Thursday, June 30, 2005

Bush's Speech, the View from Cairo by Linda S. Heard

The neo-cons' mentor, Chicago professor Leo Strauss was a believer of 'the end validating the means'. As far as he was concerned, if a satisfactory end meant politicians having to tell lies to the masses then so be it. And, boy, how they've lied!

Gonzocons Erase History by Martin Kelly

Take David Frum, for instance. Apart from having a penchant for ridiculous man-of-action poses, Frum was the author of one of the most scurrilous of all ideological attacks on neoconservatism's opponents, entitled "Unpatriotic Conservatives," which NRO published on March 19, 2003.

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Election of Ahmadinejad Custom-Made for Neocons by Kurt Nimmo

For the Straussian neocons, the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran is Christmas in June. It firms up their argument that the country is trapped in a mullah-instigated vapor-lock and in order for “democracy” (i.e., neocons and neolib carpet-baggers allowed to make the country Israel-friendly and turn off the oil burglar alarms) to prevail, invasion (or shock and awe) is the only choice, since we all know Iran’s mullahs are obsessive-compulsive on the idea of stocking nukes. However, as William O. Beeman points out, attacking Iran, as the attack against Iraq, will be no cakewalk. “Ahmadinejad’s persona and his message are clearly irresistible to people who see the original ideals of the revolution slipping away through the increasingly Westernized behavior and sensibilities of the salons and boutiques of North Tehran,” writes Beeman.

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Korea Stops Funding for Neocon Think Tank

The Korea Foundation has ended its support for the American Enterprise Institute, a rightwing U.S. think tank credited with being the brains behind the war on Iraq, Foreign Minster Ban Ki-moon told the National Assembly's Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee on Monday. It reportedly did so at the ruling party’s request.

Monday, June 27, 2005

A Scolding from Miss Rice by Patrick J. Buchanan

The liberals' defense of the Great Society debacles will be the neocons' defense if we lose the Middle East. But Rice's homilies about how high-minded she was will carry little weight. Americans won't buy it. Just ask Robert McNamara.

Left, Right, What Difference Does it Make? by Mike Rogers

I think there's a good reason why so-called Liberals are easy targets for derision. I believe it has a lot to do with a serious problem in the analytical thought process department. I mean, it seems they have a problem in thinking seemingly simple things through logically. The Neo-cons, on the other hand, are just out-and-out crooks and masters of deceit. Being skilled in dishonesty – and getting away with it – requires years of practice as well as a very gullible audience. Here's where American Joe-Average – who is always readily taken advantage of – steps in along with his very dim Liberal friends. The combination of the two makes for, literally, an entire carnival of little kids to steal candy from.

An Apology to Stephen Schwartz by Paul Gottfried

Finally I am skeptical about Schwartz’s characterization of himself on Frontpage (March 21, 2003) as a "former Trotskyite." It seems to me rather that he continues to represent the never quite subdued Trotskyite gestalt behind the never-quite-finished neoconservative implementation of a world revolution always in progress. I would recommend that the reader consult my book on the Postmarxist Left, which will be out later in the summer, and includes specific recommendations made by Schwartz on how Trotsky’s legacy can be applied to furthering our "global democratic mission." One wonders whether the self-proclaimed apostle of capitalism Steve Forbes, who has lent his name to the Foundation’s board, knows of Schwartz’s contribution toward making Trotsky relevant for world democracy. As the old adage goes, he who lies down with thieves should expect the worst. The same may be equally true for those who consort with graying Trots.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

America's neo-conservative world supremacists will fail by Eric Hobsbawm

The third thread of continuity links the neo-conservatives of George Bush with the Puritan colonists' certainty of being God's instrument on earth and with the American Revolution - which, like all major revolutions, developed world-missionary convictions, limited only by the wish to shield the the new society of potentially universal freedom from the corruptions of the unreconstructed old world. The most effective way of finessing this conflict between isolationism and globalism was to be systematically exploited in the 20th century and still serves Washington well in the 21st. It was to discover an alien enemy outside who posed an immediate, mortal threat to the American way of life and the lives of its citizens.

The first, not the last throes by Pepe Escobar

The Pentagon strategy is not working, and it won't work for two main reasons. The neo-conservative American project for Iraq was based on ethnic, confessional sectarianism for a start. The current pre-civil-war atmosphere is just a consequence of privileging Kurds out of proportion and marginalizing Sunni Arabs - not to mention the blowback (from Washington's point of view) of a weak Shi'ite-dominated, Islamic-leaning, Iran-friendly government having to fight not only the Sunni Arab guerrillas, but a Sunni-Sadrist political opposition. Moreover, the development of the so-called Iraqi defense forces may take at least five years. The current militia inferno - tolerated or even encouraged by the Americans - is bound to derail the country for at least a generation.

Friday, June 24, 2005

Neoconservatives Speechless! by Karen Kwiatkowski

Neoconservatives from the left, right and middle, including George W. Bush, believe that they create their own reality, live in their own world, and make their own history.

It’s kind of funny how they don’t want to talk about it right now.

Freshly ironed World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, when asked about the Downing Street Memoranda, had this to say:

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Waking up to the politics of fear by Linda S. Heard

Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired Lieutanant Colonel in the United States Air Force, who features in Hijacking Catastrophe, sums up the documentary thus: "The film explores the dangerous territory of how the post 9-11 national shock was carefully cultivated by neoconservatives in Washington to support their own long-held objectives in the Middle East."

Can the UN Really be Reformed? by Rep. Ron Paul

Many conservatives have bought into the neoconservative dream of using the UN as a tool to advance an aggressive US foreign policy. But granting more power to the UN can only serve the interests of globalists, who see national sovereignty as an obstacle to their goals. The more we involve ourselves with the UN, the more we entangle ourselves in the affairs of other nations to our own detriment. America has nothing to show for our 60 years in the UN except for tens of thousands of dead or injured soldiers, and hundreds of billions of wasted tax dollars. The 20th century – the UN century – was the bloodiest in the world’s history. We must stop fooling ourselves that the UN is an instrument of world peace.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

They Died So Republicans Could Take the Senate by Thom Hartmann

The "lie of convenience" is based on the neocon argument that the US needed a "footprint" in the Middle East to both secure our oil supplies and provide military security to Israel. But it ignores the many nations in the region where we now have military bases (some huge), the power and ability of our navy, and the power of Israel's military. And it doesn't explain how our getting bogged down in Iraq could possibly advance our interests at home or around the world.

The Next Neocon Acquisition - The U.N. by Rowan Wolf

Now the pieces are in place and thanks to Ron Paul, Independent Congressman from Texas, the cover is blown. On June 13, 2005, Paul published NeoCon Global Government. In it he argues that the proposed legislation (Hyde's backed by the Gingrich "task force report) is an effort to take over the UN. Now Paul, is no supporter of the U.N. as far as I can tell, so his concern about the UN being a neoconservative tool has a ring of credibility.

Are the neoconservatives, who have so successfully taken over the government of the United States, setting their sights on the United Nations?

China in America's cross-hairs: Robert D. Kaplan and neocon hawks clamor for new Cold War by Larry Chin

This is a sharp-eyed look at the madness of a major neocon talking-head regarding China policy. But for perspective-by-analogy, let me ask you a question about Iran. Ever wonder what would have come about in Iran had the Central Intelligence Agency not fomented an illegal coup d'etat against democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh? He moved to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, triggering the wrath of the American economic hitmen who engineered his sudden overthrow in 1953. That clever piece of finesse brought the bitter ordeal of the bogus Shah of Iran, his notorious Savak secret police, the 1979 Shiite revolution, and the eventual sabotage of the entire Carter Presidency - which was, let's remember, the last hope for a timely mitigation of Peak Oil. And now they're in something called the Axis of Evil.

What Is Bush's Agenda in Iraq? by Paul Craig Roberts

The neocons assured Americans that the war in Iraq would be a cakewalk over in three weeks!

The neocons told us that only 70,000 troops were needed to bring Iraq to heel!

Neocons fired the top generals who had truthfully told Congress that several hundred thousand troops, at least, would be needed!

Neocons told Congress that Iraqi oil would pay for the invasion and that America did not have to worry about the cost! So far, that is a $300 billion mistake.

Bush and Hawks Try Preemptive Strike vs. Iran Vote by Jim Lobe

Meanwhile, Sen. Sam Brownback, a Christian Right leader close to both hardline neoconservatives and Iranian-American followers of Reza Pahlavi, the ambitious, U.S.-based son of the former shah, charged in a floor speech that the elections were "bogus," while at AEI headquarters across town, a discussion on the elections featured a presentation by a founder of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohsen Sazegara of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who predicted, "No matter who wins the presidential elections, there will be no real changes in Iran's domestic or foreign policy."

Monday, June 20, 2005

White man's burden by Ari Shavit

The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, say it's possible. But another journalist, Thomas Friedman (not part of the group), is skeptical

Wolfowitz: A 'saintly patron' or 'war criminal'? by Iqbal Jassat

Wolfowitz denounced the Turkish military for failing to intervene to "overturn the decision". The saint of neocon's aggressive mode of tyranny was outraged that Turkey would display sound democratic principles by listening to its people instead of taking orders from Washington!

America's most menacing hawk in control of the World Bank is not inclined to depart from his neocon ideology - especially given that he remains highly indebted to the powerful patronage of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

The US war with Iran has already begun by Scott Ritter

"Liberation" and the spread of "democracy" have become none-too-subtle code words within the neo-conservative cabal that formulates and executes American foreign policy today for militarism and war.

By the intensity of the "liberation/democracy" rhetoric alone, Americans should be put on notice that Iran is well-fixed in the cross-hairs as the next target for the illegal policy of regime change being implemented by the Bush administration.

The Great Awakening to the Iraq Deception by Justin Raimondo

McGovern, a former CIA analyst, came up with a perfectly reasonable answer: the "OIL" syndrome, or Oil, Israel, and the Logistical "base" that figures prominently in neoconservative [.pdf file] politico-military strategy for the "liberation" of the Middle East. The oil factor is not even debatable, and surely American military preeminence in the region, as well as the refusal of the U.S. to forswear any effort to build permanent bases in Iraq, lends credence to the "logistical" part of the equation. As for the role played by Israel and its American amen corner in ginning up this war, McGovern didn't quote Goebbels, he cited Brent Scowcroft, who famously said of Bush

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Ideological Bankruptcy: The Beginning of Neocon End by Abukar Arman

Have the Neocons finally come to terms with the failure of their ideology and are now making tactical move to steer clear from a potential ramification of their overspent political capital? Is this some kind of a keep-your-head-down, fly below the radar screen strategic decision to give the Neocons enough time to reinvent themselves before they are blamed for the global disaster that they masterminded! Is the political boomerang about to reverse course? Whatever the case, unless it was buried much deeper, no such thinking was clear in the obituary offered by Charles Krauthammer.

Friday, June 17, 2005

The Hidden Cost of War by Rep. Ron Paul, MD

Americans have an especially unique ability to finance our war efforts while minimizing the immediate effect. As the issuer of the world’s reserve currency, we are able to finance our extravagance through inflating our dollars. We have the special privilege of printing that which the world accepts as money in lieu of gold. This is an invitation to economic disaster, permitting an ill-founded foreign policy that sets the stage for problems for years to come. A system of money that politicians and central bankers could not manipulate would restrain those with grandiose ideas of empire.

Rice reins in neo-conservatives on Iraq

The neo-cons in fact retain immense clout in the administration. Harold Rhode remains Rumsfeld's advisor on Islamic affairs and he, Army sources have told UPI, was passionately enthusiastic about both toppling Saddam and then using Iraq as a "springboard" to topple the Islamic Republic in neighboring Iran. David Wurmser, his close buddy, continues to retain the full confidence of Vice President Cheney.

Behind the Downing Street Memos by Justin Raimondo

The Blairites, for their part, refused to dirty their hands with it, and so it was left to such mysterious and ephemeral U.S. government agencies as the "Office of Special Plans" and other ad hoc neocon-run organizations. They cooked the intelligence and planted it with their favorite reporters and pundits, as well as giving it in the form of "talking points" to Bush, Cheney, and the gang, to repeat ad infinitum.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Meet Bolton's Replacement, Robert "First Strike" Joseph by TOM BARRY

The top U.S. government official in charge of arms control advocates the offensive use of nuclear weapons and has deep roots in the neoconservative political camp . Moving into John Bolton's old job, Robert G. Joseph is the right-wing's advance man for counterproliferation as the conceptual core of a new U.S. military policy. Within the administration, he leads a band of counterproliferationists who-working closely with such militarist policy institutes as the National Institute for Public Policy and the Center for Security Policy-have placed preemptive attacks and weapons of mass destruction at the center of U.S. national security strategy.

Douglas Feith and Betar

We know that Douglas Feith was one of the authors of the "Clean Break" paper generated for the Likud party in 1996. We also know that he is law partners with an Israeli settler.

What I was not aware of, but which was listed in a previous GIR post, is that his father, Dalck Feith, was active in a territorial maximalist group called "Betar". Betar is a 'revisionist Zionist' group that has youth/campus organizations in the US and UK.

Iran's Theocrats and America's Neocons Need Each Other by Norman Solomon

Those autocrats may be rescued by American neocons. "As long as Iran fears America's intentions, and the United States vilifies the Islamic Republic, Iran's authoritarian leaders will have an excuse to suppress dissent and to label reformers as traitors," says Christopher de Bellaigue, a correspondent for The Economist who has lived in Iran for several years. Writing in the current issue of Foreign Policy, he predicts that "a new generation of Iranians will … spur further reform."

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Conservative Euphemisms for State Aggression by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Re: " The New Fusionism " by Joseph Bottum.

Reading his essay, you find a long string of euphemisms for state intervention. We are in the end talking about groups supporting the only thing that the state does: namely roughing people up through violence and threats of violence. That’s what every line of every regulation comes down to. That’s the meaning of every tax. That the whole upshot of every tariff, expenditure, prohibition, and bomb. It all amounts to increased use of violence in society. Strip away the banners, songs, uniforms, and speeches: that’s all that the state really is.

Web of cold-blooded lies by Eric Margolis

British and U.S. intelligence agencies were ordered to produce "evidence" to justify a war. In the U.S., faked "evidence" and grotesque lies were fed to the frightened public by pro-war neo-conservatives and frenzied national media. The U.S. Congress clapped for war like trained seals.

House Republicans vs. Bush by Joshua Frank

The first of the House Republicans to speak out on television against the "neo-con invasion" was Mr. "Freedom Fries" himself, North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones. As Jones told the news program, This Week, he now believes that neo-cons within the Republican Party are to blame for pushing an illegitimate war on Iraq.

A handful of traditional conservatives like Pat Buchanan and Paul Craig Roberts have been railing the neo-cons for sometime - and it seems their dissent is starting to catch fire in the House. Let's hope the flames they've sparked spread to the White House and smoke Bush right out of office.

Indictment Shows Washington Is 'Israeli-Occupied Territory' by Justin Raimondo

Feith's staff is a nexus of neocon activity in this administration: they were the spark plugs behind the "Office of Special Plans," which fed phony "intelligence" on Iraq's alleged WMD to the White House and Congress via Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress and other equally dubious sources. When the CIA wouldn't cooperate in cooking the intelligence according to the neocons' recipe for war, they simply set up their own parallel intelligence-gathering "rogue" operation, a "lie factory," as one article describing its activities put it, churning out half-baked rationales for invading Iraq.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Bill Kristol and Israel Want to Draft Your Kids by Kurt Nimmo

Bill Kristol and the neocons have Saudi Arabia in their gun sights -- and have for some time now. According to veteran investigative reporter Bob Dreyfuss, the neocons are using al-Qaeda (or what passes for al-Qaeda) as a blunderbuss to buckshot through their anti-Islam, pro-Israel agenda.

In 2003, Kristol wrote The Neoconservative Persuasion, where he declared “it [is] necessary to defend Israel today, when its survival is threatened. No complicated geopolitical calculations of national interest are necessary.” Of course, Israel’s survival is not threatened -- but the survival of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the lives of your kids (or your life if you are 20-something) are at risk.

Enabling Evil by Paul Craig Roberts

By continuing to defend Bush’s lies, right-wing talk radio, Fox "News," the Weekly Standard, National Review, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the NY Post, the NY Sun and the rest of the neocon establishment are Bush’s willing executioners. The neocon media differs not at all from the Nazi propaganda machine. The neocon media fosters the same hatred and blood lust: kill the Iraqis, invade Syria, bomb the Iranians, devise "useable nukes" to subdue the Muslims, kill the American traitors who criticize our Führer, bend the world to our exceptional will.

NeoCon Global Government by Rep. Ron Paul

Conservatives who have been critical of the UN in the past have enthusiastically embraced this bill and the concept of UN reform. But what is the desired end of “UN reform”? The UN is an organization that was designed to undermine sovereignty and representative government. It is unelected and unaccountable to citizens by its very design. Will UN reform change anything about the fact that its core mission is objectionable? Do honest UN critics really want an expanded UN that functions more “efficiently”?

Monday, June 13, 2005

Neo-Con Unfurls the Big Picture by WINSLOW T. WHEELER

Indeed, neo-con does not even begin to describe the genre. UPI's "nationalist" and even "neo-imperialist" seems completely inadequate. "Lunatic" or even "dangerous menace" comes to mind but falls into the excessive rhetoric of these times. I'll be positive and an optimist and call them "a past embarrassment of the future."

Sunday, June 12, 2005

Bush's Politics of Fear: Neocon-Patriotism Only Acceptable Ism by Ben Tanosborn

It was Karl Menninger who warned us that the voice of intelligence is drowned by the roar of fear? and never before in American politics has the roar of fear, through the spread of ignorance and deceit, been louder, or more menacing, than during these times under the yoke of the neocons.

Friday, June 10, 2005

Ethiopia's Zenawi: Neocon

If neoconservatism is a biographical creed, denoting someone who has evolved from some variant of Leninism or Marxism into a supporter of George W. Bush's foreign policy of American global military dominance, then President Meles Zenawi certainly fits the bill. A former guerrilla leader of the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front -- a Marxist group that supported Albania's commie dictator Enver Hoxha as the architect of "real" socialism -- Zenawi came to power in 1991, and wound up an ally of George W. Bush in the U.S.-led "war on terrorism."

Europe Votes, Neocons Gloat - but Why? by Leon Hadar

Hence the new scene in the neocon-produced theater of the absurd. Recall that only recently, we were asked to believe that the coming-to-power in Baghdad of a radical Shi'ite political-religious bloc with links to Iran marked the triumph of Western-style liberal democracy. Now we are expected to buy into the notion that it's a great day for the US of A when a coalition of radical left-wing anti-globalization activists, veteran communists, anti-immigration groups, and ultra nationalists in France and Holland – anti-Americanism is the only idea that unites them – succeed in winning the support of the majority of voters.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Catering to Kazakhstan's Kleptocracy by Justin Raimondo

Those fickle neocons, they'll dump you in a minute if they think it's to their advantage, but Schwartz can't seem to kick the habit of flacking for some Central Asian tyrant. Now he's taken up with the Kazakhs, as reported in the lead paragraphs of this Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty story:

Monday, June 06, 2005

The War Party on Trial by Justin Raimondo

Investigators have specifically asked about a group of neoconservatives involved in defense issues, including Feith, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, Iraq and Iran specialist Harold Rhode and others at the Pentagon. FBI agents also have asked current and former officials about Richard Perle of the defense board and David Wurmser, an Iran specialist and principal deputy assistant for national security affairs in Cheney's office, according to sources familiar with or involved in the case.

Friday, June 03, 2005

History Matters by Butler Shaffer

There is a more recent indebtedness to France that most Americans lack the decency to acknowledge: the refusal of Chirac’s regime to join forces with George W. Bush’s unprovoked aggression against Iraq, the first step in a neocon-inspired effort to get the world to prostrate itself at the feet of American emperors. By refusing to join with such lap dogs as Tony Blair – eager to roll over in exchange for any morsel of recognition from the grand imperator – the French became a symbol to other nations of the importance of pursuing a course of principled integrity in dealing with others.

Thursday, June 02, 2005

Jailhouse rock by Jim Lobe

While the Washington Post, normally a defender of independent human-rights groups, objected to her characterization as counter-productive, the Wall Street Journal's neo-conservative editorial staff jumped on it as "one more sign of the moral degradation of Amnesty International".

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Why Did Feith Resign? by Justin Raimondo

In disdaining the severity of the charges against Franklin, neocon ideologue David Frum described the information passed on to Israel via AIPAC as something "which anyone, even the Israelis, can purchase a copy of for 35 cents" – the price for a single copy of the Washington Post, which supposedly had revealed the contents of a policy paper on Iran. It now turns out that the policy paper was the least of it. One wonders if Frum is willing to reconsider his judgement. Somehow, I tend to doubt it.