The American Century: Neoconservatism

[Armenian]

Re: The American Century: Neoconservatism

Neocons Turn Up Heat for Iran Attack



by Jim Lobe

Led by a familiar clutch of neoconservative hawks, major right-wing publications are calling on the administration of President George W. Bush to urgently plan for military strikes – and possibly a wider war – against Iran in the wake of its announcement this week that it has successfully enriched uranium to a purity necessary to fuel nuclear reactors. In a veritable blitz of editorials and opinion pieces published Wednesday and Thursday, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, and National Review warned that Tehran had passed a significant benchmark in what they declared was its quest for nuclear weapons and that the administration must now plan in earnest to destroy Iran's known nuclear facilities, as well as possible military targets to prevent it from retaliating. Comparing Iran's alleged push to gain a nuclear weapon to Adolf Hitler's 1936 march on the Rhineland, Weekly Standard editor William Kristol called for undertaking "serious preparation for possible military action – including real and urgent operational planning for bombing strikes and for the consequences of such strikes."

"[A] great nation has to be serious about its responsibilities," according to Kristol, a leading neoconservative champion of the Iraq war and co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, "even if executing other responsibilities has been more difficult than one would have hoped." National Review, another prominent right-wing weekly, echoed the call. "Any air campaign should … be coupled with aggressive and persistent efforts to topple the regime from within," advised its lead editorial, entitled "Iran, Now," and almost certainly written by Michael Ledeen of the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI). "Accordingly, it should hit not just the nuclear facilities, but also the symbols of state oppression: the intelligence ministry, the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guard, the guard towers of the notorious Evin Prison."

The hawks' latest campaign appeared timed not only to exploit the alarm created by Iran's nuclear achievement and by a spate of reports last weekend regarding the advanced state of U.S. war plans, but also to counter new appeals by a number of prominent and more mainstream former policymakers for Washington to engage Iran in direct negotiations. The Financial Times Wednesday published a column by Richard Haass, president of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations and a top adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell during Bush's first term, in which he called for Washington to make "a fair and generous diplomatic offer" to Iran that would permit it to retain a small uranium enrichment program, if for no other reason than to rally international opinion behind the U.S. in the event rejects it.

Arguing that the "likely costs of carrying out such an attack substantially outweigh probable benefits," Haass noted that "the most dangerous delusion [among those who support military action] is that a conflict would be either small or quick." On Thursday, he was joined by Powell's deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, who, in an interview with the Financial Times, also called for direct talks. "It merits talking to the Iranians about the full range of our relationship … everything from energy to terrorism to weapons to Iraq," said Armitage, who is considered a strong candidate to take over the Pentagon if Donald Rumsfeld resigns or is forced out.

"We can be diplomatically astute enough to do it without giving anything away," he added, noting that Washington could be patient "for a while" given the estimated five to 10 years the U.S. intelligence community believes it will take before Tehran can obtain a nuclear weapon. Such statements are anathema to the hawks, who have long depicted any move to engage Iran as equivalent to the appeasement policies toward Hitler of France and Britain in the run-up to World War II. "Is the America of 2006 more willing to thwart the unacceptable than the France of 1936?" asked the title of Kristol's editorial, which, despite the reports of advanced Pentagon planning that included even the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons against hardened Iranian targets, asserted that the administration's policy had been "all carrots and no sticks."

His view echoed that of the neoconservative editorial writers at the Wall Street Journal, who said the administration's "alleged war fever is hard to credit, given that for three years the Bush Administration has deferred to Europe in pursuing a diplomatic track on Iran." The Journal said the government must give priority to developing "bunker buster" nuclear bombs. While Kristol insisted that the "credible threat of force" should initially be used in support of diplomacy with Washington's European allies, he also called for "stepping up intelligence activities, covert operations, special operations, and the like," as well as "operational planning for possible military strikes." What he had in mind was laid out in a companion article by ret. Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a member of the ultra-hawkish Iran Policy Committee (IPC), entitled "Target: Iran."

If Iran resists diplomatic pressure, according to McInerney, Washington should be prepared to carry out a "powerful air campaign" led by 60 stealth aircraft, and more than 400 non-stealth strike aircraft with roughly 150 refueling tankers and other support aircraft, 100 unmanned aerial vehicles, and 500 cruise missiles to take out some 1,500 nuclear-related and military targets. Before or during such an attack, he wrote, "a major covert operation could be launched, utilizing Iranian exiles and dissident forces trained during the period of diplomacy." The IPC has long advocated support for the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK), an Iraq-based paramilitary group listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department.

In yet another op-ed published in Thursday's Washington Post, Mark Helprin, a novelist and Israeli military veteran, called for anticipating the possibility that U.S. forces in Iraq and its broader interests in the region could be imperiled by Iranian retaliation and popular outrage in the Arab Middle East. To prepare for such an eventuality, "we would do well to strengthen – in numbers and mass as well as quality – the means with which we fight, to reinforce the fleet train with which to supply fighting lines, and to plan for a land route from the Mediterranean across Israel and Jordan to the Tigris and Euphrates."

Such concerns, counseled Reuel Marc Gerecht, a Gulf specialist at AEI, are overblown. In a lengthy analysis of the possible costs of a military attack that was also published in the Standard, he argued that Washington should "not be intimidated by threats of terrorism, oil-price spikes, or hostile world opinion."

"What we are dealing with is a politer, more refined, more cautious, vastly more mendacious version of bin Ladenism," according to the article, entitled "To Bomb, or Not to Bomb: That Is the Iran Question." "It is best that such men not have nukes, and that we do everything in our power, including preventive military strikes, to stop this from happening."

Source: http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=8852

US considers use of nuclear weapons against Iran

The administration of President George W. Bush is planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a key Iranian suspected nuclear weapons facility, The New Yorker magazine has reported in its April 17 issue. The article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said that Bush and others in the White House have come to view Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a potential Adolf Hitler. "That's the name they're using," the report quoted a former senior intelligence official as saying.

A senior unnamed Pentagon adviser is quoted in the article as saying that "this White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war." The former intelligence officials depicts planning as "enormous," "hectic" and "operational," Hersh writes. One former defense official said the military planning was premised on a belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government," The New Yorker pointed out.

In recent weeks, the president has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of the House of Representatives, including at least one Democrat, the report said. One of the options under consideration involves the possible use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, to insure the destruction of Iran's main centrifuge plant at Natanz, Hersh writes. But the former senior intelligence official said the attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the military, and some officers have talked about resigning after an attempt to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans in Iran failed, according to the report.

"There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries," the magazine quotes the Pentagon adviser as saying. The adviser warned that bombing Iran could provoke "a chain reaction" of attacks on American facilities and citizens throughout the world and might also reignite Hezbollah. "If we go, the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle," the adviser is quoted as telling The New Yorker.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060408...E0BHNlYwN0bWE-

[Armenian]

Re: The American Century: Neoconservatism

Joe Lieberman's War

Pillory the American official who deigns to be so brazen as to state that it might be necessary to attack a country that is complicit in killing American soldiers and our allies. That appeared to be the response of many to Senator Lieberman raising the possibility of an attack on Iran Sunday on "Face the Nation."

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Mr. Lieberman said. "That would include a strike…over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers." Mr. Lieberman, notably, introduced only the possibility of limited military action, saying "I want to make clear I'm not talking about a massive ground invasion of Iran."

Mr. Lieberman's comments met with immediate derision on "Face the Nation." "We have a not insignificant small problem on our hands already called Iraq where we are kind of bogged down, and we have Afghanistan on our hands…We're taking on a really big problem if we go striking Iran," scoffed Colbert King of the Washington Post. "I can't think of anything worse than announcing in advance your military strikes," added Roger Simon of Politico.com. On much of the web, the reaction was, as to be expected, even more heated. "Talk like this will definitely help reduce tensions in the region," mocked DAVIDNYC in a post on the DailyKos.

Mark27, filing a "diary" on the same site, used Mr. Lieberman's comment as a chance to express regret, a "mea culpa" as he put it, for failing to recognize the Connecticut senator as "a cancer within the Democratic Party" last year when he faced an electoral challenge from businessman Ned Lamont. Joshua Micah Marshall of the Talking Points Memo wrote "just when it seemed Joe Lieberman's neocon qualities couldn't get any more offensive, he manages to kick things up a notch."

Mr. Lieberman's critics take his strong words in the most nefarious light. One can hardly discuss a military option without being labeled a "warmonger" these days. As it is, a Google search of the words "Lieberman Warmonger" turns up 43,500 links. But his opponents neglect a significant question: what is a senator of good conscience supposed to do when faced with a compelling array of evidence of Iranian adventurism from Gaza to Lebanon to Iraq to Afghanistan?

Further, few questioned his evidence: Iran's role in training fighters in Iraq, Iran's aiding Hezbollah, which is destabilizing Lebanon and threatening Israel, Hamas battling Fatah and threatening Israeli areas bordering Gaza. To these can be added recent reports that NATO forces have detected Iranians bringing explosive materials into Afghanistan. All of these actions are not equivalent to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor yet, perhaps, but, taken together, they suggest a regional effort by Iran to destabilize the Middle East.

It may well be that the American military leadership believes it is incapable of a winnable action against Iran. Remember it fell to the prospective chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen, who is said to favor "engagement" with Iran, to declare in April "there is no plan for an attack on Iran." It is also likely true that the American public is entirely exhausted from the more than four years of war in Iraq.

None of that, unfortunately, makes the danger of Iran disappear. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is still the president of Iran. The Islamic Republic's commitment to developing nuclear weapons is strong. Clearly, something must be done. Some leaders, such as Senator Clinton, speaking at last week's Democratic debate, said she supported a "process of engagement" with Iran. Senator Edwards suggested driving "a wedge between the Iranian people and this radical leader."

Others, such as Senator Biden, partook of what is one of the most popular strategies vis-à-vis Iran these days, wishful thinking: "Understand how weak Iran is. They are not a year away or two years away. They're a decade away from being able to weaponize … put a nuclear weapon on top of a missile that can strike."

Mr. Lieberman publicly raised the possibility of another potential American action. It's to be expected that his controversial suggestion would be met, initially, with resistance. Yet ridicule? Mr. Lieberman is thinking through a tough answer to a very difficult problem. It might not make him popular in Democratic circles the way his 2000 run for the vice presidency did. But it's a senator's job to think about problems before they completely get out of hand. If that is cause for mockery, so be it.

Source: http://www.nysun.com/article/56396

[skhara]

Re: The American Century: Neoconservatism

Here is that Colbert interview:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4714390383925241627&q=Colbert+Kristol&total=2&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

[Armenian]

Re: The American Century: Neoconservatism

The seemly counterproductive policies of the Western world, specifically that of the United States, will make sense once those policies are placed within a proper political context. Many around the world today do not understand why the US government is pursing policies that are detrimental to the well being of the United States because they do not take into serious consideration the absolute clout that certain special interest groups have within the halls of power in Washington DC. Books such as the following will help one see American politics is a clearer perspective for it will help reveal the driving mechanisms behind the foreign policy making apparatus' of Washington DC.

Armenian

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The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy



The two authors are prominent political scientists with impeccable credentials, hailing from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the University of Chicago. Among other issues they try to prove that a small group of mostly xxxish intellectuals and government members succeeded, to push the U.S. into a disastrous war because they cared more about the security of Israel than the security of their homeland. Since their conclusions about Israel and its negative influence on American foreign policy are in some areas too academic and will awaken much anxiety, resentment and fury in certain quarters, Walt and Mearsheimer have a point.

The book is based on their article, "The Israel Lobby," and was originally published in the London Review of Books in March 2006, it was one of the most controversial articles in recent memory and provoked both howls of outrage and cheers of gratitude for challenging what had been a taboo issue in America: the impact of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy. Their argument is not exactly new. It is well known in Washington that a "kosher nostra," consisting of the usual suspects like Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith, defense expert Richard Perle (who just loves his nickname `Prince of Darkness'), and perhaps two dozens of other neocons, have been twisting facts to overthrow Saddam Hussein since years, reaching back to the Reagan administration.

The basic argument is that the extraordinarily high degree of economic, military and diplomatic support given to Israel by the United States cannot be explained or justified by the notion that Israel functions as a strategic asset to the U.S., or that Israel as the "only democracy" amidst a sea of authoritarian neighbors is deserving the special favors, particularly of gigantic military aid, for its "shared interests and values". In fact, the authors claim, Israel is more a liability than an asset.

There is no question that during the Cold War, there was logic behind the strategic-value argument. In a clever scheme, the Soviets had significantly increased their sea power in the Mediterranean during the Arab-Israeli conflict - the Six Day War in June 1967 - to show their support for the Arab states. During that crisis the Soviet Mediterranean "Eskadra" numbered up to about seventy units, some of which were in Port Said and Alexandria to prevent Israeli attacks. In my opinion (shared by a number of security professionals at the time), the entire war had been provoked by the Soviets in the first place to gain a strategic advantage over the West and to demonstrate on a grand scale their willingness and capability to influence major events in the area. After that war the "Eskadra" had rapidly expanded and in the late 1970s comprised of more than ninety ships, including over a dozen destroyers and nearly two dozen subs - outnumbering NATO's backbone, the American 6th fleet.

However, the Soviet menace has disappeared and the enemy which the U.S. supposedly needs Israel's help to combat, is Islamic terrorism. But the U.S. favor shown to Israel at the expense of the Palestinians only makes us more not less vulnerable to terrorism. So if neither "shared values" nor "strategic assets" can explain the overwhelming U.S. support of Israel, what else is there? The power of the Israel lobby has brought about a situation in which it is impossible for elected officials to question support for Israel. This has led the U.S. to make critical mistakes. The authors argue that the U.S. would not have attacked Iraq, were it not for the influence of the Israel lobby.

What is perhaps most significant and remarkable about this book is that it got published. Could it be that there is still hope for reasonable, open debate about the right courses of action in the Middle East? The authors have been and will continue to be vilified as anti-Semitic or worse. They are owed a debt of gratitude for having the courage to stand up and to refuse to be silenced.

"Now that the cold war is over, Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States. Yet no aspiring politician is going to say so in public or even raise the possibility, because the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful." write Mearsheimer and Walt. Then they go on to credit the lobby with preventing talks with Syria and with moderates in Iran, and inhibiting the United States from denouncing Israel's 2006 war in Lebanon.

"The Israel Lobby" is a brand new welcome addition to the ever increasing controversies of biased U.S. foreign policies. My only disappointment with this book is that the authors haven't interviewed the people who are being lobbied or those doing the lobbying. Although I wouldn't question the meticulous research that has been presented, the fact that there is a missing piece suggests that you should read this book with a "grano salis".

Source: http://www.amazon.de/Israel-Lobby-U-...ews/0374177724

[Armenian]

Re: The American Century: Neoconservatism

Zionists pushing for an attack on Iran



Those who follow what's going on in the world know that the invasion and occupation of Iraq were based on a myth created by the neo-conservatives in America, trumpeted by George W. Bush and spread by a Zionist-controlled media. That myth, a fictionalized account of non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's non-existent arsenal was created by "dual loyalists" in the American administration who wanted to eliminate any possibility of Iraq developing a destructive force that could endanger Israel. Now, a new assault orchestrated by the Zionists is moving forward on the basis of another myth: that Iran is developing a nuclear arsenal and wants to "wipe Israel off the map".

The invasion of Lebanon was part of that myth. When Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on Lebanese territory, the Israelis leapt at the opportunity to use that as an excuse to attack Lebanon, provoking Hezbollah to retaliate. The Israelis knew that if they provoked them, Hezbollah would respond in kind. While destroying Lebanon's infrastructure and murdering its civilians, the Zionist propaganda machine blathered its usual line about self-defense. The conclusion of the deceptive argument was that Hezbollah's attacks on Israel prove that Iran wants to wipe Israel off the map. The next part of the sham argument holds that since Iran wants to eliminate Israel, according to its president, and because it insists on its right to develop a nuclear capability, and as they're lying about wanting nuclear power for peaceful purposes, Iran must be attacked.

However, Iran's president did not say that Israel should be wiped off the map. That interpretation of what Ahmedinejad said was based on a fraudulent translation of his speech. His comment was "Imam [Khomeini] said “This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history." Carrying the myth forward, G.W. Bush said, based entirely on the misinterpretation of Ahmadinejad's speech: The threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel. That's a threat, a serious threat. It's a threat to world peace; it's a threat, in essence, to a strong alliance. I made it clear, I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally, Israel.

The truth was that Iran advocated a regime change in Israel. As Anneliese Fikentscher and Andreas Neumann observed, "To commute a demand for removal of a 'regime' into a demand for removal of Israel is serious deception and dangerous demagogy." The myth that Iran would be a nuclear threat to Israel is the most ludicrous part of the Zionist propaganda campaign and the most dangerous part of the neo-conservatives' deception. Iran could not conceivably consider a nuclear attack on Israel as long as they occupy what Ahmadinejad referred to as "our dear Palestinians".

The only conceivable danger to Israel from Iran - even if Iran had nuclear weapons - would be (1) if the Palestinians were eliminated from Palestine, and (2) if Israel then attacked Iran. If Israelis keep harping on the myth about the potential danger from Iran, knowing that the Iranians would never target Palestinians, the only logical deduction is that Israel plans to rid occupied Palestine of the Palestinians. Zionist lackey US Senator Joe Lieberman has already urged America to bomb Iran. How many more lunatics will fall in line?

Source: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id...tionid=3510303

[Armenian]

Re: The American Century: Neoconservatism

How Neo-Cons Sabotaged Iran's Help on al Qaeda



After the Sep. 11 attacks, U.S. officials responsible for preparing for war in Afghanistan needed Iran's help to unseat the Taliban and establish a stable government in Kabul. Iran had organised resistance by the "Northern Alliance" and had provided arms and funding, at a time when the United States had been unwilling to do so. "The Iranians had real contacts with important players in Afghanistan and were prepared to use their influence in constructive ways in coordination with the United States," recalls Flynt Leverett, then senior director for Middle East affairs in the National Security Council (NSC), in an interview with IPS.

In October 2001, as the United States was just beginning its military operations in Afghanistan, State Department and NSC officials began meeting secretly with Iranian diplomats in Paris and Geneva, under the sponsorship of Lakhdar Brahimi, head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. Leverett says these discussions focused on "how to effectively unseat the Taliban and once the Taliban was gone, how to stand up an Afghan government". It was thanks to the Northern Alliance Afghan troops, which were supported primarily by the Iranians, that the Taliban was driven out of Kabul in mid-November. Two weeks later, the Afghan opposition groups were convened in Bonn under United Nations auspices to agree on a successor regime.

At that meeting, the Northern Alliance was demanding 60 percent of the portfolios in an interim government, which was blocking agreement by other opposition groups. According to U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan James Dobbins, Iran played a "decisive role" in persuading the Northern Alliance delegate to compromise. Dobbins also recalls how the Iranians insisted on including language in the Bonn agreement on the war on terrorism. The bureaucracy recognised that there was an opportunity to work with Iran not only on stabilising Afghanistan but on al Qaeda as well. As reported by the Washington Post on Oct. 22, 2004, the State Department's policy planning staff had written a paper in late November 2001 suggesting that the United States should propose more formal arrangements for cooperation with Iran on fighting al Qaeda.

That would have involved exchanging intelligence information with Tehran as well as coordinating border sweeps to capture al Qaeda fighters and leaders who were already beginning to move across the border into Pakistan and Iran. The CIA agreed with the proposal, according to the Post's sources, as did the head of the White House Office for Combating Terrorism, Ret. Gen. Wayne A. Downing. But the cooperation against al Qaeda was not the priority for the anti-Iranian interests in the White House and the Pentagon. Investigative journalist Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack" recounts that Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley, who chaired an inter-agency committee on Iran policy dealing with issues surrounding Afghanistan, learned that the White House intended to include Iran as a member of the "Axis of Evil" in Bush's State of the Union message in January.

Hadley expressed reservations about that plan at one point, but was told by Bush directly that Iran had to stay in. By the end of December, Hadley had decided, against the recommendations of the State Department, CIA and White House counter-terrorism office, that the United States would not share any information with Iran on al Qaeda, even though it would press the Iranians for such intelligence, as well as to turn over any al Qaeda members it captured to the appropriate home country. Soon after that decision, hardliners presented Iranian policy to Bush and the public as hostile to U.S. aims in Afghanistan and refusing to cooperate with the war on terror -- the opposite of what officials directly involved had witnessed.

On Jan. 11, 2002, the New York Times quoted Pentagon and intelligence officials as saying that Iran had given "safe haven" to fleeing al Qaeda fighters in order to use them against the United States in post-Taliban Afghanistan. That same day, Bush declared "Iran must be a contributor in the war against terror." "Our nation, in our fight against terrorism, will uphold the doctrine of 'either you're with us or against us'," he said. Officials who were familiar with the intelligence at that point agree that the "safe haven for al Qaeda" charge was not based on any genuine analysis by the intelligence community.

"I wasn't aware of any intelligence support that charge," recalls Dobbins, who was still the primary point of contact with Iranian officials about cooperation on Afghanistan. "I certainly would have seen it had there been any such intelligence. Nobody told me they were harbouring al Qaeda."

Iran had already increased its troop strength on the Afghan border in response to U.S. requests. As the Washington Post reported in 2004, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Javad Zarif brought a dossier to U.N Secretary-General Kofi Annan in early February with the photos of 290 men believed to be al Qaeda members who already been detained fleeing from Afghanistan. Later hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban detainees were repatriated to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and other Arab and European countries, according to news reports. The hardliners would complain that the Iranians did not turn over any top al Qaeda leaders. But the United States had just rejected any exchange of information with the very officials with whom it needed to discuss the question of al Qaeda -- the Iranian intelligence and security ministry.

The same administration officials told the Times that Iran was seeking to exert its influence in border regions in western Afghanistan by shipping arms to its Afghan allies in the war against the Taliban and that this could undermine the interim government and Washington's long-term interests in Afghanistan. But in March 2002, Iranian official met with Dobbins in Geneva during a U.N. conference on Afghanistan's security needs. Dobbins recalls that the Iranian delegation brought with it the general who had been responsible for military assistance to the Northern Alliance during the long fight against the Taliban.

The general offered to provide training, uniforms, equipment and barracks for as many as 20,000 new recruits for the nascent Afghan military. All this was to be done under U.S. leadership, Dobbins recalls, not as part of a separate programme under exclusive Iranian control. "The Iranians later confirmed that they did this as a gesture to the United States," says Dobbins. Dobbins returned to Washington to inform key administration officials of what he regarded as an opportunity for a new level of cooperation in Afghanistan. He briefed then Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Rumsfeld personally. "To my knowledge, there was never a response," he says.

*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in June 2005.

Source: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0222-07.htm

[Armenian]

Re: The American Century: Neoconservatism

For obtaining a better perspective regarding the current crisis involving Iran one has to first take into serious consideration the longterm geostrategic agendas that policymakers within Washington DC have set into motion. As a result of these longterm agendas, for the foreseeable future, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, the Caucasus as well as the Balkans and Central Asia will be a volatile war zone. The aforementioned regions will most probably see a gargantuan struggle, both direct and indirect, between forces representing the West (spearheaded by the USA) and forces representing the East (namely the Russian Federation and China) and their respective allies worldwide. The following essay produced by a German diplomat is concerning a book written by Zbigniew Brzezinski. It's important to note that the book in question was written at a time when Russia was being scavenged from the inside out and there was no sign of a nationalistic surge within the Russian Federation. Since Russia's reemergence upon the geopolitical stage during the last several years coupled with the United States getting hopelessly bogged-down in the bloody conflicts of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as American political setbacks both at home and abroad, not to mention tens of trillions dollars in a national deficit, the pursuit of the grandiose global agendas of the United State as detailed by Brzezinski have been undermined. I keep brining up Brzezinski's book the THE GRAND CHESSBOARD American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives because it is the clearest and most comprehensive work in print detailing Washington DC's foreign policy formulations - written by an insider.

Armenian

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A War in the Planning for Four Years



Zbigniew Brzezinski and the CFR Put War Plans in a 1997 Book -- It is "A Blueprint for World Dictatorship," Says a Former German Defense and NATO Official Who Warned of Global Domination in 1984, in an Exclusive Interview With FTW. "THE GRAND CHESSBOARD -- American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives," Zbigniew Brzezinski, Basic Books, 1997.

These are the very first words in the book, "Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power." -- p. xiii. Eurasia is all of the territory east of Germany and Poland, stretching all the way through Russia and China to the Pacific Ocean. It includes the Middle East and most of the Indian subcontinent. The key to controlling Eurasia, says Brzezinski, is controlling the Central Asian Republics. And the key to controlling the Central Asian republics is Uzbekistan. Thus, it comes as no surprise that Uzbekistan was forcefully mentioned by President George W. Bush in his address to a joint session of Congress just days after the attacks of September 11 as the very first place that the U.S. military would be deployed.

As FTW has documented in previous stories, major deployments of U.S. and British forces had taken place before the attacks. And the U.S. Army and the CIA had been active in Uzbekistan for several years. There is now evidence that what the world is witnessing is a cold and calculated war plan -- at least four years in the making -- and that, from reading Brzezinski's own words about Pearl Harbor, the World Trade Center attacks were just the trigger needed to set the final conquest in motion.

FTW, November 7, 2001, 1200 PST -- There's a quote often attributed to Allen Dulles after it was noted that the final 1964 report of the Warren Commission on the assassination of JFK contained dramatic inconsistencies. Those inconsistencies, in effect, disproved the Commission's own final conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone on November 22, 1963. Dulles, a career spy, Wall Street lawyer, the CIA director whom JFK had fired after the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco -- and the Warren Commission member who took charge of the investigation and final report -- is reported to have said, "The American people don't read."

Some Americans do read. So do Europeans and Asians and Africans and Latin Americans. World events since the attacks of September 11, 2001 have not only been predicted, but also planned, orchestrated and -- as their architects would like to believe -- controlled. The current Central Asian war is not a response to terrorism, nor is it a reaction to Islamic fundamentalism. It is in fact, in the words of one of the most powerful men on the planet, the beginning of a final conflict before total world domination by the United States leads to the dissolution of all national governments. This, says Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member and former Carter National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, will lead to nation states being incorporated into a new world order, controlled solely by economic interests as dictated by banks, corporations and ruling elites concerned with the maintenance (by manipulation and war) of their power. As a means of intimidation for the unenlightened reader who happens upon this frightening plan -- the plan of the CFR -- Brzezinski offers the alternative of a world in chaos unless the U.S. controls the planet by whatever means are necessary and likely to succeed.

This position is corroborated by Dr. Johannes B. Koeppl, Ph.D. a former German defense ministry official and advisor to former NATO Secretary General Manfred Werner. On November 6, he told FTW, "The interests behind the Bush Administration, such as the CFR, The Trilateral Commission ( founded by Brzezinski for David Rockefeller -- and the Bliderberger Group, have prepared for and are now moving to implement open world dictatorship within the next five years. They are not fighting against terrorists. They are fighting against citizens."

Brzezinski's own words -- laid against the current official line that the United States is waging a war to end terrorism -- are self-incriminating. In an ongoing series of articles, FTW has consistently established that the U.S. government had foreknowledge of the World Trade Center attacks and chose not to stop them because it needed to secure public approval for a war that is now in progress. It is a war, as described by Vice President xxxx Cheney, "that may not end in our lifetimes." What that means is that it will not end until all armed groups, anywhere in the world, which possess the political, economic or military ability to resist the imposition of this dictatorship, have been destroyed.

These are the "terrorists" the U.S. now fights in Afghanistan and plans to soon fight all over the globe. Before exposing Brzezinski (and those he represents) with his own words, or hearing more from Dr. Koeppl, it is worthwhile to take a look at Brzezinski's background. According to his resume Brzezinski, holding a 1953 Ph.D. from Harvard, lists the following achievements:

Counselor, Center for Strategic and International Studies Professor of American Foreign Policy, Johns Hopkins University National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter (1977-81), Trustee and founder of the Trilateral Commission, International advisor of several major US/Global corporations, Associate of Henry Kissinger Under Ronald Reagan, member of NSC-Defense Department Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy Under Ronald Reagan, member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, Past member, Board of Directors, The Council on Foreign Relations 1988, Co-chairman of the Bush National Security Advisory Task Force. Brzezinski is also a past attendee and presenter at several conferences of the Bliderberger group -- a non-partisan affiliation of the wealthiest and most powerful families and corporations on the planet.

The Grand Chessboard

Brzezinski sets the tone for his strategy by describing Russia and China as the two most important countries -- almost but not quite superpowers - whose interests that might threaten the U.S. in Central Asia. Of the two, Brzezinski considers Russia to be the more serious threat. Both nations border Central Asia. In a lesser context he describes the Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Iran and Kazakhstan as essential "lesser" nations that must be managed by the U.S. as buffers or counterweights to Russian and Chinese moves to control the oil, gas and minerals of the Central Asian Republics (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan).

He also notes, quite clearly (p. 53) that any nation that might become predominant in Central Asia would directly threaten the current U.S. control of oil resources in the Persian Gulf. In reading the book it becomes clear why the U.S. had a direct motive for the looting of some $300 billion in Russian assets during the 1990s, destabilizing Russia's currency (1998) and ensuring that a weakened Russia would have to look westward to Europe for economic and political survival, rather than southward to Central Asia. A dependent Russia would lack the military, economic and political clout to exert influence in the region and this weakening of Russia would explain why Russian President Vladimir Putin has been such a willing ally of U.S. efforts to date. (See FTW Vol. IV, No. 1 -- March 31, 2001)

An examination of selected quotes from "The Grand Chessboard," in the context of current events reveals the darker agenda behind military operations that were planned long before September 11th, 2001.

"The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time ever, a non-Eurasian power has emerged not only as a key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as the world's paramount power. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power) (p. xiii)

"But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book. (p. xiv)

"The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. (pp 24-5)

"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia) Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia -- and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained. (p.30)

"America's withdrawal from the world or because of the sudden emergence of a successful rival -- would produce massive international instability. It would prompt global anarchy." (p. 30)

"In that context, how America `manages' Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources." (p.31)

[...]

Source: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RUP111B.html

[Armenian]

Re: The American Century: Neoconservatism

White House preparing to stage new September 11 - Reagan official



A former Reagan official has issued a public warning that the Bush administration is preparing to orchestrate a staged terrorist attack in the United States, transform the country into a dictatorship and launch a war with Iran within a year. Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, blasted Thursday a new Executive Order, released July 17, allowing the White House to seize the assets of anyone who interferes with its Iraq policies and giving the government expanded police powers to exercise control in the country. Roberts, who spoke on the Thom Hartmann radio program, said: "When Bush exercises this authority [under the new Executive Order], there's no check to it. So it really is a form of total, absolute, one-man rule."

"The American people don't really understand the danger that they face," Roberts said, adding that the so-called neoconservatives intended to use a renewal of the fight against terrorism to rally the American people around the fading Republican Party. Old-line Republicans like Roberts have become increasingly disenchanted with the neoconservative politics of the Bush administration, which they see as a betrayal of fundamental conservative values. According to a July 9-11 survey by Ipsos, an international public opinion research company, President Bush and the Republicans can claim a mere 31 percent approval rating for their handling of the Iraq war and 38 percent for their foreign policy in general, including terrorism.

"The administration figures themselves and prominent Republican propagandists ... are preparing us for another 9/11 event or series of events," he said. "You have to count on the fact that if al Qaeda is not going to do it, it is going to be orchestrated."

Roberts suggested that in the absence of a massive popular outcry, only the federal bureaucracy and perhaps the military could put constraints on Bush's current drive for a fully-fledged dictatorship. "They may have had enough. They may not go along with it," he said. The radio interview was a follow-up to Robert's latest column, in which he warned that "unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the U.S. could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran." Roberts, who has been dubbed the "Father of Reaganomics" and has recently gained popularity for his strong opposition to the Bush administration and the Iraq War, regularly contributes articles to Creators Syndicate, an independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns for daily newspapers.

Source: http://en.rian.ru/world/20070720/69340886.html

[Armenian]

Re: The American Century: Neoconservatism

Zbigniew Brzezinski warns of false flag attack to trigger Iran war



Senate Foreign Relations Commitee - February 1, 2007

Mr. Chairman:

Your hearings come at a critical juncture in the U.S. war of choice in Iraq, and I commend you and Senator Lugar for scheduling them. It is time for the White House to come to terms with two central realities:

1. The war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, and moral calamity. Undertaken under false assumptions, it is undermining America’s global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America’s moral credentials. Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.

2. Only a political strategy that is historically relevant rather than reminiscent of colonial tutelage can provide the needed framework for a tolerable resolution of both the war in Iraq and the intensifying regional tensions.

If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and potentially expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about WMD’s in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the “decisive ideological struggle” of our time, reminiscent of the earlier collisions with Nazism and Stalinism. In that context, Islamist extremism and al Qaeda are presented as the equivalents of the threat posed by Nazi Germany and then Soviet Russia, and 9/11 as the equivalent of the Pearl Harbor attack which precipitated America’s involvement in World War II.

This simplistic and demagogic narrative overlooks the fact that Nazism was based on the military power of the industrially most advanced European state; and that Stalinism was able to mobilize not only the resources of the victorious and militarily powerful Soviet Union but also had worldwide appeal through its Marxist doctrine. In contrast, most Muslims are not embracing Islamic fundamentalism; al Qaeda is an isolated fundamentalist Islamist aberration; most Iraqis are engaged in strife because the American occupation of Iraq destroyed the Iraqi state; while Iran—though gaining in regional influence—is itself politically divided, economically and militarily weak. To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Deplorably, the Administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East region has lately relied almost entirely on such sloganeering. Vague and inflammatory talk about “a new strategic context” which is based on “clarity” and which prompts “the birth pangs of a new Middle East” is breeding intensifying anti-Americanism and is increasing the danger of a long-term collision between the United States and the Islamic world. Those in charge of U.S. diplomacy have also adopted a posture of moralistic self-ostracism toward Iran strongly reminiscent of John Foster Dulles’s attitude of the early 1950’s toward Chinese Communist leaders (resulting among other things in the well-known episode of the refused handshake). It took some two decades and a half before another Republican president was finally able to undo that legacy.

One should note here also that practically no country in the world shares the Manichean delusions that the Administration so passionately articulates. The result is growing political isolation of, and pervasive popular antagonism toward the U.S. global posture.

[...]

It is obvious by now that the American national interest calls for a significant change of direction. There is in fact a dominant consensus in favor of a change: American public opinion now holds that the war was a mistake; that it should not be escalated, that a regional political process should be explored; and that an Israeli-Palestinian accommodation is an essential element of the needed policy alteration and should be actively pursued. It is noteworthy that profound reservations regarding the Administration’s policy have been voiced by a number of leading Republicans. One need only invoke here the expressed views of the much admired President Gerald Ford, former Secretary of State James Baker, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and several leading Republican senators, John Warner, Chuck Hagel, and Gordon Smith among others.

The urgent need today is for a strategy that seeks to create a political framework for a resolution of the problems posed both by the US occupation of Iraq and by the ensuing civil and sectarian conflict. Ending the occupation and shaping a regional security dialogue should be the mutually reinforcing goals of such a strategy, but both goals will take time and require a genuinely serious U.S. commitment. The quest for a political solution for the growing chaos in Iraq should involve four steps:

1. The United States should reaffirm explicitly and unambiguously its determination to leave Iraq in a reasonably short period of time. Ambiguity regarding the duration of the occupation in fact encourages unwillingness to compromise and intensifies the on-going civil strife. Moreover, such a public declaration is needed to allay fears in the Middle East of a new and enduring American imperial hegemony. Right or wrong, many view the establishment of such a hegemony as the primary reason for the American intervention in a region only recently free of colonial domination. That perception should be discredited from the highest U.S. level. Perhaps the U.S. Congress could do so by a joint resolution.

2. The United States should announce that it is undertaking talks with the Iraqi leaders to jointly set with them a date by which U.S. military disengagement should be completed, and the resulting setting of such a date should be announced as a joint decision. In the meantime, the U.S. should avoid military escalation. It is necessary to engage all Iraqi leaders—including those who do not reside within “the Green Zone”—in a serious discussion regarding the proposed and jointly defined date for U.S. military disengagement because the very dialogue itself will help identify the authentic Iraqi leaders with the self-confidence and capacity to stand on their own legs without U.S. military protection. Only Iraqi leaders who can exercise real power beyond “the Green Zone” can eventually reach a genuine Iraqi accommodation. The painful reality is that much of the current Iraqi regime, characterized by the Bush administration as “representative of the Iraqi people,” defines itself largely by its physical location: the 4 sq. miles-large U.S. fortress within Baghdad, protected by a wall in places 15 feet thick, manned by heavily armed U.S. military, popularly known as “the Green Zone.”

3. The United States should issue jointly with appropriate Iraqi leaders, or perhaps let the Iraqi leaders issue, an invitation to all neighbors of Iraq (and perhaps some other Muslim countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, and Pakistan) to engage in a dialogue regarding how best to enhance stability in Iraq in conjunction with U.S. military disengagement and to participate eventually in a conference regarding regional stability. The United States and the Iraqi leadership need to engage Iraq’s neighbors in serious discussion regarding the region’s security problems, but such discussions cannot be undertaken while the U.S. is perceived as an occupier for an indefinite duration. Iran and Syria have no reason to help the United States consolidate a permanent regional hegemony. It is ironic, however, that both Iran and Syria have lately called for a regional dialogue, exploiting thereby the self-defeating character of the largely passive – and mainly sloganeering – U.S. diplomacy. A serious regional dialogue, promoted directly or indirectly by the U.S., could be buttressed at some point by a wider circle of consultations involving other powers with a stake in the region’s stability, such as the EU, China, Japan, India, and Russia. Members of this Committee might consider exploring informally with the states mentioned their potential interest in such a wider dialogue.

4. Concurrently, the United States should activate a credible and energetic effort to finally reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace, making it clear in the process as to what the basic parameters of such a final accommodation ought to involve. The United States needs to convince the region that the U.S. is committed both to Israel’s enduring security and to fairness for the Palestinians who have waited for more than forty years now for their own separate state. Only an external and activist intervention can promote the long-delayed settlement for the record shows that the Israelis and the Palestinians will never do so on their own. Without such a settlement, both nationalist and fundamentalist passions in the region will in the longer run doom any Arab regime which is perceived as supportive of U.S. regional hegemony. After World War II, the United States prevailed in the defense of democracy in Europe because it successfully pursued a long-term political strategy of uniting its friends and dividing its enemies, of soberly deterring aggression without initiating hostilities, all the while also exploring the possibility of negotiated arrangements. Today, America’s global leadership is being tested in the Middle East. A similarly wise strategy of genuinely constructive political engagement is now urgently needed. It is also time for the Congress to assert itself.

Source: http://www.oilempire.us/zbig.html

[Armenian]

Re: The American Century: Neoconservatism

Most of the retired generals in the US (and some active ones) are warning against a war with Iran. One of the most vociferous ones amongst these anti-war generals is the former Marine Corps commandant, general Anthony Zinni. The bloodthirsty warmongers in this country are the civilian members of government, specifically the Neo-cons.

Armenian

************************************************** **********

SMEARING GENERAL ZINNI



General Anthony Zinni, formerly chief of Central Command, who voted for George W. Bush in the last election and describes himself as a "Hagel-Lugar-Powell Republican," has been among the most vocal and visible of the military critics of the Iraq war. Last year, he spoke for many top military personnel when he warned that an invasion of Iraq would unleash forces that could prove difficult if not impossible to control:

"You could inherit the country of Iraq, if you're willing to do it – if our economy is so great that you're willing to put billions of dollars into reforming Iraq. If you want to put soldiers that are already stretched so thin all around the world and add them into a security force there forever, like we see in places like the Sinai. If you want to fight with other countries in the region to try to keep Iraq together as Kurds and Shiites try and split off, you're going to have to make a good case for that. And that's what I think has to be done, that's my honest opinion."

Zinni was right. So was Gen. Merrill A. McPeak. So was Marine Gen. John J. Sheehan. So was Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf. So was former Navy Secretary and much-decorated Marine veteran James Webb. So was Commander Maj. Gen. Patrick Cordingley. So were a host of other top officers, both retired and active duty, who saw another Vietnam – or worse – in the neocons' plans for postwar Iraq. They no doubt cringed whenever they heard neoconservative agitator and war profiteer Richard Perle describe the coming conquest of Iraq as a "cakewalk." Here was another brilliant idea dreamed up by civilian national security intellectuals soon to turn into a living nightmare for the grunts on the ground.

The War Party was never all that worried about opposition coming from the Left, which is all too easy to mock and marginalize. Antiwar conservatives posed a more complex but less immediate problem, since these amounted to a small if vocal minority on the Right. But when American military leaders began to speak out against their imperial adventure, the neocons had a major conniption. Claiming that the sacred principle of civilian control of the military was being violated, the neocons ordered the soldiers to go back to their barracks and never return to the public square. Yet they have returned, to wonder aloud why they were not listened to. A recent Washington Postprofile of General Zinni cites him attempting to answer this question:

"The more he listened to [Deputy Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz and other administration officials talk about Iraq, the more Zinni became convinced that interventionist 'neoconservative' ideologues were plunging the nation into a war in a part of the world they didn't understand. 'The more I saw, the more I thought that this was the product of the neocons who didn't understand the region and were going to create havoc there. These were dilettantes from Washington think tanks who never had an idea that worked on the ground.'"

"…The goal of transforming the Middle East by imposing democracy by force reminds him of the 'domino theory' in the 1960s that the United States had to win in Vietnam to prevent the rest of Southeast Asia from falling into communist hands. And that brings him back to Wolfowitz and his neoconservative allies as the root of the problem. 'I don't know where the neocons came from – that wasn't the platform they ran on,' he says. 'Somehow, the neocons captured the president. They captured the vice president.'"

As Iraq degenerates into a maelstrom of violence and warring ethno-religious enclaves, Lebanon writ large, the neoconservatives who schemed for years to drag us into this disastrous war have been flushed out of the shadows and thrust into the spotlight. And they don't like it one bit. Monsters love the dark. The bloody failure of their policy has forced the neocons out into the open, and they are screeching in pain, like Dracula pulled from the tomb. We can hear – in their shrieking cadences, their whiny shrillness, their sheer unpleasantness – what it means to be a cornered rat. The sound is music to my ears. But don't get too close: rats are often rabid, and they bite, as in the case of Joel Mowbray's recent column smearing General Anthony Zinni as an anti-Semite:

"Discussing the Iraq war with the Washington Post last week, former General Anthony Zinni took the path chosen by so many anti-Semites: he blamed it on the xxxs. Neither President Bush nor Vice-President Cheney – nor for that matter Zinni's old friend, Secretary of State Colin Powell – was to blame. It was the xxxs. They 'captured' both Bush and Cheney, and Powell was merely being a 'good soldier.'"

Written in the style of a bathroom-wall scrawl – "General Zinni, what a ninny" is the title of this juvenile screed – Mowbray's ravings amount to a kind of political pornography. Pornography is, after all, wish-fulfillment, and don't the neocons dearly wish they could get away with marginalizing their most formidable opponents in this way. As the conservative scholar Claes Ryn has pointed out, conceit is the one defining characteristic of the neocons, whose political platform is the embodiment of hubris. They can get away with anything, or so they believe, even a vicious smear campaign directed against a man of unimpeachable integrity. Evidence? Mowbray doesn't have any, as he readily admits, except the rather odd linguistic revisionism that translates "neocon" to mean a person of the xxxish faith:

"Technically, the former head of the Central Command in the Middle East didn't say 'xxxs.' He instead used a term that has become a new favorite for anti-Semites: 'neoconservatives.' As the name implies, 'neoconservative' was originally meant to denote someone who is a newcomer to the right. In the 90's, many people self-identified themselves as 'neocons,' but today that term has become synonymous with 'xxxs.'"

Some crimes against both nature and society are so awful or otherwise memorable that the transgressors have their transgressions named after them, such as Sadism, sodomy, and now mowbraying, which means telling a lie so brazen as to make every decent person within earshot cringe with embarrassment. Far from deterring the mowbrayer, however, such a response only emboldens him to raise the decibel level:

"And if anybody should know better, it's Gen. Zinni. It is well-known that those who are labeled 'neocons' within the administration – whether the number-two official at the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz, or undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith – are almost always xxxs. … yet Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld – neither one xxxish – [are described] as simply 'key allies.' Policy beliefs and worldviews were not different between these two groups; only religion distinguishes them."

To begin with, the Business Weekpiece doesn't focus on the xxxishness of neoconservatives in high office, it merely names them. Are we supposed to understand these officials are above criticism because they are xxxish? Secondly, there are significant differences between the neocons and Rumsfeld, as Max Boot – writing in the January issue of Foreign Policy magazine, not online yet – and the Weekly Standard/Project for a New American Century crew have recently made clear. Rummy and a growing chorus of grumbling Republicans in Congress want an expedited exit strategy, which is one reason for the neocons' increasing desperation.

Jonah Goldberg once tried to pull this same "neocon = xxx" card trick, at more length but without much more success. According to the former editor of National Review Online, neoconservatism, having become the conservative mainstream, is a relic of the past: "We're all neoconservatives now," as David Brooks once put it. But Goldberg's argument fell apart soon after it was made, when Irving Kristol announced the neocons' revival in the pages the Weekly Standard, and we haven't heard a peep from him on the subject since then.

From a mode of self-denial, the neocons, it seems, have discovered the joys of Neocon Liberation. As various neocons have began to come out of the closet, so to speak, and identify themselves with the love (of war, of Israel, of "national greatness" and "big government conservatism") that usually didn't dare speak its name, Mowbray's contention that neocon – the n-word – is an ethnic slur just isn't with it. Look at this list of luminaries standing up to declare for Neocon Pride: "godfather" Irving, Max Boot, Richard Perle, who proudly defended the neocons in a recent debate with Joshua Marshall, and Stephen Schwartz, the Michelangelo Signorile of the neocon set in Washington, who "outed" Wolfowitz as part of a group of closet neo-Trotskyites (or Trotsky-cons, as National Review dubbed them).

In answer to an email query from me, Mowbray qualified his argument:

"I know there are still many self-identified 'neocons,' but I also know that in many, if not most, contexts, it has become a code word. Zinni knows that for inside-the-beltway types (which he is), 'neocon' has become synonymous with 'xxx.' But it wasn't just that; it was the way he used the term that I take issue with. Please note that I did not take Zinni to task for criticizing 'neocon' policies or even 'neocons' generally; I have no problem with that. What he did was take a known code word and combine it with a classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that xxxs rule the world by acting as Puppetmasters. (Remember, he said that both Bush & Cheney had 'somehow' been 'captured' by the 'neocons.') That's a far cry from critiquing particular policies or even specific individuals."

What's interesting about this response is that he acknowledges that there is such a thing as a neoconservative policy, after all: so the word isn't an ethnic slur, as presented in his original piece. His contention that neocon is a "code word" known only to Washington "insiders" (such as himself) – decades of scholarly books and articles on the subject of neoconservatism as a distinctideology to the contrary notwithstanding – is hardly convincing.

As for the "context" of Zinni's remark somehow transforming the formal meaning of "neocon" into a hate crime: why couldn't the adherents of an ideology – neoconservatism – proselytize and capture the allegiance of the President, the Vice President, and other high officials, especially in the wake of 9/11? Zinni's attack on those who pined for war with Iraq has nothing to do with the ethno-religious obsessions and persecution complexes of Mowbray, and everything to do with the neocons' destructive and dangerous policies.

Except for Mowbray's bald assertion that "everybody knows" what they don't know, there is not a single shred of evidence to back up the claim that Zinni is a Hitlerite. But the idea of mowbraying is that you don't need any but the most tenuous and improbable proof to slime the object of your attention: it is the political equivalent of Tourette's Syndrome.

Source: http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j010204.html