Many of its supporters are among the most powerful people in Britain and the United States, including the former directors of the MI6 and CIA, the former President of Lithuania, a reem of British MPs, and a number of editorial staff from various newspapers. .
* Rt. Hon. Michael Ancram QC MP, Member of Parliament for Devizes
* Gerard Baker, Assistant Editor, The Times
* Paul Beaver, Special Advisor to the Parliamentary Defence Committee; Director, Beaver Westminster Ltd.
* Prof. Paul Bew, Professor of Politics, Queen’s University, Belfast
* Nicholas Boles, Director, Policy Exchange
* Colonel Tim Collins, Commander, First Battalion Royal Irish Regiment, Iraq 2003
* Prof. Paul Cornish, Carrington Professor of International Security, RIIA
* Sir Richard Dearlove, Master of Pembroke College; Former Head of MI6
* Major-General John Drewienkiewicz, Military Advisor to the High Representative for Bosnia
* Mark Etherington, Civil Governor, Wasit (Kut) province, Iraq, 2003-2004
* Michael Gove, MPMember of Parliament for Surrey Heath; Shadow Minister for Housing
* Robert Halfon, Political Director, Conservative Friends of Israel
* Oliver Kamm, Columnist, The Times
* Jackie Lawrence, Former Member of Parliament for Preseli Pembrokeshire
* Dr. Denis MacShane MP, Member of Parliament for Rotherham
* Jan Mortier, Associate of the Council for a Community of Democracies
* Fionnuala Jay O'Boyle MBE, Director, Jay Associates
* Prof. Andrew Lever, University of Cambridge
* Stephen Pollard, Columnist, The Times
* Lord Powell of Bayswater, Personal Advisor to the Prime Minister for Defence and Security, 1984-1991
* Andrew Roberts, Author, Journalist and Television Presenter
* Dr. Jamie Shea, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for External Relations, NATO
* Dr. Irwin Stelzer, Director of Economic Policy Studies, Hudson Institute
* Gisela Stuart MP, Member of Parliament for Birmingham Edgbaston; Member of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee
* Rt. Hon. David Trimble, Former Member of Parliament for Upper Bann; Winner of Nobel Peace Prize
* Edward Vaizey MP, Member of Parliament for Wantage
* David Willetts MP, Member of Parliament for Havant; Shadow Education Secretary
the Henry Jackson Society, a Cambridge University-based talking shop produced something called the 'British Moment'.
This is an effusion of true ghastliness that should only be read with the images of death and destruction in Iraq and Lebanon close at hand, in order to strip off the comforting verbiage of the college Common Rooms and reveal the nihilistic horror underneath. It could, however, by safely ignored if it wasn't for the startling number of really quite powerful figures who enthusiastically reject reality for this tripe. What, for instance, are we to make of this from Alan Mendoza, a leading HJS light, academic and Conservative councillor (and doubtless future MP, if he carries on moving in the circles he's in), but evidently a man at right angles to reality:
"the pursuit of an ethical British foreign policy is both idealistic and realistic; that by considering the internal characters of regimes when framing foreign policy, the British government will be able to create not only a better and more just world but also a safer and more secure one; and that in the process of so doing it can rally liberal interventionists, conservative internationalists, muscular liberals and neoconservatives around a permanent foreign policy consensus: the pursuit of democratic geopolitics."
There it is, the neocon position in a nutshell, with a British twist.
Reality (i.e. murder, torture, destruction, extrajudicial State activities) doesn't matter if your *ideals* are right. The End is what matters. Let's just get rid of these uncooperative or dangerous People Who Are Not Like Us, or those subversives who stand in the way of Progress. How? Don't worry about it, you'll thank us once they're gone and we've secured our oil supply and your shares are booming. It's for the best. If you don't get it, you'll Get It.
Now, back on Earth several problems appear:
1) The HJS/neocon options for achieving what they call 'democratic geopolitics' include (with a barely suppressed shiver of delight) the 'military domain' and 'expeditionary capabilities with a global reach'. In other words 'Become Like Us Or We'll Bomb You'. The limits to this form of warfare (which is supposed to work on the Rumsfeld homeopathic principle of sending lots of missiles and very few troops) are evident in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, and doubtless the result would be identical anywhere else - a ruined country, piles of dead civilians, a highly pissed off population and increased militancy. The disconnect is between the envisaged ideal of democratic, moral military action and the reality that any invasive military action will *inevitably* result in the moral degradation of the very military forces you idealise. Hitler thought his soldiers were supermen, and they suffered for it, and the countries they invaded suffered even more.
2) The total absence, indeed the explicit avowal that undemocratic states should have no say at the global level - this naturally means no UN. Global power should be recognised solely as the right of democratic states, although this seems to be restricted to the US, EU and presumably Australia, Canada and Israel and their associated groups such as the OECD and NATO. There are flaws here - firstly, the Good Guys, and the UK in particular, have an increasing democratic deficit and secondly democracy is a sliding scale, there are elements of democracy in places like Venezuala, Lebanon, Iran and Palestine which would quite definitely be in the Bad Guys camp. That democracy actually grows from the people (which is the lesson of history) rather than being imposed from without is entirely missing from the HJS lexicon. Instead, there's a firm rule that you don't talk to someone you don't agree with, just blow them away and *whoosh* - the world is magically the way you want it. This is again straight from the Blair DNA.
3) There's an implicit assumption that Western liberal democracies are political perfection, which legitimises the monotheistic belief that the whole world should be stamped into the same mould and that any amount of tampering with freedoms doesn't count, because we're perfect. This is suspiciously like the more evangelical forms of Protestantism - you're already saved, so do what you like, as it must be right because you're doing it, and if you're doing it then it's God's will. Thus what should be legitimate democratic dissent (last Saturday's march, for instance) can be ignored or denigrated as the 'forces of conservatism' or 'supporters of terrorists').
4) Reality is the enemy. The worst insult they throw is 'realist', meaning one who deals in facts rather than ideals. This is stupid and wrong, as proved so many times in Iraq, where the reality on the ground keeps coming up at inconvenient moments, and of course in Lebanon where Hezbollah are refusing to die when told to. It must be much easier to declare reality the enemy than reexamine your strategy - after all, the strategy is right because you, a Western liberal democratic leader, came up with it, and you're always right. Sound like anyone we know?
5) There's no definition of what comprises an HJS-style democracy, although one can have a good guess by looking at Blair and Bush's behaviour. There seems to be no space for an independent judiciary that can get in the way of supreme executive power. Likewise Parliamentary scrutiny is out of the window, as it might slow down the implementation of the Leader's decisions (which are of course right, anyway). Much better to have Leg Reg, or the Enabling Act, isn't it? Bush takes a similar 'get-outta-my-way' attitude to the US Constitution, of course, and as for Human Rights, well, you've got to be a terrorist-loving wet liberal to even think about supporting that.
6) The magic word 'values'. This is where Blair most closely aligns himself with the HJS recently, so much so that one senses that a dog whistle is being blown. There's the implicit assumption that there is a single set of perfect values possessed uniquely by Western liberal democracies and not by, say, undemocratic Middle Eastern states. This is clearly bollocks - many in the US have attitudes to abortion and gay rights that are closer to Saudi Arabia than Sweden. That not all Western states share the same values is as blindingly obvious to the reality-minded set as the fact that not all undemocratic countries work the same way. The imposition of regimented, one-size-fits-all mindsets fails to recognise this just as much as it would seem to exclude any form of democratic dissent.
Mendoza's article is just full of fisking material it's hard to start, but someone who thinks that the policies of Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld, Olmert and co. have any chance of creating a better, more just, more secure and safer world really needs quite strong psychoactive medication. That this is not only believed by some but that these people are in positions of power *everywhere* is frankly far more frightening than any terrorist vapourware the police think they've found. Let's review a few key players:
* Gisela Stuart MP - right wing New Labour loyalist, German born, strongly pro-EU, on the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee.
* Denis MacShane MP - right wing New Labour loyalist, German speaker, strongly pro-EU. Talks a lot of shit.
* Sir Richard Dearlove - head of MI6 during the whole Iraq thing. About as trustworthy as a dodgy dossier.
* Ed Vaizey MP - nasty right wing Tory, very pro-Israel at the moment and rather close to David Cameron
* Baron Trimble - former UUP leader, well up for a bit of flag-waving British nationalism
* Irwin Stelzer - Rupert Murdoch's mate who tells Tony Blair what to do. The coincidence of Blair's visit to California and simultaneously coming out with a frightening load of quasi-HJS tosh about 'values' and 'extremism' is revealing.
* Richard Perle - one of the original neocons, mixed up with the scandal of (fervent Israeli right-wing supporter) Conrad Black and Hollinger
* Billy Kristol - don't know much about him yet, but Jesus' General takes the piss out of him, and his targets are usually spot on. Enlightenment sought please.
* Oliver Kamm - oh dear
* Stephen Pollard - Blunkett's biographer, now reduced to screaming 'anti-Semite' at people in the Guardian. Git.
* James Woolsey - another former spook (CIA this time), also a member of PNAC, something called the 'Set America Free Coalition' (why do I instinctively *know* that's going to be a nasty lot?*) and thinks the US should bomb Syria.
Of course, what's blindingly obvious is that not only the Murdoch press, the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, Cambridge University and MI6 are in on this, but also the losers and nuts responsible for the Euston Manifesto. That document is so closely allied to the HJS that it's quite obvious there's a link.
So that's the two main UK parties, the intelligence services, our most important ally, the right wing press and the left wing press in the hands of neo con lunatics who refuse to live in the real world.
What does that leave? Well, us, I suppose, the lefties and centrists, the Muslims, blacks (are there any black neocons?), humanists, pacifists and people who like living with truth and without fear. Better start practicing those barricade building skills.
their site meta keywords: "Democratic Realism, Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Henry 'Scoop' Jackson, Henry Jackson, Henry Jackson Society, Henry M. Jackson, Neo-conservatism, Neocon, Neoconservatism, Peterhouse, henry jackson society, neo-conservatism, neocon, neoconservatism"
Any society oft described as secretive will always garner suspicion, but Stephen Pollard “ a self-described neocon himself - of the Centre for a New Europe, and occasional Times columnist, wrote an article in The Times hoping to spread light on the shadowy group.
Pollard looks to develop the bi-partisan nature of the group, claiming: It has neoconservative members. But it also has social democrats and traditional conservatives. Socialists would feel comfortable with its aims So the HJS is not a pro-market Cato-style think tank. Pollard suggests it merely has the collective goal of spreading anti-totalitarian liberal democracy across the world, and thus conveys key components of a left-wing approach.
Anti-totalitarianism is a honourable goal, and the Liberal Democracy is certainly the pre-eminent political model in delivering prosperity and individual freedom, but does this really reconcile with the reality of the HJS? Pollard goes onto defend the society against claims that the groups real goal is continued American global primacy: -
And it is not about American dominion but the very absence of empire. There is indeed a mission to change the world. But it is to rid it of tyranny and to give all people liberty as we enjoy in the West.
Patrons of the society include: Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Richard Perle, and James Woolsey. All of these hawks are members of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC); of which Kristol is chair. The PNAC has the explicit goal of maintaining American dominance proclaiming in its statement of principles: -
As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world’s pre-eminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?
This rather hegemonic tone is in contrast to Pollards claims, and suggests that the real principles of HJS are just that: continued American dominance of the globe. Many readers I m sure are thinking aloud as to what is wrong with that; after all Pax Americana has delivered prosperity and relative peace to those countries, who since 1945, have chose to side with America.
Pollard has not always been so accommodating of progressives as he outlines in his statement accompanying his signature to the Unite Against Terror website: -
The Guardianista fellow-travellers of terror, who stress its supposed causes, are the useful idiots of the Islamofascists. The terrorists are the operatives of an ideology which has no concern with Palestinians or Iraqis, whom they murder without compunction. They have no concern with anything but the destruction of the West.
At a time when Islamozionism seeks to destroy liberal, democratic civilisation and to replace it with theocracy, it is imperative that those of us who believe in democracy and liberty stand up and fight. Not just against the obvious enemy, but also against the enemy within - those who claim to be on the Left, but whose views have nothing in common with the decency for which the Left ought proudly to stand.
Anyone who questions the root causes of terrorism is therefore, according to Pollard, a useful idiot of the Islamozionists. So the lines have been drawn, and it seems any intellectual, not kowtowing to the Bush Doctrine, is an idiot and on the wrong side. This wagon-circling rhetoric is an echo of the anti-intellectualism of the Whitehouse, and the pro-War movement as it looks to excuse the Iraq War.
As an opponent of the Iraq War “ although admittedly more operationally, than ideologically “ I rather question how democracy in Iraq is helping the War on terror. It seems the only winners are the Iranians, who have seen a hostile secularised Sunni dictatorship, replaced by a quasi-democratic Shia complaint state. I abhorred the regime in Baghdad, but I could understand that if we rushed into war, without adequate international support, or the wherewithal to put ˜humpty dumpty together again we would be left high and dry with the French, Chinese, and Russians pissing themselves. Tom Freidman was arguing this point long before the USAF began bombing all those dangerous water, sanitation, and electricity facilities.
People say I don t get Iraq; but I do, I appreciate the argument that we should all be free, and that trans-national democracy is crucial to global peace. In fact I have often stated that rather than withdraw from Iraq, we should commit the necessary troops to get the job done, and then get the hell out of dodge. And I also appreciate the geopolitical importance of the region in this time of energy scarcity; but I also know that a botched occupation is far more dangerous than inaction, and this half-way house of WarLite, which so enthrals Rumsfeld, is a ‘castle in Spain’ which threatens to destabilise the region for decades.
This is the problem with The Henry Jackson Society, and ideology in politics generally: ideology leads to myopia. Such is the righteousness of those who supported the invasion, they refuse to acknowledge when the whole adventure goes off the rails. They ignore the billions of dollars pilfered under Paul Bremer, the Halliburton invoices, and the Iraqi s being butchered by the insurgency, which because of the lack of troops remains at large. Obduracy and determination is all well and good, but it becomes a problem when it blinds you to error and consequence.
A principled and aggressive stance against dictatorship and tyranny is proper, but to rely on this righteousness as a means to silence dissent, sets a precedent that demands you have to remove every tyrannical regime across the globe that suppresses freedoms; even those regimes not positioned over billions of tonnes of oil. Are the interventionists in Cambridge suggesting we mobilise forces in Africa, China, Russia, and the rest of Central Asia? A ˜liberal view of the world would mandate that an Iraqi s right to freedom is equal to that of a farmer in Sudan.
The threat of ˜Islamozionism is real, but there is no evidence that regime change in Iraq has helped address the problem of al Qaida. Pseudo-Imperialism: the installing proxy regimes, is still Imperialism. It is still seen across the Islamic World as being Western interfering, regardless of the moral vindication the perpetrators constantly declare, and as such it helps fuel the resentment and anger that feeds Radical Islam. Blair s contrived declaration that the 7/7 bombing had nothing to do with Iraq was in stark contrast to reality, and a complete un-statesmanlike abdication of the moral responsibility he so sanctimoniously clings to.
Rather like the time of Henry Jackson, when the US entered a controversial war in Vietnam, the Iraq War has fragmented the British Left. The leftist commentariat has been split between those whose progressive ideology demands action, those who believe in the self-determination and resist imperialist intervention, and the usual obdurate peaceniks. It is the first of these factions that concerns the HJS, the lefties who have reached the conclusion that only military intervention can further the progressive cause.
Students of political history will see parallels with this militant left and early Soviet idealism; in fact one of the pioneers of American Neoconservatism, Irving Kristol (father of PNAC chair William), was a member of the Trotskyite organisation the Fourth International. And it is a similar Damascene conversion that led leftist writers such as David Aaronovitch, Nick Cohen, Norman Geras, and Oliver Kamm to support the invasion of Iraq.
So is the Henry Jackson Society just a political, intellectual movement? Is its singular aim to spread the liberal democracy? One has to question its links with PNAC; certainly the Bush family has links to both PNAC and the private equity firm The Carlyle Group. I m not interested in getting into the insidious workings of The Carlyle Group, but needless to say they are major shareholders in United Defense “ arms dealers. So this interwoven web has not only a political arm (including the Bushies, Rumsfeld, and former members of the Clinton cabinet) looking to shape policy, but also a wing incorporating one of the largest defence contractors to the US and British governments. It is this conflict of interest that skews the HJS protestations of altruistic benevolence.
When The Henry Jackson Society claims to be bi-partisan it means it has its tentacles into every facet of government. Labour MP s such as Gisela Stuart and Denis MacShane stand side by side with Tories Ed Vaizey, David Willets, and Michael s Gove and Ancram. And behind them, whispering quietly in their ear: Kristol, Kagan, and Pearle.
Should we be worried? I ll let you decide.
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