I don’t know, Cliff, that a neo-con would grant your premise.

First of all I am not a Neo-Con. I have been a conservative all my life. The word Neo means new and Con is short for conservative. I am not a “new” conservative, therefore not a “Neo-con”. Generally a Neo-con is a liberal who has seen the light and moved over to the conservative camp.

Seeing there is now a democratically elected government in Iraq and the fact they have invited us to stay until the said government is prepared to provide their own security we are not technically an occupying force. It would be like saying we occupied Germany during the cold war because we had an active military presence, or that we were “occupying” Korea or Viet Nam during those wars, or that UN peace keeping forces are occupiers whenever they enter a country. Are you going to call the UN peace keepers “occupiers” when they enter South Lebanon?

It is sad there are people dying in Iraq but the United States is not to blame for 1 single death. All death and suffering lies at the feet of Saddam Hussein for violating agreements he made in good faith. It is just like Israel is not responsible for the death of women and children in Lebanon when Hezbollah is purposely using them as human shields. When they deploy rocket batteries in the middle of a school it isn’t Israel’s fault when the school gets bombed and children die in the process. It is the fault of the people who put the children in harms way in the first place. We are not in Iraq because of George Bush; rather we are in Iraq because Saddam Hussein’s actions forced us to take action against him.

The premise that as an occupier, that we’re responsible for the civilian population.

I would probably fit under the label of what you might call a ‘neocon’, although, I think I fit more into the ‘realist’ camp. In any case, I’m more of a ‘neocon’ than you.

We’re building an embassy in Iraq so that we can reestablish normal diplomatic ties with Iraq according to a report released by the State Department.

The truth is that neither Cliff’s nor Ken’s premise is entirely correct. We are occupiers, as defined by the state department(pdf), but are moving in the direction of having normal diplomatic relations with the country. Something we have not had since 1991 (prior to the first Gulf War). I think Cliff is assuming that we have not taken steps to protect and provide care for civilians.

The thing that makes us an ‘occupier’ is our military presence in Iraq. We are required under the Geneva conventions to take precautions to minimize civilian casualties caused by our action, but don’t have an obligation-as I see things-to prevent civilian casualties caused by terrorist(insurgent) action. Just because we are not obliged to act, does not mean that we don’t act. In fact we have done a great deal from the beginning of the war until now. We have provided a great deal of medical, and humanitarian care to the civilian population in Iraq. I’d be interested in what statistics there are of the private sectors involvement in humanitarian aid, currently. Last I checked, charitable donations of time and money outweighed what has been given by governments around the world.

alien, or wish I were anyway,

To whom are you speaking?

alien, or wish I were anyway,

Calm down.

I’m a realist by admission, not a Neocon.

Let me help you define these camps first so that you know what I’m referring to when I say Neocon, or realist, or liberal. Try taking this quiz for some background.

Are you a Neocon?

Tyler, I took the quiz in your link and honestly, it made me think. Unfortunately the scoring link didn’t work so I still don’t know if I too am a neocon or nutcake. I appreciate the attempt towards understanding. Yea, I’m cranky and feel we have good reason to be. The way I see it, this war was a contrivance in response to: (In no particular order) 1. Saddam’s attempt to alter the valuation of oil from U.S. $ to the euro, 2. his success in gaining sympathy toward easing the sanctions that had had a very troubling impact on the people in Iraq, 3.OIL, 4.Osama’s threats reguarding our troop presence in Saudi Arabia, (by the way we pulled out of S.A. Why can’t we do the same from Iraq?.. Oh yea, where will it stop? must we relinquish ‘america’ back to the indians?) 5. the power-mongering dreams of the likes of Dick Cheney and crowd, 6. having invaded Afghanistan as a response to the Taliban’s unwillingness to turn over Osama after Sep 11 without some proof that he was in fact the lead perp, the administration felt that a second effort in Iraq would enable a real squeeze of Iran, who pissed ‘us’ off even more than Iraq. Iraq would be a ‘cakewalk’ since they’d been starved for years by the sanctions, had in fact destroyed the notorious WMD, and of course 7. the military-industrial complex’s need to continuously upgrade its explosive products while profitting greatly, Whew… which might all be nutshelled by saying, our govt (the ’sole remaining super power’) perceived a need to have a foil, so that civilization as BushCo knews it could persist at least until the end-days while propping up the wealthy corporate contributors, raking in ALL the money, drowning the republic and flushing it down the drain. ‘Mission Accomplished’. Now we’re stuck with the quagmire, the injured, the karma, the rebuilding costs, the deficit, the mistrust in our institutions and ideals as well as having pissed off an even greater chunk of the critters who share this planet. Not too many years back I was heartened by the direction that the world seemed to be taking, now not so much.

Isn’t the phrase: “well-informed neo-con” an oxymoron? Is there such a thing as a well-informed neo-con?