<nettime> Roadmapping Worldwide Value

[Soenke Zehle <soenke.zehle@web.de>]

Here [1] is one of the first to-do lists to come out since the election,
along with Lobe's commentary, which, as always, includes evidence of how 
incredibly well-oiled the think-tank machine is; on a different front, 
Heritage Foundation, AEI etc. are already teaming up with euro-skeptics 
[2] - these folks are moving fast, sz

Jim Lobe. "Neocons Gone Wild." Tom Paine (08 Nov 2004).
<http://www.tompaine.com/articles/neocons_gone_wild.php>

An influential foreign-policy neoconservative with close and
long-standing ties to top hawks in the George W. Bush administration has
laid out what he calls ''a checklist of the work the world will demand
of this president and his subordinates in a second term.''

The list, which begins with the destruction of Falluja in Iraq and ends
with the development of ''appropriate strategies'' for dealing with
threats posed by China, Russia and ''the emergence of a number of
aggressively anti-American regimes in Latin America,'' calls for
''regime change'' in Iran and North Korea.

The list's author, Frank Gaffney, the founder and president of the
Center for Security Policy (CSP), also warns that the Bush
administration should resist any pressure arising from the anticipated
demise of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to resume peace talks that
could result in Israel's giving up ''defensible boundaries.''

While all seven steps Gaffney listed in an article published Friday
morning in the National Review Online have long been favoured by
prominent neocons, the article itself, entitled 'Worldwide Value', is
the first comprehensive compilation to emerge since Bush's re-election
Tuesday.

It is also sure to be contested—not just by Democrats who, with the
election behind them, are poised to take a more anti-war position on
Iraq—but by many conservative Republicans in Congress as well. They
blame the neoconservatives for failing to anticipate the quagmire in
Iraq and worry that their grander ambitions, such as those set forth by
Gaffney, will bankrupt the treasury and break an already-overextended
military.

Yet its importance as a road map of where neoconservatives—who, with the
critical help of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, dominated Bush's foreign policy after the 9/11 attacks on New
York and the Pentagon—want U.S. policy to go was underlined by Gaffney's
listing of the names of his friends in the administration who, in his
words, ''helped the president imprint moral values on American security
policy in a way and to an extent not seen since Ronald Reagan's first
term.''

In addition to Cheney and Rumsfeld, he cited the most clearly
identified—and controversial—neoconservatives serving in the
administration: Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby; his
top Middle East advisors, John Hannah and David Wurmser; weapons
proliferation specialist Robert Joseph and top Mideast aide Elliott
Abrams on the National Security Council; Deputy Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz, Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith; and Feith's top
Mideast aide, William Luti in the Pentagon; and Undersecretaries for
Arms Control and International Security John Bolton and for Global
Issues Paula Dobriansky at the State Department.

Virtually all of the same individuals have been cited by critics of the
Iraq war, including Democratic lawmakers and retired senior foreign
service and military officials, as responsible for hijacking the policy
and intelligence process that led to the U.S. invasion.

Indeed, in a lengthy interview about the war last May on  60 Minutes,
the former head of the U.S. Central Command and Secretary of State Colin
Powell's chief Middle East envoy until 2003, ret. Gen. Anthony Zinni
called for the resignation of Libby, Abrams, Wolfowitz and Feith, as
well as Rumsfeld, for their roles.

Zinni also cited former Defense Policy Board (DPB) chairman Richard
Perle, who has been close to Gaffney since both of them served, with
Abrams, in the office of Washington State Sen. Henry M. Jackson in the
early 1970s. When Perle became an assistant secretary of defense under
Reagan, he brought Gaffney along as his deputy. When Perle left in 1987,
Gaffney succeeded him before setting up CSP in 1989.

As Perle's long-time protegé and associate, Gaffney sits at the center
of a network of interlocking think tanks, foundations, lobby groups,
arms manufacturers and individuals that constitute the coalition of
neoconservatives, aggressive nationalists like Cheney and Rumsfeld, and
Christian Right activists responsible for the unilateralist trajectory
of U.S. foreign policy since 9/11.

Included among CSP's board of advisors over the years have been
Rumsfeld, Perle, Feith, Christian moralist William Bennett, Abrams,
Feith, Joseph, former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, former Navy
Undersecretary John Lehman, and former CIA director James Woolsey, who
also co-chairs the new Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), another
prominent neoconservative-led lobby group that argues that Washington is
now engaged in ''World War IV'' against ''Islamo-fascism.''

Also serving on its advisory council are executives from some of the
country's largest military contractors, which finance CSP's work,  along
with contributions from wealthy pro-Likud individuals, such as prominent
New York investor Lawrence Kadish and California casino king Irving
Moskowitz, and right-wing foundations, such as the Bradley, Sarah Scaife
and Olin Foundations.

Gaffney, a ubiquitous ''talking head'' on television in the run-up to
the war in Iraq, himself sits on the boards of CPD's parent
organisations, the Foundation for the Defense Democracies (FDD) and
Americans for Victory Over Terrorism (AVOT), and also was a charter
associate, along with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz and Abrams, of
the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), another prominent
neoconservative-led group that offered up a similar checklist of what
Bush should do in the ''war on terrorism'' just nine days after the 9/11
attacks.

His article opens by trying to pre-empt an argument that is already
being heard on the right against expanding Bush's ''war on terrorism;''
namely that, since a plurality of Bush voters identified ''moral
values'' as their chief concern, the president should stick to his
social conservative agenda rather than expand the war.

''The reality is that the same moral principles that underpinned the
Bush appeal on 'values' issues like gay marriage, stem-cell research,
and the right to life were central to his vision of U.S. war aims and
foreign policy,'' Gaffney wrote. ''Indeed, the president laid claim
square to the ultimate moral value—freedom—as the cornerstone of his
strategy for defeating our Islamofascist enemies and their state
sponsors, for whom that concept is utterly (sic) anathema.''

To be true to that commitment, policy in the second administration must
be directed toward seven priorities,  Gaffney says, beginning with the
''reduction in detail of Fallujah and other safe havens utilized by
freedom's enemies in Iraq;'' followed by ''(r)egime change—one way or
another—in Iran and North Korea, the only hope for preventing these
remaining 'Axis of Evil' states from fully realizing their terrorist and
nuclear ambitions.''

Third, the administration must provide ''the substantially increased
resources need to re-equip a transforming military and rebuild
human-intelligence capabilities (minus, if at all possible, the sorts of
intelligence 'reforms' contemplated pre-election that would make matters
worse on this and other scores) while we fight World War IV, followed by
enhancing ''protection of our homeland,'' including deploying effective
missile defenses at sea and in space, as well as ashore.''

Fifth, Washington must keep ''faith with Israel, whose destruction
remains a priority for the same people who want to destroy us (and...for
our shared 'moral values) especially in the face of Yasser Arafat's
demise and the inevitable, post-election pressure to 'solve' the Middle
East problem by forcing the Israelis to abandon defensible boundaries.''

Sixth, the administration must deal with France and Germany and the
dynamic that made them ''so problematic in the first term: namely, their
willingness to make common cause with our enemies for profit and their
desire to employ a united Europe and its new constitution—as well as
other international institutions and mechanisms—to thwart the expansion
and application of American power where deemed necessary by Washington.''

Finally, Bush must adapt ''appropriate strategies for contending with
China's increasingly fascistic trade and military policies, (Russian
President) Vladimir Putin's accelerating authoritarianism at home and
aggressiveness toward the former Soviet republics, the worldwide spread
of Islamofascism, and the emergence of a number of aggressively
anti-American regimes in Latin America,''—which Gaffney does not further
identify.

''These items do not represent some sort of neocon 'imperialist' game
plan,'' Gaffney stressed. ''Rather, they constitute a checklist of the
work the world will demand of this president and his subordinates in a
second term."


[1] Frank J. Gaffney Jr. "Worldwide Value: Bush’s appreciation of
freedom shapes his foreign policy." National Review (05 Nov 2004).
<http://www.nationalreview.com/gaffney/gaffney200411051020.asp>

[2] Studemann, Frederick. "US conservatives anxious over European 
treaty." FT (06 Nov 2004). 
<http://news.ft.com/cms/s/8afb4c1a-2f9a-11d9-984e-00000e2511c8.html>


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