A Debate Over U.S. 'Empire' Builds in Unexpected Circles

[Khephra]

A Debate Over U.S. 'Empire' Builds in Unexpected Circles

By Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 10, 2003; Page A03


At forums sponsored by policy think tanks, on radio talk shows and around Cleveland Park dinner tables, one topic has been hotter than the weather in Washington this summer: Has the United States become the very "empire" that the republic's founders heartily rejected?

Liberal scholars have been raising the question but, more strikingly, so have some Republicans with impeccable conservative credentials.

For example, C. Boyden Gray, former counsel to President George H.W. Bush, has joined a small group that is considering ways to "educate Americans about the dangers of empire and the need to return to our founding traditions and values," according to an early draft of a proposed mission statement.

"Rogue Nation," a new book by former Reagan administration official Clyde Prestowitz, president of the Washington-based Economic Strategy Institute, contains a chapter that dubs the United States "The Unacknowledged Empire." And at the Nixon Center in Washington, established in 1994 by former president Richard M. Nixon, President Dimitri K. Simes is preparing a magazine-length essay that will examine the "American imperial predicament."


more.......................

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38891-2003Aug9.html

[roguevalley]

1. THis is good news and fascinating. I love your posts, Khephra.

You must subscribe to ten thousand newspapers and wire
services. <G>

[Robbien]

2. There is something funny about this article

The slant is that C. Boyden Gray is against the new American Empire. I do not see how that could be possible when he was the one that just the other week spearheaded the "Dems are against Catholics" campaign trying to break the Pryor filibuster.

[grasswire]

3. more Bushwah

Just like Eagleburger was "against" the war on Iraq.

If there is a snake, it is C. Boyden Gray. He's as prime a family fixer as is James Baker.

[Rose Siding]

4. imperial "predicament"

How totally devoid of the blood and guts reflected in the reality.

[ewagner]

5. PAX AMERICANA

NPR...thru WBUR in Boston had this debate last summer. I was fascinated by it but quickly realized that absolutely nobody was paying attention to it. Maybe things are different now. The first American blood has been shed in a totally elective war. The debate should be framed in that context because it is certainly one thing to shed American blood in defense of our freedom but quite another to shed it in imperialistic expansion. That, my good friends is the question to be put before the public in the next election.

Khephra....thank you so much for the post........

btw...tomorrow should be a banner day for heat on the Bush administration..........

[saoirse]

6. They're throwing a bone to the Rockefeller Republicans

Nothing more.

This hand-wringing is an attempt to appease the few members
of the GOP who actually possess a soul.

The Jeffords defection let them know they're alienating the
East Coast Old Money crowd, and if there's one thing the
Bushies can't stand, it's having rich people not like them.