Zinni talks to BBC about Iraq, NeoCons and "liars"...

[blackfox]

Well, I recently watched a BBC Hardtalk interview w/ retired General Zinni, discussing the preparations/impetus for the War in Iraq, it's execution and the Future of the Country. There was also discussion about the Isreali/Palestinian issue.

Interesting points:

Zinni had scathing criticism for the planners and intelligence wonks leading up to the war...calling them "incompetent" and "liars". Zinni does not include Bush and Cheney in this assessment, which falls squarely on Rumsfeld and Wolfy and others in the DoD...

Talks about the inadequate planning for post-war/occupation phase of US involvement in Iraq...

Talks about the Constitutional duty of senior military officials (3 and 4 star Generals), who are confirmed by the Senate, to report their professional opinions/assesment of the situation even if in opposition to the current Administation Policy(s)...

Presents a reluctance to vote for Bush in November, despite being a life-long Republican, because of the handling of the case for War in Iraq, and a genuine distaste for the NeoCon element in current Government...

Laments the personal, mean and negative bent Modern American Politics has taken, and its' effect on our ability to lead and to govern effectively...

All in all a very smart and diplomatic man, who is obviously an American Patriot.

Please watch for your impressions, although much of this is old-hat to some of us, it is worth watching the man explain it in his way...(besides, i am crap at paraphrasing the content...)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/3532118.stm

[Neserk]

Can someone explain the differences between a Neocon and plain old Conservative. Just so I can make sure I'm *completely* following the discussion? Thanks :D

[pseudobrit]

Can someone explain the differences between a Neocon and plain old Conservative. Just so I can make sure I'm *completely* following the discussion? Thanks :D


Neocon: (n) 1. a political persuasion that consists of a far-right wing superiority-complexed, self-righteous ideology, including plans for world domination and dresses itself as traditional conservatism by espousing token feel-good issues (see "pro-life") and playing lip service to them while never swaying from its ultimate goals.
2. A complete nutcase.

[blackfox]

Although the term of somewhat contested in definition, here is a general primer on the history of the NeoCons...
Many of today's most famous neocons are from Eastern European Jewish immigrant families, who were frequently on the edge of poverty. The Great Depression radicalized many immigrants, and introduced them to the new and revolutionary ideas of socialism and communism.

The Soviet Union's break with Stalinism in the 1950's led to the rise of the so-called New Left in America, which popularized anti-Sovietism along with anti-capitalism. The New Left became very popular among the children of hardline Communist families.

Intellectually, neoconservatives have been strongly influenced by a diverse range of thinkers from Max Shachtman's strongly anti-Soviet version of Trotskyism (in the area of international policy) to the elitist, ostensibly neo-Platonic ideas of Leo Strauss.



Opposition to the New Left and Détente with the Soviet Union



Later to emerge as the first important group of social policy critics from the working class, the original neoconservatives, though not yet using this term, were generally liberals or socialists who strongly supported the Second World War. Multiple strands contributed to their ideas, including the Depression-era ideas of former New Dealers, trade unionists, and Trotskyists, particularly those who followed the political ideas of Max Shachtman. The current neoconservative desire to spread democratic capitalism abroad often by force, it is sometimes said, parallels the Trotskyist dream of world socialist revolution. The influence of the Trotskyites perhaps left them with strong anti-Soviet tendencies, especially considering the Great Purges targeting alleged Trotskyites in Soviet Russia. A number of neoconservatives such as Jeane Kirkpatrick, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz were Shachtmanites in their youth while others were involved in the Social Democrats, USA, which was formed by Schachtman's supporters in the 1970s.

The original "neoconservative" theorists, such as Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, were often associated with the magazine Commentary, and their intellectual evolution is quite evident in that magazine over the course of these years. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s the early neoconservatives were anti-Communist socialists strongly supportive of the civil rights movement, integration, and Martin Luther King. However, they grew disillusioned with the Johnson administration's Great Society. Some neoconservatives also came to despise the counterculture of the 1960s and what they felt was a growing "anti-Americanism" among many baby boomers, in the movement against the Vietnam War and in the emerging New Left.

According to Irving Kristol, former managing editor of Commentary and now a Senior Fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington and the Publisher of the hawkish magazine The National Interest, a neoconservative is a "liberal mugged by reality." Broadly sympathetic to Woodrow Wilson's idealistic goals to spread American ideals of government, economics, and culture abroad, they grew to reject his reliance on international organizations and treaties to accomplish these objectives.

As the radicalization of the New Left pushed these intellectuals further to the right in response, they moved toward a more aggressive militarism. Admiration of the "big stick" interventionist foreign policy of Theodore Roosevelt remains a common theme in neoconservative tracts as well. Now staunch anti-Communists, a vast array of sympathetic conservatives attracted to their strong defense of a "rolling-back" of Communism (an idea touted under the Eisenhower administration by traditional conservative John Foster Dulles) began to become associated with these neoconservative leaders. Influential periodicals such as Commentary, The New Republic, The Public Interest, and The American Spectator, and lately The Weekly Standard have been established by prominent neoconservatives or regularly host the writings of neoconservative writers.

Academics in these circles, many of whom were still Democrats, rebelled against the Democratic Party's leftward drift on defense issues in the 1970s, especially after the nomination of George McGovern in 1972. Many clustered around Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a Democrat derisively known as the "Senator from Boeing," but then they aligned themselves with Ronald Reagan and the Republicans, who promised to confront charges of Soviet "expansionism."

Here is some explanation of them Today...
In his well-publicized piece "The Case for American Empire" in the conservative Weekly Standard, Max Boot argued that "The most realistic response to terrorism is for America to embrace its imperial role." He countered sentiments that the "United States must become a kinder, gentler nation, must eschew quixotic missions abroad, must become, in Pat Buchanan's phrase, 'a republic, not an empire'," arguing that "In fact this analysis is exactly backward: The September 11 attack was a result of insufficient American involvement and ambition; the solution is to be more expansive in our goals and more assertive in their implementation."

Neoconservatives won a landmark victory with the Bush Doctrine after September 11th. Thomas Donnelly, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an influential conservative thinktank in Washington that has been under neoconservative influence since the election of Reagan, argued in his AEI piece "The Underpinnings of the Bush doctrine" that "the fundamental premise of the Bush Doctrine is true: The United States possesses the means—economic, military, diplomatic—to realize its expansive geopolitical purposes. Further, and especially in light of the domestic political reaction to the attacks of September 11, the victory in Afghanistan and the remarkable skill demonstrated by President Bush in focusing national attention, it is equally true that Americans possess the requisite political willpower to pursue an expansive strategy."

The Bush Doctrine, a radical departure from previous U.S. foreign policy, is a proclamation of the right of the United States to wage pre-emptive war, regardless of international law, should it be threatened by terrorists or rogue states. This doctrine can be seen as the abandonment of a focus on the doctrine of deterrence (in the Cold War through Mutually Assured Destruction) as the primary means of self-defense. There is some opinion that preemptive strikes have long been a part of international practice and indeed of American practice, as exemplified, for example, by the unilateral U.S. blockade and boarding of Cuban shipping during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The doctrine also states that the United States "will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States."

While more conventional foreign policy experts argued that Iraq could be restrained by enforcing No-Fly Zones and by a policy of inspection by United Nations inspectors to restrict its ability to possess chemical or nuclear weapons, neoconservatives considered this policy direction ineffectual and labeled it appeasement of Saddam Hussein.

Today, the most prominent supporters of the hawkish stance inside the administration are Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Neoconservatives perhaps are closer to the mainstream of the Republican Party today since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon than any competing faction, especially considering the nature of the Bush Doctrine and the preemptive war against Iraq. Nevertheless, many of the prominent people labeled as neoconservatives are actually registered Democrats.

At the same time, there have been limits in the power of neoconservatives in the Bush administration. The Secretary of State Colin Powell is largely seen as being an opponent of neoconservative ideas, and while the neoconservative notion of tough and decisive action has been apparent in U.S. policy toward the Middle East, it has not been seen in U.S. policy toward China and Russia or in the handling of the North Korean nuclear crisis.

As compared with traditional conservatism, which sometimes exhibited an isolationist strain, neoconservatism is characterized by support for significantly increased defense spending, challenging regimes deemed hostile to the values and interests of the United States, pressing for free-market policies abroad, and ensuring that the United States remains the world's sole superpower. Neoconservatism has influenced the conservative agenda in the United States on such issues. Critics have charged that, while paying lip service to American values, neoconservatives have supported undemocratic regimes for realpolitik reasons.

[zimv20]

i'm still watching the clip, but i'm struck w/ how different HARDtalk (ridiculous opening, btw) is from almost all the other news shows / news magazine shows in the US -- there's actually content.

[pseudobrit]

i'm still watching the clip, but i'm struck w/ how different HARDtalk (ridiculous opening, btw) is from almost all the other news shows / news magazine shows in the US -- there's actually content.

Change "news shows / news magazine shows" to "news" and I agree.

[zimv20]

i'm done. good interview. again, i wish the media in the US was so thorough.

anyone who thinks kerry is as culpable as bush et. al. for "lying" (i.e. "Leo Hubbard") should watch this interview. he addresses the intelligence exaggeration and its use starting around the 5 minute mark.

[blackfox]

By the way 'brit, I applaud you for your concise and accurate definition of NeoCon...you managed to convey in a few lines what it took me several (long) paragraphs to attempt...

...never been very good at brevity, I am afraid...

also, Hardtalk once again confirms the vast superiority of the BBC to our Domestic News offerings...at least I have access to it through the miracle of the internet....

[IJ Reilly]

Excellent interview, highly recommended. Blasted yet another little hole in my work day, but worth it. I'm going to keep an eye on the "liberal media" in the US to see if they quote any of this.

Zinni wouldn't come right out and say it, but clearly he places most of the blame for the present Iraq debacle on Rumsfeld.

[skunk]

Excellent interview, highly recommended. Blasted yet another little hole in my work day, but worth it. I'm going to keep an eye on the "liberal media" in the US to see if they quote any of this.

Zinni wouldn't come right out and say it, but clearly he places most of the blame for the present Iraq debacle on Rumsfeld.
Bloody good interview. Good Old Beeb.
Required viewing.