It took me a while to work this up, with some distraction, and even though Nash covered it I'll post it anyway.
Personally, I think the PNAC conspiracy theory belongs on the same shelf as the Coucil on Foreign Relations plan for one-world government or the Trilateral Commissions plan to take over the world for itself.
What conspiracy theory? The individuals cited are/have been both founders/members/supporters of PNAC as well as senior members of the current administration's government. There is not just a paper trail, but a published, public record paper trail. A lot of them even brag about their achievements in the current administration.
* PNAC policy goals have been clearly and publicly laid out, and signed off on since the mid 1990s, in many cases by the same cabinet members.
* Traditional PNAC policy goals clearly outline the course of action we have taken in IRAQ. Or is it just a great coincidence? If so, boy were they lucky.
* Is it not uncommon to have the public reasons for a policy being promoted (and often even the public challenging reasons) be far different from the real motivations impacting that policy issue? I know this to be a fact from first hand experience. It's not that WMD wasn't an "honest" reason to invade Iraq, just not necessiarily in the top five or so on the laundry list (except where public support is concerend, which makes it the No. 1 issue to push).
* Cabinet members have influence over presidents and policy, or is the whole Robert McNamara/Vietnam thing just some 60s Republican conspiracy theory?
What is you rationale for dismissing the fact that the President’s senior advisors have pushed for the current course of action for years, for the reasons cited, and after a fairly well documented internal power struggle managed to sway the President to follow their recommended course of action? Is it hard to believe that Bush could have found their arguments persuasive? He wouldn't even have had to lie about the WMD angle (believing they would be found regardless), just downplay the broader and more direct reasons to concentrate on the primary public selling point. I say downplay because he has addressed the “broader goals” officially, and from early on. President Bush, Remarks at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy:
Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo. (Applause.)
Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. This strategy requires the same persistence and energy and idealism we have shown before. And it will yield the same results. As in Europe, as in Asia, as in every region of the world, the advance of freedom leads to peace. (Applause.)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031106-2.html
Sounds pretty much PNAC to me.
Both sides, Republican/Conservative and Democratic/Liberal have their very own little boogeymen to trot out to whip the troops into a frenzy of fear, loathing and monetary contribution.
Absolutely. And similarly, the “hasty generalization” or would it be “poisoned well” approach can be used to discredit valid groups and positions. In this case, the “boogeymen” are members of an established, Washington think-tank and also hold/held positions of direct cabinet influence in the current administration at the time the decision to invade Iraq was being made. Although shown on the dreaded PBS, this Frontline piece was produced with the full participation of PNAC members like William Kristol, who was in fact somewhat smug about their success in the administration’s policy direction as indicated by the following:
Wolfowitz [in 1992] was ahead of his time, beginning to try to think through the post-Cold War era. Wolfowitz saw very early that the fundamental choice was American leadership or increasing chaos and danger. And [the first President] Bush didn't really want to think about that in 1992. There was a certain view of the world that we had won the Cold War, and that was great, but now it was time to come back to normalcy and to retrench quite a bit. We would still be a great power. We would still, you know, fulfill our NATO obligations and that sort of thing. [But] we couldn't be a world policemen.
Wolfowitz's view is very different. I think Wolfowitz is now vindicated by history, but it took a long time to get vindicated. And, obviously, the Bush realists, what might be called the minimalist realism of the first Bush administration, was followed by a kind of wishful liberalism of the Clinton administration. And it really wasn't until 9/11 that Wolfowitz's paper, which by that time was nine years old, I think, came to be seen as perhaps prophetic.
Also from the Frontline coverage, but a direct quote of the VP:
Cheney also outlines a larger, long-term strategy whereby regime change in Iraq could transform the Middle East:
"Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits to the region. When the gravest of threats are eliminated, the freedom-loving peoples of the region will have a chance to promote the values that can bring lasting peace. As for the reaction of the Arab 'street,' the Middle East expert Professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are 'sure to erupt in joy in the same way the throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans.' Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of Jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced, just as it was following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/cron.html
Again, sounds an awful lot like mainstream neconservative philosophy than a conspiracy. And from this article describing Woodward’s book, which the Bush administration cooperated with fully:
Woodward describes a relationship between Cheney and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that became so strained Cheney and Powell are barely on speaking terms. Cheney engaged in a bitter and eventually winning struggle over Iraq with Powell, an opponent of war who believed Cheney was obsessively trying to establish a connection between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network and treated ambiguous intelligence as fact.
And…
In two interviews with Woodward in December, Bush minimized the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction, expressed no doubts about his decision to invade Iraq, and enunciated an activist role for the United States based on it being "the beacon for freedom in the world."
"I believe we have a duty to free people," Bush told Woodward. "I would hope we wouldn't have to do it militarily, but we have a duty."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17347-2004Apr16.html
That’s nice and all (direct quotes, BTW), but I though it was all about WMD detonating in Washington, NY or Chicago. That’s why Americans agreed to send their sons and daughters off to die in a foreign land.
I came to my opinion, at least 80 percent of it, through primary sources, or primary sources directly quoted in secondary sources. Unlike true conspiracies, there are plenty of primary sources and people willing to talk about it. And it makes more sense, frankly, than WMD being exported to terrorists for use against America, for reasons outlined earlier.
Charon
