Bush Doctrine Needs Fixing (expand), (pro-war neo-con) Critics Say(Ledeen)

[UpInArms]

http://www.nysun.com/pf.php?id=25961

WASHINGTON - The strong showing for Iranian-backed Islamists in last month's Iraqi election and the expected gains by the Islamic terrorist group Hamas in the Palestinian Arab elections scheduled for later this month are prompting backers of the Bush Doctrine of spreading democracy in the Middle East to call for refinements in implementing the policy - but not for its wholesale abandonment.

"The Bush Doctrine is correct, but the implementation is lousy," a former staff adviser on Iran and Iraq in the office of the secretary of defense and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Rubin, wrote in an e-mail from Iraq earlier this month. "The U.S. aid projects exist largely on the drawing board, while Iranian-backed parties are giving out welfare from offices spread across southern Iraq."

Another resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Ledeen, called for expanding the democratization push to Iraq's neighbors.

"What I've always said is that you cannot win a regional war by conducting it in just one place," Mr. Ledeen told The New York Sun. "With regard to Iraq, our failure to deal with Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran, and just focus on Iraq by itself was doomed from the beginning. And I said that before we went into Iraq."

Mr. Ledeen, who wrote the 2002 book "The War Against the Terror Masters," said he stands by the Bush strategy of promoting democracy as an antidote to terrorism despite what he regards as its flawed implementation. "I agree entirely that the way to defeat the terror masters is by the spread of Democratic revolution," Mr. Ledeen said. "But you can't do it this way. In the abstract, it's hard to imagine a representative government in Iraq without what we call fundamentalists in it. They are part of the population. They will participate. But that they are radical Islamists who want what Iran wants - that seems to have been avoidable. But only if we fought the broader war. It means supporting the enemies of the Islamic regime of Iran in Iran. My view is that if we supported that from the beginning, the Iraq elections would have been different."

...more...

[MrModerate]

1. Great! Simultaneous wars in how many countries? Effing insane. n/t

[ixion]

2. how anyone can think that the so-called Bush Doctrine has

anything -- ANYTHING -- whatsoever to do with "spreading democracy" is beyond me.

This 'doctrine', in essence, says: "do our bidding or pay the consequences." What the hell is democratic about that? :shrug:

[neoblues]

8. One side effect of Dominion

Well, one of the side effects of conquering and achieving 'dominion' over other countries is that you get to put whatever form of puppet government you want in place. That includes puppet "Democracies", complete with magical electronic voting machines that ensure your choice of friendly candidates always seem to win (or, in the early stages, you can fudge the paper ballots--but if not, you can always still reorganize the whole show whenever you want). Yes, "Democracies" are spread... in name only.

By the way, does anyone wonder at the elevation of the term Democracy when that's just one element of the real freedom ensuring government what we think of when we say 'Democracy'. Without a division of Governmental Power into separate and exclusive branches with both a Bill of Rights and a supreme Constitution which demands the Rule of Law. That is, a Constitutional Republic is what we really value. That "We the People" occasionally get to vote to choose our Representatives is important, but the Constitution and Rule of Law are the key difference between authoritarian governments and governments that protect their citizens from abuses of power. Pure Democracy doesn't work and leads to nothing more than tyranny of the majority (such that the 51% faction rules the lives and property of the remaining 49%).

[The Stranger]

3. One Nation, Under PNAC . . .

. . . exporting torture and mass murder for all.

[MrPrax]

4. Related Ledeen Thread here:

American who advised Pentagon says he worked at magazine that found forged Niger documents
Larisa Alexandrovna

A controversial neoconservative who occasionally consulted for the Bush Defense Department has confirmed that he was a contributor to the Italian magazine Panorama, whose reporter first came across forged documents which purported that Iraq was seeking to obtain uranium from Niger.

The bogus documents became the basis for the infamous sixteen words in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address, in which he detailed his case for war. Their origin has been one of the most persistent mysteries in how American intelligence on Iraq was so wrong.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2046689

It's good to see that proven liars and fake experts are still being given platforms, still others might see Ledeen as a criminal involved in the active subversion of the US government...but hey, Quakers in Vermont pose the real risk in the 'war on terror', so nothing to see here

[UpInArms]

6. Karl Rove's foreign-policy advisor, Michael Ledeen

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7256

KARL ROVE and VARIOUS SPIES HE IS LINKED TO

Karl Rove’s only full-time foreign-policy advisor is Michael Ledeen, a rabid anti-Arab, pro-Israel activist. The FBI is investigating Ledeen for procuring forged documents (shown here) on nonexistent WMD, which George Bush used to justify his war on Iraq. When Joseph Wilson exposed the farce, Rove helped "out" Wilson’s CIA wife. Did Ledeen procure the documents for Rove, and how might he have done that? The story includes multinational stool pigeon Rocco Martino, Italian spy Francesco Pazienza, wanted CIA spy Robert Seldon Lady, and Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, who’s under charges of giving US secrets to Israel.

Karl Rove’s foreign-policy advisor, Michael Ledeen, proclaimed "the rightness of the fascist cause" in 1972. In 1984 he got George Bush Sr to appoint Iranian arms merchant and Iranian/Israeli double-agent Manucher Ghorbanifar as a middleman in the scandalous Iran-Contra affair. Ledeen has been a fixture in Washington and Israel ever since, advocating a modern version of the Crusades against Islamic nations. Based on what he has said and written, I believe Ledeen is insane.

Michael Ledeen, Rove’s "brain," is one of the leading advocates for a US attack on Iran. The Washington Post quoted Ledeen as saying that Rove told him, "Anytime you have a good idea, tell me." I guess that means we can look forward to the Bush team drumming up a war with Iran.

George Bush Jr., when he assumed the presidency in 2000, already knew that he was going to settle the family score with Saddam Hussein. His "brain," Rove, quickly enlisted Ledeen to trump up a causus belli.

...more...

[wordpix2]

10. he's pro-Israel and "proclaimed the rightness of the fascist cause?" WTF?

Most of the stuff i read about Ledeen shows he's a rabid wingnut

[orwell]

5. The problem isn't that I like to drink...

...it is that I am not drinking enough to stay drunk all the time.

What is that saying about digging a hole?

[grytpype]

7. Two things: 1. They're nuts. 2. Failure means they need more power.

Right? The Bush Doctrine is failing, so it has to be expanded to more countries. As soon as we invade Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, all will be well.

[Lasher]

13. That's right, grytpype, just like the tax cuts

The tax cuts didn't work as advertised, so the solution is more tax cuts. Same thing with the neocons' military adventures.

[Martin Eden]

9. "you cannot win a regional war"

"What I've always said is that you cannot win a regional war by conducting it in just one place," Mr. Ledeen told The New York Sun. "With regard to Iraq, our failure to deal with Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran, and just focus on Iraq by itself was doomed from the beginning. And I said that before we went into Iraq."

:wtf:
A small group of fanatics based in a backward, battered country crash hijacked airplanes into buildings, and these neocon lunatics make every effort to translate this into a "regional war" in order to invade a laundry list of countries they don't like and thereby kill a hundred times as many inocent civilians as perished on 9/11 while creating an ever larger pool of enraged muslims motivated to seek revenge against America.

Mr. Ledeen should be sent to patrol the streets of Baghdad with inadequate armor so he can take some shrapnel in his ass where his brains are apparently located. He's been doing too much sitting in his think tank and it's causing cerebral constipation.

[WhereIsMyFreedom]

11. Cerebral Constipation

:rofl:

[UpInArms]

12. "cerebral constipation"

Would that roughly translate to:

Shit for brains?

:thumbsup:

[Martin Eden]

15. Yep

And when neocons like him lay a turd, the Bush White House nurtures it like a blossom.

[TheGunslinger]

14. "resident scholar"???

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[Catrina]

16. Haven't they arrested that traitor yet? Ledeen is a self proclaimed

Fascist admirer who is mainly responsible for the false information that led to this war. Why on earth is anyone still giving any credence whatsoever to this creep?

The fact that he has the nerve to speak in public demonstrates the depth of his pathology. He is truly a certified lunatic from all I've read both about him, and from his own writings. I thought he was under investigation for being involved in the Forged Niger Documents case? And for his involvement in fabricating evidence, (WMD and Uranium from Niger, plus phony allegations of a terror connection, along with Douglas Feith, also under investigation). He was also involved in the Iran/Contra affair with his Iranian arms-dealer friends, with whom he still operates, and is currently suspected of plotting to plant WMDs in Iraq.

Yet, innocent citizens are under surveillance while this man is free to spew more lies to the public! Unbelievable!