This is more of a Snopesy thing, but due to the subject matter, I’ve put it in GD. Forgive me if this has already been covered… there’s a dramatic speech by Republican Ron Paul circulating by email that excoriates the neo-con movement. However, there’s part of the speech about which I’m a little dubious:
I’ve been looking for both the Ledeen quote (according to Google, the only source is Paul’s speech), and the PNAC quote, and I can’t find it anywhere on the Web. It’s certainly not at the PNAC site, according to Google, but it is repeated quite a few times on left-wing and “alternative” news sources, but never cites the original material. Is this in fact real, or is it misinformation?
Even if it was true… so what? It proves Ledeen is a bit tactless (if he really called Pearl Harbor “lucky”), but his overall point is valid; that dramatic change often requires a dramatic impetus.
Well the implication to me, at least, is that the neocons would have been somewhat pleased that 9-11 had happened, since it provided the leverage of public opinion they required to start their policy of pre-emptive attack. And that ain’t nice.
Well, the implication to me is that you started this thread to give your bias another workout. Do you believe the implication by Ron Paul that Leeden was inviting Sept. 11? Assuming the statements are true (a shaky preposition at best), why should Leeden’s remarks be taken as indicative of all “neocons”? Can you define that term for the purposes of this thread?
In general terms, it looks to me like Leeden believed that the U.S. was growing increasingly isolationist and indifferent, and that a major attack of some kind could galvanize action which ultimately would have a positive result. If nothing else, Pearl Harbor did have that effect, and America’s involvement in WW2 not only yanked it out of the Great Depression, but firmly established it as a superpower.
If this strikes you as “ain’t nice”, tough. I personally wish (and I’m willing to bet Leeden personally wishes) that if an attack was inevitable, it wouldn’t have been on such an unexpectedly huge scale. In hindsight, the impetus for a major crackdown on Islamic terrorism should have been the first WTC attack in 1993.
But even putting aside all the reasons why Leeden might have made such remarks (assuming he did), there’s always the possibility that he’s just a thoughtless jerk whose off-the-cuff prediction sort-of came true. Hardly a major indictment of the man himself (have you never said anything you later regretted?) let alone the “neocons” you associate him with.
When I first heard about the Project for a New American Century, I rushed over to their web site and checked it out. I was referred there by Tom Tomorrow’s web site, and he provided a link directly to the bit about the “Pearl Harbor-type event.” He also provided an excerpt. This would have been early this year, maybe January or February, at the latest. The “Pearl Harbor-type event” article was there and I read part of it, but when I came back to finish it, the link was there, but it led to an “article not available” message. Apparently the media was beginning to pay too much attention to this group.
Had I known they were going to take it down, I would have printed the article. I’d be surprised if someone hasn’t saved it. But I can vouch: it was there.
Gosh, Bryan, I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick about this OP.
Blah. That’s odd. I’ve been sent this quote by lots of friends who are way more left-wing than myself, and I thought its non-appearance on anything other than leftist sites was fishy. I am asking whether the quote is in fact leftist propaganda.
I’m highly doubtful. That’s what I’m attempting to establish with this OP.
They shouldn’t necessarily, though they do segue with a lot of the content on the PNAC website.
For the purposes of this thread, as defined by Ron Paul’s speech (signatories to the PNAC and AEI).
Quite. But you can see why such a “not nice” statement would be useful to the Left. Which is why I’m trying to find out whether it’s bullshit or not.
Hold on a second - there are two allegations being made here: 1) Ledeen’s words. 2) Some lost PNAC document (that Chance the Gardener says might have been deleted). If both are true, and given the substantial number of influential signatories to the PNAC and its output, then the attitude displayed - if true - is rather disturbing. If these quotes are, however, false, then it’s an example of left-wing misinformation.
Ammunition for who? To accomplish what? Too much in this thread is left unclear and I get the impression someone (be it jjimm or Ron Paul) is hoping I’ll get outraged without asking for reasons.
I’m unclear on jjimm’s point. Is he upset that Leeden may have made such a statement, or that Ron Paul is exploiting the alleged statement?
The statement itself doesn’t strike me as particularly scandalous, but even if it did, why would it be used to smear so-called “neocons” and not simply Leeden himself?
Assuming that quote is valid (and I have no reason to think it isn’t), I don’t find it outrageous.
It doesn’t say that the attack on 9/11 was a good thing or a “lucky thing.” It doesn’t express a HOPE that a foreign power would attack the U.S. Rather, it states (correctly) what many hawks were thinking, saying and writing in the months before the attack:
People may THINK that, with the end of the Cold War, that military power is unnecessary and obsolete… but we STILL live in a dangerous world that’s filled with people who hate us and mean us harm.
We hawks have our work cut out for us, if we hope to persuade the American people that it’s still important to spend a lot of money on our armed forces- because most people want to bury their heads in the sand and pretending everything is fine.
Americans have a long history of burying their heads in the sand about threats from abroad- until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, most Americans wanted to pretend that “foreign wars” had nothing to do with us. Let’s hope it doesn’t take another Pearl Harbor to make people realize that the “end of history” people like Francis Fukuyama were predicting was a dangerous fantasy.
I’ve been reading magazines like “The American Spectator” (for which Michael Ledeen was a columnist) for years, and am well versed with the thoughts of Mr. Ledeen and of the leading neoconservatives. NONE has ever said “wouldn’t it be great if we had a new Pearl Harbor?” But MANY have said, essentially, “A new disaster on the scale of Pearl Harbor is all but inevitable… and unfortunately, it’s liable to take something that horrible to shake the American people out of their complacency on the military/foreign policy front.”
The conspiracy oriented mind could jump to the obvious corollary:… if there happens to be some evidence that a “Pearl Harbour” level event is about to happen, the neocons would gladly look the other way and wait for it to occur.
Agreed, astorian. While I certainly don’t agree with the Project for a New American Century’s point of view or their goals, I don’t find their “Pearl Harbor” statement outrageous. I find much of the writing on their web site outrageous or at best misguided, the “Pearl Harbor” comment is not one that freaks me out. Believe me, there are plenty of other points on that site to freak out about.
As to Mr. Paul’s citation of Mr. Leeden’s comments about the “need” for a new Pearl Harbor, I’m unfamiliar with the men so I’m unable to comment. If it’s accurate, I can’t say I think much of Mr. Leeden. But since astorian has well-founded doubts and since jjimm has been having trouble locating a cite, I’ll reserve judgement until I get anything solid.
In the “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” document, which is I believe the quotation cited by Ron Paul, the words are actually:
The context is increased military spending. So in review, I think that Paul misrepresents the PNAC here. They do stress the need for increased military spending, but not the need for a “new Pearl harbor” - they merely remark that without it, there is unlikely to be a lever for that increased spending.
BTW, the email that’s going round also represents Paul as a Repubican - hence my assertion. This again, as Bryan points out, is untrue: he’s a Libertarian.
Ron Paul is a “libertarian in Republican’s clothes” currently serving in the House as a member of the GOP (unless he’s jumped ship without my noticing.)
Yeah, Paul’s a Republican, but like cckerberos said, he’s got one thick Republican streak. Currently there are no Libertarians in Congress. They’re all either Democrats or Republicans, except for Representative Bernie Sanders of Vermont (an independent) and Senator Jim Jeffords, also of Vermont (also an independent). Both caucus with the Democrats, even though Jeffords was a Republican until May 2001.
Actually, it was John Mace who first pointed out Paul was a libertarian, not me. I was was just unclear on who you were objecting to: Leeden for making the statement, or Paul for exploiting Leeden’s statement.
The conspiracy oriented mind jumps to all kinds of crazy conclusions. The implication here isn’t that Leeden would sit idly by and wait for another Pearl Harbor, it’s that he’s warning the American people that complacency invites another Pearl Harbor, and though they may mobilze their outrage and their military in response, the damage will have been done.
Overall, I find the fault to be in the people who are (almost willfully) misinterpreting Leeden, not in Leeden himself. The statement itself is fairly obvious and not worth a microgram of outrage.
I was trying to establish whether or not Paul was misrepresenting Ledeen and/or the PNAC. I now believe he is.
The post of mine that you jumped on was actually me trying to explain why opponents of the neo-cons would find the quotes, if they were made as represented, useful.