The Weird Men Behind George W Bush's War

[LibertyorDeath]

Excellent article

Most neoconservative defence intellectuals have their roots on the left, not the right. They are products of the largely Jewish-American Trotskyist movement of the 1930s and 1940s, which morphed into anti-communist liberalism between the 1950s and 1970s and finally into a kind of militaristic and imperial right with no precedents in American culture or political history. Their admiration for the Israeli Likud party's tactics, including preventive warfare such as Israel's 1981 raid on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, is mixed with odd bursts of ideological enthusiasm for 'democracy'. They call their revolutionary ideology 'Wilsonianism' (after President Woodrow Wilson), but it is really Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution mingled with the far-right Likud strain of Zionism. Genuine American Wilsonians believe in self-determination for people such as the Palestinians.

more

http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&pubID=1189

[necso]

1. More

"Feith was given an award by the Zionist Organization of America, citing him as a 'pro-Israel activist'. While out of power in the Clinton years, Feith collaborating with Perle, co-authored for Likud a policy paper that advised the Israeli government to end the Oslo peace process, reoccupy the territories and crush Yasser Arafat's government."

The close ties (ideological and personal) of many of the administration neocons (and advisors) to far right Likud elements is a critical point. As some have asked of the Iraq war: "Is it Israel or the US that benefits?" and "What role did information coming from the Israeli government play in the decision to go to war?".

No less a person than Philip Zelikow "suggests a prime motive for the invasion just over one year ago was to eliminate a threat to Israel, a staunch U.S. ally in the Middle East". "Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 -- it's the threat against Israel," Zelikow told a crowd at the University of Virginia on Sep. 10, 2002, speaking on a panel of foreign policy experts assessing the impact of 9/11 and the future of the war on the al-Qaeda terrorist organization.

What the hell, there is something seriously wrong when a decision for war is made on this basis (even partly). Our long term relationship with Israel not withstanding this bears much more public examination.

[iangb]

4. "A Clean Break"

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/archive/1990s/instituteforadvancedstrategicandpoliticalstudies.htm

<snip>In recent years, Israel invited active U.S. intervention in Israel’s domestic and foreign policy for two reasons: to overcome domestic opposition to "land for peace" concessions the Israeli public could not digest, and to lure Arabs — through money, forgiveness of past sins, and access to U.S. weapons — to negotiate. This strategy, which required funneling American money to repressive and aggressive regimes, was risky, expensive, and very costly for both the U.S. and Israel, and placed the United States in roles is should neither have nor want.

Israel can make a clean break from the past and establish a new vision for the U.S.-Israeli partnership based on self-reliance, maturity and mutuality — not one focused narrowly on territorial disputes. Israel’s new strategy — based on a shared philosophy of peace through strength — reflects continuity with Western values by stressing that Israel is self-reliant, does not need U.S. troops in any capacity to defend it, including on the Golan Heights, and can manage its own affairs. Such self-reliance will grant Israel greater freedom of action and remove a significant lever of pressure used against it in the past.

more at link

[iangb]

6. ....And of Course, Missile Defence.

From "A Clean Break":

<snip>Israel can under these conditions better cooperate with the U.S. to counter real threats to the region and the West’s security. Mr. Netanyahu can highlight his desire to cooperate more closely with the United States on anti-missile defense in order to remove the threat of blackmail which even a weak and distant army can pose to either state. Not only would such cooperation on missile defense counter a tangible physical threat to Israel’s survival, but it would broaden Israel’s base of support among many in the United States Congress who may know little about Israel, but care very much about missile defense. Such broad support could be helpful in the effort to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem......

[enough]

2. Definitely worth the read -- interesting perspective -- thanks

first paragraphs:

America's allies and enemies alike are baffled. What is going on in the United States? Who is making foreign policy? And what are they trying to achieve? Quasi-Marxist explanations involving big oil or American capitalism are mistaken. Yes, American oil companies and contractors will accept the spoils of the kill in Iraq. But the oil business, with its Arabist bias, did not push for this war any more than it supports the Bush administration's close alliance with Ariel Sharon. Further, President Bush and Vice-President Cheney are not genuine 'Texas oil men' but career politicians who, in between stints in public life, would have used their connections to enrich themselves as figureheads in the wheat business, if they had been residents of Kansas, or in tech companies, had they been Californians.

Equally wrong is the theory that American and European civilisation are evolving in opposite directions. The thesis of Robert Kagan, the neoconservative propagandist, that Americans are martial and Europeans pacifist, is complete nonsense. A majority of Americans voted for either Al Gore or Ralph Nader in 2000. Were it not for the over-representation of sparsely populated, right-wing states in both the presidential electoral college and the Senate, the White House and the Senate today would be controlled by Democrats, whose views and values, on everything from war to the welfare state, are very close to those of western Europeans. Both the economic-determinist theory and the clash-of-cultures theory are reassuring: they assume that the recent revolution in US foreign policy is the result of obscure but understandable forces in an orderly world. The truth is more alarming. As a result of several bizarre and unforeseeable contingencies - such as the selection rather than election of George W Bush, and 11 September - the foreign policy of the world's only global power is being made by a small clique that is unrepresentative of either the US population or the mainstream foreign policy establishment.

much more>

By the way, this agrees with Kevin Phillip's analysis (In American Dynasty) of the Bush family's multi-generational "oil" business. He demonstrtates that they were not oil men in the usual sense, that they used "oil" as a framework for financial deals that really had little to do with the actual industry.

[LibertyorDeath]

3. I'll kick myself this is to good not to

Kick

[Cleita]

5. Another kick.

Too much to digest to comment on right now.

[The White Rose]

7. I'm in the middle of their new book

"The Real State of the Union". Very interesting ideas indeed.

[BiggJawn]

8. I'm flabergasted...

And a kick.
OK, so how does this "far-right strain of Zionism" mesh with Dumbya, Ashcrap, and the rest of this admin's "Dominionists", other than their common enemy?

[iangb]

10. The WH and Pentagon......

.....are littered with adherents. Perle, Wolfowitz, Frieth et al have worked with Cheney and Rumsfeld for decades......and they seem to be 'of one mind' when it comes to ME policies.

To her credit even Rice is reputed to have gotten more than a bit snippy with their influence on US foreign policy.

The Administration is convinced that backing the Likud Governments agenda will advance US interests in the region.

[BiggJawn]

12. Ok, but yet...

So we have the PNACers doing their darndest to advance Eretz Israel and wipe the Palestinian from the face of the Earth. And likud wants us to help them (as always).

So Likud realizes their goal, and Israel is "For Hebrews ONLY"
What's gonna happen when Ashcroft and his bunch (the Dominionists) start saying "Well, that's great and everything, but...We gotta come in and take Israel for Jesus. Will you give up quietly, or are we gonna box?"

That's what I don't understand very well. A "Zionist" agenda and this "Dominionist" agenda, they appear to be extremely strange bed partners. The Likud-niks want to see a pure Hebrew Israel, and the Dominionists hold that once they "take the world for Jesus", that he will return (and the first thing he'd say is "NO, no, no,NO! OY! You just didn't GET it, DID you!")
so I see that as setting up an eventual war between "good friends".

Or are there TWO seperate camps, each with their own agenda? Sounds like an eventual formula for lots of in-fighting.

[FDRrocks]

9. Russian history buffs help!

:)

I'm very interested in the history of the Bolshevik revolution, but am unfamiliar with the terms of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. From what I know of the man (read a great lenin biography that talked of him quite a bit, and read parts of "My Life" on marxists.org), I would guess it is his take on how to bring about the great worldwide communist revolution that would end in the dissolving of the state and the rebirth of humanity. As opposed to Stalins take on it, which (not being what you would call an expert) I would probably call permanent war. But that's all speculation.

And if a Russian history buff does hit this up... do you think the great communist experiment would have turned out any better had Trotsky been Lenin's succesor, as he wished?

Anyhow I can see the obvious glare of neo-liberalism (which seems fundamentally related to the laissez-faire strain of libertarianism) in the neoconservatives.

[LibertyorDeath]

11. Kick for the truth...