A Fresh Wind is Blowing Against the Empire.
"People can try and fool themselves that...Obama truly wants peace. The reality of facts on the ground dispute this. We are deceiving ourselves if we think otherwise. Obama is fully on the trajectory of the Empire, there is no denying this…I do not place the blame for imperial violence on any president: It is the system...What can the people do to counteract our governments that don’t have our best interests in mind?"
- Cindy Sheehan
Fresh Winds Blow Against the Empire, as the Nation Tires of Futile, Endless, Back-Breaking War.
republicmedia.tv (http://tiny.cc/ewjrmtv6sep09)
Conservatives Flee Failed NeoCon Dogmata, while Anti-War Left Fumes at Obama, and Former BHO Supporters Struggle to Fight Back Buyer's Remorse.
After 8 years, nearly a trillion dollars spent (that's the "Official" Figure, the "total spent" on the war when the "off-the-balance sheet" expenditure is known undoubtably much much more), over 5100 US lives lost, tens of thousands wounded, and more soldiers suffering from shellshock/PTSD, what do Americans have to show for the sacrifice? Bubkes. Bubkes. Who's got the bubkes?...
In the ancient Chinese classic Sun Zi Bing Fa ("Master Sun's Art of War"), Master Sun advised 2500 years ago that there are only two possible outcomes of War: Survival or Ruin. Considering that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan had threatened our survival, the inevitable ruin was anticipated by our wiser leaders, but not by those who were in charge.
In a couple of extraordinary columns last week in the Washington Post, Conservative Pundit George Will speaks out against Bush's war which has expanded into Obama's war. "The war already is nearly 50 percent longer than the combined U.S. involvements in two world wars" says Will, who finds a solution for military success in Afghanistan to be "inconceivable". Will also notes that the Iraqis are quite likely to demand an end to the despised US occupation of their sovereign land, and says "The United States should treat this as a Dirty Harry Moment: Make our day.", meaning that a "Yankee Go Home" message from the Iraqi voters should be the cue for our long-overdue departure from Iraq.
Will suggests that there might be some need for a military force in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, but nonetheless his principled stance against the war is reminiscent of the pre-neocon Robert Taft Conservative days when the GOP was the peace party and the Dems were the war party.
Arch-neocon William ("Bloody Bill") Kristol wasted no time in asserting that George had lost his "will" by "urging retreat, and accepting defeat", and encouraging more expenditures and more effort and more troops in Afghanistan. One is not surprised to hear such from Bill Kristol and gang.
(read more: http://tiny.cc/ewjrmtv6sep09)
more here
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/09/06/will-military-support...
Will is a neo-con too.
He still supports the war, just not one that is so expensive.
George Will is not a neoconservative.
George Will is probably better characterized as a Goldwater conservative.
Here's what he had to answer on questions about neocons.
Q: What is a neoconservative and who are they?
A: Oh gosh, that's not simple. Neoconservatives are persons who in domestic policy often were former Democrats who felt that conservatives had erred in not accepting the post-New Deal role of the central government. They were in their early incarnation focusing on domestic policy and were distinguishing themselves from Goldwater conservatives.
Also in domestic policies, however, as the '60s unfolded into the '70s and '80s, they led the critique of overreaching in domestic social engineering, saying that we accept the post-New Deal role of the central government, but the accumulated powers thereof are being wielded in a way too confident and optimistic and hubristic, if you will.
In foreign policy, and here's where it gets interesting, they have a more ambitious, more confident approach to the use of power than regular conservatives -- if you see the symmetry here? They say that America is a nation uniquely equipped as the sole remaining superpower to order the world and spread our values, etc., etc.
Who are they? The ones most commonly mentioned are Charles Krauthammer, Paul Wolfowitz, maybe Dick Cheney and his aide, Scooter Libby, Doug Feith in the Pentagon, Bill Kristol.
Q: Is this a neoconservative war in Iraq?
A: It had a neoconservative overlay, to the extent that it was a war -- however mistakenly -- based on the confident belief that there was a growing arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; that was not a distinctly neoconservative rationale.
Neoconservatives supported the war for that reason, among others. It's the other reasons where it acquired its neoconservative patina. The neoconservative patina is that Iraq should become a secular, pluralist, multiparty, market-oriented democracy with the power of its example to transform the greater Middle East. That's the neoconservative edition.