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11.20.05

Iraq, News Articles, The U.N.

Major survey shows non-interventionism rising in U.S.


MSNBC has this story about the results of a major 4-year survey, held by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press. The last time the “America’s Place In the World” survey was held was in the summer before 9-11. The findings should be a relief for those who have been worried that the neoconservative foreign policy approach had been embraced by the people of America. It was said by many during the 2004 election campaign that the election was to represent whether Americans rejected or embraced President Bush’s more aggressive foreign policy, but for a lot of reasons, it was not that straightforward. This survey would seem to be a lot more instructive on that issue, at least as far as opinion polls go.

Two graphs from the Pew report:

U.S. opinion results on being most assertive nation
Since 1997, when the PNAC was founded, acceptance of their core belief has gone down among “influencers”

Graph: U.S. non-interventionism on the rise
Non-interventionist sentiment is up slightly from 10 years ago

We will do a more in-depth look at the full survey results and report soon, but for now, this article is fairly self-explanatory. If the Pew study can be considered to be a report card on how well the neocons have convinced America to accept its doctrine, they seem to have earned about a “D”.

Here’s the opening paragraph from the report itself:

Preoccupied with war abroad and growing problems at home, U.S. opinion leaders and the general public are taking a decidedly cautious view of America’s place in the world. Over the past four years, opinion leaders have become less supportive of the United States playing a “first among equals” role among the world’s leading nations. The goal of promoting democracy in other nations also has lost ground, and while most opinion leaders view President Bush’s calls for expanded democracy in the Middle East as a good idea, far fewer think it will actually succeed.

And here’s the MSNBC article:


Americans less enchanted as sole superpower – Politics – MSNBC.com
Major new poll shows sharp rise in belief U.S. should mind its own business

By Alex Johnson
MSNBC
Nov. 17, 2005

Americans’ appetite for world leadership has waned significantly since before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, with more than two-fifths saying the United States should mind its own business, according to a major new survey released Thursday.

The survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Council on Foreign Relations, found an isolationist streak that rivals sentiments that emerged in the mid-1970s in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.

Pew and the Council on Foreign Relations conduct the survey, titled “America and Its Place in the World,� every four years. The last survey was conducted in the summer of 2001, just before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, providing a useful gauge of changes in Americans’ attitudes after the attacks and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“September 11 is losing its power to shape views on foreign policy,� Lee Feinstein, deputy director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a briefing for reporters. “Activism looks much less appealing.�
Read the rest of this entry »

11.19.05

Site Admin

Server Problems / Site Downtime


Our site’s server has apparently been having some problems, and as a result, the site has been unreachable for some of the time over the last day or so. Our web host is working on the problem, and we hope it will be fully resolved soon.

Sorry for any inconvenience this problem may have caused.

11.17.05

News Articles, PNAC.info Commentary, Syria

Angry Assad Says Syria Will Cooperate (but will fight if necessary)


This article is about Syrian President Assad’s sentiments (obviously), but it serves pretty well as a template for how any leader of another nation will respond when their nation is at the top of the U.S.’s “to do” list, at least in the present world environment. Especially a nation in the Middle East, where the U.S. must seem to be basically “picking off” nations one by one (with Syria being #3, just a nose ahead of #4 Iran). In fact, in such a situation, it seems reasonable to expect that each successive leader/nation in the area will feel all the more responsibility to resist.

There is, of course, another school of thought which would say it’s reasonable to expect that each successive leader in the region will feel all the more desire to lie down. Defenders of the “remake the Middle East” strategy often point to Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi as an example of that phenomenon, but there are mixed reports on what led Qaddafi to mellow out. We’ll examine that soon.

More likely, I would think, in an area which has cultural roots going back approximately to the beginning of civilization, is the likelhood that each successive leader, and each successive nation, will fight even harder than the one before. Right or wrong.

It’s interesting: neoconservatives are, in one part, super-nationalists. Yet one of their program’s biggest weaknesses– perhaps the biggest– is that they fail to appreciate the strength of nationalists (and super-nationalists) in the countries over which they wish to assert control.


Angry Assad Says Syria Will Cooperate in Probe

By Rhonda Roumani and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers

DAMASCUS, Syria, Nov. 10 — President Bashar Assad promised Thursday to cooperate with a U.N. investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, but in a defiant speech to cabinet ministers, Baath Party members and students, he warned that a confrontation might be inevitable.

“President Bashar Assad won’t bow to anyone in this world nor would he let his people or country to bow to anyone,” he said to applause. “We only bow to God.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, said Syria was failing to cooperate with the probe, in violation of a U.N. resolution.

Noting that Assad’s government had balked this week at sending six officials to Beirut to be questioned by U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis — first inviting Mehlis to Damascus to negotiate about the questioning of its security personnel and then saying it needed to complete its own questioning — Rice said Syria must “stop trying to negotiate and cooperate.”

“The U.N. couldn’t have been clearer. The resolution couldn’t have been clearer or more detailed about what was expected of the Syrians,” Rice told reporters traveling with her to the Middle East. “They’re expected to answer affirmatively, yes, to whatever Mehlis needs to complete his investigation. I do not believe the U.N. Security Council resolution contemplated negotiating how they would say yes.”
Read the rest of this entry »

11.16.05

Afghanistan, News Articles, Outside Analysis, Outside Commentary, PNAC.info Commentary

“Afghanistan: The War Without End” (within a war without end)


This article provides an eye-opening look at the reality of that other war we’re in– the one that doesn’t get so much press these days. The key thing to note, of course, is that the Taliban is still operational–and in ways, appears to be quite strong, and possibly staging some sort of attempted comeback. And the war in Afghanistan is still a war in Afghanistan. From the way it’s presented by many who seek to defend the success of the “war on terror” as it has been conducted so far, one might think that Afghanistan was over and done with. But as you can see in the article, things are actually about to heat up in some ways. (In this case, I’m referring to the British troops who are going to be moved into an insurgent stronghold to try and gain control of that area.)

In searching for a quote from the PNAC on Afghanistan, I came upon an editorial from the Weekly Standard of October 29, 2001. It’s on the PNAC site as a PDF file, and it’s by frequent co-writers William Kristol and Robert Kagan, both of whom are part of both the PNAC and the Weekly Standard. Which is to say, I don’t know if it’s an official PNAC position statement, but it’s certainly very close to that if not.

The editorial only glancingly touches upon Afghanistan, actually — as noted in the recent American Conservative piece, the neocons had Iraq as their focus even when everyone else was honed in on Al Qaeda and Afghanistan — but it does lay out clear and simple terms for victory: victory is to be defined by “the unequivocal destruction of the Taliban, al Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden.”

So while I’m using this excerpt for the bigger picture statement within it (you’ll see what I mean) it is also certainly relevant as a lead-in to an article entitled “Afghanistan: The War Without End”. After all, it has been four years since the war in Afghanistan started, and not one of those three targets has been unequivocally destroyed. That only adds to the irony when you read how in 2001, Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan were already gearing us up for the “broader war in the Middle East” that is being widely dreaded today. (Not dreaded by them, I assume.)

Here is what these two top neocons had to say about Afghanistan and the Middle East in post-911 2001:

We do not for an instant minimize the difficulties and the dangers to our forces of the current mission in Afghanistan, especially now as the Bush administration wisely moves closer to the more aggressive use of U.S. ground forces. We are glad that President Bush is apparently following the Pentagon’s advice to accelerate the military campaign to unseat the Taliban, without waiting for the State Department to name the cabinet and sub-cabinet officials in an as-yet imaginary “post-Taliban government.� Nor do we doubt the vital importance of victory in Afghanistan—a victory defined by the unequivocal destruction of the Taliban, al Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden.

But this war will not end in Afghanistan. It is going to spread and engulf a number of countries in conflicts of varying intensity. It could well require the use of American military power in multiple places simultaneously. It is going to resemble the clash of civilizations that everyone has hoped to avoid. And it is going to put enormous and perhaps unbearable strain on parts of an international coalition that today basks in contented consensus.

The signs that we are on the precipice of a much wider conflict are all around us. …

Full editorial (PDF file)


And here’s what a British journalist has to say about Afghanistan today:

Afghanistan: The War Without End

The Independent (UK)
By Justin Huggler Asia Correspondent
Published: 15 November 2005

British troops have come under attack in Kabul and Nato forces were targeted in two co-ordinated suicide car bombings in which at least four people died.

The attacks took place as ministers revealed that units are preparing to extend Britain’s role in Afghanistan when it takes command of the international peacekeeping operation next year.

John Reid, the Secretary of State for Defence, told Parliament that Britain faced a “prolonged” involvement in the country. But MPs warned last night that British troops faced being mired in a long-term military commitment to a country in the grip of a growing insurgency.

They insisted yesterday’s extension of Britain’s role in Afghanistan, four years after troops first arrived, also reflected the size of the task facing coalition forces in Iraq.

Fears for Afghanistan’s future emerged in the wake of suggestions, by the British and Iraqi governments, that British troops could begin pulling out of Iraq by the end of next year. For British troops, however, yesterday’s violence in Kabul was a taste of what they will face next year when they deploy to the turbulent province of Helmand as part of a move by Nato to take over security in the Taliban heartlands.
Read the rest of this entry »

11.15.05

Iraq, Outside Analysis, Outside Commentary

The American Conservative: The Weekly Standard’s War


This article from the upcoming issue of The American Conservative is a really good account of the influence the magazine The Weekly Standard, whose editor is PNAC Chairman Bill Kristol, has had on the rise of the neocons, and on the drive for war in Iraq.

As I was reading it, about 7 different spots seemed to deserve excerpting and highlighting, and I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to choose which to use. Then I got near the end, and I found the one:

During the second week of the Iraq invasion, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz interviewed several intellectual supporters of the war. The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman (who backed the war despite being haunted by its similarities to Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which he saw firsthand) suggested that this was very much an intellectuals’ war. “It’s the war the neoconservatives marketed. Those people had an idea to sell when September 11 came, and they sold it. Oh boy, did they sell it. So this is not a war that the masses demanded. This is a war of an elite. … I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.â€? Then Friedman paused, clarifying, “It’s not some fantasy the neoconservatives invented. It’s not that 25 people hijacked America. You don’t take such a great nation into such a great adventure with Bill Kristol and the Weekly Standard and another five or six influential columnists. In the final analysis what fomented the war is America’s over-reaction to September 11. … It is not only the neoconservatives that led us to the outskirts of Baghdad. What led us to the outskirts of Baghdad is a very American combination of anxiety and hubris.â€?

That kind of ambiguous conclusion about the Standard’s and the neocons’ role in starting the war is what the undisputed and public evidence will sustain. The Standard was important. It amplified the views of “the 25� the way luncheon seminars at the American Enterprise Institute and other neocon think tanks never could have.

But don’t let the excerpt satisfy you. This whole article is a very interesting read, and adds some essential context to our current historical situation.

One other big point the article makes is that the Standard (and neocon intellectuals) are in some part backing off of their support of the current administration, and are now looking more to moderates and Democrats to adopt their ideas. That’s very important to understand — that while the neocons have gained major influence in the current circles of power, they are not wedded to a particular party– or even wedded to conservatives, for that matter.

(A note on bias: For those who are not aware, The American Conservative, a “paleoconservative” (i.e., old or traditional conservative) magazine founded by Pat Buchanan, is a publishing competitor and ideological opponent of The Weekly Standard, founded by neoconservative William Kristol.)


The Weekly Standard’s War


Murdoch’s mag stands athwart history yelling, “Attack!�

By Scott McConnell
The American Conservative

As the Weekly Standard celebrates its 10th birthday, it may be time to ask whether America has ever seen a more successful political magazine. Many have been more widely read, profitable, amusing, or brilliant. But in terms of actually changing the world and shaping the course of history, what contemporary magazine rivals the Standard? Even if you believe that the change has been much for the worse, the Standard’s record of success in its own terms is formidable.

At the time of the Standard’s founding in 1995, there was considerable speculation among neoconservatives over whether the movement had run its course. In “Neoconservatism: A Eulogy,� Norman Podhoretz argued that neoconservatism had effectively put itself out of business by winning on its two major battle fronts: over communism and the residue of the 1960s counterculture. In the process, it had injected itself into the main body of American conservatism to such a degree that it was no longer particularly distinct from it. The eulogy was not a lamentation, more an appreciation of a job well done.

But while there was something to the Podhoretz argument, the American Right in 1995 did not have a neoconnish feel. Read the rest of this entry »

11.15.05

Iraq, Outside Analysis, Outside Commentary

The New Al Qaeda: More Dangerous than the Old Version


The following comes from author Ivan Eland, a Senior Fellow at the libertarian Independent Institute, Director of the Institute’s Center on Peace & Liberty, and author of the books The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed, and Putting “Defense� Back into U.S. Defense Policy.

It talks about how the war in Iraq seems to have become a birthing ground for a sort of Al Qaeda 2.0, more vicious than the first version, which seems to now be moving beyond the main battleground in Iraq.

It’s certainly worth thinking about this: How powerful would Abu Musab al-Zarqawi be today if the United States had not invaded Iraq?


The New Al Qaeda: More Dangerous than the Old Version

November 14, 2005
Ivan Eland

Say good-bye to the old al Qaeda and hello to a new, more dangerous version created by President George W. Bush. The recent suicide bombings by Iraqis in Amman, Jordan are ominous because they provide hard evidence (confirmed by U.S. intelligence analysis) that the war in Iraq—far from pinning terrorists down within that country’s borders, as the president alleges—is incubating combat-hardened jihadists for export to other countries. As many opponents of the Iraq war predicted beforehand, a non-Islamic nation’s invasion of another Muslim country has spawned the same radical Islamic terrorism that occurred after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s and Russia invaded Chechnya in the 1990s.

The former invasion ultimately led to the rise of Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda’s leader and once dominant force. After 9/11, the United States made considerable progress in eliminating al Qaeda’s safe haven and training infrastructure in Afghanistan and isolating bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, his deputy, from their forces in the field. Yet the U.S. invasion of Iraq allowed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a previously independent actor who didn’t care that much about the United States, to grab the spotlight by joining al Qaeda and becoming the face of the Iraqi insurgency against the U.S. occupation. Zarqawi and his “al Qaeda in Iraq� organization make the treacherous bin Laden and Zawahiri look like choirboys. Zarqawi’s trademarks are the brutal videotaped beheadings and the wanton slaughter of Muslim innocents, as well as the foreign occupiers and their Iraqi allies.

Zarqawi is so ruthless that Zawahiri sent him a letter asking him nicely to tone it down a bit. We know things are bad when the al Qaeda leadership seems temperate in comparison. Yet, Zarqawi has ignored pleas from al Qaeda’s leadership for moderation, and the bombings by his Iraqi minions in Jordan seem to indicate that he is now expanding his attacks outside Iraq. Read the rest of this entry »

11.15.05

Outside Analysis, Syria

William Arkin connects the “Syria’s next” dots


In the following blog post/article, the Washington Post’s William Arkin finds signs of U.S. military preparation for conflict with Syria going back to last year and further, and also highlights some of the quotes from administration figures (most notably, neocon — and now U.N. Ambassador — John Bolton) from as far back as 2002.

I’m archiving the post here, but the original has a lot of inline links that you might want to see.


Wag the Damascus?
By William M. Arkin | November 7, 2005

Last year, U.S. intelligence agencies and military planners received instructions to prepare up-to-date target lists for Syria and to increase their preparations for potential military operations against Damascus.

According to internal intelligence documents and discussions with military officers involved in the planning, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in Tampa was directed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to prepare a “strategic concept” for Syria, the first step in creation of a full fledged war plan.

The planning process, according to the internal documents, includes courses of action for cross border operations to seal the Syrian-Iraqi border and destroy safe havens supporting the Iraqi insurgency, attacks on Syrian weapons of mass destruction infrastructure supporting the development of biological and chemical weapons, and attacks on the regime of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.

Though Syria was never mentioned by President Bush as a charter member of the “axis of evil” for developing weapons of mass destruction and support international terrorism, it has long been on the administration’s radar screen.

The January 2002 Nuclear Posture Review levied requirements on the military to conduct planning for potential use of nuclear weapons against Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and North Korea.

On April 1, 2002, almost a full year before the invasion of Iraq, Secretary Rumsfeld accused Iran, Iraq and Syria of “inspiring and financing a culture of political murder and suicide bombing.”

On May 6, 2002, in a speech to the Heritage Foundation entitled “Beyond the Axis of Evil,” Under Secretary of State John Bolton identified Libya, Syria and Cuba as countries that were attempting to procure weapons of mass destruction. “States that renounce terror and abandon WMD can become part of our effort. But those that do not can expect to become our targets,” he said.
Read the rest of this entry »

11.12.05

Iran, News Articles, Syria, The U.N.

Iran ♥’s Syria


Syria has been getting pretty well roughed up on the international scene lately (justifiably or not). They’ve been hearing increasingly tough talk from the U.S., they stand accused of taking part in the assassination of the neighboring prime minister, of not cooperating with the investigation of that event, of supporting terrorists, and of allowing replacement insurgents across their border and into Iraq. And now they are the subject of a U.N. Security Council resolution, under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter (which allows it to be backed by force, if necessary). Also, the war in Iraq is at their border, and possibly within their borders, with reported casualties on their side.

But as Syria tries to weather the storms of international pressure (and occasional military incursions), they can know that they have a friend…in the form of Iran, and its recently elected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Which is convenient, in a sense, since the U.S. has been linking the two countries as problem states for some time now. Iran has stated its support of Syria in the face of the pressure at the U.N., and against their “common enemy”, the U.S.

It just seems to be getting easier and easier for the U.S. to end up at war with the next door neighbors of its two current wars. For a while, it seemed like it had to be improbable, what with the U.S. troops being overstretched, and the war in Iraq becoming so unpopular. But regardless of those two things, troubling signs are lapping at the shore with unsettling regularity. Here’s a round of those signs:

Two on the presidents of the two countries connecting and Iran’s president positioning himself as a strong regional ally of Syria and its President Assad…
Read the rest of this entry »

11.10.05

News Articles, North Korea

China: Little Progress on N. Korea Talks/ N.Korea Offers Reactor-for-Concessions Bid


This story about disarmament talks with North Korea is basically a “nothing happened” story, and normally, it probably wouldn’t be worth commenting on, or posting. But given that the U.S. is actively engaged in diplomatic tugs-of-war with three of the PNAC’s (and the administration’s) remaining least favored nations– Iran, Syria, and North Korea– it’s worthwhile to see all three negotiations in context with each other. The big question, really, is does the U.S. have the functional capability to get what it wants in terms of concessions from these nations, without resorting to force? I say “the functional capability” because I believe that the U.S. certainly has the capability in terms of the tools and resources. The question lies in whether a) this administration has the diplomatic skills to pull it off, and b) if the U.S.’s reputation in the world, which isn’t likely to get much better any time soon, has damaged our negotiating footing too much.

When you are dealing with two belligerent nations who are on the verge of nuclear weapons capability, like Iran and North Korea, your ability to resolve conflict through diplomacy is essential. We’ll see how it goes.
Read the rest of this entry »

11.10.05

Helping PNAC.info, Site Admin, The PNAC Opposition

Your support is needed to make PNAC.info into a powerhouse


This is adapted from part of a major update that was sent out via e-mail recently…


Hobby…or Powerhouse? Which will it be?

You probably don’t need to be told about the importance of the "neoconservative" influence on U.S. foreign policy and American politics. If you’re on this list, you’ve probably already connected a dot or two. But let’s review anyway:

  • Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the administration official indicted in the "Plamegate" CIA leak case, and a major operative in Dick Cheney’s push for the war in Iraq, is also a top neocon– a former student and longtime colleague of Paul Wolfowitz, and a founding member of the PNAC. His public trial is likely to span the next year or so, and centers, in essence, on how key neoconservative war supporters used faulty intelligence to beef up the case for war, and then used their positions of power to try and punish those that looked to expose that practice.
  • Syria. The stories above are just a slice of the bigger picture in Syria. In the past two days, that picture has been getting much bigger, quickly. On Friday, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding that Syria cooperate with Lebanon’s investigation of the assassination of its Prime Minister earlier this year (in which high Syrian officials have been named as suspects), or face unspecified consequences. The resolution came at the request of the United States. That same day, Syrian officials said they would allow unmonitored interrogations of said suspects, essentially promising compliance with the resolution. Also on Friday, Iran’s president chimed in publicly, saying that the pressure being put on Syria is "unacceptable" and pledging his country’s support and alliance. And most recently, a major U.S. military offensive was launched near the Iraq/Syria border, to try and seal off a main route for foreign fighters entering the country.
  • Iran, long on the PNAC’s radar (and part of the so-called "axis of evil"), has a new president, and from the looks of it, he’s spoiling for a fight, at least with Israel. Combine that with his aggressive public support of the beleaguered Syria, and with the ongoing debate over Iran’s possible development of nuclear weapons, and it’s clear that there are the seeds of a possible "perfect storm" of geopolitical saber-rattling in the region.

    Consult your world map if the geography is not fresh in your mind.
    It goes kind of like this (left to right/west to east):
    Israel–SyriaIraqIranAfghanistan.
    (current U.S. quagmires are in bold, nations we’re agitating against are in italics)

  • Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has recently made the rounds in Congress and on the talk shows) to sell the idea that the remaking of the Middle East has been a necessary part of the new agenda since the 9-11 attacks, making it clear that the Bush administration is not wavering from its neocon-influenced foreign policy posture. 
  • And of course, the situation in Iraq continues its schizophrenic progression, wherein the post-Saddam government gains increasing responsibility and authority over a nation of violence and dysfunction–one which, more and more people agree, may be on its way to becoming a failed state, or stuck in a civil war, or a pawn of Iran.

In other words, the biggest issues of concern to the PNAC and neoconservatives connect to almost all of the United States’ current front-burner foreign policy concerns. And behind most of the news stories about the above issues is the fact that there are folks who are trying to shape and direct America’s policies and actions toward a certain kind of future– a "New American Century", if you will. They are doing this shaping from positions of power in the White House and elsewhere, and they are doing it from positions of influence like the Weekly Standard, the op-ed pages, and as pundits and guests on the TV news programs.

And not enough is being done to oppose this trend. While the neocon viewpoint has been undone in many ways by Iraq’s failure to live up to their dreams, and the credibility and integrity of neocon policymakers has been stained by the CIA leak scandal, the fact remains that there is much more momentum on that side of the debate than on any opposing side. And I’m not talk about left vs. right, or Democrats vs. Republicans. I’m talking specifically about the battle over this one set of issues–American empire, preventative wars, a "unipolar" world, "The New American Century", reshaping the Middle East, and so on.

More than just a watchdog

PNAC.info has always been intended to be more than just a watchdog, sounding the alarms and shining light on the truth. It was intended to be more like a bulldog, with its teeth clamped down firmly onto the pantleg of the neoconservative movement, refusing to let go until we wear them out, and the battle is done.

Make no mistake, the neoconservative foreign policy approach is a bad idea. It’s bad for America, and it’s bad for the world. The neoconservatives who aim to shape public opinion can be countered, both on the small points and on the larger issue. And the neocons who seek to shape public policy can be influenced, or simply rejected.

Most importantly, the big debate over just what kind of century we do want can be brought into the mainstream, where it can be openly and deliberately considered, and won in the favor of a sane and sustainable foreign policy that is good for the world, and for the U.S.

Sounds pretty good, right? Well, that’s what PNAC.info is "back in action" to do. 

In the site’s first incarnation, we got a couple of key steps done–namely, attaching our site to the subject of the PNAC out on the web (like a bulldog on a pantleg), and documenting "the rise of the neocons" in a way that wasn’t from a liberal viewpoint, or a form of "Bush-bashing". And of course, building traffic and links to the site. The site was successful on all three of those fronts. Frankly, that was the easy part.

When you boil it all down, PNAC.info got stalled because it was a hobby, at least as far as time commitment was concerned. It was never a hobby in terms of belief and dedication–I’ve always intended for it to be that bulldog on their pantleg–but economic concerns prevented me from being able to properly develop it beyond its initial foundation at the time.

Which brings me finally to the point of this item, which is to make sure that history does not repeat itself– either here at PNAC.info, or in the world at large.

I’m seeking your support to make sure that PNAC.info can be the powerhouse that it needs to be, not the hobby that it was.

Our initial fundraising goal is $2000 — that will be enough to get us well on our way to 2006, and to do things like setting up a non-profit organization, adding new important areas to the website, and managing volunteers, in addition to posting more and more updates and analysis of the steady flow of neocon news and opinion that’s out there.

I’m hoping to raise at least $500 of that goal through this appeal, via credit card and PayPal donations. Your $50 donation would go a long way toward making that happen, and clearing the way for an aggressive counter-campaign to get rolling. If $50 at once is too much to afford, please consider setting up a monthly donation of $5, $10, or $15. Or a one-time donation of $10, $20, or $30.

PNAC.info is in a unique position to help move the "anti-neoconservative" movement forward, due to our position on the political spectrum as well as our positioning on the Internet. And I’m ready and willing to make sure that we (that is, everyone opposed to the neoconservative approach) make the most of it.

Please help make sure we can do just that, by making a contribution today.

Thanks for your time and interest.

Be well, be free,

Lance Brown
Project Coordinator
PNAC.info – Exposing the Project for The New American Century

Welcome
Welcome to PNAC.info-- a site dedicated to drawing attention to the neoconservative foreign policy approach, and its consequences for America and the world.
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