Sometimes, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. Or, to put it another way, your "realist" couldn't deal with questions from Lindsey Graham. Just how smart, tough and capable does that make him?
And, since you've weighed in again on the subject, I'm going to bring up my previous post from the other Hagel thread so that you can finally respond to what I asked you there:
Yes, and I'll take Kristol over Buchanan any day, because at the end of the day, Kristol isn't a delusional, bigoted loon who makes our movement look like what the left claims it is.
Wait a minute, are you saying that you agree with Buchanan's statements? That you believe that his statements about Jews having excessive influence in America are true? That we are part of a fifth column that is working towards war on behalf of Israel, that we are disloyal to the United States? Those statements of his are bigoted, ugly attacks on the loyalty of those Americans who see Israel as a strategic ally. The dual-loyalty canard is a hallmark of anti-semitism. No more games about my playing the Jew card, just be up front about whether or not you agree with Buchanan's libels.
Since you seem to be obsessed with Peter Lawler, perhaps you should read the article that you linked to, specifically the following:
Now today’s “realists” sometimes object that it might have made sense to view the Cold War as an ideological or even “existential” conflict. But now that communism—and totalitarian universalism in general–have been consigned to the dustbin of history, it makes sense to think more exclusively in terms of interests again. From a realistic view, neocons exaggerated a lot when they called the war against Jihadism or “Islamic fascism” World War IV (or yet another global, ideological war), just as they exaggerated—at this point beyond belief—the existential significance of 9/11. And they embarked on a bloody mission impossible when they acted on the thought that we could save ourselves from terror by imposing “regime change”—liberal democracy—on the terrorist-supporting nations.
I’m somewhat sympathetic to this kind of criticism of Bush’s policies, but only to a point. For one thing, the critics seem incapable of avoiding exaggeration in the other direction. It’s not true that 9/11 had no significance as a security threat, a threat that really did need to be countered aggressively and globally. And it’s not true that Bush was wrong or even naïve to characterize the motivation of those who threatened us as fundamentally evil—or not mainly our adversaries in some clash of interests. They think and act as deranged tyrants.
Imagine the blowback—in the name of universal human rights—if Israel were actually destroyed because we didn’t do what we could do. And certainly it’s in our interest—in all nations’ interest—that the radical government of Iran—one fundamentally hostile not only to Israel but to us and our understanding of who we are—not go nuclear. The “realist” idea that the self-interested calculus involved in the theory of nuclear deterrence could actually keep the peace in a militantly religious region isn’t so realistic. What we do for Israel and about Iran are matters of prudence, but they aren’t, as Hagel has suggested, matters that can we can view with realistic indifference.
From a genuinely prudent or Reaganite point of view, we have to get beyond criticisms of the Iraq war based on “Bush lied, thousands died” or some neocon/Straussian conspiracy based upon an elitist application of the Platonic “noble lie” to contemporary American circumstances. I can’t emphasize enough how stupid and slanderous those criticisms are; no one could make them who’s actually read Strauss’ interpretation of the The president did not reflect sufficiently on how risky an invasion of that magnitude was, and how little we really knew about the facts on the ground in Iraq. He did remarkably little, in fact, to solidify domestic support for the war, certainly not for the far too unexpected protracted and bloody war. Given how unstable or inevitably transient that consensus was, he should have given more thought to the consequences of its collapse. The result was devastating for America’s ability to project its interests and, yes, in some measure its principles throughout the world. It squandered the confidence in our capacities and our mission that had been restored so effectively by Reagan both at home and throughout the world. It also, of course, eroded our real military power in many ways. Finally and very significantly, the failure of the war to achieve its goals was exploited by the Democrats on the domestic front. People couldn’t help but lose confidence in Republican policies—the Republican version of what prudence is—in general. (This paragraph is indebted to my dialogue with the threader Daniel Fish at the Postmodern Conservative blog.)
The article that you cited repeats my arguments, and blows yours out of the water. Lawler explains, in one sentence, why Hagel is wrong, citing his indifference to the outcome of a Middle Eastern conflict between two nuclear powers. He also refers to your neo-con/Straussian conspiracy crap as "stupid" and "slanderous". You really think that this article helps your position?
Do you really believe that the staff of TWS is so petty that they would put out false, libelous statements about Hagel in order to keep him from becoming SECDEF? That they would fabricate quotes? Because that is what you are accusing them of, and by extension, me. Hagel's quotes and votes are a matter of public record. He has repeatedly voted against measure to isolate or punish terrorist states and their proxies, even when they have directly targeted Americans. He has made statements which clearly put in the camp of the anti-semites. If you would stop ranting and read the statements that he has made, you would see that he is the wrong man for the job, and the only reason that Obama has chosen him is because he will cheerfully gut the DOD and undermine our capabilities, which is what Obama wants, too.
Only because Hagel has never hidden his anti-semitism.
Which is why he was brought in by MSNBC, because he's the kind of bat-$#/+ crazy bigot that they can present as a conservative, in order to make the rest of us look like the caricature that they believe in. Buchanan is a conservative the way that the members of the Westboro Baptist Church are Christians. He's somebody that the left can point to in order to "prove" that we are all racists and loons.
Okay, that's twice that you've brought Trotsky into this. Lawler put the lie to your Straussian drivel, but given how blatantly you've repeated other nonsense in this thread, I'm calling you on this again. I assume that you can prove that PNAC supports Trotskyite ideas, or is this more blather from the "real" conservatives that Buchanan has managed to scrape up?
That is another lie. Pre-emptive war as a means of self-defense is acceptable, but nobody is advocating invading nations that do not threaten us or our interests.
Nobody is arguing for that. What PNAC argued for was being willing to confront undemocratic regimes when our interests are threatened by them. They were advocates of Reagan's approach, which was to engage authoritarian regimes that were friendly, while using our influence to gain reform (as occurred in Spain, Chile, Portugal and several other regimes which democratized on Reagan's watch). Those states that threaten us must be confronted and defeated, either militarily or diplomatically.
Again, prove that anyone at PNAC believed this.
Do you have proof of any of these bizarre allegations?
This is patently false. Most neocons left the Democratic Party because they could not reconcile the anti-Americanism that had become the standard for Democrats.
And if you think that those are Bill Kristol's positions, then you are off yours.
I used to really admire Russell Kirk, but if his position is that we should have no overarching, guiding principles, then he's wrong. Ideology is a set of principles. You have to believe in something, some principle that makes sense, some conviction that goes beyond just fighting to win for winning's sake. Otherwise, we're no better than the left. The Marxists pretend to have an ideology, but what they really have is a collection of slogans and the lust for power. Conservatives have principles, we define ourselves by them. Kirk's diatribe against having a set of core beliefs makes no sense at all, since without ideology, there's nothing separating us from the Marxists.
You are really flailing in this thread. I don't think that I've ever seen you this desperate and incoherent. In fact, you really remind me of Gator.
Originally Posted by LukeEDay
