My dad just emailed this to me. Pretty long read, but interesting, nonetheless.
Guardian | Two men driving Bush into >war http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4611488,00.html > >Two men driving Bush into war > >Ed Vulliamy in New York profiles the religious figures behind a 'Texanised >presidency' who believe war will mean America is respected in the Islamic >world > >Ed Vulliamy >Sunday February 23, 2003 >The Observer > >Behind President George W. Bush's charge to war against Iraq, there is a >carefully devised mission, drawn up by people who work over the shoulders of >those whom America calls 'The Principals'. > >Lurking in the background behind Bush, his Vice-President, Dick Cheney, and >Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are the people propelling US policy. And >behind them, the masterminds of the Bush presidency as it arrived at the >White House from Texas, are Karl Rove and Paul Wolfowitz. > >It is too simple to explain the upcoming war as 'blood for oil', as did >millions of placards last weekend, for Rove and Wolfowitz are ideologists >beyond the imperatives of profit. They represent an unlikely and formidable >alliance forged between the gritty Texan Republicans who took over America, >fuelled by fierce conservative Christianity, and a faction of the East Coast >intelligentsia with roots in Ronald Reagan's time, devoted to achieving raw, >unilateral power. > >Rove and Wolfowitz have worked for decades to reach their moment, and that >moment has come as war draws near. Bush calls Rove, depending on his mood, >'Boy Genius' or 'Turd Blossom'. Rove is one of a new political breed - the >master craftsmen - nurturing a 24-year political campaign of his own design, >but careful not to expose who he really is. > >His Christian faith is a weapon of devastating cogency, but he never >discusses it; no one knows if his politics are religious or politics are his >religion. A Christmas Day child born in Denver, as a boy he had a poster >above his bed reading 'Wake Up, America!' As a student, he was a fervent >young Republican who pitched himself against the peace movement. > >His first bonding with Bush was not over politics, but the two men's >ideological and moral distaste for the Sixties - after Bush's born-again >conversion from alcoholism to Christianity. Rove was courted by George Bush >Snr during his unsuccessful bid to be the Republican presidential candidate >for 1980. > >But Rove's genius would show later, on Bush senior's election to the White >House in 1988, when he co-opted the right-wing Christian Coalition - wary of >Bush's lack of theocratic stridency - into the family camp. > >Conservative Southern Protestantism was a constituency Bush Jr befriended >and kept all the way to Washington, defining both his own political >personality and the new-look Republican Party. > >When Rove answered the call to come to Texas in 1978, every state office was >held by a Democrat. Now, almost all of them are Republican. Every Republican >campaign was run by Rove and in 1994 his client - challenging for the state >governorship - was a man he knew well: George W. Bush. >'Rove and Bush came to an important strategic conclusion,' writes Lou >Dubose, Rove's biographer. 'To govern on behalf of the corporate Right, they >would have to appease the Christian Right.' > >Bush's six years as Texas governor were a dry run for national domestic >policy - steered by Rove - as President: lavish favours to the energy >industry, tax breaks for the upper income brackets and social policy driven >by evangelical zeal. > >Bush had been governor for only a year when, as Rove says, it 'dawned on me' >he should run for President; two years later, in 1997, he began secretly >planning the campaign. In March 1999, Bush ordered Rove to sell his >consulting firm - 'he wanted 120 per cent of his attention,' says a former >employee, 'full-time, day and night'. > >Rove hatched and ran the presidential campaign, deploying the Bush family >Rolodex and the might of the oil industry and unleashing the most vigorous >direct-mailing blizzard of all time. 'If the devil is in the details,' >writes Dubose, 'he had found Rove waiting to greet him when he got there.' > >By the time George W. became President, Rove was the hub of a Texan wheel >connecting the family, the party, the Christian Right and the energy >industry. A single episode serves as metaphor: during the Enron scandal last >year, a shadow was cast over Rove when it was revealed that he had sold >$100,000 of Enron stock just before the firm went bankrupt. > >More intriguing, however, was the fact that Rove had personally arranged for >the former leader of the Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed, to take up a >consultancy at Enron - Bush's biggest single financial backer - worth >between $10,000 and $20,000 a month. > >This was the machine of perpetual motion that Rove built. His accomplishment >was the 'Texanisation' of the national Republican Party under the leadership >of the Bush family and to take that party back to presidential office after >eight years. Rove is unquestionably the most powerful policy adviser in the >White House. > >Militant Islam was another world from Rove's. However, on 11 September, >2001, it became a new piece of political raw material needing urgent >attention. Rove and Bush had been isolationists, wanting as little to do >with the Middle East - or any other corner of the planet - as possible. But >suddenly there was a new arena in which to work for political results: and, >as Rove entered it, he met and was greeted by a group of people who had for >years been as busy as he in crafting their political model; this time, the >export of unchallenged American power across the world. > >Rove in theory has no role in foreign policy, but Washington insiders agree >he is now as preoccupied with global affairs as he is with those at home. In >a recent book, conservative staff speech writer David Frum recalls the >approach of the presidency towards Islam after the attacks and criticises >Bush as being 'soft on Islam' for his emphasis on a 'religion of peace'. > >Rove, writes Frum, was 'drawn to a very different answer'. Islam, Rove >argued, 'was one of the world's great empires' which had 'never >reconciled... to the loss of power and dominion'. In response, he said, 'the >United States should recognise that, although it cannot expect to be loved, >it can enforce respect'. > >Rove's position dovetailed with the beliefs of Paul Wolfowitz, and the axis >between conservative Southern Protestantism and fervent, highly >intellectual, East Coast Zionism was forged - each as zealous about their >religion as the other. > >There is a shorthand view of Wolfowitz as a firebrand hawk, but he is more >like Rove than that - patient, calculating, logical, soft-spoken and >deliberate. Wolfowitz was a Jewish son of academe, a brilliant scholar of >mathematics and a diplomat. When he joined the Pentagon after the Yom Kippur >war, he set about laying out what is now US policy in the Middle East. > >In 1992, just before Bush's father was defeated by Bill Clinton, Wolfowitz >wrote a blueprint to 'set the nation's direction for the next century', >which is now the foreign policy of George W. Bush. Entitled 'Defence >Planning Guidance', it put an onus on the Pentagon to 'establish and protect >a new order' under unchallenged American authority. > >The US, it said, must be sure of 'deterring potential competitors from even >aspiring to a larger regional or global role' - including Germany and Japan. >It contemplated the use of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry >pre-emptively, 'even in conflicts that do not directly engage US interests'. >Wolfowitz's group formalised itself into a group called Project for the New >American Century, which included Cheney and another old friend, former >Pentagon Under-Secretary for Policy under Reagan, Richard Perle. > >In a document two years ago, the Project pondered that what was needed to >assure US global power was 'some catastrophic and catalysing event, like a >new Pearl Harbor'. The document had noted that 'while the unresolved >conflict with Iraq provides immediate justification' for intervention, 'the >need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the >issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein'. > >At a graduation speech to the Military Academy at West Point, Bush last June >affirmed the Wolfowitz doctrine as official policy. 'America has, and >intends to keep,' he said, 'military strengths beyond challenge.' > >At the Pentagon, Wolfowitz and his boss Rumsfeld set up an intelligence >group under Abram Schulsky and the Under-Secretary for Defence, Douglas >Feith, both old friends of Wolfowitz. The group's public face is the >semi-official Defence Policy Board, headed by Perle. Perle and Feith wrote a >paper in 1996 called 'A Clean Break' for the then leader of Israel's Likud >bloc, Binyamin Netanyahu; the clean break was from the Oslo peace process. >Israel's 'claim to the land (including the West Bank) is legitimate and >noble,' said the paper. 'Only the unconditional acceptance by Arabs of our >rights is a solid basis for the future.' At the State Department, the >'Arabist' faction of regional experts favouring the diplomacy of alliances >in the area was drowned out by the hawks, markedly by another new unit with >favoured access to the White House. > >And in Rove's White House, with his backing, the circle was closed and the >last piece of the jigsaw was put in place, with the appointment of Elliot >Abrams to handle policy for the Middle East, for the National Security >Council. > >Abrams is another veteran of Reagan days and the 'dirty wars' in Central >America, convicted by Congress for lying alongside Colonel Oliver North over >the Iran-Contra scandal, but pardoned by President Bush's father. > >He has since written a book warning that American Jewry faces extinction >through intermarriage and has counselled against the peace process and for >the righteousness of Ariel Sharon's Israel. He is Wolfowitz's man, talking >every day to his office neighbour, Rove. > >Guardian Unlimited ? Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
-------------------- "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire
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