| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
16 May 2004 04:45:30 AM |
| Object: |
OT: The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts |
The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/16/weekinreview/16tier.html?ei=5062&en=a9138ddd83298e2a&ex=1085284800&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=all&position=
By JOHN TIERNEY
After a rough month in Iraq, some hawks are glumly trying to reconcile
reality with the predictions they made before the war.
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: OT: The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts |
17 May 2004 10:22:19 AM |
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On 16 May 2004 02:45:30 -0700, (maff), Message ID:
<18510aff.0405160145.49a42bb7@posting.google.com> wrote in alt.atheism;
The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/16/weekinreview/16tier.html?ei=5062&en=a9138ddd83298e2a&ex=1085284800&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=all&position=
May 16, 2004
The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts
By JOHN TIERNEY
ASHINGTON — Not long ago, the word "triumphalist" was being applied to
the neoconservatives and other intellectuals who championed the war in
Iraq. Now the buzzwords are "depressed," "angst-ridden" and "going
wobbly."
After the setbacks in Falluja and Najaf, followed by the prisoner abuse
scandal, hawks are glumly trying to reconcile the reality in Iraq with
the predictions they made before the war. A few have already given up on
the idea of a stable democracy in Iraq, and many are predicting failure
unless there's a dramatic change in policy - a new date for elections, a
new secretary of defense, a new exit strategy.
Most blame the administration for botching the mission, and some are
also questioning their own judgment. How, they wonder, did so many
conservatives, who normally don't trust their government to run a public
school down the street, come to believe that federal bureaucrats could
transform an entire nation in the alien culture of the Middle East? To
these self-doubting hawks, the conservatives now blaming American
officials for Iraq's problems are reminiscent of the leftists who kept
blaming incompetents in the Kremlin for the failure of Communism.
Some hawks are staying the course. Donald H. Rumsfeld, the defense
secretary, is still defended by The Wall Street Journal editorial page
and columnists like Charles Krauthammer, of The Washington Post, and
William Safire, of The New York Times, who has dismissed the idea of
speeding the transition as "cut and walk fast." Rush Limbaugh has
accused liberal journalists of overreacting to the prison scandal.
When asked on Friday about the criticism from his fellow
neoconservatives, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz
acknowledged difficulties but seemed unfazed. "Saddam's murderers and
torturers who abused the Iraqi people for 35 years have proven to be a
tough as well as ruthless enemy," he said. "But no one should have
expected a cakewalk and that's no reason to go wobbly now. I spend most
of my time with officers and soldiers, and they're not defeatists - not
even the ones who suffered terrible wounds in Iraq."
But many hawks across the political spectrum are having public second
thoughts. The National Review has dismissed the Wilsonian ideal of
implanting democracy in Iraq, and has recommended settling for an
orderly society with a non-dictatorial government. David Brooks, a New
York Times columnist, wrote that America entered Iraq with a "childish
fantasy" and is now "a shellshocked hegemon." Journalists like Robert
Novak, Max Boot and Thomas Friedman have encouraged Mr. Rumsfeld to
resign.
Robert Kagan and William Kristol, two influential hawks at the
neoconservative Weekly Standard, warned in last week's issue of the
widespread bipartisan view that the war "is already lost or on the verge
of being lost." They called for moving up the election in Iraq to Sept.
30 to hasten the transition and distract attention from American
mistakes.
"There's a fair amount of conservative despair, which I respect," Mr.
Kristol, the magazine's editor, said in an interview. "My sentiments are
closer to anger than to angst. My anger is at the administration for
having made many more mistakes than it needed to have made. But we still
have to win and we still can win."
Andrew Sullivan, the conservative blogger, has questioned whether it was
foolish to trust the Bush administration to wage the war competently.
After the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, Mr. Sullivan posted such pained
thoughts questioning the moral justification for the war that he was
inundated with e-mail messages telling him to buck up.
"Now I'm being bashed for going wobbly," Mr. Sullivan said. "I'm still
in favor of this war and still desperately want it to succeed, but when
the case we made for war is undermined by events, we have to acknowledge
that and explain why the case for war still stands. Sometimes
politicians have to stick to scripts regardless of the facts, but a
writer has an obligation to be more honest."
These second thoughts seem a bit late to some non-conservative hawks
like Kenneth M. Pollack and Fareed Zakaria. Although Mr. Pollack, a
senior fellow at the Saban Center of the Brookings Institution, wrote an
influential book urging war against Iraq, he called the administration's
plan ill-conceived before the war began. Mr. Zakaria, the editor of
Newsweek International, turned on the administration shortly after the
occupation began.
"All the big mistakes were made in the first three or four months, when
the administration didn't send in enough troops and spurned
international cooperation," Mr. Zakaria said. "But the neoconservatives
were cheering them on. Now that it's going south, they're simply blowing
with the wind. In retrospect, the critics I have a lot of respect for
are the realist conservatives who said long before the war that you're
opening up a hornet's nest and the costs will outweigh the benefits."
The columnist George Will suggested the administration get a dose of
conservatism without the "neo" prefix, and Tucker Carlson, of CNN's
"Crossfire," said he, too, had gained respect for old-fashioned
conservatism.
"I supported the war and now I feel foolish," Mr. Carlson said. "I'm
just struck by how many people like me who were instinctively
distrustful of government forgot to be humble in our expectations. The
idea that the federal government can quickly transform the Middle East
seems odd to me for a conservative. A basic tenet of conservatism is
that it's much easier to destroy things than to create them - much
easier, and more fun, too."
Mr. Wolfowitz disputed the notion that American officials had
unrealistic expectations. "The purpose of this war wasn't to remake Iraq
any more than the purpose of World War II was to remake Germany and
Japan," he said. " But having removed Saddam Hussein, we have to put
something better in his place. Do they think it would have been
realistic to continue with another 12 years of containment after Sept.
11?"
Samuel P. Huntington, the Harvard professor who famously predicted that
the cold war's end would be followed not by the global spread of Western
capitalism and democracy but by a "clash of civilizations," said he
agreed with the need to combat foreign enemies with pre-emptive action
in some cases. But he did not consider Iraq one of those imminent
threats and opposed the invasion.
"We just didn't realize how totally different the culture is in Middle
Eastern countries," he said. "Before the Iraq war, I predicted that we
would quickly defeat Saddam Hussein and then find ourselves in a second
war against the Iraqi people that we could never win." A similar
prediction was issued last fall by Owen Harries, the former editor of
The National Interest. In an essay in "The American Conservative," Mr.
Harries quoted Edmund Burke's classic essays on the dangers of remaking
society at home or abroad.
"We may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing and hitherto
unheard of power," Burke wrote of the British empire in the 1770's. "But
every other nation will think we shall abuse it. It is impossible but
that, sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination
against us which may end in our ruin."
It would be hyperbolic to say that Burke's heirs quite share his sense
of doom. But they're not sounding much cheerier these days.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
Stoney
"Designated Rascal and Rapscallion
and
SCAMPERMEISTER!"
When in doubt, SCAMPER about!
When things are fair, SCAMPER everywhere!
When things are rough, can't SCAMPER enough!
/end humour alert
alt.atheism military veteran #11
{so much for the 'no atheists in foxholes' rubbish}
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| User: "Kevin Anthoney" |
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| Title: Re: OT: The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts |
16 May 2004 05:44:16 AM |
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maff wrote:
The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/16/weekinreview/16tier.html?ei=5062&en=a9138ddd83298e2a&ex=1085284800&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=all&position=
By JOHN TIERNEY
After a rough month in Iraq, some hawks are glumly trying to reconcile
reality with the predictions they made before the war.
I don't know what they're worried about. It'll all come together when the
Iraqi's get their shiny new democracy in 45 days time.
--
Kevin Anthoney
kanthoney[a]dsl.pipex.com
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| User: "SMChristenson" |
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| Title: Re: OT: The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts |
16 May 2004 09:43:35 AM |
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On Sun, 16 May 2004 11:44:16 +0100, Kevin Anthoney wrote:
maff wrote:
The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/16/weekinreview/16tier.html?ei=5062&en=a9138ddd83298e2a&ex=1085284800&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=all&position=
By JOHN TIERNEY
After a rough month in Iraq, some hawks are glumly trying to reconcile
reality with the predictions they made before the war.
I don't know what they're worried about. It'll all come together when the
Iraqi's get their shiny new democracy in 45 days time.
Yeah, I thought the President said July 1st was still a firm date. We've
never known him to lie, have we?
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