There is sporadic fighting in Afghanistan. In Korea there are heightened tensions. In the Middle East, a massive U.S. military buildup is underway. Meanwhile, on the home front, a steady stream of invective and argument flows from self-styled critics of the U.S. government. Not surprisingly, far left peace activists, communists and anarchists, are opposed to U.S. military power. At the same time, the usual suspects on the right have emerged to warn that the war on terror is an elite conspiracy of shadowy "insiders." Libertarian ideologists, sounding more like Leninists, accuse greedy corporate interests of hatching a war of aggression. Consider the example of Llewellyn Rockwell of LewRockwell.com, a leading advocate of liberty. In a recent essay on blood and oil Rockwell began with the assertion: "Iraq doesn't want war and Bush ... does." According to Rockwell, the current mobilization for war is about oil. It is a naked grab for resources. In other words, it is imperialism.
This is amusing because Rockwell - an advocate of free markets - finds himself agreeing with the foreign policy pronouncements of Fidel Castro, Kim Jong-il and the Chinese Communist Party. It is only natural that he should offer a word of explanation. "The view that sustaining capitalism requires aggressive war is usually said to originate with V.I. Lenin," Rockwell explained. "But Lenin was not the originator of the theory." No, says Rockwell, "the idea began with a group of Republican Party theoreticians during the late gilded age, who were concerned that the falling rate of profits would cripple capitalism...." The idea was to violently force open foreign markets to U.S. exports. "These were the brain-trusters of Theodore Roosevelt," Rockwell continued, "who heralded U.S. aggression against Spain in 1898."
So the capitalists - that is, real capitalists as opposed to the heroes in Ayn Rand's novels - are wicked imperialists after all. Lenin was right (though Rockwell would say he was right for the wrong reasons). Therefore we must understand the following formula: George W. Bush is Teddy Roosevelt; Spain is Iraq; the terrorist assault of 9/11 is the sinking of the battleship Maine; and somewhere in a dark corner the founder of Fox News is remembering "Rosebud."
Even more comical, Rockwell isn't criticizing the free enterprise system (his version, i.e., the utopian version). He is criticizing American social democracy. The twist here is delicious. A man who supports freedom and opposes communism agrees with the communists that U.S. foreign policy is predatory. Arguably, we have a creeping social democracy here in America. Arguably, our foreign policy is imperfect. At the same time, far from being a communist state America is yet opposed by the world's real communists. Hopefully Mr. Rockwell will realize that agreeing with Beijing, Pyongyang and Havana on foreign policy is problematic for advocate of freedom.
In terms of supporting his view, Rockwell's evidence for U.S. imperial wickedness is to quote from other columnists or theorists. He amplifies and echoes the cynicism of scholars and pundits going back 100 years. He then mistakes this cynicism for the truth. Does anyone believe the decision to make war on Iraq rests with anyone besides George W. Bush? And does anyone who knows President Bush say he will make his decision solely to gratify the greed of his friends in big business?
Mr. Rockwell may reproach me for being naïve, but he is cynical. The United States is far from perfect, I'll admit. There is good reason to fear the creeping socialism and the political correctness that infects education and government. That being said, our country's leaders deserve a certain benefit of the doubt when confronting foreign dictators and gangsters.
An even more egregious example of cynicism from a supposed champion of liberty is found at the Web site Antiwar.com. The writers there are clever and plausible. The White House villains are vividly drawn, the prose is mean and the anarchism is flavored with pepper and vinegar. The editorial director of the site, Justin Raimondo, refers to the U.S. Secretary of Defense alternately as Donald "know it all" Rumsfeld" and "Rummy the dummy." Little respect is shown for Rumsfeld's long and distinguished service to the country. Raimondo would have us believe that the Secretary of Defense is a harebrained schemer, a fool and a heartless warmonger. Raimondo quotes various generals who doubt the workability of Rumsfeld's plans. But these out-of-context citations do not represent a serious criticism because Raimondo hardly touches on military theory or technique. Even more egregious, he doesn't know about the "fog of war." In truth, we will find out about the correctness or incorrectness of proposed military operations in Iraq once the war begins. Quoting nervous generals about existing war plans is but a snapshot of understandable worry. Whether a campaign in Iraq proves disastrous or not, the outcome will not vindicate Raimondo's weak criticism. Furthermore, to publicly deride the Secretary of Defense on the eve of war may be Raimondo's right under the First Amendment, but it is neither decent nor patriotic.
Like Rockwell, Raimondo feels that America's oligarchy is greedy and predatory. It is all about oil, he says. He also suggests that Christian fundamentalists are egging the administration into the abyss of war. According to Raimondo, the fundamentalists "are fanatical heretics who have gone off the deep end and believe that Israel's plight foretells the end of the world."
It is important to point out the distortions of ideologists like Raimondo. What he writes is unfair and untruthful. He says that this war is "not about defending America." Instead, it is "about making Israel the dominant regional power in the Middle East." Quite clearly, Raimondo is blinded by hatred. As Julien Benda noted decades ago, "Our age is the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds." Raimondo is an organizer of hatred focused on America's leaders. As a subversive malcontent his true colors emerged at the end of his column titled "Listen Up, Soldier" (see https://www.antiwar.com/justin/justincol.html). "If you are in the military," he writes, "and want to organize discreetly but effectively against this needless war, you can help spread the message of the patriotic peace movement in the ranks."
I don't know whether toppling Saddam Hussein is strategically advisable. I don't know if Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has a good or a bad war plan. But spreading slanders about America's war aims within the armed forces, on the eve of war, is flat wrong. It may even be treasonous. Certainly it is contrary to patriotism.
How could an honest person write as Raimondo does?
To understand a distorted political view one must understand what ideology - any ideology - signifies. Just as cigarettes come packaged with a warning from the Surgeon General, political commentary should come with a warning that reads: "DANGER: Ideology is harmful to the intelligence of those who swallow it."
Rockwell and Raimondo are ideologists. Their brand is anarchy (which they confuse with liberty). Like their left wing brethren (the communists) they find themselves at odds with the powers that be. One might think, on the superficial surface of things, that a Leninist and a Lew Rockwell despise American power for different reasons. But when reasons are an ideological mish-mash, who cares if a given argument is mish or mash? The result is what matters. Does the ideologist support the United States or does he give aid and comfort to the national enemy?
Gustave Le Bon, in his famous study "The Crowd," warned that ideas are contagious and the masses have no critical defenses against what is false or pernicious. "The powerlessness of crowds to reason aright prevents their displaying any trace of the critical spirit," Le Bon noted. The psychological crowd is incapable of "discerning truth from error, or of forming a precise judgment in any matter."
We are all vulnerable to the work of ideologists, foreign and domestic. If you think such people are not dangerous, think again. Lenin was an ideologist and so was Hitler. At one time Lenin was a harmless crank sitting in a Swiss café. Even so, the scholars and men of learning could not stop Lenin and they could not stop Hitler. As Le Bon explained, "Reason and arguments are incapable of combating certain words and formulas." Under the right circumstances, pernicious ideas can rage out of control. Repetition is the incubator in this process. "The influence of repetition on crowds," wrote Le Bon, is comprehensive when the power that it exercises on the most enlightened minds is seen. This power is due to the fact that the repeated statement is embedded in ... those profound regions of our unconscious selves to which the motives of our actions are forged."
Oft-repeated nonsense can take root in the public mind. Perhaps what troubles me most, especially as the country prepares for war, is the number of people who unthinkingly repeat cynical notions - like those of Rockwell and Raimondo - about the United States and its global motives. It is one thing to hear such talk from enemies, communists and anarchists, but it is upsetting to hear such talk repeated by average people: office workers, clerks, bus drivers and businessmen.
Today America is threatened by the proliferation of mass destruction weapons and by terrorists seeking to acquire such weapons. If this situation is allowed to continue unchecked the United States could find itself under attack by nuclear-armed terrorists. In this struggle to preserve our way of life and our country, we will not survive if we unthinkingly adopt and repeat the words of cynical ideologists.
Over 100 years ago, Gustave Le Bon warned, "A civilization, when the moment has come for crowds to acquire a high hand over it, is at the mercy of too many chances to endure for long."
