Jackson Free Press

In a much-discussed New York Times Magazine essay, SAIS (Johns Hopkins) professor Francis Fukuyama argues that neo-conservatism has failed miserably, with even the Bush administration distancing itself from the ideas that it used to justify the Iraqi War:

More than any other group, it was the neoconservatives both inside and outside the Bush administration who pushed for democratizing Iraq and the broader Middle East. They are widely credited (or blamed) for being the decisive voices promoting regime change in Iraq, and yet it is their idealistic agenda that in the coming months and years will be the most directly threatened.

Were the United States to retreat from the world stage, following a drawdown in Iraq, it would in my view be a huge tragedy, because American power and influence have been critical to the maintenance of an open and increasingly democratic order around the world. The problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends, which are as American as apple pie, but rather in the overmilitarized means by which it has sought to accomplish them. What American foreign policy needs is not a return to a narrow and cynical realism, but rather the formulation of a "realistic Wilsonianism" that better matches means to ends.

Previous Comments

ID

104997

Comment

I saw this earlier today myself and almost linked to it. Interesting subtext: Fukuyama is a neocon himself--one of the top neocon academics in the country, as opposed to mere neocon pundits--so he knows that of which he speaks. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-02-23T00:54:46-06:00

ID

104998

Comment

Yeah, I'd guess he knows what it actually means, unlike so many people who call themselves a "neocon." Neo-conservatism has simply been an embarrassing series of failures and bad predictions. You can't blame the White House from retreating, although you sure can blame them for going along with stupidity ("shock and awe!") in the first damn place.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-02-23T01:00:56-06:00

ID

104999

Comment

Yeah. Neoconservatism as it was actually conceived in the 1970s makes a little bit of sense--a group of liberal academics who argued against rollback strategies in the Cold War came to the conclusion that in the interests of protecting the human rights of individuals in Soviet-dominated countries, aggressive U.S. action of some kind would be needed. So neocons supported wars, resistance funding, the School of the Americas, propaganda, and other means in an effort to kind of win a multilevel Cold War. Most historians say that this played at least some role in the collapse of the Soviet Union, as they found themselves overextended, though they disagree on to what extent U.S. foreign policy impacted the USSR's collapse (as I discuss in my 2003 book on Gorbachev). I disagree with most liberal historians in that I believe that U.S. military buildup did play a central role in bankrupting the Soviet economy. What this has to do with the current neocon position is that after the Soviet Union fell, most neocons simply took what they knew about anti-Soviet Cold War strategy and adapted it to other foes. Initially, that foe remained communism--throughout most of the 1990s, it was liberals who were concerned about Islamist states while conservatives focused on the more traditional communist foe manifested in China and North Korea. But by the end of the 1990s, pretty much every serious foreign policy scholar of any persuasion agreed that terrorism was a grave and underrated threat that would probably become the most serious foreign policy problem of the 21st century, so the attention turned to more general rhetoric about "terrorism" and "rogue states," as I suspect folks will hear from both sides if they go back and listen to the 2000 Bush-Gore debates. The difference in approach was that neocons continued to believe that the United States was in the midst of a global Cold War, merely replacing the USSR with a broader and more diverse assortment of threats. (Much of Bush's cabinet is made up of top-notch Cold War scholars--including Condoleezza Rice, who I believe has a Ph.D. focusing on Kremlinology.) Liberals, on the other hand, took a law enforcement approach. If you listen to Clinton's rhetoric from the late 1990s, I think you'll hear him describe terrorists quite consistently as criminals. They were not military opponents; they were beneath military rhetoric. They were violent gangsters. Paleoconservatives went either way depending on personal tendencies and, probably, the mood of the moment. Then 9/11 came and concretized everybody's language. Bush said that it was a global war, and so a global war it was--endorsing the neocon way of handling terrorism, and making the liberal way look rhetorically weak. You remember, I'm sure, how Kerry got hammered for saying terrorism should be dealt with as an international law enforcement problem. But the truth is that terrorist groups are not sovereign states, so Kerry is right. The UAE situation is a case in point, as Bush's war rhetoric is catching up with him. I personally see no problem with the port sales, but if I believed that counterterrorism represented a global Cold War against any and all Islamic theocracies, I'm sure my views on the matter would be different. By hammering in the war rhetoric among his fellow Republicans (to the point where it now includes pretty much all Democrats as well), Bush has sown the wind--and now he's reaping the whirlwind. And it's unfortunate, because there's nothing Osama bin Laden wanted more than a global war, and nothing he wanted less than to be treated like the run-of-the-mill crime lord he is. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-02-23T01:38:58-06:00

ID

105000

Comment

That first paragraph is a little sticky: a group of liberal academics who argued against rollback strategies in the Cold War {changed their minds and eventually} came to the conclusion that in the interests of protecting the human rights of individuals in Soviet-dominated countries, aggressive U.S. action of some kind would be needed. So neocons supported wars, resistance funding, the School of the Americas, propaganda, and other means in an effort to kind of win a multilevel Cold War. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-02-23T01:41:05-06:00

ID

105001

Comment

I heard on an AM news radio show that undercover Russian specialists removed Iraq's WMD's to Syria and Lebanon before the US led invasion and toppling of that horrible regime. Why isn't the mainstream media covering this story? Did you know that a majority of the weapons Iraq collected were from Russia, China and FRANCE?!?!?!? These three governments hold vetoes in teh UN, no wonder we cannot get anywhere thru the UN.

Author

harrymday

Date

2006-02-23T10:05:07-06:00

ID

105002

Comment

Uh, which a.m. news radio show?

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-02-23T10:06:53-06:00

ID

105003

Comment

Sean Hannity - 1280 am radio ( i believe 1280 )

Author

harrymday

Date

2006-02-23T10:10:55-06:00

ID

105004

Comment

Ah. Did Mr. Hannitiy "report" this, or did it come from one of his callers? Let's get at the source of this before we start trashing real media for not reporting it.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-02-23T10:12:32-06:00

ID

105005

Comment

goto this link http://www.ocnus.net/artman/publish/article_22857.shtml and read up on what most mainstream media does NOT report

Author

harrymday

Date

2006-02-23T10:17:30-06:00

ID

105006

Comment

New Questions on Saddam, WMD By Washington Times 20/2/06 Feb 22, 2006, 11:18 The new information includes audio recordings of 12 hours of conversations from the early 1990s through 2000 involving Saddam Hussein and his top aides, in which Saddam discusses how to conceal Iraqi weapons programs from U.N. inspectors and the possibility that the United States could be the target of terrorist attacks.

Author

harrymday

Date

2006-02-23T10:23:26-06:00

ID

105007

Comment

Uh, Harry, that's the Washington Times. That would kind of like quoting Pravda. Eek. That doesn't mean there's never a fact in there, but you gotta be real careful with the moonies and their context. ;-) Here's another good one for analyzing mainstream media coverage: Media Matters. Don't trust anything for yourself, whether right or left. Follow the sources, the links and the attribution, and analyze them without regard to partisanship, and you'll get much closer to the truth, no matter where it lies on the spectrum. BTW, you can't post a full story here. That's a clear copyright violation. I'll have to go edit the one you just posted. People can to the Washington Times for the full story if they wish.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-02-23T11:50:49-06:00

ID

105008

Comment

sure sure, but i dont believe many if anyone can convince me that france, china or russia have enabled much of the evil that goes on in the world, and i dont believe the US should be a blind eye to what goes on outside our country, because in time we will look across our own borders and see a giant foe that has gained everything thru violence, oppression, fear (terror) and other inhumane tactics. . . and don't anyone give me the US or its allies are just as bad or use similar tactics, thats BS. help evolve the arab male world

Author

harrymday

Date

2006-02-23T12:12:54-06:00

ID

105009

Comment

the link previous to the WT article was plainly NOT Washinton Times.

Author

harrymday

Date

2006-02-23T12:23:40-06:00

ID

105010

Comment

There's a lot the "main stream" media doesn't report. For instance, while the White House press corps was tripping over each other about Cheney's hunting accident, Al Gore was making false, anti-American comments on Saudi Arabian soil. With the exception of FNC, not a single "main stream" media outlet reported the story.

Author

Curt Crowley

Date

2006-02-23T17:44:43-06:00

ID

105011

Comment

Curt, Gore is no longer vice-president. That being the case, him shooting off his mouth is not as newsworthy as Cheney shooting off somebody else's mouth. A news.google.com search for "gore" "saudi arabia" turns up 365 recent matches, most of them calling for Gore to be prosecuted for treason (a capital offense) or sedition (which is no longer a crime). You can find what he actually said here. I find his comments to be neither false nor anti-American, but for those who believe that disagreeing with the current administration is a federal crime, I suppose it's a more serious matter. I look forward to the end of this president's administration, so that right-wingers will stop screaming for the arrest and/or execution of anyone who expresses an unpopular viewpoint. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-02-23T18:02:24-06:00

ID

105012

Comment

(Incidentally, the media outlet I cited was the Washington Post. I don't know if that qualifies as mainstream in your book, but at least they don't routinely issue fatwas against liberals.)

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-02-23T18:04:07-06:00

ID

105013

Comment

TH, most of those sites you referenced are most assuredly right-wing smear sites that are well outside the mainstream media. I'm not calling for Gore's prosecution or execution. He's free to say what he wants, where he wants. And clear-thinking Americans are free to publicly castigate him when he makes anti-American comments.

Author

Curt Crowley

Date

2006-02-23T18:08:51-06:00

ID

105014

Comment

Curt, I'm confused. You haven't provided any links or backups for your statements, which I know are being bandied about the right-wing blogosphere right now. Could you provide a source on exactly what Mr. Gore said that is "false" or "un-American." Certainly, nothing quoted in that Washington Post is either false or un-American. Lord, if calling for lawful and Democratic treatment of people isn't American, I'm not sure what is. Certainly, not torture or putting the accused in prison without legal representation. There is nothing American about that. Help us out if you can point to specifics, please. Otherwise, your point isn't very interesting or useful.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-02-23T18:13:06-06:00

ID

105015

Comment

I'm not going to dissect all Gore's comments here, but here's an example: "Gore told the largely Saudi audience, many of them educated at U.S. universities, that Arabs in the United States had been 'indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable.'" Who was "indiscriminately rounded up?" Is he referring to enemy combatants? Sorry Al, but if someone takes up arms against the U.S., I don't give a sh!t if they get arrested and locked up. Also, "minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order"?? This means they were in the country illegally. ILLEGALLY. That's a concept most on the far-left fringe don't understand. The government is absolutely justified in arresting these people. The thing that most makes Gore's comments un-American is that he made them in an Arab nation while the U.S. is at war in the region. He has the right to do it, but it's still a bad thing to do.

Author

Curt Crowley

Date

2006-02-23T18:37:30-06:00

ID

105016

Comment

Curt, thanks for the clarification on this. I imagine you can see why someone like me, a visible liberal with a prominently-displayed ACLU membership card, might be concerned when he reads quotes from the likes of Michael Savage. But as far as what Gore said at the Jennah Summit is concerned, I just don't see anything there that's all that newsworthy. Hasn't he said all of this before? Haven't many of us? Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-02-23T18:43:02-06:00

ID

105017

Comment

The United States is not at war with Saudi Arabia. The fact that Saudis by and large share the same religion and ethnicity as the folks we are at war with is really rather immaterial. But by that logic, isn't Bush's sale of the ports to the UAE a far more offensive act than anything Gore might have said at an economic summit? Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-02-23T18:44:35-06:00

ID

105018

Comment

TH, we both can agree that Savage is a nut job.

Author

Curt Crowley

Date

2006-02-23T18:48:43-06:00

ID

105019

Comment

Curt, it doesn't take much research to learn that not everyone who has been "rounded up" by this administration has "take[n] up arms against the U.S." We know better than that. And I'm not getting your un-American point. Aren't we in that region trying, supposedly, to spread "Americanism" -- presumably meaning freedom of speech and the willingness to stand up for people whose rights are being violated? Americanism is not, and never has been, about defending your current government no matter what they do, or to whom. That's just blind loyalty that has little if anything to do with actual freedom, and the exercise of it. Maybe you're mixing up "Americanism" with "jingoism" or even "nationalism." Americanism is far and beyond those two states of blind loyalty that allows one's government to get away with anything. This country is so much better than that, I'm happy to say. That's why I love the U.S. Also, I wonder what you think of the White House's port deal? And Tom's point is very good: Gore is not our biggest concern right now; however, Cheney is perhaps our worst nightmare. We need to stay focused on the problems on our plate, and the people who are actually currently working as public servants.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-02-23T19:08:00-06:00

ID

105020

Comment

Curt, I will say that I have no earthly idea why there has been so much media coverage of Cheney's hunting accident. Not that there should have been more coverage of Gore at the Jeddah Summit, necessarily, but just that I can't understand why there has been wall-to-wall coverage of Cheney accidentally peppering a buddy with birdshot. That sort of thing happens all the time when people are hunting. That's one of the (many!) reasons why I don't hunt. So if you're asking me to justify that from a liberal POV, I can't--I think it's my generation's version of the Jimmy Carter rabbit incident. And there has also been a lot of stuff said about the administration by the likes of Harry Belafonte in Venezuela lately that I think could legitimately be called anti-American in that it is broadly critical of the United States in a way that transcends specific policy issues, including the War on Terror. I wouldn't say un-American, but certainly anti-American. Certainly Ward Churchill's reference to the victims of the 9/11 attacks as "little Eichmanns" is anti-American, though, here again, not un-American. (Anti-American comment are part of the American experience, going all the way back to the Founding Fathers.) But in the case of Gore, I think he's making some good points. There was a chilling study recently that backs up his claim about people being rounded up for no good reason, at least at Guantanamo Bay. And certainly Arabs have been targeted in the United States as well: See the ACLU report Sanctioned Bias: Racial Profiling Since 9/11, which provides a lot of testimony backing up exactly what Gore is saying. Your point about undocumented immigrants having illegal status to begin with may be valid, but it is the purview of the INS to investigate such claims. The FBI and local law enforcement are not trained to deal with immigration issues and to determine which cases are worth prosecuting and which represent honest mistakes for which no punishment is warranted. There is a broader argument we could be having about undocumented immigration in general, but I think we should be able to at least agree that agents who are not qualified to enforce immigration laws, and who have not been given the appropriate jurisdiction enforce INS claims, should not threaten to do so. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-02-23T19:44:11-06:00

ID

105021

Comment

("Anti-American comment are..." --> "Anti-American comments are...")

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-02-23T19:45:10-06:00

ID

105022

Comment

Ladd, the port deal is boneheaded. The UAE supported the Taliban, and allowed Al Quaeda to launder money through its banks (the same money used to finance 9-11). It also has other ties to terror. While the actual job of port security is not being turned over to the UAE, the management of the port operations is being turned over to them. That's a bad idea because it puts the UAE in the unique position of being able to control container movement. Controlling container movement would be essential to evading the security measures of the Coast Guard and ICE. Politically, its the dumbest thing the administration has ever done. The majority of Americans don't want anything, much less ports, turned over to Arabs. This is a horrible idea all the way around.

Author

Curt Crowley

Date

2006-02-23T19:49:29-06:00

ID

105023

Comment

No question that it is one of the dumbest things, politically, I've EVER seen anyone do.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-02-23T19:50:36-06:00

ID

105024

Comment

So if you're asking me to justify that from a liberal POV, I can't--I think it's my generation's version of the Jimmy Carter rabbit incident. Agreed. It feels like trivia to me, over all, although the administration is certainly open to criticism on their handling of it. But their handling of Valerie Plame, the illegal wiretaps, justification for the Iraqi war as they waged it, Guantanamo Bay, the rounding of Arabs, Cheney's expanded powers, and many other issues are much more important. This is rabbit food in comparison.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-02-23T19:53:21-06:00

ID

105025

Comment

Oh, and their hoisting of the racist and classist "No Child Left Behind" on the American public. There is little they're done more "un-American" to me than their attempts to obliterate the public schools under the cynical guise of helping black kids.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-02-23T19:54:28-06:00

ID

105026

Comment

I personally don't think selling the ports to the UAE is necessarily a bad thing. It has made considerable progress in the area of human rights; as Islamic states go, it's a good ally to have, much better than Saudi Arabia. I also think we need to be very careful about not opposing "Arab" states in general, or we will in effect punish secularization in the region. So (oddly enough) I support Bush on this, though I'm concerned that they probably still have enough votes to override his veto. And Donna, agreed on the other stuff. I'm not convinced that NCLB would be a bad piece of legislation if it were actually funded, because then "underperforming" schools could be improved instead of merely punished, but as it exists now it's certainly a nasty piece of legislation that does nothing but punish students in struggling districts, who are almost always poor and non-white. Very ugly. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-02-23T20:04:30-06:00

ID

105027

Comment

Well, I don't know if neoconservatism is dead, but this thread certainly is. It appears that not too many people give a flying Fukuyama about the topic. Which is fine and good. For months I've had on a nearby shelf Mark Gerson's The Essential Neoconservative Reader. The volume raises more questions than answers, arguing (near as I can tell) that neoconservatism rests not on the traditional foreign policy issues that defined it a generation ago, but on a broad range of societal issues. It even says that believing that institutional racism is less of a problem than "black culture" is a neoconservative position, and cites 50-year-old essays by Norman Podhoretz and Daniel Patrick Moynihan to prove it. The trouble with the book's definition of neoconservatism is that it presents what amounts to a naked conservatism with the prefix "neo" attached, and the only thing that makes it a unified movement is the names of the people involved. Hardly a compelling way of explaining a political movement. Wikipedia has a cool definition that actually makes neocons sound like pretty decent folk. For example: [T]here are notable differences between neoconservative and traditional or "paleoconservative" views. In particular, neoconservatives disagree with the nativist, protectionist, and isolationist strain of American conservatism once exemplified by the ex-Republican "paleoconservative" Pat Buchanan, and the traditional "pragmatic" approach to foreign policy often associated with Richard Nixon, which emphasized pragmatic accommodation with dictators; peace through negotiations, diplomacy, and arms control; détente and containment — rather than rollback — of the Soviet Union; and the initiation of the process that led to ties between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the United States. In other words: They don't want to isolate themselves by Pat Buchanan or be pragmatic llike Richard Nixon. They want an aggressive, "with us or against us" foreign policy that rejects friendly relations with illiberal regimes and actively works to fight unfavorable international movements and alliances. Which explains why Bush is getting some flak from his own party on the UAE ports deal, though personally (here again) I don't see why being in bed with the Saudi government is supposed to be good but working with the UAE is supposed to be bad. I'm also worried about rejecting the entire Arab world for the actions of a few, because that gives bin Laden the World War III he always wanted. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-02-26T00:56:02-06:00

ID

105028

Comment

I forgot to give the best quote of all from the Wiki article: Historically, neoconservatives supported a militant anticommunism, tolerated more social welfare spending than was sometimes acceptable to libertarians and mainstream conservatives, supported civil equality for blacks and other minorities, and sympathized with a non-traditional foreign policy agenda that was less deferential to traditional conceptions of diplomacy and international law and less inclined to compromise principles even if that meant unilateral action. Indeed, domestic policy does not define neoconservatism — it is a movement founded on, and perpetuated by an aggressive approach to foreign policy, free trade, opposition to communism during the Cold War, support for Israel and Taiwan and opposition to Middle Eastern and other states that are perceived to support terrorism. Broadly sympathetic to Woodrow Wilson's idealistic goals to spread American ideals of government, economics, and culture abroad, they grew to reject his reliance on international organizations and treaties to accomplish these objectives. Compared to other U.S. conservatives, neoconservatives may be characterized by an aggressive moralist stance on foreign policy, a lesser social conservatism, and a much weaker dedication to a policy of minimal government, and, in the past, a greater acceptance of the welfare state, though none of these qualities are necessarily requisite. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-02-26T01:12:17-06:00