Socialists and Neoconservatives are in the same retarded boat, which we hope will strike an iceberg and sink beneath the waves. Both advocate retarded policies that stem from simple-minded ideas that are wrong.
The hallmark 21st century neoconservative policy was to attack Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power. This was supposed to be a blow directed against terrorism and for democracy.
IQ tests, college degrees, fluency in the language and the winning of elections do not mean that one has the rare skills of judging the interests, strength, intentions and capabilities of other nations and leaders. Moving upwards to power on a ladder of success whose rungs consist of various social, political and educational filters does not by any means vaccinate one against simple-minded ideas or drastically erroneous ideas.
Vice-President Cheney said “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.”
President Bush said “Iraq possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons.” It is “seeking nuclear weapons”. Bush said “You can’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein when you talk about the war on terror”.
CIA Director Tennant thought that the link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein was “a slam dunk”.
Donald Rumsfeld said “Five days or five weeks or five months, but it [the war] certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.”
Removing Saddam Hussein “reflected the core neoconservative belief in U.S. exceptionalism: The idea that the United States is the indispensable power in the international order and has a moral responsibility to promote democracy in other countries with force if necessary. Hence, the removal of Saddam Hussein represented an opportunity to remake the Middle East. They postulated a free and democratic Iraq would lead to an outbreak of democracy in the region.” All of this thinking was wrong and remains wrong to this day.
We should not think that the celebrated thinkers who dreamed up the ideas of socialism and neo-conservatism are alone in inventing simple-minded but wrong ideas that pass for being sophisticated and right.
If correct judgments made by statesmen were in abundant supply, World War I would not have occurred. However, not Russia, not France, not Britain, not Germany, not Austria, not Hungary, not Italy and not the Ottoman Empire were able to judge the positions of one another well enough in the 20 years preceding that conflict to avoid its advent.
6:59 pm on September 11, 2019
