[lbo-talk] the neo-neocons

[mike larkin]

--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> New York Times - October 19, 2003
> 
> PERSPECTIVE | CHANGING MINDS
> 
> What It Takes to Be a Neo-Neoconservative
> By JAMES ATLAS
> 
> A war against an enemy whose threat to us remains a
> matter of debate. 
> The need to commit troops indefinitely. Growing
> doubts at home. As 
> the American involvement in Iraq has become a
> commitment of unknown 
> duration, comparisons to the Vietnam War are more
> and more common.
> 
> Whether or not the comparison proves valid, there is
> another 
> historical parallel to the Vietnam War, one that
> involves a group of 
> intellectuals responsible for articulating the
> rationale for the Iraq 
> war. Among the enduring legacies of the earlier era
> was the split 
> between liberals who opposed the war and the small
> splinter group 
> that would become known as the neoconservatives. The
> group's decision 
> to support the Vietnam War - or at least to oppose
> those who opposed 
> it - was a shift that would lead them to a new level
> of power and 
> influence.
> 
> The war in Iraq has shown signs of a similar split:
> a pro-war faction 
> of the liberal intelligentsia has rejected a
> reflexive antiwar stance 
> to form a movement of its own. The influence of
> these voices isn't to 
> be underestimated. The marginality of intellectuals
> is a myth; even 
> in the resolutely hermetic world of Washington,
> their voices are 
> heard.
> 
> For the liberal intellectuals of this generation,
> the war in Iraq has 
> required nuanced positions. Michael Ignatieff,
> director of the Carr 
> Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and
> a self-styled 
> "liberal centrist," focused on the human rights
> issue: if liberating 
> Iraq from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein saved
> opponents of the regime 
> from torture or death, that in itself justified the
> war.
> 
> The political philosopher Michael Walzer, the editor
> of Dissent 
> magazine, was ambivalent, but directed much of his
> anger at the rigid 
> politics of the anti-interventionist left in the
> face of Sept. 11.
> 
> Christopher Hitchens, a columnist for Vanity Fair
> who had disapproved 
> of United States intervention in the first Persian
> Gulf war, was 
> excited about Americanization as a revolutionary
> force. Calling 
> himself a "Paine-ite," he saw the new war as an
> uprising against an 
> illegitimate state.
> 
> The writer Paul Berman forcefully expressed the
> opinion that not only 
> was President Bush justified in his prosecution of
> the war but that 
> he had dragged his feet. Terrorism, Mr. Berman wrote
> in his book 
> "Terror and Liberalism," is a form of
> totalitarianism; the war in the 
> Middle East is a war to defend liberal civilization.
> 
> How does the war look seven months later? Mr.
> Ignatieff hasn't 
> changed his mind. "Would you prefer to have Bremer
> in Baghdad or 
> Saddam Hussein?" he asked, referring to L. Paul
> Bremer III, the top 
> American administrator in Iraq. "For me the key
> issue is what would 
> be the best result for the Iraqi people - what is
> most likely to 
> improve the human rights of 26 million Iraqis? What
> always drove me 
> crazy about the opposition was that it was never
> about Iraq. It was a 
> referendum on American power."
> 
> The going has been tougher than he expected, Mr.
> Ignatieff said: "I 
> freely admit, the one thing I didn't anticipate was
> hit-and-run 
> guerrilla attacks. The regime didn't fall when the
> statue came down."
> 
> But this is hardly a propitious moment to oppose the
> war, he was 
> quick to add. "Anybody who wants the people who are
> shooting American 
> soldiers in the backs at night to win ought to have
> their heads 
> examined," Mr. Ignatieff said, referring to a recent
> Gallup poll 
> showing that two-thirds of Baghdad residents believe
> that the removal 
> of the Iraqi dictator has been worth the hardships.
> "Do I think I was 
> wrong? No."
> 
> Mr. Walzer said he was just as uncertain as he was
> at the beginning, 
> but for different reasons. "The issues that were in
> dispute last 
> March have been superseded by new issues," he said.
> "Many of us who 
> opposed the war are not prepared to call for the
> withdrawal of 
> American troops. It's hard to work out a political
> position opposed 
> to that of the administration. The issues now are
> not the kinds of 
> issues around which you can have a political
> mobilization: issues 
> like not enough troops, no unilateralism, no
> domestic security."
> 
> Mr. Hitchens is more gung-ho than ever. In his
> October column for 
> Vanity Fair, he reports from his latest trip to Iraq
> that definite 
> progress is being made. United States military
> officers are kinder, 
> gentler men than the "grizzled, twitchy" American
> veterans of 
> Cambodia or El Salvador. "Their operational skills
> are 
> reconstruction, liaison with civilian forces, the
> cultivation of 
> intelligence, and the study of religion and
> ethnicity," he wrote.
> 
> Mr. Berman said he supported the American occupation
> but not the Bush 
> administration. "Before the war I took the position
> that it was 
> important to overthrow Saddam and that I couldn't
> stand Bush - the 
> worst president the U.S. has ever had," he said. "My
> prediction was 
> that we were going to pay for this, and we are
> paying for it."
> 
> What's the solution? "Everybody else - the United
> Nations, Democrats, 
> liberals, the left - has to do their best," Mr.
> Berman said. "To 
> overthrow Saddam is still a good thing, and we must
> ensure that it 
> turns out to be a success and not a failure.
> Cheering on the 
> sidelines doesn't do a lot of good. What we need to
> do is try and 
> persuade people that this is not a war about Bush
> but about 
> totalitarianism in the Middle East."
> 
> A mandate of intellectuals is that they be open to
> changing their 
> opinions. Skepticism, the weighing of options, "the
> ability to hold 
> two opposed ideas in the mind simultaneously," in
> the words of F. 
> Scott Fitzgerald, are the tools of the trade. Why
> should a liberal be 
> required to be a liberal at all costs? What if
> historical events 
> demand a revision of beliefs?
> 
> For the neoconservatives who emerged out of the
> Vietnam era - most 
> notably Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer and Irving
> Kristol - that war had 
> what they felt was a persuasive rationale: the need
> to avoid the 
> spread of Communism. The analogy is clear: Just as
> the 
> neoconservatives' support for the Vietnam War grew
> out 
=== message truncated ===

The Times wastes so much ink on these handwringing
"pro-war" liberals, but never talks about the
"anti-war" conservatives, or any other political
grouping except the neocons, for that matter. Don't
they get bored with the same old stuff?

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com