Monday, November 29, 2004

Alexander the Neocon by Daniel McCarthy

What a shame, because the left-neocon Stone does have at least a rudimentary grasp on Alexander’s politics, if not his character. The "civilizing" mission of the conqueror was something Alexander’s propagandists played up at the time and perpetuated long after his death. It’s part of his enduring appeal to megalomaniacs of all stripes. By force of arms he changed the political culture, and indeed the culture generally, of the known world, East and West. He did what liberventionists and multicultural imperialists alike long to do. Alexander is any would-be world-shaper’s role model.

Sunday, November 28, 2004

One More Neocon Target: South Korea by GARY LEUPP

The neocons have added yet another country to their hit list, another one targeted for regime change: the Republic of Korea. Yes, that's South Korea, long-time U.S. ally, host to around 34,000 U.S. troops. William Kristol, editor of the neocon Weekly Standard and chair of the highly influential Project for the New American Century, has issued a memo (addressed to "opinion-leaders") on behalf of the PNAC. This is a highly significant and alarming document.

The Coming Wars With Iran And North Korea by David B. Willis and Walter W. Enloe

One plausible scenario is that the Neocons will stop at nothing to bring the other members of the Axis of Evil to their knees. There has already been considerable talk along these lines following the election. The Neocons have said as much when they have called for imminent regime change in these countries in documents such as the Project for the New American Century.

Neocons join the lynch mob for 'arrogant' Rumsfeld by Sarah Baxter

"What remains to be done is to announce new leadership for the department of defence," wrote Kristol. "This, surely, would be an important opportunity for a strong, Bush-doctrine-supporting outsider, someone who of course would be a team player, but someone who could also work with the military and broaden support for the president’s policy."

Saturday, November 27, 2004

Mark Dankof Book Review: The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia by Lutz Kleveman

Mark Dankof commends Lutz Kleveman's The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia as must reading. Kleveman's analysis of Central Asian and Caspian Sea littoral state politics demonstrates unequivocally that Bush's War on Terror is linked to oil and natural gas deposits--and strategically placed pipeline routes. The Byzantine alliances, ethnic conflicts, and Great Power machinations contain all the ingredients for long-term disaster for the United States, which may discover the limits of the American Empire in the expenditure of money-- and the blood of its sons and daughters--in following the failed policy of its British predecessor.

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Neoconservative Animus by Paul Gottfried

That pattern is the way neocons habitually calumniate those who are perceived as being on their right or else those who are seen as unwilling to share with them government largess or posts that neocons covet.

The Conservative Movement documents the extent of neoconservative malice and mischief. And it did predict in 1992 the fated success of what Claes Ryn calls "the new Jacobins’ in grabbing hold of the rudder of government and then pushing the U.S. into foreign crusades for "democracy."

The Game: Rules of Engagement by Ryan McGreal

The neocons believe in pre-emption, the doctrine of extrapolating potential threats to American supremacy and moving pre-emptively to ensure that those threats never have a chance to materialize. Even where military power isn't used, neocons believe that the ability to project military power anywhere gives America the leverage it needs to pressure other countries into doing its will.

However, the neocons know that the public at large isn't nearly as gung-ho about global supremacy as they are. Americans do not want America to use its power to increase and entrench its global control.

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Undeterred by Failure in Iraq, Neocons Push for U.S. Attack on Iran by Andrew I. Killgore

The neocons' excuse this time is not Iran's continuing support for Hezbollah, but its alleged plans to produce nuclear weapons. Once again, the purported threat is not against the United States but against Israel, which already has up to 200 nuclear weapons.

But that threat to Israel is what accounts for the support of such neocons/Zionists as Norman Podhoretz . . .

Monday, November 22, 2004

Is a Bush-neocon clash ahead? by Patrick J. Buchanan

With neoconservatives even more zealously committed than he to the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive strikes and preventive war on "axis of evil' nations seeking weapons of mass destruction, and using U.S. power to effect regime change on defiant nations, only George Bush can now prevent them from realizing their vision.

Virtuous Violence Is Upon Us by Paul Craig Roberts

Indeed, the entire panoply of neoconservatives, who intentionally fabricated the "intelligence" used to justify the US invasion of Iraq, are being rewarded by promotion to higher offices. Stephen Hadley is moving up to National Security Adviser. Hadley is the person who advocates "usable" mini-nukes for the US conquest of the Middle East.

Sunday, November 21, 2004

World eschews Rice by Eric Margolis

Instead, we have Rice, who, whatever she may know about outside world, knows a lot about Bush, with whom she reportedly likes to belt out gospel hymns. And at the Pentagon, that latter-day Robert McNamara, Don Rumsfeld, is stuck in a lost war in Iraq engineered by the neocons.

Demise Of Bush's Neocons Was Greatly Exaggerated by JACOB HEILBRUNN

Danielle Pletka, vice president of the American Enterprise Institute, the citadel of neoconservative thought, is in line to become the assistant secretary for East Asian affairs.

At the National Security Council, Elliott Abrams – the ultimate second-generation neoconservative, son-in-law of proto-neocons Midge Decter and Norman Podhoretz – has been hugely influential in pushing the United States into the corner of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.


Time for History Lessons for Arabs and Americans by Dr. Khaled M. Batarfi

Other players who should have learned from Vietnam and the first Gulf War also failed to do so. Colin Powell who fought in Vietnam and directed the first Gulf War fell for the neocons’ schemes. Even if true that he resisted the current, he should have resigned much earlier. In the courts of history, his hands are as bloody as any of the neocons.

Friday, November 19, 2004

The Bush Foreign Policy Stratagem by Randall Risener

Back at State, in case Rice should ever be inclined to think for herself and veer from the straight and narrow, another Cheney loyalist and staunch Neocon, John Bolton who is presently under-secretary for arms control, is slotted for deputy secretary under Rice.

Neocons in Control For Bush's Second Term

"The neocons are feeling quite confident right now. Things are breaking their way. A group of people who in any rational culture should be looking for other jobs are being promoted," said Jonathan Clarke of the conservative Cato Institute, co-author of a book on the neoconservative movement.

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Patriotic Support For A President at War by Praful Bidwai

It is ludicrous to argue that there are “no inherent conflicts of interest between the US and India”. Of course, there are! How can India’s stake in a multipolar, plural, and equitable world be compatible with the Neocons’ Empire? How can the Indian public’s interest in a humane economic policy be equated with market fundamentalism and blind faith in the innate goodness of the rich? How can the universal global stake in nuclear disarmament be reconciled with America’s plans to keep its own weapons of mass destruction, which Mr Bush, in absolute self-belief, is convinced, can only do good: Washington sees, speaks or hears no evil. It never can.

A test of time for Powell's doctrine by Pan Hu

Cheney, Pentagon deputy Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith and other neo-con stalwarts in both the administration and the press celebrated the rapid victory, events were unfolding right under the noses of coalition forces that would decisively undermine the credibility of Washington's rosy expectations for post-Saddam Iraq.

Thus diplomacy - albeit aggressive and possibly not very diplomatic - will probably be the primary means of promoting vital US interests in the near future.

The Peter Principle and the neocon coup by Robert Scheer

As of today, the neocons on Zinni's list of losers -- Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz; the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby; National Security Council staffer Elliott Abrams; Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- are all still employed even as Bush's new director of central intelligence, Porter J. Goss, is eviscerating the CIA's leadership.

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

The Good Soldier Abandons the Field by Jim Lobe

Thus, neoconservatives are currently promoting Perle protégée Danielle Pletka, a vice-president of American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and outspoken and unapologetic supporter of the Likud-led government in Israel, for the post of assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs to replace career diplomat William Burns when he moves on early next year.

Triumph of the Neocons by Justin Raimondo

The general purge of Republican "realists" from the Bush cabinet is a great victory for the War Party, but that's only half the battle. The other half consists of inserting their own people in key positions, but they aren't doing too badly so far. Let's take the new foreign policy related appointments one by one:

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Neo-cons: Around the world in seven steps by Jim Lobe

The list, which begins with the destruction of Fallujah in Iraq and ends with the development of "appropriate strategies" for dealing with threats posed by China, Russia and "the emergence of a number of aggressively anti-American regimes in Latin America", also calls for "regime change" in Iran and North Korea.

Neocons Downplay `Moral Issue’ In Election. Stupid Party Believes Them by Sam Francis

It's not easy to argue that a party able to win the White House and both houses of Congress is the Stupid Party, but stupidity is largely a matter of being unable to learn, and what this election tells us more than anything else is that, at least up until Election Day, the Republican Party had learned nothing.

US ‘Neocons’ Gun for Key Posts

The neoconservatives claim that McCain is too soft and may not have the nerves needed if and when the US decides to go to war again in the Middle East or elsewhere.

The neoconservatives candidate for defense secretary is former CIA Director James Woolsey, also a Democrat.

Monday, November 15, 2004

War is a Game to the NeoCons by Martin Kelly

The neocons are certainly adept at producing dungeons. The patsies for the scandal of Abu Ghraib are now and will forever be the reservists caught on candid camera, while there is little public talk of ‘Operation Copper Green’, and ‘contractors’ being brought in to ‘circumvent’ the Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention is one of the high watermarks of post-Enlightenment civilisation, one of those documents that show, like the Bible and the Constitution, that Man is capable of great nobility, that prove we are better than beasts – it went into the trash to give the neocons what they wanted.

Neo-Cons Pushing for Regime Change in Latin America by Gonzalo Baeza

Latin America was recently signaled by neo-con Frank J. Gaffney Jr. (above) as one of several foreign policy “priorities” to be dealt with by the Bush administration in order to make “the world less dangerous for America.”

Purge at the CIA by Justin Raimondo

It's typical of the neocons that they would try to blame the very people who warned against rushing to war for the consequences of their ideology-driven policy. McCain has the gall to smear the hardworking professionals over at Langley – the guardians of American security – as a "rogue agency" when it was precisely the establishment of several "rogue agencies" within the U.S. government, set up to bypass the CIA and the traditional intelligence community, that facilitated the stove-piping of "raw" and erroneous data to policymakers – including, in one case, an outright forgery.

Father of his nation by John Maxwell

The neoCons of the Bush Administration adopted the Sharon pose that Arafat was the only stumbling block to peace in the Middle East. Israel's position has always been clear: it is to absorb all of Palestine and perhaps more of the neighbouring states to become in area what it is already in military power - a super state. Eretz Israel, fufilling its transcendental mandate from God.

Friday, November 12, 2004

The Next Few Months and the Next Four Years by Chris Knipp

Keeping the puppet government is fine for the pursuit of the devastating neocon utopia. The neocons aren't interested in reconstruction -- not if it's done by the locals without outsiders profiting. Bush's success in grabbing a second term will encourage him and his team to maintain what Klein calls their "ideological blindness," hiding behind the Green Zone and fake statistics. This blindness is greater than usual because the ideological stance is more extreme than other US administrations'.

Misreading Islam by Michael Hirsh

Today, even as the administration's case for invading Iraq has all but collapsed, Bernard Lewis' public image has remained largely intact. While his neocon protégés fight for their reputations and their jobs, Lewis's latest book, a collection of essays called "From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East," received mostly respectful reviews last spring and summer. Yet events on the ground seem to be bearing out some of the academic criticisms of Lewis made by Bulliet and others. Indeed, they suggest that what is happening is the opposite of what Lewis predicted.

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Springtime for Spooks? by Jim Lobe

The capital's odds-makers are already taking bets on the outcome, with early indications that neoconservatives and the hardline nationalists who led the drive to war in Iraq and now favor confrontation with Iran, Syria, North Korea, and other possible adversaries may actually extend control over key policymaking levers, especially in the National Security Council (NSC) staff and the State Department.

Debating a Neocon by STAN GOFF

It is truly remarkable how easily KO'ed these neocons are once you step outside the tight little ring of the Republicrats. They've got maybe three combinations, and they are slow as a cow. Everything inside has been ritual combat, so they do very badly when someone actually intends to hit them.

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Dynamic China-Us ties

While the neocons may want to contain and undermine China, China can exercise political and economic leverage to keep the peace and not let the neocons dictate foreign policy regarding China . . . The neocons are made up of chickenhawks, defense industry people, think tank people, and have ideas of creating friction in this world, by pushing for more wars, so they can profit from it. Some of these war profiteers also have imperialistic desires.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

National Mythologies and the Aftermath of Election 2004 by Mark Dankof

Writing from Dallas and Dealey Plaza this week, Mark Dankof reminds BATR readers that in the wake of the beginning of the Fallujah offensive; the fall of the dollar; the rise of the Euro; the deepening of the budget and trade deficits; the ominous signs of eventual American-Israeli military preemption of Syria and Iran; and the approach of the re-establishment of the Draft, the prevailing notion that the re-election of George Bush one week ago signals a victory for Constitutional and Conservative government in America ranks with the National Mythologies surrounding Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt as one of the great falsehoods in our nation's history.

Neocon lessons for Democrats by MICHAEL O'HANLON

Democrats used to be the country's greatest visionaries in foreign policy. And indeed many neocons came from their ranks. It is time now for the party to reclaim the best of its proud traditions. The easiest time to be innovative, and to take risks, is when you have little to lose. Democrats couldn't ask for a better moment.

Monday, November 08, 2004

The Ugly Faces of NeoConservatism by Martin Kelly

Let us also hope for ends and beginnings from the neoconservative movement, and the abandonment of their not two but three ugly faces; scaremongering, questioning their opponent’s patriotism and deriding others who do not follow their plans as cowards and appeasers.

The American people have given a most unconservative philosophy a truly conservative mandate. It’s to be hoped that it’s used, and a really good place to start would be sustained attempts to close the abortuaries – something that, as Governor of Texas, the President never really got round to.

The Worst Is Yet to Come by Justin Raimondo

Just as those Old Rightists who spoke up against the war well before the elections – including myself – were demonized by neocon enforcer David "Axis of Evil" Frum in his infamous National Review interdiction, so they will be cast out, too, and shortly. Donald Devine, of the American Conservative Union – a sometime critic of the new imperialism – has already been forced to make a public apology and self-criticism straight out of the Stalin era for failing to properly stand up and loudly applaud a speech by President Bush before his group. It should hardly come as a shock that both Norquist and Weyrich have already been set up for bogus charges of "anti-Semitism" and "pro-terrorist" activities (with a little of the heavy lifting done by establishment liberals like Kevin Drum and the insufferable Eric Alterman).

Sunday, November 07, 2004

Neo-Con Agenda: Iran, China, Russia, Latin America ... by Jim Lobe

An influential foreign-policy neo-conservative with longstanding ties to top hawks in the administration of President George W Bush has laid out what he calls ''a checklist of the work the world will demand of this president and his subordinates in a second term.''

Friday, November 05, 2004

Course Correction: Bush Should Examine His Anti-terror Strategy - K SUBRAHMANYAM

The neocon hawks in Washington are not a highly admired lot. They have miscalculated on various counts — expecting Pakistan's cooperation in capturing Osama bin Laden, assuming European and other Arab countries would follow them after their initial military victory in Iraq, underestimating the resistance to US occupation of Iraq and overlooking Al-Qaida's ability to infiltrate and operate successfully in the Iraqi resistance.

To American Liberals Upon Bush's Victory - "We no longer have the right not to be radicals." by Asad Haider

What will we do now, now that American domination will extend its fist throughout the countries of the world and the awesome machinery of violence will be unleashed on those the neoconservatives (and the neoliberals) have dubbed less than human? What will we do as the brutal fist of American fascism emerges, as corporate globalization removes its gloves and the militaristic state bares its fangs?

Some Bush Supporters Say They Anticipate a 'Revolution' by David D. Kirkpatrick

But some of the intellectual proponents of the war known as neoconservatives called the vote something close to a vindication of Mr. Bush's policy of pre-emptive action against potential sponsors of terrorism.

"The world saw this as a referendum on the Bush doctrine, and I think the world was right," said Charles Krauthammer, a neoconservative columnist.

Kenneth R. Weinstein, chief operating officer of the neoconservative Hudson Institute, was more cautious "Certainly," he said, "we have avoided the blood bath in the Republican Party that would have taken place if Mr. Bush had been defeated."

Buck Up, You Lefties! by Justin Raimondo

So, cheer up, all you disillusioned and depressed lefties and assorted liberals, who were (naively, in my view) counting on the deus ex machina of a Kerry victory to pull us out of the Iraqi quagmire. As an unreconstructed reactionary of the "isolationist" (i.e., anti-imperialist) Old Right, I can rightly claim to have never been taken in by this dubious panacea.

What Hath God Wrought? by Steven LaTulippe

Perhaps President Bush now views his Iraq debacle as a bitter learning experience. Perhaps he recognizes that his intervention is a disaster that has blackened our reputation abroad, led to the deaths of thousands of innocent people, and has fueled the growth of fanatical hatred of us across the Muslim world. According to this line of thinking, perhaps he will be more cautious so as not to get burned again. Maybe he will be more skeptical of his neocon advisors when they begin agitating for the next invasion. Maybe he even sees the Iraq war as a calamity that almost cost him his reelection, thus prompting him to purge the neocons from his administration altogether (followed by a relatively quick withdrawal from Iraq).

Thursday, November 04, 2004

An ominous watershed? 4 more years of trauma? by Nicholas Blanford

the neocons' democratic experiment in Iraq is foundering due to a violent resistance feeding and growing on inadequate post-invasion policies. The reality of the situation in Iraq may have dampened enthusiasm for democracy in the Arab world in favor of a more traditional tolerance for benign autocrats.

The US will now be ruled by the imperial party by Justin Raimondo

The Republican Party has become the party not just of big government, but of global government. If, as seems likely, the President follows the neo-conservative agenda and takes his war of "liberation" beyond Iraq -- Syria and Iran seem to be the next targets -- the transformation of the Republican Party will be complete: it will become the imperial party, albeit not without dissent from traditional small government conservatives.

Neocon 'Flex Players' Await Bush's Second Term by Janine R. Wedel

The neocon core has set up its own duplicative entities in government that often enable them to bypass or override the input of otherwise relevant bodies. Two secretive units in the Pentagon were created under Feith and staffed in part by people recruited by Perle from neocon circles. The core empowered shadow hubs of decision-making, including the "mini National Security Council," a small circle of influence within the NSC, and a similar group in the vice president's office.

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

The US Elections: What Europeans expect by Von Constanze Stelzenmüller

And the Neocon faction seem to have weathered the blistering critiques of their fatally flawed policy prescriptions for winning easy in Iraq well. But perhaps they haven’t had time to listen, because they’re concentrated on drumming up support for regime change in Iran (and if Syria’s rulers were to topple in the process, that would be fine too).

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Osama bin Laden's Message - Lessons For America by Yamin Zakaria

"Richard Perle and his neo-con cabal along with the US government are in a quest to rebuild the Islamic world in their image. The only obstacles are the "fundamentalists," i.e. those who actually resisting the West."

War on Terror by Sajjad Khan

Though some will consider this neoconservative strategy as plausible, it ignores several key factors.

Monday, November 01, 2004

The Waning Influence of Neo-Conservative Strategists by Erich Marquardt

Critics of the neo-conservatives in the aforementioned departments considered the faction's policies naïve and idealistic, too focused on vague Wilsonian rhetoric without paying enough attention to realpolitik. Critics worried that the faction's security strategy of preemptive military warfare and regime change threatened to embroil the United States in an assortment of violent conflicts, endangering U.S. interests.

A Couch Potato's Guide to Election Night by Tom Engelhardt

This is the single most interesting category of all. It has gone, as far as I can tell, largely unmeasured and yet anecdotal evidence is strong that some number of older-style conservatives as well as moderate Republicans, horrified by soaring deficits of an unrecognizably unconservative kind, or by the hubris of neocon imperial dreams, or by the loss of liberties represented by the Patriot Act and the imprisoning of American citizens without charges, or by Abu Ghraib, or by presidential lies, or by a host of other issues, or by all of the above will either sit on their hands or vote for Kerry. After all, there is a deeply honorable conservative tradition in America that bears no relation to anything that's happened over the last four years.

If Bush wins, neocons win

According to Monday's China Daily, after Tuesday's neck-and-neck elections are over, regardless of the outcome, observers were expecting another battle - this one an internal intellectual bloodbath, a sort of "night of the long knives" among right-wing ideologues.

It's the war, stupid by Eric Margolis

Neither Bush nor his opponent, John Kerry, are telling Americans two hard truths: First, the principal cause of anti-American terrorism is the oppression of Palestinians, and U.S. support for dictatorial regimes across the Muslim World.

Second, Bush's wars in Iraq -- which has caused 100,000 civilian deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University study -- and Afghanistan are already lost. Not on the battlefield, but on the strategic level.

The Truth Hurts by Justin Raimondo

This gets to the core issue in the dispute between the War Party and its opponents on both the left and the right. The neocons contend that we cannot negotiate with "terrorists" because it only encourages them . . .

What this latest video visitation proves beyond doubt, however, is that bin Laden is not only a rational actor, but also a master strategist and politician. He is focused on waging a war for limited, quite specific, and often enunciated objectives, which all boil down to ending U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, especially via Israel.