NeoCons: Radical Foreign Policy for U.S. Global Empire | PeaceAware.com feature article by David M. Boje, Ph.D. April 10, 2003

What is a NeoCon? Neocon is a neo-conservative who began as anti-Stalinist Trotskist before moving to the far right in U.S. politics. NeoCons have roots in the Leon Trotskyist movement of the 1930s and 1940s. In the 1950s and 1970s that movement morphed into anti-communist liberalism. Today the NeoCons are embedded in the imperial right and militarism of the U.S. defense and foreign affairs departments. If this sounds like muddled thinking, then you are not alone in such an assessment.

What is Evangelical Capitalism? Abbass Ali of Indiana University of Pennsylvania coined the term "Evangelical Capitalism" in a presentation to the 2003 International Academy of Business Discipline meetings in Orlando Florida (April). NeoCons tutored President George Bush Jr. in foreign affairs, since Bush had no prior experience. Bush was an empty vessel. Prior to becoming president, Bush had never left the United States (except for 2 trips to Mexico). Bush's evangelical protestant value set was a perfect fit with the NeoCon strike first value of 'strike first" preemption. You will recall Bush's comment before the war that this was a "Crusade" and that he intended to destroy the "Axis-of-Evil." Since WWII the foreign policy of the U.S. has been 'containment' and is now a radical Neocon policy of 'preemption.' Preemption, plus Evangelical Protestantism, combines in U.S. policy of Evangelical Capitalism. This is the spreading of corporate hegemony of American corporations that make weapons of mass destruction (Rayethon, Lockheed Martin, TWR, Northrop Grumman) and the grab for oil (Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco) and purveyors of global sweatshops (Wal-Mart, Nike, Reebok).

What are the implications of NeoCon's Evangelical Capitalism? The application of Trotsky's concept of Permanent Revolution (explained below) means that the U.S. is engaging in an "endless war." Since in the U.S. corporate lobbies elect presidents, it is a new kind of class war. The corporate class (and banking elites) versus the working class citizens of the U.S. and the people of any nation who has resources that can be colonized by Evangelical Capitalism. Any Third World nation that asserts independent control of natural resources such as oil or natural gas are either overthrown by CIA covert ops or by overt military preemptive invasion. The current policy in the U.S. is strike first, without U.N. approval, which means a continuing set of violations of Geneva Convention and Nuremberg Treat.

Who are the main NeoCons:

• Paul Wolfowitz,deputy secretary of defense is the NeoCon defense mastermind of the Bush administration
• Donald Rumsfeld is defense secretary (since Wolfowitz is too controversial)
• Douglas Feith, No. 3 at the Pentagon
• Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a Wolfowitz protégé who is Cheney's chief of staff
• John R. Bolton, a right-winger assigned to the State Department to keep Colin Powell in check
• Elliott Abrams, recently appointed to head Middle East policy at the National Security Council.
• James Woolsey,former CIA director, who tried repeatedly to link both 9/11 and the anthrax letters in the U.S. to Saddam Hussein
• Richard Perle, who recently resigned as chair of a defense department advisory body after a lobbying scandal. His comment that day was "It is not about the oil."
• Robert Kagan is a NeoCon propagandist who argues that Americans are 'martial' and Europeans 'pacifist.'
• Irving Kristol(b. 1920), City College '40; co-editor of The Public Interest magazine; John M. Olin Distinguished Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Kristol said," Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a neo-something: a neo-Marxist, a neo-Trotskyist, a neo-liberal, a neo-conservative; in religion a neo-orthodox even while I was a neo-Trotskyist and a neo-Marxist. I’m going to end up a neo- that’s all, neo dash nothing."

Who are the apprentice-NeoCons?

• President George W. Bush Jr. Bush has surrounded himself with NeoCon radicals, in a modern example of Irving Janis' "Group Think' (where all advisors say the same things and there is no critical reflection or counter-thinking allowed). Bush said, "you are either with us or with them," this is a "crusade," and he is taking out the "axis-of-evil" nations in preemptive strikes, with or without the UN.
• Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney, speaking on behalf of the Bush NeoCon administration, promised after September 11 that there would be "endless war" and a war lasting a lifetime.
• Retired General Jay Garney -to be proconsul of occupied Iraq

(Un) Think Tanks

• Jinsa - Washington-based and Likud-supporting 'Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs' (Jinsa),

Jinsa sends wannabe defense/foreign affairs experts on trips to Israel. For example, Jinsa flew Jay Garner (October 2000) to Israel for programming; Garner cosigned a Jinsa letter that began: "We ... believe that during the current upheavals in Israel, the Israel Defense Forces have exercised remarkable restraint in the face of lethal violence orchestrated by the leadership of [the] Palestinian Authority."

What is Preemption? Preemption is a foreign policy of strike first. It is expressly forbidden and outlawed in the Geneva Convention and Nuremberg Treaty. American foreign policy now follows the Israeli Likud party's tactics, including preventive warfare such as Israel's 1981 raid on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor.

What was Trotsky's Theory? Trotsky's theory is called "Permanent Revolution" (first published in Russian in Berlin in 1930). Permanent Revolution is a contribution to Karl Marx and Frederick Engel's thought. They wrote that "an independently organized party of the proletariat. Their battle-cry must be: The Permanent Revolution" (Address of the Central Committee of the Communist League, March 1850). Trotsky wrote: "The permanent revolution, in the sense which Marx attached to this concept, means a revolution which makes no compromise with any single form of class rule, which does not stop at the democratic stage, which goes over to socialist measures and to war against reaction from without; that is, a revolution whose every successive stage is rooted in the preceding one and which can end only in complete liquidation" (Ryan, 1996). Trotsky also wrote: "The Perspective of permanent revolution may be summarized in the following way: the complete victory of the democratic revolution in Russia is conceivable only in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, leaning on the peasantry. The dictatorship of the proletariat, which would inevitably place on the order of the day not only democratic but socialistic tasks as well, would at the same time give a powerful impetus to the international socialist revolution. Only the victory of the proletariat in the West could protect Russia from bourgeois restoration and assure it the possibility of rounding out the establishment of socialism" (Ryan, 1996).

In sum, the Permanent Revolution that the NeoCons pick up from Trotsky is that a country like Iraq need not pass through the stages of economic development achieved bu countries such as the U.S. Rather, the post-war Iraq government can combine backward and advanced economic aspects, in the form of a Permanent Revolution.

What are the implications of NeoCon ideology and hegemony for Iraq?

Bush's NeoCon administration is rushing to impose a colonial-style occupation government on Iraq. NeoCon apprentice, retired General Jay Garney is to be the U.S. proconsul of occupied Iraq. The NeoCon Bush administration began its conquest of Empire by declaring war on Afghanistan (which it continues to bomb), and then invaded Iraq (after the UN Security Council refused to go along). The buzz in Washington D.C. is the next conquest will be Syria. "Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, and their main ideological ally at the State Department, undersecretary John Bolton, have all made menacing public remarks about Syria in recent days" (RoundUp, Apr 10). Other sites of Empire-conquest include Iran, southern Lebanon, North Korea,Philippines, and Palestine.

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References

Boje, D. M. (2003) NeoCons and War Crime Trials for U.S. and Iraq 1 May, 2003 A talk for International Day of Solidarity, New Mexico State University

Lind, Michael (2003). How neoconservatives conquered Washington -- and launched a war. Salon.com. April 9th.

Marx, Karl & Frederick Engles (1850). Address of the Central Committee of the Communist League, March

Ryan, Sally (1996) Trotsky Permanent Revolution.

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