Didn’t a wise man once say, “Do not meddle in the quarrels of Canadians, for these are obscure and difficult to grasp”?

Legally, today, it means making war against the United States. In less technical parlance:

1. Treason, sedition mean disloyalty or treachery to one’s country or its government. Treason is any attempt to overthrow the government or impair the well-being of a state to which one owes allegiance; the crime of giving aid or comfort to the enemies of one’s government. Sedition is any act, writing, speech, etc., directed unlawfully against state authority, the government, or constitution, or calculated to bring it into contempt or to incite others to hostility, ill will or disaffection; it does not amount to treason and therefore is not a capital offense.

dictionary.com

Supporting mistaken, even horribly mistaken, policies may be reprehensible, but it’s not treason unless done to overthrow the government or aid a hostile foreign power.

If leaking for political purposes is treason, half the souls within the Beltway are Benedict Arnolds. If favoring relatively unrestricted immigration is “treason,” then a good deal of the other half are traitors as well.

A less overheated term would not only be more persuasive, but more accurate. Failing such restraint, one risks repeating the old saw, “They’re all daft around here except me and thee, and I’m not so sure about thee,” replacing “daft” with “traitors.”

For the record, Larry Franklin appears to have been guilty, AIPAC is often misguided and is too powerful, and our immigration policy insufficiently restrictive.

Anyway, other than “Pithlord”, I find the level of commentary to be exceedingly high on this blog and of course, I will conclude once again by extending fulsome praise for Daniel’s writing. Keep it coming, Larison!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Franklin

Larry Franklin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Lawrence Anthony Franklin is a U.S. Air Force Reserve colonel who has pleaded guilty to passing information about U.S. policy towards Iran to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying organization in the U.S, while he was working for the Defense Department in an attempt to get the information passed on to the United States National Security Council, which he could not do through regular Pentagon channels. Two former employees of that organization are also facing charges that they assisted him in the AIPAC espionage scandal and passing classified information to an Israeli diplomat Naor Gilon. On January 20, 2006, Judge T.S. Ellis, III sentenced Franklin to 151 months (almost 13 years) in prison and fined him $10,000. [1] The case was heard in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Ultimately, Franklin was charged with unauthorized disclosure of classified information, not with espionage.

Franklin at the Office of Special Plans
In 2002 and 2003, Franklin worked at the Office of Special Plans which was set up by Donald Rumsfeld. The office was led by prominent conservative Douglas Feith, who sent Larry Franklin overseas repeatedly for sensitive projects involving foreign citizen contacts. [2] Under Feith’s authorization,[3] Larry Franklin met with Iran-Contra figures [4] who were shopping [5] Iraq WMD intelligence to an eager audience. [6] Post invasion, the OSP’s evidence of large stocks of WMD in Iraq proved inaccurate. The Iraq Survey Group found Iraq had the capacity to produce WMD, but was not producing nor planning to produce at the time of the invasion

And I think it’s worth pointing out that things such as Pat’s talk about how some “harbor a ‘passionate attachment’ to a nation not our own that causes them to subordinate the interests of their own country and to act on the assumption that, somehow, what’s good for Israel is good for America” isn’t quite an example of how not to question someone’s patriotsm.

(OK, admittedly, it’s hard to picture Daniel Larison as an English parson - just as it’s hard to picture Jonah Goldberg as a French doctor…but I just *love* to see myself as the host the Garter Inn).

Anyway:

“Peace, I say!”

Start with the title. To call someone unpatriotic is plainly to question his loyalty to his country. That’s why you use the label–to discredit, defame and insult and to throw the person’s commitment to America into doubt. It hints a treason charge, even if he does not come out and say it with that exact word. Then there is the subtitle: a “war against America.” That means that the “unpatriotic” people being attacked are waging some form of war against America, which reinforces the impression of treason. Taken with the language of “common cause” with leftists and Islamic extremists, it is a claim that such “unpatriotic conservatives” are waging some kind of “war” against their own country in collusion or agreement with Islamic extremists. That sounds an awful lot like a charge of collaborating with the enemy. The so-called “common cause” with the far left is largely nonsense, since this “common cause” extends to those very few things we happen to agree about (e.g., the war) and to essentially nothing else. Pat Buchanan has repeatedly refused to march or speak at many antiwar rallies because they are associated with the ANSWER crowd and the like. When Frum says that we make “common cause” with the far left, he lies and he knows that he lies.

Frum later describes paleos with language that make them into the moral equivalent of Nazi collaborators and traitors:

“Since 9/11, by contrast, the paleoconservatives have collapsed into a mood of despairing surrender unparalleled since the Vichy republic went out of business.”

In other words, as Frum sets it up, if the jihadis were marching into town we would be the ones making a deal, Vichy-style, with them, because our radically different view of legitimate U.S. interests and foreign policy supposedly makes us want to “surrender.” This has no merit, but for some reason he can write this trash and continue to be taken seriously. For me, this suffices to persuade that he was calling us traitors and knew that he was doing exactly that when he wrote these words. If someone can provide a plausibly positive spin on being compared to Vichy by a mainstream conservative, I’m all ears.

The quotes he uses are quite often cherry-picked, ripped from context and do not reflect the general tenor of paleo views about the fight against jihadis (which, I daresay, are quite strong and they take far better account of the Islamic nature of the foe than do the theorists of a non-existent Islamofascism). One could very easily assemble an odd assortment of NR quotes about “nuking Mecca” and the like that would make them seem to be completely mad, but that would not necessarily be at all representative of their views, nor would it give any attention to the context in which these things were said.

Of course, what Novak wrote about Hizbullah was and remains true–they are not principally an anti-American force, except on the one terrible occasion when an administration was foolish enough to put troops in Lebanon. You can insist that the U.S. should make Hizbullah one of its targets because of concern for Israeli security, but you cannot call people who basically correctly describe the anti-Israeli mission of Hizbullah “terror deniers.” In 2003 to call someone a “terror denier” was an especially loaded statement designed to create the impression of some kind of sympathy between radical Muslims and paleos. No such sympathy exists. Obviously, if anything, paleos are much more trenchantly anti-Islamic in general than some people at NR would dream of being. We might say that Frum doesn’t understand paleos very well, or we might say that he knew the truth and didn’t care–he was going to say what he was going to say regardless. Which do you think is more likely?

Another good example of ripping a line out of context is the line about France from Dr. Fleming at the very beginning. That line, in addition to having some real merit to it, came in the context of the arguments over the alleged perfidy of France and all its works. Frum probably found the line offensive because he might buy into the nationalist attitude that to love your country you are obliged to pretend that it is the best in every way–to love your country for what it is, not as the Greatest Nation In All Things Ever, might very well seem “unpatriotic” to someone with a deficient understanding of the difference between patriotism and nationalism. Perhaps they should read more Lukacs! A few years on, the Francophobic, “freedom fries” crowd seems to look rather more absurd than those who preferred to acknowledge France’s important, some might even say central, place in the history of Western culture and civilisation rather than trash an ally over what some knew to be a fool’s errand from the beginning.

Somewhat separately, there is, of course, also the disrespect shown to Mel Bradford and the revisionist history about the controversy over his appointment, which Dr. Landess has done a fine job of answering and rebutting in different settings over the years. The Frum piece is actually much more offensive than simply being a standard denunciation of traitors. No, it is a parade of distortions, misrepresentations and lies, of which the imputations of disloyalty and working with the enemy are just the most glaring and obnoxious.

Frum concludes the piece, of course, with the distilled essence of the whole thing:

“They began by hating the neoconservatives. They came to hate their party and this president. They have finished by hating their country.

War is a great clarifier. It forces people to take sides. The paleoconservatives have chosen — and the rest of us must choose too. In a time of danger, they have turned their backs on their country.”

The charge of hatred for America and that of “turning their backs” on America are both clearly charges of a kind of moral treason, if not the kind for which one can be prosecuted. They are both absolutely false. Does anyone think that Frum even came close to proving this claim about hatred of America? It seems clear to me that he never came close because it was smearing and discrediting that he was seeking to do–he was not trying to prove a case, but simply wanted to defenestrate (figuratively) dissidents who had become once again too vocal and troublesome.

Here is Frum on Kirk in the late 1990s:
[Kirk] taught that conservatism was above all a moral cause: one devoted to the preservation of the priceless heritage of Western civilization.
Russell Kirk did not mind making enemies: he separated himself from his old friends at National Review after 1980, and in a 1988 critique of neoconservatism he let loose the observation that “not seldom has it seemed as if some eminent Neoconservatives mistook Tel Aviv for the capital of the United States.” By the end of his life, he had circled back to his Taftite origins, and joined the opposition to the war in the Persian Gulf.” (David Frum on Russell Kirk in the New Criterion)

Kirk rejected the Neos’ policy of American “global hegemony.” Quoting Kirk from a 1991 Heritage Foundation Lecture:

“I venture to suggest that it would be highly imprudent for the government of the United States to set about undermining regimes that do not seem perfectly democratic. A politicized American army operating abroad would be no more popular soon than the Red Army has been.”

Kirk stated that “it would be ruinous for the Republicans to convert themselves into a party of high deeds in distant lands and higher taxes on the home front. Such a New World Order, like the Pax Romana, might create a wilderness and call it peace [but] in the fullness of time, the angry peoples of the world would pull down the American Empire, despite its military ingenuity and its protestations of kindness and gentleness — even as the Soviet Empire is being pulled down today, thanks be to God. Soviet hegemony ought not to be succeeded by American hegemony. Our prospects in the world of the twenty-first century are bright-supposing we Americans do not swagger about the globe, proclaiming our omniscience and our omnipotence.”

March 21, 2003

THE LIES OF DAVID FRUM

We have been asked by many of our friends to respond to Frum’s fact-free account of conservative history in his recent attack on Chronicles, VDare, Lew Rockwell, Justin Raimondo, Joe Sobran, and Robert Novak. (For someone who claims to be a historian of the conservative movement, he is amazingly ignorant.) Our first reaction was: Why should we? We have nothing in common with people like Frum, and anyone who regularly reads NRO has had the equivalent of a lobotomy. But, in deference to our friends, here is a list of some of the more palpable lies and misrepresentations of David Frum.

Frum’s Lie: Chronicles rejects “the 50-year-old conservative commitment to defend American interests and values throughout the world. The Truth: Our entire foreign-policy argument is based on defense of the American interest, which is the title of our column on foreign policy.

Frum’s Lie: All antiwar conservatives have made common cause with leftists. Chronicles rejects such alliances and has explained why in a recent online editorial condemning both antiwar and antiglobalist demonstrators as moral anarchists.

Frum’s Lie: The late Mel Bradford’s nomination as NEH director was doomed by his writings. The Truth: Irving Kristol organized a smear campaign against Bradford, who had considerable support on Capitol Hill, in order to put his own flunkey, William Bennett, into a position that controlled jobs and grants for other Kristol protégés. It was a classic Kristol operation that utilized the services of people like George Will, but the plot blew up in the Godfather’s face when most decent conservatives refused to have anything to do with him in the future. Kristol has said that, had he known the reaction, he would have let Bradford get the nomination.

Frum’s Lie: Chronicles founder Leopold Tyrmand survived the Nazi death camps and decided to base Chronicles in Rockford. The Truth: Leopold was impressed as a worker but not put into a death camp, and the decision to locate both Chronicles and the Institute in Rockford was made by Rockford Institute founder, John Howard, who was the president of Rockford College.

Frum’s lie: “Fleming was . . . a poor choice for the role of paleoconservative ideologist-in-chief. He is the very opposite of a systematic, deliberate thinker.” The Truth: Fleming repudiates any role as ideologue (much less “ideologist”), but he has carried out systematic classical scholarship on difficult philological subjects and written two academic books (one published and one about to be) on moral and political philosophy. His theories may be entirely wrong, but they are both consistent and systematic. If Frum read books instead of web logs, he would know this.

Frum’s Lie: Richard Neuahaus was fired by Fleming because of antisemitic remarks and the “paleos exploded in dumbfounded rage when the foundations that had been supporting Neuahaus’s work refused to switch the money over to them instead.” The Truth: Neuhaus was fired by Institute president Allan Carlson, vice president Michael Warder, and board member George O’Neil. Fleming was not consulted or even informed of the matter until it was a fait accompli (a French remark!). The ever-ambitious Neuhaus was trying to take over the Institute, using friends like Norman Podhoretz and Peter Berger to exert pressure, much as he was simultaneously “taking over” Ethics and Public Policy for his protégé George Weigel. Neuhaus, by his own admission, violated a signed agreement to refrain from badmouthing The Rockford Institute and continued to spend Institute money without proper authorization. Neither Jewish questions nor Israel had been so much as discussed in the magazine, and the “classic language of anti-Semitism” used in the magazine was employed by historians writing articles on Celts and the Volga Germans—the latter by the liberal feminist and friend of the Podhoretzes, Jean Elshtain. People like Frum continue to repeat Neuhaus’s entirely fictional version of the dispute, though the truth is not difficult to establish. The dispute over foundation money concerned contracted and promised gifts, some of which had already been spent on Neuhaus’s activities. The TRI board made the correct decision in terminating Neuhaus, and, left to his own devices, Allan Carlson would have handled the situation with diplomacy and tact. Unfortunately, the “raid” was led by an over-exuberant board member and an unnecessarily aggressive vice president. Although never very fond of Richard Neuhaus, Fleming regarded the manner of his firing as unprofessional. Even an enemy deserves to be treated with respect, especially an enemy who had reached the stature of Richard Neuhaus. Upon becoming Institute president, one of Fleming’s first acts was to ask his board of directors for permission to return Neuhaus’s papers that had been seized in the raid on his office.

Frum’s Lie: That Chronicles’ defense of Christian Serbs in Kosovo resulted in loss of circulation. The Fact: The neoconservative attack on our funding forced us to abandon all promotion of the magazine for many years. Our coverage of the neoconservative-backed war against Balkan Christians and our opposition to Islamic fundamentalism in Europe has gained new readers, friends, and supporters.

We have posted a link to Frum’s article. Will the NR bratpack have the courage to post a link to our response?

Copyright 2003, www.ChroniclesMagazine.org

BACK TO CHRONICLES EXTRA!

I’d agree the last paragraph is problematic.

“They have made common cause with the left-wing and Islamist antiwar movements in this country and in Europe.”
If you advocate not removing Saddam (or ending support for Israel, or whatever) for valid reason A it’s a sleight of hand to be linked to groups that advocate the same thing for invalid reasons B, C and D.

“They deny and excuse terror.”
Too broad and too inclusive. Should be closer to ‘Some have denied or excused instances of terror’

“They espouse a potentially self-fulfilling defeatism.”
If we didn’t start then the only defeat would be a long-term end result judgement which I don’t think is what is meant here.

“They publicize wild conspiracy theories.”
Perhaps “wild” is unnecessary.

“And some of them explicitly yearn for the victory of their nation’s enemies.”
Perhaps “some” should be “a few”.

Still, this is pretty weak tea. I would say Frum was slightly inaccurate but not unfair, to borrow from jsinger’s observation. Of course this is only one example and it seems to me the “smears” are quotes from the people themselves and a disagreement on the best policy for the US.

Unless better evidence shows up, I suggest thicker skin and better focus on things that matter more than petty personal feuds. I mean, I’m greeted to this site with an attack (”I doubt any proof of the dishonesty, smears, lies and essentially fraudulent character of the Neocons would suffice.”) but that’s expected behavior these days.

Context is essential, and the context of Frum’s remarks was the run-up to the Debacle in the Desert, the essential rectitude of which was simply presupposed as the basis of the excommunication edict. It was not a treatment of the substantive philosophical differences between paleos and neos, but a use of mere policy differences as symbols of philosophical differences, differences that added up to perfidy. We’re pretty much dealing with the difference between refuting someone’s argument and asserting that he is a scoundrel; frankly, I believe that Goldberg and Frum are too intelligent not to know the difference, which makes them all the more culpable.

You make a good point, although it seems that this “KD” effect applies less to intellectuals duking it out than politicians. However, my eyebrows were raised when you suggested that Frum has no loyalty to Cananda or the U.S. Evidence please?

It is the “Kitty Dukakis” effect. If you argue calmly with a jingo who calls you “unpatriotic,” you show you are bloodless; if you react as with anger, you are a marginalized angry person. I imagine the charge is particularly maddening when advanced by a national of another country who has no loyalty either to it or the place he is currently working.

But I wanted to use this post not to defend Jonah, who I believe is quite capable of defending himself, but instead to question the seemingly endless invocation of Frum’s “Unpatriotic Conservatives” article as the key text proving once and for all that the neocons are only interested in smearing their enemies.

Here is the key question for all of you paleos who like to invoke Frum’s essay: how is he being unfair? I have read his essay many times and Frum quotes directly from those he disagrees with to demonstrate his arguments, he gives praise to certain “paleo” ideas, and he tries to explain why he thinks certain paleo arguments “deny and excuse terror…espouse a potentially self-fulfilling defeatism…[publicize] wild conspiracy theories…explicitly yearn for the victory of their nation’s enemies.”

Instead of saying Frum is engaged in “smear tactics”, why not demonstrate why he is wrong? Especially with regard to the quotes from certain paleo writers he includes in his essay, it seems like a simple exercise to go through those quotes and argue why Frum’s interpretation is wrong. Or is it wrong?

Perhaps this has been done already, if so I’d love it if Mr. Babbitt or Daniel could point me in the right direction because most of the responses I’ve read have been along the lines of “Frum is a jerk and a liar and should be ignored” (with Taki usually intimating he’d like to punch Frum in the face…along with all sorts of other neocons).

http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum031903.asp
March 19, 2003 9:30 a.m.
Unpatriotic Conservatives
A war against America.
by David Frum
EDITOR’S NOTE: This piece appears in the April 7, 2003, issue of National Review.

“I respect and admire the French, who have been a far greater nation than we shall ever be, that is, if greatness means anything loftier than money and bombs.”
— THOMAS FLEMING, “HARD RIGHT,” MARCH 13, 2003

From the very beginning of the War on Terror, there has been dissent, and as the war has proceeded to Iraq, the dissent has grown more radical and more vociferous. Perhaps that was to be expected. But here is what never could have been: Some of the leading figures in this antiwar movement call themselves “conservatives.”

And they are exerting influence. When Richard Perle appeared on Meet the Press on February 23 of this year, Tim Russert asked him, “Can you assure American viewers . . . that we’re in this situation against Saddam Hussein and his removal for American security interests? And what would be the link in terms of Israel?” Perle rebutted the allegation. But what a grand victory for the antiwar conservatives that Russert felt he had to air it.

You may know the names of these antiwar conservatives. Some are famous: Patrick Buchanan and Robert Novak. Others are not: Llewellyn Rockwell, Samuel Francis, Thomas Fleming, Scott McConnell, Justin Raimondo, Joe Sobran, Charley Reese, Jude Wanniski, Eric Margolis, and Taki Theodoracopulos.

The antiwar conservatives aren’t satisfied merely to question the wisdom of an Iraq war. Questions are perfectly reasonable, indeed valuable. There is more than one way to wage the war on terror, and thoughtful people will naturally disagree about how best to do it, whether to focus on terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and Hezbollah or on states like Iraq and Iran; and if states, then which state first?

But the antiwar conservatives have gone far, far beyond the advocacy of alternative strategies. They have made common cause with the left-wing and Islamist antiwar movements in this country and in Europe. They deny and excuse terror. They espouse a potentially self-fulfilling defeatism. They publicize wild conspiracy theories. And some of them explicitly yearn for the victory of their nation’s enemies.

Would American’s tolerate the US as a Christian sectarian state? More importantly, would Goldberg?

Jonah Goldberg (archive)
(printer-friendly version)

http://web.archive.org/web/20040606075844/www.townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/jg20010820.shtml

August 20, 2001

Americans wouldn’t tolerate terrorism at home

A Mexican suicide bomber walked into a pizza restaurant in a Santa Fe, N.M., mall this morning, killing at least 15 people, mostly children. Up to a hundred others were wounded.

The bodies of two young boys who had been playing hooky from school were found in a cave outside of Phoenix. They had been beaten to death, and their bodies mutilated. Authorities are looking for Navajo separatists they believe are responsible.

Militia in Tijuana, Mexico, fired rocket grenades into downtown San Diego, killing 20, wounding 50 and, once again, snarling morning traffic.

It’s more than a little uncomfortable ascribing such barbarous crimes to completely innocent folk. Still, imagine if such things happened here instead of in Israel on an almost daily basis. How do you think the United States would respond?

Indeed, the comparison is less outlandish than you might think. After all, the United States took land from American Indians. It took land from Mexicans. In a sense, “we” even took land from the British. And, no matter how you slice it, America’s claim to Texas and the Southwest is certainly far less morally compelling than Israel’s is to its land.

When the European Jews not already living in Palestine arrived there after World War II, the area was largely empty. What is today called Jordan was the historic home of many “Palestinians.” And, after all, even the most militant Muslim must concede that the Bible places the land as the historic home of the Jews.

Meanwhile, when European colonists came to North America, they had no historical claim to the land whatsoever and, besides, it was occupied.

Of course, I don’t engage in “constant” attacks on conservatives who fall short of my standards. I have had perfectly good relations with conservatives who do not see things as I do. I still don’t accept that Goldberg was right in the way he treated those others, and I think anyone who considers the controversies in question will come to the same conclusion. I frequently criticise what I consider to be the horrid policies some of these conservatives support, and I try to oppose their justifications of those policies in the strongest possible terms. That will involve pointing out how this or that policy view contradicts what I understand conservatism to be.

Who started the fight I had with Claremont? They did, by hunting up things Caleb Stegall and I had written and then by savaging Claes Ryn. Who made it a point to bash and belittle Rod Dreher and the associated company? The NROniks. Who smeared all paleos as anti-Semites, racists and traitors? National Review. So, yeah, I’m angry about those things, and anyone else would be, too.

Your anger, and your hatred, is sometimes positively volcanic.

And I don’t at all blame JG for reacting as he did.