Manifesto of Resistance

 
Youssef Aschkar, online publication: Thursday 24 March 2005

The neoconservatives pose an existential threat. For its very survival, all mankind must resist them.

Multiple criminal proceedings should be initiated against the neoconservatives by their victims: those of 11th September and those of the so-called war against terror – an open-ended war that the neoconservatives are waging through lies and crime. These proceedings should lead to a multiple inquest on their lies and their criminal aim of dragging mankind back into barbarism.

The inquest would be both starting-point and process of resistance to this threat.

This site is available as a centre for advancing this option of resistance and a call for resisters to unite before the onset into the abyss becomes irreversible.

I

The secret organization that takes the pseudonym of “neoconservatives” poses an existential threat to the United States and the rest of the world. For its very survival, all mankind must resist this threat.

What is the nature of this threat, how is it manifested, and what means does it use? How can it be effectively resisted in order to escape the mesh of suicidal violence that the organization is inciting on all sides?

II

The fundamental motive forces of this organization are not economic but ideological. Its aim is not to dominate or exploit in the traditional sense, but to gain absolute and exclusive power by substituting itself for institutions and eliminating the Other, especially in the US. Its initial project is not conventionally imperialist, but apocalyptic – a predetermined and peculiar apocalypse in which it assumes the right to play the role of Supreme Judge. Its grim Judgement began on the eve of 11th September, the perfect crime that is to be proliferated through the world in future.

This organization is fighting a war of ideas, especially the idea of creative destruction, by which the Supreme Judge demolishes the world and recreates it in its own monstrous image.

Such demolition means nothing less than the annihilation of civilization’s achievements: laws and legality, human reason and the critical spirit, the rights of man, freedom, sovereignty, human dignity, justice, civic and human responsibility, compassion, hope, and so on. For the neoconservatives, these values, ideas, and institutions are not simply to be ignored: they must be destroyed, not just out of circumstances, but as a matter of principle. The last three years have seen the application of this destructive principle in the flouting of international conventions, treaties, organizations, and all areas of sovereignty.

For this organization, all the achievements of mankind must be replaced by a new charter to be dictated by the new Supreme Judges. This charter, the New World Order, goes far beyond dominating international relations. It is totalitarian: as we can now see, it is a new order of man, society, faith, thought, and human activity in all its diversity. In short, it is a new order of life. The rise of extremism, aggressive fundamentalism, xenophobia, instinctive behaviour, fear, and hate are the heralding signs of this order and its fundamental principle of creative destruction.

Deprived of civilization’s achievements, man will be defenceless. Loaded with the ideological baggage of the totalitarian new order and furnished with an arsenal of new weapons, man will unleash self-destruction, threatening his own physical safety, putting his very survival at risk. The “creative destruction” of the new order is suicidal.

III

Undertaking criminal proceedings against these monsters and their organization is an urgent obligation. Multiple proceedings should be undertaken by the victims of 11th September and by other real and potential victims of this crime, which has been proliferating since that fateful date under the cover of the so-called “war against terror”. This war has only just begun and it threatens every citizen in the world. Mankind, therefore, rejecting the “end of history”, has the right and duty to undertake the trial of the century against the criminal organization of the century.

IV

Multiple proceedings should lead to a triple inquest.

The first part of the inquest should aim to uncover the origin and history of the neoconservative organization, the extent of its network, and the secret activities it has undertaken for decades in the US and abroad.

The second part should focus on the nature of the neoconservative project and its apocalyptic ends.

The third part should reveal the disastrous consequences of this project for the US and the world – consequences realized in the last three years and consequences still unrealized, but immeasurable if ever the project reaches completion.

This inquest would be both the starting-point and the process of resistance. It would be the inquest of the century to follow on the trial of the century.

V

Why should we resort to an inquest as a form of resistance?

We should do so both for practical reasons and for reasons of principle.

Practically, only an inquest on this scale could make headway against the edifice of lies that has now been built up. Only such an inquest could bring the facts to light and spread universal awareness of the existential threat, thereby arousing deep concern and bringing about a worldwide coalition to oppose it.

The neoconservatives’ power springs from two sources: US strength, over which they have gained a hold, and the web of lies that they have carefully woven to deceive the American people in particular. But a comprehensive inquest would strike the neoconservatives’ Achilles heel by revealing their lies, criminal acts, and nefarious aims to their first victims, the American people. American public opinion, the determining factor in this ordeal, would then swing over to support the resistance, whereas it now presents the main obstacle to it.

VI

The reasons of principle are even more important, and not least because their practical application is just as great. The neoconservative culture of lies, violence, extremism, and totalitarianism must be resisted by an opposed culture. If not, the resistance will be caught in the infernal mesh, aggravating the evil that it intends to destroy. Without knowing or willing it, the resistance will become part of the neoconservative project. The rise of violence and terrorism in reaction to the so-called “war against terror” is evidence of this. The neoconservatives plan their actions with an eye to the reactions that they foresee or, indeed, themselves perpetrate through their network. In doing so, they aim to radicalize states and societies, raising them against “evil”, aligning them behind “good”, and so habituating them to a state of perpetual war.

Effective resistance cannot come through violent reaction; it cannot advance in darkness, nor can it stay on the defensive. A global, comprehensive, and properly conducted inquest seems the best way to remedy the situation.

VII

The symbolic value of the inquest as a means of resistance adds to its practical value. By appealing to the achievements of civilization as factors of security that ultimately guarantee our survival, the inquest would demonstrate its moral and practical responsibility. In this manner, it would appeal not only to all that made man human, but even more to all that will allow man to survive in our time.

This choice of security can protect the resistance from the mesh of violence.

Moreover, the inquest would directly challenge the destroyers of civilization’s security-guarantees. It would demonstrate the practice of civilizational resistance in contrast with the practice of the neoconservatives – revealing the true face of each side to the advantage of the resistance.

VIII

The contrast will become evident.

Recourse to the inquest as a form of resistance places trust in a transparent, essentially democratic process undertaken by citizens worldwide, as opposed to the clandestine and arbitrary manoeuvres of a secret organization not validated by any election.

It appeals to the critical spirit against its sworn enemies. These, aware that the critical spirit threatens them, are doing all they can to kill it in the US, the very country that takes pride in advancing it.

It seeks facts and reality, as opposed to prejudice, lies, and media manipulation.

It appeals to the law and justice, as opposed to those who consider themselves above the law and regard only might as right.

Finally, it is an expression of responsibility against those who are planning global genocide in their mad will to power.

The contrast will reveal the widespread prejudices that are dominating and dangerously reshaping the global scene. It will restore the critical spirit by reforming our criteria and reference-points. It will overturn the false image of the irresponsible, dangerous resistance and the superpower as sole guarantor of security. In this manner, the resistance will engage in free, constructive activity, avoiding and opposing the destructive mesh of violent reaction; and it will throw light upon the darkness, putting the neoconservatives on the defensive and forcing them to answer for their actions. All the conditions for a salutary outcome of the struggle will then be fulfilled.

IX

The new resistance has a mission to unite the various forms of resistance that now exist. The purpose is twofold: to serve the common cause by combining efforts against a common evil, and to serve the cause of each particular resistance by opposing an evil that aggravates all other evils. For the barbaric war being waged by the neoconservatives is not only an evil in itself, but also a catalyst for other evils. This war is deepening the world’s problems and increasing the difficulties of treating them. Indeed, the neoconservative project may eventually lead to an irreversible situation at global, regional, and local level that will sweep away all counter-efforts.

For example, those who actively support secularism in their own countries, or those who are opposed to extremism, religious fanaticism, racism, and xenophobia, will soon discover that their efforts risk being nullified by the ubiquitous influence of culture and the operations of the “war against terror”, no matter how neutral or far removed their countries may be from the active theatre of war. The same is true for those active in other causes such as impoverishment, poor-country indebtedness, new forms of inequality, rising violence, and the globalization of aggressions against the environment.

Opposition to this war is therefore an absolute priority for every activist in the world, whatever his grievance, cause, or aspirations. Only thus can the separate elements of resistance unite and draw strength from their diversity. The inquest will make activists aware of the facts and encourage them to verify these facts through their own particular investigations.

The multifarious effects of this war upon human societies and mankind will only be revealed in their monstrousness by a multidisciplinary inquest undertaken by activists from all walks of life across the world.

The union of resistance within the framework of the multiple inquest is thus a necessary stage.

X

The inquest of resistance should be undertaken mainly by individuals and groups within society, though it may also mobilize national governments. It would be undertaken by all individuals, associations, movements, institutions, and sectors affected by the existential threat or aware of it.

However, the enterprise should have no dealings with the NGOs now multiplying globally: most of them are financed and controlled by promoters of the very evils they are supposed to be fighting.

In the United States, the inquest of resistance should have nothing to do with the shadowy inquests undertaken by Congress and the White House, or with other supposedly independent instances. It should be a substitute for all of them. The people of the United States have the right to know who is really governing them and how, the material and moral cost that its new masters are inflicting upon them, and the course towards the abyss that their country is bent upon.

Abroad, the inquest should not be left to the discretion of state-governments. It is true that governments, especially those of the major powers, know much about the subject of the inquest, but certain considerations block both their freedom and their will to act. Their freedom to act is limited by their respect for the reality of power-relations: they may not rashly put themselves at the head of opposition to the superpower for fear of incurring its vengeance. Their will to act depends on a generalized awareness of the existential threat, which will produce the collective political will before which governments will be unable to hesitate. The inquest of resistance, undertaken mainly by individuals and social groups, can bring about such a generalized awareness.

XI

The time-factor

The time-factor is crucial. Until now, it has been crucial to the success of the neoconservatives, but it will be even more important to the future success of the resistance.

In order to exploit the time-factor, the resistance must understand the time-frame fixed by the neoconservative agenda. This agenda is precipitate: it creates a series of anticipated events through which the neoconservatives can advance, rendering ineffective all potential opposition. The underlying principle, as illustrated by the events of the last few years, is to overtake the opposition by events. Immediately after 11th September, the United States and the rest of the world knew little about the aims and manoeuvres of the neoconservatives, although they were capable of restraining them. Today, they know more, but they have become less capable of taking action. This initiative with regard to the time-factor permits the neoconservatives to advance their project, legitimate their war, and remodel the world according to their vision. Tomorrow, we shall know much more about the neoconservative organization and its crimes, and we shall suffer their growing consequences more. However, we shall also risk being placed before a fait accompli, unable to stop the advance of chaos by attending to its causes, but forced instead to face its consequences. The time-factor would then remain on their side, and if it continues to do so, the neoconservatives could bring the world into an irreversible state of affairs.

The first duty of the resistance must be to reverse this equation: to make the world aware in time, so that it can act in time. The inquest proposes to do this within the context of multiple legal proceedings. The inquest would challenge the official version of 11th September and subsequent events. It would mobilize the victims, whose number is multiplying exponentially in this state of perpetual and unlimited war. It would unify the resistance in urgent opposition to the war. All efforts must be concentrated upon the inquest as a just and effective means of resistance in the face of an unjust and fatal war.

The dynamic of the inquest would offer the wider public a wealth of information, overtaking the neoconservative agenda and producing the political will necessary for the success of any initiative.

The resistance would thereby make the world aware in time, in order to act effectively in time before the situation becomes irreversible. The determining time-factor would then be on the side of the resistance.

XII - THE FUTURE (1) -The existential threat

The future abandoned to the neoconservatives.

“At most, we have come to the end of the beginning”, says one of the neoconservatives. “Until now, you have witnessed skirmishes, small battles. The real war has not yet begun”, assures another.

The neoconservatives are preparing a future that is infinitely more somber than the last three years. Why are they telling us that so solemnly, when they know that the United States is deeply divided on the war they are waging, that most people in the world oppose it, that the edifice of their lies is toppling, that serious doubts about their organization and its maneouvres are growing and, above all, that the balance-sheet of the war they promise to intensify and perpetuate is negative, even disastrously so?

Primarily, the neoconservatives want to demonstrate their political will to a world that lacks it. They are trying to affirm their resolution before an opposition that does not possess resolution or not sufficiently so. They want to declare that they alone know and can plan the future. Finally, they want to insinuate a mood of fatality among other parties in order to assure their passive resignation.

The neoconservatives are correct to think in this manner, given their encouraging experience in the past and the concrete preparations they have made to ensure success in the future.

In the space of three years, they have undertaken to change the world and have not yet confronted a coordinated opposition resolute enough to stop them. The world is set on a course that may lead mankind back into barbarism, but the great majority of saner spirits are not sufficiently alarmed. In order to deal with an exceptional situation, they have retreated into traditional thought-patterns. As a result, the neoconservatives feel, they are the only ones aware that the present situation is not simply the aftermath of 11th September but the harbinger of their new world order. Assured of this, they regard themselves as alone capable of shaping the future. Only they can assume the prerogative of Supreme Judges of the apocalypse; consequently, they need take no consideration of traditional resistance encountered by them. This self-confidence explains, for the most part, the arrogance of their discourse on the future.

Their concrete preparations for the future give them even more reassurance. They count on the process of radicalization they have unleashed in international and human relations, and within societies, in order to spread a culture of separation, opposition, and conflict. They are fully content to see the world heading towards a state of conflict that may become irreversible, even though international life today is interdependent and the survival of mankind depends more than ever on solidarity. At a time when human communion is obligatory, they are content to see pluralistic societies threatened by the incompatibility of their component parts. In sum, the neoconservatives are reassured, whereas the whole world is anxious.

A world transformed by the process of radicalization would be increasingly less resistant to war, given the new realities in global and regional relations and within societies. Governments that show themselves to be hesitant or refractory to the requirements of the warmongers would eventually submit to the demands of the new reality. Recalcitrant Europe, for example, would be brought into line. France, especially critical of the neoconservative war-logic, would become increasingly less so as its social and religious components, victims of radicalization, come to seem mutually incompatible. The secular values of the French Republic would be threatened by the rise of new communal movements moulded in hate and fear. French leaders, faithful to such values, would be bypassed by events and become subject to internal pressures added to already-existing external constraints. The example of Europe and France can be applied to all continents and countries, taking into account the particular conditions of each.

The future abandoned to the neoconservatives is a course into the abyss that could be covered in stages of months or weeks. The new century’s first three years, full of apocalyptic consequences, have already sounded the note.

XIII - THE FUTURE (2) - The will to survive

The will to power of a caste versus the power of the public will.

The future depends on man. This premise is a key idea because it can free the resistance from the sense of fatality that the neoconservatives are trying to instill in order to assure their irrevocable “mission” to determine man’s destiny.

Determinism is not only false but also harmful. It is false because it does not exist as a historical law, and it is harmful when it exists as a false faith in the minds of men. However, the falseness of determinism must not lead us into an overconfident state of inertia as we wait to see it refuted. For determinism is only refuted by the action of men.

The call to resistance is a call to action. However, this action must be effective and free from abuse. To ensure freedom from abuse, action must avoid the mesh of violence, which is the neoconservatives’ favourite tactic. Therefore, it must be opposed not only to determinism but also to blind reaction. And to ensure effectiveness, action must be realized through the basic and determining factor of public will. The political will to power of the neoconservatives must be opposed by a collective political will. The will of a caste organization must be opposed by the public will.

Resistance is not one option among many. It is the only way forward, through which mankind must decide its destiny. The resistance must regard its saving mission in this spirit and with this awareness. Lacking public will in the face of an existential threat means lacking the will to live. Given the evidence of the danger and its rapid progress, it means lacking the basic instinct of survival.

Overturning the new regime in the United States and the new world order

The neoconservatives are establishing a new US regime and a new world order that constitute an existential threat. The survival of mankind requires the overturning of this regime and this order as a matter of utmost priority. This is the fundamental task of the resistance.

However, this mission contains a paradox and may seem impossible to realize.

The paradox consists in the fact that the mission calls for the overthrow of the new regime in the US when it is attempting to change other regimes around the world. In fact, the formidable new regime in the US should be overturned before any other. First, its global reach is so wide as to potentially victimize all the world’s citizens, who therefore have the right, and indeed the duty, to change it. Next, the overturning of this regime would restore basic norms in the US and the world, thus responding to anxiety and restoring hope – whereas the overthrow by the neoconservatives of regimes in other countries will lead directly to worse regimes or to chaos, i.e., to destruction and self-destruction. Exemplary here is the case of Iraq, which may be generalized throughout the region, even the entire continent. The sudden upheaval in the world must alarm us and incite us to action. For these reasons, overturning the new US regime and its derivative new world order is a priority.

The mission may also seem impossible to realize, because the resistance, deprived of tangible means, would be faced with the formidable war-machine and almost unlimited power wielded by the superpower’s new masters.

However, the collective political will mentioned above can change the whole equation. The potential power of this will is considerable, and the resistance would be the expression of it. Moreover, the resistance should be in a position of strength, given the fact that the war being waged by the neoconservatives is principally a war of ideas. In such a war, the resisters would hold an advantage. The resisters are more numerous, faster-growing, and devoted than the manipulators of the neoconservative network. They would need less effort and more modest means to affirm the truth that the inquest would attempt to establish. In contrast, the neoconservatives would constantly have to mount increasingly exhausting and risky projects in order to hide their lies, crimes, and the dead end of their war-logic. Nevertheless, whatever efforts and sacrifices must be made by the resistance, freely and fully aware of its responsibility, they pale before the consequences that man would be forced to accept under the totalitarian authority of the new Supreme Judges.

The resistance therefore has no choice but to achieve a tour de force by successfully overthrowing the neoconservatives – that is, by removing the new regime in the US and the new world order that it has established. This success is necessary in order to overcome the direct threat of the neoconservatives; however, it is not sufficient for achieving safety. The future depends on a wider global struggle against the culture of the neoconservatives, which is capable of surviving their political downfall.