Re:
FrontPage magazine.com :: Abu Buchanan's Fatwah on Israel
by Don Feder.
Which is a review of:
Where the Right Went Wrong:
How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the
Bush Presidency
by Pat Buchanan.
For a positive review, see:
VDARE.com: 08/23/04 - How The Right Went Wrong-- Pat Buchanan's New Blockbuster
by Paul Craig Roberts.
It is simply not true that Pat Buchanan uses the term "neo-conservatives" as a euphemism for "Jews." Almost every article I've read that is critical of the war and that discusses the role of neo-conservatives will state that the two groups do overlap, but are far from identical. Even rabidly anti-Semitic writers distinguish the neo-cons who are Jewish from the non-Jewish American Likudniks.
The Jewish and non-Jewish neo-cons do have in common a tendency to brand all of their critics as anti-Semites. I find that interesting.
I haven't read Pat's book, but I do partially agree with a concept Feder attributes to Buchanan, though not with Feder's overblown wording: If it were "not for America's outrageously pro-Israel foreign policy" and if the U.S.A. had withdrawn it's armed forces stationed in Saudi Arabia after the first Gulf War, I doubt that there would have been a 9-11. There are, of course, other factors suggesting that we are dealing with monsters of our own creation: America's support for the Afgan mujahadeen against the Soviet Union in the '80s; America's support for agressive Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo in the '90s; America's support for Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran and the green light America gave to Saddam Hussein before his invasion of Kuwait.
I don't think we have a "clash of civilizations" as some writers claim -- it's more a clash of universalistic ideologies: Muslim universalism vs. Jewish universalism, which, somewhat perplexingly, has been taken up by Christians who find it congruent with their own universalistic presumptions. Plus, we have what we might call the "democratic universalism" of G.W. Bush, who apparently sees himself as a New Prometheus, bringing light to the backward corners of the earth.
It's all one heck of a mess. So forgive me if I do not imerse myself in the particulars of Don Feder's bilious polemic. I find my own paranoid delusions much more comforting. ;)
The "anti-neo-con == anti-semite" idea is still getting pushed. We have, for example, the following by Julia Gorin, who is a neo-con and very definately not a friend of mine: "Blame it on Neo / Don't call me a 'neocon' unless you are a friend." The Gorin piece has stirred up some interesting responses, such as "Etiquette in the Use of `Neocon'" by Paul Gottfried.
A section of Buchanan's book is available online: "Betrayed by Bush: Patrick J. Buchanan". It is a powerful but sad summary of our situation.
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