The neocon resurgence (delusional mindset; promiscuous threat conflation)

[ProSense]

The neocon resurgence

The delusional US mindset that made the Iraq war a disaster has resurfaced in Lebanon

Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday July 27, 2006
The Guardian

Once again the Bush administration is floating on a wave of euphoria. Israel's offensive against Hizbullah in Lebanon has liberated the utopian strain of neoconservatism that had been traduced by Iraq's sectarian civil war. And the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, has propelled herself forward as chief cheerleader. "What we're seeing here," she said, "are the birth pangs of a new Middle East." At every press conference she repeats the phrase "a new Middle East" as though its incantation is magical.

Her jaunt to the region is intended to lend the appearance of diplomacy in order to forestall it. As explained to me by several senior state department officials, Rice is entranced by a new "domino theory": Israel's attacks will demolish Hizbullah; the Lebanese will blame Hizbullah and destroy its influence; and the backlash will extend to Hamas, which will collapse. From the administration's point of view, this is a proxy war with Iran (and Syria) that will inexplicably help turn around Iraq. "We will prevail," Rice says.

The administration has traditionally engaged in promiscuous threat conflation - al-Qaida with Saddam Hussein, North Korea and Iran in "the axis of evil", and now implicitly the Shia Hizbullah with the Sunni Iraqi insurgency. By asserting "we" before "will prevail", Rice is engaging in national interest conflation.

Snip...

To the Bush administration, the conflagration has appeared as deus ex machina to rescue it from the Iraqi quagmire. That this is patently absurd does not dawn on those who remain in thrall to the same pattern of thought that imagined the invasion of Iraq would be greeted with flowers in the streets of Baghdad. Denial is the basis of repetition.

This week has seen the publication of Fiasco, by Thomas Ricks, the military correspondent of the Washington Post, devastating in its factual deconstruction. The Iraqi invasion, he writes, was "based on perhaps the worst war plan in American history". The policy-making at the Pentagon was a "black hole", and resistance by the staff of the joint chiefs to disinformation linking Iraq to 9/11 was dismissed. After the absence of a plan for postwar Iraq, blunder upon blunder fostered the insurgency.

more...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,1830932,00.html

[donkeyotay]

1. If a body only had time to read 2 articles

they could read this and the Rolling Stone piece by Bamford. This is Phase II of plans put in place before junior was installed. Once again, congress seems to be totally down with it, but I don't suppose they're too worried about their retirement and their sons. Funny how an administration that was going to worry about domestic issues like education and soft bigotry went all new world order on us. You'd think there'd have been an investigation or something. Oh, that's right, justice is broken, too.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/10962352/iran_the_next_war/1

[glitch]

2. Their delusions won't change, their feedback from reality mechanism

has been broken.

Thanks for posting. Sidney is one of the must reads.

[ProSense]

3. Bush: we've got a great weapon on our side...that is freedom and liberty

BUSH: They just got a different tool to use than we do: They kill innocent lives to achieve objectives. That's what they do. And they're good. They get on the TV screens and they get people to ask questions about, well, you know, this, that or the other. I mean, they're able to kind of say to people: Don't come and bother us, because we will kill you.

And my attitude is that now's the time to be firm. And we've got a great weapon on our side, and that is freedom and liberty. And it's got -- those two concepts have got the capacity to defeat ideologies of hate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/28/AR2006072800939.html

(July 28, 2006 -- 01:14 PM EDT)

BREAKING: President Bush Really Big Doofus

Yes, I grant you, this may have been reported in other outlets before. But we're here listening to the Bush-Blair press conference. And a few minutes ago a reporter (I think David Gregory, but will check on that) asked the president in so many words: You said Iraq was going to bring about new Middle East but now the Middle East is a complete disaster.

Certainly, this would be a challenging question on more levels than one. But the president's answer, quite a lengthy one actually, showed in a really frightening detail how President Bush seems to be basically brain dead on this issue. We'll try to get a copy of it up on line. You really have to hear it to believe it.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/009218.php

[ProSense]

4. TNR writer blames bloggers for the ongoing war in Iraq

Friday, July 28, 2006

Wanker of the Day

Lee Siegel, a New Republic writer who blames bloggers for the ongoing war in Iraq.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_07_23_atrios_archive.html#115411949877173423

From the link:

Sorry, but that's so downright insane that, for the first time in the history of this blog, I have to quote it again. Remember, this is Lee Seigel, an employee of The New Republic, blaming bloggers for the continuation of the Iraq War:

No wonder, several years after the blogosphere allegedly became a people powerhouse, the country is mired even deeper in Iraq and successfully distracted by one false public alarm after another.

http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2006/07/quote_of_the_da_4.html