"Punish all the guilty parties, whoever they are, and do everything possible to prevent anything of the sort happening again," "I'm not sure Machiavelli was wrong when he said that 'man is more inclined to do evil than to do good.'" "Saddam Hussein's dictatorship existed for this long because the United States supported that existence with funding, even by providing the chemical weapons that were then used against the Kurds."
http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Conversation_with_Controversial_Neoconservative_0228.html A conversation with Machiavelli's ghost: Controversial neoconservative Ledeen talks to Raw Story 02/28/2006 @ 10:51 am Filed by Larisa Alexandrovna Michael LedeenIn an exclusive series of interviews with Raw Story Managing News Editor Larisa Alexandrovna, controversial Neoconservative scholar and Iran Contra figure Michael Ledeen discusses his background, alleged controversies, and offers remarkable revelations regarding the Bush administration's "War on Terror." PHOTO: http://rawstory.com/images/other/ledeen.jpg Part one in this series of interviews focuses on current US foreign policy and how it relates to the neoconservative world view, as well as how such a policy can be seen against the backdrop of history. Ledeen speaks out against torture and calls for accountability at all levels, including the White House, should an investigation lead in that direction. "Punish all the guilty parties, whoever they are, and do everything possible to prevent anything of the sort happening again," Ledeen says. When asked about the failure of the media with regard to reporting accurately and abundantly on such harsh interrogation techniques, Ledeen says that he disagrees, but also says that "If you're going to attack media for insufficient coverage of Abu Ghraib, etc., then you should also hammer them for failing to report the 'other side of the story.'" He describes his view of Paul Wolfowitz, former Deputy Secretary of Defense and now head of the World Bank, in terms of ability, stating that he does not "really know what Wolfowitz thinks, and I have always looked at him as a manager, not an intellectual." Leedeen, who is best known for his involvement as a courier in the Iran-Contra scandal, describes himself as a democratic revolutionary. He believes that mankind is inclined toward war and has a dismal, Hobbesian view of history. Against that context, he says, "I'm not sure Machiavelli was wrong when he said that 'man is more inclined to do evil than to do good.'" Michael Ledeen currently holds the Freedom Chair at the most influential think tank in the nation, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), considered the nucleus of neoconservative and conservative thought. So much so, that President Bush has said of AEI that "You do such good work that my administration has borrowed 20 such minds." Ledeen is mostly known to the lay public, if he is known at all, for his involvement in the Iran Contra scandal, in which he acted as courier on behalf of Robert McFarland, then National Security Advisor to President Reagan, and the various members of Israel's leadership and the CIA and vouched for Iranian arms dealer, Manucher Ghorbanifar. Ledeen currently serves as an associate editor for the conservative publication, The National Review and was a founding member of the Jewish Institution for National Security Affairs (JINSA). The Democratic revolutionary Raw Story's Larisa Alexandrovna: Let's begin with the basics. There has been a great deal of confusion in terms of Israel and how it relates to neoconservatives and how both relate to the Bush administration's foreign policy, including the war in Iraq. Can you help clarify some of this, not just by simple definitions, but how each relates to one another? How is Zionism different or the same as neoconservatism and how does it relate to the current foreign policy? Michael Ledeen: You mean are all neoconservatives Jews? Or is it some kind of Jewish thing? Clearly not, unless you think that Bush and Cheney are closet Jews. RS: No, I don't mean "are all Neoconservatives Jews" as I know they are not; then again, not all Jews are Zionists either. I am trying to get a clear sense of how you see Zionism and how or rather, if, either of those philosophies may be driving the Bush/Cheney foreign policy or if the Bush/Cheney foreign policy is using Neoconservatism as a shield against criticism (anyone who disagrees does not support Israel type thing). Obviously, the Iraq war has made Iran the winner, not Israel. ML: I describe myself as a democratic revolutionary, I don't think of myself as "conservative" at all. Indeed it seems to me that most self-described leftists today are reactionaries, and have lost the right to describe themselves as people of the left. RS: When you say you are not a "conservative," you are addressing a false distinction because Neoconservatism has its roots on the left, in socialist ideology, yet is closely aligned to the conservatives in the US and the rightist Likud party in Israel. Perhaps a better way to ask this would be to ask if you are closer in your ideology to Richard Perle, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz or are you closer to Francis Fukuyama, who recently announced Neoconservatism as dead? ML: Well I'm a democratic revolutionary, albeit not a socialist. I haven't read Fukuyama's latest writings, but I wasn't at all convinced by the "end of history" thesis. I don't really know what Wolfowitz thinks, and I have always looked at him as a manager, not an intellectual. He hasn't ever had the time or inclination to write anything serious, so who knows? He once suggested that Iraq was like pre-World War I Germany, which I didn't agree with. I think you're right to say that I have roots in the left, which is the point I was trying to make when I said I didn't think of myself as a "conservative." Leo Strauss once said that it was hard to understand how the word "virtue," which once meant the manliness of men, came to mean the virginity of women. In like manner I am perplexed at how revolutionaries are now called "conservatives." It's very misleading, and very political. The left, which has become reactionary and counterrevolutionary, wants to stigmatize people who advocate democratic revolution, and so they use the word "conservative," which for the left is an epithet. RS: And on Zionism? ML: I really don't see it in those terms at all, and I doubt--although I really have no way of knowing--that either [President George] Bush or [Vice President Dick] Cheney does either. I don't view Israel in "Zionist" terms, I don't have relatives there, I don't travel there very much and on balance I have a dim view of most Israeli political figures and Israeli intellectuals. I think it was right to provide a sanctuary for the European Jews after the Holocaust, and as I've said I think it's right and automatic for Americans to support Israel vis-a-vis the tyrannical regimes that want to destroy it. And I feel much the same way about Iraq and Afghanistan, both of whom have started down the road to freedom, and who are now hated and under attack by the tyrants in the region. RS: How does this translate to US foreign policy and responsibility? ML: Most Americans support free countries, and so it's only logical for the United States to support democratic Israel. It's the right thing to do. We should always support democratic countries that are threatened by antidemocratic tyrannies. Freedom is on the march RS: If it is logical for the United States to support democratic nations, then why has the United States regularly subverted the democratic process? This is not new or theoretical of course, this is all well documented history, even recent history clearly shows that. Consider for example Chile's General Pinochet or Zaire's Mobutu. Or closer to current events, the Saudi royal family, for example, is only in power because the United States protects them against their own citizens, who are largely oppressed and exploited. Yet another example closer to home and current events is Iraq. Saddam Hussein's dictatorship existed for this long because the United States supported that existence with funding, even by providing the chemical weapons that were then used against the Kurds. So this is not as simple as "we should always support democratic countries." Most people would agree with that sentiment, but the United States does not seem to be adhering to it, as we know even from what we now know to be true about the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany. ML: You're quite right--and, at least recently, both President Bush and Secretary Rice have explicitly agreed with your point--to say that we have often supported tyrannies. We, along with the whole Western world, shamefully supported Saddam, and convinced ourselves that he was a "new kind of Arab leader," by which was meant a secular socialist, not some crazy religious fanatic as in Iran and not some wild-eyed Arab nationalist as in the case of [President Gamal Abdel] Nasser [of Egypt]. It was obviously a terrible mistake. RS: While I understand your enthusiasm for the removal of Saddam Hussein, would it not be hypocritical to suggest that the removal of a "tool" by its handler is a victory for freedom? ML: I don't think most Iraqis agree with that view. I think any time a tyrant falls, it's good news. And the fact that we previously supported the tyrant doesn't change the nature of the event itself. We had a lousy policy for a long time, but then we did something good. I criticize the lousy policy and also celebrate the fall of Saddam. Can I say something about how I view human nature? I think it will help at least part of this conversation. I have a pretty dim view of human nature, as I think any serious historian must. Most human activities aren't very pretty, most of the time we screw up, it's rare when you find an exceptional person and even in such cases they often fall from grace. And I'm not sure Machiavelli was wrong when he said that "man is more inclined to do evil than to do good." So I don't have high expectations, and I consider myself fortunate to have lived and worked at a moment when there were several really exceptional leaders in the world, from Reagan and Thatcher to Pope John Paul II to Havel and Walesa and Mandela and so forth. Those moments are rare, and short-lived. You don't see many outstanding leaders today, in my opinion. So I'm not surprised when our leaders make mistakes, I'm surprised and delighted when they do great things. I think we should support free societies but I'm not surprised when an American president makes a deal with a dictator. And sometimes there isn't any better choice, by the way. I hate Stalin, but I think the wartime alliance against Hitler was the right thing to do, disgusting though it was. However, I think that we should have been more vigorous against Stalin and his successors once the war was over, and in retrospect I think the Soviet Empire could have ended earlier. I agree that our support for the Saudi Royal Family is a mistake, and I've said that, and I have always included them in my list of "terror masters," along with Saddam's Iraq, the mullahs' Iran, and the Assads' Syria. RS: When you say "President Bush and Secretary Rice have explicitly agreed with your point--to say that we have often supported tyrannies"--are these the same two people who have publicly stated over and over that "We do not torture," despite the large mass of evidence and the President's push back against the McCain (R-AZ) anti-torture bill? So much so, that the President signed it into to law only after his hand was forced and even then with a caveat attached excluding his authority from the law? How is this cleaning up our mistakes? ML: It isn't cleaning up ALL mistakes; that won't happen in this life. But we should all be happy to have that huge mistake corrected. It's a rare event. On War Crimes and Accountability RS: If we have learned anything from WWII, the Holocaust, and from the Nuremberg trials, it is that citizens are responsible for what their government does in their name. Given this context, what is your view of torture, the Geneva conventions and the current policy, largely pushed out of the Vice President's office, to disregard international law and enforce extreme techniques of interrogation? (Detainees held; new photos and footage released.) (http://www.rawstory.com/news/2005/Exclusive_More_than_13000_being_held_1115.html) (http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=480&Itemid=1) ML: Well, to begin with, I don't think people "learn" very much from history, although I do agree that, in the contemporary period, citizens of free societies are indeed responsible for their government's actions (these distinctions are important; I don't hold all Soviet citizens responsible for Stalin's crimes, for example, although there is greater culpability for Germans during Nazism). And I was disgusted, appalled and horrified by the criminal actions by Americans at Abu Ghraib as by Brits in the south, as I have been disgusted by the criminal actions by Europeans in Africa. RS: You are right, there is a distinction between those "unable" to stop their government and those who are able, but unwilling. So I agree on that point. Who should be held accountable for the torture we are now seeing evidence of, including the rape of women, children and men, as well as all out murder and unmarked graves? ML: I want them, and their superiors, to be aggressively punished. I abhor torture, and I've written about it. Vladimir Bukovsky is one of my closest friends, and he is right when he says that torture destroys both its victims and its practitioners, and that it is deadly to any civilized enterprise. That said, one must have a sense of context. These evil criminal acts are not the same as the Holocaust, or the genocidal slaughters in Africa. They are aimed against individuals, not against an entire people. They must be condemned and punished, we must do all we can to ensure they do not recur, but the worst American sadist in Iraq does not come close to the evil of the Third Reich, which undertook the systematic extermination of entire peoples. RS: I agree that a systematic processing of such precision in order to exterminate a group of people is entirely unique to the Holocaust. As a Jew, I understand this quite well, but you say that American sadists are not close to the evil of the Third Reich. Yet the Third Reich came to power because and only because the West allowed the financing of the regime. In other words, the "sadists" in the US and Britain funded the "sadists" in Germany. ML: I reject the theory that Hitler came to power "because and only because the West allowed the financing of the regime." Hitler came to power because most Germans wanted it. They loved it when they got it, and they fought and died for it. To reduce a horror of such dimensions to mere cash flow is unworthy of a serious person. RS: I understand your sentiment, but with all due respect, I disagree with the notion that a nation of people wanted this or asked for it. Some may want such a thing, but not a nation of people. You are excluding the systematic fear tactics, propaganda of hate, and other control mechanisms that over a period of time convinced an entire people that they were under constant threat by a whole other group of people. The Holocaust did not occur overnight and in a vacuum. It started as a fire that was blamed on the terrorists, at that time "the Communists." Anyone who spoke out was branded as an enemy and jailed. Those who did not speak out were fed large doses of psychological manipulation. The horror of the Final Solution did not start with the installment of Hitler to power. The Jews did not become the object of Hitler's insanity until later, much later. But how was this propaganda machine possible and to such an extent? How was the war machine possible or the facilities for what would later be used as extermination centers, or any number of things required to achieve such a horrible end? The Germans were still paying reparations from WWI and were largely bankrupt. If it were not for the funding made possible by US and British companies, like DuPont or Ford Motors, would the Nazis have been able to rise to power and achieve what they had achieved? ML: I don't like the behavior of American corporations any more than you, but I think that Joseph Kennedy did more damage than DuPont. And I'm quite happy that so many corporations have been compelled to pay significant funds to the survivors. RS: What about accountability? The Third Reich continued to be funded by US "free trade" interests, thanks to companies even after the United States entered the war. So again, we are back full circle, where the "tool" of its handler is the evil thing, but the handler is not. When we see such funding again, over and over and all over the world, we are seeing a stunning failure of humanity to punish the handler of the tool as well as the tool itself, do we not? Ford Motors and General Motors, whose subsidiaries became engines (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.htm) of the German war machine, were not held to account, and neither was DuPont. If they had been, would they be in a position, such as in Ford's case (later sued for involvement in Argentinian abuse), (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4746236.stm) to go on to commit such crimes again? What about Halliburton? The company does business with (http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2001/01may/may01corp10.html) nations that have long harbored extremism and terrorists, such as Libya , and even currently with Iran, one of the members of the so-called Axis of Evil. Despite this and the appearance of impropriety in the Vice President's being the firm's former chief executive, the company continues to be awarded no-bid contracts and overcharge the US government. Would they be engaged in such behavior if their predecessors were held accountable? ML: If they are guilty, I'm all for holding them accountable, but, alas, I don't think it would deter evil people from doing evil things today or tomorrow. I'm afraid that the struggle against evil is probably endless. RS: We now know from various memos (see newest from the New Yorker) (http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/060227fa_fact) leaked to the public that there is a policy pushed by the Vice President's office and the Vice President himself, including his staff and civilian members of the Pentagon like Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, which lays out that harsh interrogation practices should be used by our military. The policies were legally justified by attorneys John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales [now US Attorney General]. Who should be held accountable for violating the Geneva Conventions and for committing war crimes, the soldiers following orders, or the officials setting that policy, or the attorneys who made it somehow legal? ML: We've been through this several times now. Punish all the guilty parties, whoever they are, and do everything possible to prevent anything of the sort happening again. RS: Including Dick Cheney and George W. Bush? ML: No exceptions. But I haven't seen anything that convinces me they should be prosecuted. RS: What about mass media and corporate bosses who kept the coverage of such things to a minimum? Are they guilty? Are members of Congress guilty, who align with their leader and party but not the law? What about you, and me, and every citizen of this country who is financing these crimes? ML: There are well established legal standards as far as prosecution is concerned. On the big question, which is the moral one, there's the 'court of public opinion,' and you and I will do our best to identify sins of commission and omission, and try to convince our peers that we are right. If you're going to attack media for insufficient coverage of Abu Ghraib, etc. (which I think would be a real exaggeration; there's been enormous coverage), then you should also hammer them for failing to report the 'other side of the story,' namely the many excellent things that are going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bloggers have done much better, from Steve Vincent to Michael Yon and others, especially the Iraqi bloggers. RS: Who can hold them accountable ? Israel cannot hold the US accountable because Israel does depend greatly on financing from the US. Britain cannot hold the US accountable because they are the "ally." So on whom does this task fall it when Geneva Conventions are no longer recognized by the world's only super power? ML: We have to identify and prosecute our own criminals. RS: How, if our political leaders align with their party and the leader of that party? Who will be able to hold anyone accountable now? ML: Just as we always have, by speaking and writing what we believe in, challenging lies when we think we see them, and appealing to mankind's better instincts. But again, one has to have a sense of history and context. For the most part, it takes a considerable passage of time before we get a full sense of what actually happened. Lots of innocents get slimed and ruined in the meantime, while rotten people get medals. Marc Anthony's funeral oration for Caesar, as reported by Shakespeare. ---- Part II will run next week and will focus on the Niger documents, the Plame leak, and Iraq pre-war intelligence. ---- http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/Newsweek/Components/Photos/Mag/060306_Issue/060225_perspcartoon_wide.hlarge.jpg -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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