I found most offensive that they kept comparing it to Germany after WWII. But my country actually had a working democracy before Hitler and got rid of the emperor in a mostly bloodless coup at the end of WWI.

Anybody with any sense of history should have realized that they were full of s*** if they actually believed in these false comparisons.

go to war with the national-security team you have.

Mr Adelman said the guiding principle behind neoconservatism, "the idea of using our power for moral good in the world", had been killed off for a generation at least. After Iraq, he told Vanity Fair, "it's not going to sell".

Neocons turn on Bush for incompetence over Iraq war

Julian Borger in Washington
Saturday November 4, 2006
The Guardian

These Neo-Conjobbers are throwing Rummy, Big Dick, and King George the Younger under the bus. Who did formulate this whole invade and occupy a weak country with a lot of oil and weak military with borrowed money?

As in any business deal, if things are going bad or into uncharted Grey legal areas, you walk away from the table, write a clear statement on why you left the table, and be sure the statement becomes public knowledge or placed as to be a clear signal of your intentions . Limit your future testimonial appearances in courts of law.

Oh those big Think Tank, governmental postings, and University Professorship jobs that they hope to take when they are shunned and their names become poison to be associated with. I wish, just look at Mr Wiretap John Negroponte, not only did he get another shot at governmental power, John gets to see every internet transaction, and listen in on every phone call.

"Takes a bucket of blood for a barrel of oil"

Steven Bruton

November 4, 2006

THE NEOCON REHABILITATION PROJECT....David Rose's Vanity Fair interview with the neocon elite is getting plenty of well-deserved attention this weekend. For one thing, it's fun to play the "which quote is the most damning?" game. Is it Michael Ledeen (the most powerful people in the White House are "women who are in love with the president")? Kenneth Adelman ("They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the post-war era")? David Frum (George Bush "just did not absorb the ideas")?

But that can wait. A few months ago I noted in passing that it was only a matter of time before the neocon hawks began claiming, like old-time Trotskyists, that there was nothing wrong with their ideas, only with the fools who had bungled their execution. Richard Perle states this the most directly:

Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I'm getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war. I was in favor of bringing down Saddam. Nobody said, 'Go design the campaign to do that.' I had no responsibility for that.

It's worth saying very plainly what's going on here: the neocons are using these interviews to make the case that neoconservatism is in no way to blame for the disaster in Iraq. If they had been in charge things would have been different.

This baby needs to be strangled in its crib. The 1997 "Statement of Principles" of the Project for a New American Century, the neocon Bible, was signed by, among others, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, Scooter Libby, and Elliot Abrams. All of these men were deeply involved in the formulation, planning, and execution of the Iraq war. The neocon creed was part and parcel of every move they made.

more
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_11/010006.php

A hundred or so years ago, the town I live in was a big fishing town. A local ship captain lost his ship in a storm, and every man was lost except him. He escaped, somehow, in a lifeboat.

The widows of the lost seamen tarred and feathered the captain and whipped him out of town. Literally.

True story.

Tar and feather them. Put them in stocks. Then whip them out of the country. They might, then, get a clue.

Thank you.

David Frum's Diary

Nov. 04, 2006: Vanity Fair's Inventions

There has been a lot of talk this season about deceptive campaign ads, but the most dishonest document I have seen is this press release from Vanity Fair, highlighted on the Drudge Report. Headlined "Now They Tell Us," it purports to offer an "exclusive" access to "remorseful" former supporters of the Iraq war who will now "play the blame game" with "shocking frankness."

It cites not only myself as one of these remorseful supporters, but also Richard Perle, Ken Adelman, and others.

I can speak only for myself. Obviously I wish the war had gone better. It's true I fear that there is a real danger that the US will lose in Iraq. And yes I do blame a lot that has gone wrong on failures of US policy.

I have made these points literally thousands of times since 2004, beginning in An End to Evil and most recently in my 22-part commentary on Bob Woodward's State of Denial (start here and find the remainder here .) I have argued them on radio and on television and on public lectern, usually in exactly the same words that are quoted in the press release.

"[T]he insurgency has proven it can kill anyone who cooperates, and the United States and its friends have failed to prove that it can protect them."

"I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything."

And finally that the errors in Iraq are explained by "failures at the center."

Nothing exclusive there, nothing shocking, and believe me, nothing remorseful.

(...)

( ... Link ... )

Perle: I Only Agreed To Tell The Truth About Iraq If It ‘Would Not Be Published Before The Election’

perleIn a new article in Vanity Fair, prominent neoconservative Richard Perle — one of the principle advocates of invading Iraq — blasts the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq. Here’s some key excerpts:

[Bush] did not make decisions, in part because the machinery of government that he nominally ran was actually running him…Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I’m getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war. I was in favor of bringing down Saddam. Nobody said, ‘Go design the campaign to do that.’ I had no responsibility for that.

Now, Perle is calling foul, saying he only agreed to tell the truth if it was published after the election. Here’s Perle in the National Review:

Vanity Fair has rushed to publish a few sound bites from a lengthy discussion with David Rose…I had been promised that my remarks would not be published before the election.

more
Think Progress

Jude Wanniski's 2002 Memo to D Milbank, WaPo

"Bill Kristol has a very high IQ, which he likes to remind his friends about, but he defers to Perle on matters of great intelligence, national security, foreign policy and such. For the most part, Bill gets all his big ideas from his own kitchen cabinet, and conducts the chorus, but it is Perle who ultimately writes the words and music. The Kristol Chorus consists of communicators, journalists, and speechwriters, but he does not control the brass. Perle does, including Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condi Rice, and Scooter Libby – Vice President Cheney's chief of staff. Perle also manages many of the generals and admirals who have been promoted from the ranks on his say-so. That's the kind of power it takes a long time to accumulate, and Perle got it from his father-in-law, the late Albert Wohlstetter, who was arguably the most powerful, “unknown” political figure of the 20th century – a man I personally admired greatly.

I noted in my memo of last week the names of the various journals and journalists who operate under Perle's intellectual umbrella. I append it here, and assure you that the folks named really are not that disturbed to be so listed. It is a badge of honor among the Warrior Class to be identified as one of Richard's String of Perles."

A String of Perles