Even now the Neo-Cons' appetite for young men's blood is not sated

Here is a beautifully written article in American Conservative by, of all people, Tucker Carlson from Fox News (who knew he wrote so very well?) about the Neo-Cons and the appalling Max Boot and Bill Kristol.

Tucker Carlson who shines like a good deed in a naughty world quotes Boot as calling in October 2001, in a piece in The Weekly Standard titled “The Case for American Empire” for a series of U.S.-led revolutions around the world, beginning in Afghanistan and moving swiftly to Iraq.

“Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul. To turn Iraq into a beacon of hope for the oppressed peoples of the Middle East: Now that would be a historic war aim. Is this an ambitious agenda? Without a doubt. Does America have the resources to carry it out? Also without a doubt.”

Tucker Carlson goes on:

In retrospect, Boot’s words are painful to read, like love letters from a marriage that ended in divorce. Iraq remains a smoldering mess. The Afghan war is still in progress close to 20 years in. For perspective, Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of France, crowned himself emperor, defeated four European coalitions against him, invaded Russia, lost, was defeated and exiled, returned, and was defeated and exiled a second time, all in less time than the United States has spent trying to turn Afghanistan into a stable country.


Things haven’t gone as planned. What’s remarkable is that despite all the failure and waste and deflated expectations, defeats that have stirred self-doubt in the heartiest of men, Boot has remained utterly convinced of the virtue of his original predictions. Certainty is a prerequisite for Leading Authorities on Armed Conflict.

In the spring of 2003, with the war in Iraq under way, Boot began to consider new countries to invade. He quickly identified Syria and Iran as plausible targets, the latter because it was “less than two years” from building a nuclear bomb. North Korea made Boot’s list as well. Then Boot became more ambitious. Saudi Arabia could use a democracy, he decided.

“If the U.S. armed forces made such short work of a hardened goon like Saddam Hussein, imagine what they could do to the soft and sybaritic Saudi royal family,” Boot wrote.

The Neo-Cons' appetite for young men's blood is never sated. This is much of the reason the Republican voters rejected the appalling false conservatism of George W Bush, McCain, Mitt, Rupert Murdoch and the rest in 2016 and chose the egregious Donald Trump.

Do read it. It left me with the thought that Winston Churchill in the 1930s was a Neo-Con (he had been a Liberal cabinet minister before re-ratting, after all). As Paul Gottfried put it, for the Neo-Cons it is always 1938.