PROJECT FOR A NEW UNAMERICAN CENTURY

WMDumb Even Doctor Rice has been struck down by a case of the dumb disease. [Meet the Press Transcript] [C&L video] WMDumb Syndrome is characterized by attributing all symptoms to one cause and a rabid inability to shut up.  Don’t attack the cancerous terrorist cells, attack the whole damn Middle East starting with Iraq. Then Syria or Iran, then Saudi Arabia, then  . . . No more waiting for war, it’s time for the Project for the New Unamerican Century.

But the fact of the matter is that when we were attacked on September 11, we had a choice to make.  We could decide that the proximate cause was al-Qaeda and the people who flew those planes into buildings and, therefore, we would go after al-Qaeda and perhaps after the Taliban and then our work would be done and we would try to defend ourselves.

Or we could take a bolder approach, which was to say that we had to go after the root causes of the kind of terrorism that was produced there, and that meant a different kind of Middle East.  And there is no one who could have imagined a different kind of Middle East with Saddam Hussein still in power. I know it's difficult, but we have ahead of us the prospect, and I think the very good prospect of a foundation for a democratic and prosperous Iraq that can solve its differences by politics and compromise, that becomes an anchor for a Middle East that is changing.

If you look at Lebanon and you look at the Palestinian territories and you look at what is going on in Egypt, this is a Middle East that is in transformation to something far better than we have experienced for the last 60 years when we thought that we could ignore democracy and get stability and, in fact, we got neither.  So yes, it's long, and yes, it's hard, but if we quit now, we are not only going to condemn generations of people of the Middle East to despair, we are going to condemn generations of Americans to continued fear and insecurity.

SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE the rabid fever will break. Our moral treasury will be broken long before then.

RECOMMENDED READING
Joe Gandelman says: In terms of credibility, this administration is going to be lumped together with the Nixon and Johnson administrations. Would it really have taken Condi Rice that much effort and expended that much political capital for her to have mentioned WMD? We somehow seem to remember it having been mentioned before somewhere.

Barbara O'Brien: If you could sit down and talk to Condi, what would you say to her? No, let me rephrase--what would you say to her other than f--- you, you lying bitch?

Comments

[Neil Shakespeare]

Well, they're certainly condemning THIS generation to fear and insecurity, that's for sure. Ooops. Gotta go. I think I saw a puddytat...er, I mean a mushroom cloud.

Hey, H. Can I steal your 'Titanic' picture of a few posts earlier? I love that one. Scary, but I love it. I actually DID steal it and use it in my 'Posterity' post, but then I took it down because I thought I better ask you first, and figuring maybe you didn't want any of your work appearing on the same page as Nixon. What say? For a friend...?

[The Heretik]

No problem, Neil.

[Neil Shakespeare]

Thanks, H.!