Cross-posted from WayOfThe Bern on Reddit
Some background
By now, most of us are familiar with the term neoconservative and can name some of the most prominent neocons. What's less widely known is thephilosophical underpinnings of this ideology and where it came from.
That's what this post is about, which focuses on the key aspects of neocon thinking that we've seen play out in American foreign policy for decades and especially since the early 2000s. Neocons are the greatest threat to humanity I've seen in a lifetime spanning almost 70 years, which is why I've felt compelled to learn more about them. Know thy enemy, as Sun Tzu said.
It can be difficult to sort out the neocons from the neoliberals. Robert Barnes is probably on the right track when he says they're different but both operate under the same globalist umbrella:
So how does Obama put Darth Cheney's aide (Nuland) in charge of Ukraine policy? The bridge is Hillary. She united the neocon and neoliberal wings; we see it most in economic policy, both support NAFTA and China joining the WTO, things they knew would devastate American working class.
Sources
I've drawn from two excellent articles on Leo Strauss and adherents of his political philosophy, one by Thierry Meyassan and the other by Norman Kelley (links at the end of this post). Both are excellent and informative, but the second one provides more specificity on Straussian tenets. The only proviso I would add is that when it was written in 2005, the most visible neocons were Republicans, i.e., the Bush Jr. regime, but as Meyassan points out in his 2022 piece:
It is important to understand that these groups are neither truly left nor right wing. Some members have switched five times from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party and back again. What is important to them is to infiltrate power, whatever the ideology.
Leo Strauss and his ideological acolytes
Leo Strauss was a German emigre who took refuge in the United States during the rise of Nazism and became a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. From Meyassan:
According to many accounts, he had formed a small group of faithful students to whom he gave oral instruction. There is no written record of this... he taught them discretion and praised the “noble lie”. Although he died in 1973, his student fraternity
continued.
The Straussians began forming a political group half a century ago, in 1972... They worked closely with a group of Trotskyite journalists... Both groups were closely linked to the CIA, but also... to the Rand Corporation (the think tank of the military-industrial
complex). Many of these young people intermarried until they formed a compact group of about 100 people.
From Kelley:
... it would be unwise to think that his followers are just some ivory tower eggheads; these men, and they are mostly men, share a philosophical predisposition, a "penchant for secrecy, lies, and deception, their confidence in the almost limitless manipulation of public opinion, their aggressive foreign policy, their virulent nationalism, and their madly ideological approach to politics.” And such people have obtained positions in the government, academy, and the media.
At the heart of Strauss’s political philosophy is the problem of
domination and subordination... In his view there are no natural rights, but the “natural right” of the superior to dominate and subordinate the inferior.
For Strauss and his disciples, God has a utilitarian purpose: calming the minds of the benighted masses. For an atheist like Strauss, this is a “noble lie” which serves a purpose, namely
holding society together.
Dominant themes in Strauss’s philosophy
Kelley continued:
Because the Straussians believe in “noble lies,” they have no
compunction about using mass deception—precisely as they did when they stressed that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were the motivating reason for regime change in Iraq.
Some neocon activities (from Meyassan):
Paul Wolfowitz's "delirious report" accusing the Soviet Union of preparing to take over “global hegemony” shifted US Cold War strategy into a more aggressive stance (1976).
Neocons from the "New York intellectuals branch" (the Trotskyites) created the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Institute of Peace, organizations used to orchestrate color revolutions, starting with the attempted coup d’état of Chinese Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang that led to Tiananmen Square.
Near the end of Bush Jr.'s term, Paul Wolfowitz drew up a document saying the United States had to prevent the emergence of new rivals, starting with the European Union. He also proposed that the US act unilaterally, sidelining the UN's role in taking concerted action.
The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) was founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan (Victoria Nuland's husband) at the American Enterprise Institute (1993).
Richard Perle aka. “the Prince of Darkness, now an arms dealer became an advisor to the President and ex-Nazi Alija Izetbegović in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was responsible for bringing in Osama Bin Laden and what later became Al Qaeda from Afghanistan to "defend" the country (1994).
Members of the PNAC wrote a study for new Israeili PM Netanyahu
suggesting he eliminate Yasser Arafat, annex Palestinian territories, start a war against Iraq and then transfer Palestinians there (1996),
The PNAC raised funds for Bush Jr.'s campaign and published a report before his election called “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” that called for a Pearl Harbor-like catastrophe that would throw the American people into a war for global hegemony. These are exactly the words that PNAC Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld used on 9/11.
Links
Thierry Meyssan: Russia declares wr on the Straussians (Mar 2022)
Norman Kelley: You May Never Have Heard of Leo Strauss, but His Ideas Are Dominating the World (Sep 2005). This article draws from two books about Strauss by Shadia B. Drury, a Canadian academic, political commentator and professor emerita: The political ideas of Leo Strauss(1988) and Leo Strauss and the American Right(1997).
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