In the NY Times today Roger Cohen follows the popular conservative myth that the dismissal of "neocons" is code for anti-semitism. It's a canard that's a few years old, and is full of it. Yet for some reason it persists, and the NY Times is willing to print drivel like this:
What’s a neocon? A liberal "mugged by reality," Irving Kristol said. The reality in question, back then, was communism-as-evil, the centrality of military force, the indispensability of the American idea and much else. But that’s ancient history. The neocons are the guys who gave us the Iraq war.
They’re the guys who, in the words of leftist commentator and blogger Matthew Yglesias, "believe that America should coercively dominate the world through military force" and "believe in a dogmatic form of American exceptionalism" and "favor the creation of a U.S.-dominated ‘universal empire.’"
But the term, in these Walt-Mearsheimered days, often denotes more than that. Neocon, for many, has become shorthand for neocon-Zionist conspiracy, whatever that may be, although probably involving some combination of plans to exploit Iraqi oil, bomb Iran and apply U.S. power to Israel’s benefit.
Talk about your false logic. Our problem with neocons is not who they want to defend with their aggressive, unilateral militaristic execptionalism, but the fact that they think aggressive, unilateral militaristic execptionalism is a reasonable defense!
I'm pretty comfortable in saying that the vast majority on the left, with the exception of some real nutcases, are supporters of the United States. We like the country, we enjoy being here, and we want to defend it against threats both internal and external. Most neocons are the same.
Where we disagree with them is what character the defense of our country should be, and in many cases what the threats against us are. It's not hard to identify Osama bin Laden and terrorists as threats against us, be we on the left consider a government that can spy on us without a warrant and put us in jail without judicial review a threat to our country. Neocons don't.
I'm also pretty comfortable in saying that the majority on the left, with the exception of some real nutcases, are supporters of Israel's right to exist and defend itself. Again, most neocons are the same.
Where we disagree with them is in thinking that Israel is always in the right, that the Palestinians are always in the wrong, and that unilateral nuclear attack on Iran is a good way to defend Israel.
Our issues with neocons has nothing to do with religion or patriotism or nationalism. The issue with the neocons is that their concept of the proper actions of our country are antithetical to ours, and we oppose them on the basis of their basic unAmerican nature and the fact that they just don't effing work. Frankly, as we can see from the early 20th Century and our recent middle eastern adventures, the neocon shoot first/we're always right ethos just makes us weaker and less safe.
It is the neocons and their water carriers like Cohen who insert Israel and Judaism into the mix, not their opponents. No matter which country is used as the excuse to bomb Iran without provocation, we oppose it. You could propose it for England, Israel, or New Jersey and the reaction would be the same: stupid idea, guys!
We dismiss the neocons and use their self-selected name as an epithet because the neocons have taken power, implemented their program and proven themselves to be not only lousy at developing programs but also lousy at implementing them. "Neocon" is a negative term because they people who called themselves neocons had a negative impact on our country.