Monday, February 28, 2005

Talking Up Both Sides of Centralization

Obviously, the neocons are struggling to formulate a response to the European Union, insofar as they are always fearful of anything that might serve as a counterweight to the U.S. This is to be expected. But what is interesting is how, when it comes to the EU, the neocons turn suddenly into decentralists, while, at home, neocons are all for centralizing power in Washington -- to the extent that they will smear anyone who does believe in decentralization and states' rights.

Sunday, February 27, 2005

The Latest Statement (and Warning) from The Golden Mask of Persia

Bahman Nassiri, The Golden Mask of Persia, sends an invitation today to BATR and Neo-Con Watch readers to peruse his Latest Statement on Apocalypse Future. Mr. Nassiri's prediction in 2002 about a March 2005 target date for the War Over the Devil's Tears differs from Scott Ritter's recent prediction by only 3 months. But Mr. Nassiri's prescient remarks were made 3 years ago.

Which begs the questions: Who is Bahman Nassiri, really? Who was his father? Who are his present sources? What is the basis for his friendship with Lutheran pastor and BATR paleo-conservative correspondent Mark Dankof?

One thing is sure: Mr. Nassiri is an Iranian patriot who also loves America and its honest people and historic Old Republic.

Another thing is sure: The Judean prophet Daniel did his best apocalyptic work in predicting the rise and fall of Empires, and the Times and the Seasons, from Persia. The city of Susa (Shushan) comes to mind.

Reality mugs us all by Suzanne Fields

Economist magazine defines neocons with the back of the hand, describing them as "a small cabal of intellectuals — 'conservative ideologues'... scornful... of idealistic multilateralism." European critics blame them for messianic zeal, imperial designs and the war in Iraq, and a lack of a realistic assessment of where democracy can actually flourish.

'Anti-Islamist' Crusader Plants New Seeds by Jim Lobe

The CIP proposal, which says it expects to receive funding from contributors in the "American Shia community" and in "Sunni mosques once liberated from Wahhabi influence," also boasts "strong links" with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and other notable neoconservatives, such as former Central Intelligence (CIA) director James Woolsey and the vice president for foreign policy programming at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Danielle Pletka, as well as with Pipes himself.

Saturday, February 26, 2005

All is Calm: A Photo Essay from Bushehr, Iran by Ehsan Shahinsefat for The Iranian

World-renowned Persian photographer Ehsan Shahinsefat sends BATR and Neo-Con Watch readers a message tonight through Lutheran pastor and BATR correspondent Mark Dankof. Ehsan's message is entitled "All is Calm" and is comprised not of words, but of 20 photographs of the people and scenes in Bushehr, Iran.

Only time will tell if the speculation about an American-Israeli air attack on Iran will prove true in the next 12 months. If it does, Bushehr will be an obvious focal point for tragedy, suffering, and death. Ehsan's photos remind the average American--and the world--that the consequences of war are inextricably linked to human faces and souls made in the image of God, both young and very old.

Neoconservatism and Democracy by Martin Kelly

For nearly a year, the neoconservative fascists of the American Enterprise Institute, the ‘National Review Online’ ‘Townhall’ and the ‘Washington Times’ have insulted and slimed the Spanish people for their rejection of the liar Jose Maria Aznar, and his lying lie in the immediate aftermath of the Madrid train bombings last March that the Basque terrorists ETA were responsible.

Friday, February 25, 2005

The Dreaded 'S' Word by Thomas DiLorenzo

It should be clear to anyone who has been paying attention to politics in recent years that the modus operandi of the statist and imperialistic neoconservative cult that now dominates the Republican Party is not to debate its intellectual opponents but to wage campaigns of character assassination against them. They are modern-day Jacobins and, like the French precursors of totalitarian communism, believe that they alone possess knowledge of "the general will." Consequently, all dissenters must be "destroyed."

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Neocon Mindset Main Stumbling Block: Sociologist

Dhaouadi said that ever since the induction of President George W. Bush into the White House, the neoconservatives around him have sought to impose their own norms and values on the Islamic world. “Since the US talks from a position of strength, it is not prepared to listen to the other country’s point of view.”

The Gonzocons Live On by Martin Kelly

The neoconservatives are the most powerful group of moon-howling paranoids ever to walk the face of the Earth. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde have got nothing on Dr. Perle and Mr. Feith. Colin Powell's reported assessment of them as "f*cking crazies" now seems insipid, a bagatelle among insults. They are dangerous nutjob headbangers who don't just control nukes – they have frickin' arsenals of them!

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Sink the Law of the Sea Treaty! by William Norman Grigg

Conservative Americans who consider George W. Bush a champion of national sovereignty have been shocked to learn that the president seeks Senate ratification of the UN's Convention on the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). Despite the Senate's refusal thus far to ratify the treaty, it went into effect in 1995, and elements of the vast regulatory apparatus it outlines are already in operation.

When fully implemented, LOST would consummate the largest act of territorial conquest in history, turning seven-tenths of the Earth's surface over to the jurisdiction of the United Nations. It would create a mammoth bureaucracy to regulate exploration of the ocean depths and commercial development of the seabed's riches. The UN would also be empowered to collect royalties on seabed mining, thereby providing the world body with a potentially enormous independent source of revenue to fund its agenda for "global governance."

None of this seems compatible with the Bush administration's reputation for flinty-eyed defense of our national independence. Yet during her Senate confirmation hearings in January, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that the Bush administration "would certainly like to see [LOST] pass as soon as possible.... And we very much want to see it go into force."

"Joining the convention will advance the interests of the United States military," Rice claimed on January 18. "The United States, as the country with the largest coastline and the largest exclusive economic zone, will gain economic and resource benefits from the convention.... And the United Nations has no decision-making role under the convention in regulating uses of the oceans by any state party to the convention."

Rice's unqualified endorsement of LOST lets several important questions go begging. For instance: why is it necessary to sign a UN treaty in order to enjoy "economic and resource benefits" from ocean territory we already own and control? If the UN would have no role in regulating the use of oceans within our sphere of influence, how would it be in a position to grant us the "economic and resource benefits" referred to by Rice?

But nobody present at Secretary Rice's confirmation hearings was inclined to ask such pointed questions. Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), a noted Republican internationalist who supports ratifying LOST, was delighted by Rice's rapturous endorsement of the pact.

Continue: Get US out! of the United Nations

Make Kim Jong-il the New Honecker: Neocon Columnist

The best way to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue is for China to open its border, turning Kim Jong-il into a North Korean version of former East German leader Erich Honecker, whose regime was overthrown, a neocon columnist has proposed.

Duncan Currie, an editorial assistant with the U.S. neoconservative mouthpiece The Weekly Standard, offered the suggestion in a Monday column entitled, "Kim Jong Honecker? Our Strategy for Dislodging the North Korean Tyrant Should Recall East Germany."

The unmaking of the neo-conservative mind by Spengler

In the paranoid imagination of left-wing critics, the neo-conservatives form a network of Leo Strauss acolytes infiltrating the United States' seat of power, and guide the world's only superpower into imperialist adventures. On the contrary, they are fighting political and cultural battles of a past generation which neither were won nor lost, but merely became irrelevant. Like T S Eliot, the neo-conservatives play at faith rather than live in the world of faith, a stance that eliminates their relevance to a world in which faith politics dominate.

The Neocons' Devotion to Doctrine by Leon Hadar

Not surprisingly, Bill Kristol, the editor of the leading neocon magazine Weekly Standard, is thrilled, writing recently that "it's good news that the president is so enthusiastic about Sharansky's work. It suggests that, despite all the criticism and the difficulties, the president remains determined to continue to lead the nation along the basic foreign policy lines he laid down in his first term" and, well, use the full political, economic and military resources to ensure that China and Russia, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, and other US allies in the war on terror – not to forget the above-mentioned Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan – pass the "town square test."

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Neocon Inaugural? by Donald Devine

The president had formally adopted the neoconservative mission to take democracy to the world and install freedom everywhere. The United States had finally accepted its Woodrow Wilsonian responsibility to create a hegemonic empire to bring peace and democracy to all. Neocon par excellence, William Kristol, was ecstatic. He characterized the speech as “informed by Strauss and inspired by Paine,” referring to the American radical revolutionary Tom Paine, and to Krisol’s college mentor, Leo Strauss. No higher compliment is possible in the neocon pantheon.

Monday, February 21, 2005

The Assassination of "Mr. Lebanon" by Habib Siddiqui

Hariri had both friends and foes. To the neocons and Israeli policy makers, he was too anti-Israel. To the Syrians and their Lebanese allies, he was anti-Syrian, accusing him of being behind the US-backed UN Security Council resolution last September that called for a Syrian troop withdrawal. To the leftists, he was too pro-American. To radical Muslims, he was too pro-Saudi. Hariri also had business enemies who hated him for his real estate and media-empire.

The assassination of Hariri matches very well (almost like a carbon copy) with previous activities of the Mossad. It provides Washington the necessary pretext to broaden its ‘war on terror’ to punish Syria and Hizbullah, something that Israel and its neocon friends have long wanted. The ‘Amen corner’ inside the Capitol Hill also would not require any solid evidence, much like the WMD case in Iraq, for approving punitive measures against Syria and its allies.

Outfoxed by bin Laden by Paul Craig Roberts

The neoconservatives' goal is the same as Osama bin Laden's – to spread instability in the Middle East. The neocons seek to foment instability in order to justify more U.S. invasions in an insane quest to remake the Middle East in the American image. Bin Laden seeks instability in order to topple the secular rulers and recreate Islamic rule. Bin Laden does not want U.S. troops out. He wants to suck America in deeper in order to create revolutionary insurgency throughout the Middle East.

Baiting a Trap for Bush? by Patrick J. Buchanan

There is no vital U.S. interest in Lebanon. There is no vital U.S. interest in the Gulf other than oil, which the Arabs and Iran have to sell to us and wish to sell to us. No Arab nation has attacked the United States since the Barbary pirates, and none wants war with America. Only Osama, Sharon and the neoconservatives look longingly to a "World War IV" and a "clash of civilizations" between America and Islam.

Negroponte, a Neo-Con? Shocking!! by Jude Wanniski

You may remember, Senator, I posted a memo on the margin to you on April 27, 2004, when I learned that John Negroponte, the US Ambassador to the U.N., was nominated to be the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. I told you then that, from what I could see, he was a loyal agent of the megalomaniac neo-con Cabal to run the world, and we would regret putting him in charge of promoting "democracy" in Iraq.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Imperial Mafia, Bushspeak, neocons and hypocrisy by William Blum

As can be seen in my essay referred to above, another neocon leading light, Michael Ledeen, of the American Enterprise Institute, also tried his hand at prognostication shortly before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, declaring that "If we just . . . wage a total war against these tyrants, I think we will do very well, and our children will sing great songs about us years from now."

John Negroponte, Dirty Warrior by JENNIFER ROESCH

In the post-9/11 era, Negroponte has managed to re-package and sell himself as an effective diplomat and power broker. He is just one of the many hawks who have seen their careers revived in this period. In this process, the neo-cons have been aided and abetted by a Democratic Party that has rolled over on every nomination and provided cover during every major political crisis that the Bush administration has faced. It is clear that Bush feels he faces no repercussions by nominating the likes of Negroponte.

Saturday, February 19, 2005

Neo-Cons and Israeli Lobby Declare War on Putin by Michael Collins Piper of American Free Press

Final Judgment author and American Free Press correspondent, Michael Collins Piper,
sends Mark Dankof of BATR his latest take on the Neo-Con/Israeli Lobby declaration
of war on Vladimir Putin.


Neo-Cons, Israeli Lobby Declare War on Putin


By Michael Collins Piper
Author of "Final Judgment: The Mossad Role in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy"
and "The High Priests of War"
Correspondent for American Free Press


America’s neo-conservative elite and their collaborators in the pro-Israel lobby
in Washington have fired a first shot in the opening guns of a new
Cold War being launched against Russian Premier Vladimir Putin.

Although it hasn’t been reported widely in the America mass media, Senators John
McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), two of the Israeli
lobby’s leading congressional stalwarts, introduced a resolution in the Senate
on February 19, condemning Putin and urging President Bush to push
for suspending Russia’s membership in the G-8 group of industrial nations.

Latching on to the president’s emphatic declaration in his January 20 inaugural
address of a new global campaign by the United States for the
promotion of "democracy." Lieberman announced that "President Putin’s assault on
democracy in Russia violates the spirit of the industrialized
democracies and the letter of Russia’s obligations to the Group of Eight. We
must openly confront anti-democratic backsliding in Russia for the sake of
all those who look to the United States as a beacon for freedom." The resolution
was designed to put President Bush on the spot, coming just as
President Bush was preparing for his scheduled meeting with Putin in Slovakia on
February 24.

The motivation for the effort by the neo-conservatives and their congressional
spokesmen to undermine Putin is quite clear, inasmuch as Putin
recently challenged Bush and Israel by daring to say publicly that he (Putin)
does not believe that Iran is seeking to building nuclear weapons of
mass destruction.

Although the burgeoning hostility against Putin by the neo-conservatives has
been widely hashed over in small-circulation pro-Israel publications
and American Jewish community newspapers on a regular basis, it has only been of
recent date that mainstream publications such as The
Washington Post and and The New York Times, to name the most prominent, have
begun to echo those concerns about Putin, almost as if the big
name dailies were taking the lead from the other journals. Increasingly,
however, the word that "Putin is a possible enemy" is now being breached to
the average American, through the outlets of the mass media.

Although Russia joined the G-8 nations (which includes Britain, Canada, Japan,
France, Italy and Germany) in 2002, the companion resolutions in
the Senate and the House ask the president to enlist the other G-8 countries to
join with the United States in suspending Russia’s G-8 membership
until such time as President Bush decides that Russia is supposedly committed to
so-called "democratic principles."

This is the second time that McCain and Lieberman introduced such a measure,
although their last effort, in 2003, failed in committee. At that time,
two other members of Congress, California Reps. Tom Lantos—a Democrat—and
Christopher Cox—a Republican—introduced a companion
resolution in the House of Representatives which reached the House floor, but it
was never voted upon.

Reflecting on the fact that the media was increasingly promoting hostility to
Putin, American Free Press noted on October 25, 2004 that the media’s
primary concern about Putin stems from the fact that he has been moving against
the handful of billionaire plutocrats in Russia (many of whom also
hold Israeli citizenship) who grabbed control of the Russian economy with the
open-connivance of then-Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, following the
collapse of the old Soviet Union.

One American hard-line pro-Israel publication, The New Republic, raised the
question on September 24, 2004: "Is Russia going fascist?" asserting
that whether Putin personally remains in power or not, there is a growing
movement "nationalist" in nature—that holds great sway among the Russian
population. TNR expressed concern that "a fascist revolution" could be in the
offing, meaning a movement hostile to the Israeli oligarchs (with
international criminal connections) who rule the Russian economic scene. Likewise,
much earlier, in his 1995 book, Russia: A Return to Imperialism,
Boston-University-based Israeli academic Uri Ra’anan sounded the concern that
post-Soviet Russia may pose a threat to the West.

These works echo such writers as Jonathon Brent and Vladimir Naumov who, in
their 2003 book, Stalin’s Last Crime, published evidence that
longtime Soviet leader Josef Stalin was almost certainly murdered in 1953 after
he began moves toward exorcising Zionist influence in Soviet circles
of power. They concluded by saying that "Stalin is a perpetual possibility,"
leaving open the theoretical proposition that Putin, or other would-be
Russian leaders, may ultimately emerge as heir to Stalin’s anti-Zionist legacy.

Essentially, with the American neo-conservatives (whose ideological godfathers
are widely known as admitted ex-Trotskyite communists) now
moving against Putin, it is as if we are seeing a rejuvenation of the war
against Russian nationalism by the Trotskyites, retooled for 21st century
geopolitical considerations. Now—unlike in the first half of the 20th century
prior to the founding of the state of Israel—the central role of that Middle
East state in the neo-conservative worldview cannot be understated, for the
concern about Israel is a front-line consideration in the neo-conservative
campaign against Putin.


--

Douglas Feith on Asymmetrical Sovereignty

I appreciate the opportunity to address the Council on Foreign Relations, this productive and influential body. The Council has many claims to fame, including its having been featured in a diverse set of inane conspiracy theories – figments of the fevers of both the left wing and the right. I can now empathize. As one bugbear to another, I say: It’s good to be here with you.

Friday, February 18, 2005

The Anti-Conservatives by Patrick J. Buchanan

Who and what converted a president who came to office with no knowledge of the world to the idea that only a global crusade for democracy could keep us secure? Answer: 9/11—and the neoconservatives.

Giddy with excitement, the neocons are falling all over one another to hail the president. They are not conservatives at all. They are anti-conservatives, and their crusade for democracy will end as did Wilson’s, in disillusionment for the president and tragedy for this country.

The Israeli Palestinian Conflict and the Spread of Empire and Desolation by Ronald Bleier

But today, in the wake of 9/11 and the reinstallation of George W. Bush for a second term as president, once again, many believe through fraudulent means, we are confronted with an energized and radical neo conservative movement with nowhere to go but onward and down. I think my father said it best a few months before he died a year and a half ago, "they don't do anything good." He was absolutely right. They are bent on an ideological destruction of the mission of government which is supposed to be by, for, and of the people.

Standard Weekly Lies by Thomas DiLorenzo

As I quickly learned upon the publication of The Real Lincoln, the first reaction of virtually all neoconservatives to a publication with which they disagree, from the Claremontistas to National Review, The Weekly Standard, and AEI, is; 1) to lie about the actual contents of the publication, and then attack their own straw-man arguments; 2) to wage a personal smear campaign against the author; and 3) to quote each others’ lies from #1. This textbook neocon procedure was on display again recently in a February 15 Weekly Standard online "review" of (or more accurately, a hatchet job on) Tom Woods' book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, by Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Sex, Lies, and Jeff Gannon by Justin Raimondo

This story isn't about sex – although Gannon's reported sideline as a gay escort (or was his "journalism" the sideline?) could figure even more prominently as the personal and the political meet and merge in this case. It's about a bitterly fought internal power struggle inside the Bush administration, pitting the neoconservative clique centered in the office of the vice president and the civilian upper echelons of the Pentagon against the remnants of resistance in the intelligence community, in the top ranks of the military, and in the diplomatic corps. It's about the lies the former told in order to bamboozle Congress and the nation into a disastrous conflict in the Middle East – and the crimes they committed in covering up the lies. It's a story about the neocon "alternative" media – such as "Talon News" and its many proliferating clones in cyberspace and the world of print and television – the purpose of which is to refract and distort images of an unjust and increasingly troubling war into the illusion of "victory." It's about payola pundits and media whores who swallow the party line without question and without even charging a fee. If Gannon is a plant, then what about the other right-wing screamers and ranters with an identical agenda and tactics who are, in many cases, just as sleazy?

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Syria in the Crosshairs by Justin Raimondo

Once again, it's all about Israel.

The escalation of U.S. pressure on Syria is the culmination of a strategy plainly and clearly outlined in a 1996 paper prepared for Tel Aviv's Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." This collaborative effort by Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser – most of whom are now ensconced in high positions in the Bush administration – outlined for then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a new Israeli strategic vision:

The neoconservatives in the administration have long planned to go after Syria: two years ago, Julian Borger of the Guardian reported that plans for an invasion were readied by Rumsfeld, but vetoed by Bush: to our perspicacious neocons, a veto is only a postponement. The propaganda barrage started last year, and it is now reaching its climax with the assassination of Hariri and the subsequent outcry.

Hariri Killing Sure to Bolster US Hawks by Jim Lobe

"It is certainly possible that the Syrian military leadership was sufficiently stupid and arrogant to decide to assassinate Hariri," according to C.S. Smith, a regional specialist at the University of Arizona. "But many others stood to benefit from such an act, including right-wing Phalangist Christian elements closely tied to neocons in the Bush administration."

Indeed, Walid Phares, a right-wing Lebanese-born Christian and fellow of the neoconservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), issued a statement immediately after the killing that appeared designed to cast suspicion on Syria and one of its allies in Lebanon, Hezbollah.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Is Bush a Neocon? - Dave Nalle

Bush can be a Neocon for the Neocons and a reform Republican for the rest of us and so far the party hasn't been torn apart by the contradiction. The ultimate outcome looks promising. Most of the Neocon issues got as far as they are likely to get before the election and there's not much more that can be done with them no matter how Bush tries.

OLD RIGHT portal seeking contributors

If you like The BATR NeoCon Watch, consider getting involved with OLD RIGHT. The main content section is Old Right Topic News http://www.oldright.com/index.php

This area has 15 Themes set up for posting. OLD RIGHT is seeking contributors to post directly on this page. I would register a username and password from my end and forward login and password instructions. Looking for about five folks to post one essay a day using this PHP format that is widely available and simple to use.

No approval for direct posting. Each contributor can post on any of the 15 Themes. OD members should contact me directly at: oldright@frontiernet.net to arrange for posting privileges. Topic News is not a forum. It’s a web page on our portal site.

SARTRE

Monday, February 14, 2005

The Sharansky Fallacy by Justin Raimondo

George W. Bush and his neoconservative advisors have no more intention of exporting democracy to, say, Uzbekistan, or Saudi Arabia, or any of the other nations of the Middle East, than the Devil has of going to church. If it's a byproduct of U.S. actions, then fine, but what's important is that the Bushies' geopolitical intention – the division and destruction of Iraq beyond the hope of reconstitution – is well on the way to being an accomplished fact.

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Neocons Concentrate on Promoting U.S.-Iran War by Andrew I. Killgore

Steven P. Weisman wrote in The New York Times of Nov. 19 that the “biggest challenge” in President George W. Bush's second term is “how to contain” Iran's nuclear program. In fact, however, Iran constitutes no threat to the United States. Its “threat” is to Israel, according to “some” (read neocons) in the administration who believe that Iran supports violence against Israel and helps the resistance in Iraq.

Liberals and Neocons: Together Again by Tom Barry

The neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) has signaled its intention to continue shaping the government's national security strategy with a new public letter stating that the "U.S. military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume." Rather than reining in the imperial scope of U.S. national security strategy as set forth by the first Bush administration, PNAC and the letter's signatories call for increasing the size of America's global fighting machine.

Saturday, February 12, 2005

The Birthing of Mothers Against the Draft by Ron Strom of World Net Daily

Ron Strom of World Net Daily duly notes the formation of Mothers Against the Draft by conservative activists Janine Hansen of Sparks, Nevada and Debbie Hopper of St. Louis. Strom quotes Lutheran pastor and BATR contributor Mark Dankof as observing that Mrs. Hansen and Mrs. Hopper are "patriotic Americans who oppose the insane direction Mr. Bush and his Neo-Conservative advisors are taking our nation."

Friday, February 11, 2005

Democracy According to Elliott Abrams by LARRY BIRNS

A brief review of his more notorious exploits will show that no one in the president's neocon inventory would be a less appropriate candidate than Abrams to be the overseer of global democratization and to make certain that "freedom's on the march." Needless to say, he was once again given a job at his present agency, the National Security Council, which would thus not require the all-but impossible achievement of being confirmed by the Senate, a body that is well aware of his blighted record.

Experts doubt United States intelligence on Tehran

Influential neo-conservatives say CIA’s entire network in Iran suffered a major setback. The CIA has yet to give policymakers an up-to-date assessment on Tehran.

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon by TOM BARRY

Elliott Abrams embodies neoconservatism. Perhaps more than any other neoconservative, Abrams has integrated the various influences that have shaped today's neoconservative agenda. A creature of the neoconservative incubator, Abrams is a political intellectual and operative who has advanced the neoconservative agenda with chutzpah and considerable success.

Chalabi Is Back by Barbara Lerner

Charge one is that Chalabi is an out-of-touch exile phony, an upscale con-man with no accurate information about today's Iraq, no base of support inside the country, and no significant allies there. His only real allies, our experts at CIA and State kept telling us, are naive neocon civilians at the Pentagon: Chalabi suckered them by feeding them lies they wanted to hear about the possibility of a democratic Iraq, free from old hatreds and conspiracy theories about America and Israel.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Zionist Elite Prepares to Desert America, Part 2 by Joe Vialls

With 'Fortress Americas' now in tatters because of Russia's coalition with Brazil and Venezuela, Wall Street's neocons and other Zionist traitors will desperately try to avoid War Crimes Tribunals and the waiting hangman's noose, by fleeing aboard special jets to a little-known Australian island.

Neocons wary of China

As evidenced by her remarks about China, Rice is a typical neocon. Many political analysts even regard her as the leading neocon ideologue.

Since the most influential U.S. strategists are neoconservative Republicans hostile toward Beijing, the United States’ China policy can be expected to become tougher, and perhaps even confrontational.

Monday, February 07, 2005

Christian Zionists and neocons: a heavenly marriage by Paul Rogers

Christian Zionism, also known as dispensationalism or dispensation theology, has been around for over a century and a half but it has only acquired real political significance in the past decade. Its current importance stems from three factors: the voting power of a significant proportion of evangelical Christians, its visceral support for the state of Israel, and its links with neo-conservatism.

Jonah Goldberg Embarrasses Himself Once Again by Juan Cole

I think it is time to be frank about some things. Jonah Goldberg knows absolutely nothing about Iraq. I wonder if he has even ever read a single book on Iraq, much less written one. He knows no Arabic. He has never lived in an Arab country. He can't read Iraqi newspapers or those of Iraq's neighbors. He knows nothing whatsoever about Shiite Islam, the branch of the religion to which a majority of Iraqis adheres. Why should we pretend that Jonah Goldberg's opinion on the significance and nature of the elections in Iraq last Sunday matters? It does not.

Borderline Insanity, by Diane Alden

In Part 1 of Diane's series on Immigration, she presents a truckload of stats on illegals and the problem. Long, and a bit unwieldy at times, but provocative nonetheless.



What do screwball libertarians, the laughable left, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal and the Bush administration have in common? They are all wacky on the topic of immigration – legal and illegal. They dance on the thin line between reality and delusion.

The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal once called for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would drop any pretense at borders and, by extension, U.S. sovereignty and our viability as a nation-state. The Bush administration, the Wall Street Journal and guys like Jack Kemp have little evidence that backs up their claim that unrestricted immigration and open borders would be the best thing since sliced bread and the internal combustion engine.

In a kind of frenzied groupthink they are quick to label critics and immigration realists as racist, nativist, xenophobic, anti-free trade or anti-immigrant. Debate is stifled even when the reform-minded are armed with enough data and unpalatable truths to reach to the moon and back.

Loaded with piles of evidence, immigration realists make a valiant attempt to bust the myth that unrestricted immigration (migration) and porous borders can continue, with no real harm done.

In that regard, it has become obvious to me over the last year that the entire immigration mess is driven by extremely wrong-headed, shortsighted commercial and economic considerations. Also in play is a quixotic post-Cold War attempt to remake the world and human nature through a process of deconstructing the nation-state system. The idea is to reconstruct the entire world system into something else – heaven on earth, I suppose.

Given the evidence that guest worker amnesty/programs in the past have been flops, the response is the same: "We are a dynamic nation that can absorb the world and connect willing workers with willing employers and it won't cost much."

Think again.

Most of us muddle along pretending things are as they always were – business as usual. One would think border anarchy, increase in Third World disease in the U.S., drug cartels, human traffickers, gangs and gang warfare, kidnapping, and the rise of ethnic mafias would provide enough reasons to put a moratorium on immigration and regulate the borders. Additionally, our leaders give no consideration to misuse of work and student visas, bankrupting the states, crime and mayhem, putting up with those who have citizenship in two countries, refugee status given to people who shouldn't have it, along with all the other aberrations.

If Washington were not so insulated from reality, our leaders would recognize this grab bag of chaos and rethink the entire immigration/open borders question.

The opportunity presented itself after 9/11. Commerce and economics, trade and corporate needs, as well as identity group interests, made it impossible to react in a truly rational way. Instead we added another federal agency to the government, thereby creating another opportunity for paper shuffling and throwing money down the bureaucratic rat hole. Sensible provisions for national security and self-interest were not priorities.

Rational leaders would have gone after Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, but they would also have ENDED the visa and immigration system as we know it rather than institute pathetic reforms. Someone with intelligence would have demanded demographic profiling, at least by age and gender. Nonetheless, commerce, economics and political correctness trumped national security and continue to do so. Proof is on the way – read on.

A statement from the latest research piece from the Center for Immigration Studies puts it in perspective:

"Put simply, the mere fact that employers want more workers, and foreigners wish to work in this country, does not mean that Americans necessarily benefit from their coming. This fact must be considered when formulating policy." (www.cis.com)

It is all about commerce and economics, which are then rationalized for the public by cloaking them in "compassion." President Bush says that "family values do not stop at the Rio Grande." He also maintains that border jumpers are simply people who want to feed their families. Nonetheless, nearly every government and Census Bureau study on the issue tells us that the VAST majority of border jumpers are young males under 40, poorly educated and single. Some of them also make up approximately 25 to 30 percent of the prison population in the United States.

But that does not seem to make a blip on the "compassion" radar in D.C. as it impacts U.S. citizens and states, which must deal with the problem of illegal and legal immigration. The fact is, if the leadership actually believes the compassion rhetoric, we are in real danger because no one is looking out for us as either citizens or taxpayers. According to Census Bureau statistics, only 37 percent of foreign-born living in the U.S. have even bothered to become naturalized citizens. That is a far cry from earlier immigration, wherein the vast majority of immigrants became citizens. Also, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. at its peak in 1910 was less than half the number of immigrants in the U.S. today. When you add the welfare state to mass migration and the failure to keep welfare for citizens only, as my dad would say, "Why buy the cow when you can have the milk for free?"

An Invasion by Any Other Name

The L.A. Times reported in last Sunday's edition (1/23/05) that a group comprising New Mexico and federal law enforcement agencies, the Southwest New Mexico Border Security Task Force, issued a report in 2003 that it didn't have the resources to adequately protect the border against drug dealers, illegal immigrants and "potentially weapons of mass destruction" from making it across the border.

The article relates that border agents have run into heavily armed Mexican soldiers inside the U.S. Patrol agent Rick Moody reported: "I have found up to 10 Mexican soldiers in a Humvee on our side of the border. We don't know what they are doing here. They usually say they got lost. When that happens, we confront them and escort them back."

Police Chief Clare May of Columbus, N.M., told the Times that cars with illegals or drug dealers go through town at 100 mph with border agents in pursuit. Stolen vehicles litter the roadsides, and drug and immigrant trafficking is rife among those in his community. Calls for assistance, most of them related to illegal immigrants, jumped from 450 in 2003 to 900 last year.

Recently, the Washington Post looked into the anarchy near the border town of Nuevo Loredo, Texas. Federal officials indicate there have been 27 Americans kidnapped in the area since August. Out of that number, 15 – including three American girls in their early 20s – are still missing.

The paper also related a warning from the U.S. consular office in the area. "Last month, U.S. consular officials here issued a warning to the thousands of Americans who cross the bridge each week, including Mexican Americans visiting relatives or shopping and tourists on short sightseeing trips."

"U.S. citizens are urged to be especially aware of safety and security concerns when traveling through or visiting in Nuevo Laredo," said the warning. It went on to say that 21 U.S. citizens had been kidnapped or had disappeared between August and December, with nine later released, two found dead and 10 still missing. It also mentioned the "alarming rate" of kidnappings that has continued for some time across Mexico, including "express" abductions for quick-cash ransoms.

One U.S. official stated: "We're seeing outright lawlessness in Nuevo Laredo. Things are just getting out of hand."

There is a drug war going on along the border. So, what else is new? Cartels vying for control of the border has been going on for years. Well, hey, why not? The federal government isn't interested in controlling the border. As the Post reports, "millions of dollars' worth of marijuana, cocaine and heroin are smuggled north by truck and train among cargoes of legitimate goods."

Michael Yoder, the U.S. consul, informs us that one Mexican gang, the Zetas, are composed of former military commandos who deserted from the Mexican army and are busy kidnapping for ransom. It is a way of moonlighting when the drug business falls off or there is a major drug bust. (Mary Jordan, Washington Post, 1/22/05)

In an unprecedented move along the U.S.-Mexico border last year, a convoy of 12 pickup trucks packed with suspected illegal immigrants barreled through the Tohono O'odham Nation and tried to run down approaching Border Patrol agents.

Confrontations with ranchers and Border Patrol and police are commonplace. Nevertheless, it is as if Washington, D.C., and the states and people impacted by migration live in different realities.

These are not isolated incidents. Reports of Mexican army and Mexican police incursions across the border have been reported for years, as well as kidnappings and millions crossing the border illegally. Each and every day thousands enter the U.S. illegally, and not just from Mexico. They are coming in from all over the world. Numbers of illegal Chinese entering is now in the hundreds of thousands. They arrive in shipping containers and cross the borders from Mexico and Canada.

Hustling the Invasion

Citizens of border states, particularly those hit hardest by the human migration from other areas of the world, are at the point of desperation. But it isn't just border states being impacted. The heartland is taking a hit on all its systems as taxpayers foot the bill for the "compassion" the Washington elite and national politicians expend on providing cheap labor and growth of government at all levels

Washington continues to pretend there is no problem. The greater concern in Washington is that actually dealing with the problem of this economic invasion by the people of the Third World would interfere with commerce and take money away from supplying more bureaucrats to Washington.

Retiring Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge informed USA Today that the part of the recently passed intelligence bill that includes 10,000 new Border Patrol agents over five years is not a good use of resources. He informs us that President Bush is not going to ask for money to fund them.

Ridge told the paper, "The notion that you're going to have 10,000 is sort of a fool's gold." He would rather spend it on other kinds of agents and technology, cameras, spy in the sky.

Border Patrol agents are asking, What use are cameras if the invaders they capture electronically are not taken into custody because there are not enough agents to do the job? My suggestion: Gather as many as they can and deposit them at the gate of Vicente Fox's villa and include a bill for upkeep and incarceration. But that has already been tried.

Last year an Idaho County commissioner, Robert Vasquez, sent a bill to the Mexican government to reimburse his county for the $2 million the county spent on health care for illegals. The potato industry is where the illegals are employed, but apparently the potato industry doesn't know much about health-care insurance for employees, given that most of them are illegal.

By the way, if you think guest worker amnesty is going to solve this problem by forcing employers to pay benefits – think again. Employers do not want employees on the books. It messes with the whole scam they have going to get taxpayers to pick up the tab. Social costs for immigration, legal and illegal, on the states also allow wages to remain depressed because of a never-ending supply of labor. (Phillip Martin – UC-Davis Study, CAWS, NAWS, Department of Agriculture)

This does not sound like a good deal either for the taxpayer or for migrants already in the U.S. Meanwhile, the Canyon County, Idaho, commissioner is asking the governor to declare the region a disaster area.

The Department of Homeland Security does not want more money for Border Patrol agents, but it does have enough money for conferences, gatherings, increases in numbers of bureaucrats to staff whiz-bang new agencies like the National Intelligence Council. The Council was created after 9/11 – one more effort to produce paperwork and occasions for playing footsie with other highly paid but clueless bureaucrats in the Beltway.

There are thousands of them in government. These are Very Important People who discuss world trends and theories of geopolitics over tidbits at local Georgetown eateries. These highly overpaid officials would drop over in a dead faint if they ever had to spend a night with the Border Patrol. A ride down a dusty, dirty back road playing hide-and-seek with drug dealers, murderers, the Mexican army and police, illegal border crossers and deadly traffickers in anything and everything: It would not make their day.

The objective of one more "intelligence" council in D.C. is beyond me. I surmise from its Web site that the intention is to think great thoughts, share information, coordinate strategic thinking while mapping the global future – which amounts to traveling and shuffling papers from one bureaucracy to the next.

Here's a thought for retiring Secretary Ridge, the new DHS Secretary Chertoff, the boys and girls at the National Intelligence Council, and the Bush White House: GET A GRIP!!!

Numbers of Border Patrol agents are convinced that Mexican authorities are protecting drug runners and traffickers in human beings. The Mexican government and authorities, for the most part, are about as corrupt as it gets. On occasion and with great fanfare, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security) and Mexican authorities catch one or two obvious crooks or evildoers and tell us how great the cooperation is.

Tom Ridge, Condoleezza Rice and President Bush are all shoveling that pile of horsehockey every time a question is asked about why Mexico is so lax in helping us patrol the border. Piled high and deeper: the reasons they give why we can't hire more Border Patrol or use National Guard on the border. The answer is always more technology and guest worker green cards. They obstinately refuse to consider more boots on the ground to catch the invaders; no increase in much-needed detention centers, no reform of the idiotic immigration courts and deportation system – no nothing.

Many Border Patrol agents do not believe Washington has the will to solve the border or immigration chaos. I have heard some say that Washington priorities are so out of whack it may take a major unpleasant event to place priorities in proper order. A major pandemic will probably be the most likely event. A nuclear incident might be small potatoes in comparison.

The current administration wants to remake entire nations and cultures, but it does nothing to control U.S. borders or the comings and goings of non-citizens into the U.S. The result of that incompetence led to the events of 9/11. The 9/11 Commission Report revealed that simple things such as border control and tight visa policy could have prevented 9/11.

WAOL TV in San Antonio informs us that on Monday, January 24, 2005, federal officers from the Office of Homeland Security forced down a plane owned by Azval Hameed of Dover, Del. The aircraft was carrying four illegal Chinese immigrants and a pilot identified as a Mexican national. The plane landed at San Antonio airport Monday night.

At first there was concern that these particular illegals were part of a terrorist plot to set off a dirty bomb in the Boston area. But as it turns out, a Mexican trafficker in human beings probably turned them in. He may have been angry because the Chinese he was trying to smuggle into the U.S. did not pay his fee.

I feel so much better learning they were only illegal aliens trying to force their way illegally into the U.S. on an unregistered aircraft. What a blessing they were not exceptionally bad guys trying to blow up the Boston Commons or Old North Church.

The only conclusion a reasonable person can arrive at is that the leadership in Washington consciously remains oblivious to what constitutes a clear and present danger to U.S. sovereignty, our borders and our best interests.

The founder of modern conservatism was a Jew

Benjamin Disraeli—twice Prime Minister of Great Britain, romantic novelist, inventor of modern conservatism--was a neocon in the plain sense of the word, a “new conservative” who began his career on the left. Conservative thinking dates to the dawn of organized society, but modern conservatism--a mass movement, a philosophy not for aristocrats and the rich but for everybody--was Disraeli’s creation. That modern conservatism should have been invented by a 19th-century neocon is thought provoking.

Sunday, February 06, 2005

Only Bush knows the neocons' fate by David Ignatius

Certainly Bush's two big speeches this year have embraced the ambitious rhetoric of the neocons. When the president talked in his inaugural address about America's global mission to spread liberty, and when he admonished Syria and Iran in his State of the Union address last Wednesday night, he certainly sounded like the neoconservative in chief.

Does Feith's Exit Spell the End of a Pernicius Philosophy? by Sarah Whalen

So look long and hard at Iraq’s elections — President Bush’s Middle East democracy project’s front door — and you just might miss Douglas J. Feith, Bush’s undersecretary of defense for planning, who Time Magazine calls “the most overripe of neocons,” sneaking out the back.

Saturday, February 05, 2005

Bush's State of the Union: Billions for Endless War and Empire

The neocon cabal surrounding Bush has long planned a permanent military occupation of the region, to control the supply of oil and to use as a base to launch offensive operations against other nations, like Syria and Iran. The Pentagon is constructing 14 permanent military bases--Bush will not set a timetable because he has no intention of ending the occupation ever.

Pro-Israel Neocon Steers Bush's Democracy Drive by Adam Wild Aba

A staunch advocate of Israel has jointed the neocons-studded Bush administration as Deputy National Security Adviser for Global Democracy and Human Rights.

Embodying neo-conservatism perhaps more than any other neoconservatives, Elliot Abrams will be assigned with promoting democracy and freedom abroad in line with the Bush administration’s Greater Middle East and North Africa Initiative

"A Republic, If You Can Keep It" - John F. McManus

The Neo Cons are absolutely convinced that they have done something just and holy by imposing Democracy in Iraq. First of all, free government cannot be imposed; but just as importantly, the best form of free government is not a democracy (which is the worst, most revolutionary form of government), but a republic (which has more emphasis on the rule of law, limited government, and mixed representative forms)

This classic on the subject by John F. McManus, reposted at the New American, is a must read.
The New American - "A Republic, If You Can Keep It" - November 6, 2000

The "Coalition of the Billing" by Joe Wolverton

The UN is after a global tax on Aviation. Bill Gates thinks its a good idea, as is his purchase of Chinese currency and bonds. He jubilantly described his new business partner as “phenomenal” and “a brand new form of capitalism.” Gates’ new form of capitalism was formerly known as Communism.

Democracy Isn't Liberty, by William Norman Grigg

Grigg tells us why that 'democracy' is no guarantee of liberty in Iraq. In fact, it may be a step toward further radicalization of that state.

Democracy Isn't Liberty

Friday, February 04, 2005

We've Been WarnedThe state of our union:perpetual war by Justin Raimondo

Laced with explicit threats, pumped up with hubris, shameless in its exploitation of the American war dead, this speech was a warning to us all – get ready for more wars, more death, more neocon lies in the service of a foreign policy founded on madness.

It is an application of a popular ideological bromide – "globalization" – to the neocons' war-crazed dogma of "democracy" imposed by force. Oh, but our president denies it:

'W' is for Wilson? by James Pinkerton

To be sure, the Post's edit page and the DLC are "neocon" Democratic, but their enthusiastic support for Bush's policy is a reminder that internationalist interventionism has deep roots in both parties -- and in truth, much deeper roots in the Democratic Party.

But Bush might have seized more than most Republicans realize; in the chortling words of neocon Robert Kagan, Bush's foreign policy goals are "the antithesis of conservatism."


Thursday, February 03, 2005

George W. Bush: U.S. to Illuminate the Globe by William Norman Grigg

After the French Revolution degenerated into murderous chaos, and gave rise to Bonapartism, an illuminist scattering took place, leading to the creation of radical secret societies across Europe and Latin America, according to Billington. Those groups eventually coalesced to form the Communist movement, which — like the neoconservative Bush administration — defined “democracy” as a synonym for “freedom.” The American Founders, by way of contrast, understood that democracy (unrestrained majority rule, rather than the rule of law) was incompatible with ordered liberty and individual rights, and a forerunner to mobocracy followed by tyranny.

Mr. Bush’s second inaugural address was composed with input from a group of neoconservative — or, better stated, neo-Trotskyite — academics and pundits, who almost certainly understood the context of the cryptic reference to “fire in the minds of men.”

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Pop goes the Bush mythology bubble by Karl W. B. Schwarz

Back during the Reagan Administration, Neocons Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, George Shultz, Bechtel and others dreamed up a scheme to take over the Iraqi oil and install the Aqaba Pipeline. That matter lay dormant until April 11, 2003, when New York Times columnist Bob Herbert contacted Jock Covey, director of external communications (a euphemism and high-sounding title for "spin doctor") at Bechtel. A recent piece written by me addressed that Aqaba Pipeline and the fax Covey sent to Shultz to spin the response to Bob Herbert and the article he was writing and that appeared in print on April 14, 2003.

Liberal Wimps for War by Justin Raimondo

Noonan wasn't the only conservative left behind by the presidential rapture – the Wall Street Journal editorial page was teeming with discontent, as pugnacious Peggy reiterated her dissent from the Democratist diktat a few days later and declared her sympathy with Mark Helprin's worrying diagnosis of the problem with the Bushian-neocon paradigm: blindness.

Neocons: More Cannon Fodder, Please by Jim Lobe

Amid rising concern about the over-extension of U.S. military forces and the growing budget deficit, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neoconservative group whose past foreign policy recommendations have often been followed by President George W. Bush, is urging Congress to add 25,000 new soldiers to U.S. ground forces each year over the next several years.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

PERLE'S OF WISDOM by William Fisher

In an article he wrote while he was a member of Donald Rumsfeld’s Defense Policy Board, he lauded the Pentagon plan to lease tankers from the Boeing Company but failed to disclose that Boeing was a major investor in his venture capital company. "It takes a special government green-eyeshade mentality to miss the urgency of the tanker requirement," Perle and a coauthor wrote in the Aug. 14 article in the Wall Street Journal.

WHERE IS JOE MCCARTHY WHEN YOU NEED HIM? by Thomas Fleming

In other words, Feith comes out of a Zionist tradition that even Begin and Sharon would rather not talk about, and, as a senior official in the Department of Defense, he has never ceased to advocate policies designed to promote Israeli, not American, interests. In this, however, he is no different from Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Michael Ledeen, and the entire neoconservative network of think tanks and publications that have dominated the foreign policy of the Bush administration. When Feith wanted to put out the disinformation that the CIA had clinched the connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, he leaked his own memo to the Weekly Standard, whose bogus article was then quoted triumphantly by Dick Cheney—a disinformational triple play.