ORGANIZATION

Ad hoc group with the designated mission of analyzing the role of the United States as an imperial power and the consequences associated with empire in general. The existence of the organization was first announced in an article in The Wall Street Journal, Political Capital: Manifesto Warns of Dangers Associated With an Empire, by Alan Murray, 15 July 2003:

"The American Revolution was a nationalist revolt against the British Empire," the draft manifesto argues. "Our country was born as a defiant rejection of the legitimacy of imperialism." Citing the lessons of the classics, it argues that the "inevitable cost of empire" is a loss of political and economic freedom at home. "Domestic liberty is the first casualty of adventurist foreign policy."

While the draft was written before the latest flap over bad intelligence used in the State of the Union address, it also argues: "To justify the high cost of maintaining rule over foreign territories and peoples, leaders are left with no choice but to deceive the people."

Name	Occupation	Birth	Death	Known for
Stephen P. Cohen	Scholar	c. 1946		Foreign policy analyst
Charles W. Freeman, Jr.	Diplomat	1943		US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, 1989-92
C. Boyden Gray	Government	6-Feb-1943		Conservative activist, lobbyist

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