TCU Daily Skiff 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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