Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The Return of the Neocons’ Prodigal Son

Suggestions that the “counter-jihadist” ideology spread by such websites as Frontpagemag.com, run by neocon David Horowitz, and the affiliated “Jihad Watch,” inspired – and provoked – the Norway killer Anders Behring Breivik have been met with cries of outrage by the neoconservative Right. This is hardly surprising: confronted with the sight of someone who put their hateful and inherently violent ideology into practice, what else are they supposed to do? There is, however, a superficially reasonable case to be made against drawing any larger lesson from the Norwegian tragedy. As Gene Healy, a vice president of the Cato Institute, put it:

The neoconservative agenda [.pdf] is about one thing and one thing only: the desirability and necessity of a war to the death against the Muslim Enemy. Their relationship with Breivik is identical to the links between the “theoreticians” of yesterday’s New Left – Herbert Marcuse, Franz Fanon, etc. – and the activist rank-and-file, the college professors and the kids. Spencer is the theory: Breivik is the practice.

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