Is P.N.A.C. closing down?

[fastpat]

As pointed out, the PNAC'ers are squabbling amongst themselves over who lost Iraq, and other things, so it's probably going out of business, with the rats seeking other vehicles to ride.

'New American Century' Project Ends With a Whimper
by Jim Lobe

Is the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which did so much to promote the invasion of Iraq and an Israel-centered"global war on terror," closing down?

In the absence of an official announcement and the failure since late last year of a live person to answer its telephone number, a Washington Post obituary would seem to be definitive. And, sure enough, the Post quoted one unidentified source presumably linked to PNAC that the group was "heading toward closing" with the feeling of "goal accomplished."

In fact, the 9-year-old group, whose 27 founders included Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, among at least half a dozen of the most powerful hawks in the George W. Bush administration's first term, has been inactive since January 2005, when it issued the last of its "statements," an appeal to significantly increase the size of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps to cope with the growing demands of the kind of "Pax Americana" it had done so much to promote.

As a platform for the three-part coalition that was most enthusiastic about war in Iraq -- aggressive nationalists like Cheney, Christian Zionists of the religious Right, and Israel-centered neoconservatives -- PNAC actually began breaking down shortly after the Iraq invasion.

It was then that the group's predominantly neoconservative leadership -- Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, PNAC director Gary Schmitt, and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace analyst Robert Kagan -- began attacking Rumsfeld, in particular, for failing to deploy enough troops to pacify the country and launch a true nation-building exercise, as in post-World War II Germany and Japan.

It was the first of a number of policy splits that, along with the deepening quagmire in Iraq itself, have debilitated the hawks, forcing neoconservatives in the group to reach out to liberal interventionists with whom they sponsored a series of joint statements extolling the virtues of nation-building and a larger army, or calling for a tougher U.S. stance toward Russia and China.

PNAC was launched by Kristol and Kagan in 1997, shortly after their publication of an article in Foreign Affairs magazine entitled "Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy," in which they called for Washington to exercise "benevolent global hegemony" to be sustained "as far into the future as possible."

While critical of then President Bill Clinton, the article was directed more against a Republican Congress which, in their view, had grown increasingly isolationist, particularly after the precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Somalia in 1994 and strong Republican opposition to intervention in the Balkans against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

It was in this spirit that the two co-founded PNAC, whose charter was signed by leading neoconservatives, including Cheney's future chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby; Rumsfeld's future deputy, Paul Wolfowitz; Bush's future top Middle East aide, Elliott Abrams; his future ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad; Rumsfeld's future top international security official, Peter Rodman; American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow and neocon impresario Richard Perle; Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; as well as Cheney and Rumsfeld themselves. http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=9132

Better view their web site while it's still up, Mul.

[tabs]

Pat why are U so negative all the time. Don't U see ANYTHING in the world as being bright and cheery?

[kach22i]

"heading toward closing" with the feeling of "goal accomplished."

Yes, everything is much better now.

[kach22i]

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_timeline_of_the_200 3_invasion_of_iraq

PNAC drafts a strategy document, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century,” for George W. Bush’s team before the 2000 Presidential election. The document was commissioned by future Vice President Cheney, future Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, future Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Florida Governor Jeb Bush (Bush’s brother), and future Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff Lewis Libby. [Project for the New American Century, 9/2000 ]
The document outlines a “blueprint for maintaining global US preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests.”
PNAC states further: “The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”
PNAC calls for the control of space through a new “US Space Forces,” the political control of the Internet, and the subversion of any growth in political power of even close allies, and advocates “regime change” in China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran, and other countries.
It also mentions that “advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”
However, PNAC complains that thes changes are likely to take a long time, “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” [Los Angeles Times, 1/12/2003] Notably, while Cheney commissioned this plan (along with other future key leaders of the Bush administration), he defends Bush’s position of maintaining Clinton’s policy not to attack Iraq during an NBC interview in the midst of the 2000 presidential campaign, asserting that the US should not act as though “we were an imperialist power, willy-nilly moving into capitals in that part of the world, taking down governments.” [Washington Post, 1/12/2002] A British member of Parliament will later say of the report: “This is a blueprint for US world domination—a new world order of their making. These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to control the world.” [Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 9/7/2002] Both PNAC and its strategy plan for Bush are almost virtually ignored by the media until a few weeks before the start of the Iraq war (see February-March 20, 2003).

These guys look familar.


People involved in the 2000 PNAC report (from top left): Vice President Cheney, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, Undersecretary of Defense Dov Zakheim, and author Eliot Cohen.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by tabs
Pat why are U so negative all the time. Don't U see ANYTHING in the world as being bright and cheery?

You missed it.
Grape cultivation

Tabs, old boy, if you don't keep the enemies of freedom squarely in your sights, they'll make you really sorry.

[tabs]

Originally posted by fastpat
You missed it.
Grape cultivation
if you don't keep the enemies of freedom squarely in your sights, they'll make you really sorry.

Thats what Lee Harvey Oswald said.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by tabs
Thats what Lee Harvey Oswald said.

No, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry.