Neo-conservatives Continue to Turn on Bush: He's an "Appeaser"!!! (1 Viewer)

[DadsDream]

No, I'm sure I thumped your argument like a dock piling, per the usual standard around here.

No, you over-analyzed and spoke in absolutes rather than realities, as usual.

 

[DadsDream]

Ayep. Same tactic is used by disparaging the media or questioning one's love for country.

Same tactic as calling someone a "neocon" because you disagree with them. Ayep.

 

[blackadder]

Here, a professor will explain it to you:

The Neoconservative-Conspiracy Theory
By Robert J. Lieber
Chronicle of Higher Education | April 29, 2003

The ruins of Saddam Hussein's shattered tyranny may provide additional evidence of chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, but one poisonous by-product has already begun to seep from under the rubble. It is a conspiracy theory purporting to explain how the foreign policy of the world's greatest power, the United States, has been captured by a sinister and hitherto little-known cabal.

A small band of neoconservative (read, Jewish) defense intellectuals, led by the "mastermind," Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (according to Michael Lind, writing in the New Statesman), has taken advantage of 9/11 to put their ideas over on an ignorant, inexperienced, and "easily manipulated" president (Eric Alterman in The Nation), his "elderly figurehead" Defense Secretary (as Lind put it), and the "dutiful servant of power" who is our secretary of state (Edward Said, London Review of Books).

Thus empowered, this neoconservative conspiracy, "a product of the influential Jewish-American faction of the Trotskyist movement of the '30s and '40s" (Lind), with its own "fanatic" and "totalitarian morality" (William Pfaff, International Herald Tribune) has fomented war with Iraq -- not in the interest of the United States, but in the service of Israel's Likud government (Patrick J. Buchanan and Alterman).

This sinister mythology is worthy of the Iraqi information minister, Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who became notorious for telling Western journalists not to believe their own eyes as American tanks rolled into view just across the Tigris River. And indeed versions of it do circulate in the Arab world. (For example, a prominent Saudi professor from King Faisal University, Umaya Jalahma, speaking at a prestigious think tank of the Arab League, has revealed that the U.S. attack on Iraq was actually timed to coincide with the Jewish holiday of Purim.) But the neocon-conspiracy notion is especially conspicuous in writing by leftist authors in the pages of journals like The Washington Monthly and those cited above, as well as in the arguments of paleoconservatives like Buchanan and his magazine, The American Conservative.

READ MORE
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=7550

Robert J Lieber...hmmm...if I dug up his background and I wonder what I would find on his views of the Middle East and US policy. Is he obective?

A Tragedy of Errors

Michael Lind

According to Brooks, "To hear these people [the alleged conspiracy theorists] describe it, PNAC is sort of a Yiddish Trilateral Commission, the nexus of the sprawling neocon tentacles." He writes that "con is short for 'conservative' and neo is short for 'Jewish.'" With this vicious slur, Brooks has now joined Jonah Goldberg, Joshua Muravchik, Joel Mowbray, Robert J. Lieber and other neoconservative writers in accusing all critics of Israel's Likud government and its neoconservative supporters of treating "neoconservative" as a synonym for "Jew." Among those smeared by neocons in this way in the past year are Chris Matthews, William Pfaff, Eric Alterman, Joshua Micah Marshall, Gen. Anthony Zinni and yours truly.

When I, the descendant, in part, of Jewish immigrants, exposed Pat Robertson's anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in 1995, Norman Podhoretz denounced me, not Robertson, reasoning that while Robertson was objectively anti-Semitic he could be forgiven because of his Christian Zionist support for Israel, on the analogy of the rabbinical rule of batel beshishim, which governs impurities in kosher bread.

The most loathsome libel in this loathsome campaign was written by Mowbray: "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 Jews.... Technically, the former head of the Central Command in the Middle East didn't say 'Jews.' He instead used a term that has become a new favorite for anti-Semites: 'neoconservatives.'"

In An End to Evil, Perle and Frum--spontaneously, one can only suppose, as neocons "don't actually have much contact with one another"--repeat the new party line: "Most important, the neoconservative myth offers Europeans and liberals a useful euphemism for expressing their hostility to Israel."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040223/lind


DD do you think Genral Anthony Zinni is "anti-semitic" or do you think some people were angered because he approached his job as an American without favoritism to either side?

Tha's part of the rub. If you don't favor the Israelis and bend to everything they want, then that makes you "pro-Arab" by default and set up as an "antisemite."

 

[varanook]

Here, a professor will explain it to you:

The Neoconservative-Conspiracy Theory
By Robert J. Lieber
Chronicle of Higher Education | April 29, 2003

The ruins of Saddam Hussein's shattered tyranny may provide additional evidence of chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, but one poisonous by-product has already begun to seep from under the rubble. It is a conspiracy theory purporting to explain how the foreign policy of the world's greatest power, the United States, has been captured by a sinister and hitherto little-known cabal.

A small band of neoconservative (read, Jewish) defense intellectuals, led by the "mastermind," Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (according to Michael Lind, writing in the New Statesman), has taken advantage of 9/11 to put their ideas over on an ignorant, inexperienced, and "easily manipulated" president (Eric Alterman in The Nation), his "elderly figurehead" Defense Secretary (as Lind put it), and the "dutiful servant of power" who is our secretary of state (Edward Said, London Review of Books).

Thus empowered, this neoconservative conspiracy, "a product of the influential Jewish-American faction of the Trotskyist movement of the '30s and '40s" (Lind), with its own "fanatic" and "totalitarian morality" (William Pfaff, International Herald Tribune) has fomented war with Iraq -- not in the interest of the United States, but in the service of Israel's Likud government (Patrick J. Buchanan and Alterman).

This sinister mythology is worthy of the Iraqi information minister, Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, who became notorious for telling Western journalists not to believe their own eyes as American tanks rolled into view just across the Tigris River. And indeed versions of it do circulate in the Arab world. (For example, a prominent Saudi professor from King Faisal University, Umaya Jalahma, speaking at a prestigious think tank of the Arab League, has revealed that the U.S. attack on Iraq was actually timed to coincide with the Jewish holiday of Purim.) But the neocon-conspiracy notion is especially conspicuous in writing by leftist authors in the pages of journals like The Washington Monthly and those cited above, as well as in the arguments of paleoconservatives like Buchanan and his magazine, The American Conservative.

READ MORE
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=7550

Written by neocons, right?
http://www.iasps.org/strat1.htm

Since Iraq's future could affect the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly, it would be understandable that Israel has an interest in supporting the Hashemites in their efforts to redefine Iraq, including such measures as: visiting Jordan as the first official state visit, even before a visit to the United States, of the new Netanyahu government; supporting King Hussein by providing him with some tangible security measures to protect his regime against Syrian subversion; encouraging — through influence in the U.S. business community — investment in Jordan to structurally shift Jordan’s economy away from dependence on Iraq; and diverting Syria’s attention by using Lebanese opposition elements to destabilize Syrian control of Lebanon.

 

[blackadder]

You mean, the challenger is immediately put on the defensive by trying to prove they're not a "neocon."

Sauce for the goose, my friend. :hookline:

Who's talking about Neocons? I'm talking about neoconservatives. It's not my fault they discredited themselves by advocating disastrous policies.

Rather than talk about their ridiculous ideas they use the same tactic: you hate neoconservatism because most of us are Jews and you are an antisemite.

Sorry, that's wearing thin as an excuse.

 

[RebSaint]

No, you over-analyzed and spoke in absolutes rather than realities, as usual.

You're the one who wants to label the use of "neoconservatism" as some anti-semitic slur, while Neoconservatism is actually a term used to describe conservatives who want a very interventionist foreign policy--see it seeks to find nuance in the conservative political movement. Now whose speaking in absolutes.

No, if I remember correctly the only evidence you brought to the table to support your bogus claim is that a few founding members of the Neconservative movement were Jewish. Zero. Zip. Nada evidence to support any anti-semitism.

One. more. time. Since you didn't get it the first time.

A. Neconservative is a self-imposed term. Got it? These people wanted to distinguish themselves from the rank/file conservative movement.

B. All you have for evidence that Neoconservative or Neocon is an anti-semitic slur is that a bunch of Jewish guys are in the movement. Well, slap me silly and give me swastika. Seig Heil!!! You realize that there are just as many Christians who are Neocons right?

C. The accusation that "Neocon" is a code word for "filthy Jew" is nothing more than a tactic used by those who don't want this highly-interventionist foreign policy challenged.

Unless you can bring to the table more substantive evidence that the term is a widely-understood anti-semitic slur or insult BESIDES just the fact that a few founding members of the Neocon movement were Jewish, you don't have much of an argument here, like you did back in September.

 

[blackadder]

You're the one who wants to label the use of "neoconservatism" as some anti-semitic slur, while Neoconservatism is actually a term used to describe conservatives who want a very interventionist foreign policy--see it seeks to find nuance in the conservative political movement. Now whose speaking in absolutes.

No, if I remember correctly the only evidence you brought to the table to support your bogus claim is that a few founding members of the Neconservative movement were Jewish. Zero. Zip. Nada evidence to support any anti-semitism.

One. more. time. Since you didn't get it the first time.

A. Neconservative is a self-imposed term. Got it? These people wanted to distinguish themselves from the rank/file conservative movement.

B. All you have for evidence that Neoconservative or Neocon is an anti-semitic slur is that a bunch of Jewish guys are in the movement. Well, slap me silly and give me swastika. Seig Heil!!! You realize that there are just as many Christians who are Neocons right?

C. The accusation that "Neocon" is a code word for "filthy Jew" is nothing more than a tactic used by those who don't want this highly-interventionist foreign policy challenged.

Reb so-called Christian Zionists are important to the Israel lobby.

And it could be argued that the men most important to neoconservatism since 2001 have been George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Without these guys the neoconservatives would just be writing the same letters calling for regime change that they also wrote to Clinton.

But the intellectual leaders, the op-ed writers, the think tank "experts" and the bureacrats in the Bush administration that most vocally pushed the attack were overwhelmingly Jewish and, more importantly to me, maintained strong links to AIPAC and Likud Israel. It was what it was.

I remember a Thomas Friedman column written at the time where he alluded to the role of a core group of neconservative opinion makers who put the press on for the the war. Friedman wrote something like, "I could name 40 people who work within three blocks of my office without whom this war would never have happened." Friedman did not get into connecting dots between them and their involvement with the Israeli lobby though.

What am I saying? That I'll never be able to figure out in their heart of hearts what motivated these guys. Desire to see the Middel East re-ordered for Israeli interests or for American interests?

Maybe the really have convinced themselves that they are one and the same.

 

[DadsDream]

Sorry, I don't buy into neoconservative conspiracy theory, anymore than I buy Zionist conspiracy theory or 9/11 conspiracy theory or JFK assassination conspiracy theory or any of the other conspiracy theories.

 

[RebSaint]

Reb so-called Christian Zionists are important to the Israel lobby.

And it could be argued that the men most important to neoconservatism since 2001 have been George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Without these guys the neoconservatives would just be writing the same letters calling for regime change that they also wrote to Clinton.

But the intellectual leaders, the op-ed writers, the think tank "experts" and the bureacrats in the Bush administration that most vocally pushed the attack were overwhelmingly Jewish and, more importantly to me, maintained strong links to AIPAC and Likud Israel. It was what it was.

I remember a Thomas Friedman column written at the time where he alluded to the role of a core group of neconservative opinion makers who put the press on for the the war. Friedman wrote something like, "I could name 40 people who work within three blocks of my office without whom this war would never have happened." Friedman did not get into connecting dots between them and their involvement with the Israeli lobby though.

What am I saying? That I'll never be able to figure out in their heart of hearts what motivated these guys. Desire to see the Middel East re-ordered for Israeli interests or for American interests?

Maybe the really have convinced themselves that they are one and the same.

Who needs to connect the dots. It's all right here. They see a more democratic ME as a more Isreali-friendly ME. And it's also based on the scarcity of fossil fuels.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

DD: I'm not arguing that it's a conspiracy. It's all out in the open. Most conservatives in the Republican Party are now self-professed Neocons. They want a more interventionist foreign policy reminiscent of Woodrow Wilson and William McKinley. Some would argue that it's nothing more than a new form of imperialism. Whatever it is, I think it's one of the main reasons we're in Iraq.

 

[Shawn]

You keep saying "they" but there's only one self-avowed neoconservative in that whole article.

I can't even get throught this thread without addressing this.

You're being dishonest and you know it.

How accurate is the label "conservative" or "liberal" or "libertarian"? Or Republican for that matter? There are differences within each label, some great and some small.

The "neoconservative" label, whether self avowed or not, applies to a whole group of people who have decidedly similar views and goals. It's well documented, was documented long before the Iraq invasion, and was discussed ad nauseum on this board. Many of these guys served on the boards of the same organizations, and have spoken with agreement on many issues, in many different forums. To obscure the discussion with semantics about labels is just a game.

I probably posted 5,000 words on the topic back in 2001/2002, before I even knew what a "neoconservative" actually was.

This thread is flirting with foolishness.

 

[Shawn]

...and since TPS is posting on this thread, I don't mind pointing out that I PM'ed him lists of these guys serving on committees, advisory boards etc, of organizations with clearly stated agendas that included invading Iraq--*before* we invaded.

It is what it is. It's not an issue of agreeing or disagreeing, to state that whole bunch of these guys ended up in this administration, and they are likeminded in their world view and political agenda--even though they may differ on the details.

Cheney may not technically be a neoconservative, but he runs right in the center of the crowd, and has for a long, long time.

 

[blackadder]

Sorry, I don't buy into neoconservative conspiracy theory, anymore than I buy Zionist conspiracy theory or 9/11 conspiracy theory or JFK assassination conspiracy theory or any of the other conspiracy theories.

You are confusing real political influence with "conspiracy theories." Let's not conflate the two.

Conspiracies are secret, the Israel lobby is not:

Just peruse the donor lists for Congressional campaigns and note some of the sources. AIPAC marshalls its money well, so politicians pay attention, and throw back policy quid pro quos.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/steinerresigns.gif

Just watch the presidential candidates fall all over themselves trying to be "more pro-Israel" than the other guy.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/04/politics/main2761773.shtml

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2007/04/obama_hails_israel.html

 

[champ76]

I'm late to this party but once again, DD, you are right on the money.
I always thought of the "neocon" label as an extension of the old saying, "A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged." A neocon is a former liberal who woke up to the dangers of the post-Cold War world and has adopted an aggressive foreign policy posture as a result.
At some point, the name took on anti-Semetic overtones in the liberal fever swamps. How do I know this? From trolling liberal fever swamp web sites(I have no life). Interestingly, though many on the list are Jewish, and this administration supposedly is in the "Jewish lobby's" hip pocket, it doesn't seem to do much good with the rank and file Jewish voter. And I would hazard a guess far more Jewish money goes to Democratic candidates than Republican. Someone else who has no life can look that up. Just my gut telling me that.

 

[Father Markus]

These guys, afterall, are former semi-liberal/liberal Jewish Americans who adopted conservativism and agree with spreading "freedom" via any means necessary or longstanding members of the M.I.D. (that hated 60's collection of those cooking up schemes and wars and getting fairly rich off of them).

Which was pretty much how the "neo-conservative" label was applied to start with... Nowadays, conservatives and liberals use it for anyone who's just to the "left" of the staunch conservatives, but not quite libertarian..

In other words, it's just another silly label that's gotten so abused in it's usage, ,that nobody knows what it is anymore... Don't like where someone stands, call 'em a neo-conservative...

 

[blackadder]

Which was pretty much how the "neo-conservative" label was applied to start with... Nowadays, conservatives and liberals use it for anyone who's just to the "left" of the staunch conservatives, but not quite libertarian..

In other words, it's just another silly label that's gotten so abused in it's usage, ,that nobody knows what it is anymore... Don't like where someone stands, call 'em a neo-conservative...

I would disagree.

There is something very specific about neoconservatives. They are "big government" conservatives. They believe government is the answer. They are fine with lots of social spending, so long as the money is thrown at the problems that they identify.

In that sense the only thing that makes them "conservative" is their constant saber-rattling and itchy trigger fingers (as long as someone elese actually goes and does the fighting so the intellectuals can stay back in DC and "plan"). They identify conservatism only with muscle flexing. Nothing else in their agenda is conservative.

So a combination of a big-spending, relatively socially liberal policies at home and aggressive military intervention abroad in order to enforce American will and "transform" other societies into what neoconservatives think they should be is a very specific thing that the name applies to. And then there is the obsession with Israel and the Middle East...

It's not made up. It is not an amorphous thing. It is specific and we have in writing from their own pens. "Liberal mugged by reality" comes from inside the neoconservative movement, not from outside.