News - The brave new world of the neo-cons

Neo-con - converted liberal, informally
?      — New York Times Crossword Puzzle

I could deal with "neo-conservatives," if they were just a bunch of converted liberals. But their newly influential movement is more troublesome than that. It threatens the American body politic with ever-expanding government power, larger bureaucracies and losses of our fundamental freedoms.

The movement's elevated status can be traced directly to Sept. 11, 2001, although it was developing into a major political force long before then. Michael Lind writes in The New Statesman that neo-conservatives' roots reach back to the anti-communist liberalism that took hold in America from the 1950s to the 1970s. Others trace its religious fervor — its self-righteous zeal — as far back as the Puritans.

Many earlier American political movements were closely tied to an aggressive, military-based foreign policy. In the 19th century, the push toward "manifest destiny" was rooted in an understandable desire on the part of America's leaders to extend America's continental reach to meet the needs of a nation struggling to industrialize and capitalize its resources. In the early 20th century, Teddy Roosevelt, often viewed as an imperialist, actually exercised considerable restraint in the use of American military power when he involved troops in circumstances clearly limited in time and scope. Woodrow Wilson's ill-fated drive to "make the world safe for democracy" was born of a genuine, if unrealistic notion that political freedom was preferable to tyranny and that democratic governments would be less predisposed to war as a tool of political power. Though Wilson's effort failed miserably, the goal was to avoid, not foster, war.

But neo-conservatives rely on the raw and aggressive use of military power to a unique degree, and their almost messianic mission to root out "bad guys" around the world, is unprecedented.

In 1997, the Project for the New American Century, a neo-conservative think tank headquartered in Washington, issued a Statement of Principles that lays out the neo-conservative vision of an international order completely subservient to U.S. business, military and political interests. At its core, the statement makes clear that nothing less than total, global American military dominance will suffice. The statement was signed by Dick Cheney, who is now vice president, Donald Rumsfeld, now secretary of defense, and Paul Wolfowitz, now deputy defense secretary.

The problem is that such total, global American military dominance would require a huge federal bureaucracy. And even worse: It would require an essentially permanent state of war abroad, as well as a climate of fear at home — leading to ever-increasing levels of government power. The tragic events of Sept. 11 offered neo-cons the perfect catalyst to move into high gear. And, brother, have they ever.

We now have a huge new bureaucracy — the Department of Homeland Security — already creeping beyond its legislatively imposed jurisdiction. We have new laws, including the USA PATRIOT Act, that fundamentally alter the balance of power between citizens and government (in the latter's favor, of course). We see movement to break down the sacrosanct barriers between domestic law enforcement and our military, and between domestic law enforcement and the CIA. And we are witnessing the creation of a rash of invasive programs, such as the Pentagon's Terrorist Information Awareness program, designed to forever take from America's citizens their privacy.

One of the most troubling aspects of neo-conservatism is its intolerance for dissent. Former Education Secretary and drug czar William Bennett, who recently formed an organization called Americans for Victory Over Terrorism, audaciously asserts in an open letter printed as an advertisement in the New York Times that internal dissent poses as much a threat to victory over terrorism as do external groups attacking the United States. The message from neo-cons is clear: Questioning where we are and where they want to lead us is unpatriotic. It's a new and scary direction in American politics that neither true conservatives nor true liberals have historically championed.

When the House of Representatives took a rare, small step away from increased government power, by passing an amendment to a spending bill cutting off funds for so-called "sneak and peek" searches, the Justice Department quickly branded the move "devastating" to America's war against terrorism. Such hyperbole is nonsense, of course, but it reflects the dual-pronged, neo-con strategy of branding any opposition to its agenda as essentially unpatriotic and of using fear as its vehicle of choice.

In 1984, George Orwell described a nation built on fear and perpetual war. "The object of being at war, and therefore in danger," he wrote, "makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival." Let's hope that, at least in this instance, Orwell proves not to be as prescient as in many of his other observations.

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, a Republican, represented parts of Cobb County and Northwest Georgia from 1995 to 2003.