Shadow Elite

From the book:

"The effectiveness of a flex group’s efforts, even when some of its members are in an administration that is “in power,” depends on having some people outside formal government.

The Neocon core has been remarkable in its ability to create new organizations that "act as a vast echo chamber for each other and for the media." Members of the core are prime movers (and mostly founded) key organizations of influence, such as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon (USCFL), and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). These ideological and think tank affiliations are yet another venue in which members of the Neocon core are interconnected with each other.

Flex groups have a culture of circumventing government and creating alternative authorities. Operating through semi-closed networks, players penetrate key institutions, restructure them to exclude other potential players, and replace them with initiatives that they themselves control."

© 2009 by Janine Wedel
Published by Basic Books, 2010