Posted on 10/11/2004 4:39:49 PM PDT by Ed Current
David Frum tells us that "[w]ar is a great clarifier" because it "forces people to choose sides." It certainly does. For example, it forced us to team up with Joe Stalin in 1941. War forced the U.S. to side with Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and the Saudi royal family in the 1990s. Let's not forget that great clarifying moment when the Cold War forced us to fund Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
In the same way, our war against Iraq created political alliances domestically that may have been unnatural, and which now may be falling apart. Specifically, some moderate-to-liberal hawks temporarily rose to the forefront of the American right and started calling the shots--in some cases declaring who was and who wasn't fit to be part of the conservative movement.
But it is only in these post-war days (although many object to the claim that the war is over) that the real clarifying happens.
Many of these hawks, called neocons, spent the aftermath of 9/11 and the run-up to the Iraq war denouncing the conservatives who voiced opposition to Bush's planned wars. But now, after the war, with some of the dust settled, their differences with the right are becoming clearer, and their continued alliance with conservatives comes into question.
While neocons have reputations as esoteric Straussians, they have been straightforward in recent months in clarifying their worldview. Frum: "I Am not Pro-Life"
In his April 7, 2003 cover story for National Review, Frum declared it unimaginable that Bob Novak (my boss), Pat Buchanan, Scott McConnell and other anti-war writers "would call themselves 'conservatives.'"
These "unpatriotic conservatives" were engaged in "a war against America." Frum accused Novak of "terror denial" for saying al-Qaeda is more dangerous than Hezbollah. Novak was guilty of "espousing defeatism" for writing, "The CIA, in its present state, is viewed by its Capitol Hill overseers as incapable of targeting bin Laden."
First, how is saying one Islamic terrorist organization is a bigger threat than another "denying" anything? On the second charge, Novak is called unpatriotic for quoting sources who judge that the CIA is in bad shape and will have trouble catching bin Laden (both judgments are evidently true and now universally embraced in the Republican Party).
But Frum went on and declared that these "paleocons" "are thinking about defeat and wishing for it, and they will take pleasure in it if it should happen."
"They began by hating the neoconservatives. They came to hate their party and this president. They have finished by hating their country."
These declarations amounted to an attempted purge. David Frum was setting the bounds of permissible dissent and declaring this odd grouping, which included free-traders, protectionists, left-coast anarchists and Latin-Mass Catholics, to be a faction beyond the pale.
It was an interesting role for Frum to assume, considering that the Canadian-born writer is not what one would call a typical conservative. As one clear example of his distance from the American right, he began a November 6, 2003 post in his Diary blog on NRO by declaring: "Now let me say right off: I am not pro-life."
Frum ended his paragraph with "I have thought about this issue just as hard as you have, and I'm not going to change my mind."
The Frum situation is thick with irony on two counts: first is the odd spectacle of a devout pro-choicer saying who is not a conservative; and, second, his charges against the paleos last year could be judged today to ring at least as true against the neos. Kristol: "Common Cause"
A year after the Iraq war and after Frum's attempted purge, the New York Times went to William Kristol to ask him his thoughts on Iraq now that things weren't moving as smoothly as he had hoped.
Kristol told the Times that John Kerry had the real answer to the problems there: we need to send more troops. Kristol explained that this agreement between the neocons and the Democrats should surprise no one:
I will take Bush over Kerry, but Kerry over Buchanan or any of the lesser Buchananites on the right. If you read the last few issues of The Weekly Standard, it has as much or more in common with the liberal hawks than with traditional conservatives. Kristol continued, "If we have to make common cause with the more hawkish liberals and fight the conservatives, that is fine with me, too."
Making "common cause" with the antiwar left was the first charge in Frum's indictment that Buchanan and Novak had gone "far, far beyond" the bounds of permissible dissent.
Lest the White House not understand the implicit threat, Kristol added more; summed up in the Times' closing paragraph:
Recalling a famous saying of his father, the neoconservative pioneer Irving Kristol, that a neoconservative was "a liberal who has been mugged by reality," the younger Mr. Kristol joked that now they might end up as neoliberals--defined as "neoconservatives who had been mugged by reality in Iraq."
In short, Kristol was saying to the GOP, "if you don't continue your Wilsonian march, we will find a party (maybe Wilson's) that will."
Again, no one should have been surprised. Kristol's close ally, columnist Charles Krauthammer, never hid his admiration for Wilson, FDR and Truman, who he recently called "three giants of the twentieth century." Neocon publisher Lord Conrad Black wrote a paean to FDR. Kristol has given LBJ the A-Okay.
The neocons--and they admit this--are hawks first, and Republicans or conservatives second. Boot: "Virtually Inevitable Defeat"
Another unpardonable sin of Frum's targets was "espous[ing] a potentially self-fulfilling defeatism." This charge is an odd one coming from a neocon, considering their success as a group is tied to their pragmatism. Neocons, it is said, are just conservatives who understand how the real world works.
So, it is certainly odd for neocons to tell the rest of the right to be more idealistic.
Their standard operating procedure is to criticize cultural conservatives for tilting at windmills in a dream world and trying to repeal modernity.
As a case in point, take Max Boot's Los Angeles Times article on homosexual marriage headlined: "The Right Can't Win This Fight." Boot contends that while we are not "in cultural decline," our society has irrevocably embraced the entire sexual revolution and more. The legitimacy of homosexual marriage is the inevitable next step and we are fools if we try to fight it.
Boot advises conservatives to surrender:
Faced with virtually inevitable defeat, Republicans would be wise not to expend too much political capital pushing for a gay marriage amendment to the Constitution.
What happened to Frum's demand that conservatism must now be "an optimistic conservatism"? For the neocons, this marching order is for foreign policy, not for culture wars.
Krauthammer: "Human Rights and Social Justice"
After we failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz explained to Vanity Fair that that didn't mean the war was fought for no good reason. There were many other reasons to overthrow Hussein, he explained, but the war cabinet settled on WMD because it was the one everyone could agree on.
Into this void came Krauthammer, perhaps the most eloquent and prolific pro-war writer on the right. In a May 16, 2003 article headlined, "Iraq: A Moral Reckoning," Krauthammer listed the virtues of the war.
His three bullet points were "Human rights," "Economic equity and social justice," and "The environment." We were also reminded at this time that the war had been authorized--indeed compelled--by UN resolution 1441.
So a war most conservatives had backed as a preemptive and unapologetic defense of our homeland and our allies from killer weapons was being explained to us after the fact as a humanitarian mission and an enforcement of UN resolutions.
In other words, the war had become a liberal war. Liberal not just as a social justice or UN mission, but liberal as part of an ambitious plan to use the state to remake society.
Many neocons after Baghdad fell immediately called for going onto Syria. Today it is Iran. The Palestinians and the Saudis, we are told, should also be on our list.
Just reading the Krauthammer headlines and the Kristol covers, we begin to see the bigger picture that is the neocons' vision. Iraq was just one piece in the puzzle of reshaping the entire Middle East and spreading Democracy to every corner of the world--an undertaking many conservatives (not just the paleos) would judge more fitting for the left's utopianists than the right's conservatives.
After Hussein has fallen, the neocons, tireless soldiers, march on. They tell us to abandon the culture wars at home and instead to find more overseas battles. And they let us know that if we balk as the battle moves to fronts we never imagined, they will have no trouble finding a new movement, and even a new president, to march beneath their flag. Tim Carney is a reporter for the Evans-Novak Political Report.
Hawkish liberals? Like Mr. Holbrook or Mrs. Albright?
Good post!
Big waste of time.
Fascinating. Who, pray tell, were these people "calling the shots"? Let me guess, Bush (you know - the President guy?) was merely their puppet, right?
This kind of talk just gets dumber every time I heard it.
in some cases declaring who was and who wasn't fit to be part of the conservative movement.
I'll be fascinated to hear about these "cases" and why they matter.
Many of these hawks, called neocons,
It's funny how far the definition of "neocon" has strayed. Now it means "moderate-to-liberal hawks"?
Many of these hawks, called neocons, spent the aftermath of 9/11 and the run-up to the Iraq war denouncing the conservatives who voiced opposition to Bush's planned wars.
In other words, group A favored war with Iraq, group B didn't, thus group B opposed group A and meanwhile group A opposed (oh sorry "denounced") group B.
How sinister!!1
But now, after the war, with some of the dust settled, their differences with the right are becoming clearer, and their continued alliance with conservatives comes into question.
Still waiting to hear who these "they" are. And when was this "alliance" ratified? These articles about "neocons" are so mysterious...
While neocons have reputations as esoteric Straussians,
LOL. Did this guy just throw the adjective "esoteric" on there because it sounded neat? Does he even know what "Straussian" means?
Frum: "I Am not Pro-Life"
Ok wait, so after all that buildup about "alliances" and dust settling and denouncing, what we get is that a guy who favored war with Iraq isn't pro-life?
Oh. my. GOSH. Could this get any more boring?
Frum declared it unimaginable that Bob Novak (my boss), Pat Buchanan, Scott McConnell and other anti-war writers "would call themselves 'conservatives.'"
Ok so I can understand a certain antipathy on the part of the writer towards David Frum. Who is Frum to say that, Why should we pay any attention to what Frum says, Why should we care about David Frum, etc? What the writer doesn't seem to get is that I, as a reader of this sinister piece about "neocons", am now asking the same question: Why should I care about David Frum?
[boring play by play he-said/he-said skipped]
The neocons--and they admit this--are hawks first, and Republicans or conservatives second.
(yawn) The point being? And this still mischaracterizes what "neocons" are all about to a laughable extent. It's not so much that they're "hawks" as that they're hawkish when it comes to certain things. It's what those things are, that is essential to the "neocon" definition, yet this writer doesn't even seem to know what they are. To him, it's all very simple and broad-brushed: "neocons" = "hawks". *slaps forehead*
[gay marriage] What happened to Frum's demand that conservatism must now be "an optimistic conservatism"? For the neocons, this marching order is for foreign policy, not for culture wars.
Yes, that sounds right; "culture wars" as such don't interest "neocons" very much.. they're not very "conservative" on such things. This is news? Who didn't know this?
So a war most conservatives had backed as a preemptive and unapologetic defense of our homeland and our allies from killer weapons was being explained to us after the fact as a humanitarian mission and an enforcement of UN resolutions.
Sigh. This is the same stupid "your list of reasons for the war must contain only one thing!" argument we usually get from the left.
The war was all these things. What this "conservative" seems to be saying is that if someone, somewhere, can point to "social justice" as being on the List of reasons for the war, that's bad.
But that's stupid.
In other words, the war had become a liberal war. Liberal not just as a social justice or UN mission, but liberal as part of an ambitious plan to use the state to remake society.
There's no "had become" about it! Remaking that society was ALWAYS part of the original plan. Take a look at the text of the original War-Powers resolution approved by Congress. This is the closest thing you will find to a "List of reasons for the war". And guess what appears on it?
Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;
In other words, here is our Congress, in broad daylight, plain as day, explicitly stating (and approving by majority vote) that one of the reasons for fighting this war is that we, the United States, support the removal of the Hussein regime and promoting the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime. This bipartisan "sense of Congress" goes back to the Clinton years! There was nothing secret about it and it is not a new thing recently invented by Wolfie or Kraut - it's been there all along. How stupid do you have to be not to see something that was written in the War Powers resolution itself all along, and to be "surprised" that someone would bring it up?
For crying out loud. A lot of these lamebrained arguments would be put to bed if certain people would just read the damn War Powers resolution.
Iraq was just one piece in the puzzle of reshaping the entire Middle East and spreading Democracy to every corner of the world--an undertaking many conservatives (not just the paleos) would judge more fitting for the left's utopianists than the right's conservatives.
Conservatism is not about crossing your arms and going "harrumph" at the suggestion that good things can and ought to be made to happen at a pragmatic, feasible pace. No "neocon" is suggesting that we conquer the whole world in one fell swoop. As the author points out, "neocons" wanted to proceed to Syria, and notice, we did not. Um, what happened?? I thought the "neocons" were "calling the shots"??
What happened is that this whole "neocon" conspiracy theory is tripe and obsession with it has made an awful lot of smart people stupid as mush.
It's true enough that spreading democracy for the sake of spreading democracy has a natural constituency, or should have a natural constituency, on the left. But that doesn't mean that there can't be instances where the interests of the left overlap with those of the right (in national security, a Jacksonian belief in going on offense). Iraq happens to have been one such case and this seems to have sent some of the "paleo" cons into a tizzy. They will become so much less boring when they snap out of it.
After Hussein has fallen, the neocons, tireless soldiers, march on.
OK sorry but WTF does this mean. "Neocons" are still writing articles? Well heck, so is this hack, the "tireless soldier" who wrote this dumb article.
They tell us to abandon the culture wars at home and instead to find more overseas battles.
"They" do? We're back to "they", eh?
What a dizzying display. The article starts with a bunch of sweeping proclamations about what "they" are doing. In the meat of the article we get some boring, but detailed, textual analyses of some arguments that three (3) people have presented: Frum, Kristol, and Kraut. Now we're back to "they", stripped of specifics again, back in the dizzying heady world of metaphors and dark shadows. "They" are "on the march", "they" are "telling us" to do this and that.
I'll say it again, this obsession with conspiracy theories is really making paleocons sound dumber.
And they let us know that if we balk as the battle moves to fronts we never imagined, they will have no trouble finding a new movement, and even a new president, to march beneath their flag.
Stripped of the hifalutin rhetoric, this means: "neocons" favor doing X, and if they cannot find a constituency for X among party A, they will seek it among party B.
Well DUH. It's called "politics". Welcome to it, ye paleocons! I know it's scary but it works.
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Ed Current
Since Oct 1, 2004
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Welcome to the Center for Communitarian Neoconitus Control and Prevention.
A significant and very vocal minority of F.R. members don't understand genuine conservatism, or fully understand and vehemently reject it. They have a mental disorder known as communitarian neoconitus, which is a liberal/globalist related disease that infects the region of the brain where political opinions are formed and maintained. This affliction causes them to rabidly promote and vote for a welfare/warfare state.
It must be noted that there is a love/hate relationship with political/philosophical/religious lables. Once a label is affixed, caricature and strawmen arguments are likely to occur from the opponents which forces some of the proponents to discard what they would otherwise proudly display.
Some individuals have eclectic perspectives without internal consistency that defy labeling. Nevertheless, nouveau philosophies that have apparent coherence occasionally surface and attract enough adherents to create a demand for labels.
If someone talks like a communitarian/neocon and votes like a communitarian/neocon they probably are communitarian/neocon, whether or not they fully recognize that the consequences of their attitude and action are fatal to the American Republic.
What Is communitarian neoconitus?
A fusion of the communitarian political left with the neconservative political right with emphasis on the synthesis.
A neo-conservative is really "a liberal who has been mugged by reality." - Irving Kristol
Communitarianism synthesizes the unalienable Rights possessed by individuals which are granted by the Creator and codified in U.S. Constitution and the laws of various states with Marxist international government. Communitarianism subordinates the discovered God given rights of individuals to the fabricated group rights recognized & mandated by national government in pursuit of global government and is the current reigning Hegelian dialectic paradigm of Western globalists.
Joseph Farah @ WorldNetDaily describes communitarianism "as a form of communism for people who believe in God." Communitarian theology, like liberation theology, is an aberrant form of Christian theology. Biblical references are quoted within a nebulous context to decieve the Christianized masses. Communitarists share the vision of anti-Christian world government with the communists. Communitarists, by constructing a new age god compatible with Judaism, Christianity and Islam, hope to succeed in swaying the masses and consummating the new world order of global government, where the communists failed by rejecting God and alienating the masses.
Good listing. I would make one correction - the word "paleo" stands for old/original. It includes various conservatives in Tories, classical, clerical or even monarchist traditions. The populist/blue collar/Reagan Democrats make only one (although the most numerous) faction.
"He would fit right in, here on FR."
LOL.
And true.
Anyone who would take Kerry over Buchanan is a RINO.
I thought the title said neocoitus *LOL*
I would NEVER pick Kerry over Pat Buchanan.
I gather Black believes that FDR saved representative government. He may be wrong (Black also admires Napoleon, and his own father sharply disagreed with him about Roosevelt). Indeed, in many ways FDR wasn't an admirable man or leader, and even those who don't hate him have come to ask whether we could have done better than Franklin Roosevelt and whether he's really on the same level with earlier American political heroes.
But the question of when one should simply dismiss arguments and when one should give them a hearing is a tough one. Spend enough time with people who never entertain or consider ideas that they don't agree with, and one may come to make a point of considering dissenting ideas, even if one doesn't agree with them in the end. The person who can make a good case in such matters is worthy of a hearing.
So yes, these guys are wrong, and that does damage their credibility, but every now and then, it does pay to reconsider questions that one's always assumed to be closed, if only so that one's understanding isn't manipulated or directed by those who wave this or that red flag to stop discussion, without ever really examining questions on their merits.
This open border, pro illegal alien element is not representative of conservatives.
Great. Then you are not a neo-con.
I can deal with Pat, but Kerry is a completely LOATHSOME individual and his presidency would be WORSE than Ole Toon. I rather have Pat as president because I pretty much know where he's coming from. Kerry is a LOUSE.
Got a bit O Bush bashing in,I see.
If Bush loses this election the Republican party will go into free fall - bloody purges and maybe even a factional split and the end of the party as we know it.
You know those who say we did for some strange reason seem to think an arab is an arab is an afghan.
We funded some native Afghans. At no point did we give money or training to bin Laden. The only joy he had concerning americans was finding out we were helping the resistance.
Not one iota of proof exists to suggest we did work with bin Laden in the 80s.
Yeah, I've taken it. I already know that I'm a NeoCon. But I'm also a pro-life social conservative who believes that lassie-faire capitalism is as American as apple pie.
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