February 20, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

NEOCON HEGEMONY

I've started reading Stanley Karnow's history of the Vietnam war, Vietnam A History. It's amazing how many parallels there are between Vietnam and Iraq. In Vietnam our troops were in constant combat, unlike the veterans of the Second World War. You never knew who the enemy was in Vietnam and you don't know who the enemy is in Iraq until he strikes. The Vietnamese effectively used guerilla warfare, just as we see in Iraq now. We were told by the elites that Vietnam couldn't fall to the Communists because the rest of southeast Asia would fall like dominoes. Now we're told we can't lose in Iraq because it means the impending destruction of western civilization. In this article Ernest Partridge looks at the imperial dreams of neocons like George Bush and Dick Cheney and the incredible mess they've created. The article is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

With the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States became the sole remaining super-power. Many saw this extraordinary situation as an opportunity at last for world disarmament, a concerted attack on poverty and disease, and global harmony under a rule of international law.

Not the neo conservatives.

Instead, they announced, this was to be “The American Century” – a “benevolent global hegemony” imposed upon the world by the sole remaining super-power, the United States. In this new world order, the United States would renounce treaties and international law at will if they were found to be contrary to the interests of the “hegemon.” Military action by the super power would be taken “preventatively” if there was a perceived possibility that an upstart nation might resist the “order” with force. Aggressive initiatives would be taken to assure that no rival super power would arise to challenge the global hegemony.

The United States would, in short, become the kind of world empire we claimed that we were struggling, throughout the cold war, to prevent the Soviet Union from becoming.