From “Rationalizing Lunacy” by Andrew J. Bacevich:
What the three shared in common, apart from a suspect
education acquired in New Haven, was an unwavering commitment to the reigning
verities of the Cold War. Foremost among
those verities was this: that a monolith called Communism, controlled by a
small group of fanatic ideologues hidden behind the walls of the Kremlin, posed
an existential threat not simply to America and its allies, but to the very
idea of freedom itself. The claim came
with this essential corollary: the only hope of avoiding such a cataclysmic
outcome was for the United States to vigorously resist the Communist threat
wherever it reared its ugly head.
The present-day successors to Bundy, Rostow, and Huntington
subscribe to their own reigning verities.
Chief among them is this: that a phenomenon called terrorism or Islamic
radicalism, inspired by a small group of fanatic ideologues hidden away in
various quarters of the Greater Middle East, poses an existential threat not
simply to America and its allies, but — yes, it’s still with us — to the very
idea of freedom itself. That assertion
comes with an essential corollary dusted off and imported from the Cold War:
the only hope of avoiding this cataclysmic outcome is for the United States to
vigorously resist the terrorist/Islamist threat wherever it rears its ugly
head.
