From Zaman in Turkey:
While the situation in Iraq is getting completely out of control, groups and individuals who encouraged America to attack Iraq, declare war on it and occupy it are trying to disappear and make themselves forgotten.According to news, one of the most important of these groups, the PNAC (Project for the New American Century), has decided to close its office on Washington’s 17th Avenue.
Very active with many people coming and going until recently, this office today has only one employee working to complete wind-up operations.
The PNAC’s website has turned into a ghost site; only voice mail remains as an e-mail service.
The PNAC was one of the most prominent and powerful of the new conservative (neocons) movement’s institutions.
The first target they announced was to make the values and policies of “real conservatism” dominant in the Republican Party and America in general.
That makes one neocon ‘think’ thank less.
A sign of bankruptcy of US neo-conservatism.
However, similar organizations, like the American Enterprise Institute of Dick Cheney, Enron, Jeff Gannon … er … Jim Guckert, Ayaan Hirsi Ali … er … Magan, the great ‘thinker’ Ann Coulter, are still around.
American Enterprise Institute and Iraq war: here.
PNAC and Iraq war: here.
See also here.
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 12:12:35 -0400
From: hapi22
Subject: *What’s next?*
Have we all forgotten the neocons’ Project for the New American Century
(PNAC)?
You can read about the PNAC here: http://www.newamericancentury.org/
* the neocons’ “Statement of Principles,” written June 3, 1997, at:
http://www.newameric…mentofprinciples.htm
* “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” (written in Sept. 2000, before Bush
was even elected) at:
http://www.newameric…AmericasDefenses.pdf
* and about the neocon’s’ plans to rule Iraq at:
http://www.newameric….org/iraq-042005.pdf
The neocons wrote the PNAC for the first President Bush, expecting him
to implement its provisions in his second term. Bush never had a second
term, so the neocons put their plan for world domination on the shelf
and waited .. waited for the next right-winger to win the White House.
In Nov. 2000, they sensed victory, took the plan off the shelf and …
got ready … to rule the world through the use of our mighty military
power. They knew they had the Useful Idiot in George W. Bush and that
their time had come.
Having dragged the country into an unnecessary war, they
ignored allies and military professionals who warned that a
far larger force would be needed to stabilize a large,
fragmented nation like Iraq. They haven’t demonstrated
American strength, they’ve dramatized American weakness
halfway around the world. Afraid to admit error, they have no
clue what to do next.
It’s bad enough that we had these boobies wanting to rule the world, but
they couldn’t even plan correctly for doing it — and thousands of
lives, American and Iraq, have been lost or ruined.
These neocons and their Useful Idiot should all be behind bars.
——————– ——————– ——————– ————
*What’s next?*
by Gene Lyons
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
June 15, 2005
For the longest time, all the Bush White House had to do to answer
critics of the war in Iraq was to unfurl Old Glory. The time for
flag-waving, however, appears to be ending. According to a USA
Today/Gallup poll, almost six in 10 Americans think the U.S. should
start bringing the troops home ASAP. Only 36 percent, roughly the
hard-core Republican base, want them to stay. Majorities in several
polls say the war wasn’t worth the sacrifice and doubt that Iraq was
ever a threat to the United States. Would-be soldiers are voting with
their feet. Despite lowering standards to include drug users and
small-time criminals, Army recruiters keep significantly missing their
enlistment quotas. Marine recruiters aren’t doing much better. There’s
even talk of a renewed draft, but that’s not going to happen. The kinds
of student deferments that helped patriots like Vice President Dick
Cheney (and me) stay out of Vietnam wouldn’t pass muster today. But any
move to pluck Young Republicans out of the nation’s high schools and
colleges would alter the balance of American politics overnight.
Even the generals are beginning to say they see no military solution for
the Iraqi disaster. On Memorial Day, Cheney claimed the Iraqi insurgency
was in its “last throes.” President Bush has expressed similar optimism.
Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, the Army’s spokesman in Baghdad, sees things
differently, saying: “I think the more accurate way to approach this
right now is to concede that… this insurgency is not going to be
settled, the terrorists and the terrorism in Iraq is not going to be
settled, through military options or military operations. It’s going to
be settled in the political process.”
Maybe if everybody who believes in that process simply closes his eyes
and claps his hands, a solution to Iraq’s centuries-old ethnic and
religious strife will magically appear. Meanwhile, Gen. George W. Casey,
the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has complained to reporters about what
he called “the Pillsbury Doughboy” effect: Pressing the insurgents hard
in one area only causes outbreaks of violence elsewhere.
Lt. Col. Frederick P. Wellman, who works with the task force training
Iraqi troops, was even blunter. In an interview with Tom Lasseter of
Knight-Ridder, one of the few journalistic organizations to apply
appropriate skepticism in the coverage all along, Wellman said that
tribal members’ seeking revenge for slain relatives keeps the insurgency
growing. “We can’t kill them all,” he said. “When I kill one, I create
three.”
And what about those newly trained Iraqi troops? Here’s what one
outspoken American soldier told The Washington Post, according to its
recent news story: “‘ know the party line. You know, the Department of
Defense, the U.S. Army, five-star generals, four-star generals,
President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld: The Iraqis will be ready in whatever
time period,’ said 1 st Lt. Kenrick Cato, 34, of Long Island, N. Y….
‘But from the ground, I can say with certainty they won’t be ready
before I leave. And I know I’ll be back in Iraq, probably in three or
four years. And I don’t think they’ll be ready then. ‘”
In a stunning piece of journalism, the Post’s Anthony Shadid, who speaks
fluent Arabic, and his colleague Steve Fainaru recently spent several
days on patrol with an Iraqi Army company and the Pennsylvania National
Guardsmen charged with training them. What they found was profound
mutual contempt.
The Americans call the Iraqis “preschoolers with guns” and deride them
for cowardice. The Iraqis, who unanimously said they enlisted only for
the money, predicted that the entire company would desert on payday. On
patrol, they wear face scarves and masks so nobody will recognize them
and sing songs praising Saddam Hussein that their American counterparts
can’t understand. “Look at the homes of the Iraqis,” an Iraqi soldier
complained to a Post reporter. “The people have been destroyed.” “By
whom?” he was asked. “Them,” said the man, identified as Omar, pointing
at the U.S. Humvees leading the patrol.
Let’s get back to basics. Nobody ever asked the American people if they
wanted an empire. Instead, the geopolitical daydreamers involved with
the “Project for a New American Century” — Cheney, Rummy, Paul
Wolfowitz et al. — conceived a scheme to conquer Iraq after the first
Gulf War to ensure that the U.S. remain the world’s lone” superpower. ”
The first President Bush knew better, refusing to march into Baghdad
lest chaos ensue. Knowing little geography and less history, the second
President Bush was easily tempted into rashness, using the 9/11 attacks
to concoct a bogus threat largely out of his advisers’ fevered
imaginations. Having dragged the country into an unnecessary war, they
ignored allies and military professionals who warned that a far larger
force would be needed to stabilize a large, fragmented nation like Iraq.
They haven’t demonstrated American strength, they’ve dramatized American
weakness halfway around the world. Afraid to admit error, they have no
clue what to do next.>>
– – – – – – — – – – – – – –
Free-lance columnist Gene Lyons is a Little Rock author and recipient of
the National Magazine Award.
Read this at: http://tinyurl.com/cgwzm
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