Why We Don’t Need Neoconservativism

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…by Jonas E. Alexis

 

Douglas Murray, the Associate Editor of the Spectator who writes for publications such as the Sunday Times and the Wall Street Journal, is certainly an interesting character. As a flaming Neocon, he writes books about why we really need Neoconservatism.[1] But then he goes on to implicitly bemoan the devastating consequences that the Neoconservative ideology has brought upon much of the West.

In his recent book The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, Murray makes it very clear that he does not like the idea that Muslims are immigrating to Europe, but the same Murray cannot see that perpetual wars in the Middle East and the destruction of nations by the Neoconservatives are forcing decent Muslims to abandon their countries of origin. Back in 2006, Murray declared:

Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition. We in Europe owe – after all – no special dues to Islam. We owe them no religious holidays, special rights or privileges.



“From long before we were first attacked it should have been made plain that people who come into Europe are here under our rules and not theirs. If some Muslims don’t have a mosque to go to, then they’ll just have to realise that they aren’t owed one.”

Murray later disavowed what he said and declared that “it does not reflect my opinions,” but Murray cannot be taken seriously precisely because he is still under the wing of the Neoconservative ideology, which we all know has brought untold misery to the Middle East and much of the West.

Murray cites Francis Fukuyama approvingly throughout his book, but he never tells his readers that Fukuyama said that the Neoconservative ideology got its inception from Trotsky and Lenin.[2] Murray proves to be an Israeli shill when he cites Benjamin Netanyahu approvingly saying,

“It is impossible to understand just how inimical—and how deadly—to the United States and to Europe this rising tide of militant Islam is without taking a look at the roots of Arab-Islamic hatred of the West.

“Because of the Western media’s fascination with Israel, many today are under the impression that the intense hostility prevalent in the Arab and Islamic world toward the United States is a contemporary phenomenon, the result of Western support for the Jewish state, and that such hostility would end if an Arab-Israeli peace was eventually reached. But nothing could be more removed from the truth.

“The enmity toward the West goes back many centuries, remaining to this da a driving force at the core of militant Arab-Islamic political culture. And this would be the case even if Israel had never been born.[3]

“For neocons,” says Murray, “Netanyahu’s warnings had proved accurate.”[4] Complete nonsense. But that Murray doesn’t stop here. He moves on to posit the claim that Islam attacks “Jews because they are Jews;” it attacks the West “because it is the free West;” and it attacks “democracies because the perpetrators hate democracy.”[5]

Murry just proves that when you are morally and intellectually blind, then you are simply unable string two coherent thoughts together. Thomas Aquinas argued that lust makes one blind, and it seems that political lust does the same thing. The Iraq war, says Murray, “was necessary, and it…remains right.”[6] Murray cites his ideological bosses—Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, the Kagans, etc.—to support his case.

The war in Iraq, according to Murray, was not based on categorical lies at all. “Far from concealing anything from their people,” said Murray, “the governments of the US and the UK told their people everything they knew. If they did make a mistake it was that they provided the people with every complicated and messy truth that they possessed at the time.”[7] Murray added:

“The government’s fault was not in ‘lying’ to the people, but in telling the people too much, revealing information that no previous government would have revealed, and, through this process, seriously compromising and embarrassing the security services.”[8]

Murray is able to make those ridiculous claims because he is again living in a world where the political order and practical reason are completely abandoned. Murray does have access to the scholarly and legal sources, which clearly demonstrate that both George W. Bush and Tony Blair deliberately lied to the masses.[9] Even the Chilcot report, of all places, found that Blair “deliberately exaggerated threat from Iraq.”[10] Blair admitted that there were some “elements of truths” to the charge that the Iraq War precipitated the rise of terrorist groups like ISIS.[11] He added: “Of course you can’t say that those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the situation in 2015.”[12]

Business Insider, a thoroughly Zionist outlet when it comes to attacking Russia, talks about how Blair deliberately used a “Machiavellian” ideology and even cited Blair saying that he had to use a “trick” in order to convince the masses to invade Iraq.[13]

Blair knew that “public opinion,” according to Insider, was against the elite seeking to invade a foreign nation. Public opinion is still against the elite seeking to invade countries like Syria.[14] But once Blair summoned his “trick,” all hell broke loose. What was that trick? This is Tony Blair before the war:

“So: the trick we need to take is this: we have to find a way of refocusing the issue on the absence of full co-operation by Saddam; and do so in a way that pulls public opinion and the UNSC waverers back to us by showing that we have indeed made every effort to avoid war. In my opinion the waverers need this to justify shifting. And for us in Europe it is vital in altering the state of our opinion.”[15]

Business Insider again declares:

“It’s not the first time Blair floated this idea. As early as July 2002 he was talking about using Saddam theoretically breaking UN resolutions as ‘our casus belli’ — a Latin phrase that means an action that justifies war. Incredibly, Blair said in the February 2003 memo that a disadvantage of this tactic is Saddam ‘might conceivably comply fully’ with the UN weapon’s inspection resolution.”[16]

Blair, who “first floated the idea of regime change in Iraq just three months” after the 9/11 attack,[17]  perceived that if Saddam complied with UN resolution, that would have heralded the death knell of the Neocons’ dream of an Iraq invasion. Here is Blair’s own words:

“He [Saddam] might conceivably comply fully—but the chances of this, according to all intelligence are minimal. And if he does, it would still amount to a huge humiliation.”[18]

Blair went on to declare that Britain and the US did pursue UN resolution, but the move was all a smokescreen which he and Bush used to unconvincingly persuade the masses that war was necessary. In his words,

“It gives doubters a reason to sign up. It helps the Arab world to come onboard. It allows us to show the world we are going to war, not because we want to, but because we have to. Above all, it shows the US reaching out, understanding concerns, but still firmly willing to act. It sets the UN a fundamental test. It gives the Europeans something to rally round. When we do act, it will show we went the last mile for peace.”[19]

Blair added diabolically:

“The only explanation is that they need to be persuaded that we would prefer peaceful disarmament if that were possible. Proving it isn’t possible is the huge benefit of the ultimatum route.”[20]

Hussein was even willing to step down or cooperate with the US in order to avoid a bloody and unnecessary war,[21] but the war machine wanted blood to flow all over the Middle East.

So, can Murray really say that “The mistake of Tony Blair and the British government was not a desire to lie or dissemble…”?[22] Is he justified in saying that “Government openness, both in providing information, and in providing opinion before the Iraq war, was more comprehensive than at any other time in British or American political history”?[23]

Will Murray at least take some responsibility for the chaos that has ensued since the Iraq debacle? If he says yes, then he must morally admits that violent reaction against the Neoconservatives in the Middle East and elsewhere are provoked. If he says no, then we can be sure that Murray is a diabolical nihilist seeking to bring down the Middle East through perpetual wars. In fact, categorical lies are largely the nuts and bolts of what Murray actually writes. For example, he ridiculously declares:

“The Iraq war was not led by neocons—not even by the highest-ranking neocon, Paul Wolfowitz. Deputy defence secretaries do not create US foreign policy. Neocons had already provided much of the background, the explanations for the moral imperative of action, and much-needed clarity throughout a situation mired in unworkable status quos. But the conflict was decided on, and led by, non-neocon Republicans who had come to realise, as the neocons had already realized years before, that the old way of doing things had failed them.”[24]

Can this man really be serious with the scholarly sources, which we have already cited? How does his statement here line up with what flaming Zionist Thomas Friedman has articulated? Friedman told Haaretz that the war in Iraq

“was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force of history. They believe that the right political idea entails a fusion of morality and force, human rights and grit.”[25]

The late Jewish scholar Murray Friedman agrees with Thomas Friedman here.[26]

Another categorical lie from Murray: “Hussein’s heroic image in certain parts of the Muslim world was, of course, grotesquely far removed from reality. No dictator in modern times has slaughtered more Muslims, both in genocides perpetrated in his own country, and in wars against his neighbours.”[27] Murray seriously cannot tell us that he didn’t know that the United States helped Saddam gas the Iranians in the 1980s.[28]

So, will Murry have the moral and intellectual courage to condemn the US for doing so? Will this man ever tell his readers the truth? Or will he remain a loyal servant to the lies and to the current regime in Israel?

In his recent book The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, Murray opens his introduction with these words: “Europe is committing suicide. Or at least its leaders have decided to commit suicide.”[29]

Ironic, isn’t it? The man is defending perpetual wars virtually all over the Middle East, but he simply cannot see that he is morally and intellectually committing suicide. Doesn’t he know that the war in Iraq will cost taxpayers at least six trillion dollars?[30] Isn’t that part of political suicide? Isn’t positing statements such as Assad is a “terror sponsor”[31] without a single evidence part of political suicide? Isn’t perpetuating more wars in places like Syria a recipe for disaster?[32] If Murray is not an intellectual moron, then no one is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuU_KY_4vz8


[1] Douglas Murray, Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (London: Social Affairs Unit, 2005).

[2] Francis Fukuyama, “After Neoconservatism,” NY Times, February 19, 2006.

[3] Douglas Murray, Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (London: Social Affairs Unit, 2005), kindle edition.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] See for example John J. Mearsheimer, Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); John M. Schuessler, Deceit on the Road to War: Presidents, Politics, and American Democracy (New York: Cornell University Press, 2015); Michael MacDonald, Overreach: Delusions of Regime Change in Iraq (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015); Paul R. Pillar, Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy: Iraq, 9/11, and Misguided Reform (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011); Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, The Road to Iraq: The Making of a Neoconservative War (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014); Vincent Bugliosi, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder (New York: Perseus Books, 2008); John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (New York: Ferrar & Straus, 2008); Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack: The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004).

[10]  Heather Stewart, “Tony Blair deliberately exaggerated threat from Iraq, Chilcot report finds,” Guardian, July 6, 2016.

[11] Adam Taylor, “Tony Blair kind of apologized for the Iraq war, but many Brits still hate him,” Washington Post, October 26, 2015.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Oscar Williams-Grut, “MEMO: Blair tells Bush this is ‘the trick we need to take’ to get the world to support war in Iraq,” Business Insider, July 6, 2016.

[14] See for example Jon Stone, “Labour members ‘overwhelmingly opposed’ to bombing Syria ahead of decision from shadow cabinet,” Independent, November 30, 2015.

[15] Williams-Grut, “MEMO: Blair tells Bush this is ‘the trick we need to take’ to get the world to support war in Iraq,” Business Insider, July 6, 2016.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Oscar Williams-Grut, “CHILCOT: 9/11 ‘fundamentally changed’ the approach to Iraq,” Business Insider, July 6, 2016.

[18] Williams-Grut, “MEMO: Blair tells Bush this is ‘the trick we need to take’ to get the world to support war in Iraq,” Business Insider, July 6, 2016.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Will Heilpern, “LETTERS TO TONY BLAIR: Saddam Hussein’s lawyer wrote these letters as part of a plan for the Iraqi leader to step down before war was declared — but Blair ignored them,” Business Insider, July 5, 2016.

[22] Murray, Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (London: Social Affairs Unit, 2005), kindle edition.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ari Shavit, “White Man’s Burden,” Haaretz, April 4, 2003.

[26] Murray Friedman, The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

[27] Murray, Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (London: Social Affairs Unit, 2005), kindle edition.

[28] Rob Cooper, “CIA ‘helped Saddam Hussein carry out chemical weapons attack on Iran’ in 1988 under Ronald Reagan; Daily Mail, August 26, 2013; Shane Harris and Matthew M. Aid, “Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran,” Foreign Policy, August 26, 2013; Seymour M. Hersh, “U.S. Secretly Gave Aid to Iraq Early in Its War Against Iran,” NY Times, January 26, 1992; Julian Borger, “Rumsfeld ‘offered help to Saddam,’” Guardian, December 31, 2002; Mark Memmott, “New Details On How U.S. ‘Helped Saddam As He Gassed Iran,’” National Public Radio, August 26, 2013; “US gave Saddam blessing to use toxins against Iranians,” Russia Today, August 26, 2013; Natasha Lennard, “CIA helped Saddam gas Iran in ’88,” Salon, August 27, 2013; “U.S. Gave Iraq Intel, Ignored Chemical Attacks In 1980s, Report Says,” Huffington Post, August 26, 2013; Norm Dixon, “How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons,” Counterpunch, June 17, 2004.

[29] Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (New York and London: Bloomsbury, 2017), introduction.

[30] Ernesto Londono, “Study: Iraq, Afghan war costs to top $4 trillion,” Washington Post, March 28, 2013; Bob Dreyfuss, The $6 Trillion Wars,” The Nation, March 29, 2013; “Iraq War Cost U.S. More Than $2 Trillion, Could Grow to $6 Trillion, Says Watson Institute Study,” Huffington Post, May 14, 2013; Mark Thompson, “The $5 Trillion War on Terror,” Time, June 29, 2011; “Iraq war cost: $6 trillion. What else could have been done?,” LA Times, March 18, 2013.

[31] Douglas Murray, “What Bashar Assad Knows,” Wall Street Journal, May 29, 2012.

[32] Douglas Murray, “Assad is hoping Isis will make his regime look moderate. This is no accident,” Spectator, February 10, 2015.

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