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.
Bin Laden might be even too young to play prominent role in 1980s. But the help went to the forces which later were associated with bin Laden.
LOL!
So how are you this evening?
Again, no.
After the Soviets were kicked out of Afghanistan, those we had supported attempted, and failed to run the country.
In reaction, a group, either funded by Pakistan, or made up of devout Muslim religious students, depending on who you want to believe (and probably both) set about bringing law and order to the anarchy around them.
They brought rather alot more then that, as these fighters were the Taliban.
Within a few years that had taken over most of the country. The leader of the opposition to the Taliban was a man named Ahmad Shah Masood.
Masood had been perhaps the most important of the Afghan mujahadeen fighting the Soviets, and was a key American ally.
Shortly before the 9/11 attack, AQ assassinated Masood. Had they not done so, he would today be at least returned to his role as the defense minister of Afghanistan which he had held between the fall of the Soviets and the rise of the Taliban.
One can criticize Clinton and Bush 41 for allowing our former allies to fail in Afghanistan, and then (the latter)doing nothing about he rise of the Taliban, but frankly that is nothing more then a ridiculous use of 20/20 hindsight.
As for your notion that the US helped the Taliban and AQ, well, such an absurd notion should be left for the tinfoil hat brigades within the fever swamp of the far left.
I'm awrite, shugg --- How're yew?
I've been listening to different kinds of folk music lately -- expanding my horizons. My new favorite musician is Bela Fleck -- amazing banjo player!
I'm winding down after finally finishing and posting the article I've been working on the last month. Watching the football game here. I'm afraid I'm ignorant on banjo music, LOL! Is there a sample clip of Fleck online somewhere?
It's a complicated issue, but I'll give it a shot. Neocons (who can come from any ethnic group) are basically those who would be described as "right-liberals" in political science terms. The neocons consist mainly of former liberal Democrats (of the FDR variety) who were expelled from the Democratic Party in the late 1970s for wanting to resist Soviet expansionism - the date when the hard-left siezed control of the Democratic Party. Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson was sort of the prototype of today's neocon.
While these people are believers in many of the basic tenets of liberalism (big government, pro-abortion, pro-gay agenda, anti-2nd amendment, etc., the do believe in a strong defense for the US and its allies (like Israel). That is why, starting in the late 70s early 80s, many left the Democrats to join the Republicans, because the viewed a strong defense as the top priority. (Against the Soviet Union then, against the Jihadis now.) I think of them as the truly loyal opposition (they still at least believe in defending the country - despite the fact that they often resort to the sort of iberal Wilsonian and Internationalist arguments mentioned in the article. Patriotic liberals, really.
No Ping?
I'm afraid I'm ignorant on banjo music, LOL! Is there a sample clip of Fleck online somewhere?
So was I until a couple weeks ago. Here's a link, it's on Amazon. He has an electic, bluesy sound -- not just strictly bluegrass.
I guess the Neo-libs are so desperate to pigeonhold Republicans because they can't stand it when people who define themselves as conservatives make resonable compromises and appeal to a broader population.
I'm sorry America and her people come before the interest of a myopic cultural dinosaur.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/155236.stm
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He received security training from the CIA itself, according to Middle Eastern analyst Hazhir Teimourian.
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And what my little leftist?
And according to Middle Eastern expert Youza Wacko, Jews use the blood of Muslims to make their holy food.
Why, exactly are you trolling here? DU not keeping you busy enough that you have to spread their lies here too?
Oh, and don't forget the tin foil hat...Donald Rumsfeld might be aiming his mind control rays at you even as we speak...
I'm not a leftist, I'm simply posting historical fact. The US, starting under Carter, funded the Afghan resistance, it's a fact. If you can't deal with facts you yourself are a leftist, in terms of the degree of empirical evidence upon which you base your opinions.
As a neo-con I find myself NOT recognizing this characterization - we all know neo-con is really a euphemism for "dirty Jew." Anyway, I do plead guilty to being a hawk first, a conservative second, and lastly being a Republican. My priorities are keeping this country safe, advancing freedom, and helping a political party that helps to secure these twin objectives. For me always, country comes before party. And for the record, I haven't marched Left and I don't know of a neo-con who has.
Yes the US support some of the Afghan resistance. That however is not what you claimed my little troll.
The US did not support Osama, which is what you knowingly and falsely claimed.
Seriously, why do you leftist trolls try to come here and spew this crap? Do you really hate the US that much?
LOL, go back and read what I posted: if you don't apologize, you have the integrity of Clinton and Kerry all rolled into one.
You know if those throwing around "neocon" were simply arguing that Bush and the Reps could be, and should be, more effective in advancing the conservative domestic agenda I'd be the first to agree with them.
But it seems that the far left continues to be very successful at creating and using useful idiots.
Clearly, one has to wonder why else a small number of self proclaimed "conservatives" find the biggest danger to America to be not Osama Bin Laden or even John Kerry, but *George Bush*, and expend their efforts solely in such a manner as to try to damage the leadership of the Republican party and American conservatism.
A small clue for the thankfully small number of paleo so-called "conservatives" around here - getting John Kerry elected instead of George Bush isn't going to advance any element of the conservative agenda.
What troll? Trying to pull a slick willy?
You may not have slept with that woman, but you sure as hell were advancing that leftist boilerplate.
You leftists are NOT welcome here.
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