I was just trying to recall what I was thinking at the time. If I remember right, I didn't believe he had a program to develop nuclear weapons. Joseph Wilson and others had cast doubt on that whole issue. There was also doubt he had chemical weapons. At the end of the day no WMDs were found. They say Colin Powell is still sore that he made a fool of himself.
No, the US has not always been a neocon nation and the example you gave does not prove that. What the neocons purpose is preempting the rise of other powers. One only need to refer to Washington's admonishment that the US should stay out of European affairs to see that the founders were not trying to implement a neocon vision of preemption.
Wrong again. The war of 1812 was not about preempting the rise of the British empire. To do that the US would have had to station troops in places where Britain was in the process of colonizing such as India, to thwart their rise.
Again neither of those wars were to preempt the rise of a rival power.
US involvement in both world wars was reactive, not preemptive.
Although that can be seen as a preemptive with regards to China, you could also say it was reactive.
Vietnam was weird. Basically the French were being beat and we started to increase our involvement. But we got stuck in quicksand. I don't consider that preemptive.
Now Iraq was a true neocon, preemptive war. And although Congress did vote for an authorization of a use of force, it contained this section:
Bush never got a security council resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. It could therefore be said that the war was illegal and Bush and Cheney are war criminals.
The world has changed quite a bit since the Roman empire. Neither the Roman or British empires had to face adversaries with nuclear arsenals that could destroy their civilizations. That simply is not the case now, and it is the major factor that leads one to the conclusion that the neocons are indeed a threat to world peace. The notion of preempting the rise of such adversaries is dangerous and will likely lead to a nuclear disaster in the future if such notions are not strongly put down.
FWIW, my take on US History came from Zinn's "People's History of the US" and Loewen's "Lies my Teacher Told Me".
It seems to me that you are defining neo-con to suit argument. The original definition was a liberal who changed his views to conservative after some of Stalin's methods were better known. The current definition is more someone who believes that the first line of defense should be overseas and we should stop problems before they come to our shores. Your definition, apparently, "What the neocons purpose is preempting the rise of other powers." Had not heard that before but let's use it.
The War of 1812 involved the attack on British Indian allies in Ohio and the Northwest Territories and included the attack on Canada, both of which would, if not pre-empt the growth of the British empire would greatly reduce it.
The Mexican War ended with the US gaining California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. I would think that greatly reduced the likelihood of a Mexican empire in addition to adding to the US empire. Without that, the US and Mexico would be about equal.
Weird to call Wilson's desire to enter WW1 reactive. No idea why we did except the Zimmerman memo or Wilson chest pounding.
And Korea and Vietnam. That was combating the fear of an expanding communist empire, unified. Domino theory.
The Bush Administration might argue that the UN security council 1441 gave their permission. There would be "serious consequences" if Iraq did not comply with the inspectors. At the time that it was passed the UK and US did not think that it meant war and planned to get another resolution more explicit if needed. The inspectors, according to Wikipedia:
"Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei presented several reports to the UN detailing Iraq's level of compliance with Resolution 1441.[7][8][9] On 27 January 2003 Chief UN Weapons Inspector Blix addressed the UN Security Council and stated "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance – not even today – of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace."[10] Blix went on to state that the Iraqi regime had allegedly misplaced "1,000 tonnes" of VX nerve agent—one of the most toxic ever developed"
France then backed away from a war resolution and they had veto power. But the possibility of serious consequences for failure to comply was still in UN resolution 1441. And 43 nations agreed. A lot of war criminals. And please don't insult those proud sovereign countries by calling them running dogs of American imperialism.
But my argument still stands: If it is a neo-con policy to pre-emptively attack Iraq and the clear majority in Congress and in the public supported this then we have a lot of neo-cons. Being wrong on the presence of nuclear weapons doesn't change that. Unless the definition of neo-con is simply someone who wants to do a pre-emptive attack on another country based on false intelligence.