Not to mention war against China pre-commie.  One of our most shamefull foreign policy blunders was when our state department helped in the assasination of the Catholic Diet Dim for the reason that they felt he wasn’t popular enough with the Budhists.

It’s difficult to know what to do with the categorical imperative in politics.  If one avoids it entirely, the result is often a truly amoral realpolitik vision of self-interest.  If one applies it to tricky situations like wars, one likely embraces pacifism ("you wouldn’t want to be bombed, would you?” Ergo, don’t bomb). I recall the provocative argument of Willmoore Kendall, that Christians can kill their enemies for their own good, to prevent them from hurting not only others but also themselves.  Now that’s a tricky application of Kantian ethics; even the neocons haven’t gone that far.

Kantian ethics always seemed kind of unpersuasive:  even if the imperative can be applied, why bother.  The social contract theorists, at least, had something to say about the way the world is by positing what people would be like without government; in other words, the “state of nature” is still here in the present, and thus it is ultimately an appeal to enlightened self-interest in either its Lockean or Kantian varieties.  Allan Bloom’s little anti-Rawls piece in “Giants and Dwarves” is good on this point.

I’ve always found Catholic Social Contract stuff more persuasive as a moral frame-work with which to evaluate war, force, and violence.  It’s not overly individualist, it’s not unrealistic, but it’s not purely consequentialist either.

Worse still, it’s a highly moralistic categorical imperative that seems to have no impact on how the neoconservatives themselves live their lives.  They’re the “whiskey priests” of American military action.

Inapt metaphor. Engaging in agitprop for wars one refuses to fight in is quite unlike a priest who, in doing his duty, tells his flock to avoid the Cardinal Sin of gluttony, even if he himself is guilty of that sin.

Chickenhawk seems a better choice…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickenhawk_(politics)

If the Neocons were to take direct action in a way that would preclude the rise of another Hitler, they would immediately commit suicide, as it was their brand of ideological certitude that birthed Marxism, Bolshevism and the state-engineered extermination of millions that set precedents merely emulated by their nemesis. Of course, they aren’t really interested in a non-1939 world, that is merely a pose they strike to gain them moral authority. What they are really interested in is a 1917 world that went on to exterminate not just millions of Russians, but millions of Germans, Italians, European Christians and anyone else who might have dared to challenge their moral authority.
But this time, they will start small. Their new 1917 world intends to get its sea legs by starting with the extermination of Muslims in proximity to Israel. It will then work its way up to the others.
With the Western elite giving safe harbor, aid and comfort to such Bolsheviki malignants, is it any wonder that the rest of the world increasingly hates us? And is it any wonder that the West itself is suicidal? What message does tolerating their endless subversiveness send, other than that Western civilization is not worth defending?

Mr. Roach,
Neocons are Americans. Why would they serve in the IDF?

The are no more nationalists for Israel than for America. You know that Islamic Democracy would lead to the end of Israel.
So are you lying to be cute or because Taki demands an anti-Israel line?

Mr. Moore,

Zionism and the practice of Judaism were illegal in the USSR.
Communists from Marx have been set on exterminating Judaism and Jewishness.
Stalin went further and in the end wanted to start killing JEws on a forced march to Birobaijan. Look up “The Doctor’s Plot”.

The Soviets funded and militarilty aided ARab Nationalists and even select Islamist groups in the war on the WEst and Israel. The USSR provoked the 1967 with lies about an Israeli mobilization and then, with its Arab clients losing, it threatened to invade Israel.
The USSR supported the 1973 campaign as well as Syria in the 1980s.

With the exception of 1945-50, the USSR was set on preventing or destroying Israel. Trotskyites and Stalinists are still set to this today.

Let us be precise. Neocons are disloyal Americans.  They demand bellicosity by America to serve a complicated ideology espousing universalist and unpatriotic principles refracted through an uncritical, pro-Israeli lens. Most self-identified neoconservatives are Jewish, and they identify America’s moral failing in the mid-20th Century as an excessive and selfish nationalism.  Obviously, they see this same failing in Nazi Germany.  They believe that everyone, but particularly Jews and other minorities, are safer and societies are better that are founded on universalist principles in which Jews are not easily identified within nationalist societies as “The Other.” They are partisans for modernism and its expansion through US power. So there is an internal program--liberalism, mass immigration, multiculturalism, American “civic religionism,” Lincoln fetishism--and there is an external program:  wars and diplomacy to spread liberal democratic and capitalist values. Invade-the-world/Invite the world, as they say at vdare.com.

Neoconservatives clearly view the US and Israel’s respective interests as the same, because they view any nation’s good as defined by (a) fidelity to the universal principles of liberalism or (b) the expression of healthy Jewish ethno-nationalism.  The former values serve the later, even if they serve other interests as well. 

Just as domestic liberalism has various “unprincipled exceptions,” so does neoconservative liberalism with respect to Jewish nationalism in Israel:  it’s the one, pure defensible nationalism, but this is no surprise, because all of the universalist talk is always designed never to interfere with Jewish minority interests in the various nations--Russia, US, France--where it is promoted.

If the neoconservatives would not serve here in the United States military, one might imagine they’d serve over there in Israel itself, since this is their only tangible ethno-religious loyalty.  (They love America only for its power; they want everywhere from Iraq to Vladivostock to be identical and indistinguishably liberal, capitalist, and non-nationalist.) But no dice.  They’re war-mongerers, transparent nationalists (for Israel), and possessed of dual loyalties, but they’re also cowards.

I don’t think any Arab state presents a conventional threat to Israel with or without democracy. Israel has nukes, remember.  They’ll be fine, and no one will be dumb enough to attack them. 

I harbor no especial love or hatred for Israel and don’t take my marching orders from Taki or anyone else.  I think the maudlin accounts of Palestinian refugees by Noam Chomsky and certain paleoconservatives are overstated.  I also think the romantic portray of Israelis as the stalwart democratic capitalist’s outpost in the Middle East is an exageration too.  They’re an old-fashioned ethno-nation, like Turkey or mid-century India. I wish we were more like them, but I don’t think we should foot the bill for their crummy neighborhood, festering Palestinian problem, or semi-socialist government. Real nationalism means taking pride in standing up on your own two feet, i.e., the virtue of strategic independence.

Read Slezkine on communism and Jews in his tour de force work, the “Jewish Century.” They were clearly the vanguard group and liked communism for much the reason they like American modernism:  its universalist and being a Jew under such a regime is not supposed to be a demerit.  Slezkine reports that even with the Doctors’ Plot, Jews on a per capita basis suffered less under Stalin and his purges than ethnic Russians.  Solzhenitsyn makes the same point about prisoners in the Gulag. The anti-Jewish paranoia of Stalin in the Doctors Plot episode has been a useful means of papering over the disproportionate participation of Russian and Ukranian Jews in the Bolshevik atrocity, the anti-Orthodox and anti-Russian character of these years particularly from 1917-1948.  After the establishment of Israel proper, Stalin and other Communist non-Jewish leadership worried about dual loyalties, plots, and the like.  Nonetheless, Jews remained disproportionately represented in party leadership and important ideological positions--media, law, universities, secret police, NKVD, KGB--until 1989.

We needn’t hate Israel, Jews, nor eschew a magnaminous concern for the weak and the downtrodden to realize that neoconservatism is one more variant on universalist liberalism promoted by people whose self-interest as a group will be furthered by its triumph. Its fundamental driving force is the destruction of traditional nations, national identities, and the necessarily subordinate position of minorities in healthy nation-states.

Excellent article and post Mr. Roach.  It is also my understanding, and correct me if I am mistaken but isn’t Israel also sacred ground to Muslims and wouldn’t that mitigate any action that Muslim countries would be willing to take against Israel, assuming they even had the means to do so?

isn’t Israel also sacred ground to Muslims and wouldn’t that mitigate any action that Muslim countries would be willing to take against Israel, assuming they even had the means to do so?

Jerusalem at least--I think it should mitigate against the use of nuclear weapons against Israel.

As I recall the neo-con architects of the Iraq war were working for Netanyahu during the Bush interregnum when they came up the idea in the first place. Bibi was smart enough to know the idea was a non-starter.

I know a lot of Americans who live in Israel and serve in the IDF. Our neo-cons leadership are cowards as a rule. From Bush and Cheney to Bolton, the Kagans, Wolfie, Feith, and Condi. Neo-cons war, poor mans fight.

Posted by RonL on May 09, 2008.

Uhm, up until Stalin, the commies were Jews.  And after the fall, all of the “Russian” oligarchs were Jews.  Between these periods, Jews were active in eastern Europe as communism’s willing executioners (e.g., Hungary).

The picture you paint doesn’t fit the facts.

A number of problems today seem to have arisen with, or at least were popularized by, Kant (e.g. the elevation of an individualistic universal abstract ethics, the elevation of the ‘artist’ as genius, the elevation of the individual over the community, etc.).  And many of the attempted solutions to these problems (e.g. utilitarianism) are just as bad as, if not worse than, Kant.

Excellent summary of the neocon creed, Mr. Roach.

Mr. Roach,
I appreciate the response.

“Let us be precise. Neocons are disloyal Americans.  They demand bellicosity by America to serve a complicated ideology espousing universalist and unpatriotic principles refracted through an uncritical, pro-Israeli lens.”

Uncritical pro-Israel lens?
Neo-cons attack Israeli policies all the time.
However, your basic assumption is just wrong. The entire Neocon project undermines Zionism. It’s just that neocons lack the maturity to see the damage they are doing to Israel, just as they do to America.
Were neocons to win, a democratic middle east would simply vote for war with Israel, while Israel’s desire not to join in a binational “Palestine” would lose any international support.
On the other hand, the current reality certainly hasn’t helped Israel. While Iraq was techincally at war with Israel in 2003 and was funding the PLFP, the effects were minimal. On the other hand, Iran’s nuclear program and aid to Hezbollah and Hamas was a threat. Since then, things have gotten worse for Israel.
Meanwhile, to help Bush’s policies that help ISrael not one bit, Israel has been pushed to give up land and do nothing in retaliation to attacks on Israeli cities.

“Most self-identified neoconservatives are Jewish, and they identify America’s moral failing in the mid-20th Century as an excessive and selfish nationalism.”
I’m not certain about your figures. There are a heck of a lot of real neocons who are Catholic and that isn’t even counting the sloppy definition of neocons which include any moderate Republican or right-of-center internationalist.

“Obviously, they see this same failing in Nazi Germany.  They believe that everyone, but particularly Jews and other minorities, are safer and societies are better that are founded on universalist principles in which Jews are not easily identified within nationalist societies as “The Other.” “
True for some, but there are also Irish Americans who remember those cute “No Dogs or Irish Allowed” signs.
This is an endemic problem among under assimilated ethnic whites.

“They are partisans for modernism and its expansion through US power. So there is an internal program--liberalism, mass immigration, multiculturalism, American “civic religionism,” Lincoln fetishism--and there is an external program:  wars and diplomacy to spread liberal democratic and capitalist values”
So they are JFK Democrats who have moved slightly to the right.

“ Invade-the-world/Invite the world, as they say at vdare.com.

Neoconservatives clearly view the US and Israel’s respective interests as the same, because they view any nation’s good as defined by (a) fidelity to the universal principles of liberalism or (b) the expression of healthy Jewish ethno-nationalism.  The former values serve the later, even if they serve other interests as well.”

You do realize how universal principles undermine Judaism and Jewishness. They are an anathema to a tribal religion.

“If the neoconservatives would not serve here in the United States military, one might imagine they’d serve over there in Israel itself, since this is their only tangible ethno-religious loyalty.”
Of the conservatives I went to schools with, all those who volunteered for military service, all but one were neocons who joined the US military. (And before anyone make a smarmy comment, although I am not a neocon, I volunteered for the Air Force in 2001, but was rejected due to medical condition. )

“(They love America only for its power; they want everywhere from Iraq to Vladivostock to be identical and indistinguishably liberal, capitalist, and non-nationalist.) But no dice.  They’re war-mongerers, transparent nationalists (for Israel), and possessed of dual loyalties, but they’re also cowards.”

All Jewish ones? Like Paul Wolfowitz, who when not cheating on his wife with an Arab, spent his time pressing Jewish groups to accept a two-state solution?

“I don’t think any Arab state presents a conventional threat to Israel with or without democracy. Israel has nukes, remember.  They’ll be fine, and no one will be dumb enough to attack them.”

Really? I suppose that Hamas and Hizbollah are non-state actors. However their benefactors, Syria and Iran (the latter being non-Arab) are real states and are conducting a proxy war. Once Iran goes nuclear, what makes you think that they won’t attack if they think that they can take Israel out with 3 or 4 weapons?

“I also think the romantic portray of Israelis as the stalwart democratic capitalist’s outpost in the Middle East is an exageration too.”
It is a rather disgusting liberal line. However, Israel is a western ally in the region.

“They’re an old-fashioned ethno-nation, like Turkey or mid-century India. I wish we were more like them, but I don’t think we should foot the bill for their crummy neighborhood, festering Palestinian problem, or semi-socialist government.”
The UN through UNWRA and the Arab states festered the Palestinian problem. That said, I agree that we should not foot the bill for any of it. And that includes aid to Egypt, Jordan, and UNRWA.

“Real nationalism means taking pride in standing up on your own two feet, i.e., the virtue of strategic independence.”
Too true.

“Read Slezkine on communism and Jews in his tour de force work, the “Jewish Century.” They were clearly the vanguard group and liked communism for much the reason they like American modernism:  its universalist and being a Jew under such a regime is not supposed to be a demerit.”

That was the theory that sucked in self-hating retards.  Of course from Marx on, communism was one of the most anti-Jewish movements out there.

“Slezkine reports that even with the Doctors’ Plot, Jews on a per capita basis suffered less under Stalin and his purges than ethnic Russians.”
1 .Except that Judaism suffered as much as any other religion and since Jewishness does not exist for long without Judaism this a recipe for extinction.  (Again, see “On the Jewish Question”)
2. The death count was low because Stalin died first.

“The anti-Jewish paranoia of Stalin in the Doctors Plot episode has been a useful means of papering over the disproportionate participation of Russian and Ukranian Jews in the Bolshevik atrocity, the anti-Orthodox and anti-Russian character of these years particularly from 1917-1948.”

And the continued existence of ethnic Jews, largely deracinated, papered over the anti-Jewish nature of the regime. Judaism was a crime.
Moreover, look at Poland where antisemitism was official policy and those Maexist former Jews, once convicted in show trials, became scapegoats for the crimes of communism and its inherent violence.

“ After the establishment of Israel proper, Stalin and other Communist non-Jewish leadership worried about dual loyalties, plots, and the like.”
Stalin’s dislike of Jews was much older. Moreover, having all Zionist leave would have worked just as well.  No, the goal was the end of a cohesive ethnic group.

“Nonetheless, Jews remained disproportionately represented in party leadership and important ideological positions--media, law, universities, secret police, NKVD, KGB--until 1989.”
And Jews caught practicing their faith were sent to the Gulag right up till then.

“We needn’t hate Israel, Jews, nor eschew a magnaminous concern for the weak and the downtrodden to realize that neoconservatism is one more variant on universalist liberalism promoted by people whose self-interest as a group will be furthered by its triumph. Its fundamental driving force is the destruction of traditional nations, national identities, and the necessarily subordinate position of minorities in healthy nation-states.”
But we also needn’t pretend that the inherent contradictions of neo-conservatism don’t exist, blame it all on Jews, or pretend that liberalism does not hurt Jews.

Svigor,

Self-hating former Jews, like self-hating former Christians were involved in most communist atrocities. And Jews, like others suffered. However, communists fomented antisemtism as a way of deflecting anger, while also giving them a way to silence opposition. Don’t fall for communist machinations in the need for a simple answer.

Jews and Judaism were as much targets as Christianity and bourgous ideas.

“RonL. is really a joke: There were few Jews in Palistine after 130 A.D. “
So the Bar Kokhba revolt of 135-7 is a figment or my imagination. Lets assumat that you meant to say 137.

“The population at first was Greek and Aramaic speaking pagans. Palistine became a Christian country after Constantine and his mother Helena, built many churches in Palistine. The Emperor Julian the Apostate,tried to rebuild the Temple and let the Jews return. That ended with a complete failure.”
Except ath the Sanhedrin was restored at Yavneh. And that thing called the “Jerusalem Talmud” on my bookshelf, really isn’t there. Likewise there really was no revolt in 617.
Or maybe you are just wrong.
I never said that there were no Roman colonists. They formed a majority between 620 and 640.

“With the coming of the Muslims in the seventh century, there still remained a large a large Christian community in Palistine. “
And there was a Jewish one. However, whereas the Christian community grow with the Crusades, the Jewish and Samaritan communities, which had been declining were then attacked on all sides.

“ The return of the Jews to Israel has been a disaster for middle eastern Christians. “
Sure. It had nothing to do with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood after the end of the Caliphate or the failure of Pan-Arabism as an alternative to Islam. It’s not like Michael Aflaq became a Muslim.

“Now the Israelis want to destroy Syria the last place where Christians have true freedom of religion. “
There is no feedom of religion in Syria. It is a totalitarian regime.
Syria is also the great betrayer of Christians in the region, selling out Lebanese Christians. Ironically, Israel tried to be their allies, but this was stopped by the US.

“All Israel has become is a walled ghetto. No wonder so many Jews have left the place. “
Israel now has the largest Jewish population in the World.
Sorry, but you no nothing of the region.

“RonL. anyone who uses C.E. and B.C.E. is not serious. Even the worthless History Channel doesn’t use them anymore. “
I do not use “Anno Domeni” and “Before Christ” because these are religious expressions of Christianity. I respect Christinity too much to disregard an article of faith.

“Every webbsite that has honest discussion about the middle east has ADL minders who argue drivel to raise eveyone’s blood preasure. “
Sorry but I’ve slapped around Foxman. I’m no friend of the ADL.
See my blog. nycright.blogspot.com