Sriyan de Silva
Contents
Defining Characteristics
A Historical Perspective of the Neo-Conservative Movement and Its Agenda
Global Impact of Neo-Conservatism and the Ravages of War
An Overall Conclusion
Defining Characteristics
In discussing the Neo-Conservative movement [the
adherents of which are commonly referred to as ‘Neo-cons’, which term will be
used throughout this Paper to refer to them], it is useful and even necessary
to identify its defining characteristics. This movement might also be referred
to as a set of beliefs. Many believe that the Neo-cons have done untold damage
to other countries and also to the US itself, bringing upon it the reputation
of a country that destabilizes other countries not only through war, but by
other means as well. These critics would perhaps prefer to describe the
movement as one which, at its heart, has a destructive agenda inimical to the
interests of the majority of the world’s population. A description of this
movement and an identification of its objectives are especially necessary
because as we will see in the next section, in course of time, changes have occurred
in the focus and main beliefs among essentially three generations of Neo-cons. Unless
otherwise stated, the focus of this Section will be on the beliefs and
objectives of the second and third [the last including the current] generations
of Neo-cons.
Anthropologist and author Wade Davis in an article
titled Unravelling of America” [August 2020] has provided the following
chilling facts regarding the USA’s propensity to promote wars and destabilize
countries. The quotation below is explicable only by reference to the subject
matter of my essay which makes clear why the USA has been persistently engaged
I military adventures. Davis states:
The United States, virtually a
demilitarized nation on the eve of the Second World War, never stood down in
the wake of victory. To this day, American troops are deployed in 150 countries. Since the 1970s, China has not
once gone to war; the US has not spent a day at peace. President Jimmy Carter
recently noted that that in its 242 year history, America has enjoyed only 16
years of peace, making it, as he wrote, ‘the most war-like nation in the
history of the world’. Since 2001, the US has spent over $6 trillion on
military operations and war, money that might have been invested in the
infrastructure at home. China, meanwhile, built its nation pouring more cement
every three years than America did in the entire twentieth century.”
The basic beliefs and objectives of the Neo-cons could
be said to consist of the following:
- Since the
Neo-con movement was originally initiated by a group of intellectuals mainly
from the Jewish community in New York, the protection of Israel against its
enemies represents a fundamental objective, even though at its inception the
focus was on domestic issues. This objective has remained paramount to this
day. The overwhelming majority of Neo-cons continues to be from the Jewish
community, although everyone who has been influenced to give effect to the
objectives of this movement has not necessarily been a Neo-con. Considering
that the Jews are an amazingly gifted and intellectually brilliant people, it
is not surprising that this small community has been able to exert such
enormous influence in the US and to re-adapt their agenda from time to time to
suit their objectives.
- A
unipolar world in which the US is supreme and there is no question of a balance
of power. Therefore the rise of any rival power must be checked. The Neo-cons
claim that unipolarity ensures world peace, and that the US does not seek to
conquer and oppress, but rather to liberate and democratize.”
- A policy
of ensuring the supremacy of the USA as the world’s only super power. Destabilizing and ensuring a regime change
even through military intervention, in a country which is perceived as posing a
threat to the interests of the USA, or to the interests of Israel, has become a
hallmark of the Neo-con movement. The Neo-cons believe in a convergence of the
interests of the USA and Israel.
- From
about the 1980s [and especially in the 1990s] its main focus shifted from
domestic issues almost exclusively to a foreign policy intended to shape the
international order to be consistent with American global interests. Prior to
1990 the threat to these interests was identified as emanating from the Soviet
Union – hence the opposition of the Neo-cons to isolationism and their advocacy
of an American presence in different parts of the world to counter threats to
American interests. While promoting democracy as a means of destabilizing the
Soviet Union, the USA supported and had cozy relationships with countries that
were right wing dictatorships as a counter to communism, and in some cases even
helped to set up such regimes.
- Flowing
from the above, Neo-cons have a low tolerance of diplomacy and
consensus-building. Instead, they believe in the use of military force, the
emphasis being on unilateral action by the USA. Their foreign policy has been
described by a critic as bellicosity cloaked in the Utopian rhetoric of
freedom and democracy.” They have a disdain for multilateral
institutions/organizations such as the United Nations, which are deemed a
constraint on such unilateral action. Such organizations are viewed as being
undemocratic – for instance the Security Council includes ‘dictatorships’
[China and Russia]. Since at present the Neo-cons have to live with such
organizations, they have sought to bend these organizations to their will to
the extent possible, as they have done in the case of offshoots of the UN.
Condemnation of other countries, often-times poor and weak ones for alleged war
crimes, are considered to be in order, but the US is exempt from them. The Neo-cons
do not believe in Treaties and even in International Law [of which Treaties are
an important component], as they too are seen as constraints on the USA’s right
to unilateral [military] action or fomenting opposition and discord in particular
countries. The Neo-cons do not have much interest in forging an international
consensus to achieve foreign policy objectives. Instead, they are more
interested in confronting their enemies” than in cultivating friends”. The
Neo-cons also pursue their objectives through international non-governmental
organizations [INGOs] which are funded to varying degrees by the USA. A number
of these INGOs have gained a foothold in developing countries.
- Since
the protection of Israel is an overarching aim, it is natural that the main,
though not the only focus of the Neo-cons, had been the Middle East,
particularly countries considered a threat to Israel. This focus may well have
been modified today with the changed relationship between Israel and some of
the countries in the Middle East.
- After
the collapse of the Soviet Union the Neo-cons saw an opportunity to create a
uni-polar world in place of the bi-polar one that had hitherto existed with the
USA and the Soviet Union holding the balance of power. However, since then the
ability of the US to pursue a militaristic foreign policy has been reduced due
to the rise of China and the assertiveness of Russia. As such, containing China
is also one of the foreign policy objectives of the Neo-cons. The US has
established a relationship with India which had not existed during the years of
the Cold War . Through India, the US
hopes to exercise influence over South Asia, and keep it and the surrounding
seas free of Chinese control or influence.
- It has
even been claimed that the ultimate goal of the Neo-cons is to build an
American Empire, though not necessarily modelled on the British Empire since
physical occupation of countries as in the British and other Empires would be
impossible in the modern world. Instead, the Neo-cons opt for influence over
the governments of other countries or setting up proxy regimes which the US
could control. Positioning American forces in strategic locations around the
world to enable their rapid deployment is a part of this strategy.
A Historical Perspective of the Neoconservative Movement and its
Agenda
Justin Vaisse in his Paper for the Brookings Institution
titled Why Neo-conservatism Still Matters
[Policy Paper No. 20, May 2010] has pointed out that the original Neo-cons focused
on opposition to the direction that social movements in the USA had taken in
the 1960s and 1970s [such as student protests, counter-culture, radical
feminism, environmentalism], and their dislike of President Johnson’s social
programmes:
What these intellectuals reacted against
was a mix of social movements… While in no way defenders of the free market
….they stressed the limits of social engineering [through transfers of wealth
or affirmative action programmes] and pointed out the dangers that the
boundless egalitarian dreams of the New Left had created for stability,
meritocracy and democracy …. These original Neoconservatives were New
York-based intellectuals, primarily interested in domestic issues, and they
still regarded themselves as liberals. That is why the disconnect could not
seem more complete between them and the latter-day neo-cons, who are
Washington-based political operatives identified with the right, interests
exclusively in foreign policy, and who have a solid, if not excessive
confidence in the ability of the American government to enact social change –
at least in Iraq or Afghanistan.”
Originally the Neo-cons had been supporters of the
Democratic Party. Since many of them were Jewish from a minority community,
they supported the Civil Rights movement and desegregation which the Black
people were fighting for. The split in
the Neo-con support for the Democratic Party commenced in the 1960s when the
Vietnam War led to a polarization of American society into those who favoured
the war [which the Neo-cons did], and those who opposed it. This, and the
direction of the social programmes earlier referred to, as well as the
emergence of the second generation of Neo-cons who propagated relatively
extreme views, led the movement to support the Republican Party under Ronald
Reagan. Therefore it could reasonably be said that there is not a great deal of
common ground between the first generation Neo-cons and the second and third
generations other than on the issue of Israel and the furtherance of American
interests.
To some extent Neo-conservatism suffered a loss of a
part of its agenda when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990. However, in the mid
1990s the third generation of Neo-cons emerged around figures such as Irving
Kristol’s son William, Robert Kagan, Gary Schmitt, Max Boot and Doug Feith.
Their shared values include:
- Not
being liberals as many early Neo-cons had been; they allied themselves with the
Republican Party.
- A
foreign policy based on unrestrained use of American power to shape the world,
especially the Middle East, in their own image.
Understanding the history of the Neoconservative
movement requires a knowledge of some of its key figures. Irrespective of some
of their extreme views, in many cases they were individuals with outstanding
intellectual capabilities.
Arguably the most extreme spiritual leader of the
movement was a German Jewish immigrant, Leo Strauss. [See Shadia B. Drury Saving America: Leo Strauss and the
Neoconservatives.] She has been acclaimed as one of the foremost scholars
on the history, philosophy and politics of neo-conservatism. Strauss propounded
the theory that the inferiority of the masses required them to be ruled by an
intelligent elite.He did not believe
in the modern concepts of the natural right to life, liberty, the pursuit of
happiness, or that since human beings are born free they could only
legitimately be ruled with their consent.
As elaborated in his book Natural
Rights and History, Strauss denied that the natural human condition was one
of freedom, claiming instead that it was one of subordination to the ruler. To
him the only natural right was the right of the superior to rule the inferior
masses. Hitler had contempt for the masses; ironically, so did Strauss. In her
article referred to earlier, Shadia Drury states:
So, what is neo-conservatism? And how does
it propose to change the world in accordance with Straussian political
philosophy? ‘Neo’ comes from the Greek word neos, which means new. And, what’s
new about neo-conservatism? Well, for one thing, the old conservatism relied on
tradition and history; it was cautious, slow and moderate; it went with the
flow. But under the influence of Leo Strauss, the new conservatism….. is not
slow or cautious, but active, aggressive and reactionary in the literal sense
of the term. Inspired by Strauss’ hatred for liberal modernity, its goal is to
turn back the clock on the liberal revolution and its achievements.”
Many of Strauss’ best known followers such as Allan
Bloom and Irving Kristol rejected the liberal achievements of the 1960s such as
civil rights, greater equality, and freedom for women which supposedly became
the root of all evil. Irving Kristol has been regarded by many as the father of
neo-conservatism. In 1979 Esquire Magazine dubbed him the godfather of the
most powerful new political force in America – Neo-conservatism.” He advocated
the dismantling of the safeguards institutionalized by the Founding Fathers to
protect individual liberty and minority rights.
The third and successor generation of Neo-cons
included Irving Kristol’s son William, and John the son of Norman Podhoretz.
Despite obvious continuities, there are four differences in priorities and
positions between the first and subsequent generations of Neo-cons. The new
generation
- Has
never been ‘left of centre’, so to speak;
- Has supported
the Republican party, but are now wooing the Democrats as well;
- Lacks
the relative caution of the first, and to an extent of the second generation.
For example, Irving Kristol was skeptical about seeking regime change as an
American foreign policy objective, whereas it is a key objective of the second
and the present generation of Neo-cons.
In essence, the modern Neo-cons’ support of a
political party is conditioned by the party’s foreign policy.
William Kristol and Robert Kagan founded a ‘Think
Tank’ in 1997 to promote the idea that American leadership is good for the
world and morally desirable as well. In the 1990s the Neo-cons opposed
President Bush Snr. and Bill Clinton because they did not pursue America’s
strategic interests on the world stage. The refusal by Bush Snr. to pursue
Saddam Hussein after he was driven out of Kuwait alienated the Neo-cons. They had
expected Bush to pursue him through extending support to dissident groups such
as the Kurds and Shiites in their resistance to Saddam Hussein, and they deeply
resented Bush’s failure to do so which they regarded as a betrayal and a lost
opportunity.
The September 2011 attacks on the US strengthened the
Neo-con agenda when Bush Jnr. committed to invading Iraq together with Tony
Blair [who misled the House of Commons and who, according to a poll in the UK,
is regarded as a war criminal by about half the British population]. This put
the Neo-cons on centre stage. Critics considered the episode as being based on
a unified ideology supportive of torture, adventurism, and Israel. Dick Cheney
and Donald Rumsfeld, though probably not Neo-cons themselves were very much
influenced by their agenda. The change in the policy of Bush Jnr. in 2001 with
Iraq, Iran and North Korea being referred to as the ‘axis of evil’ requiring
pre-emptive war, naturally reflected the objectives of the Neo-cons. Bush Snr.
in a recent biography has roundly criticized Rumsfeld and Cheney as having
misled his son by their crazy views. Rumsfeld and Cheney, with the Neo-cons
using them as their instruments, have to bear a part of the responsibility for
the mess they created in the Middle East. The administration of Bush Jnr.
greatly exaggerated the scale and immensity of the danger posed by Saddam
Hussein. It dramatically underestimated the costs and burdens of the post-war
occupation of Iraq. Terrorism proved minimal, and weapons of mass destruction
were found to be non-existent.
The Iraq War was a defining moment for the Neo-cons as
well as for their critics, and for the country that they destroyed. It caused/provided
an impetus for the radicalization and spread of militant Islamist movements
which have plagued the world and the Middle East to this day. The War raised a
chorus of criticisms. As Alan Wolf has stated in his book The Future of Liberalism [2009, page 105]:
Iraq proved to be the neoconservatives’
great test case…. Iraq’s history was ignored. Its rivalries with other states
in the Middle East were downplayed. The consequences of removing Saddam Hussein
from power, spelled out with realistic foresight by George W. Bush’s father in
his memoirs, were downplayed. A….distrust of the sober caution of professional
military officers and diplomats guided the strategic thinking of the
neoconservatives, as well as a determination to bend other countries to
America’s will. Planning for postwar reconstruction was guided by the fantasy
that a reliance on free markets could restore the Iraqi economy in miraculous
ways. This is not the world according to Machiavelli or Clausewitz. It is the
world according to ….dreamy enthusiasts for Empire…..”
The Iraq War also led to Francis Fukuyama, an
internationally renowned political scientist and neoconservative, to leave the
movement. A blistering critique of the War by Fukuyama resulted in an
acrimonious debate between him and the Neo-con Charles Krauthammer. This was
the first time that a Neo-con openly and publicly sought to so stridently
expose the hollowness of the Neo-con agenda of military intervention. It is the
fact that he was one of them” that upset the Neo-cons as much as it did. His
critique was published in the 2004 Summer issue of The National Interest, which is a flagship conservative foreign
policy journal [See also Danny Postel Fukuyama’s Moment: A Neo-con Schism
Opens” in 27 October 2004: Open
Democracy.]Fukuyama’s criticisms
related mainly to the following:
- The
unreality of the Neo-con claim that the USA could transform Iraq into a Western
style democracy, which form of government could be extended to the rest of the
Middle East.
- America
had intervened in 18 countries since 1900, and has a very poor record of ‘reconstruction’
and nation-building after intervention. It has not been able to successfully
engage in reconstruction after regime change. The US has consistently displayed
its inability or unwillingness to pursue its purported mission of establishing
democracy, which involves a complex process of reconstruction taking account of
culture, traditions, religion and history; the creation of necessary
institutions and the revival of the economy – even assuming that democracy can
be militarily imposed. The Bush Jr. administration had believed that the US
could go into Iraq and leave within a
year with its mission accomplished, thus displaying even before the invasion,
its lack of commitment to its declared objective of ensuring the setting up of
a democratic system of government in place of an autocratic regime. The policy
makers drew a wrong analogy between what happened in Eastern Europe [quick
collapse of the Soviet Union] and what would happen in the Middle East once the
coercive regimes are removed.
- The push
by the Neo-cons for an uni-polar world which has increased the antagonism for
the USA among other countries, was challenged by him, as well as
- The unreality
of bringing about democracy through military force.
Since the 1950s Professor Bernard Lewis of Princeton
University had advocated the US taking a hard line against all Arab states. In
the mid-1990s, influenced by him, Richard Perle and other Neo-cons advocated
the Lebanization” of countries such as Iraq and Syria – referred to in A Clean Break [a Policy Document of 1996
by a group led by Richard Perle for the Prime Minister of Israel]. There are
many who do not believe that the objective of the Neo-cons was to establish
democracy in Iraq but to flatten it to remove it as a threat to Israel”. In
1996 the Neo-cons believed that the removal of Saddam Hussein would destabilize
the entire Middle East, facilitating governments in Syria, Iran, Lebanon and
others, as well as Arafat, to be
replaced. In this way, re-drawing the map of the Middle East and
reshaping it would benefit Israel [see D. Wurmser Tyranny’s Ally: 1996].
In 1997 the Neo-cons advocated a forcible and bloody
re-taking of Palestinian land by Israel. They believed that a country’s leader
is justified in committing evil in the defence of his country [M. Ledeen]. Ledeen
was a Neo-con and Foreign Policy analyst who chaired the Foundation for the
Defense of Democracies. According to the Washington Post, he was the only full
time international affairs analyst regularly consulted by Karl Rove, the
closest advisor of George W. Bush [Jnr.]. Following a speech in the 1990s where
he stated that every 10 years or so the US should pick up some small country
and throw it against the wall just to demonstrate to the world that America
means business, his colleagues at the National Review dubbed it the Ledeen
Doctrine. In November 2000 D. Wurmser advocated that the US and Israel should
strike fatally against Arab radicalizations.
In the current century the Neo-con agenda continues to
be dominated by their vision of the US as the unchallenged super-power in a uni-polar
world, immune from threats from other countries, and acting as a benevolent
global hegemony”. In this vision the US would replace failed states or
oppressive regimes which are deemed threats to US interests. The
democratization” [read regime change”] of the Middle East would eliminate the
breeding ground for terrorists. The reality of course has been different, as we
shall see. The Neo-cons claim that this approach, achieved through strong US
leadership backed by force, is best for world peace, and not treaties which are
ignored by tyrants, and a US not shackled by international organizations.
One of the most influential Neo-cons in the present
century is Robert Kagan. He viewed the possible successful liberation of the
Ukraine as a prelude to its incorporation into NATO and the European Union,
thus expanding the West’s hegemony and increasing the number of its allies. In
2004 the Neo-cons concluded that
- The
fundamental determinant of the relationship between States rests on military
power and the willingness to use it;
- The
primary focus should be on the Middle East and global Islam as the main threat
to American interests.
To
operationalize these ideas, the Neo-cons
- continue
to focus on and emphasize the unipolar” power of the US which enables global
unilateralism”, and view the use of military force as the main option in
foreign policy – not diplomacy and negotiation; and
- therefore,
they are contemptuous of America’s conventional diplomatic organs such as its
State Department and its Divisions [unless of course they control these organs as well].
Robert Kagan found Hilary Clinton receptive to a shift
to the right and towards a tougher line being espoused by powerful Democrats on
foreign policy issues. Kagan sought to create a coalition of Democrats and
Republicans who would support Clinton’s national security positions if she won
the Presidency. Kagan’s engagement with Clinton was reciprocated by her. It is
said that Clinton extended one hand to the Neo-cons, while she clutched issues
such as women’s rights, democracy and climate change in the other. When she was
Secretary of State she appointed Kagan to her bi-partisan State Department
advisory group, and his wife, Victoria Nuland as her spokeswoman. Clinton’s position
on Syria [wanted early military aid to the rebels], Iraq [extending the date
for the US troops pull-out], and Afghanistan [wanted longer US military
presence] made the Neo-cons hopeful that they could ‘do business with her’ on
the matters that concern them most. Eric Margolis in The Irrelevance of Susan
Rice” in the American Conservative [4
December 2012] said that the war on terror had doubled US military and
intelligence budgets, that brawn had replaced brains in foreign affairs, and
that the next Secretary of State should restore non-military diplomacy
indicating that Susan Rice should not be the person to fill this post. Rice is
said to have been particularly anti-Arab and anti-Islam, and was scathing and
sneering at the Palestinians in the UN General Assembly when the UN granted
Palestine observer status.
Kagan, and more stridently and forcefully Charles
Krauthammer [another leading hard school Neo-con], viewed Europe’s opposition
to military intervention as advocated by the Neo-cons as being naïve about the
dangers facing the world. Since only the US understands power, Kagan sees no
reason to listen to anyone else. Kagan’s focus has been threats from and within
smaller countries. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the pre-occupation of
the Neo-cons with Great Power politics declined. They did not see China as a
threat, or that neither China nor Russia is docile. Kagan was earlier not
particularly concerned by China because militarily China trailed the US by a
wide margin; neither was he impressed with China’s economic gains. He believed
that China can become a super power only when there are no other powers in
Asia. He shifted his attention to ‘misbehaving’ minor states, threats from
Islamic terrorists, and to dictators seeking to possess nuclear weapons. He is a
leading proponent of regime change believing that Iran must be brought to heel
with military intervention if sanctions do not work.
Despite the utter chaos caused by US interventions in
Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan, the Neo-con agenda remains US global domination,
emasculating the United Nations and bending it to its will. The BBC concurred
with this view of the Neo-con agenda. The power of the Neo-cons to influence
the directions of US foreign policy may be substantial irrespective of who the
next President will be. Robert Kagan’s relationship with Hillary Clinton, and
the fact that President Obama had in his administration three committed female
Neo-cons, underscored this probability. The three ladies were Samantha Power [a
brilliant lawyer and orator], Susan Rice and Victoria Nuland, the wife of
Robert Kagan.
In these circumstances the following statement by
Peter Just in his article Unconventional Allies Reunited: Liberal Hawks and Neoconservatives
at the Turn of the Century” in Current
Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies 2010 Vol.11, may turn out to be
quite prescient:
….it is fair to speculate that the
Democratic Party might once again become the home of the neoconservatives.
Second generation neoconservatives like the publicist Max Boot see themselves
disconnected from their ideological fathers, reflecting a development that
could trigger various responses: will neo-conservatism eventually really blend in
with conservatism in general, as predicted in the early 1990s by Irving
Kristol, or will it even return to its roots in the Democratic Party and join
forces there with the liberal internationalists? One thing is certain – the
United States will not stop promoting American values and ideals. But the
debate over the specific ways and means to achieve that goal is far from over.”
Notwithstanding the loathing the Neo-con foreign
policies have attracted in many parts of the world, it would be a mistake to
think that their influence is on the wane. Justin Vaisse’s Why Neo-conservatism
Still Matters” is not an apology or a defence of neo-conservatism. Rather, as
the title suggests, it is an analytical explanation of why neo-conservatism is
still influential. However, events in the latter part of 2015 which will be
referred to in the next section of this Paper, may have had the potential to either
diminish its legitimacy, influence and importance or else enhance it.
Historically many Neoconservatives have been leading figures with exceptional
intellectual powers, irrespective of whether one accepts their views or not.
Neo-cons have institutions which research and churn out influential
publications. Their institutions and projects attract huge funding from
conservative donors and foundations, and there is an unabating flow of such
support. Max Boot, another leading Neo-con, has stated that Neo-cons are well
placed due to the institutions that support them and publications that
disseminate their views and shape public debate. Young Neo-cons read and
contribute to these publications. Sending public letters on issues in the name
of both Neo-cons and non-Neo-cons is a part of their modus operandi. [See Max Boot Think Again Neo-cons” in Council on Foreign Relations,
January-February 2004].
Global Impact of Neo-conservatism and the Ravages of War
In assessing the consequences and impact of the Neo-con
movement, attention will not be paid to consequences within the USA except to
the extent relevant to US foreign policy and to its implementation. The first
generation of Neo-cons influenced opinions about the direction of social
programmes within the USA. This focus changed with the second and third
generations of Neo-cons whose agenda impacted overwhelmingly on US foreign
policy, and therefore on other countries around the world.
Irrespective of which side one is on in regard to the
question of Israel, it is beyond doubt that the Neo-cons have been largely
responsible for the protection and survival of Israel in a hostile environment.
The analysis and assessment of the impact of Neo-conservatism in this section
will therefore address issues other than the protection of Israel. In that
respect, other than the humanitarian considerations which could justify the
intervention in Bosnia, one can see little, if any, positive consequences of
the Neo-con movement. The consequences and impact of the Neo-cons in the
foreign policy field relative to other countries are the focus of this Section.
First, the example of Iraq, invaded, decimated
and destabilized after disseminating false information about
its possession of weapons of mass destruction, and after using the attacks of
September 2011 by terrorists as a basis for the invasion though these had no
connection to Iraq, is one of the best examples of the decimation of a country
through the Neo-con foreign policy of waging war. Such action is all the more
inexcusable when one considers that there was no ‘reconstruction’ of the
country after the demise of Saddam Hussein, either deliberately or due to the
ineptitude of the US at ‘creating’ and
‘building’ as opposed to destruction. When one adds the similar fate that Libya
and Afghanistan have been subjected to, the enormity
of the disastrous consequences of Neo-con policy is obvious. It is principally
the European countries that have to bear the consequences and fallout of jihadist reprisals and the burden of mass
migration of refugees to Europe in the second half of 2015. Among these
refugees have been jihadists responsible for chaos and death in Europe such as
the events in Paris in November 2015.
On 13 July 2015 columnist Robert Parry [a
prize-winning investigative Reporter] wrote that in early 2014 Victoria Nuland,
Robert Kagan’s wife, a member of Obama’s administration, engineered a regime
change in the Ukraine without weighing the consequences,
thereby diminishing the standards of living of the people, causing
starvation of pensioners, the destruction of infrastructure, and a complete
severance of economic ties to Russia which had been its major economic partner
and market for Ukrainian goods. Wayne Madsen, in the online journal Strategic Culture Foundation [18
December 2013] said that she even handpicked Ukraine’s new Prime Minister,
thereby setting up an anti-Russian administration on Russia’s border. She
promoted neo-Nazi militias and even Islamist militants to wage an anti-terror
war against ethnic Russian Ukrainians who resisted regime change [See also Robert
Parry in Consortiumnews.com]. She ignored the practical realities – the
existing ethnic and religious fissures. She ignored the mess and ugliness thus created
by the Neo-cons and simply sought someone else to blame. However, Nuland’s
blunder of conducting a telephone conversation two weeks prior to the coup in
the Ukraine with the American ambassador which was taped and intercepted,
reveals an agreement to ‘nurse’ the anticipated coup. This is incontrovertible
evidence that the US Government supported the uprising at the highest levels.
The US intervention in the Ukraine resulted in a closer alliance between Russia
and China. The Ukraine is yet another example of Neo-con influence creating
chaos rather than stable democratic governments. Control of the Ukraine by NATO
has long been an aim of Neo-cons such as McCain and Nuland.
After the Bush administration Nuland ensured that the
Neo-cons continued to have an influence on the new President’s foreign policy.
As Hillary Clinton’s Press Spokeswoman, she ensured that the Neo-con slant
would be prominent in the State Department. Examples of such influence include
the CIA’s coup against President Zalaya of the Honduras, the overthrow of
Gadafi and US support for uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. Nuland was criticized
[as was Clinton]
for the attack on the US diplomatic mission/CIA facility in
Benghazi which killed the US Ambassador. But influential friends in the Neocon
hierarchy ensured the scotching of such criticism, enabling the confirmation of
Nuland’s appointment as the new Assistant Secretary of State for European and
Eurasian Affairs without opposition from the Republican Party. This provided
her with the opportunity to interfere in the domestic affairs of the Ukraine
and other countries. Nuland is a strong supporter of George Soros, who is a
major source of funding for the Neo-con movement.
It is worthwhile noting some of the evidence, which is
overwhelming, that military intervention and the promotion of coups and the
like are key methods advocated by the American Neo-cons to achieve their
objectives. The following are only a sample of such promotion:
- The
Iraq War, based on disinformation and false premises.
- The
intervention in the Ukraine already referred to, which led to the Ukraine
descending into civil war in 2014.
- The
military interventions in Libya and Afghanistan. The 2011 regime change in
Libya followed Gaddafi’s actions against groups in Eastern Libya which were
identified as Islamic terrorists. The US and allied bombing destroyed Gaddafi’s
army, and led to Gaddafi’s torture and murder. The Libyan adventure turned sour
when the very Islamic terrorists Gaddafi had warned the US about seized
territory, turning it into another Iraq-like badlands. Reality hit home with
the murder of the US Ambassador and the attack on the US embassy/CIA facility
in Benghazi in September 2012. Terrorism was so out of control that the US and
European countries abandoned their embassies in Tripoli, and the ISIS
decapitated Coptic Christians and slaughtered heretics” resulting in migration
of Libyans to Europe. What the West, goaded on by the Neo-cons did, was to
destroy a country which was a buffer against Islamic terrorists, and instead create
another haven for such terrorists. At the time of the intervention, Libya was a
country without a national debt and her people were socially and economically
much better off than people under similar regimes in the region.
- In the
1980s President Reagan gave the Neo-cons a major role in activities in Central
America, but kept them out of the Middle East and European politics. In Central
America the Neo-cons unleashed death squads, and even engaged in genocide in a
broad, rather than a legal or technical, sense against peasants, students and
workers. This led to a flood of refugees to the US especially from El Salvador
and Guatemala. The Neo-cons crushed progressive social movements, reinforced
oligarchic control of countries, thus leaving most countries in Central America
in the grip of corrupt regimes and crime syndicates, driving more refugees to
the US through Mexico.
Second, it is beyond a shadow of a doubt that the
most unforgivable consequence of Neo-con policies and actions is the impetus they
gave to the creation of militant Islamist groups,
and its reflection in the various movements such as the Taliban, al-Qaeda and
ISIS. The freedom” fighters that the US armed and trained in Afghanistan
decades ago to fight the Russian forces there were the very people who
transformed themselves into the Taliban.
One does not have to rely only on the anti-Neo-cons
and the research into the strengthening of al-Qaeda and the creation of ISIS as
a result of the Iraq War, to be convinced of this consequence. President Obama acknowledged in an interview
in March 2015 that the power of the IS which was established in Iraq and Syria
in 2014 was an unintended consequence of the Iraq War in 2003. Even Tony Blair,
who allied with the Neo-cons on the invasion of Iraq, earning the wrath of the
British people, acknowledged that the invasion of Iraq helped towards the
creation of ISIS. The militarism of the Neo-cons, regardless of the
consequences to other countries, is reflected in a revelation made by the
retired US Army General Wesley Clark. He said that after the attack on the twin
towers in 2001 a unit called the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans had been
created by the Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the benefit of the
influential Neo-cons Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. These two Neo-cons
propounded a strategy to overthrow the regimes in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya,
Somalia, Sudan and Iran by 2006. Paul
Bremen was placed in charge of activities in Iraq after the invasion. The
policies he carried out created the opportunity for Al-Qaeda, and later ISIS,
to entrench themselves in Iraq. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom!!
[See Kamal Wickremasinghe France Needs the Wisdom of Enlightenment” in The Island [Sri Lanka] of 20 November
2015].
The Paris bombings on 13 November 2015 can to some
extent be linked to the success of the US in obtaining active French
involvement to attack other countries. The former French President Jacques
Chirac had predicted that the Iraq War would destabilize the Middle East and
strengthen terrorism. French opposition to the Iraq War led the US to even
threaten France, and to puerile and small-minded conduct such as banning the
sale of French wine in Pennsylvania. The US and the Neo-cons ultimately had
their way by ‘controlling’ France in regard to their agenda in the Middle East
through the subsequent French Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande.
France led the joint British and US forces against Libya, and supported the
Syrian rebels in their attempt to oust President Assad. French participation in
the US bombing raids in Syria could have contributed in part to the Paris
bombings.
The security issues and loss of life in Western
countries resulting from the activities of these groups are in fact the result
of the Neo-cons being outsmarted and falling into the trap conceived by militant,
radical Islamist movements. Al-Qaeda had originally been unable to overthrow
governments in the Arab states because it had not been able to secure
substantial support in those countries. Therefore the movement switched to a
strategy of provoking the US to invade such countries, which would in turn
radicalize a mass of people not only in those countries but in other Middle
Eastern countries as well. Hence the 9/11 attacks on the US had the very effect
desired, since it resulted in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. This in turn led to
further numbers of Islamists joining the radical movement. Gwynne Dyer in the
article Paris Attacks: The Terrorist Strategy” published in The Island newspaper [Sri Lanka] of
Thursday, 19 November 2015 at page 8 pointed out that the organization known as
Al-Qaeda in Iraq” changed to Islamic State in Iraq” in 2006, thereafter to
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” [ISIS] in 2013, and thence to Islamic State”
in 2014. The ISIS was able to conquer much territory in both Iraq and Syria
[see Dyer for the split between al-Qaeda and the ISIS]
. The three month war
which the ISIS fought in 2014 with what is called the Nusra Front of al-Qaeda
which had split from ISIS, was followed by the Nusra Front gaining control of
most of Eastern Syria, while the ISIS conquered most of Western Iraq, renaming
it the Islamic State.
Third, there is a considerable body of opinion
that is, to say the least, highly sceptical of the Neo-cons’ claim that their
foreign policy objectives have been to promote democracy and freedom. There is
no evidence which establishes that this claim is genuine and bona fide. The devastation their
policies created in countries in which the US intervened has not led to any
change of heart, so to speak, about the appropriateness of the means they advocate
to achieve their supposedly noble objectives for the sake of the people of
those countries. Besides, it is common sense – and requires little education or
learning – to understand that democracy cannot be imposed by force or war. Neo-cons
are unable or not prepared to understand or recognize the deep-rooted religious
and cultural factors that can impede the flowering of democracy – especially in
a form that is a replication of the American model.
What makes the Neo-con agenda so dangerous is that being
a group of people with exceptional intellectual capabilities, their agenda is not the result of ignorance of the
consequences of their policies and actions. Their
objectives are anything but freedom and democracy.
Fourth, the implementation of Neo-con foreign
policy has created considerable upheavals in people’s lives which had been
relatively safe and peaceful, poverty where relatively little of it had
existed, or else enhanced existing levels of poverty. Libya was not a country
with levels of poverty found in several other countries. The Neo-cons, by their
actions, came close to creating havoc in Europe, short of destabilizing it.
This is a matter of supreme indifference to the Neo-cons, some of whose
attitudes towards Europe border on contempt. The words used by a neo-con
official of the US administration relative to the European Union in a recorded
telephone conversation with an American ambassador is unprintable, indicating the
Neo-cons’ desire to show Europe its proper place. The ravages of war so to speak, are creating
havoc not only in some developing countries but in developed economies as well.
A further chain reaction is the impact that American interventions have had on
major economies, not to speak of poor countries.
Fifth, the Neo-cons’ foreign policy objectives
have undermined state sovereignty when hegemonic objectives are opposed.
Sixth, for the Neo-cons, ideas are everything and
pragmatism is shunned in favour of a Utopian vision of an American benevolent
hegemony. The inspiration one of the
godfathers of the movement [Leo Strauss] drew from the ancient Greek
philosopher Plato and the historian Thucydides is a measure of the unreal and
dangerous views they hold about the modern world. In other words, to be
inspired by a civilization of 2,000 to 2,500 years ago to justify not only
unilateral militarism, but also the belief that a few elite should rule the
masses, is a reflection of the danger the Neo-cons pose to the world. The Neo-con
agenda, instead of promoting democracy, advocates at least indirectly, a form
of dictatorship within the country, and a form of imperialism/colonialism
abroad. As Shadia Drury [referred to earlier] aptly concluded: ”It is ironic that
American neoconservatives have decided to conquer the world in the name of
liberty and democracy, when they have so little regard for either.”
Seventh, the policy of the Neo-cons in pursuing unipolarity
in the world has increased hatred for the United States in the broader fight
for hearts and minds” [Francis Fukuyama]. An underlying [non-transparent] theme
of the Neo-cons is that America does not belong to a world community because it
is the super power to which everyone else must pay homage. There is no need to
have close relationships with countries to address problems in other countries.
There is only the ruler and the ruled. The world view of the Neo-cons is myopic
and their ideology accounts for their disinterest in even understanding the
world. Robert Parry, in Consortiumnews.com of 15 September 2015, contends that
the Neo-cons have arguably damaged American national interests more than any
other group in modern history. Their policies have plunged the US into
ill-considered wars wasting money and resources, destroying millions of lives
including of Americans, and destabilizing large sections of the planet. He
states that the US foreign policy is deformed and no longer capable of
formulating coherent strategies. Yet despite their record of unprecedented
errors, American Neo-cons remain the dominant foreign policy force demanding
more regime change as well as a Cold War. Neo-cons have been immune from
suffering the consequences of the catastrophes they have caused, continuing to
dominate Washington’s think tanks and the news media, and to hold key positions
in the administration. Neo-cons are skilled operatives; they know how to obtain
steady funding and are adept at writing articles that twist any set of facts to
suit their ideological cause; supply just the right quote/information to the
public, and host policy conferences that attract powerful politicians.
Eighth, the Neo-cons have largely, or at least
partly, been responsible for undermining respect and credibility in many
countries for the United Nations, and resentment against it for its lack of
impartiality and selectivity. The whole agenda of intervening in countries
through Resolutions relating to human rights violations is a case in point.
What is particularly critical in this regard is the creation of organs within
the UN system to do the bidding of the US in particular, primarily to open
doors for Western or US intervention in other countries even if not militarily.
There is little doubt that the UN has been to an undesirable extent literally
reduced to being a servant of Western interests, and the US in particular.
The proof of the ‘control’ of several organs of the UN
is the experience of countries targeted by some of the Western countries – in
particular the USA – using the UN system as the instrument to ‘punish’ them. A very
good account is contained in How US Pressure Bends UN Agencies” by Robert
Parry [see Consortiumnews.com, 16 October 2013]. Among the examples analyzed by
him are the following [in summary]:
- A key
UN Agency which the US has targeted to control is the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons [OPCW] – important to the controversy of the
alleged [unproven] use of Sarin gas by the Syrian government – thought by many
to have been used instead by the rebels fighting to oust Assad to frame the
Syrian government. Jose Bustani was ousted as Director-General in 2002 because
he was deemed to be an obstacle to the invasion of Iraq [See Parry, op. cit.]
- Mary
Robinson, a former Prime Minister of Ireland, was prevented by the Bush
administration from being re-appointed as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
due to her criticism of human rights abuses by Israel and the Bush
administration’s war on terror”, though officially she announced that she was
retiring of her own accord.
- The
Bush administration got rid of Robert Watson, the Chairman of the UN-Sponsored
Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, due to the pressure exerted on it
by ExonMobil, whose Memo to the White House is referred to by Parry. The reason
for the ouster was the Panel’s consensus that human activities such as burning
fossil fuels contribute to global warming.
- The
Obama administration engineered the appointment of a Japanese diplomat, Amano,
to the leadership of the UN’s international Atomic Energy Agency, which was a
key player in the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme. While Amano was
portrayed as being independent-minded and resisting US-Israeli propaganda about
Iran’s nuclear programme, this claim was shattered when, among the hundreds of
thousands of pages of US diplomatic cables leaked by Private Bradley Manning,
were reports on Amano’s secret collaboration with US and Israeli officials on
the subject. The cables exposing Amano were published in The Guardian newspaper
in the UK in 2011. [See also Did Manning Help Avert War with Iran?” in
Consortiumnews.com].
- The
attempts to distort the OPCW’s Report on the alleged use of chemical weapons by
Syria are detailed by Parry and cannot be summarized here. Obama’s
participation in this whole scheme against Iran is also analyzed by Parry.
However, the following quote by an NGO cited by Parry is worth recording: As
one Western NGO put it….. ‘If Assad really wanted to use Sarin gas, why for
God’s sake did he wait for two years and then when the UN was actually on the
ground to investigate?’
Another example particularly relevant to developing
countries is the United Nations Human Rights Council [UNHRC] and the United
Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances [UNWGEID]. The latter
group has been admirably analyzed by Dr. Kamal Wickremasinghe in relation to
Sri Lanka in his article titled UNWGEID is Here to Gradually Get Us” published
in the Midweek Review of The Island newspaper
[Sri Lanka] on 18 November 2015. While space does not permit a detailed
analysis of this article, it is useful to note his comment based on the lack of
attention by people in Sri Lanka to what the Group is doing:
Such indifference is the food that nourishes the
global strategy of those seeking to rule the world using the UN as a cat’s
paw.”
According to the above-mentioned organization, they
came across a secret detention facility within the Trincomalee naval base used
during Eelam War IV. This was described as a torture chamber. The former Chief
Admiral of the Navy, Wasantha Karannagoda, strongly rebutted this allegation
[see The Island [Sri Lanka} of 21
November 2015]
.
In regard to the allegations that the UN often does
the bidding of the USA, Christopher Black, a Lawyer specializing in
International Law who has appeared for individuals brought before UN tribunals
[such as on Rwanda]
, in his presentation on ‘The Criminalization of
International Justice’ at the Rhodes Forum 2014 on 26 September 2014
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8NHawXaOPc]
exposed the criminal nature of UN
tribunals set up at the behest of the US and its NATO allies to create their
New World Order through the revelation of the way in which these tribunals have
conducted the inquiries. According to him these tribunals are propagandist in
nature. Stories are circulated about targeted countries, demonizing regimes and
covering up the role of the US and its allies in their interventions. Many
individuals brought before these tribunals had been falsely accused. He says that
it has been revealed that the US was responsible for what happened in Rwanda
and that America’s falsehoods were exposed at the trials. A respected Rwandan
General who had saved many Rwandan lives was arrested in 2000. Eleven years
later the trial judges concluded that the arrest had been illegal and
politically motivated because he had testified that the US and the UN forces
had been directly involved in the violence unleashed in that country.
Black has further revealed that these tribunals use
criminal methods against those the powerful countries want punished such as
first throwing them in prison with no indictments shown or prior appearance
before a court. Tribunals pressurize the accused to use lawyers either in their
pay or whom they could bend to their will to do their bidding, or those in the
pay of the West, and certainly not those deemed to be effective. Indictments/charge sheets are often false and
propagandist and often have parts blackened so that the defence lawyers cannot
understand that whole charge. Documents and relevant disclosures are withheld
from these lawyers. Prisoners suddenly disappear, isolation being a method used
to exert psychological pressure on them. Lawyers are subject to harassment, intimidation,
are followed, their hotel rooms are broken into and rumours are spread about
them to discourage their appearing for the accused. In 1997 Louise Arbor,
investigating the killing of all passengers on board a Rwandan presidential
aeroplane when it was shot down, covered up the results when it was revealed
that it had not been the Hutu extremists but the Ugandan-RPF and US forces [the
CIA was also implicated] who had shot down the plane. Arbor was thus an
accomplice to a war crime and obstructed justice for which she was rewarded
with a number of lucrative positions.
In his presentation titled Non-Interventionism: The
Forgotten Doctrine” also at the Rhodes Forum 2014 on 26 September 2014
[rhodesforum.org/politics/540-non-interventionism-the-forgotten-doctrine]
John
Laughland, Director of Studies at the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation
[France], stated that a growing phenomenon in world politics in recent times is
that instances of regime change have been followed by criminal prosecutions of
the old regimes. This is dangerous as it destroys the concept of the national sovereignty
of states. He mentioned that between 21 November 2013 and 22 February 2014 the
International Criminal Court had been given jurisdiction in the Ukraine thus
enabling it to prosecute the old regime for war crimes though there had been no
war at all under it, but not over the new regime installed by the US. Such
irregularities were also seen in the NATO attack in 2011 of the Ivory Coast,
the ouster of Gaddafi, in the cases of Saddam Hussein and Milosovec and in
Rwanda. These examples illustrate the use of the punishment ethic” which is
now the dominant characteristic of US and Western foreign policy. The idea of
ending impunity”, with a state having the right to punish another even though
that other may not have attacked or harmed the first state, has been adopted. Many
NGOs, lobby and pressure groups, governments and international organizations
such as the UN and the EU considering themselves to be at the cutting edge of
modern politics, intervene in both internal and external affairs of states. This
has destroyed the concept of the sovereign equality of states.
The terms of the UN Charter have been totally
perverted” so that the organization is hardly recognizable today. The UN
considers itself a supranational authority” with the right and power to punish
heads of states, resulting in it setting up, or helping to set up, tribunals to
try targeted countries and regimes. It has also asserted the right to get such
countries to abide by treaties they have not ratified/signed which is a
flagrant demonstration of how the punishment ethic is based on the concept of
the hierarchy of states which has deformed the international system. These are
serious abuses and illustrates that the UN is not the solution but a part of
the problem, encouraging wars and interventions instead of preventing aggression.
Most countries have come to believe that the UN is not impartial. There is also
the need to recognize, as Edward Gibbons realized, that a world power is a
universal tyranny.”
Jurgen
Todenhofer, a well-known German journalist and publicist, spent 10 days in the
so-called IS caliphate in Mosul, Syria in December 2014. His impressions were
revealed in a CNN Programme called Blindsided:
How ISIS Shook the World on 20 November 2015 [in Sri Lanka]. [The interview
is also available on www.independent.co.uk>News>World>ME of 22 December 2014]. The following are
his key impressions of the ISIS.
- The West underestimated the threat from ISIS. It was
more intelligent and dangerous than the West realized. It was much stronger and
was supported by an almost ecstatic enthusiasm”. Each day 100s of new recruits
arrived from around the world. Within months ISIS had conquered an extent of
territory larger than Great Britain and dwarfed Al-Qaeda. Its fighters were
spread so widely around Mosul that the West would have had to flatten the city
to get at all its 5,000 members. With every bomb that is dropped and hits a
civilian, the number of terrorists increases.”
- The rapid increase of new fighters did not consist
only of young men who were failures in their own countries. There were many
successful professional and enthusiastic individuals from the UK, US, France,
Canada, Germany, Trinidad, Sweden and Russia, some of whom were not Muslim/Islamists.
- ISIS also aimed to carry out the largest religious cleansing in the history of mankind. It is
not only territorial conquest of the Middle East and other parts of the world that
would result, but also millions of deaths.
- In 2015 it appeared as if the ISIS could not be
defeated with bombs or missiles. Only the moderate Sunnis could stop ISIS as
they had done in 2007 when they chased ISIS [the ‘IS in Iraq’] away. But then
the movement was much weaker. The defeat of ISIS was difficult to achieve at
that time because the Americans and the Shiites in Iraq had excluded the Sunnis
after the 2003 invasion by the US. There were 3,500 US military intelligence
officers in Iraq at that time, but the Iraqi state was very weak. Although the
US had spent over USD 25 billion on training and arming the army it was useless
against an IS assault – the army ran away. This was because Iraq’s Prime
Minister, Maliki had failed to heal the rift between the Sunnis and Shiites.
Iraqi Sunnis refused to fight against the IS because to them IS was the lesser
of the two evils. They preferred it to the discrimination and oppression
suffered under the government of Prime Minister Maliki.
- ISIS became the largest threat to world peace since
the Cold War. The world had to pay the price for Bush’s act of near un-paralleled
folly”. The West hardly knew how to address this threat.
- A main aim of the ISIS was to provoke the US to
send ground troops. ISIS especially liked Fox News in the US because it kept on
urging for US troops on the ground in Syria [which was also what the Neocons
agitated for].
Graeme Wood has stated in What ISIS Really Wants”
in The Atlantic [March 2015] that the
Americans have not figured out the appeal that ISIS has. Unfortunately it is of significance and quite
telling that there were many people from various nationalities in the West,
other than Islamists, who were attracted to this movement. It follows that if
there is no proper understanding of the ISIS, including the fact that it was almost
enthusiastic about attacks from the West, strategic decisions against them
would be anything but strategic and would fail to solve the problem at hand. This
is a sad commentary on American [and to an extent western] foreign policy and their
lack of understanding of the strategies of the ISIS, resulting in faulty
strategies of their own.
Any view that ISIS cannot be defeated by
military action such as air raids, bearing in mind that most countries are
against the use of ground troops, required to be reviewed in the context of the
events that unfolded in November 2015 of Russian intervention. The Russians are
believed to have been more effective in their air raids in a few days than the
US had been in the past.
Finally, who has been largely responsible for
creating terror groups in various countries in the latter half of the twentieth
century and the early decades of the twenty-first century? The following
summary, at the risk of some repetition, seeks to answer this question. In
essence these terror groups have been created by the United States and/or its
allies. In many instances they have created a power vacuum through one form of
intervention or another, enabling terror groups to move in to fill the vacuum
[See Bruce Fein, Washington Times 9 June 2015]:
- Israel gave birth to Hamas by
crippling the PLO and Arafat’s dominant Fatah faction.
- Hezbollah emerged from the
power vacuum in Lebanon.
- Al-Qaeda and Taliban moved into
the breach created in Afghanistan. The US armed the freedom fighters who, after
the ouster of the Russians, transformed into the Taliban.
- After the ouster of Saddam
Hussein in Iraq in 2003 there was an unstable central government and strife amongst the Sunnis,
Shiites and Kurds. This enabled a splinter group of al-Qaeda to entrench itself
in Iraq. Al-Qaeda was itself originally armed and trained by the US.
- The power vacuum that was created in Syria as a
result of the Neo-cons urging the overthrow of President Assad, and the
training and arming of Sunni rebels enabled the ISIS and al-Qaeda to establish
themselves and set up the Islamic State.
- The Neo-cons/US administration
supported the Islamic radicals in the overthrow and assassination of Gaddafi of
Libya. Thereafter Islamic radicals plundered Gaddafi’s huge conventional
arsenal. The power vacuum created by the US and their allies enabled ISIS to
establish a menacing foothold in Libya.
It is imperative that there should be a clear
understanding of who helped ISIS to grow as it did. In this connection Ben
Swann, a prize-winning journalist who heads the Truth in Media Project, has
pointed out that much of the US media has avoided and suppressed the facts in
regard to this question. He has been seeking to make people in the US aware of
the answer to this question. [See https://www.facebook.com/BenSwannRealityCheck/videos/882104321854519/?fref=nf].
According to Swann ISIS was
created as a result of the conduct of the US Government in Iraq. Angela Keaton,
the founder of Antiwar.com believes that the ISIS is entirely the creation of
the United States’ behavior in Iraq” and that The US government completely
destabilized and wrecked Iraq….. caused it to fail miserably and that is
entirely the fault of the US Government. There is no one else to blame.” Daniel
McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute has stated that the media in the US will not
mention that the impact of US actions in Iraq and Syria resulted in the
emergence of the ISIS.
Swann has also pointed out
that ISIS was born in 2006 – a weak and small group of insurgents in Iraq which
could not gain a foothold there. In 2009 it shifted its focus to the Syrian
civil war. In June 2013 there was a pivotal moment when a Syrian General
fighting against Assad, pleaded on television [al Jazeera] for weapons from the
international community if the rebels were to be able to overthrow the regime
of Assad. The US was already covertly providing arms through the CIA. In less
than one year, weapons given by the US and allies were found in the hands of
the ISIS because the Free Syrian Army [FSA] sent these weapons as well as
recruits to the ISIS. In June 2012 the ISIS emerged heavily armed and trained
by the US and Coalition Special Forces in Iraq. When the US forces left Iraq,
they had left behind arms, vehicles and other equipment which were now in the
hands of the ISIS, which the US knew would happen. The US media continues to suppress
the reason ISIS was able to grow and become powerful so fast, and that when the
US Government became aware of this, it did nothing although ISIS was becoming a
threat to world security and peace.
How was it that the US with
all its intelligence capabilities did not see the threat coming? Swann believes
that the US knew who and what ISIS was, but that the so-called Islamic State
was doing just what the US administration wanted it to do against the Syrian
regime. However, by about 2015 the government acted like it had never heard of
ISIS and suddenly, with the help of the media, it turned the IS into the new
focus of the war on terror.
Around 2015 or earlier, Daniel
McAdams pointed out that the ISIS was earning over USD 2 million a day selling
oil [mostly to US’ allies]. Bombing Syrian oilfields instead of stopping those
buying oil, made no sense. The response of the US to this was that by bombing
the oilfields, it was undercutting competition”. McAdams pointed out that the
US is known to slap sanctions on anything that moves which annoys it, and
queried as to why no sanctions were imposed on either the banks or the oil
companies involved in these transactions.
Swann also stated that
Americans should have been inquiring as to why the US was sending USD 500 million
to the Free Syrian Army to fight ISIS, when the FSA was one of the biggest
suppliers of fighters and weapons to the ISIS, and also why the US was sending
the FSA new and more powerful weapons such as anti-aircraft missiles, knowing
they would soon be in the hands of the ISIS.
McAdams described the US as
a victim of its own insane policies because the US is very good at blowing
things up but really bad at putting them back together.”
Swann has pointed out that
(a) the US armed both Bin Laden and the Muhajideen in Afghanistan – thus
creating al-Qaeda; (b) the US put Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq and helped
supply and create weapons for him to use against Iran in 1980 and then
overthrew him in 2003; (c) the US government armed and trained rebel fighters
in Syria who became the formidable ISIS.
Swann states: We have
watched them [ISIS] commit every violent atrocity you can imagine…in Iraq and
Syria, and now we want American taxpayers to fund a thirty-year war with them.”
Leon Panetta, the former Defense Secretary, told the magazine USA Today that he believes that to
defeat ISIS the US is looking at a thirty year war.” Swann concluded that it
was not the US government but the American people who are being held hostage by
the policies of their government: It is time we reject the destruction of
people and groups around the world for the sake of foreign policy that makes so-called
defense contractors rich, and perpetuate violence, death, and the destruction
of entire people groups. This is the central issue of our time because humanity
is greater than politics.”
An Overall Conclusion
In conclusion, attention is drawn to the view
expressed by John Laughland that we live in a world in which any country can be
punished for being an enemy even if that country has not harmed any other country.
The adoption of this punishment ethic means that the time would come when there
will not be a legal system known as International Law. Even national laws would
increasingly be subject to change through threats exerted by a powerful
country, which has already happened in some states. Attempts have been made to
replicate this in Sri Lanka. If International Law and national laws are so
undermined, the world may return to a sort of pre-historic state – a state of
nature referred to by Hobbes which was described by him as being nasty,
brutish and short” – in which the basic principle of survival would be
obedience to one single power. That is why there is little that is worse than a
unipolar world in which the Rule of Law, Supremacy of the Law, Natural Justice,
Judicial Independence including at the international level, etc. would become
utterly irrelevant and be destroyed by one or more countries. A part of
European civilization is founded on a 2500 year history during which the
ancient Greeks and Romans developed concepts which underline the
above-mentioned values. One can only hope this region will preserve those
values, because they are being undermined by those who have no history or a
sense of one.
Sriyan de Silva
08 October 2020
