Neocon game

I am totally dismayed to see that Governor Perry chose Donald Rumsfeld and several of his neoconservative disciples to advise him on foreign affairs. Rumsfeld was the worst secretary of defense in American history. He couldn’t even manage to put armor on humvees. How many young lives did he snuff out? The neocons have been wholly discredited. It’s not hard to see why Perry likes them. The neocons believe in utilizing America’s military to extend American power, and Perry loves the exercise of power.

I don’t know whether, what, or how much Perry reads, but there are plenty of good books about how the Bush administration in general and Rumsfeld in particular bungled the war in Iraq and allowed the insurgency to flourish. Bush will carry the stain of the war to his grave and into the history books. Believe me, I’m no anti-war hand-wringer. When it comes to issues of war and peace, I’m a realist, not an idealist. What concerns me about Perry’s playing footsie with the neocons is that he is following his instinct to make policy based on ideology instead of acquiring knowledge about the mistakes of the past. And a failed ideology at that.