Neocon Ideology
I was just reading the President's speech from Thursday, the one he gave for the National Endowment for Democracy.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/20051006-3.html
This is a deeply troubling speech, unlike anything I recall hearing from him before. It is truly a neocon document which he presented. I've wondered before just how much of a neocon Bush was, whether it was actually his philosophy or if he was simply going along with it since the neocons were in power in both the White House (Cheney) and the Pentagon (Wolfowitz and that whole Israeli group).
I suppose it's possible that Bush was merely reading a speech prepared for the occasion by neocon speechwriters, but Bush presented it with conviction enough to persuade me that he believes what he was saying. Bush definitely is a neocon.
Here's a summary of what neocons represent:
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/neocon101.html
and here is a quiz to see if you are one!
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/quiz/neoconQuiz.html
What troubles me the most about the president's speech is the parallel he draws between Islamic radicalism and Communism. For a long time it was claimed that Iraq was not and never would be another Vietnam, but now with this speech, the line is blurred. The president clearly illustrates the domino effect if Iraq is allowed to determine its own fate, if the US gives up the effort to establish a pro-American government there. Vietnam was fought because of the domino effect, because the American people were programmed to believe that if South Vietnam fell to the Communists from the North, all of Southeast Asia would fall, then spread west to India, and who knows where else. The president clearly outlines such a scenario if Iraq falls to this "establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom."
In the 1960s this kind of talk instilled fear into the hearts of us common Americans, fear that easily translated into hatred for Southeast Asians and fed the "military industrial establishment" that President Eisenhower warned us about. This ideology turned out to be wrong, but now it is back again under this new neoconservative guise of "Islamic radicalism and Islamo-fascism."
Do we want to hate the way we hated in the 1960s? Do we want this fear? Do we want to feel all these things that these so-called terrorists want us to feel? How long will it take us this time to realize the error of our own ways and the fruitlessness of our own hatred and fear? Iraq IS another Vietnam for America. Will we make all the same mistakes again?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/20051006-3.html
This is a deeply troubling speech, unlike anything I recall hearing from him before. It is truly a neocon document which he presented. I've wondered before just how much of a neocon Bush was, whether it was actually his philosophy or if he was simply going along with it since the neocons were in power in both the White House (Cheney) and the Pentagon (Wolfowitz and that whole Israeli group).
I suppose it's possible that Bush was merely reading a speech prepared for the occasion by neocon speechwriters, but Bush presented it with conviction enough to persuade me that he believes what he was saying. Bush definitely is a neocon.
Here's a summary of what neocons represent:
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/neocon101.html
and here is a quiz to see if you are one!
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/quiz/neoconQuiz.html
What troubles me the most about the president's speech is the parallel he draws between Islamic radicalism and Communism. For a long time it was claimed that Iraq was not and never would be another Vietnam, but now with this speech, the line is blurred. The president clearly illustrates the domino effect if Iraq is allowed to determine its own fate, if the US gives up the effort to establish a pro-American government there. Vietnam was fought because of the domino effect, because the American people were programmed to believe that if South Vietnam fell to the Communists from the North, all of Southeast Asia would fall, then spread west to India, and who knows where else. The president clearly outlines such a scenario if Iraq falls to this "establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom."
In the 1960s this kind of talk instilled fear into the hearts of us common Americans, fear that easily translated into hatred for Southeast Asians and fed the "military industrial establishment" that President Eisenhower warned us about. This ideology turned out to be wrong, but now it is back again under this new neoconservative guise of "Islamic radicalism and Islamo-fascism."
Do we want to hate the way we hated in the 1960s? Do we want this fear? Do we want to feel all these things that these so-called terrorists want us to feel? How long will it take us this time to realize the error of our own ways and the fruitlessness of our own hatred and fear? Iraq IS another Vietnam for America. Will we make all the same mistakes again?
posted by Bill | 6:06 PM
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