Post by Noah on May 16, 2005 1:43:30 GMT -5
In researching the hilarious comedy show Amanda and I are writing, I've been inching my way through "Rebuilding America's Defenses" -- the plan for global domination published by the Project for the New American Century in September of 2000. The most notorious passage in this document -- though it's not nearly as notorious as it should be -- talks about America's transition to a "strategy that solely pursued capabilities for projecting force" and "sacrificed forward basing and presence." This transition, it says, "is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor."
The Project for the New American Century emerged in the nineties to counter Clinton's attempted policy of "peacekeeping" military action only. The group's key players were guys who had been out of public office since Clinton's 1992 victory -- Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Elliot Abrams -- and other giants of the right, like Steve Forbes and William Kristol. None of them were happy when it looked like the buffoon kid George W. Bush was getting the Republican nomination to the presidency in 2000, until Cheney's name became attached to the campaign. When Bush stole the White House -- with the help of his brother Jeb, another PNAC member -- the PNAC guys were all given powerful jobs in the administration. Through monumental incompetence or willful malice, Bush gave them their "new Pearl Harbor." Nine days after 9/11, he introduced his "National Security Strategy of the United States of America", in many sections a word-for-word rehash of "Rebuilding America's Defenses."
Sorry about the long buildup. The question is this:
If America really is the greatest nation in the world, in addition to being the most powerful, why isn't our foreign policy more like the Peace Corps and less like the Third Reich? Our unmatched military capability could be the means by which we swoop down on mass violence, wherever it's being committed, and stop it. There's a lot to be said for disarming a nuclear nation; hey, isn't this a nuclear nation?
Of course, I know America is an empire, and there are always corrupt people who want to take over the world. But why do those people win so often? If this is the greatest nation in the world, why are the majority of its public representatives the worst people on Earth?
That's a hell of a question of the day. If I had the money, I'd send a free iPod to anyone with the answer.
The Project for the New American Century emerged in the nineties to counter Clinton's attempted policy of "peacekeeping" military action only. The group's key players were guys who had been out of public office since Clinton's 1992 victory -- Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Elliot Abrams -- and other giants of the right, like Steve Forbes and William Kristol. None of them were happy when it looked like the buffoon kid George W. Bush was getting the Republican nomination to the presidency in 2000, until Cheney's name became attached to the campaign. When Bush stole the White House -- with the help of his brother Jeb, another PNAC member -- the PNAC guys were all given powerful jobs in the administration. Through monumental incompetence or willful malice, Bush gave them their "new Pearl Harbor." Nine days after 9/11, he introduced his "National Security Strategy of the United States of America", in many sections a word-for-word rehash of "Rebuilding America's Defenses."
Sorry about the long buildup. The question is this:
If America really is the greatest nation in the world, in addition to being the most powerful, why isn't our foreign policy more like the Peace Corps and less like the Third Reich? Our unmatched military capability could be the means by which we swoop down on mass violence, wherever it's being committed, and stop it. There's a lot to be said for disarming a nuclear nation; hey, isn't this a nuclear nation?
Of course, I know America is an empire, and there are always corrupt people who want to take over the world. But why do those people win so often? If this is the greatest nation in the world, why are the majority of its public representatives the worst people on Earth?
That's a hell of a question of the day. If I had the money, I'd send a free iPod to anyone with the answer.
