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Sorry. Did not mean to imply that Fukuyama is a Nazi, merely that he
demonstrate in his famous article the brainless sycophancy that
Germans wishing to please Hitler did.
Garth Cartledge
At 03:05 PM 12/04/2006, you wrote:
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>
>Why shouldn't he change his mind? His end of history thesis was the
>most lightweight hubristic concept I have read for many
>years. Completely ill thought through - although I hesitate to
>suggest that he really thought about what he was writing. Was a
>crackpot type of thing that one would expect in a nation where one's
>advancement depended upon saying nice things about the governing
>philosophy. I mean - human history had reached the end of its
>socio-economic development in the system that the US has and would
>not/could not perfect itself any more. Sounds like something from
>sixty years ago when certain people were saying that a certain
>nation's history/political system was now perfect and would remain so
>for a thousand years.
>And what is even more frightening was that at the time he was not
>criticized more for such a stupid concept.
>But don't worry, on the strength of the (lack of) depth of thought he
>showed in that thesis that he seems capable of achieving he will
>change his mind again. In this regard he is either a lightweight or
>easily impressed by the self importance of the empty rhetoric that
>the administration pumps out about "democracy" and "freedom".
>
>This is not a flame - I have always held this opinion about this man
>and his intellect - or, rather, his capacity to allow his intellect
>to be overridden by his pride in being American. Sad thing is that
>there are so many people like him that people like Bush can get away
>with what he does
>
>Garth Cartledge
>
>At 06:57 AM 12/04/2006, you wrote:
>
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> >Progressive News & Views (since 1982)
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> >
> >
> >--
> >
> >
> >Why shouldn't I change my mind?
> >
> > A famed neoconservative switches sides on the Iraq war -- and all hell
> > breaks loose.
> >
> > By Francis Fukuyama, Francis Fukuyama is a professor at the Johns
> > Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the author of
> > "America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power and the Neoconservative
> > Legacy."
> >
> > April 9, 2006
> >
> > SEVEN WEEKS AGO, I published my case against the Iraq war. I wrote
> > that although I had originally advocated military intervention in
> > Iraq, and had even signed a letter to that effect shortly after the
> > 9/11 attacks, I had since changed my mind.
> >
> > But apparently this kind of honest acknowledgment is verboten. In the
> > weeks since my book came out, I've been challenged, attacked and
> > vilified from both ends of the ideological spectrum. From the right,
> > columnist Charles Krauthammer has accused me of being an opportunistic
> > traitor to the neoconservative cause -- and a coward to boot. From the
> > left, I've been told that I have "blood on my hands" for having
> > initially favored toppling Saddam Hussein and that my "apology" won't
> > be accepted.
> >
> > In our ever-more-polarized political debate, it appears that it is now
> > wrong to ever change your mind, even if empirical evidence from the
> > real world suggests you ought to. I find this a strange and disturbing
> > conclusion.
> >
> > For the record, I did change my mind, but in the year preceding the
> > war -- not after the invasion. In 2002, I told the London Times that
> > "the use of military power to push [Iraqi democracy] forward is a big
> > roll of the dice. We may not win on this one." On the first
> > anniversary of 9/11, I argued in the Washington Post that we should
> > invade Iraq only with approval from the U.N. Security Council, and in
> > December of that year, I wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal
> > warning that the project of democratizing Iraq and the Mideast might
> > come to look like empire and that it violated the conservative
> > principle of prudence.
> >
> > But when my political shift occurred is not important: Even if it had
> > come a year or two later, it would still not have represented a
> > cowardly retreat or an apologia, but a realistic, intellectually
> > honest willingness to face the new facts of the situation.
> >
> > In my view, no one should be required to apologize for having
> > supported intervention in Iraq before the war. There were important
> > competing moral goods on both sides of the argument, something that
> > many on the left still refuse to recognize. The U.N. in 1999 declared
> > that all nations have a positive "duty to protect, promote and
> > implement" human rights, arguing in effect that the world's powerful
> > countries are complicit in human rights abuses if they don't use their
> > power to correct injustices. The debate over the war shouldn't have
> > been whether it was morally right to topple Hussein (which it clearly
> > was), but whether it was prudent to do so given the possible costs and
> > potential consequences of intervention and whether it was legitimate
> > for the U.S. to invade in the unilateral way that it did.
> >
> > It was perfectly honorable to agonize over the wisdom of the war, and
> > in many ways admirable that people on the left, such as Christopher
> > Hitchens, George Packer, Michael Ignatieff and Jacob Weisberg,
> > supported intervention. That position was much easier to defend in
> > early 2003, however, before we found absolutely no stocks of chemical
> > or biological weapons and no evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons
> > program. (I know that many on the left believe that the prewar
> > estimates about Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were all a
> > deliberate fraud by the Bush administration, but if so, it was one in
> > which the U.N. weapons inspectors and French intelligence were also
> > complicit.) It was also easier to support the war before we knew the
> > full dimensions of the vicious insurgency that would emerge and the
> > ease with which the insurgents could disrupt the building of a
> > democratic state.
> >
> > But in the years since then, it is the right that has failed to come
> > to terms with these uncomfortable facts. The failure to find WMD and
> > to make a quick transition to a stable democracy -- as well as the
> > prisoner abuse and the inevitable bad press that emerges from any
> > prolonged occupation -- have done enormous damage to America's
> > credibility and standing in the world. These intangible costs have to
> > be added to the balance sheet together with the huge direct human and
> > monetary costs of the war.
> >
> > Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently admitted that the United
> > States made numerous tactical errors in Iraq, but she insisted that
> > the basic strategic decision to go to war was still as valid as ever
> > because we foreclosed once and for all the possibility that Iraq would
> > break out of sanctions and restart its WMD programs.
> >
> > But we now know a lot that throws that fundamental strategic rationale
> > into question.
> >
> > The Iraq Survey Group and the U.S. military have released hundreds of
> > pages of documents on Iraq's prewar WMD programs showing that, at
> > times, Hussein believed he possessed biological weapons that didn't
> > exist and that, at other times, he led his most senior commanders to
> > believe he had WMD capabilities that he knew were entirely fictitious.
> > His government was so corrupt, incompetent and compartmentalized that
> > it is far from certain that he would have succeeded in building a a
> > nuclear program even if sanctions had been lifted. Nor is it clear
> > that a breakdown of the sanctions regime was inevitable, given an
> > energized United States and the very different political climate that
> > existed after 9/11.
> >
> > The logic of my prewar shift on invading Iraq has now been doubly
> > confirmed. I believe that the neoconservative movement, with which I
> > was associated, has become indelibly associated with a failed policy,
> > and that unilateralism and coercive regime change cannot be the basis
> > for an effective American foreign policy. I changed my mind as part of
> > a necessary adjustment to reality.
> >
> > What has infuriated many people is President Bush's unwillingness to
> > admit that he made any mistakes whatsoever in the whole Iraq
> > adventure. On the other hand, critics who assert that they knew with
> > certainty before the war that it would be a disaster are, for the most
> > part, speaking with a retrospective wisdom to which they are not
> > entitled.
> >
> > Many people have noted the ever-increasing polarization of American
> > politics, reflected in news channels and talk shows that cater to
> > narrowly ideological audiences, and in a House of Representatives that
> > has redistricted itself into homogeneous constituencies in which few
> > members have to appeal to voters with diverse opinions. This
> > polarization has been vastly amplified by Iraq: Much of the left now
> > considers the war not a tragic policy mistake but a deliberate
> > criminal conspiracy, and the right attacks the patriotism of those who
> > question the war.
> >
> > This kind of polarization affects a range of other complex issues as
> > well: You can't be a good Republican if you think there may be
> > something to global warming, or a good Democrat if you support school
> > choice or private Social Security accounts. Political debate has
> > become a spectator sport in which people root for their team and cheer
> > when it scores points, without asking whether they chose the right
> > side. Instead of trying to defend sharply polarized positions taken
> > more than three years ago, it would be far better if people could
> > actually take aboard new information and think about how their earlier
> > commitments, honestly undertaken, actually jibe with reality -- even
> > if this does on occasion require changing your mind.
> >
> >
> > Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times
> >
> >
> >Accolades to Professor Fukuyami for a courageous statement and for setting
> >the record straight. Left and right labels have really lost their efficacy
> >in this battle of ideas. The truth is what is important, not whether or
> >not one follows a specific "line of march" and comes down on one side or
> >another because this isn't a team sport and there are real people and real
> >event involved and folks are dying because of a dishonest and not
> >too bright, pro-corporatist president.
> > Hank
> >
> >
> >
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>Garth Cartledge
>
>" Despotism sits nowhere so secure as under the effigy and ensigns of
>Freedom", From Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans (1853) by
>Walter Savage Landor 1775-1864
>
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Garth Cartledge
" Despotism sits nowhere so secure as under the effigy and ensigns of
Freedom", From Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans (1853) by
Walter Savage Landor 1775-1864
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