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/CONT/

IRAQ ATTACK: MESSIAHS DON'T NEED PERMISSION

Returning to the immediate issue of war with Iraq, we should consider 
that any valid case stands on its own merits regardless of personal and 
cultic neocon ambitions. Nevertheless, the neocons seem to feel little 
need to make a persuasive case on the merits regarding invading Iraq. 
The Administration in turn has only offered to the nation and world pro 
forma recitations of Saddam Hussein`s known old sins, combined with 
speculation and threats. The President's statements at the United 
Nations on September 12 persisted in the failure to go beyond that.  

The neoconservatives' Messianic core helps explain this widely noted 
failure to make a case. In their view, America's right and might to invade 
and overthrow foreign regimes is a matter of Messianic faith. Therefore, 
the only issue is one of shoring up American resolve, i.e. the zeal of the 
acolytes, not the essential moral and practical issues of American vital 
interests, regional realism, international law, the needs of and for allies, 
and the problems of military contingency.  

That is why neocon cheerleaders seem to be devoting more time and 
space to encouraging bellicose Administration threats and shouting 
down critics like New York Times editor Howard Raines and retired 
General Brent Scowcroft. For the neocons, their Messianic cultism 
makes it not merely likely, but also downright preferable, that we act 
without proffering a justification to other powers. After all, the job 
description for "hegemons" and "Messiahs" doesn't
include asking for 
permission, forgiveness, or help.  

As we can see from a look at the record:

* An insider who knows several neocons in the Administration describes 
them in a September 11 New York Times article as having "a pervasive 
philosophy of `We have to do what we think is right, ... and when it 
comes out, the rest of the world will know it's right, too.' "  

* "We've got influence, power, prestige, and clout beyond any nation in 
the history of the world," boasted Richard Armitage, a moderately 
neoconnish State Department Deputy Secretary of State, to the 
Washington Post. "It brings forth a certain amount of envy."  

* "We are the one truly revolutionary country on Earth," neocon Michael 
Ledeen chimed in on CNBC recently, braying for war with Iraq, and 
apparently channeling Leon Trotsky circa 1919. And that revolutionary 
nature would be "the reason we will successfully transform the lives...
of millions in the Middle East."  

As such statements reveal, superclout brings forth a certain amount 
of hubris, as well as envy. Like that seen before Vietnam. Weren't we 
revolutionary then too? Transforming lives through ever-increasing land 
war in Asia?  

Neocon Messianism seeks "monsters to destroy" abroad. Yet, even as 
Saddam is added to the list of beasts, bin-Laden and/or his deadly 
acolytes remain undestroyed after a year. And the threat they pose has 
not merely been abroad. The neocons' hubris has blinded them to 
addressing obvious problems in America's reach and prioritization.  

ENDLESS WARS OF INTRIGUE: A CONSERVATIVE ANSWERS THE 
NEOCONS

The best response to the neocons was written in 1997 by Reaganite 
conservative author William McDougall {http://www.fpri.org/pubs/ 
nightthoughts.199712.mcdougall.neoconswrong.html}, in a reply to 
neocons Kristol and Kagan. McDougall's words of wisdom were joined 
with those of John Quincy Adams, our 19th Century President, and 
prove remarkably prophetic about post-9/11 America, the Executive 
Branch's unilateral actions regarding Iraq, and the neocons.  

First, McDougall addressed the issue of Executive-Branch unilateral 
tactics:

Woodrow Wilson's complaint [was] that the only way for a president to 
"compel compliance" from Congress is to get the nation into "such 
scrapes" and make such "rash promises" abroad that the Senate 
cannot disavow him without shaming the United States....  

McDougall adds that those are the tactics preferred by the neocons.

The [neoconservatives issue] a clarion call that would appear to invite 
[those] scrapes and rash promises [when they write]: "John Quincy 
Adams [admonished] that America ought not 'go abroad in search of 
monsters to destroy.' But why not? The alternative is to leave monsters 
on the loose, ravaging and pillaging to their heart's content...."  

McDougall proceeds to answer Kristol and Kagan's "why not seek out 
monsters to destroy" in a manner that is both stark and eloquent as a 
warning:  

[If] you go abroad in search of monsters, you will invariably find them 
even if you have to create them. You will then fight them, whether or not 
you need to, and you will either come home defeated, or else so 
bloodied that the American people will lose their tolerance for 
engagement altogether, or else so victorious and full of yourself that the 
rest of the world will hate you and fear that you'll name them the next 
monster.  

McDougall is also quick to add in his prophetic piece that John Quincy 
Adams himself was not out of date in his expressed fear of global 
monster-hunting. In fact, Adams realistically and also prophetically 
appraised the attraction and hazards of the overextension of American 
government power.  

The reason not to [search out monsters] is that to do so [Adams says] 
"would involve the United States beyond the power of extrication, in all 
the wars of interest and intrigue, avarice, envy, and ambition. . . . 
America might become the dictatress of the world, but she would no 
longer be the ruler of her own spirit."  

The understandable passions of post-9/11 -- rage against hostile 
Mideasterners, fear among frustrated Midwesterners, a unifying 
awakening of national purpose -- give the neocons cover for their cultish 
ideological coup to remake us into an endlessly warring Messianic 
dictatress of the world.  

Enter then "all the wars of interest and intrigue, avarice, envy, and 
ambition, beyond the powers of extrication . . . ." Iraq may the first 
of many of these.  

The ultimate price may be nothing less than mass destruction of lives 
and nations, the needless death of our best and bravest, the loss of the 
grudging respect we still command, and the irretrievable conversion of 
the United States into an imperial war state of limitless government for 
whom the phrase "land of the free" will become merely a battle cry, full 
of sound and fury.  

Signifying nothing.


This essay is condensed from a longer version, available from the author 
on request. 

                            -==-

Source: "Spectacle" - http://www.spectacle.org/1002/hogan.html

Cheers, Steve..

"Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of 
the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred
threescore and six."

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