The Self Confidence of the Neocon as Foreign Policy

This quote by John McCain is very revealing:

SEN. McCAIN: Well, the rationale for war is to break the enemy’s will. That’s the whole rationale for war. Do you break the enemy’s will by saying, “We’re going to be there,” or send a message we’re going to be there for a year and a half or so and then we’re going to begin to leave, no matter what the circumstances are? Or do you tell them, “We’re going to win and we’re going to break your will, and then we’re going to leave”? That’s, that’s, that’s a huge factor in the conduct of war…

When I was a teenager during the 1991 Gulf War and the whole runup of Operation Desert Shield, I was pretty excited. My country was going to war!!! I know it sounds horrible now, but that is how I felt. And the reason I felt that way is because it would mean that I and my times would be as important and eventful as the history we were all reading about and hearing about from our fathers and grandfathers. I know, I know, it sounds weird, but that is how I remember feeling. Instead of reading about past wars and the heroics of a generation that lived through a Great Depression and a World War, I was going to be living through a war and witnessing history with my own eyes.

And in the run up, I would imagine in daydreams a grand victory over the enemy, forcing unconditional surrenders and the humuliation of the defeated and vanquished foe. Maybe I was weird, but this is what fourteen year old newly introduced to patriotism and dreaming of war was thinking.

And then I grew up.

My mind became less clouded by testosterone. I began to think of consequences and ramifications of actions taken or not taken.

To read John McCain’s quote, stating that victory in Afghanistan and Iraq means “breaking their will,” it strikes me that he is just, and still, a fourteen year old boy dreaming of the grandieur of war and the vanquishment of our enemies. And it is quite shocking since, he, of all people, should have a clear view that war is not a fantasy, and that fantasy is not war.

It strikes that most neoconservatives feel this way: that America must defeat all and that our victory must be clear to all, especially our enemies. The self confidence of the neocon is more important than the lives of the innocent, and the reason that is so is because the neocon does not think of consequences and ramifications. He only wants a fantasy victory.

Just like a fourteen year old.