trade Center attacks. Unfortunately, it’s
partially true. The people doing the plotting even have
a name: neoconservatives.
What’s a neoconservative, or neocon? A neocon is
generally a person who left the Democratic Party (good
idea) and joined with the Republicans to espouse a doctrine
of pre-emption when dealing with foreign threats (so-so
idea).
All righty, that doesn’t sound too awful. Certainly
the terrorist threat can be interpreted as a need for
more pro-active foreign policy as opposed to a reactive
policy. But the devil is in the details, readers.
Step backward a moment. The Bush administration was formed
with several proud neocons in the ranks. Those people
include Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary
of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and a slew of speechwriters.
There were enough to make their foreign policy line up
with American foreign policy. That’s why you hear
about so much Iraq plotting.
I suggest reading the cover story in the current edition
of “The American Conservative” by Pat Buchanan.
The article touches on many of the points I make in this
column and fully exposes the neocons for what they are.
Moving forward again, look at the details. The neocons
love Israel. I mean, really love those guys. The list
of international threats to squash, both pre- and post-9/11,
reads like a Jewish hit list. Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi
Arabia, Palestine, Libya, Lebanon and more are penciled
into the “enemies” column. It’s a process
of aligning American interests exactly with present Israeli
interests, regardless of what others (Europe) feel.
I’m as Pro-Israel as any sane gentile can be, but
even I can see the folly of these actions. As much as
I support a sovereign Israeli state, it’s not worth
it for America to fight all of their battles. Safety for
Israel and safety for America are not one in the same.
There is some overlap, of course, but Israel can protect
itself.
The neocons would have us fight a string of “wars,”
deport the Palestinians and create an American empire.
Those are actually their words, not the Democrats’.
Our resources are stretched thin as is with two big fights
in Iraq and Afghanistan combined with various smaller
actions in Kosovo, Haiti, et al.
And what happens if we don’t follow the advice of
the neocons? According to them, the terrorists win, America
is destroyed and we’re all praying toward Mecca five
times a day. We must stop all evil everywhere, or be consumed
by it. Terrorism is the chief evil in the current world
and all who support it and use it must be eliminated forever.
Yes, it is as crazy as it sounds. Most Americans won’t
even get up for church every Sunday, so I doubt they’ll
go for religious rituals five times a day. And you won’t
be able to eliminate evil until you can engineer a better
human, something that’s a long way off. Still, the
neocons hold firm to the belief that the ultimate goal
of the Islamists is to make the entire world a Muslim
theocracy. This is in the Koran, but the Muslims really
haven’t been able to do any conquering for a few
hundred years.
Fortunately, the neocons are on the way out. Bush will
survive, don’t worry, but the agenda is as dead as
a doornail. The Bush inner circle (sans Rummy) has realized
fighting wars across the Arab world is somewhere between
idiotic and impossible. The neocons have been proud to
bear their ideology and will soon bear the blame for what
went wrong in Iraq.
The GOP is on its way back to traditional conservatism
and sane foreign policy, and not a moment too soon. |
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