The War Against Iraq and the Permanent War

[checks-n-balances]

This article is a little old, but still good - especially since it encapsulates a little history of the rise of neo-conservatism. His point about a PERMANENT WAR is important, since the design in this administration was for Iraq to be the opening act. And they deny that a draft is coming.
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The War Against Iraq and the Permanent War
by Gary Dorrien
Parfet Distinguished Professor Kalamazoo College

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In 1997, a group of unipolarists led by Cheney, Libby, Wolfowitz, Eliot Cohen, Frank Gaffney, Donald Kagan, William Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and Donald Rumsfeld founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which issued a statement of principles that called for an aggressive American policy of global domination. This group forged an alliance with George W. Bush, who carried a personal grudge against Saddam Hussein and who turned out to be a strident unilateralist and debunker of humanitarian nation-building. Two months before the presidential election of 2000, the PNAC unipolarists issued a position paper titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century" that spelled out the particulars of a global empire strategy: repudiate the ABM treaty, build a global missile defense system, increase defense spending by $20 billion per year to 3.8 percent of gross domestic product, and reinvent the U.S. military to meet expanded obligations throughout the world. When Bush won the presidency, the Pax Americanists won numerous positions in his administration, notably Bolton, Cambone, Cheney, Cohen, Cross, Feith, Libby, Perle, Pipes, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Woolsey. (5)

This time the unipolarists held the upper hand, though many of them believed otherwise. In the early months of "Bush 41," as the current adminstration is called by insiders, Secretary of State Colin Powell selectively resisted the aggressive unilateralism of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz. Today Donald Kagan, who co-chaired the PNAC position paper on defense policy, contends that before 9/11, the unipolarists were losing the argument in the Bush administration. After the fiendish attacks of 9/11, however, the unipolarist view of the world blended with America's fight against terrorism. On September 14, Wolfowitz declared at a press conference that the U.S. government was committed to "ending states who sponsor terrorism." That remark earned a public rebuke from Powell, who countered that America's goal was to "end terrorism," not launch wars on sovereign states. The differences between these objectives soon blurred in the Bush administration's rhetoric about the war on terrorism, however. On September 20, President Bush declared that any nation that sponsors, aids, or harbors terrorists is an enemy of the United States. One year later, he issued a remarkable document titled "National Security Strategy of the United States of America," which declared the right of the United States to wage pre-emptive wars on rogue states. The following month, Wolfowitz asserted: "This fight is a broad fight. It's a global fight...The war on terrorism is a global war, and one that must be pursued everywhere."

To keep track of what the unipolarists are thinking, one has to pay close attention to those who didn't take jobs in the Bush administration. Wolfowitz and Perle were sharp polemicists before they took office, respectively, as Deputy Defense Secretary and chair of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, but in office they speak official bureaucratise. Today their ideological allies in the private sector are calling for a war against Iraq, but among themselves and in their policy journals, the talk is way beyond Iraq. The unipolarists are pressing Bush not to back away from the implications of his speeches and policy statements.

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President Bush is fond of declaring that America invades and fights only to liberate, never to conquer. I do not doubt that he is sincere in perceiving himself and his country in this way, for this self-perception is widely held in the United States. The United States was founded on a genocidal conquest, but unlike nearly every country in Europe and the Middle East, the United States itself has never been occupied, and many Americans actually believe that we should be welcomed as liberators whenever we invade another country. For decades Americans felt safe from the problems and dangers of other countries, often while being oblivious to the suffering that we caused in the world. On 9/11 we lost the former illusion, but our leaders are invoking that experience to reinforce our hubris and obliviousness.

More:
http://www.kalamazooicpj.org/dorrien.htm