'Neo' - as in new or some how reborn - combined with conserva tism,' says little about neo-conservatism. To conserve is to protect and to preserve.
Preserve what?
And why the need to associate 'neo' (a reconfiguration) with 'conservation' (protection and preservation)? Are neoconservatives suggesting something needs to be conserved, or reborn and preserved, or somehow rejuvenated and protected?
The neoconservative prescription is so outward looking it fails to look inward.
The brilliance of neo-conservatism rests within the cruelty in which it hijacks American principles. By its wish to preserve that which is wrong, neo-conservatism fails to be progressive.
The Iraq war is the manifest brilliance of neo-conservatism. Transforming a war against an enemy with no nation and no face into a traditional war against a tyrant and a state is only the first step. The true brilliance is on the ground in both countries.
In both nations Americans are trapped. One neo-conservtive, Andrew Sullivan, briefly touched upon this "fly-paper" theory.
Iraq is now a colonial buffer in the "War on Terror." The imperialist agenda is not to open up markets, not to spread religion, not to extract resources, but to extract security. With an American presence in the backyard of terrorists, like fly-paper next to rotting food, terrorists will take the bait, and the war against America will be centered in Iraq.
The threat to the homeland is transferred to the colony. The bombs will not kill Americans in the homeland, but will kill colonizers and subjects in the colony. Power between the two warring partners, being the means toward security, is now playing its war games in the Iraq colony. Like true colonialism, the exploitation of the colony is an altruistic affair.
The motherland gains perceived notions of security, and the colony gains perceived notions of Democracy.
The flytrap in the motherland is the cost of this security. It has been written elsewhere: a schizophrenic economy, mortgaged deficits, elitist tax-cuts, etc. In a way, the neoconservatives transferred the pride - the "decency and freedom and progress" - of the motherland's people to the colony's subjects, betting all of America on a project launched in bad faith.
Its formative roots lie in the establishment of the United States. The inherent superiority of American ideology, and the exceptionalism contained therein, forms the spirit of neo-conservatism. All that is American - "decency and freedom and progress" - breeds spirit into neo-conservatism.
Neo-conservatism was revived with the collapse of the great red communist Russia. The end of the Cold War was the icing on the neoconservative cake; the cake itself was the victorious affirmation of all values American over all values anti-American. The inferiority of all other systems stood uncontested.
The future of American ideological supremacy took a pause with the election of President Clinton. The Neo-Cons believe that as a Democrat he had a skewed vision of how America should operate in the post-Cold War world of American dominance.
Only a neoconservative, "with history on the American side," could correctly make use of this power configuration. American interests are promoted together with American values. The good of such values, when applied to other peoples, stand self-evident.
The fact that no power attempted to counteract American power after the Cold War speaks to the universality of American credit.
Worldwide terrorists threaten not just the United States, but the entire world system resting on the United States. Tyranny and terrorism - both an affront to the principles of "decency and freedom and progress" - must be combated by broad and flexible uses of American power.
The Neo-Con way of thinking continues. America, stifled by eight years of immorality and individualism under Clinton, grew soft.
Many argue it is American hegemony - America's strength - that angers, alienates and provokes terrorists. It is not. "Terrorist attacks ... are invited by the perception of weakness."
This requires America to exert her strength. For neoconservatives, the world requires the moral direction of America, and democracy - "decency and freedom and progress" - is the only option available.
The world held by America must protect and preserve her values. It must rejuvenate and give birth to universal American interests and ideals. Neo-conservatism is the only ideology capable of this.
In neo-attempts at protecting America and her values, neoconservatives alter the very system and thing they wish to protect.
Mike Huerta is a sophomore International Studies and Computer Science major from Sanford, NC.
