http://www.rockfordinstitute.org/News/Trifkovic/News&Views.htm
September 26, 2001
NEOCONS CARPE DIEM
by Srdja Trifkovic
The neoconservative consensus is now clear: If
Osama bin Laden did not exist he should be invented.
A few just reveled in the adrenalin rush and screamed
"war!" Others immediately considered the
possibilities. They were consoled in their pain by the
thought that 6,000 Americans will not have died in
vain if (1) America=92s current "passionate attachment"
in the Middle East is transformed into a permanent
and irrevocable alliance that must not be subjected to
critical scrutiny; and (2) America initiates an all-out
war with all of the enemies of its "only reliable ally in
the region," whether they be real, potential, or imagined.
Within a day of the attack, George Will set the tone
for the home front by telling us that now we knew
what life was like in Israel: after September 11 we
were irrevocably in the same boat. But "as the rest of
us weep over the destruction of innocent human life,
our friends and loved ones," Robert Kagan added, let
us not be daunted by the "mysterious and partially
hidden identity of our attackers"--and let us never,
ever ask "what we have done to bring on the wrath of
inhuman murderers." Let=92s immediately declare war
instead, and we don=92t have to name a country--we
can "declare war against those who have carried out
[the] attack and against any nations that may have
lent their support."
The wish list of targets soon included nations that
were not necessarily suspected of complicity. =
Sensing unexpected opportunities, Israel started
dropping hints that Iraq was probably involved. Donald
Rumsfeld=92s No. 2 at the Pentagon Paul Wolfowitz
argued that even if it wasn=92t it simply did not matter:
this was a good time to settle the score with Saddam
once and for all. William Saffire reiterated the
demand for Iraq to be hit in the New York Times. =
Wolfowitz=92s old buddy Richard Perle--the
ever-belligerent Prince of Darkness from the Reagan
days--echoed the line in a hundred interviews, adding
Syria, Libya, and "terrorist bases" in Lebanon, Gaza,
and the West Bank for good measure.
Interestingly, only days earlier, Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon singled out Lebanon as the "center of
international terror," while "Israeli intelligence
sources" announced the discovery of a bin Laden cell
in Gaza. Those claims were eagerly repeated by the
neocons. (They overlooked the fact that those same
"sources" unable or unwilling to forewarn America of
the attack before it came now claimed to have
qualified leads to a dozen would-be targets.) By the
end of the second week the Wall Street Journal
editorialist advocated hitting "Syria, Sudan, Libya,
and Algeria" and--incredibly--"parts [sic!] of Egypt." =
A.M. Rosenthal, a former New York Times executive
editor, took Afghanistan and Iraq more or less for
granted, but urged that Iran, Syria and Sudan be
added to the list. In an op-ed in the Washington
Times he argued for a 72-hour American ultimatum to
all of those governments, demanding that they
effectively abdicate their sovereignty, quickly followed
by massive bombing if they did not comply. =
Kagan=92s warning against asking any heretical
questions was zealously followed. When Robert
Novak made the reasonable and frankly unremarkable
comment in the New York Post that Israel would
emerge as "the big winner" from the tragedy, adding
that even closer ties between the United States and
Israel "cannot improve long-term U.S. policy
objectives," Norman Podhoretz accused him of
making a "shamefully perverse" statement and
wishing for Israel=92s extinction. =
It is time to state that the "shamefully perverse"
people are those who seek to cynically exploit the
tragedy of September 11 for their peculiar ends. =
They do not care for "justice," and even less for bin
Laden as such-- they have much bigger fish to fry.
It is shamefully perverse to advocate a massive
confrontation with the entire Arab world that cannot
stop short of nuclear exchanges and, ultimately, of
terrorist attacks on America. It is also shamefully
perverse to pretend that all of this is being done out of
concern for America's interests, security, and the
well-being of the American people. =
It is beyond either shame or perversion to imply, as
Richard Perle did on NPR last Monday, that our
splendid little Armageddon in the Middle East can be
pursued while we still go on expanding NATO,
building missile defense, keeping Russia in its place,
and treating China as an antagonist. But nothing is
beyond the man who was able to advise Bob Dole=92s
presidential campaign here and Bibi Netanyahu=92s
election campaign in Israel at the same time. As an
associate of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and
Political Studies in Jerusalem, he advised Netanyahu
to cancel the Oslo accords and to reject any notion
of Palestinian independence. Last summer he
advised the Israelis to walk out of Camp David
negotiations. Today he advises the U.S. Department
of Defense.
The shamelessness and perversion of the neocons is
bad for America and bad for Israel. It can only
provide ammunition to the assorted anti-Semites and
conspiracy theorists. It also shows how idle it is to
pretend that the dictum "people are policy" does not
apply to the dilemma America faces in the aftermath
of September 11. That dilemma can be resolved only
when we reject the permanent bias in Middle Eastern
affairs that breeds anti-Americanism and Islamic
fundamentalism. It is vitally important to the United
States to have permanent access to secure and
affordable sources of energy. It is not vitally
important to the U.S. whose flag flies over the Dome
on the Rock. We need a stable peace in the Middle
East that should be based on an even-handed
treatment of the conflicting parties=92 claims and
aspirations. There are problems that may not have a
solution and the desirability of any possible solution
must be assessed from the point of clearly defined
American geopolitical, economic, and diplomatic
interests. =
Such talk is high treason for the neocons, but now
that they are out in the open, they should be
challenged. In the past, you could be forgiven for
thinking that their schizophrenia owed more to their
post-national, globalist-hegemonist world outlook
than to their background. Today it appears that they
do have loyalties after all-- but that does not mean
that they act in Israel=92s best interests.
What the neocons demand of President Bush is
exactly what deductive reasoning indicates to be
Osama bin Laden=92s real objective: a cataclysmic war
of civilizations that can only benefit those who desire
the destruction of the remnants of our race and
culture. That, in their opinion, may be a price well
worth paying for their own greater glory. Agnostic,
deracinated neurotics seeking "benevolent global
hegemony" cannot maintain true loyalty to any
particular people or nation. President Bush seems to
know that, thank God. Prime Minister Sharon is well
advised to follow suit.
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