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.

A reply to Mr Auster

On his blog Mr Auster had this to say in reply to my post calling him out as a Neocon. '"...he's [Auster] fooling America into an effort to stop the Islamization of the West that he says is for the sake of saving the West from Islam but that is really only for Israel's sake'".

First, Mr Auster's premise is entirely wrong, but since he is a strident propagandist I suppose it doesn't bother him, and that's that there is no ubiquitous "Islamization" of the West. In parts of western Europe that is a growing Muslim presence due to ridiculously lax immigration laws, but there is no "Islamization" here in the United States. We are facing a similar and much more serious problem from Hispanic immigrants, but it's nonsensical to argue that the entire West is under some ominous Islamic threat.

But this does raise an interesting question. Why does Lawrence Auster say the entire West faces the threat of Islamization, when it is restricted to countries in western Europe? Why not argue that the West faces threat of Hispanization? That's because Mr Auster wants to turn Muslims into the number one enemy, even in the United States, although they are a tiny fraction of the population and exercise virtually no political power. This is the same sort of tactic the mainstream media uses when it touts stories involving a white criminal mudering a black victim but blackout the story if the colors are reversed.

Also, Mr Auster is being disingenuous in suggesting that he simply opposes the "Islamization" of the West. He actually favored the Bush Administration's war in Iraq that has cost the country billions of dollars, killed thousands of innocent people, turned Iraq into a refugee crisis so that now we must accept Iraqis as a humanitarian gesture of goodwill. Let's not forget that Lawrence Auster used his website to promote paranoid Neocon conspiracies involving Saddam Hussein threatening the world with nuclear weapons and derided the "paleocons" as America haters for opposing the war. Before the war began, Mr Auster said he had no doubt that Bush was "on the right track."

Even though he now pretends to be a critic of the war, what's it worth really? All the Neocons -- Frum, Perle, Ledeen -- are now critics of the war and just accuse Bush of bungling the operation. However, if Lawrence Auster is now against the war, where's his mea culpa? Why has he not apologized to the "paleocons" for calling them all sorts of terrible names? Besides the true mark of wisdom is making the right decision when it matters. What difference does it make if he now opposes the war? He was wrong when it mattered. The Paleocons were right when it mattered.

Nothing more needs to be said.

Lawrence Auster and the Quest for the Holy Sharia

Lawrence Auster likes to play up his image as an honest and fearless critic of Islam. He dares to speak the truth when everyone else settles for euphemisms, qualifiers, and the other comforts of Political Correctness. He will not tolerate the politeness of a Daniel Pipes -- or a Dinesh D'souza -- who distinguishes between "radical" and "moderate" Islam. There is only one Islam -- neither radical nor moderate -- that ceaselessly wages jihad, kills the unbelievers, and will not stop until it subjugates the entire world.

This belief of Mr Auster's -- whether it's propaganda or paranoia -- serves the interests of Israel. If all Muslims are really a terrible human scourge then Israel will always be on the side of the angels when it slaughters Palestianians and if Islam is portrayed as a great threat to the West then West must ally with Israel in opposing Islam.

Though we can argue over the significance of threat that Islam poses -- and we will address this in another post -- the facts as Mr Auster presents are simply not there. He likes to argue that he sees Islam "as it is," and not "as it should be." But he doesn't see Islam "as it is," but how we wants to see it i.e. as a Neocon who wants to wage war against Muslims and protect the state of Israel.

Let's look at specific case that Mr Auster makes against Islam: "It is the rule of Sharia, the imposition of the Islamic law over each society and ultimately over the whole earth. Sharia is the true end of Islam, Sharia is practically indentical with Islam..."

But how accurate is this really? Lawrence Auster is simply reducing the history of Islam, the beliefs and actions of every single Muslim in the world -- all 1.5 billion of them -- to a few passages in the Quran. Every waking moment of every Muslim's life is dominated by only two thoughts: killing the infidels and then imposing the Sharia on them. So where can we find this fabled Sharia?

Let's look at a few facts. The most populated Muslim nations are Indonesia (over 200 million), Pakistan (167 million), Bangladesh (132 million), Egypt (70 million), Turkey (70 million), Nigeria (64 million), Iran (64 million), Algeria (32 million) , Morocco (32 million) , Afghanistan (31 million), and Saudi Arabia (26 million). Now how many of these countries actually codify the Sharia into their formal articles of government? Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Turkey are secular. Egypt does recognize Islam as the state religion but still permits some freedom of religious expression. Afghanistan is now nominally secular but has been embroiled in tribal wars since the end of the Soviet occupation in 1989. Iran is run by religious clerics -- and in that sense is an Islamic theocracy -- but does allow other religious traditions. Saudi Arabia probably enforces the strictlest interpretation of Islamic law, but this is actually an exception in the Muslim world and not the norm. Of course the political life in these countries is often quite primitive and at the local level and in rural parts of the country Sharia is more commonly practiced, but this only reinforces the fact that Islam really isn't much of a threat: If Muslims cannot even codify the Sharia when they are almost 100% percent of the population should we really regard the Sharia as a concern when Muslims are less than 2% of the U.S. population?

If anything these facts illustrate that Muslims are disorganized, tribal, and blunderingly inefficient when it comes to running political affairs. The Islamic world, while diverse, is backward, stagnant, and pitiful when compared to the nations of the west.

In future posts we will look more closely at the claim that Islam is a threat and though this is true to a very limited extent, Mr Auster's case against Islam is pure fantasy. Relax. The Sharia isn't coming to a town near you.

Lawrence Auster: Super Neocon

I don't intend to use this site to comment on Lawrence Auster's general worldview or political associations, but rather to provide a detailed rebuttal of his more asine and far flung ideas. As I mentioned in my previous post, Lawrence Auster calls himself a "traditionalist," but this really means very little. In reality, Lawrence Auster is a Neocon and while not all Neocons are identical his ideas about the world and his interests clearly place him in the Neocon camp. However, before we continue to elaborate on this idea, I think it's important to insert some background information on why Mr Auster considers himself to be a "tradionalist."

It all began in 2002 when the Bush Administration began its propaganda campaign to convince Americans, and the rest of the world, on the dire need to invade Iraq. The Neocons came to the forefront of political discourse at this time because they were seen -- rightly -- as the intellectual force spearheading the drive to invade Iraq. The reasons at the time were mostly about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the threat they posed to the United States. Also, there were subtle suggestions that Iraq may have had a role in the 9/11 terror attacks. But we all know this story.

However, a more neglected story was the extent to which the Iraq war divided the conservative movement. While most self-identified conservatives did support the Iraq war this itself is not very meaningful because average 'Joe Conservative' always roots for the Republicans. At the more intellectual level, though, there was a serious break in conservative ranks; ranks that were solid and unified during the Clinton years. As the war brought the term Neocon into the spotlight it also brought the term paleo conservative, not into the spotlight, but at least out of the warehouse of the Unknown Political Lexicon. Though much more could be said about this, for our purposes it is enough to know that Lawrence Auster sided with the Neocons, celebrated the Iraq war , spread the propaganda about Saddam Hussein threatening the world with a nuclear weapon, and was a stalwart defender of President Bush. This alone surely qualifies him as a Neocon although now he never mentions the fact that he supported the war, and tries to blame the Neocon's idealistic project for building a democracy in Iraq as the problem rather than the war itself.

So why is Lawrence Auster a Neocon? As unpleasant as this may sound, a Neocon is first and foremost a supporter of Israel but also, secondarily, one who wishes to create a climate of permanent hostility between the West and Islam. We know that Lawrence Auster is Jewish, but not all Jews are Neocons, but nevertheless we can surely say that, like feminism, Neoconism is a Jewish movement in the sense that it seeks to promote singularly Jewish interests. So we shouldn't let Lawrence Auster get away with labeling himself a "tradionalist." He invented this label to dissociate himself from the paleo-conservatives, primarily Buchanan, who were against the war, but also the mainstream Neocon movement since it supports or at least is rather silent about immigration.

Since Lawrence Auster regards Islam as a threat to Israel he has fabricated a largely fictious monster, which most call "radical" Islam, but he simply labels as Islam. There is no moderate Islam. It's all radical, and by radical Mr Auster means of the same type that perpetrated the 911 terror attacks. The slaughter of three thousand innocents is the norm for Islam. All else is wishful thinking.

In the coming posts we will explain why Lawrence Auster's view of Islam isn't accurate or even rational, but largely a fantasy that tries to lure the entire West in the pursuit of serving the interests of Israel. Above all else, this disqualifies Mr Auster from the ranks of conservative or even an American, because in reality he is a dangerous propagandist whose only concern is to foment more war.

Opening Salvo

Greetings all,

Lawrence Auster is a little known blogger on the internet who likes to write controversially about liberalism, Darwinism, and Islam. He fancies himself a "traditionalist," and is an even handed critic of both Republicans and Democrats. Though he is not well-known, a little pamphlet he wrote more than 10 years ago, The Path to National Suicide, earned him a small following on the populist right and, at the time, he strongly identified with Pat Buchanan's worldview. He continues to be an implacable critic of America's open immigration policy and has even dared to journey into the hinterlands of the race and IQ debate. Mr Auster pulls no punches on the question: whites and blacks have different IQs, the differences are inherited, and have serious consequences for the social fabric of the country.


I do not intend to provide an in depth analysis of Mr Auster's worldview but the essence can be summed up briefly: Liberalism is an acidic ideology that seeks to dissolve all the cohesive traditions that have bound us together as a people, or better, a civilization. The family is under assault from feminists and the radical homosexual lobby that continues to petition for same sex marriage. Religion is feeling the heat of science as Darwinism, Biblical criticism, archaeology etc. cast doubt on almost all religious claims. Finally, America's European heritage is rapidly declining as immigrants from the third world re-populate traditionally white societies. Underlying all this is liberalism, a worldview that elevates non-discrimination to the highest value and prevents western nations from making the necessary decisions needed to preserve their societies. Of course Mr Auster is always quite vague about where liberalism came from, why people continue to believe in it, and whether or not it actually serves anyone's interests.

We will have more to say about Lawrence Auster later and why his ideas are fundamentally dishonest and why he cannot in any sense be a conservative or "traditonalist."

Stay tuned...