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Originally Posted by Tiger_vs_Mantis
well that's a completely illogical argument. You used to be a well-meaning neocon, but that doesn't help you or us determine the Bush admin's state of mind. surely you can see that.
again I ask: why bother arguing about the Bush admin's sincerity? if you disagree with Bush and his policies, then it's a no-win argument to even go near the subject. as you can see from this thread, there's an absolute lack of maturity when it comes to this topic: if you even dare suggest that powerful agents might be pursuing goals for furthering their own interests rather than the interests of the American people as a whole, that these powerful agents are speaking out of both sides of their mouths, then you are branded a conspiracy theorist who believes in the Illuminati and you are heckled with images of Paul Wolfowitz cackling with glee while his alien pseudopod-hand clutches the globe. When it comes to the subject of "sincerity," there is just a a total lack of nuance, particularly from those who do support Bush and his policies. So why not just leave the issue of "sincerity" off the table and concentrate on what we CAN know. e.g. that the Bush admin's policies have been spectacular failures.
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I think the point is that there is no dispute remaining over the latter. The point of this thread is to ferret out the defects of political leadership that brought us into the situation, however, and part of that is coming up with a relatively realistic analysis of how we got in this situation, who the players are, and what their intentions are/were.
So it's not illogical to say that the neocon state of mind is very important to figuring out why/how they seized power, why their ilk pose a continuing threat, and how to defeat their brand of political failure in the future.
For example, you could characterize George Bush as simply selling Americans out to Israel. Clearly we sacrifice American interests to Israeli interests to a remarkable extent. But the truth is harder than that; it's evangelical American support for Israel that underlies Bush's support, and the support of Americans more broadly. So these interests ARE somewhat reflective of broader American interests. Unfortunately the Israel Lobby is enabled by this inane religious attitude that is widespread throughout the nation. If it were just an evil cabal, then it would be a lot easier to expose to light and destroy. But the cabal is us, our defects, magnified. To destroy it, we need to understand how we have created it, rather than just pretending that we were haplessly victimized by the evil.