“9/11 and the Neocon Agenda”

1. “9/11 and theNeoconAgenda” Vancouver Hearings, June, 2012

2. Purpose: To establish philosophical predisposition to crime

3. Neocon ideas, historical consequences • Economy crippled • Constitution shredded • On the brink of war w/Iran, Russia, China?

4. If 9/11 didn’t exist, the neocons would have had to invent it. • Islamist militants had neither the capacity nor the desire to stage such a spectacular, and spectacularly counterproductive, attack. • Orchestrating 9/11 would be the quintessential act of the Straussian philosopher-king.

5. What is “neoconservatism”? Two approaches: • 1) Theory: Shadia Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right (1997) • 2) Practice: Stephen Sniegoski, The Transparent Cabal: The Neo- conservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel (2008)

6. Leo Strauss,Founder of neoconservatism: from Nazi Germany to the neocon USA

7. Strauss “more extremist” than his mentor, top Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt. • Politics = enmity • We need enemies • So invent them! • “Domestic enemies” OK • Killing enemies OK • Leaders above the law

8. Leo Strauss: the UberSchmitt Strauss radicalizes Schmitt, adds distorted version of Plato’s “noble lie” doctrine: “Instead of descending into the cave with knowledge of the sunny truth, (Strauss) believes that the role of the philosopher is to manipulate the images in the cave. He teaches that philosophers must fabricate lies for the many while embracing the darkness for themselves.” - Shadia Drury

9. “Death to Socrates!” -Strauss

10. Strauss on natural rights: “Those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right, the right of the superior to rule over the inferior.” -Strauss scholar Shadia Drury, summarizing Strauss’s teaching on natural rights.

11. Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law, University of Illinois: "The United States could not care less about Muslim life. And the same is true for the genocidal apartheid regime in Israel...They would be happy to break the taboo of Hiroshima and Nagasaki against Muslims in Iran. It would create no problem at all for them. “Indeed, I went to school with these Neo-Conservatives at the University of Chicago. Wolfowitz was there, Chalabi, Khalilzad, Shulsky, all the rest of them. I went through the exact same program. Their mentor, Professor Leo Strauss. And who was his teacher in Germany and his sponsor? Professor Carl Schmitt, who went on to become the most notorious Nazi law Professor of his day, justifying every atrocity that the Nazis inflicted on everyone.

12. Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law, University of Illinois: “We must understand that these Neo-Conservatives are in fact Neo-Nazis. They have espoused the Nazi doctrine of Schmitt and Strauss and Machiavelli and Nietzsche, the 'superman'. They are the supermen, and the Muslims are the scum of the earth.”

13. Strauss’s teaching culminates in the Noble Big Lie The Big Lie: “The broad masses of people ... more easily fall victims to the big lie than the small one, since they themselves sometimes tell little fibs, but would be too ashamed to tell great lies. Such falsehoods do not even occur to them, so they cannot believe others capable of the colossal impudence of these most scandalous distortions. Even when faced with the facts in such a case, they will still linger in doubt and waver and continue to suppose that there must be some truth to it.” -Hitler

14. The Noble Big Lie... • For the neocons, the bigger the lie, the more noble. “After all, a great lie, one that is believed, gives form to the void, imposes order on chaos, and creates the world ex nihilo.” • Shadia Drury, summarizing Strauss’s advocacy of the “noble big lie.”

15. Straussian thought* leads directly to 9/11 and the “war on terror” *or at least the Ledeen/Wolfowitz/ Perle interpretation thereof

16. 9/11 & war on terror a big lie? • Gives form to post-cold-war void of enemies. • Imposes order on chaos: “Now you’re either with us or against us.” • Creates world ex nihilo: “We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” -Bush aide (Karl Rove?) • 9/11 not prosecuted because we “cannot believe others capable of the colossal impudence...”

17. Michael Ledeen: “In order to achieve the most noble accomplishments, the leader may have to enter into evil.”

18. Neocons: Great leaders enter into evil, then leave it.

19. Strauss: To beat Hitler, we must adopt his methods • Wolfowitz’s father’s family perished in the Holocaust; he will later say that what happened to European Jews during World War II “shaped a lot of my views.” [New York Times, 4/22/2002] Feith will tell the New Yorker in 2005, “[My] family got wiped out by Hitler, and… all this stuff about working things out—well, talking to Hitler to resolve the problem didn’t make any sense.”

20. Neocon-Nazi parallels • False-flag attacks used to seize absolute executive power, start wars • Media propaganda blankets, unites nation • “Inferior, darker-skinned, Middle Eastern Semites” demonized • Colonial projects: “1000-year-Reich” in Slavic east, “New American Century” via Middle East (CentCom = Israel!)

21. Seymour Hersh: “The amazing thing is we have been taken over basically by a cult, eight or nine neo-conservatives have somehow grabbed the government. Just how and why and how they did it so efficiently, will have to wait for much later historians and better documentation than we have now, but they managed to overcome the bureaucracy and the Congress, and the press, with the greatest of ease. It does say something about how fragile our Democracy is.”

22. 2. Neoconservatism in Practice • Philip Weiss: The neoconservatives originated as a largely Jewish movement in the 1970s “in good part out of concern for Israel’s security.” MondoWeiss.net

23. “...in good part.” Wolfowitz can't be accused of dual loyalties.

24. “Neocon = Jew?” NO! • 2003 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion: Jews opposed Iraq war by 54 percent to 43 percent. • 2005 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion: 70 percent of Jews opposed the war on Iraq, while only 28 continued to support it. • Jews more anti-war than other American ethnic groups

25. Neocons = Likudniks “The neocon defense intellectuals, as well as being in or around the actual Pentagon, are at the center of a metaphorical Pentagonof the Israel lobby and the religious right, plus conservative think tanks, foundations and media empires.”-Michael Lind, defector from neoconservatism

26. Purpose of 9/11 wars: “To reconfigure the Middle East in ways favorable to Israeli security.” -Virginia Tilley (Ph.D. UW-Madison 1997; author, The One-State Solution )

27. Who are the neocons?

28. They left out a few key players: Edward Luttwak Author, Coup d’Etat: A Practical Handbook

29. Albert Wohlstetter Named in his obituary “the world’s most influential unknown figure of the past half century,” Wohlstetter was Wolfowitz’s mentor and Richard Perle’s father-in-law. Radical pro-Israeli, defense “hawk.”

30. Paul Wolfowitz Inherited “top US strategist” role from Paul Nitze. Nitze shaped US Cold War strategy. Wolfowitz shaped post-Cold War strategy.

31. Philip Zelikow Author of “Bush Doctrine” of pre-emptive (aggressive) war. • A self-described expert in “the creation and maintenance of public myths” especially those of “searing or molding events” that change history, like Pearl Harbor • Effectively the sole author of the 9/11 Commission Report • Wrote the Report in outline before investigation commenced • Conferred secretly with Karl Rove

32. 1968: Luttwak's Coup d'Etat • Stanley Hilton, a graduate of Harvard Law School, studied under Strauss with Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. Hilton's senior thesis detailed a plan to establish a Presidential Dictatorship using a fabricated 'Pearl Harbor-like incident' as justification. Hilton Perle, Wolfowitz, Strauss, etc. discussed an array of different plots and incidents 'like September 11th' and 'flying airplanes into buildings way back in the 60s'.

33. 1979: Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism (JCIT) • Convened by Netanyahu • Featured G.H.W. Bush, Richard Pipes, Sen. Henry Jackson, Shimon Peres • Created “war on terror” to mobilize Western populations behind aggressive and expensive military policies

34. 1996: “A Clean Break” document • Commissioned by Netanyahu • Lead writer Richard Perle • Co-authors: Douglas Feith, David Wurmser • Called for imposing regime change throughout Middle East, starting with Iraq - so “Israel could TRANSCEND its enemies.”

35. September, 2000: PNAC’s “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” • “The process of transformation is likely to be a long one, absent some cataclysmic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor.” • The “transformation” sought was nearly identical to Netanyahu’s “Clean Break” plan: Middle East regime change, starting with Iraq.

36. Bin Laden: I didn’t do it! (FBI agrees) • “I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons.” Osama Bin Laden ] • “Confession” video “bogus.” -Bruce Lawrence

37. 9/11 not just justified, but mandatory, according to tenets of neoconservatism. Osama bin Wolfowitz all along?

38. What can YOU do?

39. An easy-to- read, thoroughly-documented deconstruction of the war on terror.