The Neocons, the BNP and the Islamophobia Network 	Tom Griffin, 17 September 2009

http://www.spinwatch.org/-articles-by-category-mainmenu-8/317-islamophobia/5318-the-neocons-the-bnp-and-the-islamophobia-network
http://bit.ly/2TUfQe

Events in London in recent weeks have highlighted the growing collusion between American neoconservatives and the European far right in stirringup hatred of Muslims.

Richard Bartholomew has details of a meeting at the George Restaurant ineast London in August attended by Jihad Watch's Robert Spencer and Douglas  Murray of the Centre for Social Cohesion at the invitation of the  Christian Action Network. Also invited were the English Defence League, the group responsible for a number of recent violent anti-Muslim protests.

Robert Spencer says on his blog that he and Murray refused to meet with the EDL, and cites Adrian Morgan as a witness to this version of events.But the presence of Morgan, who did meet the EDL, is itself evidence of the emerging relationship between the neocons and the far-right.

Morgan is a contributing editor to Family Security Matters, which has been  described as a front for the Center for Security Policy, a Washington  think-tank run by the ultra-neoconservative Frank Gaffney.

He is also the author of Western Resistance, a defunct blog on which he laid out his view of the BNP:

<quote>
I am slightly ambivalent about the British National Party, on account ofits racist past. Nowadays, under the leadership of Nick Griffin, a skilled  politician, the racist agenda has become replaced by an agenda which is highly focused against Islam. With this aspect of its policies, I am in agreement. Islam poses a more serious threat to every aspect of British democracy than anything previously encountered. (via the Internet Archive)
</quote>

Ambivalent or not, Morgan's interest in the BNP is reciprocated, according  to Searchlight Magazine, which reported in 2007 on the efforts of BNP  idealogue Alan Goodacre to tap support from right wing bloggers:

<quote>
Goodacre also stated his intention to try and gain the help of Adrian  Morgan who writes regularly for the Western Resistance website and has  previously contributed to The Guardian and New Scientist and was once a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society. Morgan also contributes to the “Islam Watch” website – “Islam under scrutiny by ex-Muslims” – which  would explain Goodacre’s interest in him.
</quote>

It might also be explained by Morgan's membership of the 910 Group, an  offshoot of the Center for Vigilant Freedom (CVF), which ran the  CounterJihad Europa conference in October 2007.  Among those speaking  alongside Robert Spencer at this Brussels event were representatives of European far-right parties such as Filip Dewinter of the Vlaams Belang and  Ted Ekeroth of the Sweden Democrats.

The CVF's Christine Brim suggested in November 2007 that the strategy ofembracing such parties could be extended to Jean-Marie Le Pen and the BNP:

<quote>
We suggest looking for the possible movement of Le Pen’s political party  Front National towards the center-right, as they may change their platform  to pro-active support to improve the situations of European Jews and  Israel. The same trend is happening in Austria, and with the BNP in the UK  (also not invited and did not attend the conference). If such parties  specifically state pro-Israel positions, and take real actions opposing anti-semitism and disavowing previous positions - and reach out to Jewish  constituents and encourage Jewish participation in party positions - these  are real actions to observe, and to approve. They have not done this yetbut are starting. (via the Internet Archive)
</quote>

Indeed they were. Alan Goodacre had written to the Jewish Chronicle in  2006 (much to the bemusement of its readers):

<quote>
We hope that our future behaviour may in time bring you to understand that  our repudiation of antisemitism is genuine. We are the only party in  Britain that is truly serious about fighting the Islamofascist threat.
</quote>

Morgan, Brim and Goodacre have each employed the same sleight of hand,  attempting to present the embrace of Islamophobia as some kind of  atonement for anti-semitism, rather than another manifestation of the same  underlying racism. If this strategy seems crude, it may yet take  neo-fascist Gianfranco Fini to the Italian premiership.Time Magazine  describes the process:

<quote>
To fulfill his big ambitions, Fini understood in the early 1990s that hehad to distance himself from his past. Eventually, he came to believe that  the shortest path from marginal Mussolini nostalgic to mainstream  political power was unwavering support for the state of Israel. The  decisive moment came when Fini traveled to Israel in November 2003,  declaring his affection for the Jewish state and his "shame" for Italy'sracial laws under fascism. The following year, Silvio Berlusconi made him  foreign minister, where the longtime leader of the National Alliance party  stood out amongst his European partners for his pro-Israel policy.
</quote>

This conversion even impressed some on the 'Decent Left'. Harry's Place wrote of Fini:

<quote>
  He is pro-European Union and pro-US - neither of which fit easy with the  claim that he is still a fascist. After September 11, AN posters across Italy declared ‘Solidarity with the United States’ - Italian fascists  despise the US for obvious historical reasons.

He is also explicitly in favour of capitalism and the free market. Againthis is a break not only with old style Italian corporatist fascism but also the later post-war concept of the ’social right’ which believed in  large scale state ownership and nationalisation etc.

AN also supported the liberation of Iraq, a position that I am not awareof any of Europe’s genuine fascists taking.
</quote>

As Time noted "having "Israel" stamped in your passport and publicly  condemning anti-Semitism cannot alone remove lingering doubts about  extremist tendencies." Yet the attempt to prove otherwise has some  influential backers.

In addition to being a key player in the CVF, and secretary of another  counter-jihad outfit, the International Free Press Society, Christine Brim  is a senior vice-president at Frank Gaffney's Washington think-tank, theCenter for Security Policy (CSP), and director of its Victory Coalition Fund, an incubator for anti-Islamist projects.

The CSP is open about its involvement in political warfare and even has a  vice-president for information operations who blogs on the subject. Its General Counsel David Yerushalmi heads up the Society of Americans for  National Existence, whose material found its way into last year's PolicyExchange briefing against the Global Peace and Unity event in London.

Gaffney's sister Devon Cross, a member of the CSP advisory council, heads  up the Policy Forum on International Security Affairs, a neoconservativebriefing operation for European journalists which was run for some time out of Annabel's nightclub in Mayfair.

The CSP and the Policy Forum have been endorsed by some of America's  wealthiest conservative foundations. The Philanthropy Roundtable  recommended both organisations in its 2006 publication, The Struggle  Against Radical Islam: A Donor's Guide (pdf) which criticised the US  Government for failing to develop political warfare and public diplomacyprogrammes modelled on those of the Cold War, and called on private sector  donors to fill the gap.

Neoconservatives had repeatedly come up against resistance in attemptingto run political warfare programmes through their powerbase at the  Pentagon during the Bush administration. One such proposal was leaked tothe New York Times in 2004:

<quote>
Pentagon and military officials directly involved in the debate say thatsuch a secret propaganda program, for example, could include planting news  stories in the foreign press or creating false documents and Web sites  translated into Arabic as an effort to discredit and undermine the  influence of mosques and religious schools that preach anti-American  principles.

Some of those are in the Middle Eastern and South Asian countries like  Pakistan, still considered a haven for operatives of Al Qaeda. But such a  campaign could reach even to allied countries like Germany, for example,where some mosques have become crucibles for Islamic militancy and  anti-Americanism.
</quote>

A private sector version of that strategy is clearly visible in the smears  and secret briefings directed at British mosques, a campaign which has now  taken a step further with the recent wave of street protests by  provocateurs like the BNP-connected English Defence League and the  Counter-Jihad Europa affiliate Stop the Islamisation of Europe.

Communities Minister John Denham last week announced plans to address  issues alienating white, working-class people at risk of being exploitedby the far-right. If that approach is to succeed, the wealthy right-wingpropagandists who are actively trying to set working-class communities  against each other must be exposed.


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