The Threat

“These pro­fes­sion­als of hate, mad­ly thirst­ing for reprisals” (Duhamel)

Why do the neo­con­ser­va­tives hate the United States so much that they wish to change its spir­it and im­age? Why do they hate the US peo­ple so much as to fa­nati­cize it by a sup­posed war again­st fa­nati­cism? Why do they make it in­se­cure through its own fa­nati­cism, de­priv­ing it of its rights and free­doms in the name of se­cu­ri­ty? Why do they de­spise it so much that they lie to it so de­lib­er­ate­ly about it­self and other peo­ples, con­fus­ing its ref­er­ences? Why do they re­joice to see it liv­ing in fear and hate, re­duc­ing the idea of its mis­sion in the world to that of holy war, and its role to that of in­quisi­tor and ex­e­cu­tion­er? Why do they re­joice to see fear and hate of the US peo­ple in­creas­ing in the world, con­grat­u­lat­ing them­selves for hav­ing abused US pow­er by glob­al­iz­ing ter­ror in its name?

Why do they so hate the US State, espe­cial­ly its le­git­i­mate po­lit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tions and ju­di­cia­ry pow­er, which they have abused, ma­nip­u­lat­ed, sab­o­taged, con­trolled, or ig­nored to such an ex­tent that the en­tire sys­tem has fal­l­en in­to ridicule and lost its cred­i­bil­i­ty?

Why do they so hate the US con­sti­tu­tion, which has nev­er be­fore suf­fered any im­por­tant set­back to the rights and free­doms of man?

Why are they do­ing their ut­most to re­move from it, bru­tal­ly and speed­i­ly, the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples, ac­quired over cen­turies of ef­fort and sac­ri­fice, which are in­tend­ed to in­spire US in­sti­tu­tions and the US way of life?

Why do they hate the cul­ture of the open so­ci­ety un­der­pin­ning the good prin­ci­ples, val­ues, and norms that the US en­joys, that give it strength and grandeur, and that are the ob­ject of its pride? Why do they ap­peal in­stead to that other, ig­no­min­ious, facet of US cul­ture, the closed so­ci­ety, which brings weak­ness and mis­ery to all peo­ples, espe­cial­ly the US it­self, and which re­veals it­self to­day as fa­tal­ly dan­ger­ous for the su­per­pow­er and the rest of the world? Why do they in­sist so much on “re­mod­el­ing” the US, first, through the cul­ture of the ghet­to? Why do they glo­ri­fy them­selves on re­mod­el­ing the world in the im­age of the ghet­toized US? Why do they want to bar­barize the uni­ver­sal mis­sion of the US? Why do they want the US to hate the world and the world to hate it?

Why, to be­gin with, did the neo­con­ser­va­tives form them­selves in­to an or­ga­ni­za­tion, and a se­cret one at that, at the cen­tre of pow­er? Why did this or­ga­ni­za­tion then work to take pow­er, mak­ing it­self a state with­in a state? This was a unique kind of coup d’etat be­cause it did not an­nounce it­self as such at any pre­cise time. Yet, the after­math of this coup rolls on­ward: not con­tent with the sys­tem­at­ic con­quest of state pow­er, the in­flu­ence of the coup ex­tends in­to the whole of so­ci­ety. How did the neo­con­ser­va­tive or­ga­ni­za­tion achieve this dou­ble coup of state and so­ci­ety, on­go­ing in space and time, ter­ror­iz­ing the world through the su­per­pow­er, ter­ror­iz­ing the su­per­pow­er through the world, and bar­bariz­ing both through the re­cip­ro­cal mon­ster of ter­ror.

Do the neo­con­ser­va­tives hate mankind so much that they want to lead it back in­to bar­barism?

Leading mankind into barbarism

Is the idea of lead­ing mankind back in­to bar­barism unimag­in­able in the 21^st cen­tu­ry? Are the achieve­ments of civ­i­liza­tion ir­re­versible? Is the “world vil­lage” the guar­an­tor of un­shake­able hu­man sol­i­dar­i­ty?

A neg­a­tive an­swer is pro­vid­ed by the alarm­ing de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in the state of the world dur­ing the last three years. The salu­tary achieve­ments of civ­i­liza­tion are op­posed by the “clash of civ­i­liza­tions”. The bridges of sol­i­dar­i­ty need­ed in the new “glob­al vil­lage” are re­placed by walls of sep­a­ra­tion and op­po­si­tion, li­nes of de­mar­ca­tion and con­fronta­tion. Common lan­guage is sub­sti­tut­ed by the di­a­logue of the deaf.

The ide­ol­o­gy of fear and ha­tred is now seen to be more ef­fec­tive and dan­ger­ous than any arms, more mur­der­ous and dev­as­tat­ing than any mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion, more de­struc­tive and con­ta­gious than any weapon of mass de­struc­tion. For it at­tacks man him­self and all that makes him hu­man, where­as other ag­gres­sions are gen­er­al­ly lim­it­ed to his body, pos­ses­sions, re­sources, or en­vi­ron­ment. This strat­e­gy is what draws the new in­quisi­tors in­to the con­quest of so­ci­eties rather than states.

Moreover, this ide­ol­o­gy has been car­ried in­to the field of re­li­gion. It re­duces re­li­gions in­to po­lit­i­cal fa­nati­cism, pol­i­tics and the pub­lic realm in­to the cir­cle of sa­cred and pro­fane, the hu­man be­ing and all hu­man di­men­sions in­to the cir­cle of be­liefs and, fi­nal­ly, be­liefs in­to prim­i­tive im­puls­es mould­ed by ha­tred and ter­ror, af­firmed by vi­o­lence and the de­mo­niza­tion of the Other. This is no restora­tion of past theo­crat­ic regimes. This is a mod­ern neo-regime pro­ject­ing it­self upon mankind’s fu­ture. This regime has tak­en pow­er in the US and given it­self the pseudonym of “neo­con­ser­va­tive”, and it is ac­tive dai­ly in the world. Its on­ly “civil” at­tribute is pow­er, and its on­ly “re­li­gious” prac­tice is to abuse all re­li­gions. As for its vi­sion of a new world order, it far sur­pass­es the level of con­trol ex­er­cised by theoc­ra­cies and dic­ta­tor­ships in the past. It promis­es to be to­tal­i­tar­i­an.

The new totalitarian order

The new to­tal­i­tar­i­ans are in­spired by Sparta rather than Rome. The le­ga­cy of Sparta ac­cords with their vi­sion con­cep­tu­al­ly, struc­tural­ly, and func­tion­al­ly: an aris­toc­ra­cy or con­quer­ing elite trans­formed by the spir­it of myth and pol­i­tics in­to a to­tal­i­tar­i­an caste; the con­trol and mould­ing of ideas and ac­tiv­i­ties; the re­duc­tion of the home­land in­to an armed camp for the rul­ing caste’s se­cu­ri­ty, and in­to the bul­wark of oli­garchic and to­tal­i­tar­i­an regimes in order to dom­i­nate the outer world; con­stant con­cern over the dan­ger of de­mo­graph­ic ex­pan­sion among the “aux­il­iaries”, re­gard­ed as nat­u­ral en­e­mies, and the re­course to all means in order to pre­vent such an ex­pan­sion.

The con­cor­dance is suf­fi­cient to make Sparta the best ref­er­ence-point. The im­pe­ri­al­ism of Rome, on the other hand, does not suf­fice to car­ry the ide­o­log­i­cal prin­ci­ples and am­bi­tions of the new Spartiates. Copied too much by the suc­ces­sors of Rome and pop­u­lar­ized over the cen­turies, no­tably in the European colo­nial era, the Roman im­pe­ri­al con­cept seems to the neo­con­ser­va­tives to lack orig­i­nal­i­ty, and their new glob­al pro­ject in­tends to be orig­i­nal. Regarded as un­rev­o­lu­tion­ary and too easy-go­ing in con­quest and oc­cu­pa­tion, build­ing too much and de­mol­ish­ing too lit­tle, the Romans can­not in­spire the new ide­o­logues of “cre­ative de­struc­tion”.

But in the eyes of the­se new ide­o­logues, the rulers of Rome com­mit­ted the im­par­don­able er­ror of be­ing too con­cerned for the con­ven­tion­al in­ter­ests of their coun­try at the ex­pense of the ex­cep­tion­al de­mands of their world pro­ject. They, in con­trast, the new mod­el­ers of the world, feel re­spon­si­ble on­ly to­wards their pro­ject, for which no sac­ri­fice is too great. Thus, the US au­thor­i­ties must not act as be­ing re­spon­si­ble to the peo­ple, but as a head­quar­ters in­vest­ed with the mis­sion of re­mod­el­ing the world by per­pet­u­al and ubiq­ui­tous war. Instead of act­ing as a le­git­i­mate au­thor­i­ty elect­ed by the peo­ple and in­vest­ed with a well-de­fined man­date lim­it­ed by the con­sti­tu­tion, they must act as an ini­ti­at­ed elite whose le­git­i­ma­cy derives from their po­lit­i­cal will to ac­com­plish their pro­ject, and whose man­date need not con­form to any obli­ga­tion or obey any law. Finally, the le­git­i­ma­cy and man­date of the­se au­thor­i­ties is to be con­firmed by vic­to­ry.

All this is in­sane and in­cred­i­ble, but it is a fact and has been so since the eve of 11^th September. Sceptics should re­call the fact that most in­san­i­ties of his­to­ry, no­tably those of to­tal­i­tar­i­an ide­o­logues, were on­ly ful­ly re­vealed as such to later gen­er­a­tions. However, we should note here three ma­jor dif­fer­ences be­tween the fol­lies of the past and that of the pre­sent – dif­fer­ences that act, un­for­tu­nate­ly, to our dis­ad­van­tage and force us to be alarmed. The first con­sists in the rel­a­tive­ly lo­cal char­ac­ter of past fol­lies, where­as the pre­sent fol­ly has a glob­al range. The sec­ond is re­lat­ed to the spe­cial ide­ol­o­gy of the new to­tal­i­tar­i­an caste, which ap­peals in all so­ci­eties to in­stincts of re­pul­sion. Most to­tal­i­tar­i­an fol­lies of the past, in con­trast, were con­tent to dom­i­nate per­sons and ac­tiv­i­ties with­out re­duc­ing them to their in­stincts; in this sense, they were more un­der­stand­able and less san­guinary. The third dif­fer­ence, which derives from the sec­ond, is that dam­age in the past was repara­ble, where­as the de­mo­li­tions of the pre­sent are in­tend­ed to be ir­re­versible. These three rea­sons should suf­fice to warn us of the dan­gers that mankind is in­cur­ring as the vic­tim of this ul­tra-mur­der­ous mesh.

The culture of the lie

The con­tin­u­ous lie is the con­troller of the mesh. This is not the or­di­nary lie of dai­ly life or the oc­ca­sion­al lie forged ac­cord­ing to cir­cum­stance, but a found­ing prin­ci­ple of the neo­con­ser­va­tive glob­al pro­ject. It is not sim­ply a means, but an end. It is a whole cul­ture. This kind of lie is em­bod­ied in a philo­soph­i­cal tra­di­tion cul­mi­nat­ing in the United States in the cir­cle of Leo Strauss and his dis­ci­ples. The lie is meta­mor­pho­sized in­to the supre­me “truth” held by the neo­con­ser­va­tives, who sub­sti­tute it for re­al­i­ty. The lie thus ris­es to the level of his­tor­i­cal vec­tor through the dou­ble ac­tion of de­struc­tion and cre­ation. The neo­con­ser­va­tive pro­ject, which con­sists in trans­form­ing the United States and the world, fits in­to this con­text and per­spec­tive.

The neo­con­ser­va­tives can­not re­nounce the cul­ture of the lie with­out re­nounc­ing their pro­ject as a whole. They can­not re­treat or stop, for they are bound to ad­vance. They can­not loosen a sin­gle link, for the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the whole chain de­pends on it. The sur­vival of their pro­ject will al­ways de­pend on their abil­i­ty to cre­ate new “truths” by a mesh of events and si­t­u­a­tions that must seem prob­a­ble in order to be con­vinc­ing and seem ir­re­versible in order to in­spire fa­tal­ism and, con­se­quent­ly, res­ig­na­tion.

This ed­i­fice of forged sce­nar­ios rests on two pil­lars – dis­in­for­ma­tion and the man­u­fac­tur­ing of events – that go hand in hand, ac­com­pa­ny­ing or suc­ceed­ing each other ac­cord­ing to needs and cir­cum­stances.

Disinformation can pre­pare, ac­com­pa­ny, and fol­low an event.

It is ac­tive in all di­rec­tions and cov­ers im­por­tant ar­eas in the United States and the world at all levels – the state, the pub­lic, and in­ter­me­di­ary zones. It reach­es all cat­e­gories: of­fi­cials and in­sti­tu­tions, in­flu­en­tial groups and cir­cles, and or­di­nary ci­t­i­zens. It can use and abuse the pres­i­dent, Congress or a con­gress­man, a par­lia­ment or a par­lia­men­tary group, a cartel or a com­bi­na­tion of car­tels, a lob­by, an in­tel­li­gence ser­vice, and, fi­nal­ly, the pub­lic at large. All are open to ex­ploita­tion as ac­com­plice or vic­tim.

Disinformation has many func­tions: to pro­voke per­sons or ac­tions; to lead per­sons, in­sti­tu­tions, and even states in­to er­ror; to jus­ti­fy an ac­tion; to mis­in­ter­pret an event or speech; to hide the truth; to fal­si­fy facts, thoughts, or doc­u­ments; to sab­o­tage jus­tice; to weave scan­dals, and so on. All the­se di­verse func­tions aim at the goal fixed by the dis­in­form­ers ac­cord­ing to the sole needs of their pro­ject.

The man­u­fac­tur­ing of events falls part­ly with­in the con­text of dis­in­for­ma­tion, but it goes even fur­ther. For it is not enough to de­ceive. It is nec­es­sary to de­mol­ish, to ap­ply “cre­ative de­struc­tion” through events that are pro­voked and provoca­tive at the same time.

The event is a sur­er, more ef­fec­tive and more durable means than sim­ple dis­in­for­ma­tion. Unlike dis­in­for­ma­tion, which can be ac­cept­ed, re­ject­ed, or ig­nored, the event is a fact that im­pos­es it­self and so must be dealt with. Moreover, the kind of event cre­at­ed or fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the neo­con­ser­va­tives un­leash­es a series of other events, lead­ing to a mesh of ac­tions and re­ac­tions in which it is dif­fi­cult or im­pos­si­ble to dis­tin­guish cause and ef­fect. This is the ba­sic law of the mesh – ev­ery ef­fect is trans­formed in­to a cause. And the ini­tia­tors of the mesh may in­ter­vene to re­store this law when­ev­er it is in­op­er­a­tive, in order to pro­long their so-called “cre­ative de­struc­tion”.