Both the Democratic and Republican parties today house neoconservatives, and whatever their differences, they coalesce on foreign policies of war, empire, support for Israel, foreign interference, sanctions, an anti-Iran stance, and American exceptionalism. The Democratic Party has its left-neoconservatives like Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. The Republican Party has its right-neoconservatives, and they are allied with the Christian Right and such media as Rupert Murdoch’s Fox.
There is one War Party that includes both the left and right neoconservatives. Washington is under their control. No matter which of the two major political parties anyone votes for, the result is the same: neoconservatism in foreign policy. The left-right distinction is of no significant importance in this respect.
The neoconservative ideas supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was also instigated by the distorted ultra-nationalism of Cheney and Rumsfeld that fits right in with neoconservatism. They support Empire, hegemony, and the U.S. being the sole great power. They support a unipolar world.
The neoconservative program claims to be tied to American values, to the Founding Fathers, and to America’s exceptional moral vision. These claims are totally false. One need only compare the vision of John Quincy Adams in his July 4, 1821 speech as Secretary of State to see that the neoconservative claims are a big lie.
She [America] has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.
She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right.
Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.
But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.
She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force….
She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit….
[America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.
If Adams accurately presents the American vision, and it surely does, then it cannot be denied that the neoconservative vision is completely antithetical to that genuine American vision. Consequently, the neoconservatives are as anti-American as any group could be.
America has been captured by what loosely has to be called a traitorous collection of thugs, and wide segments of the American public have participated in that capture and lent their support to it. These thugs are bent on continuous and endless warfare. They admit it. This is another sign of a completely anti-American philosophy and position.
Reprinted with permision from LewRockwell.com.
