Shock and Awe Advocates: Al Qaeda and Neo-Cons or What A Healthy Respect for Force Might Lead You to Avoid And How to Combine Brookings and Heritage

"Only he who has measured the dominion of force, and knows how to respect it, is capable of love and justice." Simone Veil, "The Iliad, or the Poem of Force."

"Thus, in the Iliad, force appears as both the supreme reality and the supreme illusion of life. Force, for Homer, is divine insofar as it represents a superabundance of life that flashes out in the contempt for death and ecstacy of self-sacrifice; it is detestable insofar as it contains a fatality that transforms it into inertia, a blind course, on to its own abolition and the obliteration of the very values it engenders." Rachel Bespaloff, "On the Iliad."

From Brookings:
"What about the losers? Top among them must be Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization he created and led. With his organization smashed, many of his lieutenants killed or captured, and his Afghan sanctuary closed down, the world's leading terrorist is living a life on the run, from one cave to the next, with little more to do than issuing the occasional video or audio tape. That is quite a change from five years ago, when bin Laden watched his hand-picked terrorists commit their horrific acts on CNN International via satellite high up in the Afghan mountains. Of course, in one crucial respect, bin Laden has emerged victorious: his idea of a global jihad against America and its supporters is now embraced throughout the Muslim world. But by all accounts he has lost his ability to direct the movement or to plan and execute the kind of attacks that shook the world five years ago. Neoconservatism is another major loser. The idea that America had the power to remake the world in its own image — and that after 9/11 it had the opportunity to do so largely on its own — was dealt a deadly blow in the sands of Mesopotamia. The forceful ouster of Saddam Hussein set in motion political forces that America did not, and probably could not, contain — sectarian forces that are now ripping the country violently apart. Far from Iraq becoming a positive example of change and reform for the wider region, the chaos that has befallen it stands as testament of the limits of American unilateralism and the failure of an ideology that relied on it to effect positive change throughout the Mideast."
"Five Years After 9/11 - A Balance Sheet" America Abroad Weblog, September 6, 2006 Ivo H. Daalder, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, Brookings Institution.

From Heritage:
"There is no practical U.S. military solution to the instability in Iraq. Neither the U.S. nor
other Western allies have the troops to fully garrison Iraq. Even maintaining the status quo helps neither Americans nor the Iraqis. The operational troop levels and tempo of operations are undermining long-term U.S. readiness and are perpetuating a condition of dependency on the part of the Iraqis."

"The United States has an important role to play outside Iraq. The Bush Administration must work to contain Syria and Iran; press for dismantling Hamas and Hezbollah; strengthen ties and cooperation and promote growth and healthy civil society in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Coast states, Jordon, and Turkey; support a strong Israel that negotiates for peace from a position of strength, not weakness; combat transnational terrorist groups and proliferation; maintain a well-funded military, and build missile defenses. These are security policies that will help make the Middle East safer for a free Iraq and the peoples of the region."
"U.S. Military Policy in Iraq: “Cut and Run” a Disaster for the U.S. and the Middle East" by James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., and James PhillipsWebMemo #1207