Noble lies and perpetual war: Leo Strauss, the neo-cons, and Iraq

[kenny J]

Are the ideas of the conservative political philosopher Leo Strauss a shaping influence on the Bush administration’s world outlook? Danny Postel interviews Shadia Drury – a leading scholarly critic of Strauss – and asks her about the connection between Plato’s dialogues, secrets and lies, and the United States-led war in Iraq.

What was initially an anti-war argument is now a matter of public record. It is widely recognised that the Bush administration was not honest about the reasons it gave for invading Iraq.

Paul Wolfowitz, the influential United States deputy secretary of defense, has acknowledged that the evidence used to justify the war was “murky” and now says that weapons of mass destruction weren’t the crucial issue anyway (see the book by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Weapons of Mass Deception: the uses of propaganda in Bush’s war on Iraq (2003.)

By contrast, Shadia Drury, professor of political theory at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, argues that the use of deception and manipulation in current US policy flow directly from the doctrines of the political philosopher Leo Strauss (1899-1973). His disciples include Paul Wolfowitz and other neo-conservatives who have driven much of the political agenda of the Bush administration.

If Shadia Drury is right, then American policy-makers exercise deception with greater coherence than their British allies in Tony Blair’s 10 Downing Street. In the UK, a public inquiry is currently underway into the death of the biological weapons expert David Kelly. A central theme is also whether the government deceived the public, as a BBC reporter suggested.

The inquiry has documented at least some of the ways the prime minister’s entourage ‘sexed up’ the presentation of intelligence on the Iraqi threat. But few doubt that in terms of their philosophy, if they have one, members of Blair’s staff believe they must be trusted as honest. Any apparent deceptions they may be involved in are for them matters of presentation or ‘spin’: attempts to project an honest gloss when surrounded by a dishonest media.

CONTINUES:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates...-3-77-1542.jsp

[oscarmitre]

Thanks for the link. The article is very interesting. Now I'm not going to pretend I understood everything in it but it is definitely worth reading closely. The site itself is a very good resource as well.

[oscarmitre]

Just another thought. The "perpetual war" idea was interesting. It put me in mind of one of the themes in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four where Winston Smith's nation Oceania was supposedly at war with the other continents. I prefer reading a book to reading it totally online but if anyone is interested it is available here

http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/

I trust this is not hijacking the thread, if it is let me know and I will edit.

[kenny J]

Oscar,

Your input and link are relevant. Thanks

ken