If these beaten people can throw off our controls, and I assert the same is true of Vietnam and unknown numbers of South and Central American countries, we need to abandon our miltary. Evidently, the benign suburban skaters that was my pre-auto teen experience could so flummox the US military that we should cut the Trillion dollar defense budget to nil and invite any impetuous aspiring empire to bring it on. It is folly to think that there are rewards abroad that can be stolen and brought back without an equal or greater blowback.

The neo-cons are stupid and arrogant. These are the pre-requisites of sophistry, the total absence of integrity or sincerity completes the package. This lack of character is what allows someone to grope for excuses even those that would condemn their own perspective. But it is their arrogance, that they are defending. They are so conceited they refuse to consider others, or other perspectives. These are the Pharisees, and the courteans that that murmur “tut-tut” while chaos engulfs the palaces where the obsequious sycophants genuflect before the illusion of power.

Curt – unfortunately, I wouldn’t say their ideas are “wishful thinking”, but closer to “pure evil”. They are driven by greed and fully prepared to lie, cheat, and steal to bolster their own wealth and that of their friends. Never assume maliciousness where stupidity will suffice, but this is way beyond stupidity.

Berkowitz can’t come up with anything new to say. He’s recycling Karl Rove’s table scraps from years back, trying to pull Republicans back into the discredited neocon wing. They’re printing it because somebody at the WSJ *really* likes neoconservativism, since it essentially boils down to “use any means necessary to bring more capital to Wall Street.”

I wrote a longer analysis of Berkowitz’ article at http://www.economaton.com/politics/berkowitz-neoconservatives-iraq/ that you may find interesting.

I find it amazing and interesting too that neoconservativism has been so thoroughly eviscerated as a policy philosophy on the net, yet mainstream traditional media still largely won’t say that the emperor has no clothes.

Cheers,
Paul

“neoconservative thinking drew a false analogy (between communism’s collapse in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union) and the very different cultural circumstances of Arab and Muslim Iraq.”

…they are probably the only people on earth who:

1) didn’t get this
2) are lying about not getting this
3) Both 1 & 2

There is no cure for stupidy.

Here’s a safe bet: There will be nothing in the editorial section of the Wall Street Journal even feigning a counterpoint to Berkowitz’s specious nonsense. Facing up to the “grave threat of Saddam Hussein”? Here’s a speech from Karen Kwiatkowski last fall:

“Iraq was a fourth rate military state, with no air force, no navy and not much of an Army, in part due to the destruction of the first Gulf War, a dozen years of sanctions and being bombed by the US and the UK since 1991.”

Why do they continue publishing this crap? With cutbacks in newsrooms all over the country – including the mighty New York Times – doesn’t it become obvious that their credibility is shot and no one listens anymore? No one buys their cheap pulp and wishful thinking? When do they get the picture? When they’re shouting their ass-backwards “insight” to feral cats in wino back alleys?