Christina

Little, pp. 319-342


"Green Scare"
Little argues that "green threat" (radical Islam)
is supplanting the earlier "red threat" of communism
thanks in large part to the influence and sway of
neoconservative academics and politicians.

Markers of this green scare:
- passage and aggressive use of the Patriot Act
- World War IV, by Podhoretz: influential book in which
defeating "Islamofascism" is touted as the worthy cause
for what should become WW4.


The Neoconservative agenda:
the Project for the New American Century, an influential
neoconservative think tank whose members used to include
Rumsfield and Wolfowitz among others, had articulated
the following objectives as early as a decade ago or earlier:
- Exporting democracy to the Middle East ("at gunpoint"
if necessary) as a security measure.
- Removal of Saddam Hussein as the ruler of Iraq.
The prevailing neoconservative sentiment was that this
would be fairly easy, as exemplified by numerous statements
predicting that a post-Saddam Middle East would collapse
much like a post- Berlin Wall Soviet empire. However,
the State Department and Colin Powell realized the folly
of this position from very early on.
This was part of the neoconservative agenda for the region
from very early on, and prominent neocons siezed 9/11 as
an opportunity to "finish" what Bush Sr. had opted not to
do years previous in the Gulf War.

the Bush Doctrine
Preventive war- a war of choice, when a perceived
threat is neither clear nor imminent.
Preemptive war- a war of necessity, when a clear
and imminent threat is on the horizon.

The Bush administration confounded these two terms,
fighting a preventive war while invoking a preemptive
one.