Quote: Dan, I was not talking about Pentagon war plans, which I suppose they have for every country on Earth (updated annually, too!). I was talking about the POLICY in favor of unilateral invasion of Iraq, which was created and nurtured in the neo-con think-tanks mentioned earlier. Let me know if you want the background info on Perle, Wolfowitz, Rice etc., and their prior careers as developers of these neo-con Iraq war policies in the 1990s.
If you have some info that is not from some over the top liberal hit squad, then I'd like to see it.
Here are some articles that cover the neo-conservative think tanks and institutions that promoted a radical and agressive foreign policy (including the unilateral US invasion of Iraq) in the 1990s, and which provided the majority of Bush's closest advisors (Wolfowitz, Perle, Rice, Libby, Kristol, etc.):
This issue was also covered extensively in other legitimate media outlets like the Atlantic Monthly, the Los Angeles Times, and many others.
Originally posted by Dan Nixon:In all honasty, and WMD/oil-for-food issues asside, I think Iraq makes an interesting case for invasion. Unpopular middleast leader, known invader history, known mass murderer and saddist, humanitarian reasons, people starved by yet Saddam refractory to sanctions and UN resolutions, strategic location in heart of fundamentalist Islam yet less fundamentalist people, oil rich for self sufficiency, not TOO strong militarily (c/w say Iran) and someone who had generated his credibility in the US by defying the U.S...IF one believed that democracy is the antithesis of fundamentalist Islam, that the 2 cannot co-exist side by side, and IF one was interested in attempting to implant a muslim democracy in the "belly of the beast" I think Iraq probably makes an optimal candidate. Is THIS where the "neocons" were comming from?
Yes, that seems to be the gist of the neo-con's argument for war against Iraq. They believe that we ought to try to remake the middle east (starting with Iraq) and they strongly advocate for the use of military force to achieve that goal. It is a policy that may make a lot of corporate interests and government contractors very rich in the short run, so it is warmly embraced by the Republican power structure.
