State-allied propagandists and activists jointly policed campus critique of US foreign policy.

Evidence

Kramer, who studied under Bernard Lewis, produced a book that fueled an effort to target and stifle critical thought. As historian Joel Beinin notes, “Kramer and his ilk were emboldened by their links to officials in the upper-mid levels of the Bush administration,” and particularly to the neocons who shared their world-view. He adds that the “neo-cons have much more powerful political connections than those that the AJC, the ADL and AIPAC were able to mobilize.” But this unity was not coincidental. Rather, if Lewis, Zakaria, and others were the intellectual core that were brought together to formulate the propaganda war after 9/11 (see Chapter 5), Kramer, Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, and others served as the activists out in the world policing critical thought. Their job was to ensure that the war on terror brand remained uncontested and that their propaganda was not punctured by scholars with the knowledge and ability to expose it. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 666

Categorization

• XREF: Extends the Alice-in-Wonderland framing in the vault: Kumar makes explicit the division of labor — Lewis/Zakaria as ideology-formulators, Kramer/Pipes/Horowitz as activist enforcers — between the intellectual core and the policing outer wing, hinging on neocon access to Bush administration. — connects to: Neocons paired intellectual propagandists with campus activists to police critical thought. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 527; Both the security state and its opponents mobilize scholarship for political ends; Informants may be dispatched to target critics of US policy (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Neocons paired intellectual propagandists with campus activists to police critical thought. #corroborates (0.92) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 527
• The war on terror brand relied on activists policing academic dissent #corroborates (0.88)
• Both the security state and its opponents mobilize scholarship for political ends #expands (0.78)
• Informants may be dispatched to target critics of US policy #expands (0.75)