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Neoconservatism

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OldDog/NewTricks

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Tue 21 Feb 2006
Neocon architect says: 'Pull it down'
ALEX MASSIE IN WASHINGTON
NEOCONSERVATISM has failed the United States and needs to be replaced by a more realistic foreign policy agenda, according to one of its prime architects.

Francis Fukuyama, who wrote the best-selling book The End of History and was a member of the neoconservative project, now says that, both as a political symbol and a body of thought, it has "evolved into something I can no longer support". He says it should be discarded on to history's pile of discredited ideologies.

In an extract from his forthcoming book, America at the Crossroads, Mr Fukuyama declares that the doctrine "is now in shambles" and that its failure has demonstrated "the danger of good intentions carried to extremes".

In its narrowest form, neoconservatism advocates the use of military force, unilaterally if necessary, to replace autocratic regimes with democratic ones.

Mr Fukuyama once supported regime change in Iraq and was a signatory to a 1998 letter sent by the Project for a New American Century to the then president, Bill Clinton, urging the US to step up its efforts to remove Saddam Hussein from power. It was also signed by neoconservative intellectuals, such as Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan, and political figures Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and the current defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

However, Mr Fukuyama now thinks the war in Iraq is the wrong sort of war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

"The most basic misjudgment was an overestimation of the threat facing the United States from radical Islamism," he argues.

"Although the new and ominous possibility of undeterrable terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction did indeed present itself, advocates of the war wrongly conflated this with the threat presented by Iraq and with the rogue state/proliferation problem more generally."

Mr Fukuyama, one of the US's most influential public intellectuals, concludes that "it seems very unlikely that history will judge either the intervention [in Iraq] itself or the ideas animating it kindly".

Going further, he says the movements' advocates are Leninists who "believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will. Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practised by the United States".

Although Mr Fukuyama still supports the idea of democratic reform - complete with establishing the institutions of liberal modernity - in the Middle East, he warns that this process alone will not immediately reduce the threats and dangers the US faces. "Radical Islamism is a by-product of modernisation itself, arising from the loss of identity that accompanies the transition to a modern, pluralist society. More democracy will mean more alienation, radicalisation and - yes, unfortunately - terrorism," he says.

"By definition, outsiders can't 'impose' democracy on a country that doesn't want it; demand for democracy and reform must be domestic. Democracy promotion is therefore a long-term and opportunistic process that has to await the gradual ripening of political and economic conditions to be effective."

This article: http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=266122006
Last updated: 21-Feb-06 00:18 GMT
 
theHiredMansWife said:
Or an old conservative.

Remember, nation-building is traditionally a liberal ideal.


Is that a stereotype? :shock:



:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
:???:
Uhhh... no.

It's a definition of the term.
confused-smiley-013.gif


A stereotype would be something like "Conservatives are war mongers." or "Conservatives are uneducated and sleep with their cousins"

A definition of the term is something more along the lines of "Conservatives tend to support military defense."
 
THMW, .....sorry my rolling eye smiley thingy didn't come out....... :roll:

Kolanuraven: Hey Steve...if ya can't take it....don't dish it out yourself!!!

I can take it, but seems some others can't accept when an uncalled for comment is responded to,.......


aren't you both getting a bit defensive about my comment, when what I only responded to would have been considered tasteless by both of you had a conservative said it?
 
I did have some childhood friends from the Appalachans and in their family cousins and uncles did sleep with cousins and nieces... (I'm serious.)

And even in them there mountains, it's a stereotype

only if they were conservatives.... :wink:
 
Jeez.


Stop a minute. Read more carefully. Look at the flow of the conversation. No one actually belives that.

I repeat: No one. Actually. Believes. That.
It was given as an example of stereotypes.

aren't you both getting a bit defensive
I don't know about kola, but I'm not defensive, I'm rolling my eyes that you don't get this.
Because frankly, no :been considered tasteless by both of you had a conservative said it---I would not have thought it was tasteless if you were giving an example to show how ridiculous it is to ascribe to stereotypes.
 
BTW, if you find something that wasn't anything more than an example that offensive, I hope you get the clue that you should quit slapping stereotypes on other people.



My apologies to OD/NT for letting his thread get hijacked.
 
I did read it, and joked back......I just forgot to enable the rolling eye smiley thingy,....

then someone unable to see the humor in my comment, jumped on my comment...

so I again responded....

you all act as if conservatives are unable to see humor......or read....or follow a conversation.....


Maybe you should go back and read the two comments prior to my defending my comment.... before you make a condensending comment....(you know follow the conversation)......Jeez :roll: ,...brother,... :roll: :roll:
 
Suggestion: The wink is usually the one to denote you're kidding about something. Rolling your eyes doesn't usually encourage someone to share your joke. A wink does.

you all act as if conservatives are unable to see humor...
No, it had nothing to do with conservatives being unable to see the humor, I thought you were unable to see the humor.
My apologies for not understanding what you were trying to say.
 
HMW
My apologies for not understanding what you were trying to say.

none needed...and I Apologize for not useing the correct smiley thingy.and for the long un-needed lecture you gave me. :wink: ...I will attempt to use the winking eye smiley thingy :wink: better when I am not trying to make a point and only trying to add to the humor...
 
My apologies to OD/NT for letting his thread get hijacked.

I also am sorry...



It is a good topic......but it is not a traditional or even a neo-conservative view that we should be nation building......

seems the author would like to in-advertantly show his bias against the Iraq war by claiming it to be a mistake in nation building policy........

I could favor nation building and even using military force, but not in the middle east or with our troops.....and GOD forbid the UN's involvement....

the main problem is it takes a long time,,,,Germany,,,Japan, and south Korea took the better part of 50 years so why judge the effect by Iran in less then 5 years?

or by the cost,,,the Marshel plan was expensive but the alternative was worse....
 

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