Who is Michael Ledeen? What does he say? Who does he influence?

[poe]

Ledeen has become the driving philosophical force behind the neoconservative movement and the military actions it has spawned.”

“Ledeen’s ideas are repeated daily by such figures as Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz…He basically believes that violence in the service of the spread of democracy is America’s manifest destiny. Consequently, he has become the philosophical legitimator of the American occupation of Iraq.”

In fact, Ledeen’s influence goes even further. The BBC, the Washington Post and Jim Lobe writing for the Asia Times report that Michael Ledeen is the only full-time international affairs analyst consulted by Karl Rove. Ledeen has regular conversations with Rove. The Washington Post said, "More than once, Ledeen has seen his ideas faxed to Rove, become official policy or rhetoric.

“Ledeen has become the driving philosophical force behind the neoconservative movement and the military actions it has spawned.”

In 1999, Ledeen published his book, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli’s Iron Rules Are as Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago. (Truman Talley Books, St. Martin’s Griffin, N.Y. 1999.)




The American Enterprise Institute...........

"Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence -- our existence, not our politics -- threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission." -Michael Ledeen

"When those states which have been acquired are accustomed to live at liberty under their own laws, there are three ways of holding them. The first is to despoil them; the second is to go and live there in person; the third is to allow them to live under their own laws, taking tribute of them, and creating within the country a government composed of a few who will keep it friendly to you. Because this government, being created by the prince, knows that it cannot exist without his friendship and protection, and will do all it can to keep them. What is more, a city used to liberty can be more easily held by means of its citizens than in any other way, if you wish to preserve it...in truth there is no sure method of holding them except by despoiling them. And whoever becomes the ruler of a free city and does not destroy it, can expect to be destroyed by it, for it can always find a motive for rebellion in the name of liberty and of its ancient usage..."

This is the agenda in Iraq. Machiavelli and Leo Strauss (who was an avid student of Machiavelli) have been the guiding lights of the colonial ambitions of American foreign policy for a long time. Good Cop Bad Cop is how this is done so that the entire establishment is not discredited. They always need a fall guy to do the dirty work.

[earthside]

1. 'Flirting With Fascism'

Here is a very good article about Michael Ledeen from of all places ... The American Conservative magazine!

Flirting With Fascism
Neocon theorist Michael Ledeen draws more from Italian fascism than from the American Right.

[poe]

2. Great article-thanks

had to print that gem out.

[jdj]

3. they don't wanna "spread democracy"...

I don't know exactly what their aim is, but it sure ain't democracy.

Man you are so right about the good cop bad cop. Often Tweety does both in one night. They are always pulling that routine to make it look like there is dissent when actually they are marching in line.

[anarchy1999]

4. All the neo-cons mentor and "god". Run, in the other direction, but

read, didn't Sun say it best, "know your enemy"?

[Tinoire]

5. Strauss... & his "noble lies" to keep the uncomprehending masses in line

The Adbusters got Strauss down pat:

the efficacy and usefulness of "noble lies" in politics to keep the uncomprehending masses in line;
that the strong are fit to rule;
the weak ought, in turn, to be ruled;
that it is important and necessary for political entities to use force and fraud to prosper;
and that "nationalism requires an external threat - and if one cannot be found, it must be manufactured."

//////

Leo Strauss

(snip)

His ideas emerge from his life experience. Strauss fled Nazi Germany for the safety of America in 1937, and blamed not fascism but the Weimar Republic’s liberal democratic ideals for permitting the rise of Nazism. A classicist, he taught the works of Plato, Machiavelli, Nietzsche and Hobbes, instructing his students to look for secret “codes” in the texts. Truth, he believed, was the preserve of an elite few who might have to tell “noble lies” – an idea he lifted from Plato – to the uncomprehending masses. Are political entities, asked the charismatic Strauss, “not compelled to use force and fraud . . . if they are to prosper?”

“‘Weapons of mass destruction’ would be a noble lie,” says Shadia Drury, a scholar who has written two books on Strauss, “because you’re convinced this (war on Iraq) is the right thing to do and you are the wise few, the elite, who are leading the stupid masses, and the stupid masses aren’t going to agree to sacrifice their lives for nothing – for the glory of the nation – unless their own survival is at stake.” So you tell them their own survival is at stake.

Strauss believed that democracy, however flawed, was best defended by an ignorant public pumped up on nationalism and religion. Only a militantly nationalist state could deter human aggression, and since most people were naturally self-absorbed and hedonistic, Strauss believed that the only way to transform them was to make them love their nation enough to die for it. Such nationalism requires an external threat – and if one cannot be found, it must be manufactured.

While not bound by religion himself, Strauss rather cynically promoted religion as a tool to maintain an acquiescent population. Authority and discipline are key values for Straussians, and the masses need religion to keep them in line. “Marx called religion the opium of the people,” says Drury. “Strauss thought the people needed their opium.”

(snip)

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to Ari Shavit: “This is a war of an elite.” Laughing: “I could give you the names of 25 people – all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office – who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.”

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/49/articles/leo_strauss/noflash.html#bennett
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/49/articles/leo_strauss/flash.html
==

(snip)

It meant tyranny is the literal sense, which is to say, rule in the absence of law, or rule by those who were above the law. Of course, Strauss believed that the wise would not abuse their power. On the contrary, they would give the people just what was commensurate with their needs and capacities. But what exactly is that? Certainly, giving them freedom, happiness, and prosperity is not the point. In Strauss's estimation, that would turn them into animals. The goal of the wise is to ennoble the vulgar. But what could possibly ennoble the vulgar? Only weeping, worshipping, and sacrificing could ennoble the masses. Religion and war - perpetual war - would lift the masses from the animality of bourgeois consumption and the pre-occupation with "creature comforts." Instead of personal happiness, they would live their lives in perpetual sacrifice to God and the nation.


Shadia Drury is among the world's foremost scholars on the history, philosophy and politics of neoconservatism. She is the author of the acclaimed books Leo Strauss and the American Right (1998) and The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss (1988). Her forthcoming book is Terror and Civilization. Professor Drury holds the Canada Research Chair in Social Justice at the University of Regina, in Saskatchewan, Canada. For more information on her books and her work in general, see her website

http://evatt.org.au/publications/papers/112.html


Neo-Con watchers might appreciate this thread. In it there are links to an excellent 3 or 4 part documentary the BBC ran calledThe Power of Nightmares / BBC exposes the American NeoCons. There are links to different formats to watch it. America of course has refused to allow it to be aired.

[Swamp Rat]

13. Strauss clones were bred in the Univ. of Chicago School of Business

I am related to an attorney that went to law school there after WWII who knew some of those PNAC lizards like Wolfie. He told me all about them early 2001...

Great links to the "BBC NEWS: The Power of Nightmares: Baby It's Cold Outside" and other on your DU thread!

I'm surprised that you AND Eloriel were surprised! :D

[Tinoire]

14. It was a shock to see it all in a BBC documentary

after years of combatting the nay-saying apologists who kept marginalizing it as conspiracy theories. It was also a shock because it was so brutally frank. Did you watch it?

Anyway, I'm happy now. Google PNAC, JINSA, PPI and they're showing up on European sites with some really in-depth reporting. The French Left is being especially brutal.

What did your attorney relative tell you?

If I don't answer you tonight, it will be because I fell asleep before you answered, mercifully spared one of those ghoulish visions you like to send me off to bed with ;)

[Swamp Rat]

15. I just finished watching it.

As bad as things are right now, I feel much better after watching "The Power of Nightmares." I really like how they framed the NeoCons in a seemingly benign way. This gives me hope. We may even see some impeachments WHEN in two years we take back Congress. :)

The atty gave me the "red pill" ... down the rabbit hole I fell... ahhhhhhh!... like Joseph of Arimathea in Monty Python. :D

I'll spare you from the lizard pics for now. ;)

boa noite

[ClayZ]

16. "Power of Nightmares"

Made me feel better too! I have hopes for charges of HIGH CRIMES against Humanity. I hope for some converts and that it does not take two years. Maybe Cool Aid wears off?

[Tinoire]

6. Ledeen is... very ... frightening

((Benador Associates is very interesting/scary for our times... They're the ones who pot threw that very intimate little party where Daniel Pipes and Lieberman were schmalzing with Reza Pahlavi who they want to reinstall as the pliable puppet head of Iran. Have you been following them? ))



"The awesome power of a free society committed to a single mission is something (our enemies) cannot imagine. ... Our unexpectedly quick and impressive victory in Afghanistan is a prelude to a much broader war, which will in all likelihood transform the Middle East for at least a generation, and reshape the politics of many older countries around the world"

Michael A. Ledeen - From his book The War against the Terror Masters

Michael A. Ledeen

* American Enterprise Institute: Resident Scholar (1)
* Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs: Member, Board of Advisors (4)
* Coalition for Democracy in Iran: Co-founder (10)
* American Spectator: Foreign Editor (4)
* The New Republic: Rome Correspondent (1975-1977) (1)
* Washington Quarterly: Founding Editor (3)
* National Review Online: Contributing Editor (3)
* U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon: Golden Circle Supporter (7)
* Benador Associates: Speakers bureau
* Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS): Senior Fellow (1982-86)/Senior Staff Member (1977-1981) (1)
* University of Rome, Italy: Visiting Professor of History (1975-1977) (1)
* Washington University: Instructor and Assistant Professor of History (1967-1974) (1)

--

Michael Ledeen, the neocons' point man on regime change in Iran (and in Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia), is apparently capable of viewing diplomacy only through the barrel of a gun, arguing in a November 2003 piece for the National Review Online that the "appeasers" in Congress and the State Department "don't want to know about Iran, because if they did, they would be driven to take actions that they do not want to take. They would have to support democratic revolution in Iran, and they prefer to schmooze with the mullahs." He concludes, "I guess some top official will have to die at the hands of (obviously) Iranian-supported terrorists before the Pentagon is permitted to work on the subject." (8)

(snip)

Ledeen has a colorful track record, which has produced substantial grist for the conspiracy mill: He was allegedly tied to the Italian P2 Masonic Lodge, a violent right wing group that was involved in a number of terrorists attacks in Italy in the 1970s the 1980s; in the late 1970s, while P2 was doing its dirty work, Ledeen was working as a consultant to Italian intelligence on terrorism issues; as a consultant to the National Security Council in the 1980s, Ledeen acted as a go-between for Oliver North in the early stages of the Iran-Contra affair, working with the Israeli spy David Kimche to gain the release of U.S. hostages in Beirut through an Iranian arms dealer, Manucher Ghorbanifar; he helped promote the "Bulgarian Connection" theory that the KGB was behind the assassination attempt on the pope in 1981; and, more recently, the Sydney Morning Herald reported (August 8, 2003) that Ledeen worked with Pentagon staffers to redevelop the channel to arms dealer Ghorbanifar in support of resistance efforts in Iran. Reported the Herald: "(Harold) Rhode recently acted as a liaison between (Douglas) Feith's office, which drafted much of the Administration's post-Iraq planning, and Ahmed Chalabi, a former Iraqi exile groomed for leadership by the Pentagon. Mr. Rhode is a protege of Michael Ledeen, who was a National Security Council consultant in the mid 1980s when he introduced Mr. Ghorbanifar to Oliver North, a NSC aide, and others in the opening stages of the Iran-Contra affair. It is understood Mr. Ledeen reopened the Ghorbanifar channel with Mr. Feith's staff." (9, 10)

According to his bio page on the web site of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs: "Michael A. Ledeen is one of the world's leading authorities on contemporary history and international affairs. In a few years in government, he carried out some of the most sensitive and dangerous missions in recent American history. He has been profiled in the New York Times, and was the subject of a front-page article and a lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal. A profile of him concluded that 'a portrait emerges of a man with an intense knowledge of 20th-century history, a deep commitment to democracy, and a willingness to be adventurous. This is a man who has helped shape American foreign policy at its highest levels.'" (4)

Not one to mince words, Ledeen urged the then-newly installed Bush administration (National Review Online, March 8, 2001) to purge the "environmental whackos, radical feminazos," and "foreign-policy types on the National Security Council Staff and throughout State, CIA, and Defense, who are still trying to create Bill Clinton's legacy in the Middle East."

(snip)
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/ledeen/ledeen.php

---


Sources:
Sources
(1) American Enterprise Institute: Michael Ledeen
http://www.aei.org/scholars/scholarID.35/scholar.asp

(2) Michael Ledeen Fact Sheet
http://www.aei.org/docLib/20021205_ledeen.pdf

(3) Benador Associates International Speakers Bureau: Michael Ledeen
http://www.benadorassociates.com/ledeen.php

(4) JINSA: Michael Ledeen
http://www.jinsa.org/about/adboard/adboard.html?documentid=742

(5) Beeman, William O., "Who is Michael Ledeen?" Pacific News Service, May 8, 2003
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15860

(6) Michael Ledeen, "US Time to Focus on Iran : The Mother of Modern Terrorism," JINSA
http://www.jinsa.org/articles/articles.html/function/view/categoryid/1930/documentid/2012/history/3,648,1930,2012

(7) U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon: Golden Circle Supporters
http://www.freelebanon.org/gc.htm

(8) Michael Ledeen, "Unpunished Failure," National Review Online, November 3, 2003
http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200311030801.asp

(9) Anthony Gancarski, "Michael Ledeen on the Run," Antiwar.com, August 22, 2003
http://www.antiwar.com/gancarski/gan082203.html

(10) Jim Lobe, "Veteran Neocon Adviser Moves on Iran," Asia Times, June 26, 2003
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EF26Ak03.html

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/ledeen/ledeen.php

[poe]

7. You mean Reza Pahlavi Jr.?

Amazing isn't it. It's like the flintstones the same scene in the background repeating itself as the world passes along. Of course now the monarchy will be a liberal democracy if you like the taste of malarky. Where's Kermit Roosevelt when you need him. Halliburton has pulled out of Iran as of a couple of days ago.
Another gem to print, thanks for your usual due diligence.

[Tinoire]

10. Yes. Jr. If I can find the photos, I'll post them. Meanwhile

Here's an old discussion and an older article about that:

http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2002/msg01317.html &
www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?noframes;read=55156

I had posted the photos at DU 2, 3 years ago but the original site (Guzzardi) yanked them off. They had caught the eye of a few too many people.

[RandomKoolzip]

8. David Brock has some choice things to say about Ledeen in

"The Republican Noise MAchine...." if you haven't read it, you must.

[Tinoire]

11. What does he say?

I know quite a few Republicans are on to this scam. Is Brock one of them?

[Stirk]

9. I assume he's another chickenshit chickenhawk, yes?

[Tinoire]

12. Welcome to DU Stirk

You assumed... correctly :)