The Right Thing (ACU's Keene slams Frum over NR article)

American Conservative Union | 3/25 | David Keene

[GOPcapitalist]

Novak may be wrong, but he's a true patriot

When a nation is at war, there's a tendency among those who support it to suspect that those who opposed it before the shooting started did so either because they were secretly biased in favor of the enemy or have somehow come to hate their own country. There is a corollary tendency among those who opposed war before it actually breaks out to rally round the troops, regardless of their real feelings about its wisdom.

These tendencies are human and rational. Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle (S.D.), for example, who was attacking President Bush's competence, judgment and motives before U.S. forces crossed the Iraqi border, was all over the place afterwards, assuring us that he supports the troops and prays for victory. Pat Buchanan, who attacked Bush and his strategists, has done the same thing, as has conservative columnist Robert Novak.

This doesn't mean that any of them feel any differently about the wisdom of the war today than they did before Bush "pulled the trigger" last week or that once the shooting stops they won't reiterate the objections they had voiced beforehand. Indeed, if they felt as strongly before the war as they all suggested, it would be dishonest to do anything else later. That does not, however, make illegitimate the position they now take.

It's perfectly true that, for self-serving reasons, some of Bush's political critics might today be overstating their enthusiasm for the mission on which our troops are embarked. But they are supporting them and that's important. They are not in the streets with protesters likening Bush to Hitler or echoing the anti-Semitism of those who actually do seem to think saving "uncle" Saddam is preferable to protecting ourselves and our friends in the region from whatever lunacy he might come up with next week or next month.

While I count myself among those who from the beginning have believed the action we are now taking is fully justified, I've never believed that men and women of good will couldn't disagree either on the threat posed by today's Iraq or the proper way to deal with it. Those who questioned the strength of the evidence that Saddam had either the weapons we suspected he had or his ability to truly threaten us with them had a point. It looks as if they were wrong, but the early public evidence could lead one to the conclusion they drew from it.

What's more, those who were concerned about the United States taking on a job that could weaken us internally and lead to a fatal over-extension abroad had and continue to have an even better point. We may be moving into Iraq seeking to disarm an enemy and, incidentally, free her people, but there are those in and out of the administration who would have us stay to appoint quasi-colonial military or civilian governors to build a new Iraq. It is thus that liberators become empire builders and should, in my opinion, be resisted by thoughtful conservatives.

The debate over whether we should have adopted the policy we are now pursuing was a legitimate one and the continuing debate about what all this will mean in the post-Saddam world is going to prove to be even more important. It is a debate that won't divide us all along neat ideological lines, but it is one that must nonetheless be joined.

And it is going to be far too important to be decided on the basis of the sort of ad hominem attacks launched against Novak this week by former White House speechwriter David Frum. Frum is among those who can't seem to accept the fact that those who disagree with him may not be in league with the devil. His vituperative attack on one of the nation's most respected conservative columnists marks the man as neither conservative nor intellectually respectable. Like many other conservatives, I happen to disagree with Novak's analysis of what's going on in the Middle East. But to suggest, as does Frum, that his disagreement with Bush's Iraq policy stems from a hatred of the president and the country is scandalously and irresponsibly absurd.

Frum seems to know little of Novak's background or history, but anyone who can read a newspaper should know that Novak was opposing this nation's enemies before Frum was even born. One can question the man's judgment and sometimes even his facts, but to suggest that Novak is no different from the crypto-fascists and Marxists organizing "peace" rallies these days says a lot more about David Frum than it does about Bob Novak.

[Wavyhill]

I don't think so, but it may be that there is enough KGB influence so that they can make a comeback as our enemy. Certainly Putin's recent actions are not comforting.

[petitfour]

I must confess that I haven't read this entire thread. Is there some history of the term paleo-conservative? The first time I heard the term enter public discourse was on Booknotes in 1994 when Forrest McDonald was on discussing his book on the American presidency. He defined the term as being an "old conservative." Maybe the term was hijacked or something, but Prof. McDonald could hardly be called a pessimistic, racist, bigot. I don't think VP Cheney would fall into that category nor would Mrs. Cheney. I also don't believe that Prof. McDonald could be called an anti-capitalist. Quite the contrary. And he's quite the wordsmith. I daresay that Mr. Frum has taken a word and defined it in a way to divide conservatives.

[Longshanks]

Everyone cannot be a soldier but armchair generals should have some restraint. We definately should not follow the insane neocon plan to launch wars on all the nations surrounding Israel.

[Longshanks]

We need to fight Islamists, Communists, Globalists, post-nationalists, the Gramsciite New Left, and trans-national progressives.

Extra points for knowing the importance of Gramsciite cultural marxism.

article I wrote... http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article2206.html.

Good article! Ken

[Wavyhill]

We had ten years of restraint. So far, the Bush administration has only attacked one enemy of Iraq. If we were fighting this war for the benefit of Israel, Syria would have been our first target. Syria occupies Lebanon and thereby hosts the Hezbollah who rain missiles down on northern Israel directly. This distraction forces Israel to pull some of their troops from the West Bank. Iraq's dealing with Israel's enemies is more second-hand than Syria's.

[Longshanks]

If we were fighting this war for the benefit of Israel, Syria would have been our first target.

Syria is definately on the neocon list of nations to attack. Iraq is considered a better starting point because of its strategic location.

[Wavyhill]

The term paleoconservative arose as the opposite of "neoconservative," which referred to former liberals and leftists who had turned right. By all rights, "paleoconservative" should have referred to the broad group of conservatives who had never been liberals, Rush Limbaugh being the most obvious example. However, the term was co-opted by a right-wing fringe centered around commentator Pat Buchanan, and these paleocons proceeded to label almost anyone who disagreed with them on racial or Israel-related issues, or who even placed their political emphasis differently.

[Wavyhill]

We've spent several months trying to get flyover rights so we could get just the right english to attack Iraq, whereas the Mediterranean Sea is considerably less picky about flyover rights. And we could base our troops in Israel. The fact is that we are attacking Iraq not because they're a threat to Israel, but because they are far more threatening to the US than is Syria. Syria is nowhere near having nukes.

[Longshanks]

The fact is that we are attacking Iraq not because they're a threat to Israel

Good. Let's come home after this war or must we fight every one of Israel's neighbors? I have nothing against Israel but let's admit that its neighbors are on the neocon hit list.

[Wavyhill]

There's no plan to attack anyone else. Not even Iran, which would make sense.

[rmlew]

"Extra points for knowing the importance of Gramsciite cultural marxism."

The Frankfurt School was relocated at Columbia in the 1930's.

I think that every conservative serious about fighting the left should read Rousseau, Marx and Engels, Gramsci, Marcuse, and Wallerstein.

[WaterDragon]

Neocons definitely are NOT for the welfare state, whether FDR's or LBJ's. That indeed is silly.

[Longshanks]

Read and weep the Michael Ledeen quotes from this Buchanan article. Perle and Wolfowitz are just as bad. (Yes, this article may be overly belligerent but hey, that's Pat.)

[Wavyhill]

Those are scart quotes if you're not acquainted with the writer, as I am, and if you take them out of context. In fact, while he indeed supports toppling a number of Arab regimes, he has made it clear that he doesn't support war to do it except in the case of Iraq--and even there, he wanted to wait a bit. In the case of Iran, he's said that he supports diplomatic support for the oppressed people there so that they will be encouraged to topple the ayatollahs. He's also stated that he believes that Arab dictators will topple in a chain reaction, like the one in Eastern Europe, once one of them has had a taste of freedom. Furthermore, even if he were supporting war with all of them, there would be a reason for it, one put forth not by him but by a number of others, not all of them Jewish: to wit, the Middle East is a cesspool of anti-American violence, and past experience usually shows that elected governments rarely fight each other. Modernize these nations and you would undoubtedly cut terrorism by well over half. I'm not yet prepared to endorse such a solution myself, but the point is that you can support taking out all of the Arab governments, even by war, for patriotic American reasons. Keep in mind, too, that if Ledeen's schemes were to pan out, the biggest benefactors would not be Jews, nor even Americans, but rather the Arab citizens of these nations. In any case, I'm sick and tired of hearing Buchanan and others more extreme than him whining about the "neocon strategy," which is so more innocuous-sounding than a "Zionist conspiracy." Enough, I'm going to bed.

[Wavyhill]

That should have been "scary quotes."

[petitfour]

Thanks for your answer. I must confess the first time I heard the term paleocon was when my dearest of friends, my spouse, described Forrest McDonald as such, as a joke on his age and as an affectionate way of saying that Forrest was conservative prior to the 60s. Forrest then repeated the term on Booknotes, and now the term is being used to separate conservatives from one another. The bottom line at the end of the day is that conservatives are for less government intrusion on the every day lives of citizens. Debating issues is no problem. Labeling folks as racists because they have been conservative longer than Reagan is not consistent with the truth. If Frum has a problem with Buchanan or other folks, then let him take them on individually.

Has Rush Limbaugh ever addressed this issue? (I used to listen to Rush every day, but now I get news straight from the internet. I only listen to Rush if I happen to be in the car during his show.)

[Wavyhill]

What you miss, though, is that the vast majority of conservatives don't label paleocons as racist. In fact, no one really cares much if they are racist--it's their own minds. To prove my point: compare the anger among many neocons, and traditional conservatives who are thrown disingenuously into the neocon camp, against Pat Buchanan, to the generally positive reaction toward Sen. Jesse Helms. Helms, like Buchanan, was labeled a racist by the Left. Nevertheless, Helms always carefully directed his personal attacks at the Left, whereas Pat Buchanan has spent the last decade and a half attempting to purge his rivals in the Republican Party because they have different emphases than he does. Furthermore, Helms was a conservative on every issue, whereas Pat has been more than willing to take liberal stands on a number of issues in order to cynically advance his wing of the Republican Party. For example, Buchanan opposed Speaker Gingrich's cuts in federal programs, simply as a means of attracting support from middle-class whites for his 1996 presidential campaign. This from a guy whose claim to fame is his supposed political courage. Nobody wants to purify the Republican Party of all un-PC thoughts, but we sure as hell want to purify it of cynical back-stabbers.

[Longshanks]

The Frankfurt School was relocated at Columbia in the 1930's.

Here is an excellent recent essay on Gramsciism from the Mindszenty Report. It mentions influential Gramsciite Herbert Marcuse coming to New York during the 30's. I suppose he must have been at Columbia then.

It also details how cultural marxists have sidestepped economic methods of fostering revolution to focus instead on undermining our cultural and religious institutions. Purely fiscal conserservatism is useless for fighting Gramsciites. Opposing them requires genuine cultural and religious conserservatism.

[rmlew]

Dr. Borst's peice is interesting. However, he was mistaken when he wrote:

Since economic Marxism was a failure, Gramsci reasoned that the only way to topple the repressive Western institutions was by, what he called, a “long march through the culture.”

Gramsci was disillusioned with Bolshevism, not Marxism. Gramsci created his ideological twist as a way to pursue Marxist Revolution. After the failure of the Spartacist Uprising in Germany, Bela Kun's government in Hungary, and over communist uprising, Gramsci saw the "Revolutionary Vanguard" leading the workers in direct revolt as a failure. The reality is taht the peasants and proletariate opposed the Communists. Gramsci saw religiona and traditional society as the cause of this hostility to communism. Religion was not merely the "opiate of the masses" but the basis for a worldview in opposition to Scientific Socialism.

I have read a number of articles on the subject of Cultural Marxism. The best of which is a simple speech given to college students by Bill Lind.
http://www.academia.org/lectures/lind1.html

If you want to see what Marcusism and Third-Worldism look like in an echo chamber, check out the anti-war rally held by professors at Columbia on Wednesday:
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/03/27/3e82ec7193097?in_archive=1

[Longshanks]

Greate article sounding the alarm. Conservatives need to develop a strategy for counter-attack.