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Drinking Neo-Conservative Kool-Aid

Abukar Arman - 9/8/2005

In his essay titled "Drinking The Kool-Aid", Col W. Patrick Lang who is a former defense intelligence officer describes a daunting case of paranoia- based "groupthink" that is prevalent in Washington and warns against a dangerous trend that is driving the current US foreign policy in high speed and without brakes, so to speak. Thanks to the Neo-conservative movement.

Today, according to Col Lang, people in high places who are entrusted with national security and public interest are by their own admission confessing to have "drank the Kool-Aid"- a phrase referring to the Jonestown tragedy but euphemistically confessing to joining the Neocons.

Of course, in that infamous Jonestown tragedy, Jim Jones - a charismatic reacher who attracted hundreds of followers by his passionate salesmanship and mesmerizing sermons- has seduced these credulous, God-seeking people to follow him to Guyana where they could freely practice their religion.

Upon their subsequent settlement in Guyana, the preacher gradually isolated his followers from the rest of the world. He "controlled all news.regulated all discourse and expression of opinion, and shaped behavior to his taste".

In due course, the preacher's paranoia grew.so much so that it led him to the conviction that the "evil" forces (US government) were imminently coming to invade him and destroy their "paradise" and "their way of life". And in 1978, the charismatic preacher did the unthinkable! He ordered the mass suicide of 913 adults and children by providing them poisonous Kool-Aid to drink. The horrific irony being: almost all of those who died that day drank the hemlock willingly.

Col. Lang in essence speaks for a growing number of concerned trend-watchers and intellectuals whose argument is if today's America does npt look anything like the vibrant America of yesteryears- the one that epitomized freedom, inspired democracy and respect for human rights, and set the standard for ingenuity and progress- it is simply because the America of today is a nation, by and large, submerged into a self-destructive groupthink mentality.

Groupthink, needless to say, is a negative phenomenon of mental subordination and blind obedience in which the individual (wittingly or otherwise) would become eager to please the group's wishes. As a result of intellectual and emotional manipulation enforced by other thought-controlling members of the group who may employ coercion, indoctrination, and the threat of being ostracized, individuals are pushed into an altered state of mind where each is willing to embrace any erroneous idea and or make any faulty decision.

In an eloquent summation, Dr. Irving Janis (the organizational psychologist who led the first team to study this phenomenon in early 70s and coined the phrase at hand) described groupthink as ".a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, moral judgment that results from in-group pressures".

Today, while various groups ranging from mainstream political parties to religio-political extremists of all faiths may rely on groupthink for influence and control, none has executed it more effectively than the Neo-conservative movement of the 21st. And, judging from the "facts on the ground" (figuratively speaking) and their unabashed abuse of power that became the hallmark of their movement, none has been so arrogantly imposing!

Dr. Janis and his team identified certain symptoms that characterize the specter of groupthink. And while all these symptoms are relevant per the Neocon movement, three particular ones stand out:

The first one is what the researchers referred to as "a shared illusion of invulnerability", which leads to an extraordinary degree of over-optimism and hubris. Here, of course, one is compelled to reflect upon the Wolfowitz and Rumsfeldesque delusions of grandeur that became the hallmark of the whole Neo-conservative movement- their overt ambition for Pax-Americans, their preemption doctrine, their reckless squandering of the US political capital in Europe, Middle East, etc.

The second one is the tendentious hostility and "direct pressure toward individuals" that may question or express concern about the direction that the group is going, never mind a "dissent against group loyalty". Here, once again, one is compelled to reflect upon how the Neocons dealt with those whom they perceived as opposition or simply 'not being with the program'. People such as former Secretary of state Colin Powell, former Secretary of Treasury Paul O'Neil, and former Counterterrorism Advisor Richard Clarke, Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife CIA operative Valerie Plame! Here the Neocons have taken the old Asian proverb "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down" to a new heights!

You better not question the merit of trading the current republic for an empire that rules by might or the sustainability of such empire. You better not question about the moral legitimacy or the dangerous precedent that the preemptive war doctrine may set. And, you better not question the logic of isolating America from the rest of the world and burning down the bridges of diplomacy and understanding.

But it wasn't all the time that the Neocons used "the stick" to encourage favorable behavior from those endowed the power to scrutinize them. In an initiative that can only be described as the work of genius, the Neocons used "the carrot" more effectively than any other group in history. They brilliantly managed to domesticate the Media at large (the watchdogs of democracy and freedom and the guardians against power-abuse) by offering them an irresistible opportunity for surrogate machismo, fancifully named "embedded reporting". They had the Media wearing army fatigues, riding military tanks, and claiming objectivity at the same time...But it wasn't long before all media was sounding as though they were all were reading from the same script!

The third symptom is the presence of a sanctimonious mindset within the group and the "unquestioned belief in the inherent morality of the in-group, which inclines the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions". Further, the presence of the appointed or self-appointed "mind guards" and their relentless campaign "to construct rationalizations" in order to muffle any alarm bells and or "ignore warnings and other forms of (critical) feedback". Here one is compelled to remember what the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have been preaching as they beat the drums for the "quixotic" Neocon global adventure; and what the likes of Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, and Charles Krauthammer on one hand and the Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Rally, and Glenn Beck on the other have been propagating.

Indeed it is through this apparatus of deception, that would make Machiavelli (the high priest of human exploitation) envious, that the movement loyalists are recruited, molded, and cultivated. The Neocons and their cheerleaders have understood that in order to sustain the groupthink mentality they would resort to the Orwellian tactics of dominating information. And, in the process, rewriting history, rearranging language and keeping concepts and terms obscure and fluid, and policing individual and group thoughts, and indoctrinating by repeating desired information (factual or fabricated) long enough for people to believe it. Like the cliché goes: he who controls the information controls the language, and he who controls the language, controls the narrative. And, he who
controls the narrative, controls history!

For one to actually experience how this concept works, one ought to watch Fox News for a few days. That should suffice!

In conclusion, the Neocons have succeeded in highjacking the US foreign policy as Al-Qaida has highjacked the religion of Islam! And "groupthink" is indeed the new American (21st) Century disease; It is what is profoundly ailing and weakening America today- socially, politically, and economically! And, the cure, needless to say, is only found in the revival of the individual consciousness- the individual stakeholder's capacity for introspection, critical thinking, and intellectual discourse.

The Guyana tragedy scenario might be far-fetched, but the current political atmosphere is so ominous that it would alarm any political trend-watcher.