by Jack Dresser, Ph.D.
Capt., Medical Service Corps, USAR (1962-65)

The psychological base.
There is a large body of research evidence on the bases of conservative vs. liberal  thinking.  1   A strong paranoid thread permeates the conservative worldview that demonizes opponents and often exaggerates the threat they pose.  In their efforts to control and/or eliminate the perceived threateners, conservatives often provoke the hatred and aggression they anticipate, thus generating a self-fulfilling prophecy.  One man’s “freedom fighter” is another man’s “terrorist.”

A rather extreme wing of the conservative spectrum dominated the Reagan administration, and most of the key Reagan players have re-emerged under the Junior Bush, who provides a new face on an old base.   2   The world has changed, but their worldview has not.  Substitute “terrorist” for “communist,” and the language, ideology, imagery and attitudes are identical.  There is scant difference between “Evil Empire” and “Axis of Evil.”  Most are strongly pro-Israel Likudists and their thinking is rigidly black and white.

Some key history in a nutshell.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, most of us heaved a sigh of relief.  At last the Cold War was over.  But the cold warriors weren’t satisfied.  Individual psychology doesn’t change with history.  Reagan administration “neo-conservatives,” some with roots in the Nixon-Kissinger administration, immediately began to conceptualize a new mission.  With our military supremacy now beyond challenge, world dominion would be possible in the approaching 21st century.

The Middle East
With Europe and Asia far more dependent than the U.S. on middle eastern oil (about 70% vs. 20%), control of these resources was viewed as a key to the larger strategic objectives.  A deep and long-standing symbiosis with the Saudis already existed, but Saddam and his ambition for power and position in the Arab world posed a potential obstacle.  And Iraq is centrally positioned real estate.

Following the 1979 overthrow in Iran of the U.S.-installed Shah by anti-American, Islamic fundamentalist Ayatollah Khomeini, we supported Saddam’s invasion of Iran, providing him arms and a half-billion dollar annual subsidy.  Simultaneously, the Reagan administration was secretly and illegally selling arms to Iran and directing the funds, also secretly and illegally, to the Contras in Nicaragua (see below).  After Saddam’s poison gas annihilation of Kurdish villages in 1988, fully known to the Reagan administration which made no strenuous or substantive objection (e.g., withdrawing aid), this subsidy was doubled.  Anticipating continued U.S. support, Saddam put out feelers to the American ambassador, April Glaspie, to test the U.S. position on his plan to annex Kuwait.  Her response was ambiguous (deliberately, perhaps, to set him up?), and Saddam misread it as permission to proceed.  The Gulf War resulted.  But at its conclusion, administration hawks were dissatisfied that Saddam remained in power.

In 1992, Paul Wolfowitz drafted the first plan to dislodge Saddam as part of an imperial vision that included doctrines of global hegemony and pre-emptive aggression.  Politically softened by Dick Cheney to allay alarm, this agenda was pressed throughout the 1990s by a large group of ex-Reagan administration officials, complaining that UN sanctions were “not working” in Iraq notwithstanding a lack of supporting evidence.  In 1997 they established a think tank and web site, calling themselves The Project for the New American Century.  In 1998, they sent letters to President Clinton, Senate Majority Leader Lott, and Speaker Gingrich advocating the “explicit goal of removing Saddam Hussein's regime from power”  (see www.newamericancentury.org).  The plan has been on the shelf for many years simply awaiting an opportunistic excuse for implementation.  9/11 provided it: the “New Pearl Harbor” the neo-cons had recognized they would need to justify misleading and stampeding the American public into invading Iraq.

 
Latin America
The Monroe Doctrine was energetically exercised in our post-World War II anti-Communist crusade. U.S.-supported military dictators with intermittent quasi-democratic leaders, all faithfully anti-communist, dominated Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador for decades, evoking continuous guerilla resistance and committing continuous atrocities.  Tens of thousands were killed or “disappeared” under these U.S.-supported governments.  In Chile, the elected socialist President, Salvador Allende, was murdered in a (September 11) 1973 CIA-supported coup that subsequently installed the brutal dictator, Augusto Pinochet, a Nixon-Kissinger triumph that led to massive executions, torture, and “disappearances” of political opponents.  During the 1980s, the Reagan CIA secretly but vigorously supported the Salvadoran military government conducting death squads and political assassinations, and similar atrocities by the Nicaraguan “Contras” in their efforts to unseat the socialist Sandinista government.  This support was provided surreptitiously, in defiance of prohibitions imposed by Congress which was appalled by the Contras’ human rights abuses, resulting eventually in the Iran/Contra scandal and the prosecution of its principal orchestrator, Lt. Col. Oliver North.  The Contras operated largely from Honduras, which allowed attacks to be launched from their bases and allowed the U.S. to conduct military and terrorist training exercises and to construct airstrips to aid the Contras.

What is the current significance of this?  The Reagan administration personnel who crafted these policies have re-emerged in high positions throughout the Bush II administration, and our recent Ambassador to Iraq and current Intelligence Czar nominee, John Negroponte, is none other than the former Ambassador to Honduras under Reagan during the Contra and Salvadoran death squad support era.  Why else would these crucial appointments be awarded a diplomat whose main previous appointment was merely to a small Central American country?  And more: Paul Wolfowitz, author of the original 1992 Iraq invasion scheme, has been appointed Director of the World Bank (see America the Godfather on www.squadron13.com) and arch-unilateralist John Bolton has been nominated as Ambassador to the U.N.  The seamless transplanting of Reagan officials to the Bush II administration is documented below. Their worldviews, psychological characteristics, and Machiavellian international ethics appear unchanged.

Reagan/Bush I officials transplanted into Bush II administration:
 

Official	Reagan or Bush I	Bush II
*Dick Cheney	Secretary of Defense	Vice President
*Donald Rumsfeld	Presidential Advisor and Envoy	Secretary of Defense
*Paul Wolfowitz	Assistant Secretary of State	Deputy Secretary of Defense
*Lewis Libby	Assistant to Wolfowitz	Cheney’s Chief of Staff
Frank Carlucci	Deputy Sec’y & Sec’y of Defense	Middle East Policy Council
*Richard Perle	Sec’y of Defense for Int’l Security	Chair, Defense Policy Board (resigned)
*Richard Armitage	Deputy Asst. Secretary of Defense	Deputy Secretary of State
Colin Powell	Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff	Secretary of State
*Peter Rodman	Policy Planning Staff	Asst. Secretary of Defense
*John Bolton	U.S. Agency for Int’l Development	Secretary of State for Arms Control
*Douglas Feith	Asst. Secretary of Defense	Undersecretary for Policy, DoD
*Elliot Abrams**	Assistant Secretary of State	Senior Director, Nat’l Security Council
John Negroponte	U.S. Ambassador to Honduras	U.S. Ambassador to Iraq

 * Neo-conservative associated with The Project for the New American Century
 ** Indicted for perjury, pled guilty to withholding information from Congress in Iran-Contra investigation

1   See Moral Politics by cognitive scientist George Lakoff, and a 2003 research review, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, Psychological Bulletin, 129(3), pp. 339-375, a meta-analysis of 88 studies in 12 countries.

2  For a discussion of the American cultural scripting explaining our vulnerability to pathological leaders, hear interview with Dr. Dresser on www.Breakfornews.com, and read The Dangerous Psychopathology of George W. Bush here on www.squadron13.com.
 

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Copyright 2004 Jack Dresser, Ph.D.