The Evil Empire Revisited

By Philip Giraldi

"In George Orwell's 1984 there is a memorable scene when the speaker from Oceania's Ministry of Truth is addressing a rally, the culmination of Hate Week against the enemy, Eurasia. He receives a message mid-sentence, then smoothly shifts gears to deliver the remainder of his speech excoriating Eastasia. The crowd responds enthusiastically, and the narrator, Winston, notes that, of course, Eastasia had always been the enemy.

The alliances in Orwell's nightmare world had shifted, but the concept of the enemy remained the same. There always has to be an enemy. So too the neoconservatives always need an enemy to justify the huge defense contracts that in turn spawn the think tanks and academic chairs in security studies that provide them with their sinecures. A world without "Islamofascism" or another enemy lurking is a world without employment for the likes of Bill Kristol and John Bolton......

And then there is threat of the Iranian missiles that do not exist, might never exist, and could not threaten either Europe or the United States in the foreseeable future. To counter those weapons, the U.S. will install "defensive" missiles in Poland, with a radar station in the Czech Republic. Both Warsaw and Prague have been heavily bribed and pressured to accept the deployments, which are opposed by both the Czech and Polish people and most other Europeans. The missiles serve no useful purpose against Tehran but could be used against Russia. Anyone who is interested in missile technology and its capabilities knows that "defensive" and "offensive" are meaningless terms, as the weapons can be deployed in roles that support either function. So why does Washington persist in demanding that an unwanted weapons system that has no purpose but to create fear in Moscow be put into operation? Perhaps Bill Kristol and John Bolton can provide an answer. But the end result will quite likely be Cold War II, huge new defense contracts, and more fear-mongering talking points for the neocons."