There is one ideological group whose entire trajectory and partisan
political allegiance has done a complete turnaround, and that is the
neoconservatives.
Originating as a split from the Trotskyite movement, these extreme leftists moved from one end of the political spectrum, over the course of several years, to the other. Motivated by their hatred of Stalin and their abandonment of the old Communist Party, the neocons – as they came to be known – became the most vocally anti-Soviet faction and advocate of a military confrontation with Russia.
Few in numbers but strategically placed, they constituted the staff of Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson and agitated constantly for increased military spending. While still ostensibly men of the left, they gradually abandoned the characteristic tics and attitudes of that tribe and focused on what they really cared about: foreign policy, and their obsession with destroying their old enemy, the Soviet Union.
They wormed their way into the Reagan administration and started taking over the major institutions of the conservative movement. When the Soviet Union began to fall apart, they declared it wasn’t happening, that the whole thing was a trap and that Reagan was a fool or a traitor (possibly both) for negotiating with Gorbachev.
The neocons’ glory days came in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when they seized control of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, forged phony “evidence” of Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction,” and started a series of wars in the Middle East. Iraq was just the beginning.
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Originating as a split from the Trotskyite movement, these extreme leftists moved from one end of the political spectrum, over the course of several years, to the other. Motivated by their hatred of Stalin and their abandonment of the old Communist Party, the neocons – as they came to be known – became the most vocally anti-Soviet faction and advocate of a military confrontation with Russia.
Few in numbers but strategically placed, they constituted the staff of Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson and agitated constantly for increased military spending. While still ostensibly men of the left, they gradually abandoned the characteristic tics and attitudes of that tribe and focused on what they really cared about: foreign policy, and their obsession with destroying their old enemy, the Soviet Union.
They wormed their way into the Reagan administration and started taking over the major institutions of the conservative movement. When the Soviet Union began to fall apart, they declared it wasn’t happening, that the whole thing was a trap and that Reagan was a fool or a traitor (possibly both) for negotiating with Gorbachev.
The neocons’ glory days came in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when they seized control of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, forged phony “evidence” of Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction,” and started a series of wars in the Middle East. Iraq was just the beginning.
Read more
