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.