PNAC

Please take a moment to read and consider these communcations from the Project for the New American Century. Consider each communique within the context of its dates and its signatories. This is how American Politics is are carried. You organize, communicate, energize and execute a strategy to shift American politics. Clear direct statements and swift, certain action are the keys to success. I cannot identify a group of people in the past tewnty five years who has so comprehensively changed the face and underpinnings of American Policy and American Politics. I may not agree with their politics but I admire their comprehensive and sweeping command of their agenda, as well as their commitment to its implementation. Democrats far and wide should learn from this exmaple, as well as the example of the Clinton Administration, of the high value of working within the system, and supporting the effort from outside the system, to change America. June 3, 1997 Statement of Principles "We are in danger of squandering the opportunity and failing the challenge. We are living off the capital -- both the military investments and the foreign policy achievements -- built up by past administrations. Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world. And the promise of short-term commercial benefits threatens to override strategic considerations. As a consequence, we are jeopardizing the nation's ability to meet present threats and to deal with potentially greater challenges that lie ahead." http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm January 26, 1998 Letter to President Clinton on Iraq "Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy." http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm May 29, 1998 Letter to Hons. Gingrich and Lott on Iraq re: President Clinton's response to Iraq and WMD "In the face of this new challenge from Saddam, however, the President's public response has been only to say that he is "encouraged" by Iraq's compliance with the UN inspections and to begin reducing U.S. military forces in the Gulf region. Unwilling either to adopt policies that would remove Saddam or sustain the credibility of its own policy of containment, the administration has placed us on a path that will inevitably free Saddam Hussein from all effective constraints. Even if the administration is able to block Security Council efforts to lift sanctions on Iraq this year, the massive expansion of the so-called "oil for food" program will have the effect of overturning the sanctions regime. It is now safe to predict that, in a year's time, absent a sharp change in U.S. policy, Saddam will be effectively liberated from constraints that have bound him since the end of the Gulf War seven years ago." http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqletter1998.htm September 20, 1998 Open Letter to President Clinton in the New York Times, Week in Review http://www.newamericancentury.org/balkans_pdf_04.pdf August 20, 1999 Statement on the Defense of Taiwan "Efforts by the Clinton Administration to pressure Taipei to cede its sovereignty and to adopt Beijing's understanding of "One China" are dangerous and directly at odds with American strategic interests, past U.S. policy, and American democratic ideals. Failure to stand by Taiwan and live up to the spirit and letter of the Taiwan Relations Act in the present crisis can only exacerbate tensions and may well lead to serious miscalculation by Beijing." http://www.newamericancentury.org/Taiwandefensestatement.htm September 20, 2001 Letter to President Bush on the War on Terrorism "Iraq: We agree with Secretary of State Powell’s recent statement that Saddam Hussein “is one of the leading terrorists on the face of the Earth….” It may be that the Iraqi government provided assistance in some form to the recent attack on the United States. But even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism. The United States must therefore provide full military and financial support to the Iraqi opposition. American military force should be used to provide a “safe zone” in Iraq from which the opposition can operate. And American forces must be prepared to back up our commitment to the Iraqi opposition by all necessary means." http://www.newamericancentury.org/Bushletter.htm April 3, 2002 Letter to President Bush on Israel, Arafat and the War on Terrorism " This central truth has important implications for any Middle East peace process. For one spoke of the terrorist network consists of Yasser Arafat and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. Although your critics in the United States, Europe and the Arab world suggest that you and your administration bear some responsibility for the lack of political progress between Israel and the Palestinians, they are mistaken. As Secretary of State Powell recently stated, the present crisis stems not from “the absence of a political way forward” but from “terrorism…, terrorism in its rawest form.” That terrorism has been aided, abetted, harbored, and in many instances directed by Mr. Arafat and his top lieutenants. Mr. Arafat has demonstrated time and again that he cannot be part of the peaceful solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He demonstrated it in July 2000, when he rejected the most generous Israeli peace offer in history; he demonstrated it in September 2000, when he launched the new intifada against Israel; and he demonstrated it again these past two weeks when, despite the hand you offered him through Vice President Cheney, he gave sanction to some of the worst terrorist violence against Israeli citizens." http://www.newamericancentury.org/Bushletter-040302.htm November 25, 2002 Letter to President Bush on Hong Kong "Wishing to defend Hong Kong's freedoms under Chinese rule, the U.S. Congress adopted the U.S. Hong Kong Policy Act, a law that gives Hong Kong treatment separate from the mainland on important matters. Under the law, the president is empowered to determine whether Hong Kong is sufficiently autonomous to merit that privileged treatment. So far, U.S. presidents have been reluctant to conclude that the systemic limitations on the citizens of Hong Kong and the setbacks to its autonomy since 1997 require a change in Hong Kong's treatment under U.S. law. However, with the enactment of the proposed national security laws, it would be impossible to credibly maintain that Hong Kong enjoys the high degree of autonomy and the rights and freedoms it was promised on its reversion to China." http://www.newamericancentury.org/hongkong-20021126.htm January 23, 2003 Letter to President Bush on the Defense Budget "By every measure, current defense spending is inadequate for a military with global responsibilities. Ten years ago, America's defense burden was 4.8% of GDP. Although the decline in defense spending has been halted, we have not done nearly enough to make up for this decade of neglect. The modest increase planned for next year will still leave Pentagon spending at about 3.4 % of GDP, and Congressional Budget Office projections are that the proportion will decline to approximately 3% by 2007." http://www.newamericancentury.org/defense-20030123.htm The list goes on for another 6 or 7 communiques. Interesting, isn't it?