The Power of Nightmares: The Phantom Victory

[Guderian]

Just watched part II, very interesting once again. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has the Neo Cons trying to create an enemy of Bill Clinton while the Islamic fundamentalist are creating enemies out of...well everyone else who does not follow thier views. It also features interviews with Gorbachov (sp?), David Brock, ome of the men who was responsible for the outing of the Lewinsky scandal...he claims that he now regrets doing it and it was "immoral" of the Neo cons to attack the president like they did, but they simply did not care and many more important figures of that era.

On 25 December 1979, Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan.

Moscow was able to install a friendly government in a neighbouring country but at a price.
The invasion gave a common cause to an extraordinary alliance of radical Islamists in Afghanistan and around the world and to the neo-conservatives in the US.
It was a key battleground of the Cold War.
Washington provided money and arms including even Stinger missiles capable of shooting down Soviet helicopters.
But it was Islamic Mujahideen fighters who would fire them.
Among the many foreigners drawn to Afghanistan was a young, wealthy Saudi called Osama Bin Laden.

After nearly 10 years of fighting, Soviet troops pulled out of Afghanistan.

Both the neo-conservatives and the Islamists believed that it is they who defeated the "evil empire" and now had the power to transform the world.
But both failed in their revolutions.

In response, the neo-conservatives invented a new fantasy enemy, Bill Clinton, focusing on the scandal surrounding him and Monica Lewinsky.
Meanwhile, the Islamists descend into a desperate cycle of violence and terror to try to persuade the people to follow them.

Out of all this comes the seeds of the strange world of fantasy, deception, violence and fear in which we now live.

In the 1980s the Islamist mujaheddin and the neo-conservative-influenced Reagan administration temporarily cooperated in fighting a common enemy, the Soviet Union and the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. Although the Soviet Union was already on the verge of collapse, both groups came to believe that it was their actions in Afghanistan that had caused it to fall. However, other attempts by Islamists to incite popular revolution failed, and the neo-conservatives lost power in the U.S. as the presidency passed to George H. W. Bush and subsequently to Bill Clinton. Both groups, having failed to achieve lasting political influence, identified new targets to attack: the neoconservatives sought to demonise Clinton while the radical Islamists decided that those who had not aided their cause were legitimate targets for violence.

What are your thoughts? I'd espcially like to hear about what you think of the treatment of Clinton by the neo cons.

[Big War Bird]

1. David Brock did not out Bill and Monica - that was Michael Isikoff of Newsweek.

2. Neo Cons did not make Bill Clinton 'the enemy.' He was public enemy number #1 for every kind of conservative from the outset. hillarycare, a gay military, slashing defense and intelligence budgets, raising taxes on social security recipients, his own dispicable personal life well before Monica became an intern, economic stagnation until after republicans took control of congress, the ignoring of genocide in Rawanda were all pretty good reasons to oppose Clinton.

I think the only nightmare fantasy here in the dreamt up notion that Neo cons (like me) are some insidious, mysterious group of elite politcal insiders bent on world domination.

You should come to one of our meetings, really.

[MadKow]

I think the only nightmare fantasy here in the dreamt up notion that Neo cons (like me) are some insidious, mysterious group of elite politcal insiders bent on world domination.

"The Project for the New American Century is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; and that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle. "


As far as i know this is the neo-conservative base website. If that does not translate into ambitions of world domination i dont know what does.

Read this conference by COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON, USA (RET.) FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF, DEPARTMENT OF STATE 2002-2005, if it does not portrait a group of insidious elite political insiders bent on power i don't know what does.

[Guderian]

1. David Brock did not out Bill and Monica - that was Michael Isikoff of Newsweek.

My mistake it should be one of the men, not the man. But he was one of the key players in the neo con media machine.

2. Neo Cons did not make Bill Clinton 'the enemy.' He was public enemy number #1 for every kind of conservative from the outset. hillarycare, a gay military, slashing defense and intelligence budgets, raising taxes on social security recipients, his own dispicable personal life well before Monica became an intern, economic stagnation until after republicans took control of congress, the ignoring of genocide in Rawanda were all pretty good reasons to oppose Clinton.

Not from the outset, the documentary claims that Clinton came to power due to support from republicans who were fed up with the neo cons manipulating the party. Nearly all of the things you mentioned did not turn the people against him so the Neo Cons decided to play on his personal life and create an enemy out of him. According to the documentary scandal after scandal was created, but none had any evidence and all were dismissed, even by the Keneth Starr inquiry, until of course Lewinsky came along.

Im not sure whether you are the type of neo con they were talking about on the documentary, these are mainly ones who follow the theories of Leo Strauss.

[Big War Bird]

George H.W. Bush lost lost the 1992 election first and foremost for breaking his "no new taxes pledge" and the preceived failure to recover from the recession. His base hung him out to dry. It was a paleocon Pat Buchannan not a neocon that challenged Bush in the primaries.

I think this documentary as you have described it has taken some great liberties with the facts and characterizes everthing that stinks in American politcs as the fault of some fiendishly clever neocons.

Of course, if you chose to believe that so, you must come to the conclusion that the those Neocons where absolutely correct in their evaluations and justified in their actions. Bill Clinton was the wrong guy to be President. At a time when we should have been nipping Islamofascism in the bud, he was cutting the military and the CIA, and he was passing on chances to get Osama. With Neocons out of power, the world became more, not less dangerous.

I'm more of a Paul Wolfowitz Neocon.

[bigfootedfred]

madkow's link to the doucmentarys.

wmv format.
http://marc.perkel.com/archives/000753.html

this thread's episode
The Phatom Victory

[Ummon]

The plan has failed already: Bush's mandate is over, even if he stays in charge. His popularity being nonexistent, he can go on with normal business, but not do anything new. It all sums up to who will be the nect President... If it his Condoleeza Rice, a lot of things could happen. More bad than good, I suspect.

After all the woman's name means "With Gentleness" in Italian, only it is written wrong...

[Guderian]

George H.W. Bush lost lost the 1992 election first and foremost for breaking his "no new taxes pledge" and the preceived failure to recover from the recession. His base hung him out to dry. It was a paleocon Pat Buchannan not a neocon that challenged Bush in the primaries.

I think this documentary as you have described it has taken some great liberties with the facts and characterizes everthing that stinks in American politcs as the fault of some fiendishly clever neocons.

Of course, if you chose to believe that so, you must come to the conclusion that the those Neocons where absolutely correct in their evaluations and justified in their actions. Bill Clinton was the wrong guy to be President. At a time when we should have been nipping Islamofascism in the bud, he was cutting the military and the CIA, and he was passing on chances to get Osama. With Neocons out of power, the world became more, not less dangerous.

It's not saying the Neo cons were successfull, it's saying the opposite, that they failed to influence the public on "moral" issues therefore they had to resort to underhanded tactics. The focus of the documentary is not on the presidency and election of Bill Clinton but on the neo cons agenda. Which as I said is claimed in the documentary to be influenced by Leo Strauss.

Im not doing a good job of explaining, but it is there at the site Bigfootedfred mentioned (thanks to Madkow) for you to watch if you feel like it...even if you don't buy the neo con theory it does a good job of showing the history of Islamic fundamentalism and American politics towards the USSR and the Middle East.

[Ummon]

By the way, a big terrorist attack now, and an Al Qaeda comeback, would be a sign that there's some link between the two organizations (Neocons and Islamists). Because logically, what Al Qaeda has to do now is merely fighting an attrition war until the US retreat. Doing otherwise would be supporting Bush.

[Guderian]

@ Ummon

I don't think there is a direct link (as in an actual alliance) between the neo cons in this documentary and the Islamists. But the dealings of the Bush family is a whole other story...

But yes any new terrorist attack will fall right into the hands of the neo cons.

[Erik]

What are your thoughts? I'd espcially like to hear about what you think of the treatment of Clinton by the neo cons.

Very interesting, especially the parts about all the scandals the neo-cons created to attack Clinton.

White water was a bit before my time so I didn't realy know about it (heared the name before but didn't know what it was), now I'm planning to read up on it.

But I still quistion the motives.
According to the documentary the neo-cons try to bring back morals to the American people.
But it's my conviction that they are simply Fascists who only use "morals" to gain power by getting the religious right on their side.
Once they are in power they don't need the religious right and they won't be so concerned about morals, they wil be too busy making money.
I think their talks about morals is a smart feat of propaganda that has even the makers of the documentary fooled.
Just compare them to Mussolini who convinced people he was a Socialist in order to create a Fascist state.
By convincing people they are Moral Christians the Neo-cons can easily create a Fascist state too.

[Ummon]

Just compare them to Mussolini who convinced people he was a Socialist in order to create a Fascist state.

Mussolini was a socialist and one of the leaders of the Italian Socialist Party for the first half of his life...

[Kanaric]

the ignoring of genocide in Rawanda were all pretty good reasons to oppose Clinton.

You mean how Bush ignored the genocide in Sudan as well? Every president ignores genocide. Why did Bush waste troops in Iraq when genocide occurs all over africa? I guess since they are black and without oil they can be ignored right?

his own dispicable personal life well before Monica became an intern

I can name several presidents who did the same thing.... like Kennedy for example. He ****ed East German spies, Mafia couriers, Marylin Monroe.... and from what some people say you would think hes the best president ever and its not just liberals who like him.

Bill Clinton wasn't perfect by any degree, IMO hes certainly a sellout, however hes certainly not any worse than Bush. Seriously, grow up and stop listening to propoganda made by self proclamed moral crusaders who are just about amoral as everyone else.

[Guderian]

But I still quistion the motives.
According to the documentary the neo-cons try to bring back morals to the American people.
But it's my conviction that they are simply Fascists who only use "morals" to gain power by getting the religious right on their side.
Once they are in power they don't need the religious right and they won't be so concerned about morals, they wil be too busy making money.
I think their talks about morals is a smart feat of propaganda that has even the makers of the documentary fooled.
Just compare them to Mussolini who convinced people he was a Socialist in order to create a Fascist state.
By convincing people they are Moral Christians the Neo-cons can easily create a Fascist state too.

I think of it like this, they started out hating liberalism and relativism and wanted to bring back the original society with morals, but the means they used to do this has turned them into a worse problem than liberalism ever was. They have become more immoral than the people who they were trying to destroy.

One thing that the documentary said really made sense, it was talking about one of the last Islamic fundamentalist groups in Algeria and it said something like "to this group, no other group can represent perfect Islam, not even the other Islamic fundamentalists, because this group views itself as the perfect image of Islam as represented by the Qu ran" (not a direct quote) I think this applies to the Neo cons too. They view themselves as the only people with "morals" therefore everybody else is considered to be immoral and lost and are therefore valid targets for thier attacks.

So now they (both Islamists and Neo cons) engage in immoral tactics striving for a cause that they are never going to achive (because the people will never support either of them en masse) in the process of doing this the only thing they end up causing is alot of problems in the world and they themselves get caught up in the power.