February 27, 2011 "IPS" -- WASHINGTON - In a distinct echo of the tactics they pursued to encourage U.S. intervention in the Balkans and Iraq, a familiar clutch of neo-conservatives appealed Friday for the United States and NATO to "immediately" prepare military action to help bring down the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and end the violence that is believed to have killed well over a thousand people in the past week.
The appeal, which came in the form of a letter signed by 40 policy analysts, including more than a dozen former senior officials who served under President George W. Bush, was organized and released by the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), a two-year-old neo-conservative group that is widely seen as the successor to the more-famous – or infamous – Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
Among the letter's signers were former Bush Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Bush's top global democracy and Middle East adviser; Elliott Abrams; former Bush speechwriters Marc Thiessen and Peter Wehner; Vice President Dick Cheney's former deputy national security adviser, John Hannah, as well as FPI's four directors: Weekly Standard editor William Kristol; Brookings Institution fellow Robert Kagan; former Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor; and former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and Ambassador to Turkey, Eric Edelman.
The usual suspects.
There's more.
Note to Barry: Listen to SecDef Gates. Don't listen to the warmongers.
Afterthought:
Sometimes I think about things in terms of motorcycles. I have often maintained that there are a buncha old Russians riding around on and pumping water etc. with Beemers ("Kriegselefanten") and Zundapps left behind by Wehrmacht soldiers who thought they could get home faster without them.
In Libya, same-same, but add Moto Guzzis and Gileras to the list. The Eye-ties knew they could swim home faster without those.
Here's hoping future generations of Libyans are not so blessed with abandoned Harley-Davidsons*.
*It's a metaphor. I know our military uses Kawasakis.
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