As he makes clear in this post, The Atlantic‘s Andrew Sullivan has finally come to the conclusion that the democracy claptrap that neo-conservatives have spouted since 9/11 has been a facade for their core foreign-policy worldview with Israel at its heart.
“I took neoconservatism seriously for a long time, because it offered an interesting critique of what’s wrong with the Middle East, and seemed to have the only coherent strategic answer to the savagery of 9/11. I now realize that the answer – the permanent occupation of Iraq – was absurdly utopian and only made feasible by exploiting the psychic trauma of that dreadful day. The closer you examine it, the clearer it is that neoconservatism, in large part, is simply about enabling the most irredentist elements in Israel and sustaining a permanent war against anyone or any country who disagrees with the Israeli right. That’s the conclusion I’ve been forced to these last few years. And to insist that America adopt exactly the same constant-war-as-survival that Israelis have been slowly forced into. Cheney saw America as Netanyahu sees Israel: a country built for permanent war and the “tough, mean, dirty, nasty business†of waging it (with a few war crimes to keep the enemy on their toes).â€
(Sullivan’s post has predictably infuriated John Podhoretz, the keeper of the neo-con flame at Commentary.)
Given their long-established affinity for “friendly authoritarian†regimes, I never understood why so many foreign-policy and other intellectuals were gulled by the neo-cons’ efforts to dress up their Arabo- and Islamophobia in the guise of Wilsonianism and democracy promotion (although I accept that Wolfowitz — a neo-con who is not a Likudnik — may have been sincere). The contradictions in their arguments, let alone with their historical record, always seemed so glaringly obvious. (How can you be a Wilsonian and indefinitely deny self-determination to Palestinians or condition it on their becoming Finland, as one of Ariel Sharon’s closest advisers suggested?) Just this past week, I attended a presentation by Council on Foreign Relations fellow Stewart Patrick, the author of a new book on the origins of U.S. multilateralism, who described them as Wilsonians who disdain multilateral institutions. The sooner people disabuse themselves of the notion that the spread of Wilsonian democracy is a core tenet of neo-conservativism, the more realistic any discussion of the movement and its contribution to the disastrous situation both the United States and Israel now face in the Middle East will be.
The so called “neoconservatives”, a calculating and pathologically shameless sect of nerds backed by the munitions business have prospered with the World Improvers because narcissism is a compulsion fed by fiat money and the joys of Reserve Currency Status. In other words, while the lapsed-Republic carries out a decades-long program of ritual Seppaku, the Neo conservatives are playing the booster snake-oil salesman Hastings to the World Improver’s Donner Party. The Levant and near east of course provide a more than passable Salt Flats and winter Sierras.
I guess this means that Sullivan is no longer on Israel’s dole. Anybody with half a brain could figure out the USA has been Israel’s bitch for years. All you had to was open your eyes.
Precisely. That Sullivan has finally gotten to the truth of the neo-con project, one wonders why he’d be an object of interest rather than the most profound opprobrium. Something akin to the Sullivan apparition seems always to be luking about the edges of the Glenn Greenwald phenomenon as well, always the suggestion of real comprehension regarding the limitations of the Obama presidency without the moral courage of the personal step of moving beyond system loyalties when the truth requires it. Personal ambition has a remarkable way of keeping the tongue – or the pen – in check, once one has attained to being in the public’s notice.
OK, so Sullivan sees a little of the light but why do people still care what he thinks or says? Why does anyone continue to pay any attention to him?
Well, certainly we anti-war/libertarian/non-statists have never paid him any serious heed. Now isn’t the time to start doing so, either; if Sullivan couldn’t figure out the real deal with the neocons from day one, when it was glaringly obvious to anyone with half a functioning brain cell and a soupcon of common sense, why should anyone assume that he’s really any smarter or more discerning now?
If I had to take a guess as to what lies ahead for him in the world of MSM journalism, I’d put money on one of two outcomes:
1. The same people who have put all of their stock in Sullivan’s every word for the last eight years (and who possess even less common sense and fewer critical thinking skills than he does) will continue to devour his every word as gospel. These, I predict, will be the majority of his readers, most of whom won’t even notice the change in attitude.
2. His readers will feel a deep sense of betrayal, something akin to what Madeleine Murray O’Hare must have felt when her eldest son announced that he became a born-again Christian, and will abandon him in droves while excoriating him as a traitor. With his readership base evaporated, he’ll be asked to find gainful employment somewhere other than at The Atlantic.
Andrew Sullivan is an ass.
“I took neoconservatism seriously for a long time, because it offered an interesting critique of what’s wrong with the Middle East…”
Frig. Who else but a sycophantic pop intellectual could consider such a concept?
So is Andrew Sullivan going to apologize to Taki Theodoracopulos for calling him anti-Semite?
Sullivan was a shill and ideological enforcer for the neocons for quite some time, as such I am highly suspicious of his alleged conversion on the Road to Damascus. Sullivan is smart enough to see that that the neocon ship is sinking, so he jumped ship, just like Francis Fukuyama, but I could easily imagine Sullivan, Fukuyama, and other allegedly rehabilitated neocons cheering on Obama should he decide to go ahead and intervene in or invade Pakistan, Iran, Darfur, Somalia, or some other far flung region awaiting to be liberated. Sullivan is a long way from Ron Paul, Justin Raimondo, Pat Buchanan, Andrew Bacevich, Paul Craig Roberts, Scott McConnell, Michael Scheuer, and other authentic anti-interventionist conservatives.
“So is Andrew Sullivan going to apologize to Taki Theodoracopulos for calling him anti-Semite?”
Ha.
This bit by Andrew Sullivan caught my eye too:
“And to insist that America adopt exactly the same constant-war-as-survival that Israelis have been slowly forced into.”
Yeah, Andrew, Israel was “forced” into it. Sure.
Andrew Sullivan is still a koolaid drinker; he’s simply changed flavors for the time being.
Calling Sullivan a sycophant is way too kind…..His type of submission is of a more horizontal nature…
It’s not the koolaid he drinks that offends, it’s the blood of innocents flowing from the trail of the neocon wars machine he glugs with not a burp……….
Trust me when I say the last thing I want to do is defend Sullivan, but he did say “constant-war-as-survival that Israelis have been slowly forced into” — Israelis, by their politicians and culturemakers.
Well, maybe not Scheuer.
What is disturbing is that someone who was so easily and thoroughly hoodwinked as Mr. Sullivan continues to have such a prestigious platform as The Atlantic from which to influence the public. Track record doesn’t correspond to media sponsorship and opportunity to influence. Rather reminds me of Mr. Kristol at the New York Times, or Peter Beinart at Time Magazine. Proved wrong time and time again, and doing none the worse for it, either.
One blog entry spent on Andrew Sullivan is too much flattery. The fraud can jump in a lake of fire along with his fellow Wilsonians and other thieves, murderers, rapists, and liars for the state.
Yes, ultimately it doesn’t matter if he was a bloodthirsty neocon or a democracymongering Wilsonian — both ideologies require lots of dead people and destroyed things.
Wow pigs do indeed fly.
Israel has not been forced into anything. It is a racist, land-stealing monster of a country. Throughout its short history it has stood for one, and only one ideal, – commit genocide of the Palestinians and take their land. And this is done not out of any emotional excess but cold-heartedly, calculatingly. And it will get worse with Netanyahou ( Andy Rooney called him Netan Yahoo). When even a two bit whore like Sullivan can see this, what does that say about our new Secretary of Zionism, Hillary Clinton.
So what do you have to do to be a big time pundit? Doesn’t seem as if you have to have much in the way of knowledge, experience in life, understanding of your own country or foreign ones. Sullivan and Hitchens have a British accent, which appeals to certain colonial mentalities, but that sort of thing is not as common as a generation or two ago. I have higher degrees in Middle East history/archaeology, read 6 Middle Eastern language and have spent a fair amount of time working in the region, yet I can’t imagine I’d get considered for the all-knowing pundit of the Sioux Rapids (IA) Bulletin-Press.
Lester Ness
Kunming
China
So what do you have to do to be a big time pundit?
1. Worship the State, in any or all of its flavors.
2. Pick an ideology that resonates with a large segment of the consumer public, cling to it as if it were a Siamese twin with which you have symbiotic relationship, and paint everything you comment or report on in thick shades of it. It doesn’t matter whether or not said ideology is sustainable or whether it has succeeded or failed miserably (think: neoconservatism or socialism, both of which, while demonstrably miserable failures, still have whole nations full of adherents). If a sizable enough percentage of the media-consuming population believes in your pet ideology with all of their souls and you can sustain their belief in it, you’re guaranteed permanent employment with one of the major statist propaganda outlets, no matter what your actual track record.
3. Related to number 1 above, ingratiate yourself with one or more members of the ruling elite who hold key positions of power. Sing their praises incessantly, no matter how incompetently or criminally they behave. As long as they continue to hold power and provide you with access to it and the perquisites it brings, they can do no wrong, and you’ll have no trouble convincing huge segments of the public of the same.
4. Last but not least, buy stock or ownership in a state-capitalist organization (any “corporation” that’s part of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex will do perfectly). Bank your profits therefrom somewhere off-shore, so that when the day comes when you’re finally exposed as the criminal fraud that you’ve been all along, you’ll have something to fall back on while living in exile.
“I took neoconservatism seriously for a long time, because it offered an interesting critique of what’s wrong with the Middle East”
What’s wrong with the middle east is that westreners have never stopped cuasing its problems.They viewed it with a stereotypical westren prospictive,never taking seriously the asprations of the people,rediculed their cultural,religion,and everything.They never were intersted in ulifitting the people.They had ample time to do that during the colonial period.
Neoconservatives are no different they are even worse because their objective is to insure the complete dominance of Israel in the rejion at any cost.
Andrew Sullivan knew these facts from the get go but supported the neoconservatives and their destructive project for the rejion and cheered their wars,Israel’s wars.\
To pertend,now, not to know about this at the begging is totally absured.He- like the NYT,Washington post,and the whole US media ,and BBC- knew the facts but ignored.
Gee, Sullivan pulls his head completely out of his ass and comes up for air for the first time in eight years. And this is some sort of cause of celebration?
When he atones for his bullshit rhetoric and offers to go to Iraq to help rebuild that country with his bare hands then maybe I’ll consider this more than just a worthless token gesture from a failed “intellectual”.
..
….The sooner people disabuse themselves of the notion that the spread of Wilsonian democracy is a core tenet of neo-conservativism, the more realistic any discussion of the movement and its contribution to the disastrous situation both the United States and Israel now face in the Middle East will be……….
I am so sorry to hear this SO-CALLED INTELLECTUAL policy is ONLY disastorous to the United States and Israel, think of the fun and carnage brought to bear against Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, the millions of deaths, the millions of maimings and the destroyed livs all at the expense of a bunch of over-paid undersexed ignorant pin-stripped RACIST RACIST RACIST cowards fulminating in the salons and cafes of Washington, kept alive in their self-importance by a brain-dead population of terrified western bigots from Austalia to France to Canada and to America.
God Bless this crime. May it burn for a thousand years. All in the name of the original sin, Israel.
..
It’s absolutely fantastic news that Sullivan, however belatedly, has finally come to this realization.
Hallelujah.
And now, would he like to apologize to all those people he has in the past implied might be anti-Semites, just because they were a lot quicker to understand what neo-conservatism really is than he has been?
A good development, any crack in the neo-con armor. (Of course, wilsonianism is bad too, but not as bad a policy as Israel uber alles.)
“I took neoconservatism seriously for a long time,‘
That’s as far as I needed to read.
Hell, Henry Ford could have told you that. Him and about ten thousand others. Duh!
Neoconservatism = Israeli interests and American blood and treasure.
Sullivan is a fool and I have never respected anything he has said
Lets think back to Sullivan’s start in the press. He was a gay republican who served on Bush’s faith based initiatives council who claimed that he was mislead and that he thought Bush was all about helping the poor not demonizing gays. So either he is a liar, or a fool. Either way he doesn’t carry much weight with me
As for his point, I think its wrong and misguided. Israel had very little to do with Iraq and even less to do with Afghanistan. As with most wars of aggression this was about trade and access to resources, construction of military bases and perhaps a bit of avenging daddy
But I’m glad Sullivan is criticizing Israel (kind of). I do wonder where he stands on Israel’s blockade of Gaza, whether to recognize the elected Hamas government there or the sanctions against Iran though.
Somehow I doubt he actually deviates from the party line as far as policy
Why should anyone carry a shred of respect for Sullivan’s critical thinking skills and foreign policy acumen when it took a collective plunge into the abyss for him to finally acknowledge what was obvious seven years ago to readers of antiwar.com?
It would be interesting to find out how much of that stimulus money is going to the Israeli government.Republicans are howling bloody Mary as to the size of spending. Well then according to President Carter. America is spending millions a month to aid Israel why are they not complaining about that?
Even this much dissent, however slight, is a good sign. More people are becoming aware that America is Israeli-occupied territory. Sooner or later, something’s got to give.
Why has he finally awakened to the role Israel and its’ Washington-based lobby, AIPAC, played it Washington’s wars against Iraq and the billion-plus members of Islam? When the elder George H.W. Bush launched the first war against Iraq in 1990 our TV media was inundated with appearances bt Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Frank Gaffney, Luarie Mylorie and other supporters, or agents, of the Likud Party in Israel? I will never understand why this small group of Neocons refuse to admit and take credit for their role in exploiting us into these wars? If they were selling cars or tooth paste their efforts would be lauded in the advertising industry. Though most Americans seem unaware of the successful role the Necons played in starting this war their efforts have eleveated them to the status of heroes in Israel and I predict many of us will see postage stamps issued and statues and monuments built to honor them. Steve, WW2
ÙRare footage for CNN’s major anchor Wolf Blitzer fiercely defending Zionism. Note how prof. Finkelstein responds to his Zionist propaganda
http://www.palestineremembered.com/GeoPoints/Responding_to_Zionist_Propaganda_5356/Article_2788.html
I still think that Andrew Sullivan should be deported back to his native England. If we would just deport foreign-born neocons like Sullivan, Tony Blankley, and David Frum we would save ourselves from a lot of trouble. The US has deported radical Muslim clerics on national security grounds, so why not do the same with these foreign-born agitators who wish to push this country into illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral wars of aggression?
Good point.
In February 2004, he accepted the tenured position of Luce professor of religion at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, U.S.. However, in late July 2004, his visa was revoked by the State Department, and he was forced to resign the position.[12]
In September 2006, a State Department statement said: “A U.S. consular officer has denied Dr. Tariq Ramadan’s visa application. The consular officer concluded that Dr. Ramadan was inadmissible based solely on his actions, which constituted providing material support to a terrorist organization.”[13][14] Between December 1998 and July 2002, Ramadan had given donations totalling $940 to two charity organizations, the Comité de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens and the Association de Secours Palestinien.[15] The United States Treasury designated both the CBSP and ASP terrorist fundraising organizations for their alleged links to Hamas on August 22, 2003.[16] The U.S. Embassy told Ramadan that he “reasonably should have known” that the charities provided money to Hamas. In an article in The Washington Post, Ramadan asked: “How should I reasonably have known of their activities before the U.S. government itself knew ?”[15][17][18][19]