The Neo’s Terrible Dynamism
Sep 12th, 2007 by Donagh
What is it about September the 11th that has the unhinged unfurling their mangled thoughts with a panache normally associated with the wildly drunken? Martin Amis, to celebrate the day, has taken his mutton fists to the keyboard again and slammed out this:
“September 11 entrained a moral crash, planet-wide; it also loosened the ground between reality and reverie. So when we speak of it, let’s call it by its proper name; let’s not suggest that our experience of that event, that development, has been frictionlessly absorbed and filed away. It has not. September 11 continues, it goes on, with all its mystery, its instability, and its terrible dynamism.”
One of the reason it continues to have an impact is because of the way people like Amis fixate on it as being a sort of massive schism. I don’t want to suggest that 9/11 is without historical significance, but if ever there was an event that has been misused as a weapon of mass distortion it is this one.
Amis, along with Christopher Hitchens, Nick Cohen, Paul Berman and Oliver Kamm, are part of what Ian Buruma calls the neoleft. In their view, Buruma says, they are just where the true left should be, with the United States, on the right side of history. These writers are linked by their fondness for the term Islamofacism to describe the form of Militant Islam to which followers of Sayyid Qutb subscribe, and in doing so try to create a parallel between the rise of fascism in Pre-WW2 Germany and the series of related terrorist’s attacks against Western targets since 2001.
Yesterday was also chosen as the day to publish World War IV, The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism by Norman Podhoretz, which is reviewed by Buruma in the latest edition of the New York Review of Books. Podhoretz, of course, is a neocon through and through. Even makes Richard Perle look like a little girl. You wouldn’t have Podhoretz coming out with the line that Perle did in a Vanity Fair article in order to distance himself from the Bush strategy in Iraq.
“I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, “Should we go into Iraq?,” I think now I probably would have said, “No, let’s consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.””
In the Wall Street Journal article pointed out by P.O’Neill yesterday Podhoretz illustrated why he hates liberals and those who opposed the Iraq war. He blames the mess in Iraq not on Bush, but on the hard left. Again, from Buruma’s review:
“If anyone is to blame, in Podhoretz’s view, for setbacks in our war against Islamofascism, it isn’t Bush, but Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, Norman Mailer, and those campus guerrillas of the “hard Left.” Why? Because, “exactly like their forebears in the late 1930s” who had “fought against the country’s entry into World War II,””
He even considers most mainstream media in the US to be pro-Islamists and anti-war, with the praiseworthy exception of Fox News, of course.
I could go on but I don’t have time. World III, by the way, in case you missed it was The Cold War. So we’re currently in the fourth one, The War Against Islamofascism. The reason why I write about this crazy guy is because US Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani has announced that he’s added him to his foreign policy team. In the review section for the book on Amazon John R. Bolton is quoted as saying: “World War IV will make a lot of people unhappy. Thank goodness.” though I’m not sure he’s talking about the book.
Oh, and seeing as Podhoretz is now on Giuliani’s foreign-policy team its worth mentioning that he thinks it’s a good idea to bomb Iran.
Klein cartoon taken from the WSJ article written by Podhoretz
September 11 has been used as an excuse for many things, not least the restrictions imposed on normal travellers Americans or not, the level of paranoia surrounding airports is astounding. The level of military spending has never been higher, at the same time US infrastructure crumbles, the terrorists could never have imagined how successful their attack has been it is slowly crippling the psyche of the American people, and it looks like Bush will leave the party going until the next probably democrat president takes over…..then we will see some unclouded impartial journalism from Fox…..
It’s a remarkable coincidence that Norman Podhoretz and Osama Bin Laden both referred to Noam Chomsky in their respective dispatches to mark the 6th anniversary of September 11th 2001. The conspiracy theorists on my lunatic fringe are having a field day.
Also on Giuliani’s team of advisers is the egregious wytchfynder-general Daniel Pipes. Giuliani’s present stance on Israel/Palestine is the sort of thing that would make Binyamin Netanyahu go ’steady on, sir, I think you might be going too far’.
It will be interesting to see how Giuliani gets on. His Churchillian performance in the aftermath of 9/11/01 would be the perfect reference point for justifying in the media precisely why, in the event of another terrorist attack on the US, he is the individual best placed to assume temporary emergency dictatorial powers.
the terrorists could never have imagined how successful their attack has been it is slowly crippling the psyche of the American people
Paul Krugman had a good conceit around the time that the remake of the Mancunian Candidate came out, following the line of ‘what if George W. Bush is actually an agent of Al Qaeda?’ because he seems to be their finest propagandist. In that Buruma article Cheney is quoted as saying about George, ‘Yep, he’s a revolutionary President’. Yea, but which revolution.
Very nice nautical blog you have there Tim. Lots of facinating sea stories. It felt like I was reading Joseph Conrad or something.
Hugh, the day seems to be bring out all sort of conspiritorial associations and mad concordences in lots of people. Amis even, or I should especially, because when it comes to the topic of the politics of the Middle East he seems to get the scurvy. I’m sure you remember but in his review of Lawrence Wright’s Looming Tower he made the association of 9/11 with the date of the Seige of Vienna, which he thought was Sept 11 but which it turns out was September the 12th. I’ve since found out on unspeak that Christopher Hitchens was first to make this parallel, but he retracted it when his error was pointed out to him.
Giuliani’s present stance on Israel/Palestine is the sort of thing that would make Binyamin Netanyahu go ’steady on, sir, I think you might be going too far’. Haha!
he is the individual best placed to assume temporary emergency dictatorial powers.Jesus! You’re right. Where’s a deranged hero-fixated college drop out when you need one. Wait, no, that would make the idiot Giuliani an icon for several generations. Better to leave him wither on the vine of the US Presidential elections. They could never elect such a simple minded reactionary, could they?
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