General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A Note On 'Drone Strikes', Ladies And Gentlemen [View all]Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)The Project for a New American Century was a neo-conservative think tank created in 1997 that espoused "promoting American global leadership" primiarly through a dramatic increase in the use of military force overseas. One of their first projects was to lobby the Clinton Administration to take direct military action in Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Clinton demurred on the subject, but PANC was given quite the gift when Al-Queda attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.
Within days of the attack, PANC was urging military action. Quoting memo to the Bush Administration "...even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism."
Project for a New American Century included a veritable "Who's Who" of Bush Administration foreign policy and security advisors whose objective -- six years prior to the actual invasion of Iraq -- was to eploit the post-Cold War power vaccum for the benefit of multi-national corporations.
Invading Iraq was decidedly not a whim...