Lawrence Auster: Lost in translation

Most people know that Lawrence Auster has been a critic of both the Bush administration's War on Terror and the Neocon project to build a democracy in Iraq. However, what most people do not know is that in 2002 Mr Auster was solidly behind President Bush's decision to invade Iraq and frequently posted articles by the leading Neocons on his blog. Lawrence Auster was 100% for the Iraq war. Lawrence Auster was 100% behind the Neocons. 

In an attempt to retain some credibility, though, Mr Auster quickly turned face and began to assail President Bush and lampoon the preposterous idealism of the Neocons who believe that "democracy" in Iraq is possible. He also began to develop an obsessive hatred for Islam and now paranoidly fears that Muslims are trying to get the entire world to submit to the Sharia -- and the time is coming soon. 

It didn't take long for the world to discover that the Iraq war was just a monumental fraud. Where are the WMD? Where are the operational connections with al-Qaida? The Iraq war did serve the interests of Israel and its partisans in the United States e.g. Lawrence Auster because it did result in a large U.S. presence in the Middle East. 

So now it seems Lawrence Auster is back to his old bag of tricks. On May 15th he had a blog entry entitled The Taliban-Iran Threat about the possibility that Pakistan's nukes may fall into the hands of a "Sharia regime," and that this must not be allowed to happen. He was back to the same hyperbole that was common when he was warning about Saddam threatening the world with nuclear weapons. But now it appears the circumstances are even more dire, "...an electromagentic pulse...would essentially destroy the United States, causing the deaths of most of its people within a year..." 

In case you don't know a "Sharia regime" is simply any regime that doesn't support Israel, and let's me clear: Mr Auster has no compunction about launching another war to slaughter tens of thousands of Muslims, possibly thousands of Americans, to serve the geo-political interests of Israel. He simply conjures up a threat that Muslims may attack the United States, and then uses that as a rationale to launch an actual war, with actual costs, and real deaths. 

But how realistic is this scenario? He argues that if the Taliban acquired nuclear weapons they could sell them to Iran. Perhaps Mr Auster doesn't know, but the Taliban and Iran are enemies and, in fact, in 1998 were on the brink of war. 

Iran says that thousands of Shiite Muslims were massacred in Mazar-i-Sharif when the Taliban took the city from Afghan forces opposed to the Taliban. Amnesty International and the United Nations have supported the Iranian claim.

The Iranians are predominately Shiite Muslims while the Taliban group which has been conquering Afghanistan over the past several years is a Sunni Islamic group which is less tolerant in its attitudes than most Sunnis. The conflicts between the Sunni and Shiite divisions of Islam are considerable, and along the Iran-Afghanistan border they involve ethnic or tribal differences as well.

This is a quote from CNN news article dated September 15th 1998. Exactly why would the Taliban provide nuclear weapons to one of its enemies? Mr Auster doesn't want anyone to understand the complexities and incongruities of the Islamic world. He wants everyone to view the Islamic world as a monolith, with millions of crazed jihadists ready to march on the West the moment they get orders from their -- I suppose -- invisible Sultan. Mr Auster's view of the Islamic world is just as imaginary as the kingdom of Prester John. 

Iran was dissuaded from war with the Taliban in 1998 because their political leaders tend to be rational when pursuing the national interest, and are not the crazed apocalyptic visionaries portrayed in Neocon periodicals. Mr Auster's real fear is that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons Israel can no longer be the bully of the Middle East, and will have to acquiesce to diplomatic solutions.  

Lawrence Auster adds a few more comments at the end of his entry about how conservatives keep using terms like "Islamists" or "radical Islamists" to describe those we are at war with. Mr Auster will have none of it and says "Islam is the problem." What problem, though, is Mr Auster really talking about? Until the creation of Israel Islam was hardly a problem for the United States.  

But don't tell Mr Auster. He'll start calling you names. 

A quote is worth a thousand claims: Lawrence Auster on the Iraq War

Even though Lawrence Auster goes to greath lengths to show that he is not a Neocon, this is more apparent than real. If we strip Neoconism down to its bare essentials it is the belief that the United States military should be used in the service of Israel. Once we understand Neoconism in this light there is no question that Mr Auster is not only a Neocon, but a fanatical one.

However, things often get more complicated because Neocons are never honest or straightforward about their real intentions. Beginning in 2002 they sold the American people on the idea that Saddam's Iraq was stockpiling tons of weapons of mass destruction in order to give to terrorists (al-Qaeda?) or to attack the United States, possibly killing millions. Of course it didn't take too long for everyone to realize that that was just a gigantic propaganda ploy -- but it worked. But before the truth behind the WMD scandal could even get its boots on, the cause for invading suddenly changed to a humanitarian mission. We were bringing democracy and freedom to Iraq. But both these arguments -- WMD and democracy -- were simply the public rationales for the war, and not the reason.

Lawrence Auster never hesitates to impugn the "democratization" of Iraq, but this debate is just shadow boxing. Except for those who have been lobomitized by right-wing talk radio, I doubt anyone believes that the Neocons in Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq to turn it into a democracy or even that a westen democracy is possible anywhere in the Arabic world. The United States, though, simply cannot build large military fortifications in Iraq and pretend that this mission is all about helping the Iraqi people, so it becomes necessary to give the war a humanitarian gloss. This is just propaganda: putting "democratic" perfume on their imperial pig. Mr Auster is a certified Neocon and it doesn't matter that he criticizes the "democratization" of Iraq because this isn't the essence of Neoconism, but only one of its transient apparitions.

So it doesn't matter that Mr Auster flays the Neocons for claiming that we are building a democracy in Iraq because it's not the real Neocon agenda. The real Neocon agenda is the use of the US military, and the military of other nations, to eliminate Israel's enemies. Does Mr Auster oppose using our military on behalf of a foreign power?

In early 2003 you could find Mr Auster promoting every paranoid Neocon conspiracy about Saddam Hussein developing a nuclear weapon in which to blackmail the entire world. In the immediate aftermath of the war, as the WMD lies began to come into focus, Mr Auster also didn't hesitate to cite the "humanitarian" benefit of the war.

In a post dated April 10 2003 entitled Thanks, America Mr Auster shows a picture of a very young Iraqi boy looking up and smiling at an American soldier. Mr Auster writes "Thanks to George W Bush and the United States of America, this boy will not have to grow up under the monstrous tyranny of Saddam Hussein." This is quite unusual because it seems at this point that Lawrence Auster doesn't understand his own version of Islam. Is this young child not a Muslim? Will he not grow up to wage war against the West in the name of jihad? Is he not a danger to our civilization?

In other post dated April 09, 2003 entitled Baghdad, Liberated Mr Auster cannot help but be swept up in the jubilation of the U.S military "liberating" a Muslim city. Given that Islam is a cancerous growth upon western civilization, should we really believe Mr Auster is ecstatic that we've "liberated" a whole city of these fanatics?

Although we'll elaborate on the idea in later posts, it's clear enough that Mr Auster's current view of Islam isn't something born out by his dispassionate look at the facts, but rather his anger at the Iraqi people for failing to obsequiously lay down their arms and accept the new occupiers. The escalation of violence in Iraq, and the failure to uncover large caches of WMD, makes every proponent of the war look like an ignoramus. In his fury, Mr Auster blames the Iraqi people, and then Islam for making him look like such a fool.