Aug 14, 2004

Throwing a "crappy little country" against a wall

by Liberty and Power

Michael Ledeen, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a leading neoconservative advisor on our Iraq policy, sums up his philosophy of international relations :

"every now and again the United States has to pick up a crappy little country and throw it against a wall just to prove we are serious."

ADDENDUM:

I have received several emails questioning the validity of the" crappy little country" quotation. The link (shown above) discusses this controversy.

The original source for the quotation appears to be this article by Jonah Goldberg . Subsequently, a revised article in 2003 by William O. Beeman indicated that that the quotation was not genuine. In 2004, however, Simon Mars states that Ledeen admitted to him that he said it but also stated that his words needed to be put in context. I have written to Professor Beeman to find out why he made the original revision in 2003...despite Mars' statement that Ledeen later admitted that the quotation was accurate.

More Comments:

David T. Beito - 8/14/2004

That's Ledeen has admitted

David T. Beito - 8/14/2004

According to Simon Mars (link shown at the site I linked to), has admitted that he said it (the original source is Jonah Goldberg):

http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20040402.htm

There is some difference of opinion here and I will change the blog to reflect this. I will also try to get more information.

Steven Horwitz - 8/14/2004

Dave - if you follow your link to the original story here: http://www.alternet.org/story/15860 you'll notice that the quote attributed to Ledeen has been removed, presumably because it was inaccurate, if not invented. There's plenty to complain about with Neo-cons of course, but this is precisely why I am so hesitant to get involved with the hard left elements of the anti-war movement. They seem to be too often truth-challenged (Mini-Moores?) for my taste, which makes no sense given that the truth is awful enough.