Sauce for the Goose
Over at NRO, Andy McCarthy has denounced as "disgusting" and "repulsive" former CIA official Michael Scheuer's review at antiwar.com of Norman Podhoretz' World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism. In his review, Scheuer notes that "Podhoretz hates every American who does not support the neoconservatives' views, the foreign policy they have devised, and [the] national security disasters to which they are leading America," with Podhoretz being "particularly vicious" toward Pat Buchanan "because he knows that Buchanan sees through the neoconservative fantasy with the most unrelenting acuity." None of this is news to Chronicles readers, and all of it is true.
So why is McCarthy so angry? He doesn't really say, because he merely denounces Scheuer, never offering anything that might be considered an argument. He probably objects to Scheuer's description of Podhoretz' book as "anti-American," but since Podhoretz has freely tossed around this adjective for decades, and McCarthy's own magazine printed a cover story at the beginning of the invasion of Iraq denouncing conservative opponents of the war as "unpatriotic," it is hard to see why this should upset McCarthy. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, after all. McCarthy may also object to Scheur describing Podhoretz and his minions as "Israel-firsters," but there is no doubt of the centrality of Israel in neoconservative thought. Indeed, the same day McCarthy was reduced to sputtering outrage over Scheuer's review, six other posts appeared at NRO lambasting Scheuer for saying on television that Israel was "not worth an American life or an American dollar." Scheuer thus managed to excite more outrage at NRO than has, say, Christopher Hitchens' ongoing war against Christianity. In fact, NRO regularly links to Hitchens' pieces, which continue to be praised by NRO regulars, one of whom, Michael Novak, has described Hitchens as a "Treasure." McCarthy himself often praises Hitchens' columns. That criticism of American policy toward Israel should be seen as more damning at NRO than criticism of Christianity represents nothing less than a repudiation of the principles on which American conservatism has rested, including the principles enunciated by National Review before it became a neoconservative organ.
Unfortunately for McCarthy, Americans are being given an opportunity to assess the merits of neoconservatism. Podhoretz' policies are being tried in Iraq, and they are being found wanting—resulting so far in the loss of thousands of American lives and of hundreds of billions of dollars, not to mention the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis and the devastation of Iraq's ancient Christian community. Podhoretz and McCarthy will no doubt continue to hurl insults at all those who doubt their wisdom, but the reality of Iraq will continue to increase support for the type of foreign policy advocated by Buchanan and first articulated by our greatest president, George Washington, in his magisterial Farewell Address.
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This is the author of NYT best seller Emperial Hubris ? Wasn't "Annonymous, Michael Scheuer, former CIA agent for the Bin Laden Unit ? McCarthey's pun on the CIA agent going from "annoymous" to repulsive is almost too cute even for NRO. As for the comment about Israel, its context was the following exchange on Bill Maher's show :
Maher asks “Why are they trying to attack us?”—and then answers his own question, opining “As long as there’s an israel in the world, and I’m a big supoorter of Israel ... they’re always going to be going after us.”
Scheuer: I disagree with you
Maher: Which part? Israel?
Yes, says Scheuer, I just don’t think it’s worth an American life or an American dollar. Not only Israel, but Saudi Arabia, Boliva, or any other country.
Oh, replies Maher,—don’t you care about the survival of Israel?
I am most interested, replies Scheuer, in the survival of the United States.
Maher: But Israel is a democracy!
Scheuer: So what. Lots of countries are democracies.... It doesn’t matter if anyone ever votes again. We’ll get by just fine
Maher: I wouldn’t get by just fine.
Scheuer replied that being “the unqualified sole supporter of Israel” has, at the moment, “earned us increasing pain, fighting wars that are not ours to fight.”
"Unfortunately for McCarthy, Americans are being given an opportunity to assess the merits of neoconservatism."
I have a feeling they will assess it incorrectly.
Here's video of the Maher-Scheuer exchange:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=22e_1190554540
Lew Rockwell ("Austrian" School Libertarian) and Leo XIII (Christian Democrat) would agree: "Israel-First", "America-First", "unpatriotic", "un-American", etc. are morally obnoxious terms. They are also outdated terms, as the "nation" and "state" go the way of the Stanley Steamer and Dial-Up Access. Rockwell would say that we should have "Property-Owner-Firsters" or "Sovereign Individual-Firsters". Leo XIII, Pius XI, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI (my favorite sextet), would have Someone Else First.
Mr. Cundiff,
My first allegiance is to the Christ and through Him to the Father and the Holy Spirit. My second is to my family: wife, kids, remaining parent, kinsmen, friends and the stranger under my protection. My third is to my Church: local, universal and eternal. My fourth is to my community: real people, not some idea of community, with who I share good and bad fortune such as tornadoes, hurricanes and festivals which bring us together in fellowship. My fifth is to my state, as a social, cultural and political unit; as Robert E. Lee would have held: my country. Finally, I have a cultural affinity to the South; to that which we call America, as long as we can still find it; and to the West, a notion that came into being primarily although not exclusively through the Church as She informed the societies of the West with the values of the Christ.
These are the things, in the Church's understanding of a "just war" that I would defend, i.e kill and die for, and for naught else.
I am a patriot, not a nationalist. I hold dear the republic and not the empire. I prefer peace to war.
Therefore, these people who call us to war, i.e. to kill and to be killed and to maim and to be maimed, over ideologies, no matter how noble the cause in which they hid their nefarious schemes, are to me an anathema. I am every on the watch for idolatry in my life, for it is quite subtle; however, I have learned to recognized and avoid its more obvious forms: worship of any state, including the United States and Israel as well as their totems and paladins. Despite the rhetoric of "democracy," into which they enfold their agenda, I have acquired the ability, to recognize their Goebbelseque voices behind the white paw which they place on the window pane (Seven Little Goats and the Wolf).
The voice of Mr. Scheuer rings as that of the huntsman come to slay the wolf, if I may mix my children's tales.
Mr. Piatak deserves some kind of medal for subjecting himself to the
third-rate propaganda of National Review. I used to be an avid reader; now I can barely stand to look at it.
It goes without saying, of course, that McCarthy doesn't even bother trying to refute Scheuer's argument. He apparently thinks that the quote and his name-calling are sufficiently damning. If this is how a former prosecutor makes his case, it is not surprising that he gotten out of the field.
I also seem to recall McCarthy expressing some concern about the fate of Iraqi Christians at the time of the ratification of the Iraqi constitution. It was a hopeful sign, but apparently he has gotten over whatever qualms he may have had and hardened himself as a warmonger.
Pardon the ad hominine, but National Review is now run by a pack of mediocre thirty-somethings who have no historical awareness, no real learning, gravitas or perspective (K-Lo, J-Pod). They view these "intellectual" battles as a fun exercise in cheering for their team (the Yankees), and would rather see the country in ruin that admit they made a mistake. It is hard for young people to admit they were wrong - I know, I'm their age.
And as a fellow New Yorker, I know the little game they are playing. These middle-class boys now get invited to Long Island on summer weekends; they sit in rooms with Carl Ichan without having the talent, accomplishment or financial means of Mr. Icahn; they get to tell their school friends they met Bill Buckley and he made a joke; they laughed. There is a whole status climbing, class insecurity behind their work. Having neither the talent for money-making nor serious intellectual accomplishment, they sing the song they think their masters want to hear, further degrading National Review with each word they type. Mark Steyn, the peasant troubadour, defending his aristocratic benefactor Conrad Black...it's all so obvious.
The little edifice will come crashing down on them once Mr. Buckley passes away, which is an event I will mourn nevertheless. Then, free of its mystique and heritage, National Review will fade into a vulgarity the likes of MTV and Bravo TV. The invites will stop; Graydon Carter will not return calls; the Hearsts will snub them at the Met; the Century Club will call their tabs...and I will smile as I pass the velvet rope and ask the bouncer to please remove them from the Carlyle Room. Yes, it will be a party worth staying up for.
What I most dislike about these neoconservatives or pro-war conservatives is their unwillingness to debate all issues openly. It's like reverse PC mentality. "No war? Unamerican!"
These neocons constantly slander everyone a coward, a Leftard, a racist, a Chamberlain or, best of 'em all, an antisemite. What's up with that? Are we debating on the playground? Is re-evaluating or even questioning strategic relations with other nations a thought crime these days? How insane.
That's no debate, it's slander, plain and simple. Why has political debate become so politicised, who sets these margins? For once, it's not the Left. They're pretty much cornered these days, both here in Europe as in the US.
Scheuer should be able to express his views and people should have a chance to make their own decisions on the issue of US foreign policy during the next election, without getting labeled racist or unpatriotic.
Almost all neoconservative thinking is based on creating a philosophy that retroactively mean the US would have intervened in Europe earlier than we did and preventing the Holocaust. Thus we must stand up for democracy, fight for human rights, ignore US interests, and "give people" freedom.
"Almost all neoconservative thinking is based on creating a philosophy that retroactively mean the US would have
intervened in Europe earlier than we did and preventing the Holocaust."
This is a very good point.
It may seem obvious to others, but for some reason this remark of Mr.... -- er, Roach -- sparked a connection that hadn't really lit up all that brightly in my mind previously.
The neocon justification for "pre-emptive war" is WWII.
Or put another way it's the old, science-fictiony, if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-kill-Hitler's-father-before-Adolf-was-conceived idea.
Roach is, in fact, my last name.
"Almost all neoconservative thinking is based on creating a philosophy that retroactively mean the US would have intervened in Europe earlier than we did and preventing the Holocaust."
I think that deep down neocons detest Europe. You notice how many of them seem to be cheering its demise. They are just not reporting on it; they are actually celebrating it.
It is sad. The UK and Europe, the ancestral lands for most Americans, are under assault (mostly via third-world immigration), and the patriots that do remain there need at least our moral support, not the type of mockery one reads at NRO. If Europe falls, the West and Western Man are doomed.
N.B. Michael Chertoff has dual citizenship with Israel, a fact that the mainstream media rarely discusses. What do you think the fifth column over at NRO would do if the next President appointed a Secretary of Homeland Security with dual citizenship with France?
Sad, isn't it? A country with which we have had long historical ties, a country which has produced a large part of the American population, especially in parts of the Midwest, the neocons shun, and want everyday Americans to transfer their loyalty to a foreign land not even a century old and only tangentially tied to the U.S.
The neocon pundits at NRO are traitors and should be tried as such. Some well publicized trials of neocons in government service as well as some in influential positions in the MSM, and a few subsequent hangings might show the neocons to the public for what they actually are: traitorous criminals intent on destroying any host country to which they batten themselves.
In January, the espionage trials for two of their operatives will begin. If the charges prove valid, maybe the first two hangings will occur as a result of those trials. Unless the consequences of treason are demonstrated, such treason will continue and will expand into the total downfall of the US.
13 Bede
"I think that deep down neocons detest Europe. You notice how many of them seem to be cheering its demise. They are just not reporting on it; they are actually celebrating it."
This is fundamentally incorrect, as any reader of The Corner and other mainstream conservative and libertarian-conservative outlets knows. Derbyshire would agree with me, and he'd be the first to make your point... if it were true, which it isn't.
15 Ed Roberts
"The neocon pundits at NRO are traitors and should be tried as such."
This is, clearly, insane. You sound like a leftard Huffpot or Kossack. I'd have quoted more, but you go completely 'round the bend in subsequent sentences.
If you REALLY think Corner writers have committed capital offences, you need serious professional help.
Mr. Roach -- sorry, my mistake. Actually I think I have heard that surname before, now that I think of it.
Hucbald: If I'm not mistaken, when the riots in France broke out, not a few neocons argued that the French were getting their just deserts for being elitist-racist cheese-eating surrender-monkeys, no?
A specific article at NRO, effectively cheering the Arab rioters, was posted right here in Chronicles, as I recall.