Nation-Building Exposes GOP's House Divided

[Manix]

<snip>


Before the Iraq war, conservative complaints about Bush were largely confined to a figure like Pat Buchanan. "Lust for destruction is not policy, no matter how much Pentagon hawks and neoconservative media trumpets may yearn to plow salt into the fields of Iraq," his American Conservative magazine declared in fall 2002. In response, in the April 7 issue of National Review last year, David Frum, coauthor of the new neoconservative manifesto "An End to Evil," denounced "unpatriotic conservatives," declaring that "they have turned their backs on their country. Now we turn our backs on them."

But in recent months, the kind of apprehensions expressed by Simes and others about U.S. overreaching have spread. According to realist thinker Fareed Zakaria, author of the bestseller "The Future of Freedom," a skeptical look at exporting democracy, "At some point denial will stop working, the markets will react … and the budget will be under severe pressure. Then Congress will begin searching for cuts, and spending on foreign affairs, even military spending, will get the ax. And America's grand new engagement in the world will turn out to be short-lived indeed."



LA Times

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. As we have said before...

...a simple understanding of the strategy in the game of RISK would have been enough to learn that eventually, an army can get over-extended.

[snippy]

2. But the United States is "a nation with a mission."

I have been surprised by the lack of reaction to this Bushshit:

. . . by our actions we have shown what kind of nation we are. We're a nation with a mission, and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We believe that freedom is the right of every single person in the world. By the unselfish dedication of Americans in uniform, people in our own country and in lands far away, people can live in freedom and know the peace that freedom brings.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/02/20040217-5.html