Setting Up PNAC
To prepare the ground for the PNAC-like ideas that were
circulating in the HardRight, various wealthy individuals and
corporations helped set up far-right think-tanks, and bought
up various media outlets -- newspapers, magazines, TV
networks, radio talk shows, cable channels, etc. -- in support
of that day when all the political tumblers would click into
place and the PNAC cabal and their supporters could assume
control.
This happened with the Supreme Court's selection of George W.
Bush in 2000. The "outsiders" from PNAC were now
powerful "insiders," placed in important positions
from which they could exert maximum pressure on U.S. policy:
Cheney is Vice President, Rumsfeld is Defense Secretary,
Wolfowitz is Deputy Defense Secretary, I. Lewis Libby is
Cheney's Chief of Staff, Elliot Abrams is in charge of Middle
East policy at the National Security Council, Dov Zakheim is
comptroller for the Defense Department, John Bolton is
Undersecretary of State, Richard Perle is chair of the Defense
Policy advisory board at the Pentagon, former CIA director
James Woolsey is on that panel as well, etc. etc. (PNAC's
chairman, Bill Kristol, is the editor of The Weekly Standard.)
In short, PNAC had a lock on military policy-creation in the
Bush Administration.
But, in order to unleash their foreign/military campaigns
without taking all sorts of flak from the traditional wing of
the conservative GOP -- which was more isolationist, more
opposed to expanding the role of the federal government, more
opposed to military adventurism abroad -- they needed a
context that would permit them free rein. The events of 9/11
rode to their rescue. (In one of their major reports, written
in 2000, they noted that "the process of transformation,
even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long
one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a
new Pearl Harbor.")
The Bush Administration used those acts of terrorism -- and
the fear generated in the general populace -- as their cover
for enacting all sorts of draconian measures domestically (the
Patriot Act, drafted earlier, was rushed through Congress in
the days following 9/11; few members even read it) and as
their rationalization for launching military campaigns abroad.
This PNAC group was led by such heavy hitters as Donald
Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, James Woolsey, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard
Perle, Bill Kristol, James Bolton, Zalmay M. Khalilzad,
William Bennett, Dan Quayle, Jeb Bush, most of whom were
movers-and-shakers in previous Administrations, then in
power-exile, as it were, while Clinton was in the White House.
But even given their reputations and clout, the views of this
group were regarded as too extreme to be taken seriously by
the mainstream conservatives that controlled the Republican
Party.
recently while watching the fascists discuss recent events,
I've noticed several of these faces sling their lies on Faux
News. It's on overdrive for the comrades party.
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