Cite that Wolfowitz and Perle were students of Strauss? Even if it’s true, so what? I had some fucking loonies as teachers at one time or another. That doesn’t mean that I subscribe to some ideology of thiers 50 years later.
That’s OK. I can disprove it. The KGB supported the IRA. cite The IRA was a thorn in the side of the Brittish, so it makes sense that the Soviets would want to help supply them.
This is silly. If you are insisting that the current administration thinks that the government must have an enemy than prove it. You’ve done nothing to link Straussianism to the Bush administration.
This is nonsense. The USSR had invaded Afghanistan and was still occupying it, and we are supposed to stop supporting the resistance because they ask us to? It’s funny that people can still be willing apologists for appeasement of the Soviet Union even though our victory over it has been complete for more than a decade.
The US was absolutely right to do this. Soviets leave the country they invaded, and we stop supplying the resistance of the invasion. It’s very telling of your anti-Americanism that you somehow blame the US for turning Afghanistan into a world of shit when it was the Soviets who invaded it, they who killed many, destroyed schools and infrastructure, they who created the mess that led to what was to come.
It’s simply fantasy to think that if the US stopped supplying rebels in Afghanistan then the Soviets would have turned it into some sort of democratic paradise after their long reign of brutally tearing the country apart.
Whatever. You seem to be just making this up as you go along.
Sure, but I suspect most mean it in its literal form (as I do): ‘New Conservatives’. Gone are the days of scared isolationism and complete opposition to all social programs, hence the ‘neo’ part. The ‘LOL WE SPYZ FOR ISRAEL!’ bit got added by lefties later on.
The neocons are nationalist fanatics. They are an enemy of liberty, except for a wealthy minority. The only thing stopping me from attacking them the way they attack freedom fighters in Iraq is I have not the arms.
Fortunately, arms can be taken from these maniacs via an election.
I have noticed that neocons nearly always argue their positions by attempting to discredit their critics. No Mr. Brutis douchbag, I was not in any accident you dumb excuse for a human being.
Neocons always are arrogant, self-rationalizing, greedy pigs.
Debaser, I am defining neoconservatism as a political movement based on the absurd Platonic philosophy of Leo Strauss. You may holler all you like that there is no such thing as Straussians or neoconservatives (even though they might self identify as such), but this is as irrelevant here as the discussion of whether liberalism really exists.
That you believe Gorbachev was a greater threat to the US than Osama Binladen to the extent that even now you agree with the US supporting and teaching Binladen the methods of terrorism, is extremely difficult to argue with (just like those Stormfronters you mentioned). As for the KGB and the IRA, well, the US taught the mujahideen how to make and use car bombs against the Afghan government, so I guess they’re even: that still does not impugn my claim that neoconservatives relied on information which the CIA had utterly fabricated to exaggerate the Soviet threat.
I will put it to you directly, so as to enjoin genuine debate: Do you, Debaser, believe that the political elite are justified in using “noble lies”, as in Plato’s Republic?
…and you are refusing to provide any evidence for your outlandish claims of such.
Captain Amazing starting an “Ask the neocon…” thread hardly proves your wild theories correct. I’m not insisting that there is no such thing as “neocons” much as simply trying to get you to define what you think it means. There could be useful definitions of neocons, but it can also be used as a meaningless insult by conspiracy theorists such as yourself.
The USSR was our enemy. It made sense to support the Mujahadeen that was resisting them. It’s easy for America haters such as yourself to look back on decistions such as this as mistakes. But, lacking 20/20 hindsight, these sorts of things are going to happen no matter what. The only way for the US to never support those who might become our enemies would be to never support anyone.
First you claim that the CIA fabricated Soviet links to terror, now you admit that such links did exist. Now, you change your claim to something else entirely. I still don’t see what any of this has to do with the OP.
I think that the entire concept is a figment of your imagination. All politicians lie. Democrats and Republicians (or liberals and neocons) alike. I’d like them to be as truthful as possible of course.
Your entire theory that the neocons must lie in order to convince people of an outside threat to give the government power remains completely unsupported by actual fact, BTW.
Teacher: Let’s also never forget that Bush lost the Popular Vote in 2000. He was clearly NOT the people’s choice, but the political machine’s choice! - Jinx
It is outlandish to claim that neoconservatism is based on Straussian philosophy? I and others can only disagree.
Conspiracy? No. Straussianism is not evil or secret, just childishly oversimplified and outdated.
As I said in the very first lines of my OP, I love Americans, but simply cannot believe what America has become.
Both can, of course, be true. The claim in my OP was that the Soviet threat was exaggerated based on information the CIA made up in the first place: another example of using evidence absurdly selectively in order to perpetuate an ideologically driven myth.
Glad to hear you condemn the concept of the noble lie - whether you have been taken in by one is another matter.
Just as transitional forms are unsupported to Creationists, perhaps.
I agree. But I am arguing that in 1989, Gorbachev was not the threat to the US that the neocons made him out to be, and that this is why the US did not listen to his assessment of what would happen after Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Of course we cannot see the future. But if the US had seen the present more clearly in Afghanistan back then by listening to sources like the CIA rather than the neoconservatives, it could have prevented the Taleban gaining power, Osama Binladen using his US-supplied lessons in terrorism to create Al Qaeda, and 9/11 ever happening.
Let us try and see the future, from 2004, without these dangerous myths.
His assessment being what? That after a decade of raping and murdering the people of Afghanistan suddenly the USSR was geniunely interested in promoting a peaceful, stable democracy there? The US would be foolish to believe this. It was absolutely the right thing to do to continue to support those fighting the Soviet forces until the minute that they left.
There is absolutely no reason to beleive this. The Soviets leaving was going to create a vacuume no matter what the US did. The forces that were eventually to become the Taliban were already well armed from fighting the Soviets for a decade.
Like I said before, it’s very telling that you somehow can twist the blame from what the Soviet Union did to Afghanistan to lay at the feet of the US.
Your view on what Straussianism or Neoconservatism is can be described as nothing but a conspiracy theory. I’ll get into this more in a moment.
You clearly have a bias against America.
The Soviet Union was a very serious threat. They had a country full of nuclear tipped ICBM’s pointed at the US and Europe, remember? It’s rather silly for you to claim that somehow this was all a conspiracy by the Neocons.
That the elected government would not withstand an anti-democratic coup by fanatical Islamists.
I condemn the initial Soviet invasion as much as you or the UN at the time, but Gorbachev was not Breshnev. Reagan recognised this, but the neoconservatives had his ear. I cannot prove that Binladen would not have carried out 9/11 if Reagan had listened to the CIA instead, but it is similarly absurd to claim that he would have formed Al Qaeda and attacked the US no matter what.
quote]Your view on what Straussianism or Neoconservatism is can be described as nothing but a conspiracy theory. I’ll get into this more in a moment.
[/quote]
Please do not misrepresent me when you do, given that I have already said that Straussianism is not a conspiracy, merely a hopelessly flawed philosophy.
I would ask you to prove this factually, but the difference between us is that I understand what argument and debate entails.
