To understand the "Neo-Con" aberration:

http://pages.prodigy.net/krtq73aa/neocon.htm

"disseminator" <disseminator@bogus.com> wrote in message
news:ctvps602t8t@news2.newsguy.com...

Looks like the neoCON PNAC found four retired
numb-nuts Generals to sign off on this
one....Barry McCaffrey among them....the guy
that always poses with his chin stuck out for
MSNBC's camera....I like some of his more
libertarian ideas but not this "think tank".


article:
**************************

More Cannon Fodder, Please

from: Inter Press Service News Agency

http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27282

Analysis by Jim Lobe Friday, February 04, 2005

WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (IPS) - Amid rising concern about the over-extension
of U.S. military forces and the growing budget deficit, the Project
for the New American Century (PNAC), a neo-conservative group whose
past foreign policy recommendations have often been followed by
President George W. Bush, is urging Congress to add 25,000 new
soldiers to U.S. ground forces each year over the next several years.

The appeal, which comes on the eve of Bush's State of the Union
address, is certain to fuel the growing debate over whether
Washington can afford the interventionist vision long espoused by
PNAC and its highly influential founders -- that of a global
"Pax Americana" in which the U.S. military acts as the effective
guarantor of international peace and security.

"The United States military is too small for the responsibilities we
are asking it to assume," said the open letter addressed to the
Congressional leadership and signed by 34 defence and foreign policy
analysts, mostly prominent neo-conservatives but also a smattering of
retired generals and, significantly, several national defence alumni
of Bill Clinton's administration.

It was published as the lead editorial in the Rupert Murdoch-owned
Weekly Standard, which is edited by William Kristol, PNAC's chairman
and founder.

"(O)ur national security, global peace and stability, and the defence
and promotion of freedom in the post-9/11 world require a larger
military force than we have today," the letter went on, adding, "The
[Bush] administration has unfortunately resisted increasing our
ground forces to the size needed to meet today's (and tomorrow's)
missions and challenges."

PNAC itself consists of a handful of people besides Kristol and PNAC's
director, Gary Schmitt. Since its creation in 1997, it has acted
primarily as a platform from which prominent neo-conservatives could
issue policy recommendations and invite influential analysts from
other ideological currents to sign on.

Thus, its founding charter, which called for a "Reaganite policy of
military strength and moral quality," was signed mostly by
neo-conservatives, such as former Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz;
Vice President ***** Cheney's current chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby;
the current Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz; and the current
director for Middle East affairs on the National Security Council,
Elliott Abrams.

But several individuals more closely associated with an
aggressive-nationalist position, notably the current Pentagon chief,
Donald Rumsfeld, Cheney, and magazine magnate, Steve Forbes, also
signed, as did Gary Bauer, a leader of the U.S. Christian Right.

The signers' make-up thus presaged the three-headed coalition of
hawks -- neo-conservatives, aggressive nationalists and the Christian
Right -- that gained control of the Bush administration's foreign
policy after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

From 1997 until Bush's election, PNAC issued a number of policy
statements signed by the same or a similar cast of characters, as
well as several longer reports and a book, "Present Dangers", that
prescribed many of the policy initiatives the incoming Bush
administration has since adopted.

PNAC first urged Washington to work for "regime change" in Iraq in
1998, but, within nine days of the 9/11 attacks, the group called for
a similar policy to be applied as well to the Palestinian National
Authority, Syria, and Iran, if they failed to cooperate fully with
the U.S. campaign against terrorism.

While strongly supportive of Bush, PNAC first began expressing some
disappointment with the administration almost exactly two years ago
for its failure to increase the proposed military budget from 3.4
percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to something closer to 4
percent of GDP, which, it noted was still below the 4.8 percent
Washington was spending in 1993, at the end of the Cold War.

Two months later, as U.S. forces launched their invasion, PNAC
issued another letter expressing concern that the administration was
unprepared to provide the stabilisation and reconstruction process
in Iraq with enough military and economic resources.

That letter, which was widely construed as an attack on Rumsfeld, was
signed mostly by neo-conservatives but also included for the first
time since Bush had become president a number of former senior
Clinton officials, such as his deputy national security adviser,
James Steinberg; a former senior Pentagon official, Walter Slocombe,
and several others.

PNAC has since indicated reservations about the administration's
coziness with Russia and China -- two areas where the administration
has generally spurned the hawkish advice of the neo-conservatives -
- but the latest letter indicates a higher level of frustration.

It is the first addressed to Congress and thus appears as a more
direct challenge to the administration's reluctance to increase the
defence budget. Like the 2003 letter, the new one also includes the
signatures of "liberal hawks" -- mostly the same former Clinton
officials who signed the 2003 letter -- as well as neo-conservatives.

The principal target appears to be Rumsfeld, who has strongly resisted
suggestions that U.S. ground forces -- which currently include almost
500,000 active-duty Army troops, more than 175,000 Marines, and a
roughly equal number of reservists -- are inadequate to the tasks
they face.

Rumsfeld has argued that increasing the size of U.S. ground forces
will delay the military's "transformation" into a lighter, more
lethal, and more hi-tech force capable of deploying overwhelming
military power to any strategic hotspot within hours. Additional and
unanticipated expenses for equipping, training, and maintaining an
expanded ground force will take money away from the development and
deployment of new technologies.

The only way to do both is to increase the defence budget, since the
price-tag for just two new divisions, totaling 34,000 soldiers, is an
estimated 20 billion dollars.

But with the budget bleeding red ink as far as the eye can see, Bush
would have to find new sources of revenue -- either by cutting social
programmes that have already been slashed, rolling back tax cuts, or
imposing new taxes.

None of these alternatives is attractive, especially to many
Republican lawmakers for whom the mushrooming deficit is seen
increasingly as the Achilles heel of their party's current political
dominance.

"We understand the dangers of continued federal deficits, and the
fiscal difficulty of increasing the number of troops," the letter
reassures its readers. "But the defence of the United States is the
first priority of the government." (END/2005)

http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27282

Looks like the neoCON PNAC found four retired
numb-nuts Generals to sign off on this
one....Barry McCaffrey among them....the guy
that always poses with his chin stuck out for
MSNBC's camera....I like some of his more
libertarian ideas but not this "think tank".


article:
**************************

More Cannon Fodder, Please

from: Inter Press Service News Agency

http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27282

Analysis by Jim Lobe Friday, February 04, 2005

WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (IPS) - Amid rising concern about the over-extension
of U.S. military forces and the growing budget deficit, the Project
for the New American Century (PNAC), a neo-conservative group whose
past foreign policy recommendations have often been followed by
President George W. Bush, is urging Congress to add 25,000 new
soldiers to U.S. ground forces each year over the next several years.

The appeal, which comes on the eve of Bush's State of the Union
address, is certain to fuel the growing debate over whether
Washington can afford the interventionist vision long espoused by
PNAC and its highly influential founders -- that of a global
"Pax Americana" in which the U.S. military acts as the effective
guarantor of international peace and security.

"The United States military is too small for the responsibilities we
are asking it to assume," said the open letter addressed to the
Congressional leadership and signed by 34 defence and foreign policy
analysts, mostly prominent neo-conservatives but also a smattering of
retired generals and, significantly, several national defence alumni
of Bill Clinton's administration.

It was published as the lead editorial in the Rupert Murdoch-owned
Weekly Standard, which is edited by William Kristol, PNAC's chairman
and founder.

"(O)ur national security, global peace and stability, and the defence
and promotion of freedom in the post-9/11 world require a larger
military force than we have today," the letter went on, adding, "The
[Bush] administration has unfortunately resisted increasing our
ground forces to the size needed to meet today's (and tomorrow's)
missions and challenges."

PNAC itself consists of a handful of people besides Kristol and PNAC's
director, Gary Schmitt. Since its creation in 1997, it has acted
primarily as a platform from which prominent neo-conservatives could
issue policy recommendations and invite influential analysts from
other ideological currents to sign on.

Thus, its founding charter, which called for a "Reaganite policy of
military strength and moral quality," was signed mostly by
neo-conservatives, such as former Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz;
Vice President ***** Cheney's current chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby;
the current Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz; and the current
director for Middle East affairs on the National Security Council,
Elliott Abrams.

But several individuals more closely associated with an
aggressive-nationalist position, notably the current Pentagon chief,
Donald Rumsfeld, Cheney, and magazine magnate, Steve Forbes, also
signed, as did Gary Bauer, a leader of the U.S. Christian Right.

The signers' make-up thus presaged the three-headed coalition of
hawks -- neo-conservatives, aggressive nationalists and the Christian
Right -- that gained control of the Bush administration's foreign
policy after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

From 1997 until Bush's election, PNAC issued a number of policy

statements signed by the same or a similar cast of characters, as
well as several longer reports and a book, "Present Dangers", that
prescribed many of the policy initiatives the incoming Bush
administration has since adopted.

PNAC first urged Washington to work for "regime change" in Iraq in
1998, but, within nine days of the 9/11 attacks, the group called for
a similar policy to be applied as well to the Palestinian National
Authority, Syria, and Iran, if they failed to cooperate fully with
the U.S. campaign against terrorism.

While strongly supportive of Bush, PNAC first began expressing some
disappointment with the administration almost exactly two years ago
for its failure to increase the proposed military budget from 3.4
percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to something closer to 4
percent of GDP, which, it noted was still below the 4.8 percent
Washington was spending in 1993, at the end of the Cold War.

Two months later, as U.S. forces launched their invasion, PNAC
issued another letter expressing concern that the administration was
unprepared to provide the stabilisation and reconstruction process
in Iraq with enough military and economic resources.

That letter, which was widely construed as an attack on Rumsfeld, was
signed mostly by neo-conservatives but also included for the first
time since Bush had become president a number of former senior
Clinton officials, such as his deputy national security adviser,
James Steinberg; a former senior Pentagon official, Walter Slocombe,
and several others.

PNAC has since indicated reservations about the administration's
coziness with Russia and China -- two areas where the administration
has generally spurned the hawkish advice of the neo-conservatives -
- but the latest letter indicates a higher level of frustration.

It is the first addressed to Congress and thus appears as a more
direct challenge to the administration's reluctance to increase the
defence budget. Like the 2003 letter, the new one also includes the
signatures of "liberal hawks" -- mostly the same former Clinton
officials who signed the 2003 letter -- as well as neo-conservatives.

The principal target appears to be Rumsfeld, who has strongly resisted
suggestions that U.S. ground forces -- which currently include almost
500,000 active-duty Army troops, more than 175,000 Marines, and a
roughly equal number of reservists -- are inadequate to the tasks
they face.

Rumsfeld has argued that increasing the size of U.S. ground forces
will delay the military's "transformation" into a lighter, more
lethal, and more hi-tech force capable of deploying overwhelming
military power to any strategic hotspot within hours. Additional and
unanticipated expenses for equipping, training, and maintaining an
expanded ground force will take money away from the development and
deployment of new technologies.

The only way to do both is to increase the defence budget, since the
price-tag for just two new divisions, totaling 34,000 soldiers, is an
estimated 20 billion dollars.

But with the budget bleeding red ink as far as the eye can see, Bush
would have to find new sources of revenue -- either by cutting social
programmes that have already been slashed, rolling back tax cuts, or
imposing new taxes.

None of these alternatives is attractive, especially to many
Republican lawmakers for whom the mushrooming deficit is seen
increasingly as the Achilles heel of their party's current political
dominance.

"We understand the dangers of continued federal deficits, and the
fiscal difficulty of increasing the number of troops," the letter
reassures its readers. "But the defence of the United States is the
first priority of the government." (END/2005)

http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27282


--
http://www.antiwar.com/

http://www.counterpunch.org/

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/