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The Myth of AQI Fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq is the last big argument for keeping U.S. troops in the country. But the military´s estimation of the threat is alarmingly wrong. --By Andrew Tilghman
Good morning everyone, and thank you all for your continued OOIBC membership and participation with the OOIBC Blogroll since we began in early 2007!
OOIBC has since inception been dedicated to opposing funding the Iraq Occupation fiasco, committed to getting the troops home as soon as possible, determined to end the Iraq and Mid-East Debacle as quickly as possible, and determined to restore some sanity to the world, and the quality of posts here in that time has been tremendous.
But it's time to grow, and today OOIBC is moving to a new home!
OOIBC has finally outgrown the limitations of the Blogger platform, particularly the limited non threaded commenting system that has been a great hindrance to true community building and discourse.
Also as you all are probably aware, Blogrolling.com, who has been serving our blogroll since the beginning, has been down for updates for the past 4 months. They finally came back online 100% the other day... and have said that they will shortly begin inserting advertisements in our blogroll, on top of rearranging our blogroll out of alphabetical sequence.
OOIBC has also been somewhat limited in scope to the Iraq Occupation.
For the past few weeks I've been working behind the scenes here to build a new site with a much wider scope that OOIBC can move to and become part of, and I've also built us a brand new blogroll widget that is hosted and served directly from the new site, freeing us from the constraints and problems of Blogrolling.com, and the new blogroll will never have any ads in it.
From today onwards posting will be disabled on the Blogger site, although the site will remain as an archive, and OOIBC will become a part of the new site we've been developing - Antemedius: Liberally Critical Thinking
We'll be shutting off the Blogrolling.com blogroll widget in the next few days, that you all have installed now - so you'll need to reinstall the widget today.
Copy the embed code for the new blogroll widget from http://www.antemedius.com/joinOOIBC to install in place of the old one, and as always you'll be able and welcome to post or crosspost, but on a virtually unlimited scope of topics at Antemedius as you've been able to all along at the old site.
The new site is built on the Drupal platform giving us much greater publishing horsepower than Blogger, and provides us with much improved community building capacity with a true threaded commenting system in which commenters are ably to reply directly to each other. OOIBC 2.0!
Come on over, get the new blogroll widget, create a new user account for yourself, and enjoy the new place.
Over the next few days I'll be slowly cleaning up the new blogroll to remove any sites that have shut down or have withdrawn from the OOIBC blogroll, so please be sure let me know with an email to admin@antemedius.com when you've installed the new blogroll, and if there are BlogName or URL changes that need to be made.
It's true. In a Federal Court hearing yesterday regarding the electrocution death of SSG Ryan Maseth, highly paid KBR attorney's whined about bloggers.
In a quote from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "KBR attorney Joseph Luciana accused Harris, her attorneys and several members of Congress of trying the case in the news media. He said they generated news releases and offered comments that resulted in inaccurate reporting in the local and national press and in a blog written by a former KBR employee." (that's me!! Ms Sparky!! he he he)
In a quote from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “That statement is outright false,” Mr. Luciana said. “KBR has the absolute right and the duty to go out and tell truth about what happened here. “We have a constitutional right to defend ourselves against negative, misleading information.”
Too bad KBR employees don't have that same constitutional right to defend themselves from KBR's negative misleading information!!
Does that make you just sick or what! Oh BoooooFreakin' HoooooKBR!!! I can only imagine how frustrating it is for KBR to be unable to threaten and intimidate the blogoshere like they do their own employees in Middle East. I can imagine how all this publicity is just making them crazy!
I call for an all out Blogowar!! Blogswarm!! Blog-whatever!! Everyone blog about KBR today and let them know what you think of them and their incessantfreakin' "whoa is me" whining. KBR, you don't have to worry about us bloggers ruining your image. You did that all by yourself!
A lot of financial news and blog articles are speculating on when is a good time to start buying stocks again. One factor they fail to consider is the Iraq War. President Obama's plan to continue the occupation of Iraq with at least 50,000 more US troops is an important consideration, one that should not be overlooked.
The war on Iraq is enormously costly in lives. The over 4,000 US dead are dwarfed by the over 1.3 million Iraqis killed. Another cost is economic. Iraq's economy has been obliterated by this war. The US economy has been severely damaged as well.
The illegal war against the Iraqi people is one of the causes of the financial crises we are facing. Logic insists that stopping the war is a critical step in getting our economy on a productive course. Yet, Obama and the politicians ignore reason in favor of pandering to corporate and wealthy campaign contributors who want to keep making money on the carnage.
Until the last US troops are out of Iraq, it is crazy to buy any stocks. The war's damage on our already precarious economy is reason enough, but there is something else to consider. The refusal of the political establishment to abandon business as usual and end the war shows that they think they can keep getting away with making the same mistakes that got us here.
As long as there are any US troops in Iraq, you can be sure that Obama and the rest of the politicians are not taking our economic situation as seriously as they need to.
. SUPERMOM REPORTS FOR DUTY WITH THE LITTLE SOLDIERS, TOO
ARMY STOP-LOSS KEEPS COMBAT VET & FAMILY ON CALL FOR ANOTHER FOUR YEARS
It's Not Just A Job. It's More Like Slavery. With Kids.
I guess this "Army of One" thing is literally true. Apparently, there is no one else in the whole country who can be depended upon to defend us from the imminent danger posed by destroying somebody else's country for no reason, six thousand miles away. Unh-hunh. So they just had to drag Mrs. Soldier back to Fort Benning, despite all her appeals for clemency. Convicted murderers get more consideration from the system.
See, the thing is, none of those conservative Republican blow-hards wants to go fight the wars they start. Like Dubya and Dick, Gingrich and Armey, they're much too busy and far too valuable serving their country at the Chicago Board of Trade or the New York Stock Exchange or in the Awl Bidness or Warshenden DEE-cee to waste their time or their blood defending their country. Besides, that's what poor people are for. And now the Middle Class, too.
(continued) .
.
Seven years in, Obama says, "Oops, my bad, we're not leaving after all." In fact, we're staying in Iraq, doubling our forces in the black hole of Afghanistan, and bullying our way into Pakistan on the sly, too. So we're going to be needing every last Mommy to stand in for those loud but cowardly Republican males hiding in the business districts.
Of course, with the Republicans putting the whole world economy in the sh*tter, and doing their goddamnedest to keep it there, there should be lots more economic draftees pretty soon. Millions of people have lost their jobs, and millions more will lose theirs before the Bush Depression is over. That's your ideal cannon-fodder, right there. Recruiters say business is picking up for them, after a few slow years when everybody realized the war was bullsh*t, nothing to do with Osama, 9/11 or WMDs. I mean, even a right-tard doesn't want to die for oil, right? But he might have to take a chance on dying to keep his family fed. Or to satisfy a stop-loss order.
Well, apparently, the economy isn't getting bad enough fast enough for the Generals. They're still using the "unlimited commitment" in the fine print of everybody's enlistment contracts to keep dragging our citizen-soldiers back into the worst Hell-holes on Earth. In the past, this meant Daddy was going to be away for a while, and he might not come home. Now it means Mommy might not come home, either. Does anyone care?
' A North Carolina mother who reported for Army duty with her two young children in tow is waiting to see what happens next. Lisa Pagan, who was recalled to the Army four years after being honorably discharged, drove nearly 400 miles and braved a Southeastern winter storm to report for duty Sunday at Fort Benning, Ga. She says she has no one to take care of son Eric and daughter Elizabeth, so she brought them with her. She has reserved a motel room for a week and doesn't plan to stay in the barracks. "Them being away from me is not an option," she said. Master Sgt. Keith O'Donnell, an Army spokesman in St. Louis, said earlier that the commander at Fort Benning will decide how to handle the situation. "The Army tries to look at the whole picture and they definitely don't want to do anything that jeopardizes the family or jeopardizes the children," O'Donnell said. "At the same time, these are individuals who made obligations and commitments to the country." '
The producers of a unique documentary sent me a DVD copy of their independent documentary, "The Warning." They hoped they would get a good review, and they needn't have worried.
"The Warning," written, produced, and directed by Joseph P. Sottile, consists entirely of interviews with five well-known liberal authors (see below). Rather than questions and answers, the interviewees are allowed to speak for themselves. Occasionally, they even read appropriate selections from their works.
But rather than a boring word fest, the seriousness of the work gives it a riveting feel. The subject is nothing less than the descent of the United States into a ruthless totalitarian state, which relies on state torture, an imperial executive, widespread surveillance, the conscious use of fear-laden propaganda, a docile press, and the influence of a radical Christian core of believers to spread the program in institutions throughout civil society. If we are not yet a fascist state -- and the film steps back from going that far -- we are clearly moving towards that. I would add that the election of Barack Obama may have slowed that descent, but to date, all the factors behind it remain in place, particularly what Kennedy in the film calls "the merger of state and corporate power."
The following text comes from the film's website (emphases in original):
Terrorism. Cronyism. Surveillance. The suspension of basic Constitutional protections. The Patriot Act. Pre-emptive War. Bad intelligence. Torture. Corporate power. Mercenaries. Occupation. The Unitary Executive. Neo-Cons. A never-ending war against "terror."
Something very strange has happened in America. Since 2001, America has taken a radical turn.
Five authors stood up and spoke truth to power, exposing shocking trends towards a police state, an accelerated corporate integration with the state and the blatant subversion of the U. S. Constitution.
Five mavericks asked questions the mainstream media refused to ask, and looked into the dark corners of a closing democracy, a changing economy and growing empire.
* Robert F. Kennedy Jr.Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy * Naomi Wolf:The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot * Chris Hedges:American Fascists; the Christian Right and the War on America * Naomi Klein:The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism * Joe Conason:It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush
They expose the forces at work in the transformation of our democracy into a Unitary Executive that uses fear, emergency powers and the supremacy of military command to gather power into the office of the Presidency. The Warning traces the radical steps America had taken toward a new, wholly unconstitutional form of American government.
* The rise of super-patriotism * Disdain for the importance of human rights and the rule of law * Use of torture and secret prisons * Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause * Suppression of dissent * A controlled mass media * Obsession with national security * Religion and ruling elite tied together * Power of corporations protected * Rampant cronyism and corruption * Fraudulent elections
These steps lead to a potential tipping point, from democracy to something different. Something ominous.
T2PTV has created an affiliate program for the film for interested webmasters. I have chosen not to participate, in part because I want to keep my website ad free, but also because I'd rather all monies for this film go to its intrepid makers and marketers. The film is one I can recommend honestly, and because its message is important.
OK, now that the facts are in that the word “non-combatant” doesn’t mean Jack:
Some of the U.S. forces likely to remain in Iraq after President Barack Obama fulfills his pledge to withdraw combat troops would still have a combat role fighting suspected terrorists, the Pentagon said Wednesday.
Let me spell it out for you Kool-Aid drinking Obamiacs:
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that a holdover, or "residual," force would number in the tens of thousands.
His spokesman said Wednesday that assuming there is such a force, it would have three primary functions: Training and helping Iraqi forces; protecting Americans and U.S. assets in Iraq and limited counterterrorism operations in which Iraqi forces would take the lead.
On the signature issue that got him the Democratic nomination (even with Hillary’s campaign management schwaffles, she still would have won, otherwise) …
“I think a limited number of those that remain will conduct combat operations against terrorists, assisting Iraqi security forces,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said. “By and large you’re talking about people who we would classify as enablers, support troops.”
He’s a fucking liar.
“We are now carefully reviewing our policies in both wars, and I will soon announce a way forward in Iraq that leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this war,” Obama said in his address to Congress on Tuesday.
Clear?
Non-combatants will conduct combat operations.
Enablers? That’s any Obamiacs who are going to try to claim down is up now that the cat is fully and officially out of the bag.
We were at an Iraq Moratorium vigil in downtown Milwaukee last week when a young man stopped to say, with a rueful smile, "Can't you give him a little time?"
He was referring to the sign a couple of students were holding, calling for an end to "Obama's occupations."
The vast majority of the people at that vigil voted for Barack Obama. There may have been a few Green votes. I'd bet my bottom dollar there weren't any McCain backers in the crowd.
So, should we be patient?
I pointed out to the young man that while it's true Obama's only been in office a month, that's been enough time for him to decide to send 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, he's waffled on his campaign pledge to bring US troops home from Iraq in 16 months. And the report today is that he is leaning toward a 19-month withdrawal.
What's three more months when you've already been there for six years?
Not much in the grand scheme of things, right?
Unless, of course, you are one of the people who will lose their lives during those extra three months, or be wounded, or widowed, or have a loved one killed or maimed or permanently damaged psychologically.
Depending upon who's counting, more than a million Iraqis have died, several million have become refugees, and 740,000 or more women have been widowed -- almost 10 per cent of the female population between the ages of 15 and 80.
We don't know for sure how many Iraqis have been killed, because we don't even care enough to count their dead.
This is not a time to ask the antiwar movement to be patient, to quietly wait an extra three months.
It's time to ask the question John Kerry asked about Vietnam: Who will be the last one to die for this mistake?
We might add: How many will die for this mistake after Obama had said it would be over?
Before You Knew It, We Were Ass-Deep In The Big Muddy. And The Big Fool Said To Push On.
Certain terms will stick in the mind, intended though they are to avoid our attention altogether, or confuse it. "Terminate with extreme prejudice" turned out to mean "kill," in plain English. "Extraordinary rendition," is kidnapping on an international scale. "Advisors" are combat troops we don't want to acknowledge sending into situations where they don't belong.
The United States had "advisors" in Vietnam in the 1950's. Evidently, their advice wasn't very good. In 1965, we sent the whole First Marine Division in to "advise" the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army out of existance. Nine years later, we got our asses kicked out of there, with 58,000 dead, 300,000 wounded, and untold thousands of mentally disabled and drug-addicted Americans, some of whom are still homeless today, to show for our "advice." The war put us into a decade-long recession, and sidetracked progressive programs for forty years. Vietnam was left a bloody mess, from which they are only just starting to recover. They lost millions of souls, men and women, children and old people, civilian and military. Their country was destroyed. We dropped more bombs on them than on Germany & Japan combined in WWII. That was Nixon's "secret plan for peace": Bomb them back to the Stone Age, as the Air Force gleefully put it. It didn't work.
(continued) . .
No one knows what the secret plan is now. It's a secret. One wonders if our new President has been fully informed. Once they get rolling, our military seems to just keep rollin' along, no matter who is the putative CIC, or what new policies are put in place. Obama did promise to move the "War on Terror" to Afghanistan, and to pursue Al Qaida into Pakistan "if necessary." So, maybe he did order these "advisors" in. Maybe he is the one planning a major long-term commitment in South-West Asia, or maybe he's just going along with his generals, like LBJ did in Vietnam. But we don't know, do we? It's a secret. From us, the taxpaying voters of the United States.
Maybe we should ask. Yeah, we'd like to crush Al Qaida and capture Bin Laden. Yeah, we have to straighten out the messes we made in Iraq and Afghanistan. But we voted to end the war, not to extend or expand it. We don't want to start another mess in Pakistan. After all, they have nukes, and missiles to deliver them. And they're chronically corrupt and unstable, with the constant threat of war with India, and terrorism from within. They make their other neighbors, like Iran and China, very nervous too. It might not be such a good idea to start another Vietnam in Pakistan, from which we might have to run away with our tail between our legs because it just ain't do-able, no way, no how, any more than Vietnam ever was. Except we'd be leaving behind a nuclear-missile-armed potential Islamic fundamentalist State that would have very good reason, as Iran does, to be hostile to the West. Especially toward us, the tax-paying voters of the United States.
So, hey, advisors. Let's think about this. Before we get ourselves ass-deep in another Big Muddy. A radioactive one.
ABC NEWS WWSB TV7 SARASOTA, FL "US advisers training Pakistani troops" They're admitting to 30, multiply by a Military Bull Sh*t Factor of ten, so that's at least 300. And now it's escalating.
' A U.S. effort to train Pakistani troops in their fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban is larger than previously acknowledged. The New York Times reports the task force of about 70 advisers is helping the Pakistanis with intelligence and advises them on combat tactics. But it isn't taking part in any fighting. The Times report cites U.S. military officials. Most of the advisers are Army Special Forces soldiers. They include combat medics and communications specialists. Last year, Pakistani army officers said about 30 American advisers were training troops in northwest Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border. '
NY TIMES "Secret U.S. Unit Trains Commandos in Pakistan " Not so secret any more. Let's see, official Army body count of 60, divided by an MBS Factor of ten, so we got six guys. Oh, and we're running Pakistani Air Force operations out of the U.S. embassy in Islamabad. Spooky.
' They make up a secret task force, overseen by the United States Central Command and Special Operations Command. It started last summer, with the support of Pakistan’s government and military, in an effort to root out Qaeda and Taliban operations that threaten American troops in Afghanistan and are increasingly destabilizing Pakistan. It is a much larger and more ambitious effort than either country has acknowledged. Pakistani officials have vigorously protested American missile strikes in the tribal areas as a violation of sovereignty and have resisted efforts by Washington to put more troops on Pakistani soil. President Asif Ali Zardari, who leads a weak civilian government, is trying to cope with soaring anti-Americanism among Pakistanis and a belief that he is too close to Washington. Despite the political hazards for Islamabad, the American effort is beginning to pay dividends. A new Pakistani commando unit within the Frontier Corps paramilitary force has used information from the Central Intelligence Agency and other sources to kill or capture as many as 60 militants in the past seven months, including at least five high-ranking commanders, a senior Pakistani military official said. In addition, a small team of Pakistani air defense controllers working in the United States Embassy in Islamabad ensures that Pakistani F-16 fighter-bombers conducting missions against militants in the tribal areas do not mistakenly hit remotely piloted American aircraft flying in the same area or a small number of C.I.A. operatives on the ground, a second senior Pakistani officer said. '
' The U.S. military advisory effort in Vietnam had a modest beginning in September 1950, when the United States Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), Vietnam, was established in Saigon. Its mission was to supervise the issuance and employment of $10 million of military equipment to support French legionnaires in their effort to combat Viet Minh forces. By 1953 the amount of U.S. military aid had jumped to over $350 million and was used to replace the badly worn World War II vintage equipment that France, still suffering economically from the devastation of that war, was still using. . . . By 1961 the steady progress of the insurgency was near crisis levels. The new Kennedy administration increased American support for the Diem regime to prevent a collapse. By December of 1961, 3,200 U.S. military personnel were in Vietnam as advisors, supported by $65 million in military equipment and $136 million in economic aid. Military assistance was reorganized as the United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), formed under the command of General Paul D. Harkins in February 1962. MACV was there to support the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) to defend the country. MACV included Army Special Forces (Green Beret) instructors and CIA personnel organizing the Montagnards in the mountains. . . . South Vietnam was going to fall to the Communists unless the U.S. intervened, but Pres. Johnson hesitated to increase the commitment of troops, trying to balance his interest in big domestic programs against the mounting crisis in Southeast Asia. Then came an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, 2 August 1964. '
DIGITAL HISTORY "Learn About the Vietnam War" A majority of the Vietnamese people just didn't want us there. But their corrupt, incompetent, hated US puppet government couldn't live without us.
' To support the South’s government, the United States sent in 2,000 military advisers, a number that grew to 16,300 in 1963. The military condition deteriorated, and by 1963 South Vietnam had lost the fertile Mekong Delta to the Vietcong. In 1965, Johnson escalated the war, commencing air strikes on North Vietnam and committing ground forces, which numbered 536,000 in 1968. '
' An entire Army combat division has been given the mission of training U.S. military advisors for duty within Iraqi army and police units, a senior U.S. military officer in Baghdad said yesterday. The U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division, based at Fort Riley, Kan., is now responsible for training U.S. advisors for service in Iraq, Army Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, commander of the Iraq Advisory Group, told reporters at a news conference in the Iraqi capital city. The change represents “a huge investment,” Pittard said, noting two brigade combat teams based at Riley also are committed to training advisors. Pittard said he works in tandem with Army Brig. Gen. Terry Wolff, commander of the Coalition Military Assistance and Training Team. Pittard and Wolff, who also attended the press briefing, have oversight over military advisors that support the Iraqi army, the national police, as well as the Department of Border Enforcement. “We really cover two different areas, but have very, very similar goals, and that is to support the Iraqi security forces,” Pittard said. '
' The offensive comes more than a year after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki promised a "decisive" battle in Mosul against al-Qaida in Iraq. But Iraq's third-largest city has continued to face violence, particularly against Iraqi security forces. Al-Jubouri said American troops were only providing support, if needed. '
' A Sunni Arab lawmaker is wanted in connection for a string of retaliation attacks and mortar strikes on the fortress-like Green Zone compound after a pair of his senior bodyguards stepped forward with incriminating confessions, a military official said Sunday. The two ex-bodyguards said Sunni parliament member Mohammed al Dayni ordered them to carry out a 2007 attack on a Green Zone cafeteria in which a suicide bomber blew up his explosive vest. One lawmakers died and 22 others were wounded. '
Tis true that during the general election campaign — though NOT true during Democratic primaries, IIRC — that President Barack Obama always caveated (did I just utter a Haigism?) his Iraq withdrawal timetable by saying it depended on the analysis of the brass hats. (Likewise, Obama uttered his “combat troops only” caveat ONLY after the general election started; he never mentioned that, IIRC, during the primaries.)
But, given that there just aren’t enough troops to up the numbers in Afghanistan beyond 55,000 AND keep Iraq totals at their current level — and that’s with the Army still worn-out, and Obama no closer to “easing its pain” — B.O. is going to have to either force Centcom head David Petraeus to get Iraq theater commander Ray Odierno and Afghanistan theater head David McKiernan to come to consensus, or else craft one.
At the same time, for Petraeus to move the ball too much further down the road, Obama the C-in-C is going to have to start making some policy decisions.
Besides, if he’s serious about talk of how he plans to plans to halve the deficit in four years, what better place to start than by getting ALL troops out of Iraq?
And, that apparently is Richard Perle's story, and he's sticking to it.
Dana Milbank, in the WAPO today, has a fascinating, and hilarious, piece, on one of the Grand Poohbars on the Neocon Society, one of the architects and vociferious advocates of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, dutifully carried out by the Bush Grindhouse.
Here's one, of many, stories, putting Perle at Ground Zero Neoconland, where he infers that Iraq was behind Sept 11th;
Manning already understood that people close to President Bush wanted to go after Iraq, and Tenet of course knew it too. Conspicuous among them, in his mind that night, was the neoconservative agitator and polemicist Richard Perle, an outspoken advocate of removing Saddam Hussein by military force. On the very first page of Tenet's memoir, he tells us that he had run into Perle that very morning -- Sept. 12 -- as Perle was leaving the West Wing of the White House. They knew each other in a passing way, as figures of note on the Washington scene. As Tenet reached the door, Perle turned to him and said, "Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. They bear responsibility."
No, not that "Prince of Darkness", the one that runs over homeless people in his Corvette.
The Prince of Darkness -- so dubbed during his days opposing arms control in the Reagan Pentagon -- was not about to let details get in the way of his argument that "50 million conspiracy theorists have it wrong," as the subtitle of his article for National Interest put it. "I see a number of people here who believe and have expressed themselves abundantly that there is a neoconservative foreign policy and it was the policy that dominated the Bush administration, and they ascribe to it responsibility for the deplorable state of the world," Perle told the foreign policy luminaries at yesterday's lunch. "None of that is true, of course."
As you can see, Perle is adhering, not to the letter, the rules of Neocon Club.
In real life, Perle was the ideological architect of the Iraq war and of the Bush doctrine of preemptive attack. But at yesterday's forum of foreign policy intellectuals, he created a fantastic world in which:
1. Perle is not a neoconservative.
2. Neoconservatives do not exist.
3. Even if neoconservatives did exist, they certainly couldn't be blamed for the disasters of the past eight years.
"There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy," Perle informed the gathering, hosted by National Interest magazine. "It is a left critique of what is believed by the commentator to be a right-wing policy."
Even when he was pressed;
Richard Burt, who clashed with Perle in the Reagan administration, took issue with "this argument that neoconservatism maybe actually doesn't exist." He reminded Perle of the longtime rift between foreign policy realists and neoconservative interventionists. "You've got to kind of acknowledge there is a neoconservative school of thought," Burt challenged.
"I don't accept the approach, not at all," the Prince of Darkness replied.
As Milbank aptly notes, "there was a sense of falling down the rabbit hole", but this wasn't merely a stumble, this was a head-first, deep-as-the-core-of-the-earth, plunge down that rabbit hole.
