William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

In December, BBC World Affairs Correspondent Paul Reynolds wrote an article detailing the life and death of the Project for the New American Century, as well as the death of the neo-conservative movement.

The ambitions proclaimed when the neo-cons’ mission statement “The Project for the New American Century” was declared in 1997 have turned into disappointment and recriminations as the crisis in Iraq has grown.

“The Project for the New American Century” has been reduced to a voice-mail box and a ghostly website. A single employee has been left to wrap things up.

The idea of the “Project” was to project American power and influence around the world.

You pull two thoughts out of the article. Either the PNAC crowd - Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Libby, Podheretz, Gaffney and others - are naive to the point of literally being mentally stunted, or that they are despicably evil. And one would be hard pressed to call Cheney naive on any issue.

Because, from what Reynolds wrote, it’s truly impossible to believe that a group of adults could convey that they truly believed this:

They predicted the development of democratic values in a region lacking in them and, in that way, the removal of any threat to the United States just as the democratisation of Germany and Japan after World War II had transformed Europe and the Pacific.

So you have two choices: They were all a bunch of cockeyed optimists, or they are, in fact, just being more upfront about following the normal course of action - complete U.S. world domination. And while neo-cons like Gary Schmitt will say that the U.S. was turning “neo-isolationist” or whatever rhetoric, nothing backs that up. The real problem was that the U.S. likely just wasn’t being imperialistic enough, especially as far as the Middle East was concerned.

Because with a staggering 737 military bases across the globe, and with a $592 million, mega-embassy going up in Iraq, leaders of the United States have been very clear in their actions for decades now - keep your markets open, let us put a facility in your nation and every thing will be cool, if not expect military action. The PNAC crowd just had the hubris to publish it all on a Web site.

And regardless of whether the “pundits” and “policymakers” admit to their wrong doings, or just lie about whether they wanted war, like Michael Ledeen, the fact is, they still believe in what they preached leading up to invading Iraq, and they still believe they’re winning.

And they’re right. No matter what public sentiment is, and no matter how fringe and reckless the neo-cons appear now, their road map is still being followed.

“The (American Enterprise Institute), which has become the natural home for refugees from the American Project, is promoting an article entitled: ‘Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq’,” wrote Reynolds in December 2006. “The article calls not for a withdrawal of US troops but for an increase. President Bush’s decision is expected in early January.”

And guess who got their way? The warmongers, as they almost always do in the United States at least since World War II. Because it is never about U.S. security, and it’s never been about defending the nation. It has been about imperialism and, over the last four decades, it’s been about authoritarianism, as well.

Perhaps the hubris the PNACians showed will eventually be the true end of them, but for now, they are still thriving, and still calling the shots. As always.

–WKW

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 at 4:47 am and is filed under Politics, Essays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.