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The Phantom Victory -
Part II of the POWER OF NIGHTMARES describes the convergence of mythical enemies of Islam and American democracy as embodied by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan was seen as a victory by both groups.
For the neo-conservatives who per Richard Perle considered themselves revolutionaries rather than ideologues, the ‘victory’ in Afghanistan illustrated that American power should be used to implement democracy around the world. William Casey who headed the CIA was key to this implementation during the Regan era.
For the mujahedin, following the spiritual guidance of the Muslim Brotherhood through the martyred Sayyd Qutb, and his brother, Muhamed Qutb, a teacher of Osama bin Laden, the defeat of the Soviet Union would the first step in rejecting corrupt political regimes world wide. Financing the mujahedin was critical and initially done through the US. Abdullah Yusuf Azzam recruited Osama bin Laden to support the mujahedin in Afghanistan for financial reasons.
Both the mujahedin and neo-con’s perceptions of their victories in Afghanistan were distorted. According to CIA Chief of the USSR Department, Melvin Goodman who is shown on the video, the Soviet Union collapsed due to its own internal decay and not as the neocons believed due to the defeat in the Cold War by the US. As for the mujahedin, they could not have defeated the USSR without the Afghanistan fighters or the military and financial support from the US. Goodman notes the neo-cons missed all of this because they believed in their own fantasies.
The Muslim Brotherhood split after the withdrawal and collapse of the USSR…The Azzam faction sought political paths to the revolution - Ayman as Zawahiri sought violent overthrow. Azzam was assassinated in Pakistan in a huge car bomb - any number of groups could have been responsible (CIA, Israel Mossad, Afghanistan factions, even, Osama bin Laden). The violent factions became active in Egypt, and in Algeria, the group became the Islamic Salvation Front. The violence practiced by these groups alienated the populations in both of these countries, and the factions relocated to Afghanistan under Osama bin Laden. They reformulated their strategy to attack Zionism, imperialism through a strategy that would be directed against the US, and thus provided the neo-conservatives with the next phantom enemy.
The neo-conservatives looked toward directing the US toward crusade against non-Soviet tyrants….such as Saddam Hussein. After the First Gulf War, they were incensed that George Bush senior didn’t go on to Baghdad. Per Leo Strauss - absolute moral values was the antedote the relativism of liberalism that was so problematic. Neoconservatives set out to reform America and brought in religion to wage the culture wars. Activism by the religous right was for them, a genuine attempt to restore religious basis in American society. For neo-conservatives religious right - what Plato called a noble lie - a necessary instrument told by the philosophical elite to the masses incapable of understanding it to ensure a social order. By the 1992 election the Republican Party’s acceptance of moral absolutism alienated the moderates within their own party.
When Bill Clinton became elected, the neo-cons transformed him into a mythological evil in a similar way that they had invented the evil empire of the Soviet Union. By the mid-1990’s the moral character of the president of the United States dominated its politics. Allegations orchestrated by a group of neo-conservatives (Brock) corrupted conservative politics. White Water, Jennifer Flowers, Vince Foster - political terrorism. Kenneth Starr, special prosecutor to investigate White Water, had financial and ideological links to the neo-conservatives, could find no illegality in White Water.
Power of Nightmares illuminates ideologically where we are and how we got here. They are certainly to be credited for putting the religious right’s influence into perspective. But the ideology’s influence as the Rosetta Stone to explain- the strength of the neo-cons omits the role of business and economics play in this equation. Why the Middle East and why Afghanistan and Iraq when there were other tyrants equally deserving of US neo-conservative attention - in South America for example. What was the role of Israel and the role of oil? Were the neo-cons without self aggrandizement in their motives? Another void that could be illuminated is what made the public attracted to this ideology? Why was the public vulnerable to this type of ideology at this particular time?
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