The Neocon Paradox

For a hard-hitting look at the neoconservative vision—in light of the disasters it has thus far engendered—there’s Neo-Con Futurology by Stephen Holmes (London Review of Books). Ostensibly a review of Francis Fukuyama’s latest book[1], it comprises a bold condemnation of that vision and of the blinkered philistines that wrought it for us. In particular, he focuses on the democratic agenda to which they have clung for the last several years. They have, with the help of a media willing to put in the time selling the idea, managed to make this one stick and have built a whole new fairy-world of gossamer and rainbows based on it. This world of theirs rotates about a dark center—whether they are aware of it or not—a paradoxical core that is well-hidden, but glaringly obvious once stated:

“…consider that the basic justification for helping spread democracy in the Middle East flatly contradicts the claim that Islamic radicals are apocalyptic nihilists who love death and hate freedom. Al-Qaida is obviously not at war with the House of Saud and Mubarak because those regimes are democratic. Indeed, the observation that Islamic radicals hate tyranny, not freedom, is the central premise of the argument for promoting democracy.”

Things that make you go hmmmm. Go on.

“In administration rhetoric, terrorism (a method for waging asymmetrical war) is routinely opposed to liberty (a principle for organising a modern society). The antithesis of liberty, however, is not terrorism but tyranny.”

In fact, this level of mischaracterization forms a pattern: the previous bogyeman, communism, was often juxtaposed with democracy. Communism is an economic system more-or-less diametrically opposed to capitalism. As economic systems, neither rules out using democracy as the form of government, or ruling system. Communism can as little be judged by its implementations, which tend to couple it with totalitarianism (USSR, North Korea, China) as capitalism should be judged by its implementations, which tend to couple it with extroverted miltarism and resource plunder (Great Britain, France, the United States). At best, it’s fair to say that neither system is particularly well-adapted to human beings.

The mind of a neocon is less like the logical one of the HAL–9000 from 2001, which couldn’t handle contradiction among its axioms, and more like that of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, who believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. The neocon reason for Islamic anger at the West—that they hate our freedoms—cancels out their justification for war—to bring democracy to their lands. Or, put more eloquently[2], “The neo-cons defend two diametrically opposed propositions: that the jihadists hate freedom at the same time as hating their own lack of it.”

Nail ‘em to the Wall

With the indictment of the neocons that beat their little drums silly for this war well underway across the pond, A Fraud Worse than Enron by Elizabeth de la Vega (Znet) takes up the task of prosecuting those in positions of power that drank that particular kool-aid, for whatever reason. She has published an excerpt from her soon-to-be-published book about the future indictment of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell. She is a former federal prosecutor and prepared for this case as for any other, though, being retired, she availed herself of public information only. Does she believe it would work? She says only that the case is strong, almost foolproof:

1. The President has committed fraud.
2. It is a crime in the legal, not merely the colloquial, sense.
3. It is far worse than Enron.
4. It is not a victimless crime.

The book will cover a fictitious—though one hopes not for long—trial in its entirety, all carried out in the most official of language, with accompanying documentation. She’s dotting the i’s and and crossing the t’s[3] and making this as real as possible. Hell, Americans are a bit slow in these matters; if she can get some copies sold, maybe people will just believe they have been indicted, prosecuted and convicted—just like the believed that whopper about Saddam and his mushroom cloud.