Liberals and Neocons: Together Again

[BigBadBrian]

February 11, 2005
Liberals and Neocons: Together Again

by Tom Barry
The neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) has signaled its intention to continue shaping the government's national security strategy with a new public letter stating that the "U.S. military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume." Rather than reining in the imperial scope of U.S. national security strategy as set forth by the first Bush administration, PNAC and the letter's signatories call for increasing the size of America's global fighting machine.

The Jan. 28 PNAC letter advocates that House and Senate leaders take the necessary steps "to increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps."

Joining the neocons in the letter to congressional leaders were a group of prominent liberals – giving some credence to PNAC's claim that the "call to act" to increase the total number of U.S. ground forces counts on bipartisan support.

After an initial spate of public pronouncements after 9/11 and during the onset of the Iraq occupation, the Project for the New American Century is again positioning itself as the policy institute that will set the second Bush administration's security agenda. Although PNAC's 1997 statement of principles included only prominent right-wing figures – many of whom later joined the first-term Bush administration – the neocon policy institute has repeatedly reached out to liberals to give its public letters to the Congress and the president the gloss of bipartisanship.

Its new call for congressional leaders to increase overall U.S. troop levels includes endorsement of key liberal analysts. Among the signatories are the leading foreign policy analysts at the Brookings Institution and the Progressive Policy Institute, which are closely associated with the Democratic Party. The endorsees of the letter are largely neoconservatives who are principals in such neocon-led institutes as PNAC, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and the Center for Security Policy. However, this call for a larger expeditionary force was also signed by prominent liberal hawks, including Michael O'Hanlon, Ivo Daalder, James Steinberg, and Will Marshall – all of whom have signed previous PNAC letters and policy statements.

Support for a "Generational Commitment" in Middle East

PNAC's "Letter to Congress on Increasing U.S. Ground Forces" endorses Secretary of State Rice's assessment that U.S. military engagement in the Middle East is a "generational commitment." To meet that commitment, the PNAC signatories call on Congress to fulfill its constitutional obligation to raise and support military forces – which they say means increasing the number of ground forces by at least 25,000 troops annually over the next several years.

PNAC, which has repeatedly called for increases in the military budget and for military-backed "regime change" around the world, is concerned that the "United States military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume." The neoconservative policy institute, which produced the blueprint for the national security strategy of the first Bush administration, echoes the recent assertion by the chief of the Army Reserve that the "overuse" of U.S. ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan could be result in a "broken force."

Given that the military's reenlistment rates are declining and recruitment goals are not being met, PNAC's call for Congress to increase troop levels implies either reintroducing the draft or dramatically increasing the pay for volunteer enlistees. The latter option would in effect create a global mercenary force deployed to meet the new responsibilities of preventive war, regime change, and political restructuring of the Middle East.

Liberal Hawks Fly with the Neocons

The recent PNAC letter to Congress was not the first time that PNAC or its associated front groups, such as the Coalition for the Liberation of Iraq, have included hawkish Democrats.

Two PNAC letters in March 2003 played to those Democrats who believed that the invasion was justified at least as much by humanitarian concerns as it was by the purported presence of weapons of mass destruction. PNAC and the neocon camp had managed to translate their military agenda of preemptive and preventive strikes into national security policy. With the invasion underway, they sought to preempt those hardliners and military officials who opted for a quick exit strategy in Iraq. In their March 19 letter, PNAC stated that Washington should plan to stay in Iraq for the long haul: "Everyone – those who have joined the coalition, those who have stood aside, those who opposed military action, and, most of all, the Iraqi people and their neighbors – must understand that we are committed to the rebuilding of Iraq and will provide the necessary resources and will remain for as long as it takes."

Along with such neocon stalwarts as Robert Kagan, Bruce Jackson, Joshua Muravchik, James Woolsey, and Eliot Cohen, a half-dozen Democrats were among the 23 individuals who signed PNAC's first letter on postwar Iraq. Among the Democrats were Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution and a member of Clinton's National Security Council staff; Martin Indyk, Clinton's ambassador to Israel; Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute and Democratic Leadership Council; Dennis Ross, Clinton's top adviser on the Israel-Palestinian negotiations; and James Steinberg, Clinton's deputy national security adviser and head of foreign policy studies at Brookings. A second post-Iraq war letter by PNAC on March 28 called for broader international support for reconstruction, including the involvement of NATO, and brought together the same Democrats with the prominent addition of another Brookings' foreign policy scholar, Michael O'Hanlon.

In late 2002 PNAC's Bruce Jackson formed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq that brought together such Democrats as Senator Joseph Lieberman; former Senator Robert Kerrey, the president of the New School University who now serves on the 9/11 Commission; PPI's Will Marshall; and former U.S. Representative Steve Solarz. The neocons also reached out to Democrats through a sign-on letter to the president organized by the Social Democrats/USA, a neocon institute that has played a critical role in shaping the National Endowment for Democracy in the early 1980s and in mobilizing labor support for an interventionist foreign policy.

The liberal hawks not only joined with the neocons to support the war and the postwar restructuring but have published their own statements in favor of what is now widely regarded as a morally bankrupt policy agenda. Perhaps the clearest articulation of the liberal hawk position on foreign and military policy is found in an October 2003 report by the Progressive Policy Institute, which is a think tank closely associated with the Democratic Leadership Council. The report, entitled Progressive Internationalism: A Democratic National Security Strategy, endorsed the invasion of Iraq, "because the previous policy of containment was failing," and Saddam Hussein's government was "undermining both collective security and international law."

PPI President Will Marshall said that the progressive internationalism strategy draws "a sharp distinction between this mainstream Democratic strategy for national security and the far left's vision of America's role in the world. In this document we take issue with those who begrudge the kind of defense spending that we think is necessary to meet our needs, both at home and abroad; with folks who seem to reflexively oppose the use of force; and who seem incapable of taking America's side in international disputes." Among the other liberal hawks who contributed to the Progressive Internationalism report were Bob Kerrey; Larry Diamond of the Hoover Institution and the National Endowment for Democracy; and Michael McFaul of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The repeated willingness of influential liberal leaders and foreign policy analysts, such as Marshall, O'Hanlon, and Daalder, to join forces with the neoconservative camp has bolstered PNAC's claim that its foreign policy agenda is neither militarist nor imperialist but one that is based on a deep respect for human rights, democracy, and universal moral values. Other liberal hawks signing the recent PNAC letter include New Republic editor Peter Beinart; Steven Nider, director of security studies at the Progressive Policy Institute; James Steinberg, director of Brooking's foreign policy studies program and former director of the State Department's Policy Planning office during the Clinton administration; Craig Kennedy, president of the German Marshall Fund and former program officer at the Joyce Foundation; and Michelle Flournoy, a self-described "pro-defense Democrat" who is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group and served in the Clinton administration in the DOD's strategy secretariat. Having Yale historian Paul Kennedy, the author of The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, sign the new letter was a major coup for PNAC.

Not surprising is the list of neocons signing PNAC's new letter. In addition to PNAC's founders William Kristol and Robert Kagan, other PNAC principals included as signatories were its deputy director Daniel McKivergan, executive director Gary Schmitt, military strategist Thomas Donnelly, Middle East associate Reuel Marc Gerecht; and board members Bruce Jackson and Randy Scheunemann. Signatories from the closely associated American Enterprise Institute include Daniel Blumenthal, Joshua Muravchik, Danielle Pletka, and Elliot Cohen. Other neocon luminaries among the 34 signatories include pundit Max Boot; Clifford May, executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies; and Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy.

One striking difference marking the new PNAC letter was its inclusion of several high-ranking retired military officers, including Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former SouthCom commander and Drug Czar, and Lt. Gen. Buster Glosson, who directed air strategy during the Gulf War.

Mugging and Hugging

Irving Kristol, known as the "godfather of neoconservatism," famously defined neoconservatives as "liberals who have been mugged by reality." That political mugging occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the rise of the counterculture, the antiwar movement, and progressive New Politics of the Democratic Party.

Former Trotskyite militants and Cold War liberals like Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, and Midge Decter switched their loyalties to the Republican Party. The "reality" that mugged the neocons was the progressive turn in the Democratic Party led by such figures as Jesse Jackson, Bella Abzug, George McGovern, and Jimmy Carter. In contrast, the neoconservatives found the militant anticommunism and social conservatism of the Ronald Reagan faction in the Republican Party invigorating. In the neocon lexicon, liberalism became synonymous with secularism, women's liberation, anti-Americanism, and appeasement.

Over the past quarter century, the neocons have sought, with increasing success, to rid the Republican Party of its isolationists, its anti-imperialists, and its realists. The younger neocons, such as William Kristol (son of Irving) and Elliott Abrams (son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter), have promoted a new right-wing internationalism that holds that America should be both a global cop and a global missionary for freedom.

Traditional conservatives and Republican Party realists say that the neocons' foreign policy agenda is, respectively, neo-imperialist and unrealistic about the capacity of U.S. military power to remake the world. Apart from their militarist friends in the Pentagon and defense industries, the neocons are finding that their closest ideological allies are the internationalists in the liberal camp. Having recuperated from their mugging, the neocons are now reaching out to liberals who share their idealism about America's global mission. To the delight of the neocons at PNAC and AEI, an influential group of liberal hawks share their vision of a U.S. grand strategy that will create a world order based on U.S. military supremacy and America's presumed moral superiority.


Link

[FORD]

Misleading title. Not a single liberal was named in the entire article, and I noticed that they deliberately avoided mentioning that Will Marshall the traitorous shitbag is one of the founders of the DLC. Which proves that he's actually a Republican mole trying to destroy the Democratic party from within.

Their time is over. They don't own the new DNC chair like they did Terry McUseless.

[FORD]

Over the past quarter century, the neocons have sought, with increasing success, to rid the Republican Party of its isolationists, its anti-imperialists, and its realists.

Could one of you Busheep please explain how the HELL you can embrace a fucked up ideology as this, and call yourselves "Republicans"??

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by FORD
Misleading title. Not a single liberal was named in the entire article,

Oh yeah? Read it again, Nimrod. They don't name names like Bill, Hillary, John, or Teddy.

Instead, there are:

Michael O'Hanlon, Ivo Daalder, James Steinberg, and Will Marshall....people who set policy your boys follow.

[FORD]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Oh yeah? Read it again, Nimrod. They don't name names like Bill, Hillary, John, or Teddy.

Instead, there are:

Michael O'Hanlon, Ivo Daalder, James Steinberg, and Will Marshall....people who set policy your boys follow.

Again, they are NOT Liberals. They are DLC - Republican moles attempting to destroy the Democratic party from within. PPI, which shares offices with the DLC is nothing more than a slightly whitewashed branch office of PNAC.

[Nickdfresh]

Interesting article, but considering myself a sort of "Liberal Hawk," I reject everything that PNUT stands for. There are numerous logical flaws here, for example, an "ex-militant Trotskyist" would be far more akin to our founding father's vision of a SECULAR, strong America that minds it's own business and does not set out to remake the world in it's pseudo-image using the Blitzkrieg!

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
February 11, 2005

The neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) has signaled its intention to continue shaping the government's national security strategy with a new public letter stating that the "U.S. military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume." Rather than reining in the imperial scope of U.S. national security strategy as set forth by the first Bush administration, PNAC and the letter's signatories call for increasing the size of America's global fighting machine.

Wonderful news! PNAC has more great plans for all of us!

Of course the US military is too small to take over the entire Middle East. So obviously we have to institute a draft. Isn't this the first it's been openly discussed by anyone other than the Democracts that introduced that bill?

PNAC, which has repeatedly called for increases in the military budget and for military-backed "regime change" around the world, is concerned that the "United States military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume." The neoconservative policy institute, which produced the blueprint for the national security strategy of the first Bush administration, echoes the recent assertion by the chief of the Army Reserve that the "overuse" of U.S. ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan could be result in a "broken force."

Given that the military's reenlistment rates are declining and recruitment goals are not being met, PNAC's call for Congress to increase troop levels implies either reintroducing the draft or dramatically increasing the pay for volunteer enlistees. The latter option would in effect create a global mercenary force deployed to meet the new responsibilities of preventive war, regime change, and political restructuring of the Middle East.

Big Train, right here they are stating that they don't give a shit what we think. They ARE going to institute a draft to increase or forces and then they ARE going to invade Iran.

Didn't one of those earlier PNAC letters state the necessity of a large attack on the US to solidify support for war?

So how are they going to drum up the public support for their clearly laid plans for war?

FORD, please do me a favor and add your thoughts on this.

Link

[LoungeMachine]

I'd like a little clarification as to what the CON in neocon now stands for...

Conservative Values? No, you implant reporters who run gay escort services

FISCAL Conservatives? No, you run up record deficits

Environmental Conservatives? [ i just spit up my coffee even typing that ]


Exactly WHAT are you conservative about these days?, you nation building Huns, you.

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
February 11, 2005
Liberals and Neocons: Together Again

by Tom Barry
The neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) has signaled its intention to continue shaping the government's national security strategy with a new public letter stating that the "U.S. military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume." Rather than reining in the imperial scope of U.S. national security strategy as set forth by the first Bush administration, PNAC and the letter's signatories call for increasing the size of America's global fighting machine.

Sounds like the start of a Draft to me

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by LoungeMachine
I'd like a little clarification as to what the CON in neocon now stands for...

Conservative Values? No, you implant reporters who run gay escort services

The only people that's ever come to that conclusion are you and FORD to my knowledge and he is gay. Are you also? I thought you had a wife nobody had the nerve to look at?

[FORD]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
The only people that's ever come to that conclusion are you and FORD to my knowledge and he is gay.

I guess your knowledge isn't much then.

[Warham]

If more liberals were like Bill Clinton, you guys might actually get somebody elected eventually. But instead of Bill being your hero, you choose Michael Moore and Ted Kennedy.

I give Slick Willy his props. He knows why the Democratic Party has been floundering since 2000.

[Big Train]

Settle down. These guys are a "think tank", one of very many on the hill. They are lobbyists in essence.

The thing you quote OD are "options" they feel are in line with their thinking. "Sounds like" and "has been instituted" are two VERY different things.

As far as the party goes, there are some extremists, like every party. The PNAC to me remains (and yea I've read the manifesto) a group of military thinkers whose main job is to think of future military circumstances and doctorine. They do have a point that we don't have enough forces to do all that we may want to, should the circumstances change. However, it doesn't say anything about how we are absolutely going to do ANYTHING.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
The only people that's ever come to that conclusion are you and FORD to my knowledge and he is gay. Are you also? I thought you had a wife nobody had the nerve to look at?

Always in denial BigBad, but sorry, that faggy "macho" reporter has been conclusively linked to those sites, that's why he used a pseudonym.

A real raw nerve that one of your fellow Bushie partisan cheerleaders is a queer, eh?

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Warham
If more liberals were like Bill Clinton, you guys might actually get somebody elected eventually. But instead of Bill being your hero, you choose Michael Moore and Ted Kennedy.


I give Slick Willy his props. He knows why the Democratic Party has been floundering since 2000.

I'm feelin' a lot of love in the room!

[Warham]

I'm pretty sure the only reason Clinton endorsed Clark was because he knew he'd never win, also that way he wouldn't have to endorse John Kerry too early. By endorsing Kerry at the last minute, it meant little. Also, it gives Hillary a huge chance in 2008.

I know FORD's all gung ho about Dean being chair, but he's not going to stop the Clinton parade. He will get hammered into place, even if it's like fitting a square peg into a round hole.

By taking that 'little' UN job, Bill is setting himself up so that when Kofi takes the fall eventually from all the corruption, the EU will go bonkers and endorse Clinton as the new UN Secretary General.

If Hillary would somehow win the Presidency in '08, and Bill gets the highest position in the UN, this sets up the US towing to the UN more than it does now (which isn't much). It's a scary proposition. It's also the reason Hillary is starting to go to the middle. She knows she has no chance to win by being a liberal. Kerry has no chance. He shot his load already.

It's a scary proposition. The Republicans better get somebody prepped up.

[Nickdfresh]

Oh contraire...Dean will never support Hillary in '08. I'm thinkin' Clark and someone else, maybe she'll be the VP nominee. But I highly doubt you'll see her make in the primaries.

[Warham]

Dean will be MADE to support Hillary.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Warham
Dean will be MADE to support Hillary.

Doubt it!

[FORD]

Originally posted by Warham
Dean will be MADE to support Hillary.

That will happen about the same time Van Hagar makes a ROCK album.

[academic punk]

Hillary happens to be riding a wave of well-deserved popularity here In NY lately.

In a recent poll, she'd kick Pataki's ass in a run for her senate seat, and even beat Giulliani.

Spitzer is also kicking Pataki's ass in the poll for governor.

Republicans have shot themselves in their bid for NY. Even Bloomberg is doing poorly lately with his fellow GOPers, though I think he's doing a GREAT job and will absolutely vote for him again.

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by Warham
By taking that 'little' UN job, Bill is setting himself up so that when Kofi takes the fall eventually from all the corruption, the EU will go bonkers and endorse Clinton as the new UN Secretary General.

Listen to your paranoid ramblings compared to mine.

You have some serious Clinton issues dude. The world's going to complete shit right in front of you and all you care about is Clinton.

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
Listen to your paranoid ramblings compared to mine.

You have some serious Clinton issues dude. The world's going to complete shit right in front of you and all you care about is Clinton.

I firmly believe that most of these right wing wack job's obsession with Cinton stem from the fact none of them have ever been offered the random hummer. And they're jealous.

They can't get their own wives to do it, so they can't fathom standing in their office getting one from someone half their wive's age

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Warham
Dean will be MADE to support Hillary.

Yep. Dean will be made to fall in line with the party agenda like a first-grader waiting for the little boys room.

[FORD]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Yep. Dean will be made to fall in line with the party agenda like a first-grader waiting for the little boys room.

When Satan needs to install central heating.....

[Warham]

Originally posted by LoungeMachine
I firmly believe that most of these right wing wack job's obsession with Cinton stem from the fact none of them have ever been offered the random hummer. And they're jealous.

They can't get their own wives to do it, so they can't fathom standing in their office getting one from someone half their wive's age

Speak for yourself.

My wife's been giving them to me since day one.

I feel sorry for you if your old lady won't.

[Warham]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
Listen to your paranoid ramblings compared to mine.

You have some serious Clinton issues dude. The world's going to complete shit right in front of you and all you care about is Clinton.

At least my ramblings have a realistic chance of happening!

The world's been going to shit since Adam and Eve, son. Just like King Solomon said: "There's nothing new under the sun."

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by Warham
At least my ramblings have a realistic chance of happening!

The world's been going to shit since Adam and Eve, son. Just like King Solomon said: "There's nothing new under the sun."

Yeah, but he said that pre- Windows