Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Realists, Isolationists, and Neocons: A Primer by Kevin Zeese

Scott McConnell is the editor of The American Conservative, a magazine he founded with Pat Buchanan and Taki Theodoracopulos in 2002. McConnell has a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and was formerly the editorial page editor of The New York Post. He has been a columnist for Antiwar.com and New York Press. His work has been published in Commentary, Fortune, National Review, The New Republic, and many other publications.

Monday, January 30, 2006

Beating Around the Bush by the Bourse by Ingmar Lee

The Neocon global domination agenda is engendered by the denomination of global oil transactions in greenbacks. America prints out the bucks that are required for the purchase of oil, and the world has to produce stuff they can sell to get the bucks they need to buy oil. Printing Monopoly 'fiat' money only costs America the paper and green ink, so the USA dollar has been fattened on oil-enriched chicken feed since Tricky Dick delinked the buck from the bullion.

Does Democracy Boulevard Lead to Islamism? by Patrick J. Buchanan

The neoconservatives who dreamed up the Bush Doctrine – promoting "democracy" would be the U.S. mission in the Middle East – may be about to hold yet another "Seconds Thoughts" conference.

Certainly, Israel must be having second thoughts on the folly of having yielded to U.S. pressure and allowed Hamas to participate in elections. For Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and employs suicide-bomb attacks on civilians, has just won a sweeping political and moral victory in Palestine.

Friday, January 27, 2006

Neo-Con Mouthpieces Still Clinging to Osama-Saddam Link by Paul Joseph Watson

Neo-Con mouthpiece government shills Sean Hannity and Newsmax simply don't know when to stop. They are still claiming that Osama bin Laden met with Saddam Hussein, this time dragging out Saddam's former lieutenant, Gen. Georges Sada, who related a supposed rendezvous between the two in the mid-80's.

The Tyranny Of Israel Over America by James Petras

The FBI investigation of Israel’s extensive espionage operations in the US stems from several factors. Firstly, after years of close collaboration between Israeli intelligence and the FBI, the latter (along with the CIA) took the blame for the “9/11 intelligence failure”, without any mention of the lack of Israel’s cooperation and in the face of its disinformation.

Secondly the brazen large-scale invasion of Israeli operatives on FBI turf (in the US), undermined the agencies own activities, eroded its position as a security agency and particularly challenged its counter-espionage operations.

Thirdly the ascendancy of Wolfowitz, Feith and Perle to the top echelons of the Pentagon and Elliot Abrams, Rubin and Libby to the National Security Council, State Department and the Office of the Vice President, led to the massive and ready transfer of confidential documents and sensitive decisions to the army of Mossad operatives and Israeli high military intelligence officers both here and in Israel.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Alito Confirmation: A Straussian Neocon Fait Accompli by Kurt Nimmo

Now that the confirmation of Samuel Alito is a done deal—he won commitments from a majority of senators this afternoon and only a formal vote stands between him and the Supreme Court—we can say good-bye once and for all to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Academics and corporate media commentators like to call the encroaching dictatorial power of the Straussian neocon White House "unitary" presidential power, but we shouldn’t fool ourselves—it is nothing short of the sort of authoritarianism the founders did their best to avoid by establishing separated branches of government and a process of checks and balances, now virtually extinct. In essence, what we now have is a government owned and ruled by a corporate plutocracy—and the father of modern fascism, Benito Mussolini, defined fascism as corporatism.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Spy With a Heart of Gold? by Justin Raimondo

Franklin may not have thought he was inflicting a blow to U.S. national security – yet that is precisely what he did when he revealed, over a period of many months, classified U.S. information about al-Qaeda, American troop movements in Iraq, and other secrets to a cabal of Israeli spies centered in the top rungs of AIPAC – the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group for Israel that wields enormous clout in Congress and the highest councils of our government. Alarmed over Iran's growing influence in Iraq, and the security implications for Israel, Franklin sought out Steve Rosen, AIPAC's top lobbyist, and Keith Weissman, AIPAC's Middle East policy expert, in an effort to influence U.S. policy. The goal: get the U.S. to confront Iran. The means: leak classified information supporting such a position to AIPAC and the Israelis, who would then use their considerable influence inside policymaking circles to steer a collision course with Tehran.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Larry Franklin and the New York Times NSA leaks by Richard Baehr

Pinch Sulzberger, meet Larry Franklin. The publisher of the New York Times had better pay attention to the fate of Mr. Franklin.

Last Friday, US District Judge T. S. Ellis III sentenced Pentagon employee Larry Franklin to just over 12 years in prison for his role in providing classified Department of Defense documents to two former employees of AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee), Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, and to a diplomat, Naor Gilon of Israel.

Come Home, America by Bill Kauffman

McGovern is, as you might guess, an opponent of the Iraq War and the Bush administration, which he finds appallingly un-conservative. “I like conservatives,” he says, citing Bob Dole and Barry Goldwater. “Bob Taft I always admired.” He grins. “But I don’t like these neoconservatives worth a damn! They have this view that we are so much more powerful than any other country in the world that we need to run the world—none of this business of coexistence. I think that’s just terrible. It’s not conservatism, and it’s not liberalism, either. It’s a new doctrine that I find frightening. If Iraq hadn’t gone sour, there was a whole string of countries they were gonna knock off. That’s not conservatism to me.”

Monday, January 23, 2006

'Future of American politics framed by fear, slip into Darwinism': Adams

America, whose psyche is framed by fear and slipping into Darwinism, and its politics stirred up by neo-conservative activism and terrorism, will be much more difficult for Canada to deal with in the future, says a leading pollster and author of the recently-released American Backlash: The Untold Story of Social Change in The United States.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Latest Bin Laden Tape: Another of the NeoCons' "Greatest Hits" by Steve Watson

Spying? Torture? Illegal airstrikes? SHUT UP and hate Bin Laden.

The NeoCon use of Osama Bin Laden as a tool of fear and control is a tried and tested method whenever the going gets tough. It's predictable and it's tiresome, but the masses buy it every time and that's why he has reappeared once again.

Avoiding a war with Iran by Mike Whitney

The march to war with Iran is continuing apace despite skyrocketing gold prices, a jittery oil market, and the unrelenting chaos in nearby Iraq.

Are we surprised?

The control of Middle East oil has always been a central part of the neocon strategy for global domination. That won’t change.

Will The Neocon-Christian-Israeli Axis Push Bush into War on Iran? - Ed Strong

It is possible that the US, choosing to ignore the colossal risks, may yet launch air attacks against Iran. President Bush could be pushed into this by pressure from messianic Christians, by Neoconservatives, by Israelis, or by the illusion that he needs to do something bold and desperate to save his presidency.

By refusing to wilt under US-Israeli threats, it appears that the Iranians too may be following al-Qaida's logic. We cannot tell if this is what motivates Iran. But that is where matters will go if the US decides to attack or invade Iran.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Iran Attack: No Way Back Now by Kurt Nimmo

As now appears obvious, the Straussian neocons will attack Iran, sooner before later. Secretary of State Condi Rice indicated as much when she said, “there’s not much to talk about” until Iran promises to stop working on a nuclear weapon, never mind that—as Mike Whitney, citing nuclear weapons expert Gordon Prather, points out—Iran is not working on a nuclear weapon. History is a harsh taskmistress and history teaches that when nations stop talking, war is the result. As the Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz once declared, “war is a continuation of politics by other means,” and the neocons are using a blood-soaked political ace to trump the United Nations and the Security Council into providing a familiar nod in the direction of war. As Whitney notes, the neocons believe they “can garner the necessary votes to bring Iran before the Security Council and, perhaps, win support for punitive action,” in other words support for total war, or rather total shock and awe, including the use of “global strike” nukes, as Cheney has promised.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Controversial Writer To Address Jewish GOPers by Anthony Weiss

The Republican Jewish Coalition sent out a January 12 e-mail announcing that the event in question has been postponed due to a scheduling conflict. The RJC did not say which speaker needed to pull out.

British-born muckraker Christopher Hitchens has swapped allies and enemies more than once, most recently by supporting the Iraq War and attacking its critics. Still, he appears to have scaled new heights of unpredictability with his upcoming appearance at a Republican Jewish Coalition event.

Monday, January 16, 2006

And Now the Good News, From Daniel Pipes by JOHN WALSH

Want to hear some good news? Try neo-con Daniel Pipes. When he weeps, we cheer, so check out his piece "My Gloom: Back to September 10" (NY Sun, 12/20. later reprinted in the Jerusalem Post). Most Americans felt less secure after September 11, although this feeling ran wildly beyond the rational. Not Pipes. The founder of the notorious Campus Watch , felt differently. He reports that a rush of security engulfed him: "The attacks of September 11, 2001, made me feel more secure, unlike most Americans. Finally, the country is focused on issues that had long worried me. The newfound alarm is healthy, the sense of solidarity heartening, the resolve encouraging." But Pipes fretted that it would not last. "Are Americans truly ready to sacrifice liberties and lives to prosecute seriously the war against militant Islam? I worry about US constancy and purpose."

CHENEY/BUSH NEOCON EXPERIMENT HAS FAILED by Allen L Roland, Ph.D

The eminent fall of the Cheney/Bush cabal is similar to the last days of the decaying Soviet Obligarchy.

An out-of-touch leader presides over a lost foreign war and a morass of influence peddling and bribery, as the secret police struggle to keep a lid on growing dissent: Eric Margolis, Toronto Star

US Neocons Accuse Chavez of Anti-Semitism by Jim Lobe

Despite objections by major Jewish organizations in Venezuela and the United States, some influential U.S. neoconservatives are charging President Hugo Chavez with anti-Semitism, which they say is consistent with the country's friendly relations with Iran.

In what appears to be a new line of attack against the populist leader, two of the White House's favorite publications this week ran articles denouncing remarks made by Chavez in a televised address to the nation Christmas Eve as anti-Semitic.

World War IV by Justin Raimondo

The neocons have insisted for years that the first shots of what they call "World War IV" have already been fired, and we are in for a new cold war (the previous one was WWIII) that is bound to turn hot. Now Niall Ferguson, the British exponent of a new American Empire, has come up with a scenario in which he envisions how the heavy fire might begin – one that reveals, in its fictionalization of entirely plausible events, all the assumptions and arrogance of a superpower infected with a fatal hubris.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Laundering Casino Cash For NeoCon Politicians by Wayne Madsen

What investigators are quickly discovering is a global Abramoff network involving Russian-Israeli criminal syndicates that were involved in laundering money through Sun Cruz casino boats in Florida, casinos on Indian tribal lands in the United States, West Bank of Palestine, the Greek isle of Patroclos (which involved Israeli land developer David Appel and Gilad Sharon), a Sun Cruz casino ship in Saipan, an Internet gambling and lottery venture in Guam, and casinos in the Philippines, Sharm el Sheikh in the Sinai, pachinko slot machines and casinos in Japan, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Canada, Virgin Islands, South Africa, and Abramoff's hometown of Atlantic City, New Jersey.

A Neocon Plan to Plant WMDs? by GARY LEUPP

The neocons have helped create an environment in which Syria is simply assumed to be responsible for political assassinations in Lebanon, in the absence of decisive evidence. While you'd think "the international community" would recognize and reject U.S. efforts to attack more countries in "the Greater Middle East," instead we find neocon successes in diplomacy. They've brought Europe aboard the program. They may well seek UNSC sanctions against both Iran and Syria, and resolutions that could be construed as allowing U.S. attacks on these countries. These efforts will likely meet with Chinese and Russian vetoes, but the Bush administration expressing disappointment in the UN will proceed to bomb more Muslim countries on more false pretexts, even while evidence of their Iraq deceptions mounts.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Neocons Considered Planting WMD Evidence in Iraq? by Gary Leupp

The neocons have helped create an environment in which Syria is simply assumed to be responsible for political assassinations in Lebanon, in the absence of decisive evidence. While you’d think "the international community" would recognize and reject U.S. efforts to attack more countries in "the Greater Middle East," instead we find neocon successes in diplomacy. They’ve brought Europe aboard the program. They may well seek UNSC sanctions against both Iran and Syria, and resolutions that could be construed as allowing U.S. attacks on these countries.

Painting the White House Red by John Laughland

George W. Bush is not, of course, a closet Marxist. But many of his closest advisors, especially the neoconservatives, do have post-Trotskyite backgrounds. The original Marxist plan was for the socialist revolution to engulf the whole planet, and this plan was embraced by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. It famously came up against the buffers of Stalin’s alternative proposal to build socialism in one country first. In exile, Trotsky kept the idea of world revolution going by setting up the Fourth International in 1938. Within two years, Irving Kristol—the man who was later to be the founding father of the neoconservative movement that so dominates the Bush administration—joined it. Irving Kristol never renounced or condemned his Trotskyite past: in 1983, he wrote that he was still proud of it. Likewise, in 1996, Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute—one of the leading ideologues of the war on terror—coined the phrase “global democratic revolution” in the subtitle of a book in which he attacked Bill Clinton for being a “counter-revolutionary.” The book’s title, Freedom Betrayed, is an obvious allusion to Trotsky’s own 1938 account of his break with Stalin, The Revolution Betrayed.

Syria In Their Sights by Robert Dreyfuss

It’s happening again. It all sounds depressingly familiar, and it is. The Bush administration accuses the leader of a major Arab country of supporting terrorism and harboring weapons of mass destruction. The stable of neoconservative pundits begins beating the drums of war. American forces begin massing on the country’s border, amid ominous talk of cross-border attacks. Top U.S. officials warn that American patience with the country’s leader is running out, and the United States imposes economic sanctions unilaterally. There are threats about taking the whole thing to the United Nations Security Council. And, in Washington, an exile leader with questionable credentials begins making the rounds of official Washington and finds doors springing open at the Pentagon, the National Security Council, and at Elizabeth Cheney’s shop at the State Department.

Lucianne.com Laughs At Murder of Journalist by Bill Barnwell

When I said that Lucianne.com allows posting of news articles, I should have qualified that with saying that they only approve of posting news from establishment news sources. Blogs, alternative news sources, and anything regarded as too critical of President Bush is not allowed to be posted (and for awhile any news articles about Michael Moore or the Dixie Chicks, even from establishment news sources, were not allowed to be posted because those individuals were too critical of President Bush). And like other extreme neocon sites like FreeRepublic.com, posters who do not conform to Bush and Republican worship are usually banned.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

The Neoconservative Persuasion by Gal Beckerman

Acknowledging the Jewishness of neoconservatism has always triggered the red, flashing lights of antisemitism, especially since the start of the Iraq War (with extra points if it's Pat Buchanan doing the acknowledging). But there is some truth to the suspicion. If there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it. It's a thought one imagines most American Jews, overwhelmingly liberal, will find horrifying. And yet it is a fact that as a political philosophy, neoconservatism was born among the children of Jewish immigrants and is now largely the intellectual domain of those immigrants' grandchildren. Understanding what might be Jewish about this movement (or "persuasion" as its godfather, Irving Kristol, prefers it be called) should be possible without being accused of conspiracy theorizing about secret cabals pulling strings for Israel.

Sunday, January 08, 2006

The Neocon Brotherhood by Robert Dreyfuss

What’s interesting here is an apparently covert relationship that has been developing between the IIP and the Pentagon, in part through the secretive Lincoln Group, the PR firm that planted paid propaganda in Iraqi media for the DOD. The New York Times revealed yesterday that the Lincoln Group also had Sunni Iraqi clerics on its covert payroll:

Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations firm, was told early in 2005 by the Pentagon to identify religious leaders who could help craft messages that would persuade Sunnis in violence-ridden Anbar province to participate in national elections and reject the insurgency, according to a former employee.

Neocon Police State Spreads Disinfo and Paranoia by Kurt Nimmo

As noted above, the neocons are running a “coordinated domestic counter-insurgency” (as Glick terms it), long ago pioneered by General Frank Kitson (see my General Frank Kitson: Trail Blazing Fake Terrorism) and modified for use against domestic enemies. Kitson called for the use of “pseudo gangs,” that is to say a state sponsored group used to advance an agenda, while discrediting the real opposition. Clearly, this is now happening within the patriot movement (sometimes I believe there are more disinfo agents than real patriots). If this covert program continues unabated, there will be no need for mass roundups of patriots and activists, no need for the legendary FEMA concentration camps, because the movement will implode and the activists will become a laughingstock, completely discredited and marginalized.

AIPAC on Trial by James Petras

As the investigation proceeded toward formal charges of espionage, the pro-Israeli think tanks and neo-con ideologues joined in a two-prong response. On the one hand some questioned whether "handing over documents" was a crime at all, claiming it involved "routine exchanges of ideas" and lobbying. On the other hand, Israeli officials and media denied any Israeli connection with Franklin, minimizing his importance in policy-making circles, while others vouched for his integrity.

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Mark Dankof on the Coming American War With Iran: Republic Broadcasting Network on January 10th

Mark Dankof on Republic Broadcasting Network News Release URL (Broadcast Interview Source/Washington)

Mark Dankof, Senior Editor of SARTRE's Old Right Topic News, and former Constitution Party candidate for the United States Senate in Delaware in 2000, is the featured radio guest on Frank Whalen's Republic Broadcasting Network. The date for the live broadcast is Tuesday, January 10th, 9 am to 11 am EST/8 am to 10 am CST. The topic: The Coming American War with Iran. The show may be heard on the listed shortwave radio outlets, or through Mr. Whalen's worldwide Internet listening program. The show will also be archived for later Internet listening through the web site of Republic Broadcasting Network which may be accessed at http://www.rbnlive.com/.

Mr. Dankof's Profile with Broadcasting Interview Source of Washington, D. C. may be accessed at: http://www.ExpertClick.com/19-2281

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Propaganda & The Moustache of Neoconservatism by David Sirota

The New York Times' Tom Friedman is regularly lampooned as the "Moustache of Understanding" for his arrogance and know-it-all posturing, but that's really a misnomer. Friedman in his column today shows once and for all that he is really the "Moustache of Neoconservatism" - despite being regularly labeled as some sort of pseudo-intellectual progressive.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Al-Qaeda in Lebanon: More Neocon Hooey by Kurt Nimmo

Not only is the omnipresent "al-Qaeda" at work in Gaza (see previous post) but if we are to believe Reuters and the New York Times, the custom-made (by the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI) terrorist outfit is also busy at work in Lebanon, firing missile salvos into northern Israel. "The lion sons of al Qaeda launched … a new attack on the Jewish state by launching 10 missiles … from the Muslims’ lands in Lebanon on selected targets in the north of the Jewish state," a "statement" on a supposed "al-Qaeda" website claims. "The statement could not be authenticated, but was posted on a main Web site frequently used by Iraqi insurgent groups. It did not give the date of the attack," Reuters adds. No explanation here why U.S. military intelligence has not attacked or taken down a website run by "Iraqi insurgent groups," unless of course this particular website is a Pentagon black op.

Neoconservatism, the Israeli Lobby,and other Power Relations by Andres Perez-Alonso

The most appropriate way to view neoconservatism is as a "special interest" or "faction". Special interests are associations "representing the interests of their members to secure for themselves a privileged seat at the national decision-making table". MIT professor Gene Grossman defines them as "any minority group of voters that shares identifiable characteristics and similar concerns".[3] The neoconservative faction consists of intellectuals and elitists who tend to be of Jewish or Catholic background, many of whom seem to have lapsed to secular humanism.[4] The group has also been identified as "unipolarism", "democratic globalism", "neo-Manifest Destinarianism", "neo-imperialism", "Pax Americanism", "neo-Reaganism", and "liberal imperialism".[5]

Sorry, Neo-Cons: Reality Isn't Optional by William Norman Grigg

“Persecuted”? Were neo-cons being hurled down wells, or at least banished from polite company? Hardly; the most severe trial the Bush administration's neo-con contingent had to endure was polite skepticism about its plans for the Middle East. To express misgivings about the wisdom of war in Iraq, from the neo-cons' perspective, was a moral crime akin to plotting a pogrom. Some neo-cons have treated every syllable of public criticism directed their way like the echoing hoofbeats of an approaching Cossack horde.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

New Year Resolution: Shock and Awe to Replace Troops in Iraq by Kurt Nimmo

As the new year unfolds, our war crimes complicit corporate media will tell us Bush is “drawing down” the number of troops in Iraq. In fact, the tempo and frequency of mass murder will increase, as the Straussian neocons have no desire to abandon their plan to decimate Muslim society. “Major U.S. news outlets are dodging the extent of the Pentagon’s bombardment from the air, an avoidance all the more egregious because any drawdown of U.S. troop levels in Iraq is very likely to be accompanied by a step-up of the air war,” writes Norman Solomon for the MediaChannel. “Caught between the desire to prevent a military defeat in Iraq and the need to shore up Republican prospects at home in the face of an unpopular war, President Bush is very likely to keep escalating the U.S. air war in Iraq while reducing U.S. troop levels there.” In short, the increased mantra to “bring the troops home” will result in an escalation of Iraqi death and suffering.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Pluses but Mostly Minuses by Charley Reese

The next American president should ask two questions of all the people who present themselves as Middle East experts. Have you lived in an Arab country? Do you speak and read Arabic? If the answers are no, then he should say, "Hit the road, Jack." Twenty-two hundred Americans probably would be alive if Bush had asked those questions of his neoconservative warmongers.

Reorganizing Rumsfeld’s Inner Circle Devaluating the Military While Preparing for More War by Gary Leupp

This looks to me nothing other than another neocon coup. Cambone was a member of the Office of Special Plans formed in 2002 to build the case for war on Iraq, formed by Paul Wolfowitz, headed by William Luti and answering to Douglas Feith. He was one of those insisting to the end that maybe WMDs had been found in Iraq. He has justified torture in Congressional hearings. Seymour Hersh reported in January 2005 that "Rumsfeld and two of his key deputies, Stephen Cambone, the Under-secretary of Defense for Intelligence, and Army Lieutenant General William G. (Jerry) Boykin, will be part of the chain of command for the new commando operations" planned for Iran and elsewhere.