Our anti-war and anti-administration friends invoke the name "Wolfowitz" as if it were a curse, as if the invocation of he name alone were enough to settle any argument: "But he has wanted to overthrow Saddam for years!" He should have been overthrown 12 years ago, so this is bad why?
Reading this profile on Wolfowitz from the Washington Post, I realized I agree with him very close to 100% on foreign policy, especially the War on Terror:
- To understand Paul Wolfowitz and the policies he advocates, notes a friend and former colleague, it is important to understand that Wolfowitz believes there is real evil in the world, and that he is confronting it. The lesson that Wolfowitz took away from the Cold War, says Eliot Cohen, who knew him at Johns Hopkins University, where Wolfowitz was a dean before moving to the Pentagon, is "that the world really is a dangerous place, and that you have to do something about it."
Paired with that is his belief that the United States can best respond to totalitarianism by emphasizing freedom and democracy. Wolfowitz possesses "a basic optimism about the potential of human beings for moderation and self-governance, and a belief in the universal appeal of liberty," Cohen says.
That combination of a hardheaded view of some men with an idealistic faith in mankind, Cohen concludes, adds up to "a distinctively American take on the world."
So when Wolfowitz talks with great intensity about Iraq, it isn't just because his political future and his place in history are likely to be determined by the course of events there. He sees the U.S. invasion as part of a larger campaign against terrorism, and that post-Sept. 11, 2001, fight as the third great American struggle against totalitarianism, the new century's successor to the great fights against Nazism and Soviet communism.
....Some observers of Wolfowitz speculate that one lesson he took from the Holocaust is that the American people need to be pushed to do the right thing, because by the time they entered World War II, it was too late for millions of Jews and other victims of the Nazis.
Article comments
1 - Brian Flemming
Why did you pick 12 years?
Didn't Saddam do any bad things before then?
2 - Eric Olsen
Being the real world, we should have finished the job when we were there 12 years ago and had the momentum and impetus.
3 - JR
...and the troops and the allies and the unbetrayed trust of the Iraqi people.
4 - Eric Olsen
Yes, we definitely blew it - now we are attempting to unblow it, and while difficult and uncertain, we are doing the right thing and moving in the right direction.
5 - Jan Eggers
". . . it is important to understand that Wolfowitz believes there is real evil in the world, and that he is confronting it. "
Hitler felt the same way (ironically, Wolfowitz is quoted in the article as making a similar point as he addresses a confrontational person in the audience: "Frankly, my own reading of history is that exactly this kind of tactic is what the Nazis did and what the totalitarians did in trying to stop people from listening and talking"). And Osama. This type of belief could come from a lot of leaders, both "evil" and "good." Seeing the world in so simplistic a way is dangerous, and I am worried when I hear politicians promoting this view. The courts that tried the Salem Witch Trials were trying to illuminate the world and do away with evil. In Osama's mind, he was attacking evil. I won't go over the edge with postmodern relativism--there are bad things going on in the world that should be stopped. However, one country should not impose its "goodness" on the rest of the world. This decision about what warrants intervention must be a collective, worldwide decision. Otherwise, we open up a can of "us vs. them" mentalities that allow some fanatics (Osama, Saddam, Kim Jong Il) to justify their own actions as "good." Furthermore, we need to turn that high-powered perception of ours, that labels what is good and what is evil, on ourselves to make sure that we aren't doing wrong. The biggest casualty when one country or group forces its righteousness on others is its own righteousness--it tends to be assumed to be intact and unshakable when it is not.
"Paired with that is his belief that the United States can best respond to totalitarianism by emphasizing freedom and democracy. Wolfowitz possesses 'a basic optimism about the potential of human beings for moderation and self-governance, and a belief in the universal appeal of liberty,' Cohen says. "
Forcing freedom and democracy on people with bombs and guns while "going it alone" is a contradiction.
"That combination of a hardheaded view of some men with an idealistic faith in mankind, Cohen concludes, adds up to 'a distinctively American take on the world.'"
Again, this could describe Hitler--an individual bent on forcing his or her views on others (of course his faith in mankind was limited to Aryans).
"That's dangerous, he continued, because Hussein was 'in a class with very few others -- Stalin, Hitler, Kim Jong Il. . . . People of that order of evil . . . tend not to keep evil at home, they tend to export it in various ways and eventually it bites us.'"
Consider this: Stalin fought the Nazis. Since we are seeing everything simplistically as good or evil, and since the Nazis were clearly evil, does that make Stalin good? How would the US have responded to Stalin invading Germany before 1939, if, say, he decided to take it upon himself to preempt the evil that was about to occur? Would we have sided with the Nazis in that case? Who should decide what is good or evil? The majority. In the case of Iraq, the world. That we are the strongest nation says nothing about our righteousness. That we were attacked gives us cause to strike back at the attackers, but not at anyone else.
Here is an excerpt from Noam Chomsky's "Dictators R Us" (yah, I know many will dismiss him right away, but consider what he says about Wolfowitz's past connections--maybe you can prove him wrong):
Last month, for example, David Ignatius, the Washington Post commentator, described the invasion of Iraq as "the most idealistic war in modern times" -- fought solely to bring democracy to Iraq and the region. Ignatius was particularly impressed with Paul Wolfowitz, "the Bush administration's idealist in chief," whom he described as a genuine intellectual who "bleeds for (the Arab world's) oppression and dreams of liberating it."
Maybe that helps explain Wolfowitz's career -- like his strong support for Suharto in Indonesia, one of the last century's worst mass murderers and aggressors, when Wolfowitz was ambassador to that country under Ronald Reagan.
As the State Department official responsible for Asian affairs under Reagan, Wolfowitz oversaw support for the murderous dictators Chun of South Korea and Marcos of the Philippines.
All this is irrelevant because of the convenient doctrine of change of course.
So, yes, Wolfowitz's heart bleeds for the victims of oppression -- and if the record shows the opposite, it's just that boring old stuff that we want to forget about.
One might recall another recent illustration of Wolfowitz's love of democracy. The Turkish parliament, heeding its population's near-unanimous opposition to war in Iraq, refused to let U.S. forces deploy fully from Turkey. This caused absolute fury in Washington.
Wolfowitz denounced the Turkish military for failing to intervene to overturn the decision. Turkey was listening to its people, not taking orders from Crawford, Texas, or Washington, D.C.
The most recent chapter is Wolfowitz's "Determination and Findings" on bidding for lavish reconstruction contracts in Iraq. Excluded are countries where the government dared to take the same position as the vast majority of the population.
Wolfowitz's alleged grounds are "security interests," which are non-existent, though the visceral hatred of democracy is hard to miss -- along with the fact that Halliburton and Bechtel corporations will be free to "compete" with the vibrant democracy of Uzbekistan and the Solomon Islands, but not with leading industrial societies.
The Washington Post excerpt that you included does not address the biggest complaint against Wolfowitz: that he lied to the American people in order to gain support for his war agenda (see The White House's Cynical Iraq Ploy and New Call for 'Summary Firing' of Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz). Some also say that his means of achieving his idealist doctrine were poorly planned (Wolfowitz Doctrine Sinks in the Iraqi Quagmire).
I actually like the fact that he admitted that the WMD issue was just a ploy to gain support for the war and that the main reason for attacking Iraq is oil.
6 - Hal Pawluk
Wolfowitz became a visible "evil" figure back in "1992 [with his] precursor to the PNAC [Project for a New American Century], a secret pentagon report called 'Defense Planning Guidance'. Lewis Libby (currently Chief of Staff to Vice President Cheney) and Paul Wolfowitz (now Deputy Secretary of Defense, but at that time Undersecretary for Policy) produced this report for Dick Cheney, who was, in 1992, Defense Secretary under George Bush, sr. All three men became founding members of the group that came together in 1997 to commission the PNAC." [And all three are, of course, prominent in the current Bush administration.]
This was, as stated above, a secret document that was leaked to the New York Times. It called for the US to preemptively attack whenever they thought a country could conceivably become a threat at some time in the future. It also called for "exporting" American beliefs. At the time, this was inconceivable and Un-American, so the policy draft was denied and shelved.
Ten years later, a score or so of the neoconservatives were brought into the Bush administration by Richard Cheney. Shortly after (September 17, 2002), the "inconceivable" policy draft of 1992 became the official National Security Strategy of the United States.
As an aside, I find it striking that the idea of "exporting democracy" (or 'American beliefs' or whatever) is so similar to the idea of "exporting revolution" that Trotsky believed in, as the neoconservative movement started with a bunch of ex-Trotskyists (Burnham, Kristol, etc.)
One of these days I'll get around to putting a detailed piece together on this. In the meantime, neos like Wolfowitz and their minions like Ashcroft are looking more and more like fascists every day.
7 - MCH
"Honor the Fallen"
www.militarycity.com/valor/256975.html
"Army Command Sgt. Major Eric F. Cooke, 43, of Scottsdale, Ariz.; assigned to 1st Brigade, 1st Armor Division, based in Ray Barracks, Friedburg, Germany; was killed when his convoy vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device December 24 in Baghdad."
The 43-year old Cooke, who earned a Bronze Star in the Gulf War in 1991, paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country this past Christmas eve, to preserve the freedoms we enjoy, including taking time off and spending time with loved ones over the holidays. Cooke earned two college degrees while in the military and rose to one of the Army's highest noncommissioned ranks - Command Sergeant Major.
"Eric was a man among men," said his mother, Georgia Cooke. Sgt. Major Cooke is also survived by his father and his wife of 23 years.
"Some gave all...all gave some" (VVA slogan)
- MCH, Vietnam era vet
8 - Eric Olsen
please make the URLs links
9 - Eric Olsen
Oh, and I'd like to think that you are simply honoring the heroic fallen, but I also suspect your motives aren't nearly that pure. But keep right on honoring - surely each and every one deserves our thanks, respect, and recognition.
10 - DrPat
Great title for your review, Eric, spot-on! I'll be looking for the release of the Wolfowitz book on the basis of this profile.
11 - Eric Olsen
Dr Pat, I hate to point out that this one was posted a year ago, but that is only half as long ago as the Vince Neil story (smile), but the book doesn't come out until this May!
12 - Anthony G
Eric,
Great Posting, I could not agree more with your opinion about Bush, Wolfowitz, and the War on Terror.
Long Live The President
13 - DrPat
Aah! Nothing like a resurrected post!
14 - Eric Olsen
thanks Anthony
DrPat, the new layout makes it easier to revive a post as a few comments can put it in the "Hot 5" section
15 - DrPat
It's ALIVE!!!
BTW, Eric, I hear there is a large library of unclaimed stuff to review, based on another resurrected thread. How do I tap in?
16 - Eric Olsen
simply join the Yahoo group, details per your original instructions
17 - Angela Chen Shui
The oil messes up the freedom argument for me... the recent changing of laws to allow privatisation of oil, and US companies' huge profits when the deed gets done.... is just another recent example.
That getting into a country's private business, whether economically or politically or for religious reasons, just doesn't sit right.
Here in my Caribbean backyard, Caricom may have been silenced by firm pressure to shut up, but the ousting of Aristide will never be forgotten.
Spiritually speaking, Bush is opening up an area that may have remained the same for 1,000 years or so..., the terror, the gender discrimination and violence etc...
He took on a big job at the soul level and that understanding is the only thing that tempers my personal feelings about the Iraqi fiasco....
18 - Eric Olsen
I would characterize Iraq as an imbroglio rather than a fiasco
19 - Anthony G
ERIC,
Where in the world is my old freind Phillip Winn.
20 - Angela Chen Shui
Hi Eric!
I suppose the choice rests a bit on whether we accept the palatable freedom argument that complicates and layers, or cut to the simple control-the-oil alternative.
Either way, we've all created this and we'll all finish it. Everyone is playing their soul-appointed role extremely well and the outcome will be determined by GLOBAL discernment and choice.
I look forward to reading the book and continue to send waves of love to all leaders and followers everywhere as we move consciousness forward, one day at a time.
21 - spiderleaf
Well, it is a nice profile, but that was before the Torture Memo, Abu Ghraib and the fact the entire justification for war was discredited.
It's very easy to say you are for something, but actions speak louder than words, and, as has been documented repeatedly, this admins actions are the exact opposite of their proclamations.
Did you happen to see the Gonzales hearings today? Pretty sad state of democracy when the potential AG distributed a memo to the CIA and DOD justifying the use of torture (yet can't really remember if it was legal or not) and claims the President may be able to decide if a law is unconstitutional or not and chose to obey it or not. Both of which are contrary to US law.
It is telling that the admin refused to accept any responsiblity for fanning the flames of torture at Gitmo and in Iraq (even tho' they were the ones to encourage and authorize it), yet were perfectly comfortable to let the rank and file soldiers take the blame.... the very soldiers they keep telling us to support. Really puts their character into stark relief.
22 - spiderleaf
and never mind that the Pentagon's own analysts seem the war in Iraq as increasing terrorism in the world vs. reducing it. And admit Iraq was not a recruiting ground prior to the war.
Another coup for Wolfowitz.
23 - Eric Olsen
I would say these are all valid concerns and the picture HAS changed to a certain extent, but not the underlying principles
24 - spiderleaf
Thanks Eric, I agree that overall principles of spreading freedom, etc. are to be celebrated.