Salon.com > Gary Hart

The new Caesars

Thu, 19 Aug 2004 16:33:00 +0000

The cause of imperialism, weakened for a time by the fall of the European and Soviet empires, has found new advocates. The fact that the 21st century imperial power happens to be the United States of America, whose independence from colonialism was declared 228 years ago, seems not to matter. The neoconservatives' project to position the United States as the world's dominant power -- and to use that power to govern in venues chosen seemingly by them alone, and collectively where reasonably easy but unilaterally where necessary -- has been advanced and saluted.

A careful review of the statements of President Bush and his administration up to the declaration of victory in Iraq yields little evidence of the true purpose of America's invasion. The world is now familiar with the arguments: Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction; Iraq has or will soon have a "nuclear capability"; Iraq harbors and supports terrorists planning attacks on the United States; Iraq itself is a threat to U.S. national security. All have proved untrue and are no longer offered as justification for America's "preventive" war on Iraq, an action with precedent in U.S. history possibly only in the Philippines more than a century ago.

A Paul Revere no one wants to hear from

Tue, 06 Apr 2004 18:06:00 +0000

Suppose that in March or April 1941, 14 Americans with lengthy backgrounds in national security affairs had reported to President Franklin Roosevelt that the United States was going to be attacked somewhere, sometime, somehow by the Japanese, that this attack would result in large numbers of American casualties, and these officially appointed Americans had strongly recommended to the Roosevelt administration that it take urgent steps to help prevent such an attack. Further suppose that Roosevelt had done little if anything in response to this warning, and that almost eight months later, as it happened, the Japanese attacked American facilities at Pearl Harbor, and almost 2,000 Americans died. Suppose after this attack official inquiries were launched, as it also happened, as to why there was a failure of intelligence, what actions were or were not taken based on what intelligence there was, and what could be done to prevent such catastrophic surprises in the future. And finally suppose that the official commission created to investigate the tragedy of Pearl Harbor failed to call upon the original 14 Americans who forecast the attack and forewarned against it.

Hart: We are not prepared for war

Sun, 26 Jan 2003 00:19:00 +0000

Once and future Democratic presidential hopeful Gary Hart lambasted the Bush administration's homeland security policy in a speech delivered Tuesday to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. "We are on the brink of invading Iraq without adequate preparation ... for what experts believe will be inevitable retaliatory attacks on the U.S. from radical fundamentalist groups," he said. In his view, building a domestic Pentagon is a dangerous mistake. Instead, bring out the National Guard.

Following is the full text of his speech, titled "In Search of National Security in the 21st Century":

We're sailing into the new world of the 21st century without a compass. Despite the elapse of more than a decade, the vacuum created by the end of the Cold War -- and the overnight irrelevance of our central organizing principle, containment of communism -- has not been filled by any coherent and compelling new vision. Meanwhile, the interests-versus-values debate grows stale and irrelevant. Along with disgust over corporate corruption and the legalized corruption of politics by money, public apathy today is traceable to a failure of visionary leadership -- leadership driven by an understanding of the radically new world we now confront. America is adrift because it has not related its power to its principles. And it will remain adrift until our principles become the foundation of a new grand strategy.