Neoconservatism

Neoconservatismis a term referring to the political goals and ideology of the "new conservatives" in the United States.

Quotes

• Our "neoconservatives" are neither new norconservative,but old asBabylonand evil asHell.
  • Edward Abbey,A Voice Crying in the Wilderness: Vox Clamantis in Deserto: Notes from a Secret Journal.Rosetta Books. 2015. p. 23.ISBN 978-0-7953-4554-8.

• At the same time,Kissinger,Carteranddétentewere condemned as weakening the West by a group ofconservativeDemocratsled byHenry (Scoop) Jackson,a critic of SALT, as well as by keyRepublicanswho were influential in theFordadministration (1974–7), notably his Chief of Staff,Richard (Dick) Cheney,and the Secretary of Defense,Donald Rumsfeld.They drew on advice from commentators such asRichard Perle,Richard PipesandPaul Wolfowitzwho warned aboutSovietintentions. The continuity of this group, through 1990s’ opposition toClintonianliberalinternationalism,to the neo-conservative activism of the early 2000s, especially against Iraq, is notable.
  • Jeremy Black,The Cold War: A Military History(2015)

• [N]eoconservatism at its root is basically just saying what’s good is good for everybody. Not everybody all the time, and not everybody at the exact right level to absorb these ideas but freedom is not something that's limited.
  • Arthur Brooks,interview with Bill Kristol(2015),transcript

• What the heck is aneoconanyway in 2003? A friend of mine suggests it means the kind ofright-wingeraliberalwouldn't beembarrassedto have over for cocktails. That's as good a definition as any, since the term has clearly come unmoored from its original meaning.... In social policy, it stands for a broad sympathy with atraditionalistagenda and a rejection of extremelibertarianism.Neocons have led the charge to combat some of the wilder excesses ofacademiaand thearts.But there is hardly anorthodoxylaid down by Neocon Central. I, for one, am not eager to ban eitherabortionorcloning,two hot-button issues on thereligious right.On economic matters, neocons--like pretty much all otherRepublicans,except forMr. Buchananand his five followers--embrace alaissez-faireline, though they are not as troubled by the size of thewelfare stateaslibertariansare.
• There's no "neo" in my conservatism.
• Inside the administration are Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Their agenda is known as "neoconservatism," though a more accurate term might be "hardWilsonianism."Advocates of this view embraceWoodrow Wilson's championing of American ideals but reject his reliance on international organizations and treaties to accomplish our objectives.
  • Max Boot,"What the Heck Is a ‘Neocon’?".OpinionJournal.com(The Wall Street Journal). December 30, 2002.

• ADemocratwho has infiltrated theRepublican Party.
  • Harry Browne's definition of a neoconservative,"From the mailbag",Harry Browne's Journal(22 December 2004).

• If anything,Washington’s neoconservatives have an unerring instinct forsurvival.Having brought about multiple disasters in the two decades since theterror attacks of September 11, 2001,from theIraq warto the twin debacles inLibyaandSyria,the neocons seem to have perfected the art of failing up.
  • James Carden,Neocons bent on starting another disaster in Ukraine,Asia Times,15 December 2021

• The Americans occupyingIraqcouldn’t even admit to themselves they werecolonialists.Instead, theState Departmentdressed up the whole operation like it was a kind of armedsensitivity trainingseminar, designed to liberate Iraqi women from their traditionalgender roles:“Now that we’ve overthrownSaddam,we march ahead to overthrow thepatriarchy!”The result was failure, accompanied by chaos on every level. Watching it, I realized that there was nothing conservative about neoconservatism. The neocons were justliberalswith guns, the most destructive kind. The upside of the trip was that I made a lifelong friend. To this day I’m close to Kelly McCann, the retiredMarineofficer who guided me in Iraq. He’s still one of the most impressive people I know.
  • Tucker Carlson,The Long Slide: Thirty Years in American Journalism(2021)

• You know, I have repeatedly defendedPresident Bushagainst theleftonIraq,even though I think he should have waited until theU.N.inspections were over. I don't believe he went in there foroil.We didn't go in there forimperialistor financial reasons. We went in there because he bought the Wolfowitz-Cheney analysis that the Iraqis would be better off, we could shake up theauthoritarianArabregimes in theMiddle East,and our leverage to make peace between thePalestiniansandIsraeliswould be increased.
  • Bill Clinton,Interview withTime,June 2004

• If you are against war, you must act today. If the US reimposes the draft, you may be called to serve and to kill. And if the thought of killing to satisfy neocon blood thirst, government control of oil and oil pipelines, or US global hegemony offends your conscious, you must begin preparations to defend your soul.
  • Jim Fedako,Why Kill for Biden?,Mises Institute,21 March 2022

• That war in the early 1990schanged a lot for me. I never thought I would see, inEurope,a full-dress reprise ofinternment camps,themass murderof civilians, the reinstitution oftortureandrapeas acts of policy. And I didn't expect so many of my comrades to be indifferent – or even take the side of thefascists.It was a time when many people on the left were saying 'Don't intervene, we'll only make things worse' or, 'Don't intervene, it might destabilise the region. And I thought – destabilisation of fascist regimes is a good thing. Why should theleftcare about the stability of undemocratic regimes? Wasn't it a good thing to destabilise the regime ofGeneral Franco?It was a time when the left was mostly taking theconservative,status quo position – leave theBalkansalone, leaveMilosevicalone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors.Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate intoNational Socialism.So you had people likeNoam Chomsky's co-authorEd Hermango from saying 'Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supporting Milosevic, the most reactionary force in the region. That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as the neocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action in Bosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act. Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said aboutGeneral Sharonand aboutNicaragua.But nobody could say they were interested in oil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that – likeChomsky– looked ridiculous. So now I was interested.
  • Christopher Hitchens,"In enemy territory? An interview with Christopher Hitchens.",Interview withJohann Hari(2004-09-23): On theBosnian War

• Let me repeat that the absurd thing about theanti-Islamneo-conservatives is that they are invariably supporters of unrestrictedmigration,the means by whichIslamhas quite peacefully established itself as a permanent, growing major social, religious and political force in our country. IfSharia lawcomes toBritain,as Mr Jacubs fears, it will not be because of violent actions such as the Woolwich outrage, which I think we can safely assume were condemned and disowned by mostBritish Muslims.It will be as the result of the entirely peaceful establishment of a sizeable Muslim population in this country.
  • Peter Hitchens,"Another attempt at reasoning with Mr Jacubs and the neo-cons",The Daily Mail,28 December 2013

• The neocons who dominate theState DepartmentandCIAsee the war as a means of asserting American dominance over theworld economy,starting with its ownNATOpartners. The problem with this view is that although America’smilitary-industrial,oilandagriculturalmonopoliesare benefitting, the rest of theU.S. economyis being squeezed by theinflationarypressures resulting from boycottingRussiangas, grain and other raw-materials exports, and the enormous rise in the military budget will be used as an excuse to cut backsocial spending programs.
  • Michael Hudson,American Diplomacy as a Tragic Drama,(28 July 2022)

• Whenprogressivesremain silent and don’t talk about why thewar in Syriais illegal, then into the void step in neocons likeLindsey Graham.Any wonder that our nation remains mired in endless war. Let’s have the guts to stand for responsible withdrawal.
  • Ro Khannain aTwitter post(30 December 2018)

• ...one can say that the historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism would seem to be this: to convert theRepublican party,andAmerican conservatismin general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a moderndemocracy.
  • Irving Kristol,"The Neoconservative Persuasion".

• ...aliberalwho has been mugged by reality. "
  • Irving Kristol.

• [I]n America today, responsible liberals—who are usually called neoconservatives—see thatliberalismdepends on human beings who are somewhat child-centered,patriotic,andreligious.These responsible liberals praise these non-individualistic human propensities in an effort to shore up liberalism. One of their slogans is 'conservativesociologywith liberalpolitics.' The neoconservatives recognize that the politics of free and rational individuals depends upon a pre-political social world that is far from free and rational as a whole.
  • Peter Lawler,""Liberal Conservatism, Not Conservative Liberalism "(2003),The Intercollegiate Review

• Analogies from history must, of course, be treated with care. Using the wrong one not only can present an oversimplified picture of a complex situation in the present but can lead to wrong decisions. After September 11, 2001, it became fashionable, especially among neo- Conservatives, to talk about how the West finds itself engaged in World War IV.Norman Podhoretz,a leading neo-con thinker, argued that theCold Warwas reallyWorld War IIIand that now, after a too-brief period of peace in the 1990s, we are engaged in an equally massive and deadly struggle againstIslamic fundamentalism.Like the other world wars, theUnited Statesand its allies are the innocent party; others have thrust war upon them. The West is only defending itself, even in wars like the Iraq one where it launched the attack. In such a view, the war is a moral one, of good against bad. A convenient shorthand, the authorship of which is proudly claimed by theCanadianDavid Frum,is the “Axis of Evil.” No matter that the Axis inWorld War IIwas a working set of alliances between Germany, Italy, and Japan and that this one is said to includeIraqandIran,countries that wageda long war against each otherin the1980s,andNorth Korea,whose leaders probably have trouble finding their two reputed partners on the map. No matter, too, that the Cold War was not like the greatmilitarystruggles of the two world wars and did not end with an armistice on the battlefields but with the collapse of one of the protagonists. Those who criticize the open-ended and ill-defined nature of the “war on terror”or the occupation of Iraq are dismissed asisolationists,cowards,or worse. Reviewing Podhoretz’s recent work,World War IV: The Long Struggle against Islamofascism,Ian Burumawrote: “The book expresses a weird longing for the state ofwar,for the clarity it brings, and for the chance to divide one’s fellow citizens, or indeed the whole world, neatly into friends and foes, comrades and traitors, warriors and appeasers, those who are with us and those who are against.”
  • Margaret MacMillan,The Uses and Abuses of History (2008), pp. 175-177

• Secretary of StateMike Pompeo's rush to judgement that Iran was behind the apparent attacks on two tanker ships last week has not galvanized world opinion againstIran,as the neocons hoped. Instead, it was met with high skepticism even amongWashington's closest allies. Has the neocon practice of massively exaggerating and endlessly issuing threats finally destroyed US credibility on the world stage?
  • Ron Paul,Credibility Crisis: No One Believes Pompeo On Iran Attack,Liberty Report,] (17 June 2019)

• Liesare nothing new to politics. It's arguable that neoconservatives have lied to us on a regular basis on a variety of issues, ranging fromforeign policyto the supposed destruction of the nuclearfamily,which they claim would result from allowinghomosexualsthe samerightsheld byheterosexuals.But in each of these cases, the lie's impact is diminished by a healthy level ofscepticism.The most successful lie propagated by neoconservatives would have to be the conclusion that they arefiscal conservatives.
  • Alexander S. Peak,"Conservative Socialism",LewRockwell.com(24 September 2005).

• [N]eo-conservatism is a quintessentiallyJewishproject: a re-sanctification in everyday life of the core values of westerncivilisation,and the achievement of human potential through virtuous practice.
  • Melanie Phillips,Britishjournalist.

• George W. Bush,Dick Cheney, and the neoconservatives should all hold a special place in thehall of shamefor mass killers for what they did to Iraq.
  • Jeremy Scahill,A Brief History of U.S. Intervention in Iraq Over the Past Half Century(April 9 2018),The Intercept.

• Neoconservatism has actually been based on the following ideological premises. First is the assumption that politicaldemocracyis the best of all possible institutions... Second is the assumption that a market economy, with almost unregulatedcapitalism,is the best possibleeconomic system... While the praise of political democracy and thefree markethas been an essential part ofAmerican political tradition,this was not the case withimperial expansion,the major shibboleth of neoconservative faith. This latter has made neoconservatism absolutely different from all previous brands of American conservatism.
  • Dmitry Shlapentokh,Who Should Be Blamed: Neoconservatives and Their Critics.

• Before the Iraq war I was quite disturbed by some of the neoconservatives, who were saying things like, "What is the point of being a superpower if you can't do such-and-such, take on these responsibilities?" The point of being a superpower is that people will leave you alone.
  • Thomas Sowell,"Live" with Thomas Sowell,The American Enterprise, September 2004.

• Mr. Breivik,his writings suggest, would have been reluctant to describe himself as afascist— a common feature ofEuropeanfar-rightdiscourse. He wrote: "I equatemulticulturalismwith the other hate-ideologies:Nazism(anti-Jewish),communism(anti-individualism) andIslam(anti-Kaffir). "These ideas, it is important to note, were echoes of ideas in mainstream European neo-conservatism. In 1978, the former British Prime Minister,Margaret Thatcher,famously referred to popular fears thatBritain"might be swamped by people of a different culture." In 1989, Ms Thatcher asserted that "human rightsdid not begin with theFrench Revolution."Instead, they" really stem from a mixture ofJudaismandChristianity"— in other words,faith,notreason.
  • Praveen Swami,Anders Breivik & Europe's blind right eye(July 25, 2011),The Hindu

• Why is it theMongolsof this world always tell us they're defending us against the Mongols?
  • Edward Whittemore,Nile Shadows(1983).

See also

• Capitalism
• Privatization