In my Psychiatric and Psychoanalytic Training, I kept waiting for someone to talk about "insanity." It never happened except in talking about Forensic Evaluations. This is not a medical term. It’s a legal term, But there’s one definition that’s just part of our culture that’s really good:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.
The current best ever example is William Kristol, editor of the neoconservative Pravda, The Weekly Standard. In his current article, It’s Our War : Bush should go to Jerusalem–and the U.S. should confront Iran [which has to be read to be believed], he actually suggests that we now declare war on Syria and Iran, using the same bullshit ideas logic the neoconservatives used to get us into the Iraq War. These people are lunatics! fools! insane! Even Juan Williams on Fox News thinks it’s an insane idea and let Kristol have it ["…it just seems to me that you want…you just want war, war, war, and you want us in more war. You wanted us in Iraq. Now you want us in Iran."]. And Steve Clemmons [The Washington Note] reports that George Will, conservative columnist for the Washington Post, has a scathing article in tomorrow’s paper about Kristol.
Kristol, one of the movers and shakers in the Project for the New American Century was a prime advocate and signer of their letter to Bill Clinton in 1997 advocating a "regime change" in Iraq. The Iraq War never had anything to do with WMD’s or Al Qaeda or the War on Terror. It had to do with the groupthink in the American Enterprise Institute, and its offshoot the Project for the New American Century, articulated by Laurie Mylroie, Michael Ledeen, John Bolton, and, of course, William Kristol.
What is most remarkable to me in the recent article is his use of the same twisted logic. He suggests that we shouldn’t focus on Hamas or Hezbollah, instead we should go to war with Iran and Syria. It’s the same insanity as before when the neoconservatives preached that we shouldn’t worry about Al Qaeda, we should focus on Iraq. He says:
The war against radical Islamism is likely to be a long one. Radical Islamism isn’t going away anytime soon. But it will make a big difference how strong the state sponsors, harborers, and financiers of radical Islamism are. Thus, our focus should be less on Hamas and Hezbollah, and more on their paymasters and real commanders–Syria and Iran. And our focus should be not only on the regional war in the Middle East, but also on the global struggle against radical Islamism.
Like I said:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.
Addendum: There is an obvious implication in Kristol’s writing that pervades the "music" of The Weekly Standard. The War in Iraq is the implementation of a broad theory of government, and foreign policy – A.K.A. The Bush Doctrine. This is not a War on Terror. It’s a preconceived plan for American Dominion over the world. This group of people believe strongly, no matter what argument is mounted to the contrary, that all out war with the Middle Eastern countries is the only path for us in the post Cold War world. Some say that they are using the United States to effect Israel’s foreign policy. Others think it is motivated by controlling the world’s oil resources. Some think it is a religious war. While I expect it is partially motivated by all of these things, my guess is that it’s the age old will to power that has motivated States from the dawn of time that fuels this naive and shortsighted policy. They want us to run the world by overpowering it – global Americanism.
Sounds similar to World Communism to me. Or the Roman Empire. Or the Holy Roman Empire. Or maybe World Islam.
Like I said…
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