I’d thought of writing a post on the newly-re-formed Committee on the Present Danger, which took out a full-page ad today in the Washington Post to announce its new mission. But I held back because a mocking effort seemed almost too obvious.
You know, like, “Why did they refound the Committee on the Present Danger?” “Because no one had come up with a list yet of the people most responsible for the Iraq mess, so why not?”
In any case, you get the idea.
Now, I got the URL from the Post ad and went to the website and was looking around the membership list. And on the list of the founding members there’s a blurb from each one of them describing the war on terror — usually with a rhetorical mix of Winston Churchill and Conan the Barbarian.
So for instance you have Ken Adelman saying …
Just as America defeated totalitarian threats from, first, Nazism and then Communism last century, so must we defeat totalitarian threats from radical Islam this century. It is our duty, and destiny.
Fair enough, encapsulates the basic viewpoint. Or this from Jim Woolsey …
We are fighting the Long War of the 21st Century, having been targeted by several totalitarian movements rooted in the Middle East. We cannot opt out, and we must not fail.
But what jumped out at me was this one from Ben Wattenberg.
The rules of the game are strange: we win if we win, they win if they win, and we win in case of a tie. There will plenty of other opportunities after Iraq to chase them down in a world which will remain uncertain, but with America as the leader.
Now, is that a blurb or a war on terror haiku? I’m not sure what to make of it. Or has Wattenberg joined forces with that younger generation of weed-smoking neocons? If someone can explain it to me I can then proceed to make fun of it.
