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http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030421&s=alterman Can We Talk?, by Eric Alterman, The Nation, April 3, 2003 "This war has put Jews in the showcase as never before. Its primary intellectual architects--Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith --are all Jewish neoconservatives. So, too, are many of its prominent media cheerleaders, including William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and Marty Peretz. Joe Lieberman, the nation's most conspicuous Jewish politician, has been an avid booster, going so far as to rebuke his former partner Al Gore and much of his own party. Then there's the 'Jews control the media' problem. It's probably not particularly relevant that the families who own the Times and the Washington Post are Jewish, but let's not pretend this is so in the case of the Jewish editors of, say, U.S. News & World Report and The New Republic. Mortimer Zuckerman is head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and Peretz is unofficial chair of the American Arab Defamation Committee. Neither is shy about filling his magazine with news Jews can use. To make matters worse, many of these Jewish hard-liners--'Likudniks' in the current parlance--appear, at least from a distance, to be behaving in accordance with traditional anti-Jewish stereotypes. Much to the delight of genuine anti-Semites of the left and right, the idea of a new war to remove Saddam was partially conceived at the behest of Likud politician Benjamin Netanyahu in a document written expressly for him by Perle, Feith and others in 1996. Some, like Perle, apparently see the influence they wield as an opportunity to get rich. What's more, many of these same Jews joined Rumsfeld and Cheney in underselling the difficulty of the war, in what may have been a ruse designed to embroil America in a broad military conflagration that would help smite Israel's enemies ... A really good conspiracy theorist would begin to wonder if the Jews are being set up to take the fall when things go badly. A big part of the problem in addressing the 'Jewish war' conspiracy thesis is the reticence of almost all sides to broach the issue of Israeli and American Jewish influence on US foreign policy. A few writers, most notably Stanley Hoffmann, Robert Kaiser and Mickey Kaus, have raised the question gingerly. But writing on the Washington Post op-ed page, New Republic editor Lawrence Kaplan insists that even raising 'the specter of dual loyalty' is 'toxic.' Kaus noted accurately in Slate that the dual loyalty taboo is 'quite openly designed to stop people from raising the Likudnik issue.' And it works. This is all very confusing to your nice Jewish columnist. My own dual loyalties--there, I admitted it--were drilled into me by my parents, my grandparents, my Hebrew school teachers and my rabbis, not to mention Israeli teen-tour leaders and AIPAC college representatives. It was just about the only thing they all agreed upon. Yet this milk- (and honey-) fed loyalty to Israel as the primary component of American Jewish identity--always taught in the context of the Holocaust--inspires a certain confusion in its adherents, namely: Whose interests come first, America's or Israel's? Leftist landsmen are certain that an end to the occupation and a peaceful and prosperous Palestinian state are the best ways to secure both Israeli security and American interests. Likudniks think it's best for both Israel and the United States to beat the crap out of as many Arabs as possible, as 'force is the only thing these people understand.' But we ought to be honest enough to at least imagine a hypothetical clash between American and Israeli interests. Here, I feel pretty lonely admitting that, every once in a while, I'm going to go with what's best for Israel. As I was lectured over and over while growing up, America can make a million mistakes and nobody is going to take away our country and murder us. Israel is nowhere near as vulnerable as many would have us believe, but it remains a tiny Jewish island surrounded by a sea of largely hostile Arabs ... Our inability to engage the question only forces the discussion into subterranean and sometimes anti-Semitic territory. If the Likudniks played an unsavory role in fomenting this war (and future wars), and further discussion will help illuminate this unhappy fact, then I say, 'Let there be light.' If something is 'toxic' merely to talk about, the problem is probably not in the talking, but in the doing."

Alex, So near and yet so far - this excerpted from justin's latest: "...the forces represented by the neocons, far from being powerless minorities, are practically all-powerful, dominating not only the institutions of government but also our evil decadent capitalist society at large." http://www.antiwar.com/justin/justincol.html

Beware the Neocons By David Harsanyi FrontPageMagazine.com | August 13, 2002 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=2332 As war with Iraq becomes an inescapable reality, a "peace-loving" contingent of pundits have momentarily transferred their assault from the phantom Religious Right to a new, more sinister group, calling themselves neoconservatives. Joseph Sobran has described neocons as "former liberals, mostly pro-Israel and anti-Communist Jewish intellectuals." Irving Kristol, the "godfather" of neoconservatism, more appropriately described one as "a liberal who has been mugged by reality." But these days, it seems that even temperate support for military action against dictators and terrorists qualifies you a neocon. "What I fear is the neoconservatives," Matthews told an audience at Brown University. "They want to fight the North Koreans again. Iran. Iraq. Syria. Libya." Before long, "they’ll go after China." Matthews, who forgot to mention Saudi Arabia, Sudan and France, exposes what sounds like a Jewish conspiracy, facilitated by Republican oilmen. Matthews, by the way, is not shy about outing the main culprits: Bill Kristol (Weekly Standard), Robert Kagan (Washington Post), "neo-conservative" Frank Gaffney Jr., William Safire (New York Times), David Frum, (a "neo-conservative Canadian"), Joseph Shattan ("a like-minded ideologue"), Paul Wolfowitz ("leads the neo-conservative forces at the Pentagon") and Richard Perle ("neo-conservative high priest") are the main culprits in the scheme. Progressive pundit Joshua Micah Marshall furthers the neocon conspiracy theory. Marshall, whose remarkable ability to sinuously avoid facts while clearing up why the right’s successful track record in foreign policy has more to do with luck than intelligence, wrote an informative article in the June issue of Washington Monthly called "Bomb Saddam? How the obsession of a few neocon hawks became the central goal of U.S. foreign policy." A FOX News national poll conducted in May, when we assume Marshall was writing his piece, showed that over 70 percent of Americans supported U.S. military action to remove Saddam Hussein. Did a mere handful of neocon hawks — a redundant phrase, no doubt — organized by Richard Perle persuade mainstream America, as well as the administration, that Hussein’s regime poses a threat to the Middle East, to the world and thus, to us? The neocon-obsessed Marshall... ...Marshall points out, in case you missed it or cared, that Perle is "Jewish, passionately pro-Israel and pro-Likud." The importance of those traits can be easily deduced. Also chiming in, early and often, about the neoconservative threat was Lenora Fulani’s former co-conspirator Patrick Buchanan. The crabby isolationist also blames neocons and Jews: "The war (Benjamin) Netanyahu and the neocons want, with the United States and Israel fighting all of the radical Islamic states, is the war bin Laden wants, the war his murderers hoped to ignite when they sent those airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon." In another column, Buchanan repeats these attacks almost verbatim, inserting Israel’s latest prime minister for Netanyahu, writing that Bush is a slave to "(Ariel) Sharon and the neoconservative War Party." Recently, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a news conference that Iraq had "a relationship" with Al Qaeda, and Americans have no reason to doubt him. Hussein’s actions have proven that if not stopped, he will use chemical, biological and nuclear warfare to push the Middle East into a ghastly war. A majority of Americans believe action is a must against Hussein, not because they’ve been tricked by crafty necons, but because they have a lot more common sense than the elitist pundits give them credit for.

March 19, 2003 9:30 a.m.
Unpatriotic Conservatives
A war against America.
by David Frum
EDITOR'S NOTE: This piece appears in the April 7, 2003, issue of National Review
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum031903.asp

They aspire to reinvent conservative ideology: to junk the 50-year-old conservative commitment to defend American interests and values throughout the world --"Past 50 years." Why does that seem to be the benchmark of when things started going right in this country? oh yeah, cuz that's when jews fabricated their big lie and really sunk their teeth into america. 50 years ago marks when things started going to shit, frum. even if you wanna champion nigs and fags, the fact is it got worse for whites of all ethnies -- the original americans. what fucking kikological principle is supposed to make the supposed strides of apes and ass pirates -- the crime, disease and death rates suggests they actually moved in reverse -- compensate for the unreciprocated loss suffered by whites? the benefit of "diversity"? fuck you, you lying kike. more of the same, more foisting your cowardly, name-changing, crypsis-hiding racial agenda on us and ours. how about this, fucker: publish another word pushing that shit and i shoot you in the face? that simple. sure, i'm full of shit. or not. go ahead, bitch. tempt me. my tank is on empty. how's it feel to be a word away from being iced like Berg? You may know the names of these antiwar conservatives. Some are famous: Patrick Buchanan and Robert Novak. Others are not: Llewellyn Rockwell, Samuel Francis, Thomas Fleming, Scott McConnell, Justin Raimondo, Joe Sobran, Charley Reese, Jude Wanniski, Eric Margolis, and Taki Theodoracopulos. Excuse-making: On September 30, 2002, Pat Buchanan offered this explanation of 9/11 during a debate on Chris Matthews's Hardball: "9/11 was a direct consequence of the United States meddling in an area of the world where we do not belong and where we are not wanted. We were attacked because we were on Saudi sacred soil and we are so-called repressing the Iraqis and we're supporting Israel and all the rest of it." Conspiracy-theorizing: Justin Raimondo, an Internet journalist who delivered Pat Buchanan's nominating speech at the Reform party convention in 2000, alleged in December 2001 that Israel was implicated in the terror attacks of 9/11: "Whether Israeli intelligence was watching, overseeing, collaborating with or combating the bin Ladenites is an open question. . . . That the Israelis had some significant foreknowledge and involvement in the events preceding 9/11 seems beyond dispute." Raimondo has also repeatedly dropped broad hints that he believes the October 2001 anthrax attacks were the work of an American Jewish scientist bent on stampeding the U.S. into war. Samuel Francis as a columnist and collaborator, and Francis was a man nobody could accuse of inconsistency. Francis advocated a politics of uninhibited racial nationalism — a politics devoted to the protection of the interests of what he called the "Euro-American cultural core" of the American nation. He argued that the time had come for conservatives to jettison their old commitment to limited government: A "nationalist ethic," he wrote in 1991, "may often require government action." Three weeks after the invasion, Pat Buchanan declared his opposition to war in one of his regular appearances on The McLaughlin Group: "There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the Middle East — the Israeli defense ministry and its amen corner in the United States." It would be hard to come up with a more improbable idea than that of George H. W. Bush of Kennebunkport as warmaking servant of the interests of International Jewry. Yet over the next six months, Buchanan and the Chronicles writers would repeatedly argue that America was being dragged to war in the Gulf by a neoconservative coterie indifferent to true American interests: the "neoconservatives," as Buchanan said, "the ex-liberals, socialists, and Trotskyists who signed on in the name of anti-Communism and now control our foundations and set the limits of permissible dissent." Raimondo has also repeatedly dropped broad hints that he believes the October 2001 anthrax attacks were the work of an American Jewish scientist bent on stampeding the U.S. into war. Yet the job had to be done — and thanks to a lucky accident, there was a place to do it. In the 1970s, Leopold Tyrmand, an émigré Polish Jew who had survived the death camps, scraped together some money to found a magazine he hoped would serve as a conservative alternative to The New York Review of Books. He called it Chronicles of Culture, and based it (for Tyrmand was not a man to do things in the obvious way) in the rusting industrial city of Rockford, Ill. Tyrmand died suddenly in 1985. His successor, Thomas Fleming, shortened the magazine's name to Chronicles and redirected its attention from cultural critique to ideological war. Fleming was in at least one way a poor choice for the role of paleoconservative ideologist

I CONFESS
By JOHN PODHORETZ
April 18, 2003 -- OK, I'll admit it. I'm part of a vast conspiracy to control American foreign policy.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/56655.htm

Anti-Semites Use "Neo-Con" Code Word
by Rush Limbaugh
April 22, 2003
http://rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_042203/content/across_the_fruited_plain.guest.html

Jewish Conservatives Did NOT Push U.S. into War

The Neoconservative-Conspiracy Theory: Pure Myth
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v49/i34/34b01401.htm
By ROBERT J. LIEBER

Pat Buchanan's Iraq Conspiracy
The pundit says a small cabal of Jews launched Gulf War II
http://www.time.com/time/columnist/jaroff/article/0,9565,444259,00.html

CONTRA / Other Articles

Sam Francis
Neocons vs the real mccoy
http://www.vdare.com/francis/neovsreal.htm

Rush Limbaugh: The Father of Lies
by: Palestine Chronicle
http://palestinechronicle.com
4/26/2003
http://www.republicons.org/view_article.asp?RP_ARTICLE_ID=931
by Mark Glenn
I taught history for about 5 years in several schools across the country. One of the things I covered in my lectures was the importance, during war time, of utilizing propaganda in such a way as not only to garner as much popular support as possible for whatever cause was being pushed, but as well the use of disinformation in weakening the enemy’s position. Of course, the most useful way of injecting disinformation was to use a reliable source, someone that the enemy would believe, as the vehicle.

KMac
http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/derbyshire.htm

The Neoconservative-Conspiracy Theory: Pure Myth
By ROBERT J. LIEBER
May 2, 2003

http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i34/34b01401.htm

Stephen J. Sniegoski -- THE NEOCONSERVATIVE SMOKE SCREEN http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_smoke.htm The idea that the invasion of Iraq is aimed at aiding Israel and that the driving force consists of Likudnik neocons has started to penetrate the public consciousness, so neoconservatives have brought out heavy defensive artillery to silence all such talk by blasting it with the lethal charge of anti-Semitism. To lend their defense greater credibility, neocon defenders have gleefully seized on the broad-brush charge of Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) that Jews were bringing about the war. But to transmute the argument that neocon Likudniks are the driving force of war into "the Jews are leading the United States into war" requires considerable sleight of hand. The defenders imply that in blaming neocons, the anti-war critics are using "neoconservative" as a code word for Jews. [2][1] Since people of various political outlooks and national origins -- including such disparate figures as Chris Matthews, Georgie Anne Geyer, Robert Novak, Michael Kinsley, Robert Fisk, Eric Margolis, Scott McConnell, Jude Wanniski, Jim Lobe, Kathleen and Bill Christison, Joshua Micah Marshall, Dana Milbank, Justin Raimondo, [smoke_qt01.gif] Michael Lerner, Patrick Buchanan, and Robert Novak -- have identified the pro-Likudnik neoconservatives as a leading force for the war, the neocon defenders are implying an anti-Semitic plot far vaster than Hillary Clinton's vast right-wing conspiracy, which after all was limited to only one end of the conventional political spectrum. [3][2] But the fact is that in attacking the alleged claim that "the Jews" are behind the war, the neocon defenders are lambasting a claim that is simply not being made by the critics of the neoconservatives. The defenders, in short, are flailing at a straw demon of their own making. Paul Gottfried, who is the preeminent historian of neoconservatism (and who happens to be Jewish), points out: No one who is sane is claiming that all Jews are collaborating with Richard Perle and Bill Kristol. What is being correctly observed is a convergence of interests in which neoconservatives have played a pivotal role. At this point they control almost all Beltway "conservative" think tanks, the "conservative" TV channel, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and several major presses, together with just about every magazine that claims to be conservative. [4][3] Neocon Denial Beyond leveling the charge of anti-Semitism, defenders offer a number of distinct arguments to counter the contention that neocons were in the forefront of the move toward war. The defense begins with a semantic argument that there is no such thing as a neoconservative -- that the people the critics brand as neoconservatives are simply conservatives and that they simply hold conventional conservative positions. [5][4] However, that neoconservatism actually exists is illustrated by a considerable literature, which the current defenders make no effort to refute. [6][5] There is a (rather nasty) germ of truth in what the Neocon Deniers say. Knowledgeable observers know that the conservative movement was taken over by neoconservatives. As Gottfried puts it: "The neocons absorbed the Right." ("Goldberg Is Not the Worst") Thus, the conservatism of today hardly resembles conservatism as it existed prior to the neoconservative takeover. That is especially so in the realm of foreign policy. But today's conservatism does resemble the interventionist pro-Israeli foreign-policy views of the self-confessed neoconservatives in the 1970s. [smoke_qt02.gif] In contrast to the global interventionism of current so-called conservatives, traditional conservatives tended to be noninterventionist, though believing that the United States had to stop what they saw as the Global Communist Conspiracy. Conservatives today have taken on the idea of forcibly establishing democracy around the world -- an extremely radical agenda that is the polar opposite of conservatism. The notion of exporting democracy has always been anathema to traditional conservatives, even during the Cold War. In part, that opposition reflects the Burkean idea that societies are organic entities that cannot be radically improved by social engineering. It is incongruous that conservatives who were skeptical of schemes to remake American society should have come to believe that it is possible to remake the society of Iraq. Naturally, conservatives of a libertarian or limited-government mindset do not believe that governments have the right to remake societies in the United States, Iraq, or anywhere else. What conservatism is today is different from what conservatism used to be but is very similar to what neoconservatism was in the 1970s, when everyone, neocons and their critics alike, agreed that there was such a thing as neoconservatism and that it was distinct from mainstream conservatism. [7][6] Don't all God's children support Israel? Neocon Max Boot begins his article, "What the Heck is a 'Neocon'?", by questioning the validity of the term "neoconservative" but then makes a 180-degree turn, using the term and even acknowledging that neoconservatives are pro-Israel. However, Boot argues that "support for Israel -- a key tenet of neoconservatism -- is hardly confined to Jews; its strongest constituency in America happens to be among evangelical Christians." That some other people besides neocons support Israel is, of course, irrelevant. The relevant factor is the necons' special influence. Over and above their significant role in media and the culture in general, some of them serve in key foreign-policy advisory positions in the Bush administration. Boot even acknowledges that the national security strategy of the Bush administration "sounds as if it could have come straight from the pages of Commentary magazine, the neocon bible." Now, one might be forgiven for deducing that the neocon national-security bigwigs in the Bush regime must have had something to do with formulating its national-security strategy, which Boot, in fact, describes as neoconservative. Jonah Goldberg, one of National Review's many neocons, also acknowledges the pro-Israel positions of the neoconservatives but pooh-poohs their significance. "I don't dispute that Jewish-American conservatives might see the world a bit differently than (sic), say, Irish-American ones," Goldberg opines. "Buchanan & co. giggle with excitement over their brave declaration that Jewish conservatives are pro-Israel. Well, who could deny such a thing?" [8][7] Goldberg's position on neocon support for Israel can be boiled down to, "It's true, but so what?" It is questionable whether Goldberg would draw the same conclusion if the influential individuals were Arab-Americans connected with Saudi Arabia. After acknowledging the fact of the neocon identification with Israel, however, Goldberg brings out the anti-Semitic straw demon: "But they [the anti-war critics] don't say Jewish conservatives are in favor of war, they say 'the Jews' are in favor of war. They loudly invoke the hook-nosed roll call of Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, and -- before he joined National Review -- David Frum." The sincerity plea Once it is acknowledged that Jewish neoconservatives identify with Israeli interests, the defense shifts to the contention that neocons sincerely believe they are acting on behalf of American interests, and that only anti-Semitism could make anyone think otherwise. Goldberg writes: "But maybe instead of Richard Perle secretly receiving orders from Ariel Sharon, he might actually believe what he says. After all, if the 'Dark Prince' thinks it's in America's interest to risk American blood and treasure in defense of our Taiwanese or South Korean allies, is it so treasonous that he might think we should do it for our Israeli ones as well?" [smoke_qt03.gif] Since we cannot really probe individual minds, we may grant that neoconservatives genuinely believe that their Middle East interventionist policies will help America -- that eliminating all of Israel's enemies and making Israel supreme in the Middle East will actually aid the United States. While it is all conceivably true, it is not really relevant. Undoubtedly, the German and Irish anti-interventionists of 1917 believed that a policy of nonintervention would benefit the United States; undoubtedly many members of the German American Bund really believed that support for Nazi Germany would aid the United States. But the evident sincerity of such people does not prevent historians from concluding that their views were colored by their ethnic backgrounds and their identification with foreign countries. Just as undoubtedly, those Cuban-Americans who want to see the embargo of Cuba continued until the fall of Castroism believe that such a policy will help the United States -- but at the same time it is commonplace to attribute their views to their Cuban ethnicity. And when, in 1952, GM president Charles E. Wilson uttered the immortal line: "What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and what's good for General Motors is good for the country," sophisticated folk managed to deduce that his view was probably affected by his corporate position. (Wilson became secretary of defense under Eisenhower, so apparently dual loyalties are not too uncommon in that post.) In an analogy to the Wilson case, some leading neocons associated with the Bush administration, namely Perle, David Wurmser, and Douglas Feith, not only have been longtime supporters of Israel and advocates of a war against Iraq but have even pushed the war policy as advisors to Benjamin Netanyahu. In short, just as Wilson was an employee of General Motors, Perle, Wurmser, and Feith were employees of the Israeli Likud. It is apparent that their identification with Likud policies goes far beyond the mere desire for monetary benefits -- though Richard Perle, for one, is not averse to war profiteering. [9][8] For neocon-defender Tony Blankley, who is 100 percent gentile, the don't-question-motives standard apparently applies exclusively to Jews: "And there is one other tradition being overturned: the inadmissibility in polite company of questioning the patriotism of Jews. This last tradition, born as the world saw the unspeakable business of the gas chambers and ovens of Auschwitz and Dachau, has for a half a century kept at bay the ancient, always-lurking wolf of anti-Semitism." [10][9] To Blankley the possible return of the gas chambers is a far graver danger than the impending holocaust in the Middle East. [Editor's note. Blankley can relax about the world's ever again seeing the unspeakable business of the gas chambers at Dachau, since even Establishment historians tell us that no extermination gas chamber ever operated at that camp. -- NS] One wonders how Blankley accounts for Jewish commentators who publicly identify the neoconservative influence on American Iraq policy, including such figures as Robert Novak, Paul Gottfried, Jim Lobe, Stanley Heller, Michael Kinsley, Joshua Micah Marshall, and Michael Lerner. In fact, Rabbi Lerner, editor of the liberal Jewish publication Tikkun and guru of the Clintonistas, goes much further than most gentile commentators in branding Jews pro-war: The State of Israel seems unequivocally committed to the war, the most prominent advocates of this war inside the administration have been Jews, the major sentiment being expressed inside the Orthodox synagogues is that of support for the war, and the voices of liberals who might normally be counted on to be raising questions are in fact silent. Isn't that enough reason for most people to feel that this is a war supported by the Jewish community, though in fact it is only the "organized community" and not most Jews who support it? [11][10] Rabbi Lerner and the other Jewish writers presumably cannot be anti-Semites; but are they "self-hating Jews" preparing to plunge into some magically materializing Dachau gas chamber? The hero president and glorious Democracy Another tactic for deflecting criticism from the neocons is the claim that President Bush made the decision for war all by himself. Perle, for example, has rejected suggestions that neoconservative thinkers such as himself pushed Bush to attack Iraq, saying that the decision was "very much the product of the president's own thinking." [12][11] "The president's own thinking" is a concept that one may be tempted to call an oxymoron, but one may wish to restrain oneself out of respect for the office. Goldberg, for his part, ridicules the notion that neocon Jews interested in advancing the interests of Israel could possibly manipulate the country into war for that reason, opining: "Neocons" are supposed to have one set of motives for war, which they keep secret, but they persuade the president, the vice president, the entire Cabinet, Tom Delay, Denny Hastert (not to mention Dick Gephardt and Tony Blair), the Republican party, the conservative establishment and the majority of American citizens with an entirely separate set of arguments? I know Jews are expert manipulators, but presumably they cannot create a whole separate case of facts. And, one hopes, our leaders are persuaded by the facts as they see them, not the Jedi mind-tricks of some cosmopolitan scribblers who eat smoked fish on Sundays. ("Jews and the War") [smoke_qt04.gif] However, in explaining motives for war, historians don't look only at the reasons publicly stated by the regime and its servants. For example, historians of the First World War don't rely solely on the reasons for America's intervention that were officially advertised. They do not confine their research to a study of Woodrow Wilson's war message to Congress. Goldberg seems unaware of the vast number of historians who focus on underlying economic motives for war, often held by an influential minority but not publicly stated. Instead, he pontificates: In a democratic system, private motives matter much less than public arguments. Nobody has been saying publicly, "Let's do it for Israel!" I haven't. No one at NR or NRO has. No Republican has. So presumably, the public hasn't been persuaded by that argument because nobody has made it. "In a democratic system ..."! Since we know this utterance couldn't be the Jedi mind-trick of a cosmopolitan scribber, it must be the real thing. That is, the product of a childlike naiveté depending on a fairytale understanding of human history. No one denies that the American people have been manipulated by a mass of war propaganda that has nothing to do with Israel. In fact, Americans hold beliefs more extreme than the official propaganda. According to a February 2003 Pew poll, two-thirds of those who support the war believe that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 terrorism. And, according to a recent Knight-Ridder poll, only 17 percent of Americans are aware that not one Iraqi was involved in 9/11. [13][12] Historians often point out that the public's reasons for supporting a war and their rulers' actual reasons for waging a war are very different. In fact, hard as it may be for some to believe, governments (including even Our Democratic Government) actually promote and disseminate false information to gear their populations up for war. We need not go all the way back to the "Belgian babies on bayonets" legend of 1914. It is sufficient to recall the so-called Gulf of Tonkin incident of 1965 or the alleged (but counterfactual) Iraqi incubator-baby murders of 1990. Unpersuasive and untrue The fact of the matter is that the publicly stated reasons for the attack on Iraq are not intellectually persuasive to anybody with an understanding of foreign policy and the situation in the Middle East; and their factual bases are largely just not true. For example, the Bush administration has claimed that Iraq was tied to the 9/11 atrocities and al Qaeda but has provided no evidence for that allegation. The administration has claimed that Iraq has been developing nuclear weapons but has offered no evidence for that, either. In reality, Iraq does not have the capability to hurt the United States. She does not have nuclear weapons. She does not have a long-range delivery system. Whether Saddam would attack the United States if he had the capability -- a possibility sometimes raised by war supporters -- is a question that cannot be answered. However, if that were really the standard, the United States would launch attacks on a dozen or more countries. [smoke_qt05.gif] The proposition that the purpose of the war is to liberate the Iraqi people and bring them the blessings of democracy would be too ridiculous for a reply, if cool reason were the only guide in public debate. It isn't, so I must point out that a mandate to export democracy by force is yet another awfully demanding standard, under which the United States would need to attack about 100 countries. Moreover, a truly democratic Middle East, if such a thing were possible, would be more anti-American and anti-Israeli than the existing collection of authoritarian states, and that would hardly be a result desired by American policymakers. [14][13] We should understand, too, that Iraq's neighbors, which should be the most fearful of Saddam if he were truly a serious threat, don't support the war. In fact the public opinion in the entire world is overwhelmingly against the war. Sam Francis points out: "It should be clear that the president and vice president are not merely in error. It should be clear that they -- and other administration officials -- are lying, telling the American people our country is in danger when in fact it is not. Why did they lie to push us into war?" [15][14] Since the publicly disseminated reasons for war do not stand up to even a cursory scrutiny -- which is not to say that George W. Bush would be capable of such a level of analysis -- there must be another reason (or reasons) for the administration's push to war. As compared to swallowing the official pabulum, it is far more rational to understand the war as one that is being waged on behalf of Israeli interests. The long-term Likudnik goal of the destruction of Iraq and the destabilization of other Middle Eastern countries seem likely to be among its results. While their defenders vehemently deny the validity of ascribing hidden motives to the neocons (even when those motives are not very well hidden), they do not hesitate in imputing ulterior motives to the neocons' critics. Thus they infer that neoconservatism is a code word for "the Jews," though none of the critics has said that openly. Neocon David Frum, author of the phrase "Axis of Evil," finds paleocons to be exponents of hate, even hatred of the United States: "They began by hating the neoconservatives. They came to hate their party and this president. They have finished by hating their country." According to Frum, the paleoconservatives "are thinking about defeat, and wishing for it, and they will take pleasure in it if it should happen." [16][15] None of the paleocons Frum is attacking has explicitly said that, but neocons are allowed to infer it. [17][16] In contrast, war critics are not even supposed to repeat what neocons say, much less analyze it. And one certainly can't point out that the very people calling antiwar conservatives hateful traitors are neoconservatives. A driving force for war To recapitulate, considerable evidence exists that the neocons are a driving force for war. It's not just that the defenders of the neocons have failed to refute the evidence. They actually tend to concur with it, albeit in a somewhat backhanded manner. I detailed the evidence of neocon support for a war on Iraq and the Likudnik background of that program in my extended essay, [18]"The war on Iraq: Conceived in Israel." First, as I showed in that series, the initiation of a Middle East war to solve Israeli security problems is an idea of long standing among Israeli rightist Likudniks. [19][17] Next, neocons have not simply been pro-Israel but have actually echoed the positions of the Likudnik right, with [smoke_qt06.gif] Perle, Wurmser, and Feith even advising Netanyahu in 1996 to make war on Iraq. Furthermore, Likudnik-oriented neoconservatives argued for American involvement in a war on Iraq prior to the atrocities of September 11, 2001. After 9/11, neocons took the lead in advocating such a war; and they hold influential positions in the Bush administration in the area of national-security affairs. Finally, and unsurprisingly, Bush administration policy mirrors their neocon thinking. About the only thing the neocons have not done is publicly proclaim that the purpose of the war on Iraq is to benefit Israel. It is a reasonable conclusion that neoconservatives look upon Middle Eastern affairs through a Likudnik lens and that they are influential in shaping the foreign policy of the Bush administration. This analysis is far from being a "conspiracy theory" -- the evidence for it is right out in the open. Incidentally, whether the war in Iraq will actually benefit Israel is beside the point. What is important is that such a view has long been held by Likudnik thinkers. The idea that some Americans might be motivated by an attachment to a foreign country and that they could be influential in determining American foreign policy is not such an outlandish, unheard-of idea. It was a key point of George Washington's Farewell Address. [20][18] Washington warned about the dangers of "passionate attachment" to foreign countries. He held that foreign influence and "intrigue" were a very powerful force that could come to "tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils." Washington proclaimed: "Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence ... the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government." The partisans of the foreign government were apt to be so successful that "real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests." Washington hoped that his counsel would have some impact, but he did not expect that it would be honored sufficiently as to "prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations." Here, too, it would seem that our first president was quite right. April 4, 2003 © 2003 WTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.