sort of a preemptive, forward looking Whiggish view of history! "What seems to be happening, that's what I was for!"

Was there supposed to be a footnote to "stated objectives"? (I assume it would say something about how the primary stated objective, the elimination of "weapons of mass destruction" from Iraq, was based on outright lies.)

(not necessarily through the barrel of a gun)

No, --but it's always better if it is?

"...impatient with dictatorships..."? Since when have the neocons been inpatient with dictatorships except those that decline to cooperate fully with the right-wing neoliberal IMF agenda?

Brock: I just deleted that. ;) In an earlier draft, I said: well, OK, military force could have achieved the objective of destroying Iraqi WMD, had there been any, but I don't think we should have had any confidence that Iraq had WMD by, say, Jan. or Feb. of 2003 (since we had to have been telling Blix where to look, and if he hadn't found anything, that meant that we should not have confidence in our sources) ... and anyways, it got too long and convoluted, so I cut it. But not its asterisk. ;(

Henceforth, anyone who thinks that food is good is a Biobrainesque liberal who supports my plan to force everyone in the world to eat spinach and greenbeans. Let my critics make of that what they will, but I refuse to back down from this unshakable belief of mine. Food is good!

Bring it on, haters! Your anti-food rhetoric only makes you look silly and puts you on the wrong side of history. Food lovers unite!

This is not on point, but I was thinking about this while waiting for the bus (People's Republic of Austin Texas):

If, under "enhanced interrogation," one of those killers Scott Roeder or Whats-his-name (Holocaust Museum killer) had disclosed that they were inspired by Fox News' morbidly obese, drug-addicted pussbag of hate, R.L. and his colleagues S.H. and B.O., would that be enough to bring incitement indictments against Fox?

Just a thought. After all, this is America where anything is possible.

Why didn't democracy prevent the Falklands War between two elected governments?

Isn't this just the classic definition of liberalism - the empowerment of the masses over the elite establishment? Throughout history conservatism has meant support for the aristocracy or ruling class, and liberalism is the devolution of power to the rest of society. Democracy is just the natural and inevitable manifestation of the liberal ideal.

Apparently neoconservative is the new liberal!

What horseshit! That is hardly what a neocon is and we have seen the neocon "hypocrisy" demonstrated clearly in Iraq....espouse bringing democracy while implementing a corporate fascism. It was after all the neocons that invaded a country that was of no threat to us killing hundreds of thousands of innocent men women and children, bringing sectarian cleansing to a new level, and instigating the insurgency by firing the Iraq army in favor of no bid contractors. How does that democracy taste. He replaced rape rooms with torture rooms.

So this "hypocrite" can say all that nonsense but the reality does not bear him out unless his idea of liberty is stealing the natural resources of other countries whie demanding their religious idealism correspond to his own.

He might as well have said, "I believe in family values for all people, now can I get back to raping your daughters".

Off topic, but Dan Froomkin, the only columnist at WaPo I went to read every day (other than to mock the likes of Broder, Krauthammer, Hiatt, Wills and others) has apprently been fired...

I've taken it off my bookmarks bar, and will never go there again...

Isn't it odd that they are always worrying about some country other than their own?

DevilDog, for the same reason democracy didn't prevent the US from invading Granada, Panama, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Mexico, etc.

"I do not believe that everyone yearns for liberty, free expression..."

Really, you don't believe that? I suppose there are some odd few who would rather be told what to do and think, but this seems a strange position to take, especially for someone claiming to be liberal. I mean, if you can take this position, then you make arguments why certain people don't deserve liberty, right?

So-called "neoconservatism" is a fake, phony, trumped-up pseudo-ideology concocted by corporations and promulgated by the propaganda mills they fund (the so-called "conservative think tanks") as a justification for wars of unprovoked aggression to seize control of the valuable natural resources of other countries by installing subservient, authoritarian puppet governments.

This is what's known in "neoconservatism" as "spreading democracy".

Recall that the original "neoconservative" plan for "spreading democracy" to Iraq was to install the convicted embezzler and fraudulent bamboozler Ahmed Chalabi as the US-backed, "new, improved" Saddam. That was Bush and Cheney's idea of "spreading democracy" to Iraq.

The enemy of, and obstacle to, the "neoconservative" agenda of "spreading democracy" is the desire of people everywhere for self-determination, which must be brutally crushed so that corporate imperialist "democracy" can be imposed on them.

rjm wrote: "... I suppose there are some odd few who would rather be told what to do and think ..."

Yes, there are. In the USA they are generally called "conservatives", although they often refer to themselves -- with pride -- as "Ditto-Heads".

It's about impossible to make any sense out of the right these days. The re-branding in some quarters sounds good, but entirely un-trustworthy of real change, especially when in other quarters, the re-branding consists of doubling down the crazy with increased purity of belief.

Which at it's core for neocons, is empire of a certain brand. IOW's if you are a superpower and the only one, you can force others to your will. But without the military option, that vision is mostly un-possible. So what he is really saying, is let's fall back and do better with traditional US imperialism, which is using Capitalism as our weapon of choice to shape the world. At least till our image can be repaired from the Bush era.

For the neocons we all know and hate, that just wouldn't be the same as the clarity and power of the bullet.

To me, the problem here is that the actual neocons don't really recognize that they are neocons, or have any idea what that really means. They seem to live in a dream world of sorts.

So, when somebody GAGS at the statements by Daniel Finkelstein, for example - they have NO IDEA why.

Better explanations are welcome 'cause I can't think of any.

DevilDog, Argentina was under a nasty military dictatorship during the Falklands War (google "Dirty War" for details). Public reaction to the Falklands debacle actually hastened the restoration of democracy in Argentina.

Well, after we persuaded Russia to adopt a very neocon approach to democracy -- i.e. free markets, greed, a lot of hurt to the common folk, corruption, you know, pretty much like here -- they sure stepped away from it while they thought Putin walked on water.

So democracy comes in many flavors, and not always in those of Baskins and Robbins.

So it's not just a case of not using force. It's genuinely allowing peoples to find their own way even when we in the West (and the US inparticular) don't find it attractive.

As we've just experienced, there's nothing like an outside threat to diminish the forces of liberty. And democracy.

The critical core belief of a neocon is that there is a small group of people deemed to be intellectually and philosophically superior to the rest of us and these elite persons must run the country. From that all there foolishness and mistakes have flowed.

Does the "definition" (either the disputed, imagined, or purported one) of "neoconservative" also have anything also to do with free markets and capitalism? That is, that one of the reasons they insist that freedom and democracy is so swell is that all these countries that "we" "liberate" will also of course choose to be our "trading partners"?

I'm just thinking of one of the additional goals of "liberating" Iraq, namely that Iraq had all this oil which they could then trade on the world market (ostensibly to us on the super-cheap in gratitude for doing away w/ Saddam) and would provide enrichment and bounty and puppies and rainbows for all Iraqis. And wicked cheap oil for us. Remember all that "well, they can offset the cost of us liberating them with all that black gold!!"?
SecularAnimist I think is alluding to this too; thus the whole 'we heart [the crook] Chalabi.'Speaking of which, what the hell happened to that dude? Did they shoot him into space?

In related news, neoconservatives passionately believe in the breathing in of oxygen, of eliminating toxins & waste in the body through the processes of urination and defecation, presents for birthdays, swimming on hot days, and only stopping breathing once deceased and NOT before.

My God, I'M a neocon TOO! Where's that Limbaugh newsletter, there's SO much to learn!

Why didn't democracy prevent the Falklands War between two elected governments?

Argentina was run by a military junta at the time.

"I do not believe that everyone yearns for liberty, free expression..."

Really, you don't believe that? I suppose there are some odd few who would rather be told what to do and think, but this seems a strange position to take, especially for someone claiming to be liberal.

Not really. I don't, for example, believe that, say, Boss Limbaugh, Vladimir Putin, Iranian mullahs, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Osama bin Laden, or Somali warlords yearn for democracy and free expression. I think they yearn for power and control.

I suppose there are some odd few who would rather be told what to do and think, but this seems a strange position to take, especially for someone claiming to be liberal.

RJM - I think the better point Hilzoy should have said is that there are lots of people who believe in liberty for themselves, but not for others. I don't think there is anyone who doesn't want more liberty for themselves, but for many people, liberty means everyone else has to obey their wishes. And that's not what the rest of us refer to as "liberty."

So it's not that some people don't deserve liberty, but rather, that some people don't want liberty for others. And I think that neo-cons come immediately to mind as being in that category. Sure, they want freedom for other countries; but only if that freedom makes America stronger. And if a country freely chooses to hate america, they oppose that sort of freedom.

rjm: ""I do not believe that everyone yearns for liberty, free expression..."

Really, you don't believe that? I suppose there are some odd few who would rather be told what to do and think, but this seems a strange position to take, especially for someone claiming to be liberal."

I agree with Doctor Biobrain above. Also: for large chunks of human history, people got along quite well without democracy, or any system of government that protected the civil liberties we now take for granted. I'm not at all clear that people were pining for those things back then: they could be, but then again, maybe not. It seems anachronistic to me to suppose that they were yearning for a system of government that had yet to be developed: like saying they were wishing for cell phones.

In any case, as I went on to say, that's irrelevant to the question: do many people now wish for those things? I think many do, though people who live in an unfree government that's generally functional and doesn't impinge too much on them might not; ditto some people who have not heard of democracy, and people whose understanding of democracy has been needlessly harmed by the actions of its supposed advocates.

I don't think that recognizing this in any way commits me to thinking that some people don't deserve liberty. Possibly I'm missing something.

Hilzoy, perhaps I missed your mention of it, but didn't the decision to try to install a democracy in Iraq have something to do with the problem of transnational extremist movements like al quaeda, bred in the swamps of secular arab autocracies?

Most foreigners don't have a problem with democracy and liberty; it's the unapologetic, unfettered capitalism that comes with American-style freedom that makes the rest of the world leery. Not everybody around the world regards McDonalds and Walmart as public goods.

Why didn't democracy prevent the Falklands War between two elected governments?

Because General Galtieri was a military dictator, perhaps?

As usual, Secular Animist nails it. Nothing for me to add.

Whatever the pretend, public "definition" of "neocon", the real definition is single-minded (not "mindless"!) defense of Israel at the expense of all else.

I am a neocon [Zionist].

An important corollary to people wanting freedom and democracy is leaders like Bush wanting control and spy powers and Dems wanting to rig elections by bringing in millions of illegal aliens and giving them the vote.

But the frustrating truth is that there are limits to what can be achieved by outsiders. Instead we have to wait as national movements, one by one, stand up for their rights.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.. so what Bush did by invading Iraq doesn't following neo-con principles?? So a neo-con government should've waited until the Iraqis stood up against their government, instead of preemptively invading them? The hypocrisy is laughable.

As with most political arguments, it comes down to wordsmithing. Democracy can mean many things to many people. The U.S. is not a true democracy; we are a republic.

That said, while I don't think everyone yearns for a democracy, I do think most people want to have some sort of say in their government: what it entails, how it is created, what rights it protects, etc. I've yet to see any free democracy or republic willfully vote itself into a dictatorship or some sort of authoritarian system.

I disagree with Hilzoy and Dr. Biobrain. First, I don't see how anyone can divine what most people thought about their state of governance way back in history. Most of the written history, up to maybe a century ago, was penned by the elite. Not the masses. And while maybe those masses didn't yearn for something different (probably because they didn't see it as possible), it doesn't mean they liked their political lot in life.

I think once most people get a taste for political freedom and empowerment, they realize it is a good thing and want to keep it. And I think the U.S. should do everything it can to ensure as many nations experience some sort of free governance as possible.

shorter neocon view:

kicking the can down the road.

You neocons lost the argument long ago

PGut: I've yet to see any free democracy or republic willfully vote itself into a dictatorship or some sort of authoritarian system.

Germany, 1933. Granted, those in power had to push the legislature a bit to become an authoritarian system.

So-called "neoconservatism" is a fake, phony, trumped-up pseudo-ideology concocted by corporations and promulgated by the propaganda mills they fund (the so-called "conservative think tanks") as a justification for wars of unprovoked aggression to seize control of the valuable natural resources of other countries by installing subservient, authoritarian puppet governments.

Several commenters made this point and I think it represents a sort of willful miscomprehension of neocons and the US right.

It's not monolithic. It often seems that way, in comparison to the left; but the right is made up of a few distinct groups who have made common cause. We know this with regard to, say, the big-business capitalists and the Christian conservatives.

To understand the (limited number of true) neocons, you should take Finkelstein at his word. These are peculiarly naive and idealistic people within the context of the non-Christian conservative right. It's no accident that a number of them were leftists in an earlier incarnation. A key sentence in Hilzoy's post is:

Many neocons seem to me to have bought into their own propaganda about our country and its history.

Just so. They believe in that elementary school view of the US: the White Knight, bringer of Justice, Peace, and the American Way. They don't explicitly perceive the "American Way" as corporate imperialism or Protestantism...they are notably mostly Jewish. Indeed, perhaps they are strongly emotionally motivated by the image of GIs liberating Dachau and such.

They are smart men who are very oddly unealistic and unworldy.

I write "oddly", because this goes very strongly against the long-dominant strain of GOP foreign policy. GOP and conservative foreign policy has always been much more like what the commenter above described. It is ruthlessly pragmatic; it is the policy of invading Latin American countries on behalf of US Fruit; of training the Shah's secret police. GOP realist foreign policy cares almost not a whit for democracy and human rights.

So how, for a moment in time, did this odd group of idealists shape US foreign policy? Because they were useful idiots. After all, their message is the message that conservative realist foreign policy has always used to pacify the masses with its cruelties and war-mongering. Always couched in the ideals of democracy and such. They were convenient packaging.

But they were never the men in charge. Even though Cheney and Rumsfeld signed the PNAC charter, they are assuredly no true neocons. Indeed, the neocons themselves planned for the occupation, expected and wanted a massive restructuring of Iraqi society which would, of course, require troops and money. They're the folk behind the rebuilding of schools and the like.

But they were always just cover for those pursuing much different policies. An actual transformative, beneficial occupation would have cost too much money and required the American people to tolerate an extended occupation that they believed wouldn't be necessary. So there were never any real planning or initiative for "nation building". Recall that when Bush ran for office, he repeatedly ridiculed the notion of "nation building". Bush is no neocon. He's simple-minded and undoubtedly the necons appealed to him. But he had his own personal reasons for the invasion. Just as Cheney and Rumsfeld did. And none were "neocon" reasons.

I'm not claiming that the neocon's project would have worked had it actually been carried out. They are deluded, naive, idealists of the worst sort. They believe in a transformative ideology that will overcome all barriers. They are utopians, of a sort. However, they are what they are, and they're not your usual GOP foreign policy types.

The problem is that have influenced a large portion of the GOP and they remain useful idiots to the self-interested realists.

Personally, I think it's a mistake for the left to villify the neocons they way they have been villified. They were never the true enemy. It is those pulling their strings who are the true enemy. Of course, there are some on the left, unlike Hilzoy, who are essentially isolationists, motivated by a stridently relativistic ideology. But most, I think, agree with her in wanting to see the spread of democracy and human rights and other freedoms. Maybe we're not so invested in US capitalism, as the neocons are, but it's notable that this usually comes a bit farther down their lists than the other things with which almost all of us can agree.

Zbigniew Brzezinski and others on the left have long advocated an activist US foreign policy that somehow combined realism, pragmatism, and the American ideals of the virtues of democracy and the protection of human rights. I'm not certain that, eventually, with the few neocons capable of reflection and reassessment, that they couldn't be persuaded to this vision of US foreign policy. After all, the cruel corporatism of GOP realism is in a deep sense contrary to their instincts. They believe in the noble lie and are blind to the ugly truth. But they might learn.

At any rate, villifying those who espouse the values of democracy and such is not a terribly effective way of gathering support from less interested and less informed observers; i.e., most of America.

As an aside, the only thing I disagree with in Hilzoy's post is her rationalization of the exceptional efficacy of occupation as a response to a failed attack. Frankly, that seems to me to be facile. More likely it's the case that Germany and Japan are simply exceptional; possibly due to the nature of the fascist dictatorships that launched their wars. The people, in the end, suffered terribly for these wars, even if they initially supported them. Also, importantly, the US policy in occupation was exceptionally benign...an important contrast to its occupation of Iraq.

It may be possible to benignly occupy a country and transform its political landscape for the better; but it probably requires a few unusual prerequisites and, sadly, a lot of luck. And a hell of a lot more generosity and restraint than the US has shown to the Iraqis.

Quoting Mitzi: "Hilzoy, perhaps I missed your mention of it, but didn't the decision to try to install a democracy in Iraq have something to do with the problem of transnational extremist movements like al quaeda, bred in the swamps of secular arab autocracies?"

Ummmm no. Maybe Bush *mistakenly* believed this, or pretended to believe it. It sounds like you think the crucial point in the formation of al Qaeda is in a prison cell in Egypt. But that is totally wrong. Secular Arab autocracies tend to crush religious movements as enemies of the state. See, for example, Syria. If the ideas behind al Qaeda would have stayed in Egypt, they would have died in prison. Instead, the crucial point in the formation of al Qaeda is in Afghanistan, a failed state with religious leadership sympathetic to its cause. Once more, with feeling: Iraq had nothing to do with al Qaeda.