Neoconservatism in the United States is a branch of American conservatism that is most known for its advocacy of using American economic and military power to topple American enemies and promote liberal democracy in other countries. The movement emerged during the early 1970s among Democrats who disagreed with the party's growing opposition to the Vietnam War and had become skeptical of the Great Society's welfare programs. Although neoconservatives generally endorse free-market economics, they often believe cultural and moral issues to be more significant, and so have tended to be less thoroughgoing in opposition to government intervention in society than more traditionally conservative and libertarian members of the Republican Party. Most neoconservatives support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Terminology

The term ''neoconservative'' was initially employed as a criticism against proponents of American modern liberalism who had "moved to the right". Socialist Michael Harrington coined the current sense of the term ''neoconservative'' in a 1973 article concerning welfare policy. According to E. J. Dionne, the nascent neoconservatives were driven by "the notion that liberalism" had failed and "no longer knew what it was talking about." The term "neoconservative" was the subject of increased media coverage during the presidency of George W. Bush, with particular focus on a perceived neoconservative influence on American foreign policy, as part of the Bush Doctrine. The term ''neocon'' is often used as pejorative in this context.

The first major intellectual to embrace the term, Irving Kristol, is often dubbed the 'godfather' of neoconservatism. Kristol wrote of his neoconservative views in the 1979 article "Confessions of a True, Self-Confessed 'Neoconservative.'" His ideas have been influential since the 1950s, when he co-founded and edited ''Encounter'' magazine. Another source was Norman Podhoretz, editor of ''Commentary'' magazine from 1960 to 1995. By 1982 Podhoretz was calling himself a neoconservative, in a ''New York Times Magazine'' article titled "The Neoconservative Anguish over Reagan's Foreign Policy". Kristol's son, William Kristol, founded the neoconservative Project for the New American Century.

History and origins

Great Depression and World War II

Most neoconservatives had been on the left in the 1930s and 1940s, then moved right in reaction to Stalinism and supported the Cold War. Many were Jewish and emerged from intellectual milieu of the mid-20th century New York City. Most were liberal Democrats into the 1960s, when they were confronted with the New Left and rethought their positions. Many became followers of Senator Henry M. Jackson, a liberal Democrat in domestic affairs who rejected détente and demanded a hard-line against the Soviet Union in the 1970s.

Initially, the neoconservatives were less concerned with foreign policy than with domestic policy. Irving Kristol's journal, ''The Public Interest'', focused on ways that government planning in the liberal state had produced unintended harmful consequences. Norman Podhoretz's magazine ''Commentary'', formerly a journal of the liberal left, had more of a cultural focus, criticizing excesses in the movements for black equality and women's rights, and in the academic left. Through the 1950s and early 1960s the future neoconservatives had been socialists or liberals strongly supportive of the American Civil Rights Movement, integration, and Martin Luther King, Jr..

Rejecting the Democratic Party

Neoconservatives rejected the counterculture of the 1960s New Left, and what they saw as anti-Americanism in the non-interventionism of the movement against the Vietnam War. When the anti-war element took control of the party in 1972 and nominated George McGovern, the democrats among them followed the lead of Washington Senator Henry Jackson and revolted. Historian Justin Vaïsse calls this the "Second Age" of Neoconservatism, with its emphasis on the Cold War.

As the policies of the New Left pushed the Democrats to the Left, these intellectuals became disillusioned with President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society domestic programs. The influential 1970 bestseller ''The Real Majority'' by Ben Wattenberg expressed that the "real majority" of the electorate supported economic liberalism but social conservatism, and warned Democrats it could be disastrous to take liberal stances on certain social and crime issues.

Many supported Democratic senator Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson in his unsuccessful 1972 and 1976 campaigns for president. Among those who worked for Jackson were future neoconservatives Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Richard Perle. In the late 1970s neoconservative support moved to Ronald Reagan the Republican hawk who promised to confront Soviet expansionism.

Michael Lind, a self-described former neoconservative, wrote:

In his semi-autobiographical book, ''Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea,'' Irving Kristol cited a number of influences on his own thought, including not only Max Shachtman and Leo Strauss but also the skeptical liberal literary critic Lionel Trilling. The influence of Leo Strauss and his disciples on neoconservatism has generated some controversy, with Lind asserting:

William Kristol defends his father by noting that the criticism of an instrumental view of politics misses the point. When the context is a discussion of religion in the public sphere in a secular nation, religion is inevitably dealt with instrumentally. Apart from that, it should be borne in mind that the majority of neoconservatives believe in the truth, as well as the utility, of religion.

1980s

As the 1980s wore on, younger second-generation neoconservatives, such as Elliott Abrams, pushed for a clear policy of supporting democracy against both left and right wing dictators, who were at that time increasingly engaged in human rights abuses worldwide. This debate led to a policy shift in 1986, when the Reagan administration, demanding Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos step down, flew him to the U.S.

Chile

Abrams also supported the 1988 Chilean plebiscite that resulted in the restoration of democratic rule and Augusto Pinochet's eventual removal from office. The National Endowment for Democracy provided funds for the anti-Pinochet opposition. The NED was then headed by a social democrat, Carl Gershman.

Earlier, the National Review had supported Pinochet in the 1970s and defended his government. Some neoconservatives continued to support his regime well into the 1980s, according to New York columnist Jim Sleeper. In the 21st century, Jonah Goldberg stated Iraq needed a Pinochet.

1990s

During the 1990s, neoconservatives were once again in the opposition side of the foreign policy establishment, both under the Republican Administration of President George H. W. Bush and that of his Democratic successor, President Bill Clinton. Many critics charged that the neoconservatives lost their influence following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Neoconservative writers were critical of the post–Cold War foreign policy of both George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, which they criticized for reducing military expenditures and lacking a sense of idealism in the promotion of American interests. They accused these Administrations of lacking both ''moral clarity'' and the conviction to pursue unilaterally America's international strategic interests.

The movement was galvanized by the decision of George H. W. Bush and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell to leave Saddam Hussein in power after the first Gulf War in 1991. Many neoconservatives viewed this policy, and the decision not to support indigenous dissident groups such as the Kurds and Shiites in their 1991-1992 resistance to Hussein, as a betrayal of democratic principles.

Ironically, some of those same targets of criticism would later become fierce advocates of neoconservative policies. In 1992, referring to the first Gulf War, then United States Secretary of Defense and future Vice President Dick Cheney said:

Within a few years of the Gulf War in Iraq, many neoconservatives were pushing to oust Saddam Hussein. On February 19, 1998, an open letter to President Clinton appeared, signed by dozens of pundits, many identified with neoconservatism and, later, related groups such as the PNAC, urging decisive action to remove Saddam from power.

Neoconservatives were also members of the blue team, which argued for a confrontational policy toward the People's Republic of China and strong military and diplomatic support for Taiwan.

In the late 1990s Irving Kristol and other writers in neoconservative magazines began touting anti-Darwinist views, in support of intelligent design. Since these neoconservatives were largely of secular backgrounds, a few commentators have speculated that this along with support for religion generally may have been a case of a "noble lie", intended to protect public morality, or even tactical politics, to attract religious supporters.

2000s

Administration of George W. Bush

The Bush campaign and the early Bush administration did not exhibit strong support for neoconservative principles. As a candidate Bush argued for a restrained foreign policy, stating his opposition to the idea of ''nation-building'' and an early foreign policy confrontation with China was handled without the vociferousness suggested by some neoconservatives. Also early in the administration, some neoconservatives criticized Bush's administration as insufficiently supportive of Israel, and suggested Bush's foreign policies were not substantially different from those of President Clinton.

Bush's policies changed dramatically immediately after the September 11, 2001, attacks. According to columnist Gerard Baker, that the United States should seek to promote liberal democracy around the worldas a key case for invading Iraq, neoconservatism was suddenly everywhere. It was, to its many critics, a unified ideology that justified military adventurism, sanctioned torture, and promoted aggressive Zionism.}}

Bush laid out his vision of the future in his State of the Union speech in January 2002, following the September 11, 2001, attacks. The speech, written by (now) neoconservative David Frum, named Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as states that "constitute an axis of evil" and "pose a grave and growing danger." Bush suggested the possibility of preemptive war: "I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."

Some prominent defense and national security personalities have been quite critical of what they believed was neoconservative influence in getting the United States to war with Iraq. Retired general William Odom, who had once served as NSA Chief under Ronald Reagan, was openly critical of Neoconservative influence in the decision to go to war, having said, "It's pretty hard to imagine us going into Iraq without the strong lobbying efforts from AIPAC and the neocons, who think they know what's good for Israel more than Israel knows."

Nebraska Republican U.S. senator Chuck Hagel, who has been critical of the Bush administration's adoption of neoconservative ideology in his book ''America: Our Next Chapter,'' writes, "So why did we invade Iraq? I believe it was the triumph of the so-called neo-conservative ideology, as well as Bush administration arrogance and incompetence that took America into this war of choice. . . . They obviously made a convincing case to a president with very limited national security and foreign policy experience, who keenly felt the burden of leading the nation in the wake of the deadliest terrorist attack ever on American soil."

Bush Doctrine

The ''Bush Doctrine'' of preventive war was explicitly stated in the National Security Council text "National Security Strategy of the United States," published September 20, 2002. "We must deter and defend against the threat before it is unleashed . . . even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack... The United States will, if necessary, act preemptively."

The choice to not use the word 'preventive' in the 2002 National Security Strategy, and instead use the word 'preemptive' was largely in anticipation of the widely perceived illegality of preventive attacks in international law via both Charter Law and Customary Law

Policy analysts noted that the Bush Doctrine as stated in the 2002 NSC document bore a strong resemblance to recommendations originally presented in a controversial Defense Planning Guidance draft written in 1992 by Paul Wolfowitz under the first Bush administration.

The Bush Doctrine was greeted with accolades by many neoconservatives. When asked whether he agreed with the Bush Doctrine, Max Boot said he did, and that “I think [Bush is] exactly right to say we can’t sit back and wait for the next terrorist strike on Manhattan. We have to go out and stop the terrorists overseas. We have to play the role of the global policeman. . . . But I also argue that we ought to go further.” Discussing the significance of the Bush Doctrine, neoconservative writer William Kristol claimed: “The world is a mess. And, I think, it’s very much to Bush’s credit that he's gotten serious about dealing with it. . . . The danger is not that we’re going to do too much. The danger is that we're going to do too little.”

2008 Presidential election and aftermath

John McCain, who was the Republican candidate for the 2008 United States Presidential election, supported continuing the Iraq War, “the issue that is most clearly identified with the neoconservatives.” The ''New York Times'' further reports that his foreign policy views combine elements of neoconservative and the main competing view in conservative circles, pragmatism, also called ''realism'':

Following the election, Jonathan Clarke, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, expressed the view that:

Obama campaigned for the Democratic nomination in 2008 by attacking his opponents, especially Hillary Clinton, for originally supporting Bush's Iraq war policies. He gave the impression he would reverse such policies. However, Obama adopted the main points of the Bush policy in Iraq, naming Clinton to the State Department and keeping Robert Gates (Bush's Defense Secretary), and David Petraeus (Bush's top general in Iraq), as well as implementing the Bush "surge" of military force. By 2010 U.S. forces had switched from combat to a training role.

Evolution of views

Usage and general views

The term has been used before, and its meaning has changed over time. Writing in ''The Contemporary Review'' (London) in 1883, Henry Dunckley used the term to describe factions within the Conservative Party; James Bryce again uses it in his ''Modern Democracies'' (1921) to describe British political history of the 1880s. The German authoritarians Carl Schmitt, who became professor at the University of Berlin in 1933, and Arthur Moeller van den Bruck were called "neo-conservatives". In "The Future of Democratic Values" in ''Partisan Review'', July–August 1943, Dwight MacDonald complained of "the neo-conservatives of our time [who] reject the propositions on materialism, Human Nature, and Progress." He cited as an example Jacques Barzun, who was "attempting to combine progressive values and conservative concepts." In his essay "Two Concepts of Liberty", Isaiah Berlin uses the term to refer to those who look for their societal ideal in what has come before; "rooted in the past – ''la terre et les morts'' – as maintained by German historicists or French theocrats, or neo-Conservatives in English-speaking countries..."

In the early 1970s, democratic socialist Michael Harrington used the term in its modern meaning. He characterized neoconservatives as former leftists whom he derided as "socialists for Nixon" who had moved significantly to the right. These people tended to remain supporters of social democracy, but distinguished themselves by allying with the Nixon administration over foreign policy, especially by their support for the Vietnam War and opposition to the Soviet Union. They still supported the ''welfare state'', but not necessarily in its contemporary form.

Irving Kristol remarked that a neoconservative is a "", one who became more conservative after seeing the results of liberal policies. Kristol also distinguished three specific aspects of neoconservatism from previous forms of conservatism: neo-conservatives had a forward-looking approach drawn from their liberal heritage, rather than the reactionary and dour approach of previous conservatives; they had a meliorative outlook, proposing alternate reforms rather than simply attacking social liberal reforms; they took philosophical ideas and ideologies very seriously.

Political philosopher Leo Strauss (1899–1973) was an important intellectual antecedent of neoconservativism. Strauss notably influenced Allan Bloom, author of the 1987 bestseller ''Closing of the American Mind''.

In January 2009, at the close of President George W. Bush's second term in office, Jonathan Clarke, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, proposed the following as the "main characteristics of neoconservatism":

"a tendency to see the world in binary good/evil terms

low tolerance for diplomacy

readiness to use military force

emphasis on US unilateral action

disdain for multilateral organizations

focus on the Middle East

an us versus them mentality".

Views on foreign policy

In foreign policy, the neoconservatives' main concern is to prevent the arrival of a new rival. Defense Planning Guidance, a document prepared in 1992 by Under Secretary for Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz, is regarded by Distinguished Professor of the Humanities John McGowan at the University of North Carolina as the "quintessential statement of neoconservative thought". The report says: :"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power."

According to Lead Editor of e-International Relations, Stephen McGlinchey, "Neo-conservatism is something of a chimera in modern politics. For its opponents it is a distinct political movement that emphasizes the blending of military power with Wilsonian idealism, yet for its supporters it is more of a ‘persuasion’ that individuals of many types drift into and out of. Regardless of which is more correct, it is now widely accepted that the neo-conservative impulse has been visible in modern American foreign policy and that it has left a distinct impact"

Historically, neoconservatives supported a militant anticommunism, tolerated more social welfare spending than was sometimes acceptable to libertarians and paleoconservatives, and sympathized with a nontraditional foreign policy agenda that was less deferential to traditional conceptions of diplomacy and international law and less inclined to compromise principles, even if that meant unilateral action.

The movement began to focus on such foreign issues in the mid-1970s. However, it first crystallized in the late 1960s as an effort to combat the radical cultural changes taking place within the United States. Irving Kristol wrote: "If there is any one thing that neoconservatives are unanimous about, it is their dislike of the counterculture." Norman Podhoretz agreed: "Revulsion against the counterculture accounted for more converts to neoconservatism than any other single factor." Ira Chernus argues that the deepest root of the neoconservative movement is its fear that the counterculture would undermine the authority of traditional values and moral norms. Because neoconservatives believe that human nature is innately selfish, they believe that a society with no commonly accepted values based on religion or ancient tradition will end up in a ''war of all against all''. They also believe that the most important social value is strength, especially the strength to control natural impulses. The only alternative, they assume, is weakness that will let impulses run riot and lead to social chaos.

According to Peter Steinfels, a historian of the movement, the neoconservatives' "emphasis on foreign affairs emerged after the New Left and the counterculture had dissolved as convincing foils for neoconservatism . . . The essential source of their anxiety is not military or geopolitical or to be found overseas at all; it is domestic and cultural and ideological." Neoconservative foreign policy parallels their domestic policy.

Believing that America should "export democracy," that is, spread its ideals of government, economics, and culture abroad, they grew to reject U.S. reliance on international organizations and treaties to accomplish these objectives. Compared with other U.S. conservatives, neoconservatives take a more idealist stance on foreign policy; adhere less to social conservatism; have a weaker dedication to the policy of minimal government; and in the past, have been more supportive of the welfare state. According to Norman Podhoretz,

Aggressive support for democracies and nation building is additionally justified by a belief that, over the long term, it will reduce the extremism that is a breeding ground for Islamic terrorism. Neoconservatives, along with many other political theorists , have argued that democratic regimes are less likely to instigate a war than a country with an authoritarian form of government. Further, they argue that the lack of freedoms, lack of economic opportunities, and the lack of secular general education in authoritarian regimes promotes radicalism and extremism. Consequently, neoconservatives advocate the spread of democracy to regions of the world where it currently does not prevail, notably the Arab nations of the Middle East, communist China and North Korea, and Iran.

In July 2008 Joe Klein wrote in TIME magazine that today's neoconservatives are more interested in confronting enemies than in cultivating friends. He questioned the sincerity of neoconservative interest in exporting democracy and freedom, saying, ''"Neoconservatism in foreign policy is best described as unilateral bellicosity cloaked in the utopian rhetoric of freedom and democracy."''

In February 2009 Andrew Sullivan wrote he no longer took neoconservatism seriously because its basic tenet was defense of Israel:

Neoconservatives respond to charges of merely rationalizing support for Israel by noting that their "position on the Middle East conflict was exactly congruous with the neoconservative position on conflicts everywhere else in the world, including places where neither Jews nor Israeli interests could be found—not to mention the fact that non-Jewish neoconservatives took the same stands on all of the issues as did their Jewish confrères."

Views on Economics

While Neoconservatism is primarily concerned with foreign policy, there is also some discussion of internal economic policies. Neoconservatism is generally supportive of free markets and capitalism, favoring supply side approaches, but it shows several points of disagreement with classical liberalism and fiscal conservatism: Irving Kristol states that neocons are more relaxed about budget deficits and tend to reject the Hayekian notion that the growth of government influence on society and public welfare is "the road to serfdom". Indeed, to safeguard democracy, government intervention and budget deficits may sometimes be necessary, Kristol argues.

Further, neoconservative ideology stresses that while free markets do provide material goods in an efficient way, they lack the moral guidance human beings need to fulfill their needs. Morality can only be found in tradition, they say, and, contrary to the libertarian view, markets do pose questions that can't be solved within a purely economic framework. "So as the economy only makes up part of our lives, it must not be allowed to take over and entirely dictate to our society". Stelzer concludes that while neoconservative economic policy helped to lower taxes and generate growth, it also led to a certain disregard of fiscal responsibility. Critics consider neoconservatism a bellicose and "heroic" ideology opposed to "mercantile" and "bourgeois" virtues and therefore "a variant of anti-economic thought". Political scientist Zeev Sternhell states that "Neoconservatism has suceeded in convincing the great majority of Americans that the main questions that concern a society are not economic, and that social questions are really moral questions."

Distinctions from other conservatives

Some influential members of the early neoconservative movement, such as Elliot Abrams, were originally members of the Democratic Party, where they advocated for "cold war liberalism". They have been in electoral alignment with other conservatives and served in the same presidential administrations. While they have often ignored ideological differences in alliance against those to their left, neoconservatives differ from ''paleoconservatives''. In particular, they disagree with nativism, protectionism, and non-interventionism in foreign policy, ideologies that are rooted in American history, but which have fallen out of the mainstream U.S. politics after World War II. Compared with traditionalist conservatism and libertarianism, which may be non-interventionist, neoconservatism emphasizes defense capability, challenging regimes hostile to the values and interests of the United States. Neoconservatives also believe in democratic peace theory, the proposition that democracies never or almost never go to war with one another.

Neoconservatives are opposed to realist (and especially neorealist) theories and policies of international relations , often associated with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Though Republican and anti-communist, Nixon and Kissinger made pragmatic accommodation with dictators and sought peace through negotiations, diplomacy, and arms control. They pursued ''détente'' with the Soviet Union, rather than ''rollback'', and established relations with the Communist People's Republic of China. On the other hand, American neoconservatives are often held up as exemplars of idealism (often, paradoxically, called liberalism) in international relations, on account of their state-centered and ideological (as opposed to systematic and security-centered) interpretation of world politics.

Unlike all other schools of conservative thought, the neoconservatives are prepared to make war on the status quo, sometimes gaining them the name radical conservatives . Most recently they've been associated with advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein - something violently opposed by realists and mainstream conservatives as something that could cause instability. However, the neoconservative view says that instability for now will result in long term stability as a democracy will replace a dictatorial and totalitarian regime.

Criticism of terminology

Some of those identified as ''neoconservative'' reject the term, arguing that it lacks a coherent definition, or that it was coherent only in the context of the Cold War.

Conservative writer David Horowitz argues that the increasing use of the term ''neoconservative'' since the 2003 start of the Iraq War has made it irrelevant:

The term may have lost meaning due to excessive and inconsistent use. For example, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld have been identified as leading neoconservatives despite the fact that they have been life-long conservative Republicans (though Cheney and Rice have supported Irving Kristol's ideas).

Some critics reject the idea that there is a neoconservative movement separate from traditional American conservatism. Traditional conservatives are skeptical of the contemporary usage of the term and dislike being associated with its stereotypes or supposed agendas. Columnist David Harsanyi wrote, "These days, it seems that even temperate support for military action against dictators and terrorists qualifies you a neocon." Jonah Goldberg rejected the label as trite and over-used, arguing "There's nothing 'neo' about me: I was never anything other than conservative."

Antisemitism

Some writers and intellectuals have argued that criticism of neoconservatism is often a euphemism for criticism of Zionist Jews, and that the term has been adopted by the political left to stigmatize support for Israel. In ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'', Robert J. Lieber warned that criticism of the 2003 Iraq War had spawned

Time magazine's Joe Klein has suggested it is legitimate to look at the religion of neoconservatives. He does not say there was a conspiracy but says there is a case to be made for disproportionate influence of Jewish neoconservative figures in US foreign policy, and that several of them supported the Iraq war because of Israel's interests, though sometimes in an unconscious contradiction to American interests:

David Brooks derided the "fantasies" of "full-mooners fixated on a... sort of Yiddish Trilateral Commission", beliefs which had "hardened into common knowledge... In truth, people labeled neocons (con is short for 'conservative' and neo is short for 'Jewish') travel in widely different circles..." Barry Rubin argued that the neoconservative label is used as an antisemitic pejorative:

Criticism

The term ''neoconservative'' may be used pejoratively by self-described paleoconservatives, Democrats, liberals, progressives and by libertarians.

Critics take issue with neoconservatives' support for aggressive foreign policy. Critics from the left take issue with what they characterize as unilateralism and lack of concern with international consensus through organizations such as the United Nations. Neoconservatives respond by describing their shared view as a belief that national security is best attained by actively promoting freedom and democracy abroad as in the democratic peace theory through the support of pro-democracy movements, foreign aid and in certain cases military intervention. This is a departure from the traditional conservative tendency to support friendly regimes in matters of trade and anti-communism even at the expense of undermining existing democratic systems and possible destabilization. Author Paul Berman in his book ''Terror and Liberalism'' describes it as, "Freedom for others means safety for ourselves. Let us be for freedom for others."

In an essay in the ''New York Times Magazine'' in 2006 that was strongly critical of the Iraq invasion, Francis Fukuyama identified neoconservatism with Leninism. He wrote that neoconservatives:

…believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will. Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United States. Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support.

Republican Congressman and libertarian leaning 2012 Presidential candidate Ron Paul has been a long time critic of the neoconservative movement as an attack on freedom and the U.S. Constitution, including an extensive speech on the House floor addressing neoconservative roots and how neoconservatism is neither new nor conservative. That speech can be seen in a variety of places online.

Foreign interventionism

Recently neoconservatives and military, in line with the Bush Doctrine, are speaking of cumulative and synergistic Effects-Based Operations to combat asymmetric warfare nature in the War on Terrorism and their ''Axis of evil'' supporters. Such proactive foreign interventionism has over time created some controversy as in the case of Operation Gladio, School of the Americas (WHINSEC), the Iraq War, the war in North-West Pakistan and over policies of low intensity conflict or other effects-based operations. Some conservatives, like Rush Limbaugh, say that parts of such demonizing controversy is fueling a culture of fear. Currently there are also controversies with Russia accusing the USA of interfering in the Russia-Georgia war, Bolivian president Evo Morales accusing the USA of supporting an insurrection against him and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez saying the USA has been plotting for overthrowing his presidency. Both Bolivia and Venezuela accuse the George W. Bush administration of interfering with their democratically elected governments. The 2004 award-winning documentary film ''Fahrenheit 9/11'' by Michael Moore criticizes the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The 2007 documentary film ''The War on Democracy'' by Christopher Martin and John Pilger treats the subject of United States history of foreign interventionism in Latin America.

Imperialism and secrecy

John McGowan, professor of humanities at the University of North Carolina, states, after an extensive review of neoconservative literature and theory, that neoconservatives are attempting to build an American Empire, seen as successor to the British Empire, its aim being to perpetuate a Pax Americana. As imperialism is largely seen as unacceptable by the American public, neoconservatives do not articulate their ideas and goals in a frank manner in public discourse. McGowan states,

Tim Dickinson has accused the George W. Bush administration of political denialism.

Friction with paleoconservatism

Starting in the 1980s, disputes over Israel and public policy contributed to a sharp conflict with paleoconservatives, who argue that neoconservatives are an illegitimate addition to the conservative movement. For example, Pat Buchanan calls neoconservatism "a globalist, interventionist, open borders ideology." The open rift is often traced back to a 1981 dispute over Ronald Reagan's nomination of Mel Bradford, a Southerner, to run the National Endowment for the Humanities. Bradford withdrew after neoconservatives complained that he had criticized Abraham Lincoln; the paleoconservatives supported Bradford. Ironically Paleos and Neos share a common bond with their hatred for Libertarians with the national exposure of people like Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell who have long criticized the military adventurism of neos and the economic protectionist polices of paleos.

Neoconservatism in other countries

Czech Republic

Great Britain

Japan

Related publications and institutions

Institutions

American Israel Public Affairs Committee

Bradley Foundation

Ethics and Public Policy Center

Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Henry Jackson Society

Hudson Institute

Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs

Project for the New American Century

American Enterprise Institute

Center for Security Policy

Publications

''Commentary''

''Front Page Magazine''

''Policy Review''

''The National Interest''

''The Public Interest''

''The Weekly Standard''

See also

Factions in the Republican Party (United States)

Globalization

Neoconservatism and paleoconservatism

Neoconservatism in Japan

Paleoconservatism

Project for a New American Century

Notes

References

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Joyce Battle, ed. "Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984", National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 82, February 25, 2003. Accessed online 16 September 2006.

Buchanan, Patrick J.. "Whose War", ''The American Conservative'', March 24, 2003. Accessed online 16 September 2006.

Bush, George W., Gerhard Schroeder, et al., "Transcript: Bush, Schroeder Roundtable With German Professionals", ''The Washington Post'', February 23, 2005. Accessed online 16 September 2006.

Chernus, Ira. ''Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin'', Boulder: Paradigm, 2006. ISBN 1-59451-276-0.

Dean, John. ''Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush'', Little, Brown, 2004. ISBN 0-316-00023-X (hardback). Critical account of neo-conservatism in the administration of George W. Bush.

Frum, David. "Unpatriotic Conservatives", ''National Review'', April 7, 2003. Accessed online 16 September 2006.

Gerson, Mark, ed. ''The Essential Neo-Conservative Reader'', Perseus, 1997. ISBN 0-201-15488-9 (paperback), ISBN 0-201-47968-0 (hardback).

Gerson, Mark. "Norman's Conquest: A Commentary on the Podhoretz Legacy", ''Policy Review'', Fall 1995, Number 74. Accessed online 16 September 2006.

Gray, John. ''Black Mass'', Allen Lane, 2007. ISBN 978-0-7139-9915-0.

Hanson, Jim ''The Decline of the American Empire'', Praeger, 1993. ISBN 0-275-94480-8.

Halper, Stefan and Jonathan Clarke. ''America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order'', Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-521-83834-7.

Kagan, Robert, et al., ''Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy''. Encounter Books, 2000. ISBN 1-893554-16-3.

Kristol, Irving. ''Neo-Conservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea: Selected Essays 1949-1995'', New York: The Free Press, 1995. ISBN 0-02-874021-1 (10). ISBN 978-0-02-874021-8 (13). (Hardcover ed.) Reprinted as ''Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea'', New York: Ivan R. Dee, 1999. ISBN 1-56663-228-5 (10). (Paperback ed.)

—. "What Is a Neoconservative?", ''Newsweek'', January 19, 1976.

Lara Amat y León, Joan y Antón Mellón, Joan, “Las persuasiones neoconservadoras: F. Fukuyama, S. P. Huntington, W. Kristol y R. Kagan”, en Máiz, Ramón (comp.), ''Teorías políticas contemporáneas'', (2ªed.rev. y ampl.) Tirant lo Blanch, Valencia, 2009. ISBN 978-84-9876-463-5. Ficha del libro

Lara Amat y León, Joan, “Cosmopolitismo y anticosmoplitismo en el neoconservadurismo: Fukuyama y Huntington”, en Nuñez, Paloma y Espinosa, Javier (eds.), ''Filosofía y política en el siglo XXI. Europa y el nuevo orden cosmopolita'', Akal, Madrid, 2009. ISBN 978-84-460-2875-8. Ficha del libro

Lasn, Kalle. "Why won't anyone say they are Jewish?", ''Adbusters'', March/April 2004. Accessed online September 16, 2006.

Lindberg, Tom. "Neoconservatism's Liberal Legacy", ''Policy Review'', 127 (2004): 3-22.

Mann, James. ''Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet'', Viking, 2004. ISBN 0-670-03299-9 (cloth).

Manuel, Sam. "Jew-hatred, red-baiting: heart of claims of 'neocon' conspiracy", ''The Militant'' (U.S.), June 28, 2004. Accessed online 16 September 2006.

Mascolo, Georg. ""A Leaderless, Directionless Superpower: interview with Ex-Powell aide Wilkerson", Spiegel Online, December 6, 2005. Accessed 16 September 2006.

Muravchik, Joshua. "Renegades", ''Commentary'', October 1, 2002. Bibliographical information is available online, the article itself is not.

Muravchik, Joshua. "The Neoconservative Cabal", ''Commentary'', September, 2003. Bibliographical information is available online, the article itself is not.

Prueher, Joseph. U.S. apology to China over spy plane incident, April 11, 2001. Reproduced on sinomania.com. Accessed online 16 September 2006.

Podoretz, Norman. ''The Norman Podhoretz Reader''. New York: Free Press, 2004. ISBN 0-7432-3661-0.

Roucaute Yves. ''Le Neoconservatisme est un humanisme''. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2005.ISBN 2-13-055016-9.

Roucaute Yves. ''La Puissance de la Liberté''. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2004.ISBN 2-13-054293-X.

Ruppert, Michael C.. ''Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil'', New Society, 2004. ISBN 0-86571-540-8.

Ryn, Claes G., ''America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire'', Transaction, 2003. ISBN 0-7658-0219-8 (cloth).

Stelzer, Irwin, ed. ''Neoconservatism'', Atlantic Books, 2004.

Smith, Grant F. ''Deadly Dogma: How Neoconservatives Broke the Law to Deceive America''. ISBN 0-9764437-4-0.

Solarz, Stephen, et al. "Open Letter to the President", February 19, 1998, online at IraqWatch.org. Accessed September 16, 2006.

Steinfels, Peter. ''The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing America's Politics'', New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. ISBN 0-671-22665-7.

Strauss, Leo. ''Natural Right and History'', University of Chicago Press, 1999. ISBN 0-226-77694-8.

Strauss, Leo. ''The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism'', University of Chicago Press, 1989. ISBN 0-226-77715-4.

Tolson, Jay. "The New American Empire?", ''U.S. News and World Report'', January 13, 2003. Accessed online September 16, 2006.

Wilson, Joseph. ''The Politics of Truth''. Carroll & Graf, 2004. ISBN 0-7867-1378-X.

Woodward, Bob. ''Plan of Attack'', Simon and Schuster, 2004. ISBN 0-7432-5547-X.

Raimondo, Justin. ''Reclaiming the American Right:The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement'', Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2008. ISBN 1-933859-60-1.

Further reading

Balint, Benjamin V. ''Running Commentary: The Contentious Magazine that Transformed the Jewish Left into the Neoconservative Right'' (2010)

Dorrien, Gary. ''The Neoconservative Mind''. ISBN 1-56639-019-2, n attack from the Left

Ehrman, John. ''The Rise of Neoconservatism: Intellectual and Foreign Affairs 1945—1994'', Yale University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-300-06870-0, friendly analysis

Friedman, Murray. ''The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy''. Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-521-54501-3.

Heilbrunn, Jacob. ''They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons'', Doubleday (2008) ISBN 0-385-51181-7

* Heilbrunn, Jacob. "5 Myths About Those Nefarious Neocons," ''Washington Post'', Feb. 10, 2008

Kristol, Irving. "The Neoconservative Persuasion".

Lind, Michael. "How Neoconservatives Conquered Washington", ''Salon'', April 9, 2003.

Vaïsse, Justin. ''Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement'' (Harvard U.P. 2010), translated from the French

Identity

List of prominent neoconservatives, Sourcewatch.org.

"Neoconservatism: Key Figures",''The Christian Science Monitor''.

Steigerwald, Bill. "So, what is a 'neocon'?"

Stelzer, Irwin. "Nailing the neocon myth".

Selden, Zachary , "Neoconservatives and the American Mainstream". Selden is director of the Defence and Security Committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

Critiques

Fukuyama,,Francis. "After Neoconservatism". Archived copy of original New York Times article. Also available in .pdf

Gottfried, Paul. "What's In A Name? The Curious Case Of 'Neoconservative'" Vdare.com, April 30, 2003.

Gottfried, Paul. "Conservatives, Neoconservatives, Paleoconservatives: What Next?" Vdare.com April 12, 2007.

Gottfried, Paul. "Strauss & the Straussians" ''Humanitas,'' Vol. 18, Nos 1-2, 2005.

Grigg, William Norman. "Neoconservative fascism", LewRockwell.com, May 4, 2007. A paleolibertarian critique of neoconservatism.

Ryn, Claes G. ''Strauss & History''. ''Humanitas,'' Vol. 18, Nos 1-2, 2005.

Zmirak, J.P., "America the Abstraction" ''The American Conservative,'' January 13, 2003.

Lobe, Jim. "Attacking Neo-Cons From the Right". Review of ''America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order'', a critique by two center-right authors.

External links

Adam Curtis. ''The Power of Nightmares'', BBC. Archive.

Category:Conservatism Neoconservatism Neoconservatism Neoconservatism Category:Political ideologies

ar:محافظون جدد ca:Neoconservadorisme cs:Neokonzervatismus da:Nykonservatisme de:Neokonservatismus et:Neokonservatism es:Neoconservadurismo fa:نومحافظه‌کاران آمریکا fr:Néo-conservatisme gl:Neoconservadorismo ko:신보수주의 it:Neoconservatorismo he:נאו-קונסרבטיביזם ka:ნეოკონსერვატიზმი kk:Неоконсерватизм hu:Neokonzervativizmus nl:Neoconservatisme ja:新保守主義 no:Nykonservatisme pl:Neokonserwatyzm pt:Neoconservadorismo ro:Neoconservatorism ru:Неоконсерватизм sk:Neokonzervativizmus sr:Неоконзерватизам sh:Neokonzervativizam u SAD fi:Uuskonservatismi sv:Neokonservatism uk:Неоконсерватизм zh:新保守主義

Oliver Kamm (born 1963) is a British writer and journalist. He wrote ''Anti-Totalitarianism: The Left-wing Case for a Neoconservative Foreign Policy'' (2005), an advocacy of interventionism in foreign policy. He is a leader writer and columnist for ''The Times''.

Background

The son of translator Anthea Bell, Kamm was educated at New College, Oxford and Birkbeck College, University of London. He went on to a career in the Bank of England and the securities industry, including as the Head of Strategic Research at Commerzbank Global Equities in London. He helped start a pan-European investment bank in 1997. He is a former investment banker.

Politics

Kamm describes his politics as left-wing. Kamm's early activities in Labour included canvassing in Leicester South in the 1979 general election, which saw Margaret Thatcher become Prime Minister. While he continued to vote Labour into the 1980s, he eventually became dissatisfied with the party's leadership and policies, particularly its stance on nuclear disarmament, and left the party altogether in 1988. He worked for the 1997 election campaign of Martin Bell, who is his uncle, against incumbent Neil Hamilton, drafting a manifesto "so right-wing that Hamilton was incapable of outflanking it."

That year saw the election of the 'New Labour' government of Tony Blair, which Kamm strongly supported, particularly its foreign policy and 'liberal interventionism'. Although generally supportive of the Labour Party in the 2005 general election, Kamm stated that he could not support Celia Barlow, the Labour candidate in his local constituency, Hove, because of her opposition to Blair's foreign policies. Instead, he stated that he would vote for the Conservative candidate, Nicholas Boles, who supported the Iraq war.

A founding member of the Henry Jackson Society, Kamm supported the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. In 2004, he outlined a case for supporting the re-election of George W. Bush. In 2006, he was a signatory to the Euston Manifesto, arguing for a reorientation of the left around what its creators termed 'anti-totalitarian' principles. He favourably commented on Peter Beinart's ''The Good Fight: Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again'', which has similar themes to Kamm's own book, arguing that the left should look to the policies of Clement Attlee and Harry S. Truman in the early days of the Cold War as a model for response to Islamism and totalitarianism.

On 27 January 2010, Kamm announced on BBC Radio 5 live that he believed Tony Blair had been the greatest peacetime Prime Minister of the 20th century.

Because of his position on war and terrorism, critics such as Peter Wilby have stated that he is not actually left-wing at all. Kamm rejects this criticism, saying that he "claim[s] to be left-wing, for the straightforward reason that it's true". He elaborates on his support for left-wing policies such as economic redistribution, progressive taxation and a welfare state. He also supports legal abortion and gay marriage. Regarding socialism, Kamm wrote that former Prime Minister James Callaghan's "greatest single achievement" was to "destroy socialism as a serious proposition in British politics." He has also supported the rendition of suspected terrorists.

Kamm has written in ''Index on Censorship'' in response to the 2009 visit of Geert Wilders argued that "No one has a right in a free society to be protected from anguish".

Regarding the bombing of Dresden, he has asserted that the bombing of the city "was not a crime. It was a terrible act in a just and necessary war."

Kamm is well known for his criticisms of the linguist and libertarian socialist political writer Noam Chomsky, with his work appearing in David Horowitz's FrontPage Magazine. His thoughts on Chomsky are summarised in an article for ''Prospect'' magazine opposing its readers' choice of Chomsky in the top position for its 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll. Chomsky in turn accused Kamm of "transparent falsification" and claimed that Kamm's article demonstrated "the lengths to which some will go to prevent exposure of state crimes and their own complicity in them". Kamm replied by accusing Chomsky of "polemical distortions" including quoting himself selectively.

Notes

Category:1963 births Category:Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London Category:Alumni of New College, Oxford Category:British atheists Category:British bloggers Category:British journalists Category:Living people Category:The Times people

Coordinates	35°0′41.69″N135°46′5.47″N
{{infobox senator | name	Lindsey Graham
jr/sr	Senior Senator
state	South Carolina
party	Republican
term start	January 3, 2003
alongside	Jim DeMint
preceded	Strom Thurmond
succeeded	Incumbent
state2	South Carolina
district2	3rd
term start2	January 3, 1995
term end2	January 3, 2003
preceded2	Butler Derrick
succeeded2	J. Gresham Barrett
birth date	July 09, 1955
birth place	Central, South Carolina
occupation	Attorney
residence	Seneca, South Carolina
alma mater	University of South Carolina (B.A., J.D.)
religion	Southern Baptist
website	Senator Lindsey Graham
Branch	United States Air Force
Serviceyears	1982 – 1988 (active)1988 – present (reserve)
Rank	Colonel
Unit	Judge Advocate General's Corps
Battles	Gulf WarIraq WarWar in Afghanistan
Awards	}}

Lindsey Olin Graham (born July 9, 1955) is the senior U.S. Senator from South Carolina and a member of the Republican Party. Previously he served as the U.S. Representative for .

Early life, education and career

Graham was born in Central, South Carolina, where his parents, Millie and Florence James Graham, ran a liquor store, the Sanitary Cafe. After graduating from D. W. Daniel High School, Graham became the first member of his family to attend college and joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. When he was 21 his mother died, and his father died 15 months later. Because his sister was left orphaned, the service allowed Graham to attend University of South Carolina in Columbia so he could be near home and care for his sister, whom he adopted. During his studies, he became a member of the fraternity Pi Kappa Phi.

Graham graduated from the University of South Carolina with a B.A. in Psychology in 1977 and from the University of South Carolina School of Law with a J.D. in 1981. Upon graduating, Graham was sent to Europe as a military prosecutor, and eventually entered private practice as a lawyer.

Military service

Graham decided to join the United States Air Force in 1982, and served on active duty until 1988. Following his departure he stayed in the military, joining the South Carolina Air National Guard and the U.S. Air Force Reserve. During the Gulf War, he was recalled to active duty, serving as a Judge Advocate at McEntire Air National Guard Station in Eastover, South Carolina, where he helped brief departing pilots on the laws of war.

In 2004, Graham received a promotion to Colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserves at a White House ceremony officiated by President George W. Bush.

Graham served in Iraq as a reservist on active duty for short periods during April and two weeks in August 2007, where he worked on detainee and rule-of-law issues. He also served in Afghanistan during the August 2009 Senate recess.

Through 2010, Graham served as a senior instructor for the Judge Advocate General's Corps, U.S. Air Force.

South Carolina House of Representatives

In 1992, Graham was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives from a district in Oconee County, and served one term.

U.S. House of Representatives

Committee assignments

During his service in the House, Graham served on the following committees:

Committee on International Relations, 1995–1998

Committee on Education and the Workforce, 1995–2002

Committee on the Judiciary, 1997–2002

Committee on Armed Services, 1999–2002

In Congress, Graham became a member of the Judiciary Committee during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998. Graham opposed some articles, but vigorously supported others. In January and February 1999, after two impeachment articles had been passed by the full House, he was one of the managers who brought the House's case to Clinton's trial in the Senate which did not convict Clinton.

U.S. Senate

Committee assignments

Committee on Armed Services

*Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities

*Subcommittee on Personnel (Ranking Member)

*Subcommittee on Strategic Forces

Committee on the Budget

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

*Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia

*Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local, and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration

*Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery (Ranking Member)

*Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight

Committee on the Judiciary

*Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts

*Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs (Ranking Member)

*Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law

*Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights

Committee on Veterans' Affairs

Special Committee on Aging

Previous assignments

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, 2003–2005

Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, 2007–2009

Select Committee on Intelligence, 2007–2009

Caucus memberships

International Conservation Caucus

Senate National Guard Caucus (Co-Chair)

Sportsmen's Caucus

Graham is a member of the board of directors of the International Republican Institute.

Alito confirmation hearings

During the Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings for the nomination of Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court, a question arose concerning Alito's membership in a Princeton University organization which some said was sexist and racist. Alito "deplored" racist comments made by the organization's founder. While Graham said that Alito may be saying this because he wanted the nomination, he concluded that he had no reason to believe that because "you seem to be a decent, honorable man." Alito's wife and sister characterized Graham's statements as supportive.

Political positions

Though Graham's stances are often politically conservative, he has gained a reputation for sometimes speaking out against or criticizing the party line, as well as being open to making economical decisions, such as was demonstrated with his support for bank bailouts. Graham notably supported John McCain's presidential bid in 2000, and served as national co-chairman of McCain's 2008 presidential bid.

Free speech

During an appearance on ''Face the Nation'' on April 3, 2011, Graham "suggested that Congress take unspecified though formal action against the Koran-burning by Florida preacher Terry Jones," in light of an attack on United Nations personnel triggered by Jones' actions. In asserting that "Congress might need to explore the need to limit some forms of freedom of speech," Graham argued that "Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war," and claimed that "during World War II, we had limits on what you could say if it would inspire the enemy."

Gang of 14

On May 23, 2005, Graham was one of the Gang of 14 senators to forge a compromise that brought a halt to the continued blockage of an up or down vote on judicial nominees. This compromise negated both the Democrats' use of a filibuster and the Republican "nuclear option" as described in the media. Under the agreement, the Democrats would retain the power to filibuster a Bush judicial nominee only in an "extraordinary circumstance", and three conservative Bush appellate court nominees (Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen and William Pryor) would receive a vote by the full Senate.

Detainee interrogations

In July 2005, Graham secured the declassification and release of memoranda outlining concerns made by senior military lawyers as early as 2003 about the legality of the interrogations of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

In response to this and a June 2004 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing detainees to file habeas corpus petitions to challenge their detentions, Graham authored an amendment to a Department of Defense Authorization Act attempting to clarify the authority of American courts which passed in November 2005 by a vote of 49-42 in the Senate despite opposition from human rights groups and legal scholars because of the lack of rights it provides detainees.

Graham has said he amended the Department of Defense Authorization Act in order to give military lawyers, as opposed to politically appointed lawyers, a more independent role in the oversight of military commanders. He has argued that two of the largest problems leading to the detainee abuse scandals at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib were this lack of oversight and troops' confusion over legal boundaries.

Graham further explains that military lawyers had long observed the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Convention, but that those provisions had not been considered by the Bush administration in decisions regarding the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo Bay. He has claimed that better legal oversight within the military’s chain of command will prevent future detainee abuse.

The Graham amendment was itself amended by Democratic Senator Carl Levin so that it would not strip the courts of their jurisdiction in cases like ''Hamdan v. Rumsfeld'' that had already been granted cert; this compromise version passed by a vote of 84-14, though it did little to satisfy many critics of the original language. The Graham-Levin amendment, combined with Republican Senator John McCain's amendment banning torture, became known as the Detainee Treatment Act and attempted to limit interrogation techniques to those in the U.S. Army Field Manual of Interrogation. Verbal statements by Senators at the time of the amendment's passage indicated that Congress believed that Levin's changes would protect the courts' jurisdiction over cases like ''Hamdan'', though Levin and his cosponsor Kyl placed in the Congressional Record a statement indicating that there would be no change.

In February 2006, Graham joined Senator Jon Kyl in filing an amicus brief in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case that argued "Congress was aware" that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 would strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction to hear "pending cases, including this case" brought by the Guantanamo detainees.

In a May 2009 CNN interview, Graham referred to the domestic internment of German and Japanese prisoners of war and US Citizens as a model for domestic detention of Guantanamo detainees by saying, "We had 450,000 Japanese and German prisoners housed in the United States during World War II. As a nation, we can deal with this."

Immigration reform

Graham has been a supporter of "comprehensive immigration reform" and of S. 2611, the McCain-Kennedy Immigration Reform Bill of 2006 as well as S. 1348 of 2007, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007.

His positions on immigration, and in particular collaborating with Senator Ted Kennedy, earned Graham the ire of conservative activists. Graham responded by saying, "We are going to solve this problem. We're not going to run people down. We're not going to scapegoat people. We're going to tell the bigots to shut up, and we're going to get this right." The controversy prompted conservative activists to support a primary challenge in 2008 by longtime Republican national committeeman Buddy Witherspoon, but Graham won the nomination by a large margin.

On July 28, 2010, however, Graham seemed to offer multiple concessions to the more conservative wing of his party when, during an interview on the Fox News Channel program ''On The Record With Greta Van Susteren'', he suggested that U.S. citizenship as an automatic birthright — guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — was "a mistake", that the Constitution should be amended to reflect this view, and that any child born of illegal immigrants inside the borders of the United States should themselves be considered illegal immigrants. "Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake," explained Graham. "We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child's automatically not a citizen." He did not suggest, however, what his alternate criteria would be - if any - for gaining citizenship by birth. He continued to suggest that all immigrants should be compelled by law to learn English, another new position for Graham.

Second Amendment

Graham has been given an A rating by the NRA and a B rating by the Gun Owners of America.

Health care

Graham opposed President Barack Obama's health reform legislation; he voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in December 2009, and he voted against the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

Graham is a cosponsor of the Healthy Americans Act.

Same-sex marriage

As a member of the House of Representatives, in 1996 Graham voted for the Defense of Marriage Act. As a Senator, in 2004 he voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment. He received a rating of 0% from the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign in each reporting period from 1995-2008, with the exception of 1999, when he received a rating of 9%.

Climate change

On December 10, 2009, Graham co-sponsored a letter to President Barack Obama along with Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman announcing their commitment to passing a climate change bill and outlining its framework. Graham has been identified as a leading supporter of passing a climate change bill and was thought to be a likely sponsor for the final bill. The Senators have identified a green economy, clean air, energy independence, consumer protection, increasing nuclear power and regulating the world's carbon market as the key features to a successful climate change bill. In response to Senate Democrats shifting their priorities to immigration issues, a reaction to Arizona's passage of an anti-undocumented immigrant law, Senator Graham withdrew his support for the climate bill, leaving its passage in doubt.

In June 2010, however, Graham told reporters that "The science about global warming has changed. I think they've oversold this stuff, quite frankly. I think they've been alarmist and the science is in question. The whole movement has taken a giant step backward." He also stated that he planned to vote against the climate bill that he had originally co-sponsored, citing further restriction of offshore drilling added to the bill and the bill's impact on transportation.

Foreign policy

Graham has supported an interventionist foreign policy. On November 6, 2010 at the Halifax International Security Forum, he called for a pre-emptive military strike to "neuter" the Iranian regime. He has also argued that "the U.S. needs to keep at least 10,000 troops in Iraq into 2012," saying that "If we're not smart enough to work with the Iraqis to have 10,000 to 15,000 American troops in Iraq in 2012, Iraq could go to hell."

In August 2011, Graham co-sponsored with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen Senate Resolution 175, wherewith he contended that "Russia's invasion of Georgian land in 2008 was an act of aggression, not only to Georgia but to all new democracies." The claim that Russia instigated the aggression in South Ossetia, however, has been contradicted by many observers, including a European Union investigation. The resolution passed unanimously.

He is an advisor to the Atlantic Bridge.

Political campaigns

In 1994, Graham was elected to the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina's 3rd congressional district in the northwestern part of the state after 20-year incumbent Butler Derrick retired. With U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond campaigning on his behalf, Graham won by a large margin, becoming the first Republican to represent this district since 1877. The margin came as something of a surprise; none of the 3rd's living residents had ever been represented by a Republican before. In his first reelection bid, in 1996, Debbie Dorn, daughter of longtime 3rd District congressman W.J. Bryan Dorn and Derrick's niece, challenged Graham. However, Graham turned back this challenge fairly easily, winning by almost 20 points. He was unopposed for reelection in 1998 and handily defeated an underfunded Democrat in 2000.

In 2002, upon Thurmond's retirement, Graham defeated his Democratic opponent, Alex Sanders, the former president of the College of Charleston. Graham became South Carolina's first new Senator since 1965, and the state's first freshman Republican Senator since Reconstruction when sanctions were imposed on South Carolina by Radical Republicans. Graham served as Junior Senator for only two years, serving with U.S. Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings. Graham became Senior Senator in 2005 when Jim DeMint won election to Hollings's seat. In 2008, Graham was easily reelected against North Myrtle Beach native Bob Conley.

Electoral history

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:0.5em ; font-size:95%" |+ : Results 1994–2000 !|Year ! !|Democrat !|Votes !|Pct ! !|Republican !|Votes !|Pct ! !|3rd Party !|Party !|Votes !|Pct ! |- |1994 | | | | align="right" |59,932 | |40% | | | | align="right" |90,123 | |60% | | | | | | |* |- |1996 | | |Debbie Dorn | align="right" |73,417 | |39% | | |Lindsey Graham | align="right" |114,273 | |60% | | |Lindal Pennington | |Natural Law | align="right" |1,835 | align="right" |1% | |- |1998 | | |''(no candidate)'' | align="right" | | | | | |Lindsey Graham | align="right" |129,047 | |100% | | |Write-ins | | | align="right" |402 | align="right" |<1% | |- |2000 | | |(On United Citizens line)(Total) | align="right" |64,9172,25367,170 | |29% 1%30% | | |Lindsey Graham | align="right" |150,180 | |68% | | |Adrian Banks | |Libertarian | align="right" |3,116 | align="right" |1% | |*

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:0.5em ; font-size:95%" |+ Senate elections in South Carolina (Class II): Results 2002–2008 !|Year ! !|Democrat !|Votes !|Pct ! !|Republican !|Votes !|Pct ! !|3rd Party !|Party !|Votes !|Pct ! !|3rd Party !|Party !|Votes !|Pct ! |- |2002 | | | | align="right" |487,359 | |44% | | | | align="right" |600,010 | |54% | | |Ted Adams | |Constitution | align="right" |8,228 | align="right" |1% | | |Victor Kocher | |Libertarian | align="right" |6,648 | align="right" |1% | |* |- |2008 | | | | align="right" |785,559 | |42% | | |Lindsey Graham | align="right" |1,069,137 | |58% | | |Write-ins | | | align="right" |608 | align="right" |<1% | | | | | |

Personal life

Graham has never been married and, when questioned by Robert Draper of the ''New York Times'', said, "I know it's really going to upset a lot of gay men—I'm sure hundreds of them are going to be jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge—but I ain't available; I ain't gay. Sorry."

References

External links

United States Senator Lindsey Graham ''official U.S. Senate site''

Lindsey Graham for U.S. Senate ''official campaign site''

Profile from the ''Senate Republican Caucus''

Profile at SourceWatch

"Swing Conservative: The perilous bipartisanship of Lindsey Graham." ''Washington Monthly'', April 2005

"The American Ghosts of Abu Ghraib", Sam Provance, ''Consortium News'', March 27.2007

{{U.S. Senator box | before=Strom Thurmond | after= Incumbent | state=South Carolina | class=2 | years=2003–present | alongside=Ernest Hollings, Jim DeMint}}

Category:1955 births Category:American military personnel of the Iraq War Category:American prosecutors Category:Living people Category:International Republican Institute Category:Members of the South Carolina House of Representatives Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina Category:People from Pickens County, South Carolina Category:South Carolina lawyers Category:South Carolina Republicans Category:Southern Baptists Category:United States Air Force officers Category:United States Senators from South Carolina Category:University of South Carolina alumni Category:Republican Party United States Senators

de:Lindsey Graham fr:Lindsey Graham la:Lindsey Graham nl:Lindsey Graham no:Lindsey Graham pl:Lindsey Graham pt:Lindsey Graham ru:Грэм, Линдси sh:Lindsey Graham fi:Lindsey Graham sv:Lindsey Graham

Coordinates	35°0′41.69″N135°46′5.47″N
color	#B0C4DE
name	Avram Noam Chomsky
birth date	December 07, 1928
birth place	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
residence	U.S.
nationality	American
field	Linguistics
alma mater	University of Pennsylvania (BA 1949, MA 1951, Ph.D 1955)
Work institutions	MIT
known for	Generative grammaruniversal grammartransformational grammargovernment and binding theoryX-bar theoryChomsky hierarchycontext-free grammarprinciples and parametersMinimalist programlanguage acquisition devicepoverty of the stimulusChomsky–Schützenberger theoremChomsky normal formpropaganda model
Signature	Noam Chomsky signature.svg }}

Avram Noam Chomsky (; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) of in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and a major figure of analytic philosophy. His work has influenced fields such as computer science, mathematics, and psychology.

Chomsky is credited as the creator or co-creator of the Chomsky hierarchy theorem, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem.

Chomsky is known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy, and he has been described as a prominent cultural figure. His social criticism has included ''Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media'' (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the propaganda model theory for examining the media.

According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992. He is also the eighth most cited source of all time, and is considered the "most cited living author". Chomsky is the author of over 100 books.

Life and career

Chomsky was born on the morning of December 7, 1928, to Jewish parents in the affluent East Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of noted professor of Hebrew at Gratz College and IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) member William Chomsky (1896–1977), a native of Ukraine. His mother, Elsie Chomsky (née Simonofsky)—a native of what is present-day Belarus—grew up in the United States and, unlike her husband, spoke "ordinary New York English". Chomsky's parents' first language was Yiddish, but Chomsky said it was "taboo" in his family to speak it. Although Chomsky's mother was part of the radical activism in the 1930s, he was influenced largely by his uncle who, having never passed 4th grade, owned a newsstand that acted as an "intellectual center [where] professors of this and that argu[ed] all night". Chomsky was influenced also by being a part of a Hebrew-based, Zionist organization, as well as by hanging around anarchist bookstores.

He describes his family as living in a sort of "Jewish ghetto", split into a "Yiddish side" and "Hebrew side", with his family aligning with the latter and bringing him up "immersed in Hebrew culture and literature", though he means more a "cultural ghetto than a physical one". Chomsky also describes tensions he experienced with Irish Catholics and German Catholics and anti-semitism in the mid-1930s. He recalls "beer parties" celebrating the fall of Paris to the Nazis. In a discussion of the irony of his staying in the 1980s in a Jesuit House in Central America, Chomsky explained that during his childhood, "We were the only Jewish family around. I grew up with a visceral fear of Catholics. They're the people who beat you up on your way to school. So I knew when they came out of that building down the street, which was the Jesuit school, they were raving anti-Semites. So childhood memories took a long time to overcome."

Chomsky remembers the first article he wrote was at age 10 while a student at Oak Lane Country Day School about the threat of the spread of fascism, following the fall of Barcelona in the Spanish Civil War. From the age of 12 or 13, he identified more fully with anarchist politics.

A graduate of Central High School of Philadelphia, Chomsky began studying philosophy and linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1945, taking classes with philosophers such as C. West Churchman and Nelson Goodman and linguist Zellig Harris. Harris's teaching included his discovery of transformations as a mathematical analysis of language structure (mappings from one subset to another in the set of sentences). Chomsky referred to the morphophonemic rules in his 1951 master's thesis—''The Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew''—as transformations in the sense of Carnap's 1938 notion of rules of transformation (vs. rules of formation), and subsequently reinterpreted the notion of grammatical transformations in a very different way from Harris, as operations on the productions of a context-free grammar (derived from Post production systems). Harris's political views were instrumental in shaping those of Chomsky. Chomsky earned a BA in 1949 and an MA in 1951.

In 1949, he married linguist Carol Schatz. They remained married for 59 years until her death from cancer in December 2008. The couple had two daughters, Aviva (b. 1957) and Diane (b. 1960), and a son, Harry (b. 1967). With his wife Carol, Chomsky spent time in 1953 living in HaZore'a, a kibbutz in Israel. Asked in an interview whether the stay was "a disappointment" Chomsky replied, "No, I loved it"; however, he "couldn't stand the ideological atmosphere" and "fervent nationalism" in the early 1950s at the kibbutz, with Stalin being defended by many of the left-leaning kibbutz members who chose to paint a rosy image of future possibilities and contemporary realities in the USSR. Chomsky notes seeing many positive elements in the commune-like living of the kibbutz, in which parents and children lived together in separate houses, and when asked whether there were "lessons that we have learned from the history of the kibbutz", responded, that in "some respects, the kibbutzim came closer to the anarchist ideal than any other attempt that lasted for more than a very brief moment before destruction, or that was on anything like a similar scale. In these respects, I think they were extremely attractive and successful; apart from personal accident, I probably would have lived there myself – for how long, it's hard to guess."

Chomsky received his PhD in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955. He conducted part of his doctoral research during four years at Harvard University as a Harvard Junior Fellow. In his doctoral thesis, he began to develop some of his linguistic ideas, elaborating on them in his 1957 book ''Syntactic Structures'', one of his best-known works in linguistics.

Chomsky joined the staff of MIT in 1955 and in 1961 was appointed full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (now the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy). From 1966 to 1976 he held the Ferrari P. Ward Professorship of Modern Languages and Linguistics, and in 1976 he was appointed Institute Professor. As of 2010, Chomsky has taught at MIT continuously for 55 years.

In February 1967, Chomsky became one of the leading opponents of the Vietnam War with the publication of his essay, "The Responsibility of Intellectuals", in ''The New York Review of Books''. This was followed by his 1969 book, ''American Power and the New Mandarins,'' a collection of essays that established him at the forefront of American dissent. His far-reaching criticisms of U.S. foreign policy and the legitimacy of U.S. power have raised controversy he is frequently sought out for his views by publications and news outlets internationally. In 1977 he delivered the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden, the Netherlands, under the title: ''Intellectuals and the State''.

Chomsky has received death threats because of his criticisms of U.S. foreign policy. He was also on a list of planned targets created by Theodore Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber; during the period that Kaczynski was at large, Chomsky had all of his mail checked for explosives. He states that he often receives undercover police protection, in particular while on the MIT campus, although he does not agree with the police protection.

Chomsky resides in Lexington, Massachusetts, and travels often, giving lectures on politics.

Contributions to linguistics

Chomskyan linguistics, beginning with his ''Syntactic Structures'', a distillation of his '' Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory'' (1955, 75), challenges structural linguistics and introduces transformational grammar. This approach takes utterances (sequences of words) to have a syntax characterized by a formal grammar; in particular, a context-free grammar extended with transformational rules.

Perhaps his most influential and time-tested contribution to the field, is the claim that modeling knowledge of language using a formal grammar accounts for the "productivity" or "creativity" of language. In other words, a formal grammar of a language can explain the ability of a hearer-speaker to produce and interpret an infinite number of utterances, including novel ones, with a limited set of grammatical rules and a finite set of terms. He has always acknowledged his debt to Pāṇini for his modern notion of an explicit generative grammar although it is also related to Rationalist ideas of a priori knowledge.

It is a popular misconception that Chomsky ''proved'' that language is entirely innate and ''discovered'' a "universal grammar" (UG). In fact, Chomsky simply observed that while a human baby and a kitten are both capable of inductive reasoning, if they are exposed to exactly the same linguistic data, the human child will always acquire the ability to understand and produce language, while the kitten will never acquire either ability. Chomsky labeled whatever the relevant capacity the human has which the cat lacks the "language acquisition device" (LAD) and suggested that one of the tasks for linguistics should be to figure out what the LAD is and what constraints it puts on the range of possible human languages. The universal features that would result from these constraints are often termed "universal grammar" or UG.

The Principles and Parameters approach (P&P;)—developed in his Pisa 1979 Lectures, later published as ''Lectures on Government and Binding'' (LGB)—makes strong claims regarding universal grammar: that the grammatical principles underlying languages are innate and fixed, and the differences among the world's languages can be characterized in terms of parameter settings in the brain (such as the pro-drop parameter, which indicates whether an explicit subject is always required, as in English, or can be optionally dropped, as in Spanish), which are often likened to switches. (Hence the term principles and parameters, often given to this approach.) In this view, a child learning a language need only acquire the necessary lexical items (words, grammatical morphemes, and idioms), and determine the appropriate parameter settings, which can be done based on a few key examples.

Proponents of this view argue that the pace at which children learn languages is inexplicably rapid, unless children have an innate ability to learn languages. The similar steps followed by children all across the world when learning languages, and the fact that children make certain characteristic errors as they learn their first language, whereas other seemingly logical kinds of errors never occur (and, according to Chomsky, should be attested if a purely general, rather than language-specific, learning mechanism were being employed), are also pointed to as motivation for innateness.

More recently, in his Minimalist Program (1995), while retaining the core concept of "principles and parameters," Chomsky attempts a major overhaul of the linguistic machinery involved in the LGB model, stripping from it all but the barest necessary elements, while advocating a general approach to the architecture of the human language faculty that emphasizes principles of economy and optimal design, reverting to a derivational approach to generation, in contrast with the largely representational approach of classic P&P.;

Chomsky's ideas have had a strong influence on researchers of the language acquisition in children, though many researchers in this area such as Elizabeth Bates and Michael Tomasello argue very strongly against Chomsky's theories, and instead advocate emergentist or connectionist theories, explaining language with a number of general processing mechanisms in the brain that interact with the extensive and complex social environment in which language is used and learned.

His best-known work in phonology is ''The Sound Pattern of English'' (1968), written with Morris Halle (and often known as simply ''SPE''). This work has had a great significance for the development in the field. While phonological theory has since moved beyond "SPE phonology" in many important respects, the SPE system is considered the precursor of some of the most influential phonological theories today, including autosegmental phonology, lexical phonology and optimality theory. Chomsky no longer publishes on phonology.

Generative grammar

The Chomskyan approach towards syntax, often termed generative grammar, studies grammar as a body of knowledge possessed by language users. Since the 1960s, Chomsky has maintained that much of this knowledge is innate, implying that children need only learn certain parochial features of their native languages. The innate body of linguistic knowledge is often termed Universal Grammar. From Chomsky's perspective, the strongest evidence for the existence of Universal Grammar is simply the fact that children successfully acquire their native languages in so little time. Furthermore, he argues that there is an enormous gap between the linguistic stimuli to which children are exposed and the rich linguistic knowledge they attain (the "poverty of the stimulus" argument). The knowledge of Universal Grammar would serve to bridge that gap.

Chomsky's theories have been immensely influential within linguistics, but they have also received criticism. One recurring criticism of the Chomskyan variety of generative grammar is that it is Anglocentric and Eurocentric, and that often linguists working in this tradition have a tendency to base claims about Universal Grammar on a very small sample of languages, sometimes just one. Initially, the Eurocentrism was exhibited in an overemphasis on the study of English. However, hundreds of different languages have now received at least some attention within Chomskyan linguistic analyses. In spite of the diversity of languages that have been characterized by UG derivations, critics continue to argue that the formalisms within Chomskyan linguistics are Anglocentric and misrepresent the properties of languages that are different from English. Thus, Chomsky's approach has been criticized as a form of linguistic imperialism. In addition, Chomskyan linguists rely heavily on the intuitions of native speakers regarding which sentences of their languages are well-formed. This practice has been criticized on general methodological grounds. Some psychologists and psycholinguists, though sympathetic to Chomsky's overall program, have argued that Chomskyan linguists pay insufficient attention to experimental data from language processing, with the consequence that their theories are not psychologically plausible. Other critics (see language learning) have questioned whether it is necessary to posit Universal Grammar to explain child language acquisition, arguing that domain-general learning mechanisms are sufficient.

Today there are many different branches of generative grammar; one can view grammatical frameworks such as head-driven phrase structure grammar, lexical functional grammar and combinatory categorial grammar as broadly Chomskyan and generative in orientation, but with significant differences in execution.

Chomsky hierarchy

Chomsky is famous for investigating various kinds of formal languages and whether or not they might be capable of capturing key properties of human language. His Chomsky hierarchy partitions formal grammars into classes, or groups, with increasing expressive power, i.e., each successive class can generate a broader set of formal languages than the one before. Interestingly, Chomsky argues that modeling some aspects of human language requires a more complex formal grammar (as measured by the Chomsky hierarchy) than modeling others. For example, while a regular language is powerful enough to model English morphology, it is not powerful enough to model English syntax. In addition to being relevant in linguistics, the Chomsky hierarchy has also become important in computer science (especially in compiler construction and automata theory). Indeed, there is an equivalence between the Chomsky language hierarchy and the different kinds of automata. Thus theorems about languages are often dealt with as either languages (grammars) or automata.

An alternate method of dealing with languages is based upon Formal Power series. Formal Power series as well as the relationship between languages and semi-groups continued to occupy M. P. Schützenberger at the Sorbonne. Formal Power Series are similar to the Taylor Series one encounters in a course on Calculus, and is especially useful for languages where words (terminal symbols) are commutative.

Contributions to psychology

Chomsky's work in linguistics has had profound implications for modern psychology. For Chomsky, linguistics is a branch of cognitive psychology; genuine insights in linguistics imply concomitant understandings of aspects of mental processing and human nature. His theory of a universal grammar was seen by many as a direct challenge to the established behaviorist theories of the time and had major consequences for understanding how children learn language and what, exactly, the ability to use language is.

In 1959, Chomsky published an influential critique of B.F. Skinner's ''Verbal Behavior'', a book in which Skinner offered a theoretical account of language in functional, behavioral terms. He defined "Verbal Behavior" as learned behavior that has characteristic consequences delivered through the learned behavior of others. This makes for a view of communicative behaviors much larger than that usually addressed by linguists. Skinner's approach focused on the circumstances in which language was used; for example, asking for water was functionally a different response than labeling something as water, responding to someone asking for water, etc. These functionally different kinds of responses, which required in turn separate explanations, sharply contrasted both with traditional notions of language and Chomsky's psycholinguistic approach. Chomsky thought that a functionalist explanation restricting itself to questions of communicative performance ignored important questions. (Chomsky—Language and Mind, 1968). He focused on questions concerning the operation and development of innate structures for syntax capable of creatively organizing, cohering, adapting and combining words and phrases into intelligible utterances.

In the review Chomsky emphasized that the scientific application of behavioral principles from animal research is severely lacking in explanatory adequacy and is furthermore particularly superficial as an account of human verbal behavior because a theory restricting itself to external conditions, to "what is learned," cannot adequately account for generative grammar. Chomsky raised the examples of rapid language acquisition of children, including their quickly developing ability to form grammatical sentences, and the universally creative language use of competent native speakers to highlight the ways in which Skinner's view exemplified under-determination of theory by evidence. He argued that to understand human verbal behavior such as the creative aspects of language use and language development, one must first postulate a genetic linguistic endowment. The assumption that important aspects of language are the product of universal innate ability runs counter to Skinner's radical behaviorism.

Chomsky's 1959 review has drawn fire from a number of critics, the most famous criticism being that of Kenneth MacCorquodale's 1970 paper ''On Chomsky’s Review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior'' (''Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,'' volume 13, pages 83–99). MacCorquodale's argument was updated and expanded in important respects by Nathan Stemmer in a 1990 paper, ''Skinner's Verbal Behavior, Chomsky's review, and mentalism'' (''Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,'' volume 54, pages 307–319). These and similar critiques have raised certain points not generally acknowledged outside of behavioral psychology, such as the claim that Chomsky did not possess an adequate understanding of either behavioral psychology in general, or the differences between Skinner's behaviorism and other varieties. Consequently, it is argued that he made several serious errors. On account of these perceived problems, the critics maintain that the review failed to demonstrate what it has often been cited as doing. As such, it is averred that those most influenced by Chomsky's paper probably either already substantially agreed with Chomsky or never actually read it. The review has been further critiqued for misrepresenting the work of Skinner and others, including by quoting out of context. Chomsky has maintained that the review was directed at the way Skinner's variant of behavioral psychology "was being used in Quinean empiricism and naturalization of philosophy."

It has been claimed that Chomsky's critique of Skinner's methodology and basic assumptions paved the way for the "cognitive revolution", the shift in American psychology between the 1950s through the 1970s from being primarily behavioral to being primarily cognitive. In his 1966 ''Cartesian Linguistics'' and subsequent works, Chomsky laid out an explanation of human language faculties that has become the model for investigation in some areas of psychology. Much of the present conception of how the mind works draws directly from ideas that found their first persuasive author of modern times in Chomsky.

There are three key ideas. First is that the mind is "cognitive", or that the mind actually contains mental states, beliefs, doubts, and so on. Second, he argued that most of the important properties of language and mind are innate. The acquisition and development of a language is a result of the unfolding of innate propensities triggered by the experiential input of the external environment. The link between human innate aptitude to language and heredity has been at the core of the debate opposing Noam Chomsky to Jean Piaget at the Abbaye de Royaumont in 1975 (''Language and Learning. The Debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky,'' Harvard University Press, 1980). Although links between the genetic setup of humans and aptitude to language have been suggested at that time and in later discussions, we are still far from understanding the genetic bases of human language. Work derived from the model of selective stabilization of synapses set up by Jean-Pierre Changeux, Philippe Courrège and Antoine Danchin, and more recently developed experimentally and theoretically by Jacques Mehler and Stanislas Dehaene in particular in the domain of numerical cognition lend support to the Chomskyan "nativism". It does not, however, provide clues about the type of rules that would organize neuronal connections to permit language competence. Subsequent psychologists have extended this general "nativist" thesis beyond language. Lastly, Chomsky made the concept of "modularity" a critical feature of the mind's cognitive architecture. The mind is composed of an array of interacting, specialized subsystems with limited flows of inter-communication. This model contrasts sharply with the old idea that any piece of information in the mind could be accessed by any other cognitive process (optical illusions, for example, cannot be "turned off" even when they are known to be illusions).

Approach to science

Chomsky sees science as a straightforward search for explanation, and rejects the views of it as a catalog of facts or mechanical explanations. In this light, the majority of his contributions to science have been frameworks and hypotheses, rather than "discoveries."

As such, he considers certain so-called post-structuralist or postmodern critiques of logic and reason to be nonsensical:

I have spent a lot of my life working on questions such as these, using the only methods I know of; those condemned here as "science", "rationality," "logic," and so on. I therefore read the papers with some hope that they would help me "transcend" these limitations, or perhaps suggest an entirely different course. I'm afraid I was disappointed. Admittedly, that may be my own limitation. Quite regularly, "my eyes glaze over" when I read polysyllabic discourse on the themes of poststructuralism and postmodernism; what I understand is largely truism or error, but that is only a fraction of the total word count. True, there are lots of other things I don't understand: the articles in the current issues of math and physics journals, for example. But there is a difference. In the latter case, I know how to get to understand them, and have done so, in cases of particular interest to me; and I also know that people in these fields can explain the contents to me at my level, so that I can gain what (partial) understanding I may want. In contrast, no one seems to be able to explain to me why the latest post-this-and-that is (for the most part) other than truism, error, or gibberish, and I do not know how to proceed.

Although Chomsky believes that a scientific background is important to teach proper reasoning, he holds that science in general is "inadequate" to understand complicated problems like human affairs:

Science talks about very simple things, and asks hard questions about them. As soon as things become too complex, science can’t deal with them... But it’s a complicated matter: Science studies what’s at the edge of understanding, and what’s at the edge of understanding is usually fairly simple. And it rarely reaches human affairs. Human affairs are way too complicated.

Debates

Chomsky has been known to vigorously defend and debate his views and opinions, in philosophy, linguistics, and politics. He has had notable debates with such varied intellectuals as Jean Piaget, Michel Foucault, William F. Buckley, Jr., Christopher Hitchens, George Lakoff, Richard Perle, Hilary Putnam, Willard Quine, and Alan Dershowitz, to name a few. In response to his speaking style being criticized as boring, Chomsky said that "I'm a boring speaker and I like it that way.... I doubt that people are attracted to whatever the persona is.... People are interested in the issues, and they're interested in the issues because they are important." "We don't want to be swayed by superficial eloquence, by emotion and so on."

Political views

Chomsky has stated that his "personal visions are fairly traditional anarchist ones, with origins in The Enlightenment and classical liberalism" and he has praised libertarian socialism. Chomsky tries to avoid the ambiguity of labels, although he has described himself as an anarcho-syndicalist. He is a member of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and the Industrial Workers of the World international union. He published a book on anarchism titled ''Chomsky on Anarchism'', published by the anarchist book collective AK Press in 2006.

Chomsky has engaged in political activism all of his adult life and expressed opinions on politics and world events, which are widely cited, publicized and discussed. Chomsky has in turn argued that his views are those the powerful do not want to hear and for this reason he is considered an American political dissident.

Chomsky asserts that authority, unless justified, is inherently illegitimate and that the burden of proof is on those in authority. If this burden can't be met, the authority in question should be dismantled. Authority for its own sake is inherently unjustified. An example given by Chomsky of a legitimate authority is that exerted by an adult to prevent a young child from wandering into traffic. He contends that there is little moral difference between chattel slavery and renting one's self to an owner or "wage slavery". He feels that it is an attack on personal integrity that undermines individual freedom. He holds that workers should own and control their workplace, a view held (as he notes) by the Lowell Mill Girls.

Chomsky has strongly criticized the foreign policy of the United States. He claims double standards in a foreign policy preaching democracy and freedom for all while allying itself with non-democratic and repressive organizations and states such as Chile under Augusto Pinochet and argues that this results in massive human rights violations. He often argues that America's intervention in foreign nations, including the secret aid given to the Contras in Nicaragua, an event of which he has been very critical, fits any standard description of terrorism, including "official definitions in the US Code and Army Manuals in the early 1980s." Before its collapse, Chomsky also condemned Soviet imperialism; for example in 1986 during a question/answer following a lecture he gave at Universidad Centroamericana in Nicaragua, when challenged about how he could "talk about North American imperialism and Russian imperialism in the same breath," Chomsky responded: "One of the truths about the world is that there are two superpowers, one a huge power which happens to have its boot on your neck; another, a smaller power which happens to have its boot on other people's necks. I think that anyone in the Third World would be making a grave error if they succumbed to illusions about these matters."

Regarding the killing of Osama Bin Laden, Chomsky believes that the United States acted improperly, saying "We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a 'suspect' but uncontroversially the 'decider' who gave the orders to commit the 'supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole' (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region."

He has argued that the mass media in the United States largely serve as a propaganda arm and "bought priesthood" of the U.S. government and U.S. corporations, with the three parties intertwined through common interests. In a famous reference to Walter Lippmann, Chomsky along with his coauthor Edward S. Herman has written that the American media manufactures consent among the public. Chomsky has condemned the 2010 supreme court ruling revoking the limits on campaign finance, calling it "corporate takeover of democracy."

Chomsky opposes the U.S. global "war on drugs", claiming its language is misleading, and refers to it as "the war on certain drugs." He favors drug policy reform, in education and prevention rather than military or police action as a means of reducing drug use. In an interview in 1999, Chomsky argued that, whereas crops such as tobacco receive no mention in governmental exposition, other non-profitable crops, such as marijuana are attacked because of the effect achieved by persecuting the poor: He has stated:

U.S. domestic drug policy does not carry out its stated goals, and policymakers are well aware of that. If it isn't about reducing substance abuse, what is it about? It is reasonably clear, both from current actions and the historical record, that substances tend to be criminalized when they are associated with the so-called dangerous classes, that the criminalization of certain substances is a technique of social control.

Chomsky is critical of the American "state capitalist" system and big business, he describes himself as a socialist, specifically an anarcho-syndicalist and is therefore strongly critical of "authoritarian" Marxist and/or Leninist and/or Maoist branches of socialism. He also believes that socialist values exemplify the rational and morally consistent extension of original unreconstructed classical liberal and radical humanist ideas to an industrial context. He believes that society should be highly organized and based on democratic control of communities and work places. He believes that the radical humanist ideas of his two major influences, Bertrand Russell and John Dewey, were "rooted in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, and retain their revolutionary character."

Chomsky has stated that he believes the United States remains the "greatest country in the world", a comment that he later clarified by saying, "Evaluating countries is senseless and I would never put things in those terms, but that some of America's advances, particularly in the area of free speech, that have been achieved by centuries of popular struggle, are to be admired." He has also said "In many respects, the United States is the freest country in the world. I don't just mean in terms of limits on state coercion, though that's true too, but also in terms of individual relations. The United States comes closer to classlessness in terms of interpersonal relations than virtually any society."

Chomsky objects to the criticism that anarchism is inconsistent with support for government welfare, stating in part:

One can, of course, take the position that we don't care about the problems people face today, and want to think about a possible tomorrow. OK, but then don't pretend to have any interest in human beings and their fate, and stay in the seminar room and intellectual coffee house with other privileged people. Or one can take a much more humane position: I want to work, today, to build a better society for tomorrow – the classical anarchist position, quite different from the slogans in the question. That's exactly right, and it leads directly to support for the people facing problems today: for enforcement of health and safety regulation, provision of national health insurance, support systems for people who need them, etc. That is not a sufficient condition for organizing for a different and better future, but it is a necessary condition. Anything else will receive the well-merited contempt of people who do not have the luxury to disregard the circumstances in which they live, and try to survive.

Chomsky holds views that can be summarized as anti-war but not strictly pacifist. He prominently opposed the Vietnam War and most other wars in his lifetime. He expressed these views with tax resistance and peace walks. In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. He published a number of articles about the war in Vietnam, including "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". He maintains that U.S. involvement in World War II to defeat the Axis powers was probably justified, with the caveat that a preferable outcome would have been to end or prevent the war through earlier diplomacy. He believes that the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "among the most unspeakable crimes in history".

Chomsky has made many criticisms of the Israeli government, its supporters, the United States' support of the government and its treatment of the Palestinian people, arguing that " 'supporters of Israel' are in reality supporters of its moral degeneration and probable ultimate destruction" and that "Israel's very clear choice of expansion over security may well lead to that consequence." Chomsky disagreed with the founding of Israel as a Jewish state, saying, "I don't think a Jewish or Christian or Islamic state is a proper concept. I would object to the United States as a Christian state." Chomsky hesitated before publishing work critical of Israeli policies while his parents were alive, because he "knew it would hurt them" he says, "mostly because of their friends, who reacted hysterically to views like those expressed in my work." On May 16, 2010, Israeli authorities detained Chomsky and ultimately refused his entry to the West Bank via Jordan. A spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister indicated that the refusal of entry was simply due to a border guard who "overstepped his authority" and a second attempt to enter would likely be allowed. Chomsky disagreed, saying that the Interior Ministry official who interviewed him was taking instructions from his superiors. Chomsky maintained that based on the several hours of interviewing, he was denied entry because of the things he says and because he was visiting a university in the West Bank but no Israeli universities.

Chomsky has a broad view of free-speech rights, especially in the mass media, and opposes censorship. He has stated that "with regard to freedom of speech there are basically two positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject it and prefer Stalinist/fascist standards". With reference to the United States diplomatic cables leak, Chomsky suggested that "perhaps the most dramatic revelation ... is the bitter hatred of democracy that is revealed both by the U.S. Government -- Hillary Clinton, others -- and also by the diplomatic service." Chomsky refuses to take legal action against those who may have libeled him and prefers to counter libels through open letters in newspapers. One notable example of this approach is his response to an article by Emma Brockes in ''The Guardian'' which alleged he denied the existence of the Srebrenica massacre. Chomsky's complaint prompted The Guardian to publish an apologetic correction and to withdraw the article from the paper's website.

Chomsky has frequently stated that there is no connection between his work in linguistics and his political views and is generally critical of the idea that competent discussion of political topics requires expert knowledge in academic fields. In a 1969 interview, he said regarding the connection between his politics and his work in linguistics:

I still feel myself that there is a kind of tenuous connection. I would not want to overstate it but I think it means something to me at least. I think that anyone's political ideas or their ideas of social organization must be rooted ultimately in some concept of human nature and human needs.

Some critics have accused Chomsky of hypocrisy when, in spite of his political criticism of American and European military imperialism, early research at the institution (MIT) where he did his linguistic research had been substantially funded by the American military. Chomsky makes the argument that because he has received funding from the U.S. Military, he has an even greater responsibility to criticize and resist its immoral actions.

Influence in other fields

''Chomskyan'' models have been used as a theoretical basis in several other fields. The Chomsky hierarchy is often taught in fundamental computer science courses as it confers insight into the various types of formal languages. This hierarchy can also be discussed in mathematical terms and has generated interest among mathematicians, particularly combinatorialists. Some arguments in evolutionary psychology are derived from his research results.

The 1984 Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine and Physiology, Niels K. Jerne, used Chomsky's generative model to explain the human immune system, equating "components of a generative grammar ... with various features of protein structures". The title of Jerne's Stockholm Nobel lecture was "The Generative Grammar of the Immune System".

Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee who was the subject of a study in animal language acquisition at Columbia University, was named after Chomsky in reference to his view of language acquisition as a uniquely human ability.

Famous computer scientist Donald Knuth admits to reading Syntactic Structures during his honeymoon and being greatly influenced by it. "...I must admit to taking a copy of Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures along with me on my honeymoon in 1961 ... Here was a marvelous thing: a mathematical theory of language in which I could use a computer programmer's intuition!".

Another focus of Chomsky's political work has been an analysis of mainstream mass media (especially in the United States), its structures and constraints, and its perceived role in supporting big business and government interests.

Edward S. Herman and Chomsky's book ''Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media'' (1988) explores this topic in depth, presenting their "propaganda model" of the news media with numerous detailed case studies demonstrating it. According to this propaganda model, more democratic societies like the U.S. use subtle, non-violent means of control, unlike totalitarian systems, where physical force can readily be used to coerce the general population. In an often-quoted remark, Chomsky states that "propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state." (Media Control)

The model attempts to explain this perceived systemic bias of the mass media in terms of structural economic causes rather than a conspiracy of people. It argues the bias derives from five "filters" that all published news must "pass through," which combine to systematically distort news coverage.

In explaining the first filter, ownership, he notes that most major media outlets are owned by large corporations. The second, funding, notes that the outlets derive the majority of their funding from advertising, not readers. Thus, since they are profit-oriented businesses selling a product—readers and audiences—to other businesses (advertisers), the model expects them to publish news that reflects the desires and values of those businesses. In addition, the news media are dependent on government institutions and major businesses with strong biases as sources (the third filter) for much of their information. Flak, the fourth filter, refers to the various pressure groups that attack the media for supposed bias. Norms, the fifth filter, refer to the common conceptions shared by those in the profession of journalism. (Note: in the original text, published in 1988, the fifth filter was "anticommunism". However, with the fall of the Soviet Union, it has been broadened to allow for shifts in public opinion.) The model describes how the media form a decentralized and non-conspiratorial but nonetheless very powerful propaganda system, that is able to mobilize an élite consensus, frame public debate within élite perspectives and at the same time give the appearance of democratic consent.

Chomsky and Herman test their model empirically by picking "paired examples"—pairs of events that were objectively similar except for the alignment of domestic élite interests. They use a number of such examples to attempt to show that in cases where an "official enemy" does something (like murder of a religious official), the press investigates thoroughly and devotes a great amount of coverage to the matter, thus victims of "enemy" states are considered "worthy". But when the domestic government or an ally does the same thing (or worse), the press downplays the story, thus victims of US or US client states are considered "unworthy."

They also test their model against the case that is often held up as the best example of a free and aggressively independent press, the media coverage of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. Even in this case, they argue that the press was behaving subserviently to élite interests.

Academic achievements, awards and honors

In early 1969, he delivered the John Locke Lectures at Oxford University; in January 1970, the Bertrand Russell Memorial Lecture at University of Cambridge; in 1972, the Nehru Memorial Lecture in New Delhi; in 1977, the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden; in 1988 the Massey Lectures at the University of Toronto, titled "Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies"; in 1997, The Davie Memorial Lecture on Academic Freedom in Cape Town, and many others.

Chomsky has received many honorary degrees from universities around the world, including from the following:

University of London

University of Chicago

Loyola University of Chicago

Swarthmore College

University of Delhi

Bard College

University of Massachusetts

University of Pennsylvania

Georgetown University

Amherst College

University of Cambridge

University of Colorado

University of Buenos Aires

McGill University

Rovira i Virgili University

Columbia University

Villanova University

University of Connecticut

University of Maine

Scuola Normale Superiore

University of Western Ontario

University of Toronto

Harvard University

Universidad de Chile

University of Bologna

Universidad de La Frontera

University of Calcutta

Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Santo Domingo Institute of Technology

Uppsala University

University of Athens

University of Cyprus

Central Connecticut State University

National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)

Peking University National Tsing Hua University He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. In addition, he is a member of other professional and learned societies in the United States and abroad, and is a recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, the Helmholtz Medal, the Dorothy Eldridge Peacemaker Award, the 1999 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science, and others. He is twice winner of The Orwell Award, granted by The National Council of Teachers of English for "Distinguished Contributions to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language" (in 1987 and 1989).

He is a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Department of Social Sciences.

Chomsky is a member of the Faculty Advisory Board of the MIT Harvard Research Journal.

In 2005, Chomsky received an honorary fellowship from the Literary and Historical Society. In 2007, Chomsky received The Uppsala University (Sweden) Honorary Doctor's degree in commemoration of Carolus Linnaeus. In February 2008, he received the President's Medal from the Literary and Debating Society of the National University of Ireland, Galway. Since 2009 he is honorary member of IAPTI.

In 2010, Chomsky received the Erich Fromm Prize in Stuttgart, Germany. In April 2010, Chomsky became the third scholar to receive the University of Wisconsin's A.E. Havens Center's Award for Lifetime Contribution to Critical Scholarship.

Chomsky has an Erdős number of four.

Chomsky was voted the leading living public intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll conducted by the British magazine ''Prospect''. He reacted, saying "I don't pay a lot of attention to polls". In a list compiled by the magazine ''New Statesman'' in 2006, he was voted seventh in the list of "Heroes of our time".

Actor Viggo Mortensen with avant-garde guitarist Buckethead dedicated their 2006 album, called ''Pandemoniumfromamerica'' to Chomsky.

On January 22, 2010, a special honorary concert for Chomsky was given at Kresge Auditorium at MIT. The concert, attended by Chomsky and dozens of his family and friends, featured music composed by Edward Manukyan and speeches by Chomsky's colleagues, including David Pesetsky of MIT and Gennaro Chierchia, head of the linguistics department at Harvard University.

In June 2011, Chomsky was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, which cited his "unfailing courage, critical analysis of power and promotion of human rights".

Bibliography

Filmography

''Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media'', Director: Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick (1992)

''Last Party 2000'', Director: Rebecca Chaiklin and Donovan Leitch (2001)

''Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times'', Director: John Junkerman (2002)

''Distorted Morality—America's War On Terror?'', Director: John Junkerman (2003)

''Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause'' (TV), Director: Will Pascoe (2003)

''The Corporation'', Directors: Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott; Writer: Joel Bakan (2003)

''Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land'', Directors: Sut Jhally and Bathsheba Ratzkoff (2004)

''On Power, Dissent and Racism: A discussion with Noam Chomsky'', Journalist: Nicolas Rossier; Producers: Eli Choukri, Baraka Productions (2004)

''Lake of Fire'', Director: Tony Kaye (2006)

American Feud: A History of Conservatives and Liberals, Director: Richard Hall (2008)

In the Time We've Got, Director: Christopher Ives (2008)

''Chomsky & Cie'' Director: Olivier Azam (out in 2008)

''An Inconvenient Tax'', Director: Christopher P. Marshall (out in 2009)

''The Money Fix,'' Director: Alan Rosenblith (2009)

''Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space'', Director: Denis Delestrac (2010)

''Article 12: Waking up in a surveillance society'', Director: Juan Manuel Biaiñ (2010)

See also

American philosophy

Axiom of categoricity

Chomskybot

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

English studies

Important publications in computability

Knowledge worker

List of American philosophers

References

External links

chomsky.info official website

Noam Chomsky at MIT

Noam Chomsky articles on libcom.org

Noam Chomsky at ''Democracy Now!''

Column archive at ''The Guardian''

Articles and videos featuring Noam Chomsky at AnarchismToday.org

;Interviews and articles

Talks by Noam Chomsky at A-Infos Radio Project

Interview about Human Rights by scholars (English with French subtitles) – 2009

Chomsky media files at the Internet Archive

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Alyssa McDonald on New Statesman, September 2010.

The Real News (TRNN) ">Noam Chomsky Interviews on The Real News (TRNN)

Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance -discussion on the "Bush doctrine" and its implications, C-SPAN, Feb 2004

Philosophies of Language & Politics -talk at The Commonwealth Club, October 2009

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Bradley Thompson is an American television producer and writer, best known for episodes of ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' (1996–1999), ''The Twilight Zone'' (2002–2003), and ''Battlestar Galactica'' (2004–2009) with writing partner David Weddle. They also wrote for the short-lived series ''Ghost Stories'' (1997) and ''The Fearing Mind'' (2000). Thompson and Weddle currently write and produce for the CBS series ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation''.

Biography

Thompson graduated from the USC School of Cinema, as did writing partner David Weddle, whom he originally met in an acting class. Weddle and Thompson first pitched stories for ''Deep Space Nine'' at Paramount Pictures. The two joined the writing staff for DS9's final seasons, crafting 12 episodes. On the series, they worked with producer Ronald D. Moore, who hired them for ''Battlestar Galactica''.

Together with Weddle, Thompson served as a story editor on the first season of ''Battlestar Galactica'', and they became co-producers in the second season. Their responsibilities as producers increased during the third season, and they achieved supervising producer status for the fourth season. They wrote a total of 15 episodes for BSG.

In 2008, Thompson and Weddle joined the staff of ''CSI: Las Vegas'' mid-way through Season 9 as writers and supervising producers. In Season 10, they became co-executive producers.

Credits

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

"Rules of Engagement"

"The Assignment"

"Business as Usual"

"Sons and Daughters"

"One Little Ship"

"Inquisition"

"The Reckoning"

"Time's Orphan"

"Treachery, Faith, and the Great River"

"Prodigal Daughter"

"'Til Death Do Us Part"

"Extreme Measures"

Ghost Stories

"Back Ward"

"Beware the Muse"

The Fearing Mind

"Upgrades"

"Call of the Wild"

"Maximum Security" (originally unaired)

"On the Road" (originally unaired)

The Twilight Zone

"Harsh Mistress"

"Fair Warning"

"Homecoming"

Battlestar Galactica

"Act of Contrition"

"The Hand of God"

"Scattered"

"Valley of Darkness"

"Flight of the Phoenix"

"Scar"

"Downloaded"

"Exodus, Parts 1 and 2"

"Rapture"

"Maelstrom"

"He That Believeth in Me"

"Revelations"

"Sometimes a Great Notion"

"Someone to Watch Over Me"

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

"The Grave Shift"

"Kill Me If You Can"

"A Space Oddity"

"Family Affair"

"The Lost Girls"

"Irradiator"

"Shock Waves"

"Fracked"

"Targets of Obsession"

Video games

''Aliens: Colonial Marines''

References

External links

Bradley Thompson at the Battlestar Wiki

Category:Living people Category:American science fiction writers Category:American screenwriters Category:American television producers

fr:Bradley Thompson