CONSERVATIVES AGAINST THE WAR

[Zlatko Waterman]

Pierre M. Atlas
Respected conservatives agree with 'clueless lefties'


September 30, 2004


My Sept. 16 column, "Bush's ideological blinders led to ill-advised war in Iraq," attracted numerous e-mails from as far away as Missouri, Texas, Maryland, Colorado and even Canada. The responses ran 2-to-1 negative.

I was informed that I am part of "the pacifist, ivy-covered world of academia," which produces "lies and half-truths" and "corrupts students' minds with politics instead of objectively teaching fact." I learned that I am "treasonously stupid" and am "yet another clueless leftie sheltered from the real world by the walls of academia who rants how Bush made a mistake."

Most respondents assumed that because I and other academics have criticized Bush policies, we must all be left-wing radicals who hate America (or in other words, "Democrats"). A typical letter read: "Strength is all the terrorists understand, not anti-American mutterings by a few so-called intellectuals. The Democrats have lost the House, the Senate, soon the White House, and soon the Supreme Court. Wake up, you're out of touch with the country."

Another e-mail read: "If you and your kind had not spent so much time blaming America first for the attacks on our country, your views would have gotten much more play at the White House, and in public as well."

But those who assume that the administration's critics are all Democrats or "clueless lefties" are wrong. I'm a registered Republican who twice voted for Bush's father.

And it was no foaming-at-the-mouth leftie who wrote: "In 2003, the United States invaded a country that did not threaten us, did not attack us and did not want war with us, to disarm it of weapons we have since discovered it did not have." These are the words of arch-conservative Pat Buchanan.

Many esteemed Republicans who supported the initial decision for war in Iraq have been harshly critical of the mismanagement of the occupation. Sen. Richard Lugar, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recently used the word "incompetence" to describe the administration's postwar reconstruction efforts. Sens. John McCain, Chuck Hagel and Lindsey Graham publicly reject the administration's rosy predictions of success, and conservative icon William F. Buckley, Jr. has expressed second thoughts about the wisdom of going to war.

A major policy paper has just come out calling the Iraq war a distraction from the fight against al-Qaida and advocating our complete withdrawal from Iraq by next January. The report is titled: "Exiting Iraq: Why the U.S. Must End the Military Occupation and Renew the War against Al Qaeda." This was not produced by Howard Dean, but by the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank.

One of the most damning critiques is by the well-respected scholar Larry Diamond in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. No bleeding heart liberal, Diamond is a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institute at Stanford University. He served as a senior adviser to Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad from January to April 2004.

Diamond decries the administration's unwillingness to send in enough troops from the beginning, its utter failure in providing basic security for the Iraqis to this day, and its general cluelessness about Iraqi society and history. His article, "What Went Wrong in Iraq," details a series of ill-fated decisions that were infected by what he calls "hubris and ideology."

Diamond writes that "Throughout the occupation, the coalition lacked the linguistic and area expertise necessary to understand Iraqi politics and society, and the few longtime experts present were excluded from the inner circle of decision-making in the CPA."

So if the "area experts" were not being consulted in the decision-making process, which was the point of my previous column, then who was? Peter Galbraith offers some answers in the Sept. 23 issue of The New York Review of Books, in his article "Iraq: The Bungled Transition." According to this former U.S. ambassador and expert on post-conflict societies, "Republican political connections counted for far more than professional competence, relevant international experience, or knowledge of Iraq. In some cases, the quest for political loyalists meant dismissing qualified professionals who had already been recruited."

Ideological blinders have indeed shaped and constrained our policy in Iraq, and also in the war against those who really did attack us. And it's not only "clueless leftie" academics who understand this.


Atlas is assistant professor of political science and director of the Franciscan Center for Global Studies at Marian College. Contact him at patlas@marian.edu .

[mnaz]

Good article, Z'ko...

I never thought I'd witness a US Administration stiff-arm world cooperation and diplomacy and start a war; a war that not only was unnecessary, costly, and counterproductive, and was pushed on us fraudulently, but a war (and occupation) that has been botched in so many ways. I never thought I would see this total package of arrogant, near-disastrous policy coming from the White House, only to see it supported so staunchly by so many people (right to the bitter end). I still find it rather astounding.

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dear mnaz:


Agreed. All of what you said.

I never thought I would see an administration calling itself "conservative" abandon so many hallowed conservative principles.

The size of government has grown considerably under Bush. Fiscal tightness has given way to massive deficits.

Here's an interesting claim that Democrats are the real

conservatives:

http://irregulartimes.com/weconservatives.html

The documentation is a little lame and ignores important historical evidence, but the assertions are fun to read and challenge.

Here's yet another view on Republicans:


http://www.progress.org/2004/fold368.htm


( I like this guy's name. Let's see:

Views based on weight, not volume. Your Fold may Vary . . .)


Here's an interesting source page on US wars and who started and fought them:

http://www.multcolib.org/homework/warwldhc.html



And, finally, the often neglected African-American perspective:


http://www.africana.com/columns/cobb/ht20040913fear.asp


This article ( above) considers the presidency of George W. Bush and compares it to former Presidents, like Johnson ( a Democrat), who escalated the Vietnam war and Nixon ( a Republican) who ended it.



--Z