Wake up Christians and look around. This country has been hi-jacked.
Do not blindly trust what you read, verify it for yourself.

  The list that follows are some of neoconservatism's most influential leaders. Read below to learn about their backgrounds.    
 
Irving Kristol
  Widely referred to as the "godfather" of neoconservatism, Mr. Kristol was part of the "New York Intellectuals," a group of critics mainly of Eastern European Jewish descent. In the late 1930s, he studied at City College of New York where he became a Trotskyist. From 1947 to 1952, he was the managing editor of Commentary magazine, later called the "neocon bible."
  By the late 1960s, Kristol had shifted from left to right on the political spectrum, due partly to what he considered excesses and anti-Americanism among liberals. Kristol built the intellectual framework of neoconservatism, founding and editing journals such as The Public Interest and The National Interest.
  Kristol is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of numerous books, including "Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea." He is the father of Weekly Standard editor and oft-quoted neoconservative William Kristol.
 
Norman Podhoretz
  Considered one of neoconservatism's founding fathers, Mr. Podhoretz studies, writes, and speaks on social, cultural, and international matters. From 1990 to 1995, he worked as editor-in-chief of Commentary magazine, a neoconservative journal published by the American Jewish Committee. Podhoretz advocated liberal political views earlier in life, but broke ranks in the early 1970s. He became part of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority founded in 1973 by Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson and other intervention-oriented Democrats.
  Podhoretz has written nine books, including "Breaking Ranks" (1979), in which he argues that Israel's survival is crucial to US military strategy. He is married to like-minded social critic Midge Decter. They helped establish the Committee on the Present Danger in the late 1970s and the Committee for the Free World in the early 1980s. Podhoretz' son, John, is a New York Post columnist.

 Paul Wolfowitz
  After serving as deputy secretary of defense for three years, Mr. Wolfowitz, a key architect of the Iraq war, was chosen in March 2005 by President Bush to be president of the World Bank.
From 1989 to 1993, Wolfowitz served as under secretary of defense for policy in charge of a 700-person team that had major responsibilies for the reshaping of military strategy and policy at the end of the cold war. In this capacity Wolfowitz co-wrote with Lewis "Scooter" Libby the 1992 draft Defense Planning Guidance, which called for US military dominance over Eurasia and preemptive strikes against countries suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction. After being leaked to the media, the draft proved so shocking that it had to be substantially rewritten.
  After 9/11, many of the principles in that draft became key points in the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States, an annual report. During the 1991 Gulf War, Wolfowitz advocated extending the war's aim to include toppling Saddam Hussein's regime.

 Richard Perle
  Famously nicknamed the "Prince of Darkness" for his hardline stance on national security issues, Mr. Perle is one of the most high-profile neoconservatives. He resigned in March 2003 as chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board after being criticized for conflicts of interest. From 1981 to 1987 he was assistant secretary of defense for international security policy.
  Perle is a chief architect of the "creative destruction" agenda to reshape the Middle East, starting with the invasion of Iraq. He outlined parts of this agenda in a key 1996 report for Israel's right-wing Likud Party called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm."
  Perle helped establish two think tanks: The Center for Security Policy and The Jewish Institute for National Security. He is also a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, an adviser for the counter-terrorist think tank Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and a director of the Jerusalem Post.

 Douglas Feith
  The defense department announced in January 2005 that Mr. Feith will resign this summer as undersecretary of defense for policy, the Pentagon's No. 3 civilian position, which he has held since being appointed by President Bush in July 2001. Feith also served in the Reagan administration as deputy assistant secretary of defense for negotiations policy. Prior to that, he served as special counsel to Richard Perle. Before his service at the Pentagon, Feith worked as a Middle East specialist for the National Security Council in 1981-82.
  Feith is well-known for his support of Israel's right-wing Likud Party. In 1997, Feith was honored along with his father Dalck Feith, who was active in a Zionist youth movement in his native Poland, for their "service to Israel and the Jewish people" by pro-Likud Zionist Organization of America at its 100th anniversary banquet. In 1992, he was vice president of the advisory board of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Mr. Feith is a former chairman and currently a director of the Center for Security Policy.

 Lewis "Scooter" Libby
  Mr. Libby is currently chief of staff and national security advisor for Vice President Dick Cheney. He's served in a wide variety of posts. In the first Bush administration, Mr. Libby served in the Department of Principal Deputy Under Secretary (Strategy and Resources), and, later, as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.
  Libby was a founding member of the Project for the New American Century. He joined Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and others in writing its 2000 report entitled, "Rebuilding America's Defenses - Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century."
  Libby co-authored the once-shocking draft of the 'Defense Planning Guidance' with Mr. Wolfowitz for then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in 1992. Libby serves on the advisory board of the Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies of the RAND Corporation.

John Bolton
  In February 2005, Mr. Bolton was nominated US ambassador to the UN by President Bush. If confirmed, he would move to this position from the Department of State where he was Under Secretary for Arms Control, the top US non-proliferation official. Prior to this appointment, Bolton was senior vice president of the neoconservative think tank American Enterprise Institute. He also held a variety of positions in both the George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan administrations.
  Bolton has often made claims not fully supported by the intelligence community. In a controversial May 2002 speech entitled, "Beyond the Axis of Evil," Bolton fingered Libya, Syria, and Cuba as "other rogue states intent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction."
  In July 2003, the CIA and other agencies reportedly objected strongly to claims Bolton made in a draft assessment about the progress Syria has made in its weapons programs.

 Elliott Abrams
  In February of 2005 Elliott Abrams was appointed deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy. From December 2002 to February 2005, Mr. Abrams served as special assistant to the president and senior director for Near East and North African affairs.
Abrams began his political career by taking a job with the Democratic Senator Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson. He held a variety of State Department posts in the Reagan administration.
  He was a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute from 1990 to the 1996 before becoming president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which "affirms the political relevance of the great Western ethical imperatives." Abrams also served as chairman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
  In 1991, Abrams pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress about the Iran-Contra affair. President George H. W. Bush pardoned him in 1992. In 1980, he married Rachel Decter, daughter of neocon veterans Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter.

 Robert Kagan
  Mr. Kagan writes extensively on US strategy and diplomacy. Kagan and fellow neoconservative William Kristol co-founded the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in 1997. Kagan signed the famous 1998 PNAC letter sent to President Clinton urging regime change in Iraq.
  After working as principal speechwriter to Secretary of State George P. Shultz from 1984-1985, he was hired by Elliott Abrams to work as deputy for policy in the State Department's Bureau of Inter-American Affairs.
  He is a senior associate at the Carnegie endowment for International Peace (CEIP). He is also an international affairs columnist for The Washington Post, and contributing editor at The New Republic and The Weekly Standard. He wrote the bestseller "Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order."   Kagan's wife, Victoria Nuland, was chosen by Vice President Dick Cheney as his deputy national security adviser.

 Michael Ledeen
  Seen by many as one of the most radical neoconservatives, Mr. Ledeen is said to frequently advise George W. Bush's top adviser Karl Rove on foreign policy matters. He is one of the strongest voices calling for regime change in Iran.
  In 2001, Ledeen co-founded the Coalition for Democracy in Iran. He served as Secretary of State Alexander Haig's adviser during the Reagan administration. Ledeen is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, where he works closely with Richard Perle. he is also a member of the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs' advisory board and one of its founding organizers.
  He was Rome correspondent for the New Republic magazine from 1975-1977, and founding editor of the Washington Quarterly. Ledeen also wrote "The War Against the Terror Masters," which advocates regime change in Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

 William Kristol
  Son of "godfather" of neoconservatism Irving Kristol, Bill Kristol is currently chairman of the Project for a New American Century, which he co-founded with leading neoconservative writer Robert Kagan. He is also editor of the influential Weekly Standard.
  Like other neoconservatives Frank Gaffney Jr. and Elliott Abrams, Kristol worked for hawkish Democratic Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson. But by 1976, he became a Republican. he served as chief of staff to Education Secretary William Bennett during the Reagan administration and chief of staff to former Vice President Dan Quayle during the George H. W. Bush presidency.
  Kristol continuously called for Saddam Hussein's ouster since the 1991 Gulf War. With the like-minded Lawrence Kaplan, Kristol co-wrote "The War Over Iraq: Saddam's Tyranny and America's Mission." He is on the board of advisers of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, established as a counterterrorist think tank after 9/11.

 Frank Gaffney Jr.
  Mr. Gaffney is the founder, president, and CEO of the influential Washington think tank Center for Security Policy, whose mission is "to promote world peace through American strength."
  In 1987, President Reagan nominated Gaffney to be assistant secretary of defense for international security policy. he earlier served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy under then-Assistant Secretary Richard Perle. In the late 1970s, Gaffney served as a defense and foreign policy adviser to Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson.
  He is columnist for the Washington Times and a contributor to Defense News and Investor's Business Daily. He is a contributing editor to National Review Online, WolrdNetDaily.com and JewishWorldReview.com. Gaffney is also one of 25 mostly neoconservative co-signers of the Project for a New American Century's Statement of Principles.

Executive Intelligence Review.
Profile: Leo Strauss,
Fascist Godfather of the Neo-Cons
by Jeffrey Steinberg
  In a June 17, 1996 article by Richard Lacayo, Time magazine named the late University of Chicago philosopher Leo Strauss (1899-1973) as one of the most influential and powerful figures in Washington, D.C.—the man most responsible for the Newt Gingrich "Conservative Revolution" on Capitol Hill, and the intellectual godfather of Newtzi's "Contract on America" blueprint for vicious fascist austerity.
  If Strauss' influence on politics in the capital of the most powerful nation on Earth was awesome in 1996, it is even more so today. The leading "Straussian" in the Bush Administration is Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who was trained by Strauss' alter-ego and fellow University of Chicago professor Allan Bloom. Wolfowitz leads the "war party" within the civilian bureaucracy at the Pentagon, and his own protégé, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, is Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff and chief national security aide, directing a super-hawkish "shadow national security council" out of the Old Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House. According to Bloom biographer Saul Bellow, the day that President George H.W. Bush rejected Wolfowitz and Cheney's demand that U.S. troops continue on to Baghdad, during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Wolfowitz called Bloom on his private phone line to bitterly complain. It seems that "Bush 41" was not enough of a Nietzschean "superman" for Wolfowitz's taste.
  However, Strauss' name may also prove to be a liability, particularly for those neo-conservative ideologues who are now attempting to steer President Bush into a no-win war in the Persian Gulf, in pursuit of an illusory world empire, and who are finding themselves under growing public attack.
  On March 3, in a widely circulated radio interview on the Jack Stockwell Show in Salt Lake City (see EIR, March 14), Lyndon LaRouche had singled out Strauss as one of the leading intellectual figures, along with Bertrand Russell and H.G. Wells, steering the United States into a disastrous replay of the Peloponnesian War, which led to the collapse of Athens. Within days of the LaRouche interview, Leo Strauss was the subject of a series of public attacks, in the German, French and American media (see Documentation), for his role in producing the current generation of neo-conservatives.
  Indeed, author Shadia B. Drury, in her 1997 book, Leo Strauss and the American Right, named the following prominent Washington players as among Strauss' protégés: Paul Wolfowitz; Supreme Court Justic Clarence Thomas; Judge Robert Bork; neo-con propagandist and former Dan Quayle chief of staff, William Kristol; former Secretary of Education William Bennett; the National Review publisher William F. Buckley; former Reagan Administration official Alan Keyes; current White House bio-ethics advisor Francis Fukuyama; Attorney General John Ashcroft; and William Galston, former Clinton Administration domestic policy advisor, and co-author, with Elaine Kamark, of the Joe Lieberman-led Democratic Leadership Council's policy blueprint.
  Earlier Strauss allies and protégés in launching the post-World War II neo-conservative movement were Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Samuel Huntington, Seymour Martin Lipset, Daniel Bell, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and James Q. Wilson.
  Nobody Here But Us Fascists
  A review of Leo Strauss' career reveals why the label "Straussian" carries some very filthy implications. Although nominally a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany (he actually left for a better position abroad, on the warm recommendation of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt), Strauss was an unabashed proponent of the three most notorious shapers of the Nazi philosophy: Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Carl Schmitt. Recent biographies have revealed the depth of Heidegger's enthusiasm for Hitler and Nazism, while he served as the Chancellor of Freiburg University, throughout the epoch of National Socialism, and was the leader of a Nietzschean revival. Carl Schmitt, the leading Nazi philosopher of law, was personally responsible, in 1934, for arranging a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship for Strauss, which enabled him to leave Germany, to study in England and France, before coming to the United States to teach at the New School for Social Research, and then, the University of Chicago. Strauss, in his long academic career, never abandoned his fealty to Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Schmitt.
  The hallmark of Strauss' approach to philosophy was his hatred of the modern world, his belief in a totalitarian system, run by "philosophers," who rejected all universal principles of natural law, but saw their mission as absolute rulers, who lied and deceived a foolish "populist" mass, and used both religion and politics as a means of disseminating myths that kept the general population in clueless servitude. For Strauss and all of his protégés (Strauss personally had 100 Ph.D. students, and the "Straussians" now dominate most university political science and philosophy departments), the greatest object of hatred was the United States itself, which they viewed as nothing better than a weak, pathetic replay of "liberal democratic" Weimar Germany.
  Among the current lot of neo-cons, Michael Ledeen stands out as the one person who openly flaunts his "universal fascism." For Wolfowitz, Kristol, and the rest, their association with Strauss could be a large contributing factor in their looming downfall—and none too soon.

Top neoconservative periodicals
Commentary
  Describing itself as "America's premier monthly journal of opinion," Commentary magazine is widely regarded as the leading outlet for neoconservative writing. Founded in 1945, this American Jewish Committee publication steadily gained ideological influence under the editorships of Iriving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, two of neoconservatism's founding fathers. Today, Commentary advocates passionate support for Israel, and regime change in at least half a dozen countries deemed hostile to US and Israeli security and interests.
National Review
  Founded in 1955 by precocious conservative William F. Buckley, National Review promised to stand "athwart the path of history, yelling Stop!" AntiCommunist in stance, Catholic in judgment, Republican in preference, the magazine has weaned generations of conservative leaders. Its continued emphasis on traditional moral values and limited government put it outside the neoconservative camp, but in recent years, the magazine has increasingly adopted neocon attitudes.
The Weekly Standard
  Weekly Standard editors comprise a "who's who" of neoconservative figures. Currently led by William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the magazine has, since its founding in 1995, encouraged the cultivation of an American empire.
The New Republic
Like neoconservatism's own founding, The New Republic's roots tap into an unlikely intellectual resevoir. Begun as a progressive oriented journal in 1914, the magazine initially supported the Soviet Union and opposed the Vietnam war, but later supported President Reagan's foreign policy and both Gulf Wars. Today, its advocacy of a muscular, pro-Israel, pro-interventionist US foreign policy -coupled with its embrace of Democratic centrist domestic policies -make it a leading neocon voice.
The National Interest
  The National Interest claims "it's where the great debates begin." Founded in 1985 by Irving Kristol, the quarterly journal examines international relations from a broad perspective that embraces social issues, religion, and history. Though it does not always promote neocon causes, the journal's editorial board is dominated by some of the movement's most influential voices, including Midge Decter, Samuel P. Huntington, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle, and Daniel Pipes.
The Public Interest
  When he founded the magazine in 1965, Irving Kristol defined the aim of The Public Interest: "to help all of us when we discuss issues of public policy, to know a little better what we are talking about – and preferably in time to make such knowledge effective." The Public Interest focuses more on American domestic culture and politics rather than international affairs. As a result, its contributors reflect a wide diversity of ideological perspectives.


Key Documents
Draft of the 1992 "Defense Planning Guidance" [excerpts]
This classified document, which called for US military preeminence over Eurasia and preemptive strikes against countries suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction, circulated for several weeks at senior levels in the Pentagon. After it was leaked to the media in 1992, it proved so shocking that it had to be substantially rewritten. Many aspects of this document are included in the US' 2002 National Security Strategy

{Could not locate complete doc. on internet yet}

  Paul Wolfowitz, then-under secretary of defense for policy, supervised the drafting of a 1992 policy statement on America's mission in the post-Cold War era. Called the "Defense Planning Guidance," it is an internal set of military guidelines that typically is prepared every few years by the Defense Department. This policy guidance is distributed to military leaders and civilian Defense Department heads to provide them with a geopolitical framework for assessing their force level and bugetary needs.
  The 46-page classified document circulated for several weeks at senior levels in the Pentagon. But controversy erupted after it was leaked to The New York Times and The Washington Post and the White House ordered then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to rewrite it.

  The number one objective of U.S. post-Cold War political and military strategy should be preventing the emergence of a rival superpower.
  "Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.
  "There are three additional aspects to this objective: First the U.S must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests. Second, in the non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. Finally, we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."
 
· Another major U.S. objective should be to safeguard U.S. interests and promote American values.
  According to the draft document, the U.S. should aim "to address sources of regional conflict and instability in such a way as to promote increasing respect for international law, limit international violence, and encourage the spread of democratic forms of government and open economic systems."
  The draft outlines several scenarios in which U.S. interests could be threatened by regional conflict: "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, threats to U.S. citizens from terrorism or regional or local conflict, and threats to U.S. society from narcotics trafficking."
  The draft relies on seven scenarios in potential trouble spots to make its argument -- with the primary case studies being Iraq and North Korea.
 
· If necessary, the United States must be prepared to take unilateral action.
There is no mention in the draft document of taking collective action through the United Nations.
  The document states that coalitions "hold considerable promise for promoting collective action," but it also states the U.S. "should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies" formed to deal with a particular crisis and which may not outlive the resolution of the crisis.
  The document states that what is most important is "the sense that the world order is ultimately backed by the U.S." and that "the United States should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated" or in a crisis that calls for quick response


"A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm"
  Prepared in 1996 by a group led by Richard Perle for Israel's right-wing Likud Party and published by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, an Israeli think tank, this report called for "a clean break" with the policies of negotiating "land for peace" with the Palestinians. It also advocated "reestablishing the principle of preemption."
"Toward a Neo-Reaganite foreign policy"
  Published by Foreign Affairs in the summer of 1996, this neoconservative manifesto by William Kristol and Robert Kagan set the course for the modern neocon cause. By linking Reagan's foreign policy approach with neoconservative ideas, the authors energized Republican foreign policy and moved it away from both Pat Buchanan's "neoisolationism," or Henry Kissinger's "realism."
PNAC letter to Clinton
  Leading conservatives, many of whom became senior officials in the Bush Administration, wrote this open letter to then-President Bill Clinton in 1998. The letter, sponsored by the Project for a New American Century, expressed the urgent need to topple Saddam Hussein's regime.
PNAC letter to Bush
  Written just weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, this open letter from PNAC to President George W. Bush urging Saddam Hussein's ouster marked the beginning of a concerted effort by neoconservatives to persuade President Bush to take action against Iraq. The letter stated, in part: "...even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the [9/11] attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." The relentless campaign worked. Within two years years, US forces would occupy Iraq.
President Bush's speech to AEI
  Less than a month before the US-led coalition launched its attack on Saddam Hussein's regime, President Bush symbolically chose the de facto headquarters of neoconservative thought, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), as a venue to outline his vision for a new Iraq – and a new Middle East. AEI had been arguing for regime change in Iraq and democratization of the Middle East for over a decade.
"Beyond the Axis of Evil"
  In this controversial May, 2002 speech to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, US Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton accuses Libya, Syria, and Cuba of actively developing weapons of mass destruction programs.

The Pied Pipers of Neoconservatism
by John F. McManus
The New American
  With William F. Buckley and Irving Kristol to the fore, neoconservatives are piping a tune that is leading America down the path of internationalism and socialism.
This article has been adapted from an address given by Mr. McManus to a meeting of the Robert Welch Club on June 30, 2001, in Appleton, Wisconsin.
  One of the major moves against freedom in recent years has been the gathering of nations into economic unions. The first of these for the United States was NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. At the time it was proposed, our nations greatest trading partner was Canada. Some of us tried to show fellow Americans that something has to be wrong when that long-standing and extremely beneficial relationship with Canada had to be "improved" by establishing 20 commissions armed with stacks and stacks of regulations. Our argument made sense to some, but not with our leaders. There obviously were other reasons for NAFTA.
  During the period leading up to the vote in Congress regarding NAFTA, Henry Kissinger penned a nationally syndicated article calling for its passage. In his revealing comments, he said that NAFTA "will represent the most creative step toward a new world order taken by any group since the end of the Cold War...." Who needs to know any more about NAFTA? But there is more. Kissinger also said that NAFTA amounted to the "first step toward an even larger vision of a free-trade zone for the entire western hemisphere." He wrote those words in 1993.
  NAFTA was approved and it has spurred the flow of jobs and industries to Mexico. Not only that, there are numerous reports of dramatic increases in drug trafficking across the U.S.-Mexican border, courtesy of NAFTA. With NAFTA already working its sinister magic, an expanded economic union, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, is now being proposed, just as Kissinger prophesied in 1993. Of course, economic union is followed by political union with the eventual result being world government.
  One year after Congress approved NAFTA, it was decided to have the U.S. approve membership in the World Trade Organization (once known as GATT). By then, the chief Republican in the House (he was not yet Speaker) was Newt Gingrich. He testified before the House Ways and Means Committee in June 1994 and noted that Congress had already rejected such a proposal twice previously, once in the 1940s and the other time in the 1950s. Obviously there were pitfalls and these were detected back in that period by a more solid membership in the Congress. In his testimony, Gingrich stated: "[We need] to be honest about the fact that we are transferring from the United States at a practical level significant authority to a new organization. This is a transformational moment. I would feel better if the people who favor this would just be honest about the scale of danger."
  Gingrich also said that the WTO should be compared to the Maastricht treaty under which Western European nations had already surrendered huge portions of their independence.Who needs to know any more about the WTO?
  Now, before you get the impression that Gingrich was an ally, realize that later that very year (1994), Republicans swept the congressional elections and their dominance in both houses of Congress was assured beginning in January 1995. Many of the newly elected members of the House were conservatives, and Gingrich was assured he would be the Speaker. So what did he do? He engineered the holding of the vote on submission to the WTO in a special rump session of Congress in December of 1994 prior to the new Congress taking office when virtually everyone expected that the new Congress would have voted against the proposal. As a result, the U.S. tied itself to the WTO.
  To understand what is in store for America if we don’t stop the plotters behind the drive for world government, consider that the European Economic Union has been beefed up and, without changing any of the economic features already in place, is now the political European Union. And the architects of world government have created in Europe the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice. These courts have already forced the nations of Western Europe to change some of their laws. Those nations have lost their sovereignty. And the WTO is already interfering with our laws regarding trade. Our nation is being led down Europe’s path.

Socialist Conservatives
  This is a major element of neoconservatism. What then is a neoconservative? Briefly, he is an opponent of Communism but a supporter of socialism and internationalism. Lenin’s once revered partner in crime, Leon Trotsky, was perhaps the first neoconservative, although a case can be made that Karl Marx himself was a neocon. The acknowledged "godfather" of this movement in our nation in recent years is Irving Kristol. In his 1995 book, Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea, Kristol announced what it means to him:
  [We] are conservative, but different in certain respects from the conservatism of the Republican Party. We accepted the New Deal in principle, and had little affection for the kind of isolationism that then permeated American conservatism.
  So, neocons are for the New Deal which is socialism. And they despise "isolationism," which means Kristol and his neocon friends are internationalists. In a 1993 article appearing in the Wall Street Journal, Kristol expressed his enthusiasm for Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, Medicaid, even cash allowances for unwed mothers. You wont find a neocon opposing the UN, although he might issue a recommendation merely to reform the world organization. And you certainly wont find any neocon challenging the growth of big government because they love big government.
  A major problem in America is that these neocons have taken over the conservative wing of the Republican party. And they have succeeded in doing so to the degree that the word "conservative" is now being applied to individuals and ideas that are, in fact, liberal (in the leftist sense), socialist, and totally undeserving of the conservative label. It pains me when someone describes himself to me as a conservative.   It pains me even more when that label is applied to me. Ive actually adopted a policy of asking that I at least be called a "constitutional conservative." That separates me from the so-called conservatism of most leading Republicans which has really become neoconservatism.
  Neoconservatives even proudly admit their takeover of the word "conservative." In his 1996 book entitled The Essential Neoconservative Reader, editor Mark Gerson jubilantly observed:
  The neoconservatives have so changed conservatism that what we now identify as conservatism is largely what was once neoconservatism. And in so doing, they have defined the way that vast numbers of Americans view their economy, their polity, and their society.
  Give neocon Gerson credit for saying very forthrightly what indeed has happened. By designating themselves "conservative," the neocons have led many otherwise conservative Americans to accept what had always been unacceptable. What was once called neoconservatism and viewed suspiciously is now labeled conservatism and is no longer rejected. How this happened cant be told completely in a short space, but we can provide some helpful insights. Lets go back to the beginning of this takeover in our nation.

Neoconservative Roots
 
The first neocon: Leon Trotsky broke with Lenin and Stalin over Communist brutality and was himself eventually murdered by Stalin's agents. But Trotsky, like today's neocons, always remained true to the idea of international socialism.
         
In 1927, Leon Trotsky broke with Lenin’s partner Joseph Stalin and was forced into exile a year later. He broke with Leninism because he preferred having mankind choose Marxism rather than having it imposed through the brutality favored by Lenin and Stalin. It’s important to understand that Trotsky wasn’t an opponent of the Marxist program, which is socialism. He was only an opponent of the head cracking brought to the socialist movement by Lenin and continued by Stalin. Since he continued to be a definite challenge to the brutal Soviet leader, Trotsky was murdered by one of Stalins agents in Mexico in 1940. Before he was killed, however, he had attracted a substantial following among men who never lost their determination to have socialism and world government control mankind.
In 1995, neocon godfather Kristol candidly stated, "I regard myself to have been a young Trostkyite and I have not a single bitter memory." You can see in that statement his willingness to identify with Trotsky. As far back as 1983, he claimed that "a conservative welfare state is perfectly consistent with the neoconservative perspective." A conservative welfare state? That qualifies as the oxymoron of the decade.
Writing in Kristol’s journal, The National Interest, in 1989, fellow neocon Charles Krauthammer called for the integration of Europe, Japan, and the U.S. to create a "super-sovereign" government. He even voiced his desire to see "the conscious depreciation not only of American sovereignty but of the notion of sovereignty in general." So, its safe to say that these people are the enemies of a constitutionally limited government in an independent nation. They are enemies; they are neoconservatives. Add in Midge Decter, Norman Podhoretz, Elliott Abrams, Ben Wattenberg, the magazine Commentary led by Podhoretz, The Weekly Standard led by Irving Kristol’s son William, and many others.
The drive toward neoconservatism in America started quite a bit earlier. In 1952, a young "conservative" serving a one-year tour of duty with the CIA wrote an article for The Commonweal, a Catholic weekly. This man wrote:
We have got to accept Big Government for the duration for neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged, given our present government skills, except through the instrument of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores....
And if they deem Soviet power a menace to our freedom (as I happen to), they will have to support large armies and air forces, atomic energy, central intelligence, war production boards, and the attendant centralization of power in Washington even with Truman at the reins of it all.
That was 1952, and the writer of this article was calling for "Big Government for the duration" and "the attendant centralization of power in Washington" in order to oppose Communism. He wanted to fight Communism by adopting Marxism. The element of neoconservatism seeking world government wasn’t in that revealing article. But it would come from this man later.
Who do you suppose wrote those words? It was none other than William F. Buckley Jr. It was his initial contribution to neoconservatism, something he slyly advocated at first but has more obviously favored throughout the bulk of his career. He hadn’t yet supported the United Nations, the other half of the neocon agenda, but he would before too long.
Neocon Nexus
When Buckley was a student at Yale, the faculty member who influenced him more than any other was Willmoore Kendall. Kendall had been a proud Trotskyite socialist who had studied in England as a Rhodes scholar, served in the OSS during World War II, stayed on when the OSS became the CIA in 1947, and then became a Yale professor. He and Buckley developed a positively eerie relationship. When Buckley sought to avoid military service after finishing Yale during the Korean War, Kendall sent him to James Burnham, another Trotskyite socialist who had also seen service with the OSS and then with the CIA. The plan was to have Buckley avoid serving in the military by having him serve in the CIA instead.
These two men, Kendall and Burnham, hugely influenced Buckley and were part of the initial team when the latter launched National Review magazine in 1955. And there were other ex-Communists and CIA veterans who also served among the early members of the NR team. National Review was loaded with Trotskyites and CIA veterans.
The critical contribution Buckley made to the neoconservative cause was his taking the conservative movement away from reliance on the Constitution as the standard for Americans and replacing it with an ever-shifting conservatism as defined by him. Before long Buckley would be excusing others for advocating socialistic programs. Then he began advocating socialistic programs himself. In 1971, he defended continued U.S. membership in the UN when Free China was booted out and Communist China welcomed in. In 1974, he accepted appointment as a delegate to the UN General Assembly and wrote a book about his experiences that dignified the existence of the UN. In 1977, his syndicated column called for ratification of the UNs Genocide Convention.
Coincident with Buckley becoming more obviously a neoconservative, Kristol related how several top leaders of the Wall Street Journal had made their alliance with the neocon movement. WSJ Editor Robert Bartley contacted Kristol as far back as 1972, and Kristol’s articles immediately began appearing in the Journal. In time, the WSJ would become a cheerleader for NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, NATO, and the use of U.S. forces in UN operations. This is the other half of the neocon program, the internationalist half.
In 1991, in an article he wrote for WSJ, Irving Kristol supplied details about an invitation-only gathering of conservative Republicans. He delighted in pointing out that the conference was sponsored by none other than Bill Buckley. And he even more delightedly reported that most of the two dozen conservatives who had arrived as "conservatives first and Republicans second" had emerged from the gathering as "Republicans first and conservatives second." They had been taken away from conservatism and made Republicans first. And the meeting had been sponsored by Bill Buckley!
Kristol never mentioned who the two dozen attendees at this Buckley-arranged conference were. But all of us have seen the Republican leaders in Congress fade into rubber stamps for a variety of socialistic and internationalist schemes in recent years. The reason? Republican leaders who were thought to be conservatives have been captured by the neoconservatives. And numerous policies and programs once deemed taboo by men who were labeled conservative are now being supported by them. One problem remains: These men are still being called conservatives.
In this very same 1991 article, Kristol announced that the major conclusion reached by the new neocons at the Buckley-sponsored gathering was that "President Bush is now the leader of the conservative movement within the Republican Party." And this happened after Bush had demonstrated that he wasn’t a conservative himself. Perhaps the greatest indicator of President Bush’s neocon attitude was his use of U.S. forces and a UN resolution to reinvigorate the United Nations during the war against Saddam Husseins Iraq. "Reinvigorate" was his word, not mine. And his constant use of the term "new world order" said a great deal about what he was advocating.
The Neocon Influence
Do you wonder why Republicans are caving in when they should be standing firm against socialistic and internationalist programs? Do you wonder why Republicans in the Senate refused even to consider going after Bill Clinton for bribery and other serious crimes during the impeachment process? Do you wonder why opposition to the UN, World Bank, IMF, Export-Import Bank, Federal Reserve, etc. is almost nonexistent in the supposedly conservative political party? Well, stop wondering and consider that neoconservatives promoting their socialist and world government schemes have taken over not only the Republican Party but the conservative wing of the party.
One of the more important promoters of the neocon program was Newt Gingrich. But we are still told that he’s a conservative. I know people who scratch their head and wonder what has happened to Trent Lott, Dick Armey, Phil Crane, Orrin Hatch, and others. The answer is that they aren’t conservatives any more; they’re neoconservatives even if the mass media won’t tell you. Add in Rush Limbaugh, Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp, Henry Kissinger, and a host of Republicans who toe the neocon line and you have your answer.
Again, neoconservatism is socialism and internationalism. And who opposes this? Why, the John Birch Society does. And who are enemies of the John Birch Society that some might have expected to be its friends and allies? Bill Buckley is; the Wall Street Journal is; and the intelligentsia who love to be called conservatives but will no more support the Constitution and those who truly defend it (such as the John Birch Society) than they would commit suicide.
The greatest enemies of the John Birch Society in the over 40 years of its existence haven’t been Communists, and haven’t even been Democrats. The greatest enemies of the JBS are the false conservatives who are neoconservatives or who have allowed themselves to become captives of the neoconservatives. And the greatest of those has been Bill Buckley. He said in 1952 that he wanted Big Government and, in more recent years, he has done whatever he could do to supply dignity and excuses for the United Nations. the John Birch Society wants constitutionally limited government and our nation out of the UN  and the IMF, World Bank, NAFTA, WTO, etc. Hence Buckley decreed that the JBS should lose any "respectable support." But not only did he refuse support, he waged war against the John Birch Society.
This is only a brief glimpse at the movement called neoconservatism. But I hope you grasp what it has accomplished. It, and all those it has captured, must be exposed. If you’ve been wondering how to classify William F. Buckley, you can start by realizing that he is and has been a neoconservative throughout his public career. But that’s only a start in considering this man’s career.
About Buckley and his magazine, let me close by relating a revealing incident from 1961. This was only a little more than two years after Robert Welch founded the John Birch Society. Buckley’s magazine was already in existence. The incident I will relate was reported by Dr. Medford Evans in the old American Opinion magazine in October 1973. An early member of the Buckley team, Evans quit the Buckley crowd early on and joined the team led by JBS founder Robert Welch. This 1961 incident occurred in Dallas where he met Willmoore Kendall, the former Trotskyite, and a founder and senior editor of Buckleys National Review. The two men were interviewing U.S. Army General Edwin Walker, a member of the John Birch Society at the time. After meeting with the general, they got together for a renewal of their limited friendship, and I’ll turn now to Medford Evans 1973 article for the full story of this incident:
Kendall and I, still restless, went to a hamburger joint on Harry Hines Boulevard to drink coffee, reminisce about the past, and especially speculate about the future. After some comparatively idle talk Willmoore said to me: "Medford, I dont suppose there is any chance you could get Walker to let up in his campaigning against Communism, is there?" I replied: "No, Willmoore, not a chance. You could stand him up against a wall and shoot him, but you couldn’t make him quit speaking out against Communism." (I thought Willmoore was just testing. He certainly was not jesting.) "I don’t suppose," he continued, "there’s any chance that you would even advise him to let up, would you?" I replied: "No, Willmoore, not a chance. You could stand me up against the same wall, but I would never advise him to quit fighting Communism."
Later Willmoore wrote me a letter from Oklahoma City, returning his motel key which he had inadvertently taken away, and expressing his regret that he and I could no longer be on the same side. Personally, he said, he wished me well (and he said the same of another former National Review contributor), but as for the great issue, and this is verbatim: "C’est la guerre."
Kendall’s parting comment, of course, translates to "Such is war." It would later become obvious that the war to which he was referring was not between anti-Communists and Communists, but rather between the forces led by Bill Buckley and those led by Robert Welch. Neoconservatives who took control of the conservative movement and became dominant within the Republican Party  except for what the John Birch Society has maintained and beefed up have always hated the JBS. And too, it must be said very clearly that neoconservatives are our nation’s deadly enemies.


The Neoconservative Persuasion
From the August 25, 2003 issue: What it was, and what it is.
by Irving Kristol

WHAT EXACTLY IS NEOCONSERVATISM? Journalists, and now even presidential candidates, speak with an enviable confidence on who or what is "neoconservative," and seem to assume the meaning is fully revealed in the name. Those of us who are designated as "neocons" are amused, flattered, or dismissive, depending on the context. It is reasonable to wonder: Is there any "there" there?
Even I, frequently referred to as the "godfather" of all those neocons, have had my moments of wonderment. A few years ago I said (and, alas, wrote) that neoconservatism had had its own distinctive qualities in its early years, but by now had been absorbed into the mainstream of American conservatism. I was wrong, and the reason I was wrong is that, ever since its origin among disillusioned liberal intellectuals in the 1970s, what we call neoconservatism has been one of those intellectual undercurrents that surface only intermittently. It is not a "movement," as the conspiratorial critics would have it. Neoconservatism is what the late historian of Jacksonian America, Marvin Meyers, called a "persuasion," one that manifests itself over time, but erratically, and one whose meaning we clearly glimpse only in retrospect.
Viewed in this way, one can say that the historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism would seem to be this: to convert the Republican party, and American conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a modern democracy. That this new conservative politics is distinctly American is beyond doubt. There is nothing like neoconservatism in Europe, and most European conservatives are highly skeptical of its legitimacy. The fact that conservatism in the United States is so much healthier than in Europe, so much more politically effective, surely has something to do with the existence of neoconservatism. But Europeans, who think it absurd to look to the United States for lessons in political innovation, resolutely refuse to consider this possibility.

Neoconservatism is the first variant of American conservatism in the past century that is in the "American grain." It is hopeful, not lugubrious; forward-looking, not nostalgic; and its general tone is cheerful, not grim or dyspeptic. Its 20th-century heroes tend to be TR, FDR, and Ronald Reagan. Such Republican and conservative worthies as Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, and Barry Goldwater are politely overlooked. Of course, those worthies are in no way overlooked by a large, probably the largest, segment of the Republican party, with the result that most Republican politicians know nothing and could not care less about neoconservatism. Nevertheless, they cannot be blind to the fact that neoconservative policies, reaching out beyond the traditional political and financial base, have helped make the very idea of political conservatism more acceptable to a majority of American voters. Nor has it passed official notice that it is the neoconservative public policies, not the traditional Republican ones, that result in popular Republican presidencies.
One of these policies, most visible and controversial, is cutting tax rates in order to stimulate steady economic growth. This policy was not invented by neocons, and it was not the particularities of tax cuts that interested them, but rather the steady focus on economic growth. Neocons are familiar with intellectual history and aware that it is only in the last two centuries that democracy has become a respectable option among political thinkers. In earlier times, democracy meant an inherently turbulent political regime, with the "have-nots" and the "haves" engaged in a perpetual and utterly destructive class struggle. It was only the prospect of economic growth in which everyone prospered, if not equally or simultaneously, that gave modern democracies their legitimacy and durability.
The cost of this emphasis on economic growth has been an attitude toward public finance that is far less risk averse than is the case among more traditional conservatives. Neocons would prefer not to have large budget deficits, but it is in the nature of democracy--because it seems to be in the nature of human nature--that political demagogy will frequently result in economic recklessness, so that one sometimes must shoulder budgetary deficits as the cost (temporary, one hopes) of pursuing economic growth. It is a basic assumption of neoconservatism that, as a consequence of the spread of affluence among all classes, a property-owning and tax-paying population will, in time, become less vulnerable to egalitarian illusions and demagogic appeals and more sensible about the fundamentals of economic reckoning.
This leads to the issue of the role of the state. Neocons do not like the concentration of services in the welfare state and are happy to study alternative ways of delivering these services. But they are impatient with the Hayekian notion that we are on "the road to serfdom." Neocons do not feel that kind of alarm or anxiety about the growth of the state in the past century, seeing it as natural, indeed inevitable. Because they tend to be more interested in history than economics or sociology, they know that the 19th-century idea, so neatly propounded by Herbert Spencer in his "The Man Versus the State," was a historical eccentricity. People have always preferred strong government to weak government, although they certainly have no liking for anything that smacks of overly intrusive government. Neocons feel at home in today's America to a degree that more traditional conservatives do not. Though they find much to be critical about, they tend to seek intellectual guidance in the democratic wisdom of Tocqueville, rather than in the Tory nostalgia of, say, Russell Kirk.
But it is only to a degree that neocons are comfortable in modern America. The steady decline in our democratic culture, sinking to new levels of vulgarity, does unite neocons with traditional conservatives--though not with those libertarian conservatives who are conservative in economics but unmindful of the culture. The upshot is a quite unexpected alliance between neocons, who include a fair proportion of secular intellectuals, and religious traditionalists. They are united on issues concerning the quality of education, the relations of church and state, the regulation of pornography, and the like, all of which they regard as proper candidates for the government's attention. And since the Republican party now has a substantial base among the religious, this gives neocons a certain influence and even power. Because religious conservatism is so feeble in Europe, the neoconservative potential there is correspondingly weak.
AND THEN, of course, there is foreign policy, the area of American politics where neoconservatism has recently been the focus of media attention. This is surprising since there is no set of neoconservative beliefs concerning foreign policy, only a set of attitudes derived from historical experience. (The favorite neoconservative text on foreign affairs, thanks to professors Leo Strauss of Chicago and Donald Kagan of Yale, is Thucydides on the Peloponnesian War.) These attitudes can be summarized in the following "theses" (as a Marxist would say): First, patriotism is a natural and healthy sentiment and should be encouraged by both private and public institutions. Precisely because we are a nation of immigrants, this is a powerful American sentiment. Second, world government is a terrible idea since it can lead to world tyranny. International institutions that point to an ultimate world government should be regarded with the deepest suspicion. Third, statesmen should, above all, have the ability to distinguish friends from enemies. This is not as easy as it sounds, as the history of the Cold War revealed. The number of intelligent men who could not count the Soviet Union as an enemy, even though this was its own self-definition, was absolutely astonishing.
Finally, for a great power, the "national interest" is not a geographical term, except for fairly prosaic matters like trade and environmental regulation. A smaller nation might appropriately feel that its national interest begins and ends at its borders, so that its foreign policy is almost always in a defensive mode. A larger nation has more extensive interests. And large nations, whose identity is ideological, like the Soviet Union of yesteryear and the United States of today, inevitably have ideological interests in addition to more material concerns. Barring extraordinary events, the United States will always feel obliged to defend, if possible, a democratic nation under attack from nondemocratic forces, external or internal. That is why it was in our national interest to come to the defense of France and Britain in World War II. That is why we feel it necessary to defend Israel today, when its survival is threatened. No complicated geopolitical calculations of national interest are necessary.
Behind all this is a fact: the incredible military superiority of the United States vis-à-vis the nations of the rest of the world, in any imaginable combination. This superiority was planned by no one, and even today there are many Americans who are in denial. To a large extent, it all happened as a result of our bad luck. During the 50 years after World War II, while Europe was at peace and the Soviet Union largely relied on surrogates to do its fighting, the United States was involved in a whole series of wars: the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo conflict, the Afghan War, and the Iraq War. The result was that our military spending expanded more or less in line with our economic growth, while Europe's democracies cut back their military spending in favor of social welfare programs. The Soviet Union spent profusely but wastefully, so that its military collapsed along with its economy.
Suddenly, after two decades during which "imperial decline" and "imperial overstretch" were the academic and journalistic watchwords, the United States emerged as uniquely powerful. The "magic" of compound interest over half a century had its effect on our military budget, as did the cumulative scientific and technological research of our armed forces. With power come responsibilities, whether sought or not, whether welcome or not. And it is a fact that if you have the kind of power we now have, either you will find opportunities to use it, or the world will discover them for you.
The older, traditional elements in the Republican party have difficulty coming to terms with this new reality in foreign affairs, just as they cannot reconcile economic conservatism with social and cultural conservatism. But by one of those accidents historians ponder, our current president and his administration turn out to be quite at home in this new political environment, although it is clear they did not anticipate this role any more than their party as a whole did. As a result, neoconservatism began enjoying a second life, at a time when its obituaries were still being published.
Irving Kristol is author of "Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea."

Spheres of influence
Neoconservative think tanks, periodicals, and key documents.
Top neocon think tanks
Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
Established in 1997 by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, PNAC's goal is "to promote American global leadership." Creating a blueprint for the US' current role in the world, PNAC's original Statement of Principles called for the US to return to a "Reaganite foreign policy of military strength and moral clarity."
American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
Founded in 1943, this influential Washington think tank is known as the headquarters of neoconservative thought. In a crucial speech in the leadup to the war in Iraq, US President George W. Bush said this to an audience at AEI: "You do such good work that my administration has borrowed 20 such minds."
Jewish Intitute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)
Based in Washington, JINSA "communicates with the national security establishment and the general public to explain the role Israel can and does play in bolstering American interests, as well as the link between American defense policy and the security of Israel." Some of the strongest supporters of Israel's right-wing Likud Party in the already pro-Israel neoconservative circles are on JINSA's board of advisers.
Center for Security Policy (CSP)
CSP's 2001 annual report boasts of its influence saying it "isn't just a 'think tank' – it's an agile, durable, and highly effective 'main battle tank' in the war of ideas on national security." Securing neoconservatives' influence at the nexus of military policymakers and weapons manufacturers, CSP's mission is "to promote world peace through American strength."
Others...
The Hudson Institute
The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
Ethics and Public Policy Center


  What follows is the definition of the word chicken shit, from the book Citizen Soldiers, slightly modified to meet everyday usage.
  Chicken shit refers to behavior that makes life worse than it need be. Petty harassment of the weak by the strong. Open scrimmage for power, and authority and prestige; insistence on the letter rather than the spirit of laws, ordinances or regulations. Chicken shit is so-called instead of horse or bull or elephant shit because it is small minded and ignoble and takes the trivial, seriously. Chicken shit can be recognized instantly because it never has anything to do with accomplishing the job at hand.   
  Unfortunately there are a number of individuals who have made themselves powerful through chicken shit laws, ordinances and regulations.