This article documents the extent to which even some semi-respectable lefty intellectuals like Eric Alterman have descended into anti-neocon paranoia/hysteria. Let me say that I’m making this point as someone who has castigated what I regard as the utopianism of the neo-con foreign policy mavens on my own blog. I also have cited favourably Steve Sailer’s criticism of the neocons.
However some of the recent examples of neocon bashing as documented in my first link are worrying because the implied story behind those kinds of criticisms is that there’s this cunning Jewish neo-con cabal that has somehow Rasputin-like easily manipulated Bush, Cheney, Condi, et al into a foreign policy which is really about using US lives to destroy Israel’s enemies. A more plausible take on events IMHO is that
i) firstly let’s get it out of the way – most neocons are Jewish (unless you count Fukuyama and some others like that as neocons) but that’s because public intellectuals are disproportionately Jewish. Libertarians are probably also disproportionately Jewish (Mises. Rothbard, Rand, Nozick, the Friedmans) so is libertarianism also a Jewish conspiracy?(there’s probably some nut who’ll say ‘yes’)
ii) everyone acts out of a mixture of motives and perhaps even in the process resolve various cognitive dissonances. Of course there are some Jewish neocons who probably do see a more aggressive Middle East strategy as facilitating the long term security of Israel by regime changing its neighbours into liberal democracies. But they probably also believe or have had their prejudices strengthened post S11 that the only way to avoid another S11 is to neutralise sources of terrorist support. Cheney, Condi, Rumsfeld probably also believe the same thing and are not Jewish, far as I know. Godless has made the same kinds of arguments on this blog. I am wary of a more ambitious US military strategy because of so many things that could go wrong but the kind of argument propounded by neocons is not so prima facie implausible that you need a goddamned conspiracy theory to explain its dominance in the Administration.
Finally it’s worth noting that the kinds of sinister anti-neocon bashing I’ve been hearing from parts of the paleoright and the loony left (read: Atrios’s comments facilities which while not necessarily referring to ancestry are also fond of this ‘sinister cabal’ characterisation) is reminiscent of that time not so long ago in Germany when a sinister Jewish cabal was blamed for pushing Germany into war and forcing it to pay reparations.
Update: A reader on the comments facility has accused me of smearing Atrios. Perhaps I was a little careless there – this post was originally inspired by some nutty and violent though not necessarily racist comments about ‘sinister cabals pushing the US into war’ Godless pointed out were on Atrios’ comments facilities. I have amended my original sentence accordingly to refer to Atrios’ comments facilities.
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