[FoRK] At the risk of inflaming JB and others ...

[Jeff Bone]

On Mar 29, 2008, at 8:51 PM, il-young son wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 6:48 AM, Jeff Bone <jbone at place.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Mar 28, 2008, at 8:10 PM, James Tauber wrote:
>>
>>>
>>
>>> I think Hitchens, while not taking the label "neocon" would say he
>>> and the neocons have the same views on foreign policy.
>>
>> I'm not so sure about that.  The very succinct version of neo-con
>> foreign policy view is that America specifically has both a right and
>> an obligation to impose global American hegemony by any means
>> necessary.
>
> i'm not sure if this is what their actual motivation is although in
> action it is what they're achieving, at least not in the sense of
> imposing global hegemony just for the sake of it, there's a more
> fundamental reasoning there.

That's a fair observation.  The end to which American hegemony is the  
means is the perfection of human society;  America is the tool of  
choice only because it was perceived as having the right mix of  
ideological correctness (or at least just enough proto-correctness),  
might, and just enough susceptibility to manipulation to be a useful  
tool.  The more romantic among the neo-cons may occasionally and non- 
cynically give nod to a kind of manifest destiny, but I suspect the  
more canny among them merely use that sort of thing as a rhetorical  
device.

But yes, at the end of the day the neo-cons are utopians.  American  
hegemony - because that's the shortest path to a perfect world.

jb