By Justin Raimondo
(A speech delivered on Dec. 16,in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at the 2005 Perdana PeaceForum).
Thetheme for this part of the program is "Crimes Against Peace, CrimesAgainst Humanity." Weare discussing here the question of defining and dealing with warcrimes. In any suchdiscussion, however, we must start out by identifying who are the warcriminals. We must, in short, name names.
I would remind you that only governments makewar. Only governments have the resources to commit mass murder.Government is, by its very nature, a weapon of mass destruction.Governments from A to Z--from America to Zimbabwe--are potentialinstruments of brutal repression. Last night, as I surfed theInternet, I saw an aerial photo of a village that looked like thebombed-out remnants of a target in Iraq--it was, however, a photo ofa village in Zimbabwe that had been bulldozed by the government thathas displaced over 300,000 people. Let's be clear: we are talkingabout government officials as the prime war criminals. So let's startnaming names.
Of course, everyone knows the name of the manmost responsible for the invasion and conquest of Iraq, because he isthe most powerful--and the most dangerous--man on earth. He is GeorgeW. Bush, commander in chief of America's military forces, the man whois even now declaring his defiance of the American public and growingcongressional opposition to the war by declaring that we won't getout until "victory"--and I put that term in ironic quotes--isachieved.
Less known, but no less culpable, are the peoplewho planned and agitated for this war over the course of a decade. InAmerica, we have a name for these people: we call themneoconservatives. "Neocons" for short. This is to distinguish themfrom ordinary, run-of-the-mill conservatives--or libertarians, suchas myself--who advocate limited government and are generallysuspicious of if not downright opposed to such grandiosesocial-engineering projects as "nation-building." After the end ofthe Cold War, most conservatives moved to a position of opposingforeign meddling in most cases. It was the liberals who then becamethe big advocates of America pushing its weight around in the world,with the interventions in Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and the bombing ofIraq, which continued throughout President Bill Clinton'sreign.
When the Soviet empire imploded, mostconservatives gave up the idea of America as the world'spoliceman--but not the neoconservatives. They had originally comefrom the Left, and, having acquired the most authoritarian andelitist tendencies of the Right, the neocons retained the worst ofthe socialist movement's messianic pretensions, especially in therealm of foreign policy. As for their extraordinary bloodthirstiness,a brief look at their history shows us it was always there. Afterall, the earliest of these refugees from the anti-Stalinist Left hadhuddled around the ruthless figure of Leon Trotsky, founder of theRed Army, later becoming the most relentless and militant opponentsof the Kremlin. After some years, the second generation eventuallyfound their way into the Democratic Party, where a good number ofthem--Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, ElliottAbrams--became aides to Sen. Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson, Democrat ofWashington state. In Washington, D.C., these guys were known as themost radical advocates of a massive arms buildup and a strategy ofrollback against the Soviet Union.
The war in Vietnam was their Thermopylae, inwhich they tried to hold off the gathered legions of the burgeoningantiwar movement--but without success. Outnumbered, and defeated atthe polls, the neocons left the Democratic Party when George McGovernand his antiwar followers took the helm. They soon found a new homein the Republican Party, however, where they continued their longmarch to power.
Neoconservatism, which has been called a"persuasion" and not an ideology by Irving Kristol--one of the chiefarchitects of the movement--has always stood for two majorprinciples, and that is the rule by elites at home, and a foreignpolicy of perpetual intervention and conflict abroad. Over time, this"persuasion"--which started out as a primitive anti-Stalinism--becamemore elaborate, taking on the elitism and philosophical nihilism ofthe philosopher Leo Strauss--the philosopher of the so-called noblelie--as well as an enthusiasm for the state of Israel, and theU.S.-Israeli alliance, that often borders on the very edge ofpropriety, and sometimes crosses the line.
For example, in 1978, according to Stephen Green,a researcher very familiar with this subject, Wolfowitz wasinvestigated for passing a classified document--on the proposed saleof U.S. weapons to an Arab government--to an official of the Israeligovernment. This was done through an intermediary who worked for theAmerican Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), one of the mostpowerful lobbies in Washington. The investigation into the matter waseventually dropped, however, and Wolfowitz continued to work at theArms Control and Disarmament Agency--where he opposed every effort atarms control and disarmament. Perle and Feith ran into similarproblems, with similarly inconclusive results, and the neoconscontinued their quest for upward mobility in Washington's corridorsof power.
This kind of activity continues to characterizethe behavior of the neocons in government right up to the presentday, with one difference: this time, the investigation was notdropped, as in the case of Larry Franklin, the top Iran specialist inthe Pentagon, who was recently indicted for spying on behalf ofIsrael. He was caught red-handed turning over sensitive documents andother classified information to two officials of AIPAC, who thenpassed it on to the Israelis. Franklin and his co-conspirators arescheduled to stand trial in 2006.
With this exotic mix of ideologicalpositions--pro-war, pro-Israel, and dedicated to the tradition ofStrauss and Machiavelli, which holds that only a few men ofunscrupulous methods and natural genius have the natural right torule--the neocons worked their way into the Republican Party,infiltrated the U.S. government, and finally penetrated the topechelons of the foreign-policy establishment during the presidency ofRonald Reagan, when they captured the National Endowment forDemocracy and the mid-to-lower reaches of the national securitybureaucracy. By the time Reagan's second term rolled around, they hadalready established a significant beachhead--and assured themselvesof a semi-permanent foothold in official Washington.
When the Cold War ended and their influence ingovernment waned, they didn't disappear, but instead retrenched,setting up a network of think tanks, magazines, foundations, andpolitical front groups, seizing effective control of the conservativemovement in America. This was done by exercising a decisive influenceover how that movement was funded--the big conservative foundations,which funded various projects, funneled many millions of dollars intotheir ventures, subsidized their followers, and pushed their ideasrelentlessly, freezing out all opponents in the process. The resultwas a movement transformed, one that soon threw over its guidingprinciples--limited government, economic and personal liberty, and aforeign policy that puts America first--in favor of theneoconservative credo of big government at home and unrestrainedmilitarism around the world.
They started so many magazines that whole forestsof trees are now regularly sacrificed so that the Weekly Standard,the National Interest, First Things, National Review, the ClaremontReview of Books, Commentary magazine, and the Murdoch chain ofnewspapers can agitate for war, a policy of relentless Americanexpansionism, and "regime change" from sea to shining sea. The numberof neocon thinktanks is staggering: the American EnterpriseInstitute, the Center for Security Policy, the Jewish Institute forNational Security Affairs, the Foundation for the Defense ofDemocracies, and at least half a dozen or so with the word"Democracy" figuring prominently in their names: the list goes on andon. Together they employ a veritable army of policy analysts,publicists, and propagandists who churn out a steady stream ofarguments for increased arms expenditures and endless war--especiallydirected against Arab and Muslim peoples.
The neoconservatives languished during thepost-Cold War era, all but running out of steam: in America, theappetite for foreign intervention was practically nil, and theRepublicans, the neocons' chosen host of the moment, were revertingback to their traditional stance of a skeptical attitude towardforeign intervention. The neocons made limited headway during thisperiod, at least on the surface: they did, however, begin to agitatefor U.S. military action against Iraq, and in 1997 set up the Projectfor a New American Century (PNAC), headed by Weekly Standard editorWilliam Kristol, which announced its goal to be the promotion of"American global leadership." In 1998, a letter sponsored by PNAC andsigned by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, among others, called onthen-President Bill Clinton to attack Iraq.
A series of similar letters, newspaperadvertisements, and public statements followed, all in the same vein:the U.S., they demanded, must invade Iraq. The neocons also called,from the beginning, for a major U.S. military buildup, what theytermed a "transformation" of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force,effectively doubling present expenditures. As they sadly noted in aSeptember 2000, policy paper, however, that probably wasn't going tohappen quickly enough to suit them, "absent some catastrophic andcatalyzing event--like a new Pearl Harbor."
A year later, they had their "catalyzingevent"--and the neoconservatives were suddenly at the pinnacle of awave that has begun to crest only recently. Their war agenda wasready and waiting for the panic, the irrationality, the blind angerthat infused the American public in the wake of the biggest terroristattack in our history--and the neocons moved quickly to take fulladvantage of their golden opportunity.
They had argued long and hard that the MiddleEast had to be transformed into a series of pliable "democracies,"all essentially run from the U.S., in order to make life easier forIsrael. Indeed, a group of neoconservatives, including Douglas Feith,Richard Perle, and David Wurmser, among others, authored a policypaper in 1996 for then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,which called for regime change in Iraq as a way to humble thefrontline state of Syria. The "democratic" transformation of theregion was seen by these writers as a way for Israel to get out ofits predicament and break through to becoming the dominant power inthe region, free from any military or demographic threat.
In short, the plan to invade and conquer Iraq wasalready in place. After 9/11, the authors of this plan were free tostart implementing I--and the neocons were well-placed to do it. DickCheney, a PNAC alumni, was vice president. His chief of staff was I.Lewis "Scooter" Libby, another signer of the 1998 PNAC letter.Wolfowitz was installed at the Department of Defense, along withFeith. Wurmser was in government, ending up in the office of the vicepresident. John R. Bolton, now our ambassador to the UN, ZalmayKhalilzad, currently the U.S. ambassador to Iraq: the list ofstrategically -placed members of PNAC holding high positions in theBush administration is impressive.
What has happened to America since 9/11? Thisquestion is now being asked by the world's peoples, who fear thespectacle of the American giant going on an international rampage. Apretty good answer was given by the journalist Seymour Hersh,speaking at a conference of the American Civil Liberties Union, heldon July 7 of this year: "Okay, so here's what happens: a bunch ofguys, eight or nine neoconservatives, cultists--not Charles Mansoncultists, but cultists--get in.
"And it's not, with all due respect to MichaelMoore, (his movie's fine) but it's not about oil, it's even not aboutIsrael, it's about a utopia they have. It's about an idea they have.Not only about that democracy can be spread. In a sense I would sayPaul Wolfowitz is the greatest Trotskyite of our times. He believesin permanent revolution. And in the Middle East, to begin with,needless to say.
"And so you have a bunch of people who have been,for 10 or 12 years, fantasizing, since the 1991 Gulf war, on the wayto resolve problems. And of course there'll be beneficiaries, Israelwould be a beneficiary, etc., etc., but the world in their eyes, thisis a utopia.
"And so they got together this small group ofcultists. And how did they do it? They did do it. They've taken thegovernment over.
"And what's amazing to me--and what really istroubling &endash; is how fragile our democracy is. Look whathappened to us… They took the edge off the press, they alsomuzzled the bureaucracy, they muzzled the military, they muzzled theCongress. And it's an amazing feat. We're supposed to be a democraticsociety. And all those areas of our democracy bowed and scraped tothis group of neocons."
Hersh is right: after 9/11, the neocons pulledoff what was, in effect, a coup d'etat. Already implanted deep insidethe U.S. government, they emerged, at this crucial moment, like thepod people in the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and took overtheir host, commandeering American foreign policy and bypassing thetraditional safeguards built into the system. They bypassed thegenerals, they bypassed the intelligence community, they lied toCongress, and they ginned up a war that had been in the making for adecade.
But Hersh is wrong about the supposed fragilityof the American system of constitutional government: it isn't allthat fragile, as it turns out. It's just very flexible. It has beenbent very far in one direction, and is now in the process ofreturning to its original position. Today, the war is very obviouslya gigantic and quite embarrassing failure. The neocons are inretreat. And not only are they in retreat, but they--or at least someof them--will likely wind up in jail.
On Oct. 28 of this year, Patrick J. Fitzgerald.the special counsel appointed by the U.S. Justice Department,announced the indictment of I. Lewis Libby on five charges: one countof obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and two counts ofmaking false statements. I won't go into all the specifics of thecase here: suffice to say that the vice president's chief of stafffaces as much as 30 years in jail. The cabal that lied America intowar is facing not only exposure, but also legal prosecution, becausethey broke several laws in the process of luring us into the Iraqiquagmire--not the least of which was planting bogus "intelligence"about alleged "weapons of mass destruction," then retaliating againstanyone in the government who dared dispute their dubiousassertions.
If we look at the neoconservatives as a parasiticinfestation, we can see that the American body politic is reacting asany healthy organism would: it is rejecting the invaders andexpelling them. The American people now realize the war against Iraqwas started under false pretenses, and they are wondering when we aregoing to get out. The president and his cronies have launched apropaganda counteroffensive, trying to convince people that all iswell and that we ought to "stay the course"--to no effect. Americanshave made up their minds, and the question now isn't will wewithdraw, it is how and when we do it.
The war criminals have committed crimes againstthe Iraqi people and against other peoples of the Middle East, butthey have also committed crimes against Americans--and that is whattripped them up in the end. The indictment of Libby is only thebeginning: prosecutor Fitzgerald is already looking into other crimescommitted by other top Bush administration officials. There are evenrumors that Vice President Dick Cheney is in Fitzgerald'ssights.
Crime, as a popular American saying goes, doesnot pay. The criminals are eventually caught, exposed--and made topay the price. The only question is how much damage they can do inthe interim.
The damage to Iraq, and to the volatile situationin the Middle East, is considerable. We won't know for many years howmany Iraqis died--the United States military, while it keeps a countof its own war dead, doesn't bother counting dead Iraqis. We don'tknow the extent of the bombing &endash; except that it is being kepta secret. In Vietnam, they used to announce the number of bombingsorties every day: in Iraq, they don't talk about these bombingraids. As Seymour Hersh has reported, however, the air war is goingto be increased in intensity, as American troops retreat to saferground: that will increase the number of Iraqi casualtiesexponentially. We can count on two, three, many Fallujahs.
What we are facing is a conspiracy againsthumanity, a cabal motivated by an idea that is criminal in itself,and which consists of the assertion that the United States must runthe world--for "our own good," of course. But that is what everytyrant and would-be conqueror has asserted in the past: that they andonly they have the answer to the world's problems. The Sovietsbelieved that, and so did the British, the Germans, and theFrench--from Napoleon to Paul Wolfowitz, the rationale is always thesame. And it always ends in disaster.
Copyright 2005 Justin Raimondo (www.antiwar.com)
© PROMETHEUS 103/2006
PROMETHEUS, Internet Bulletin for Art, News, Politics and Science.Nr. 103, JANUARY 2006