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in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king .....

 

in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king ..... 

There was always something a little strange about the neoconservatives, beginning with the oxymoron of their name.

The term "neocon" entered the zeitgeist in the months leading up to the Iraq war, when it became clear that a clique of sorts existed, united around the reverse domino principle that democracies would sprout like jimson weeds in the Middle East once Saddam Hussein was toppled.  

Intriguingly, many of these new rightists were the children of old leftists, and a winding pedigree could be traced to unlikely starting points - the classroom of Leo Strauss, the mid-century political philosopher at the University of Chicago who trained Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the invasion of Iraq; or even further back in the mists of time, the fantastically loud alcoves of the cafeteria at the City College of New York, where in the 1930s a passionate and incessant debate embroiled young immigrant children, mostly Jewish, over Trotskyism, Leninism and everything in between.  

Helpfully, Jacob Heilbrunn has penetrated these thickets to explain how such obscure intellectual movements (not always united) ascended to power under the second President Bush and then suffered a fall as unexpected as their rise. Difficult to place even in their own time, the neocons now seem wholly out-of-date, discredited in the Middle East and at home.

In a sense they have come full circle and are back in the exile they originated in.  

What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been

We knew they were wrong...

Yes, John...

Although I do not have the same insight as this fellow Jacob Heilbrunn, I do have the need to trample his flower-beds anyway...  Jacob wrote the book, THEY KNEW THEY WERE RIGHT, The Rise of The Neocons... which the assessment (above) by Ted Widmer also tramples on a few of his petunias... Aparently towards the end of the book, Jacob becomes apologetic for the dummies, so writes Ted Wildmer :

"At other times, Heilbrunn seems defensive, as if a trace of the virus remains in his bloodstream. He suggests that the United States should have overthrown Egyptian president Gamal Nasser in 1956 to let democracy bloom, an act that would have been illegal and insane. He is very severe on Democratic foreign policy, targeting George McGovern (who inflicted more harm on Nazis than any neocons did), ridiculing Jimmy Carter and launching the usual tired attacks on Bill Clinton, whom he finds both too slow (to combat terrorism) and too eager (to conduct humanitarian interventions). He excoriates Madeleine Albright for daring to express the "hubristic belief" that the United States is indispensable to the world. More hubristic than the neocons?

Heilbrunn tries acrobatically to defend Reagan's Iran-Contra mess, and Elliott Abrams in particular, while denouncing the specific crime (withholding information from Congress) that Abrams was convicted of, and he argues that El Salvador became a "thriving democracy" as a result of Reagan's policy, a lofty claim. These neocon thought bubbles can be disorienting inside a book that is generally critical of the movement. A quirky ending imagines George W. Bush looking back with satisfaction on world events in 2016, suggesting that history may redeem the neocons, which seems unlikely at best, and possibly delusional. But when historians gather to render that judgment, this mostly even-handed book will deepen the context of a very strange time."

Yes, the middle of the road is where most accidents can happen... Trying to be even-handed about the neocons pirates is showing a lack of intestinal management...

 

a bullet in the head...

American Soldiers Kill 3 Iraqis in Raid

By SOLOMON MOORE and KHALID AL-ANSARY
Published: February 6, 2008

BAGHDAD — The American military said Tuesday that American troops killed at least two men and a woman, and wounded a child during a raid late Monday in Tikrit in northern Iraq.

Military officials in Baghdad said in a statement that killings happened when American soldiers were fired upon as they attacked what they believed was a “terrorist cell.”

“While entering a building, coalition soldiers were attacked by small arms fire,” the statement said. “The soldiers returned fire. Upon initial inspection, coalition forces discovered two men dead, a woman dead, and an injured child.”

According to Iraqi police, all four casualties were family members living in a tiny one-room house. Ali Hamed Shihab, a 47-year-old farmer, his wife, Naeema Ali, 45, and their son, Dhiaa Ali, 18, were all killed. The wounded child was Mr. Shihab’s 16-year-old daughter.

A fourth family member, an 11-year-old girl, died on Tuesday on the way to the hospital, according to Iraqi authorities.

The house is located in a remote village called Door, about 500 miles north of Baghdad. A reporter for The Associated Press went to the house on Tuesday and saw three bodies and shell-casings on the floor there, and quoted a relative who said she witnessed American soldiers kick open the door and fire their weapons without provocation.

On Sunday, military officials acknowledged that they had mistakenly killed nine Iraqi civilians in Iskandariya, 25 miles south of the capital. Iraqi authorities said that the victims included several checkpoint guardsmen.

The Iraqi Army was also contending with the death under mysterious circumstances of a Mahdi Army militiaman who was being detained at the Amara airport base in southern Iraq.

Munthir al-Mosawi, a 27-year-old member of the Shiite militia founded by militant cleric Moktada al-Sadr, died in custody after being held for three days on a Baghdad arrest warrant. A medical report concluded that Mr. Mosawi died of a “bullet in the head,” according to a military official who read the document.

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Gus; In war mistakes are made and often the innocent people are the one bearing the brunt of the warriors... Despite reassurances by the bushit man that all's well in Iraq, last month (January 2008) US troops lost 40 soldiers (half of last year same period) and would have had more than 150 badly injured (the injured do not make the list till the end of the following month). Cities like Baghdad are more divided than ever... 69 Iraqi troops lost their lives and nearly 500 civilians died directly due to the war (official figure.. true number of dead, who knows). And the "occupation" will carry on for another 25 years (possibly 50 years) under another name, such as partnership or such... same difference.

Mind you, many more people may have died on US roads during that time... Or being shot... Who knows.