Thursday, March 31, 2011

Neocons’ Goal: Iran by Way of Libya

Although the neocons had initially been rather cool toward the popular uprisings in the Middle East which threatened regimes friendly to the U.S. and Israel, such as Mubarak’s in Egypt, they have reverted to their militant regime change stance toward Gaddafi ’s regime in Libya. In espousing this interventionist position, they are not as conspicuous as they had been regarding Iraq and Iran, when they had stood in the vanguard, but are only one component of a popular mainstream cause, which unites many otherwise disparate groups. Nonetheless, they are a vital players who apparently look to involvement in Libya as a chance to renew their now-stalled effort to reconfigure the Middle East in the interests of Israel (whose interests, they allege, coincide with those of the United States). [See Sniegoski, The Transparent Cabal, http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/]

The Libyan uprising has captivated the minds of many mainstream American liberals who simply advocate military intervention there for humanitarian reasons, a position harkening back to the widespread liberal support for U.S. intervention against Serbia over Kosovo. Thus, we see such liberals as Senator John Kerry and Bill Clinton advocating a no-fly zone over the country to prevent Gaddafi from using his airpower. And while some of these liberals have been hawks on the Middle East and thus not much different from the neoconservatives (and often called neoliberals), such as the staff of The New Republic magazine, support for U.S. involvement in a no-fly zone also includes numerous opponents of the war on Iraq. For example, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times wrote in his article “The Case for a No Fly Zone”: “I was a strong opponent of the Iraq war, but this feels different. We would not have to send any ground troops to Libya, and a no-fly zone would be executed at the request of Libyan rebel forces and at the ‘demand’ of six Arab countries in the gulf. The Arab League may endorse the no-fly zone as well, and, ideally, Egypt and Tunisia would contribute bases and planes or perhaps provide search-and-rescue capabilities.” [New York Times, March 9, 2011, March 9, 2011]

Bill Kristol declares Obama ‘a born-again neo-con’ days after consulting with him on Libya policy

In his “You’ve come a long way, baby” post Monday night, Kristol praised Obama for his address to the American people about the action he took against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. On Wednesday’s “Red Eye” on the Fox News Channel, Kristol took things a step further and declared Obama “a born-again neo-con.”

Host Greg Gutfeld asked Kristol how he felt about Obama coming to him for help (reportedly the president had met with him and others prior to his Monday night address).

“He didn’t come to me for help, of course,” Kristol said. “I’m not going to acknowledge that. He came to me to make sure I was supporting his sound policies. Of course, since his sound policies are more like the policies people like me have been advocating for quite a while, I’m happy to support them. He’s a born-again neo-con.”

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Obama finds his inner Neocon

So the US is recklessly wasting borrowed money to fight a war which even its Secretary of Defense admits is not in our interest, which supports “rebels” whose allegiance is to al-Qaeda, and which Americans did not want to get involved in. Obama all but admits he cynically used the UN resolution to protect Libyan civilians as a cover to interject the US into yet another war — and we sit by passively and accept this?

And now our handlers want to expand the war by arming the rebels. That settles it — insanity is now the real guiding principle of the collapsing DC Empire. “American Exceptionalism” means that the US, unlike other nations, pursues self-immolation as a moral imperative. As Denis McDonough, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, told reporters on Monday, “We don’t make decisions about questions like intervention based on consistency or precedent.” Amen to that.

Besides, if a blood-crazed chickenhawk like Bill Kristol is happy with Obama’s policy, then you know it’s a terrible idea.

Warriors of the Mainstream Media

This neocon attitude – eager for “regime change” in Muslim countries deemed enemies of Israel – has long dominated the Washington Post, with its editorial page under the control of neocon Fred Hiatt and with its stable of neocon writers who routinely adopt Likud-like positions regarding the Middle East.

The neoconning of the New York Times is at a less advanced stage, although many of its key senior editors, such as editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal and executive editor Bill Keller, lean in the neocon direction. Keller, for instance, openly sided with President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq – and was still appointed to the newspaper’s top editorial job.

In the past two weeks, the Times also has lost two of its strongest liberal voices in the departures of columnists Frank Rich and Bob Herbert. That tilts the Times’ influential op-ed pages even further in favor of neocon and right-wing voices, much like the Post’s op-ed page has been for years.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Claremont Institute Neocons ? Presidential Despotism (and John Yoo)

Last week Tom Woods explained why American presidents do not have the constitutional authority to lob missiles at Libya or any other country completely on their own, without any kind of Congressional authorization. Today, Tom responds to neocon radiomouth Mark Levin, who responded to Tom’s article in typical neocon/Trotskyite fashion with name calling, ad hominem attacks, and zero evidence in support of his position that presidents do in fact have unlimited, despotic powers when it comes to foreign military intervention.

In today’s essay Tom mentions how he and a coauthor eviscerated the now-discredited views of former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo, who was hired by the Dub-Yuh administration to invent a case for constitutional presidential dictatorship. Yoo’s arguments were disgraceful and ahistorical, but he’s not alone in inventing lies in support of totalitarian presidential despotism. Tom and others should know that one of the foreign policy propaganda arms of the Republican Party, the Claremont Institute (which really should be renamed the Dr. Strangelove Institute) provides faux intellectual support for John Yoo and his fanciful fabrications of constitutional history. In a review of one of Yoo’s books Claremontista Joseph Bessette praises Yoo’s “intriguing argument” for unlimited presidential war powers and swoons over his “impressive body of evidence” that supposedly shows that NONE of the founders involved in the writing or the ratification of the Constitution “understood that the president would need Congress’s approval” to invade another country. This is an example of the dark art of “Straussian” rewriting of history based on a twisting of history and the English language so severely that the claims that are made are exactly the opposite of historical truth.

Obama Makes Bedfellows With Neocon Boffins On Libya

Few would have bet, back in late 2007, that by 2011 Barack Obama would make common cause with key architects and supporters of the Iraq war -- including Hillary Clinton adviser Michael O'Hanlon, and Paul Wolfowitz, a neocon godfather who needs no introduction -- over a regime change mission in another Muslim country.

The odds on that bet would have been somewhere between a lightning strike, and picking a winning bracket in this year's college basketball tournament.

But less than four years later, those counter-intuitive few would be poised for a hefty payoff.

At a forum on Libya hosted Monday by the hawkish American Enterprise Institute, a bipartisan panel of high-profile pro-war intellectuals applauded Obama's actions thus far in Libya, while pressing him to move in a more neo-conservative direction if he wants to salvage the initiative.

As Obama talks Libya, neocons move on to Syria

Josh Muravchik, a charter member of the neocon movement of foreign policy hawks who prominently advocated for the war in Iraq, favors the U.S. military action in Libya, except he would have liked it sooner and more of it. Like many of the neocons, Muravchik is also drumbeating for the overthrow of the Assad government in Syria.

And, as he columnized in the Daily Beast, he fears that President Obama’s “obsession” with multilateralism in the run-up to the Libyan operation has created a “trap” that will make it harder for the United States to overthrow Assad. Wrote Muravchik:

“Seemingly obsessed with negating his predecessor’s unilateralism, Obama has made our humanitarian intervention in Libya the all-time model of multilateralism. First, we waited for the Arab League to invite us to take action. Then we got the U.N. Security Council to authorize that action. And then we insisted that the air war of still-murky goals and parameters be undertaken and commanded by NATO, not by ourselves.

"This is a triumph of diplomacy. And a trap.”

Monday, March 28, 2011

Neocon Mark Levin After Ron Paul Again and Wrong About War Powers

Mark Levin, queen of the neocons, had a schizophrenic segment on the war powers responsibility under the Constitution last night. I tend to check in with the oracle of liberty once in a while; lately I’ve paid attention because of our newfangled war—although it’s just a continuation of our fondness of killing in the Middle East. Boy has the sickness of our so-called prophets of liberty been diluted and poisoned with agitprop and disease. Mark, a neocon, who was a lickspittle of Bush, goes after Ron Paul and neocon foreign policy, only to embrace neocon policy. The pellucid water of liberty has certainly been poisoned!

I can never understand the myths that go into the mouth of the Zeus of liberty—you know, Mark Levin, the hero of what we call liberty today, per his “manifesto”—because his application tends toward vassalage, war, and prison. Mark’s slake for liberty is akin to Bonaparte’s thirst for Russia—utterly destructible. I mean this fervid champion of freedom is the one who thinks the president can lock anyone up, kill people in foreign countries, spy, drone, torture, and the like, without any wince of examination. So he cowers in a “bunker,” like a ruffian, only to gibe to all those who oppose tyranny as “statists.”

Saturday, March 26, 2011

The Neocon-Liberal Alliance

Stephen Walt -- now of Harvard and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and formerly of Princeton, the University of Chicago and the Pentagon's Institute of Defense Analyses -- obviously has a blue-ribbon foreign-policy pedigree. That's what makes his argument this week that George W. Bush and Barack Obama are fundamentally rooted in the same view of the world -- and what to do about it -- so interesting:

The only important intellectual difference between [Bush's] neoconservatives and [Obama's] liberal interventionists is that the former have disdain for international institutions (which they see as constraints on U.S. power), and the latter see them as a useful way to legitimate American dominance. Both groups extol the virtues of democracy, both groups believe that U.S. power -- and especially its military power -- can be a highly effective tool of statecraft. Both groups are deeply alarmed at the prospect that WMD might be in the hands of anybody but the United States and its closest allies, and both groups think it is America's right and responsibility to fix lots of problems all over the world. Both groups consistently over-estimate how easy it will be to do this, however, which is why each has a propensity to get us involved in conflicts where our vital interests are not engaged and that end up costing a lot more than they initially expect.

The Neocons Regroup on Libyan War

American neoconservatives worried that the pro-democracy wave sweeping the Middle East might take out only "moderate" Arab dictators, but the neocons now see hope that uprisings will topple "enemy" regimes in Libya and Syria.

Yet, in rallying U.S. support for these rebellions, the neocons may be repeating the mistake they made by pushing the U.S. invasion of Iraq. They succeeded in ousting Saddam Hussein, who had long been near the top of Israel’s enemies list, but the war also removed him as a bulwark against both Islamic extremists and Iranian influence in the Persian Gulf.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

OBAMA’S EMBRACE OF THE “NEOCON-LIBERAL ALLIANCE”

The only important intellectual difference between neoconservatives and liberal interventionists is that the former have disdain for international institutions (which they see as constraints on U.S. power), and the latter see them as a useful way to legitimate American dominance. Both groups extol the virtues of democracy, both groups believe that U.S. power — and especially its military power — can be a highly effective tool of statecraft. Both groups are deeply alarmed at the prospect that WMD might be in the hands of anybody but the United States and its closest allies, and both groups think it is America’s right and responsibility to fix lots of problems all over the world. Both groups consistently over-estimate how easy it will be to do this, however, which is why each has a propensity to get us involved in conflicts where our vital interests are not engaged and that end up costing a lot more than they initially expect.

And who’s the big winner here? Back in Beijing, China’s leaders must be smiling as they watch Washington walk open-eyed into another potential quagmire.

Neocon Maximalists Call for Ground Presence in Libya

Even if the military goal doesn’t start with regime change, without a strategy for what happens next it could easily move to that. Gadhafi will not leave willingly. Without air support, he and the rebels can just play out a long-term civil war. So to protect the population and achieve the long-term goal of regime change, the coalition will have to end up doing more. Which implicates them deeper.

Conservatives, faced with a President who basically acted on their initial request, have just moved the goalposts again without a hint of irony. There is a muddled response from Republicans in total: some are simply bound by hatred of Obama and will just prescribe the opposite of whatever he does, some in the Tea Party are genuinely conflicted about military action abroad, and some, like neocon Max Boot and his allies, will just pursue a maximalist strategy. And the neocons still have the main hold over Republican foreign policy. So Obama will have to respond to this. And I’m not sanguine about the outcome.

Libya Exposes Obama As Our Latest Neocon President

Obama — amid loud applause from neoconservative cheerleaders at The Weekly Standard, excuse-making “anti-war” leftists at The New Republic, and the seeming approval of 70% of the American people — defends his invasion and occupation of Libya on the grounds that it is not truly a “war” but instead a “humanitarian” mission. By that he means U.S. lives and wealth are to be sacrificed in order to prevent a savage political regime from harming or killing its own citizens, even if they are “rebels” of equal or greater savagery. This is not “humanitarian” or moral in the least; it’s an evil act, resting on an evil premise (that sacrifice is “noble”) and an obscene abuse of American lives and liberties, with not a single selfish gain to be had in return.

The neoconservative approach is clear, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya. If American interests are truly assaulted, Washington doesn’t respond with a robust self-defense, but if “rebels” are attacked internally by an autocratic regime it will respond, by sacrificing American soldiers and wealth. This self-effacing, self-defeating approach is typical of neoconservative foreign policy — regardless of whether it is practiced by Democrats or Republicans — and it is anti-self because it presumes self-interest is evil. The stance is timid, cowardly, apologetic and reserved when American self-interest and security are at stake, but bold, eager, unilateral, and warmongering whenever victims abroad, who mean nothing to us (or indeed, are the sworn enemy, like the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda) are “victimized” and we sacrifice to “save” them.

Why I Am Not a Neo-Conservative

It looks like we are headed for the same result in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood is poised to win the September elections. The reality is that a totalitarian Islam is the vibrant and increasingly dominant movement in the Arab world. Any elections likely to take place will be on the order of one man, one vote, one time. Neo-conservatives are now cheering on the Obama administration’s reckless intervention in Libya, as though the past ten years have taught them nothing. The nation building effort in Iraq led to a squandering of American resources and a weakening of American power. Putting a man who is hostile to American power in the White House is not the least aspect of this American decline. Because of these nation-building delusions we are still mired in Afghanistan — now the longest war in American history. And now we have been plunged into the Middle Eastern maelstrom with no clear agenda or objective.

The Obama Administration, in my view, is the most dangerous administration in American history, and conservatives need to be very clear about the limits and objectives of American power so that they can lead the battle to restore our government to health. To accomplish this, neo-conservatives need to admit they were wrong, and return to the drawing board. They should give up the “neo” and become conservatives again.

David Horowitz: I'm Not A Neoconservative

David Horowitz came to conservatism after rejecting one utopian ideology. He now writes that he is jettisoning another:

But whatever I wrote about the war in support of the democracy agenda, inside I was never a 100% believer in the idea that democracy could be so easily implanted in so hostile a soil. I wanted to see Saddam toppled and a non-terrorist supporting government in its place. I would have settled for that and a large U.S.military base as well. But I allowed myself to get swept up in the Bush-led enthusiasm for a democratic revolution in the Middle East. I remained on board until the Beirut spring began to wither and got off when election results in Gaza came in and put a Nazi party into power. That spelled the end of my neo-conservative illusions.

But that was in 2006, and it was the Bush administration that pushed for Hamas to be included in the elections. Why are we only hearing about this now?

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Obama The…Neocon?

Ed Morrissey notes that there’s been some confusion in what it is our President is doing in Libya in the military action he’s launched with the UN’s permission…but not Congress’.

Barack Obama has launched an American military operation in Libya, but has had trouble deciding on exactly why. Several weeks ago, Obama called for Moammar Gaddafi’s ouster. When he launched military operations against Gaddafi’s regime, however, Obama insisted that he would only act within the UN mandate of protecting civilians. Yesterday, Obama tried to claim both missions simultaneously by saying that our military wouldn’t try to push Gaddafi out, but that we’d still push him out some other way.

Keep in mind that the UN mandate for operations in Libya that Obama signed on for specifically prohibits the removal of Gaddafi via military means. But that hasn’t stopped the President from reiterating again today his desire for regime change in Libya. Specifically “installing a democratic system” of government.

The Neoconservative Obama Administration

John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine, wrote in his New York Post column, “President Obama did something amazing. He delivered — dare I say it? — a rather neoconservative speech, in the sense that neoconservatism has argued for aggressive American involvement in the world both for the world’s sake and for the sake of extending American freedoms in order to enhance and preserve American security.”

Just to be clear, the neocons were among the key architects of the war against Iraq in 1991, followed by the embargo that killed half a million children. That war and embargo set the stage for the 9/11 attacks, which were then used to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq (an ambition long predating 9/11) and the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, American’s longest military engagement — all of which have killed more than a million people, wreaked political havoc, and made life in those countries (and elsewhere) miserable. Let’s not forget the drone assassination and special ops programs being run in a dozen Muslim countries. The neocon achievement also has helped drive the American people deep into debt.

The Neocon-Bleeding Heart Alliance

The American people experienced the Iraq fiasco as something never to be entertained again. The neocons and liberal interventionists in Washington saw it as one road bump in their plan to make the whole world a better place (and treat it as if it were a matter of history, not still absorbing American arms and money and occupying troops). That's why a man like Paul Wolfowitz is unashamed to speak of America's moral standing, when he was integral to an administration that authorized torture; or why Lawrence Kaplan who was spectacularly wrong about the commitment in Iraq now feels no hesitation to pontificate on Libya without any acknowledgment of his massive failure of judgment only a few years ago; or why TNR, having had to beat its breast over Iraq, snaps back into the familiar posture that doing nothing is equivalent to massacring thousands ourselves.

It turns out that in Washington, where no one is held accountable for anything real (like torture) but everyone is held accountable for things that are utterly irrelevant (a Craigslist posting, or a gaffe), the Iraq war crowd is as powerful now as ever.

Intervention and the Neocon-Liberal Consensus

The only important intellectual difference between neoconservatives and liberal interventionists is that the former have disdain for international institutions (which they see as constraints on U.S. power), and the latter see them as a useful way to legitimate American dominance. Both groups extol the virtues of democracy, both groups believe that U.S. power — and especially its military power — can be a highly effective tool of statecraft. Both groups are deeply alarmed at the prospect that WMD might be in the hands of anybody but the United States and its closest allies, and both groups think it is America’s right and responsibility to fix lots of problems all over the world. Both groups consistently over-estimate how easy it will be to do this, however, which is why each has a propensity to get us involved in conflicts where our vital interests are not engaged and that end up costing a lot more than they initially expect.

So if you’re baffled by how Mr. “Change You Can Believe In” morphed into Mr. “More of the Same,” you shouldn’t really be surprised. … Most of the U.S. foreign policy establishment has become addicted to empire, it seems, and it doesn’t really matter which party happens to be occupying Pennsylvania Avenue.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Surprising PNAC Connection to Libya

PNAC- Project for a New American Century Agenda Rolls On

If you’ve done your homework you know this neocon “think tank” led by Kristol at the turn of the century announced their intentions to militarize the US and roll on through the middle east towards global hegemony. Almost all signatories of the PNAC Statement were also members of the Council on Foreign Relations, the admitted steering committee on U.S. policy.

If you want to know exactly what’s happening or about to transpire, keep an eye on Neocons like Bill Kristol at rabid Zionist Murdock’s Fox News, the former head of PNAC when they made their famous study, proposal and ‘Statement of Principles’ preceding the staged 9/11 events and ensuing bogus “war on terror”.

It looks like despite Obama’s “promises” to not send troops, we’re about do it anyway. Surprise. So expect a real good reason to be fabricated soon, like tales of horrific atrocities by Gaddafi, to make sure the public is behind it. A false flag or two within Libya is probably on the table right now, like the staged theatre fire massacre in Abadan, Iran during the Iran revolution.

George Galloway VS The US Senate 1 of 5

Neo-Cons Applaud Obama’s War, Call For Occupation Of Libya

While applauding Barack Obama’s involvement of U.S. forces in air strikes, influential neo-con Bill Kristol told Fox News that America should go further than merely bombarding Libya and send in ground troops as “peacekeepers,” embroiling the bankrupt United States in yet another foreign occupation while enabling Muslim extremists fighting Gaddafi to rise to power.

Enthusiastically backing Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama’s decision to follow UN orders and launch air strikes against a sovereign nation with zero congressional approval, Bill Kristol, co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, the infamous group of neo-cons that called for the U.S. government to exploit a “new Pearl Harbor” before 9/11 as a means of aggressively expanding the U.S. empire and occupying the middle east, appeared on Fox News yesterday to make it clear that the number one aim of the mission in Libya was neo-colonial regime change.

Unpatriotic Conservatives

Neocons are difficult to parody. Take, for instance, this opening line from Bill Kristol’s column on Libya

Well, the NRchiks certainly have turned their back on Buchanan, Paul, and Co. (though they had already done that years before.) Still, some questions present themselves:

1.Has the Beltway Right actually learned something?
2.Are they simply saying this because a Democrat in office? (If McCain were attacking Libya, which he’d love to do, would NR announce that “Freedom’s on the March”?)
3.Is the mainstream Right sensing that the Tea Party is uninterested in foreign adventurism?
4.Was the movement’s break with Frum over the course of 2008-10 so acrimonious that mainstream conservatives have decided to go their own way on foreign policy?

What intervention in Libya tells us about the neocon-liberal alliance

The only important intellectual difference between neoconservatives and liberal interventionists is that the former have disdain for international institutions (which they see as constraints on U.S. power), and the latter see them as a useful way to legitimate American dominance. Both groups extol the virtues of democracy, both groups believe that U.S. power -- and especially its military power -- can be a highly effective tool of statecraft. Both groups are deeply alarmed at the prospect that WMD might be in the hands of anybody but the United States and its closest allies, and both groups think it is America's right and responsibility to fix lots of problems all over the world. Both groups consistently over-estimate how easy it will be to do this, however, which is why each has a propensity to get us involved in conflicts where our vital interests are not engaged and that end up costing a lot more than they initially expect.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Why neocons think we need war

The key to understanding the neocon's warmaking way, according to Mr Thomspson, is the role of the "national greatness" project within the comprehensive neocon scheme. And the point of national-greatness conservatism? Mr Thompson writes:

Many neocons, I'm sure, earnestly believe American global hegemony is the way to worldwide peace, democracy, and liberty. However, it is also thought that striving to fulfill this role will save Americans from the amoral meaninglessness of liberal-democratic capitalism. Making war in the attempt to dominate the globe offers otherwise pathetic average American something to live for. Seriously. Mr Thompson:

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Barack Obama Gets in Touch with his Inner Neocon

Candidate Barack Obama ran for president on a platform of change. Many policies deserved reform, none more than President George W. Bush's propensity to initiate unnecessary wars of choice. Iraq was a debacle from the start; the shift from counter-terrorism to counter-insurgency in Afghanistan turned that conflict into a second disaster.

Since taking office President Obama has left U.S. troops in Iraq and expanded the war in Afghanistan. Now he has taken America into its third war in a Muslim nation within a decade--to promote "global peace and security," he claimed, the usual justification used by presidents to enter conflicts which serve neither. President Obama obviously has found his inner Neocon and joined Washington's RepubliCrat Party.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Neocon States of America To Attack Yet Another Muslim Country

The US electoral dictatorship will now, with its NATO minions, attack Libya, North African treasury of sweet crude, to expand and tighten the empire’s grip on the Muslim peoples, and to be able to deny oil to China. And no, this scheme is not to put down tyranny, which the US engineers in Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Bahrain, UAE, Saudi Arabia, etc., etc., and exemplifies itself.

Neocons Want War with Libya

It ought not to be surprising that the neocon community, who only just sent a memo to the President three weeks ago calling for a no-fly zone over Libya, are now escalating the bid to call for a regime change in Libya. Again, from the FPI:

On Saturday, the Arab League endorsed Libyan opposition calls for a no fly zone. We call on you to urgently institute a no fly zone over key Libyan cities and towns in conjunction with U.S. allies. We also call on you to explore the option of targeted strikes against regime assets in an effort to prevent further bloodshed. The United States should also immediately recognize the Libyan National Transitional Council and take all necessary actions to support their efforts to unseat the Qaddafi regime.

As Tom Ricks points out, yes, in fact the cheerleaders for the preventive invasion of Iraq and eternal presence in Afghanistan are now asking for your support to go to war against Libya. And not that there's any significant national security interests in Libya, we're supposed to go to war because of the Libyan people's cries for freedom. It's all about exporting the moral imperatives of democracy and freedom, moving the American culture by any means possible into other countries. I'm sure that they think it won't cost more than a few billion and will only last less than a few months, tops. Just like it did in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Neocons’ Goal: Iran by Way of Libya

Although the neocons had initially been rather cool toward the popular uprisings in the Middle East which threatened regimes friendly to the U.S. and Israel, such as Mubarak’s in Egypt, they have reverted to their militant regime change stance toward Gaddafi ’s regime in Libya. In espousing this interventionist position, they are not as conspicuous as they had been regarding Iraq and Iran, when they had stood in the vanguard, but are only one component of a popular mainstream cause, which unites many otherwise disparate groups. Nonetheless, they are a vital players who apparently look to involvement in Libya as a chance to renew their now-stalled effort to reconfigure the Middle East in the interests of Israel (whose interests, they allege, coincide with those of the United States). [See Sniegoski, The Transparent Cabal, http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/]

The Libyan uprising has captivated the minds of many mainstream American liberals who simply advocate military intervention there for humanitarian reasons, a position harkening back to the widespread liberal support for U.S. intervention against Serbia over Kosovo. Thus, we see such liberals as Senator John Kerry and Bill Clinton advocating a no-fly zone over the country to prevent Gaddafi from using his airpower. And while some of these liberals have been hawks on the Middle East and thus not much different from the neoconservatives (and often called neoliberals), such as the staff of The New Republic magazine, support for U.S. involvement in a no-fly zone also includes numerous opponents of the war on Iraq. For example, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times wrote in his article “The Case for a No Fly Zone”: “I was a strong opponent of the Iraq war, but this feels different. We would not have to send any ground troops to Libya, and a no-fly zone would be executed at the request of Libyan rebel forces and at the ‘demand’ of six Arab countries in the gulf. The Arab League may endorse the no-fly zone as well, and, ideally, Egypt and Tunisia would contribute bases and planes or perhaps provide search-and-rescue capabilities.” [New York Times, March 9, 2011, March 9, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/opinion/10kristof.html]

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Neocon Desperation

One of the Bush administration's most pro-war voices, John Bolton, offers this suggestion for intervening in Libya:

possibly a no-drive zone for Gadhafi’s military vehicles ...

I kid you not. There is not a word in the piece about possible unintended consequences of launching a third war in a Muslim country in a decade.

The neocons don't think of the future; and they have a remarkable skill at forgetting the past. Especially their own.

END WAR: Neocon-Tool McCain Reveals No-Fly-Zone Motive Is Regime Change Using A Civilian Pretext

Everything Old Is Neo Again

What is a neoconservative?

From the etymology of the word, it should refer either to someone who has newly become conservative—having been born a little liberal—or to someone who has revised conservatism into something new, without causing it thereby to cease to be conservative. It should, perhaps, refer to a political perspective that takes il Gattopardo’s maxim, “everything must change so that everything can remain the same,” very much to heart and to whatever lengths necessary.

But the Leopard was a member of the old order. The original neoconservatives, though they may have come to appreciate and ultimately defend the old order, came originally from the other side—indeed, from radicalism. Yet the term does not refer to the experience of political conversion; one can, apparently, be born a little neoconservative. (And with Bill Kristol’s children in their twenties, we are on the brink of the third generation of hereditary neoconservatism.) Moreover, many of the original neoconservatives claim to find a high degree of continuity in their own thinking from their earlier liberal or even radical left-wing days.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Wolfowitz in Bleep's Clothing

Paul “Iraq Debacle” Wolfowitz has joined the phalanx of Pentarchs* who are calling for Young Mr. Obama to intervene in Libya. In a March 11 Wall Street Journal, dog-of-war Wolfowitz admonishes that, “One has to be morally blind not to be moved by the spectacle of brave Libyans standing up to Moammar Gadhafi's tanks and bombs and mercenaries.”

One has to be cognitively blind not to make a quick emend of that sentence to reflect on “the spectacle of brave Iraqis/Afghans/Pakistanis standing up to America’s tanks and bombs and mercenaries.”

Wolf Man tells us that “There are three important U.S. actions that could speed up Gadhafi's demise and stop the killing in Libya: recognize the newly formed national council in Benghazi as the government of Libya, provide assistance to the new Libyan authorities, and support the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya.”

Monday, March 14, 2011

Another Neocon War!

"I think at this point you probably have to do more than a no fly zone. You probably have to tell Qaddafi he has to stop his movement east and that we are going to use assets to stop him from slaughtering people as he moves east across the country. We might take out his ships in the Mediterranean. We might take out tanks and artillery," - Bill Kristol, demanding another full-on war in a country he doesn't understand.

Kristol, recall, was one of the architects of the two worst military clusterfucks since Vietnam - a decade long nation-building effort in Afghanistan (why not the Congo?) and an invasion of Iraq on false pretenses, leading to the deaths of over a hundred thousand people while the country was under direct US supervision. It is, I understand, too much to ask of such war-mongerers whether they have any sense of shame left - that tends to be surgically removed during Fox News contract negotiations. But is it too much to ask that they acknowledge that the last two wars they argued for with such moral preening led to a human catastrophe, with no long-term security gains for the US, and vast amounts of debt? Is a total lack of reflection or responsibility now mandatory with these people?

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Neocon Strategy at Work…From Wisconsin and Ohio to Washington D.C.

It is efficient. You take what is essentially a bribe from big corporations…huge political contributions. Then you do what they want. You, as Neocons, no longer really Conservative Republicans…but simply Neo-conservative…that is, imitative of Conservative…Republicans pretend to be helping the people, but in truth you act only on behalf of the big corporations. You find stooges like George W. Bush and you put experienced political operatives like Dick Cheney and Don Rusmfeld behind him, manipulating everything.

Neoconservatives Are Pushing Their War Agenda in the Middle East

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Trifkovic vs. Spencer: Another Neocon Purge

Indeed I suspect that Spencer, who owes fealty to neoconservative impresario David Horowitz as an employee of Horowitz’s Freedom Center, was expressing his anger on cue. There was absolutely nothing in Trifkovic’s statements that could justify Spencer’s degree of outrage. The offending Christian comes from a country that has never persecuted Jews. When the Second World War comes up in conversation, Trifkovic, like other Serbs, rages against German Nazis, and he does so with the same ferocity as Abe Foxman and Alan Dershowitz. If this guy is an anti-Semite, then no goy (save possibly for a neocon employee) stands above suspicion of being one.

This of course is the crux. For a few months now some of the neocons, and most obstreperously Horowitz, have been annoyed that some spokesmen for the right (who are naturally kept off the Fox network) have been calling for an end to foreign aid—and most particularly to its main recipient, Israel. Last month Horowitz had it out with Ron Paul-backers and other libertarians at CPAC and landed up calling those he was arguing with anti-…you finish it.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Faux (Neo) Conservatives Defend the North American Union

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) 2005 report “Building a North American Community" not only clearly outlined how George W. Bush’s lax policy on illegal immigration served to build the foundation of a North American Union, but also revealed the extent of Republican influence toward the creation of the NAU. Republican task force members who authored the blueprint for the NAU include Heidi Cruz (Economic Director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council under Condoleezza Rice), Richard Falkenrath (Bush’s Deputy Homeland Security Adviser and fellow at the neoconservative Brookings Institution), and Carla Hills (a former Assistant Attorney General and U.S. Trade Representative under Presidents Ford and George H.W. Bush).

Most revealing among the group is William Weld, a stereotypical Establishment Republican: socially well-heeled, wealthy, Anglo-American, Episcopalian, and socially liberal, in the mold of Nelson Rockefeller. A former prosecutor under the Reagan administration and Governor of Massachusetts, Weld authored an op-ed, “North America the Beautiful,” in the Wall Street Journal of March 23, 2005, advocating a North American Union, and coached Bush during his 2004 debates against John Kerry. He helped steer the judicial structure of Massachusetts in a pro-gay marriage direction through his appointment of African National Congress-linked Margaret Marshall, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court (the ANC is a member of the Socialist International). Weld himself also moonlights as a gay marriage celebrant, and offers his services pro bono to the Log Cabin Republicans.

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

The neocons are trying to talk us into war -- again

The lesson of these three wars is that the rhetoric of lift-and-strike is a gateway drug that leads to all-out American military invasion and occupation. Once the U.S. has committed itself to using limited military force to depose a foreign regime, the pressure to "stay the course" becomes irresistible. If lift-and-strike were to fail in Libya, the same neocon hawks who promised that it would succeed would not apologize for their mistake. Instead, they would up the ante. They would call for escalating American involvement further, because America’s prestige would now be on the line. They would denounce any alternative as a cowardly policy of "cut and run." And as soon as any American soldiers died in Libya, the hawks would claim that we would be betraying their memory, unless we conquered Libya and occupied it for years or decades until it became a functioning, pro-American democracy.

Those who are promoting an American war against Gadhafi must answer the question: "You and whose army?" The term "jingoism" comes from a Victorian British music-hall ditty: "We don’t want to fight but by Jingo if we do,/ We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too." Unfortunately for 21st-century America's jingoes, we haven’t got the ships, the men or the money. The continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched U.S. military manpower to the limits. The U.S. has paid for these wars by borrowing rather than taxation. The long-term costs of these conflicts, including medical care for maimed American soldiers, will run into the trillions, according to the economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes.

Secret international neocon conspiracy set to launch April 18

Here’s the open paragraphs of the latest Canadian Press report on Sun TV, as carried by the Winnipeg Free Press and others:

MONTREAL – Sun TV’s brand of right-wing television news is set to launch April 18, the Quebecor parent company has confirmed.

“Its international content will be purchased under contract with CNN, not Fox.”

So Fox TV north, Sun TV’s brand of right-wing television news, will be getting its world coverage not from the right-wing Fox TV but from the good old, unbiased, Larry King network? Wolf Blitzer is front man for Canada’s entry in the great international right-wing conspiracy?

Isn’t this Sun TV hysteria getting a little difficult to support? You can’t even be sure of getting the channel unless your cable company decides to offer it. What kind of secret neocon brainwashing operation is that?

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Will NeoCons partition Libya?

Why are the NeoCons pushing the US into military confrontation with Libya (as with the no-fly zone) and other Arab states The answer is simple. The NeoCons believe that US intrersts in the Middle East now converge with Iran and not with the Arab states. The NeoCons moved to this anti-Arab pro-Iran policy as a result of the Paul Wolfowitz-Ahmed Chalabi partnership during the early days of the US military occupation of Iraq. Wolfowitz at that time was SecDef Rumsfeld's Deputy for Iraq policy, while Chalabi was a prominent pro-Iran leader of the Iraqi exile leadership. In fact, under the Wolfowitz guidelines for US military ocupation in Iraq, the US excluded any role for Turkish and Saudi troops in Iraq. Meanwhile, Wolfowitz permitted Iran to send to Iraq thousands of military advisors and elite troops that Itan used to provoke civil war in Iraq as well as Iraq's partition into three ethnic mini-states at the expense of Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Until this year, The NeoCons were on track with a plan for partitioning Iraq first and then partitioning Turkey, which is the Arab states' most powerful ally. against Iran.

The NeoCon political calculation was that Iraq's partition would liberate the Iraqi Kurds who would establish – with Iran's assistance --the first independent Kurdish state. That state would soon come under control of the Kurdish PKK terrorists who would destabilize Turkey with military attacks from Iraqi Kurdistan.

The GOP's Neocon Addiction to War

Why has the GOP become addicted to war? The default response of the party to almost any international conflict has been to argue that America should intervene, or, to use a less polite term, intrude into what amounts, more often than not, to a domestic dispute. Add the political capital that congressional leaders and presidential aspirants believe can be derived from pummeling a Democratic president for passivity, appeasement, and you have a recipe for embroiling America in messy foreign conflicts.

Libya is a case in point. My TNI colleague Paul Pillar demolishes the arguments being made by Iraq last-ditchers that the venture was a blazing success as evidenced currently by the revolts sweeping across the Middle East. He notes that, contrary to Charles Krauthammer, Libya's Gadhafi was not quaking at the prospect of being driven from power, ala Saddam Hussein, but, rather, was interested in having sanctions lifted and that moves to negotiate with him date all the way back to 1999.

Sunday, March 06, 2011

Are We All Neocons Now?

Charles Krauthammer thinks so:

Now that revolutions are sweeping the Middle East and everyone is a convert to George W. Bush's freedom agenda, it's not just Iraq that has slid into the memory hole. Also forgotten is the once proudly proclaimed "realism" of Years One and Two of President Obama's foreign policy - the "smart power" antidote to Bush's alleged misty-eyed idealism.

Saturday, March 05, 2011

Under Bush, Gadhafi was 'rehabilitated'

Once again, Neocon America is having another of their little memory lapses, forgetting that under George W. Bush, Col. Moammar Gadhafi was fully rehabilitated and declared an ally in our War on Terror.

In 2004, Bush lifted the economic sanctions on Libya and official relations were resumed. In September 2006, the Bush State Department restored full diplomatic relations with Libya and removed them from the list of nations supporting terrorism.

Upon final payment of the Lockerbie weregelt, on Oct. 31, 2008, Bush signed Executive Order 13477 restoring the Libyan government's immunity from terror-related lawsuits and dismissing all pending compensation cases in the U.S. On Sept. 5, 2008, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Libya and met with Gadhafi, the first visit to Libya by a U.S. Ssecretary of state since 1953. And, in January 2009, Ali Suleiman Aujali presented his credentials to still President Bush as Ambassador of Libya. Rehabilitation accomplished.

A Special Relationship: Neocon Ties to Gaddafi

One of the central tenets of neoconservatism, in its current incarnation, has been to espouse democratization and opposition to tyranny. Richard Perle, for example, co-authored a book called An End To Evil. In it, he laid out what the jacket flap calls a "bold program to defend America--and to win the war on terror."

But as Laura Rozen, among others, has reported in Politico, it seems that none other than Perle has been functioning, in the past several years, as an adviser to Col. Gaddafi. By any measure, Gaddafi is at least as terrible a despot as Saddam Hussein, the man whom neocons said it was essential to depose from power--and the ruler whom Ronald Reagan called the "mad dog" of the Middle East. That was then.

Do Neocons Want Democracy?

I’ll add to Daniel Larison’s criticism of Ross Douthat’s claim that “the last few weeks should bury, once and for all, the foolish idea that neoconservatism’s rhetorical commitment to democracy promotion is just a smokescreen for Likudnik dual loyalties or U.S. imperialism.” Douthat’s otherwise sensible post employs some gratuitous, right-baiting straw men. Who has ever said that democracy promotion is “just” a smokescreen? That’s not an argument one would expect to see from right-wing critics of the neoconservatives, since those critics are, as Larison observes, hardly enthusiasts for democracy. If neoconservatives are Likudniks or imperialists — and many of them are — it hardly follows that they cannot also be democracy-promoters.

Douthat should be well aware of this: what the neoconservatives mean by democracy, and what their critics know they mean, is not one man, one vote. It’s not procedural democracy but a substantive democracy: a democracy that entails an American-style mixed-market economy (“democratic capitalism”), liberal institutions of civil society (e.g., labor unions, but not too strong or violent labor unions; religious institutions, but only those organized on a voluntary basis), and a political system that is democratic in name but designed to promote enlightened objectives rather than whatever the popular will might be — especially if that popular will is retrograde by American standards. On this model, a democracy is by definition going to be pro-American and favorably disposed toward some of the more grandiose claims of Israeli nationalism. This is precisely why people like George Gilder insist that Israel is fulfilling the dream of the Enlightenment, just as America supposedly does. To oppose the expansion of Israeli settlements into the occupied territories is to oppose the expansion of high technology, capitalism, tolerance, and civilization itself — in a word, democracy. (That many of the settlers are religious fundamentalists can be glossed over: after all, the grand strategy of the Republican Party here in the U.S. demands the assimilation of Christianity to substantive democracy.)

Friday, March 04, 2011

Neocon concedes that Egypt-Israel treaty is liability for U.S

Lee Smith, the Weekly Standard writer and Hudson fellow, had some difficult truths to tell the hardline Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). In a phone briefing, ...Smith discussed how support for Israel and its peace treaty with Egypt led to massive U.S. support for the military dictatorship of deposed President Hosni Mubarak...

The $1.3 billion of military aid to Egypt “gives (the U.S.) some leverage, but we also need to realize it’s going to boomerang on us as well. This is something that’s going to happen.”

What Smith describes as a hypothetical future cost is actually exactly what has already been happening in the Arab world for decades now. The boomerang has long since turned back in the U.S.’s direction. There’s even a term for it: linkage.

Neoconservatism and the Arab Revolutions

James Kirchick has a good piece exploring the divide that’s opened between American neoconservatives and many Israelis over the revolutions and protests currently roiling the Middle East — with neocons welcoming the fall of Hosni Mubarak and the promise of democratic change throughout the region, even as the Israeli leadership classes wax more pessimistic about the likely consequences of replacing despots with more popular regimes. “Could there be a starker illustration of just how mistaken the neocon-Israeli conflation always was?” Kirchick asks, and he’s right: The last few weeks should bury, once and for all, the foolish idea that neoconservatism’s rhetorical commitment to democracy promotion is just a smokescreen for Likudnik dual loyalties or U.S. imperialism.

There’s a reasonable case to be made that at least in the short term, the Arab revolutions will reduce American influence in the Middle East, weaken Israel’s strategic position, and empower Iran — which is presumably why the Obama White House has been proceeding with an exquisite caution that’s shaded, at times, into unseemly passivity. Yet from ur-neocons like Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan, and Reuel Marc Gerecht to fellow travelers like Christopher Hitchens and Leon Wieseltier, American neoconservatives have spent the last month united in the conviction that the virtues of toppling tyrants trump whatever perils may come next. Indeed, the responses to the Arab 1848 have showcased neoconservatism at its most idealistic, dismissive of crude machtpolitik concerns and insistent that the aspirations of oppressed peoples should take priority over what may seem at first like the immediate interests of both Israel and the United States.

Shadow Elite: Libya and the Consummate Shadow Lobbyist -- Neocon Richard Perle

As Politico's Laura Rozen wrote last week:

One of the more unlikely figures... is not registered with the Justice Department. Prominent neoconservative Richard Perle... traveled to Libya twice in 2006 to meet with Qadhafi, and afterward briefed Vice President Dick Cheney... according to documents released by a Libyan opposition group...

Our only quibble is her choice of the word "unlikely." Gaddafi has been called "deranged" and "delusional," but in the era of the shadow elite, his regime made at least one rational choice in choosing to host Perle, a consummate shadow lobbyist who was hired by a firm that makes K-Street look positively passe.

Obama lip-syncs a neocon tune on Libya

The New York Times reports that the Obama administration has committed itself to a policy of regime change in Libya and is now publicly contemplating military action, "The administration [has] declared all options on the table in its diplomatic, economic and military campaign to drive Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from power." The talk is of imposing a no-fly zone over Libya, which may sound like an incremental and moderate step. Defense Secretary Gates helpfully clarified to Congress that a no-fly zone "begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses." It is an act of war.

On first glance, the move appears to represent a dramatic departure for the Obama administration and, indeed, U.S. foreign policy. Until now the United States did not have a policy of overthrowing governments solely because they violated human rights. If we did, we would be at war with half the world, starting with China. Not even the neoconservatives at their most bellicose had such grand ambitions.

Thursday, March 03, 2011

J Street and the Middle East

J Street, America's premier liberal pro-Israel lobbying group, has just wrapped up its third annual conference in Washington. There have been sessions and panels on "building peace from the ground up," on "expanding the tent" and even some passionate condemnations of the Occupation. Amid so much good feeling it's almost possible to lose sight of one of J Street's fundamental missions: to promote and guarantee America's lavish and unconditional military aid to Israel.

This may seem like a harsh assessment of the lobbying group. After all, isn't J Street routinely attacked by neocon ultras and praised by American liberals? But hack through J Street's verbiage about "dialogue" and "conversation" and one finds this blandly phrased position statement: "American assistance to Israel, including maintaining Israel's qualitative military edge, is an important anchor for a peace process based on providing Israel with the confidence and assurance to move forward on a solution based on land for peace. J Street consistently advocates for robust US foreign aid to Israel." This last sentence is 99% of what one needs to know about J Street.

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Rumsfeld's "Known and Unknown": An Interventionist, Neocon Manifesto

Unlike other neoconservatives in the Bush administration, Rumsfeld says he rejects a Wilsonian foreign policy of exporting democracy and building nations in accordance with egalitarian ideals. He does not seem to believe that there is any inherent benefit to democracy over other forms of government, and rejects the notion that democracies are more conducive to a peaceful world. To the contrary, he says the Iraq war was purely for the purpose of defending national security, despite the evidence that Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat to American or global security, and that the destabilization of Iraq emboldened a more heinous, destructive, and malignant force with nuclear capabilities — Iran.

Rumsfeld also goes on to discuss his use of egregiously unconstitutional tactics in “homeland security” — most notably roving wiretaps, and other forms of search and seizure in violation of the First and Fourth Amendments — as provisions of the Patriot Act, believing that its provisions are necessary for the upkeep of national security. He ignores Thomas Jefferson’s warning that those who sacrifice liberty for the sake of security “deserve neither.” This is unsurprising, given his proud acceptance of the “Defender of the Constitution Award,” presented to him at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Déjà Vu: Neo-Con Hawks Take Flight over Libya

In a distinct echo of the tactics they pursued to encourage U.S. intervention in the Balkans and Iraq, a familiar clutch of neo-conservatives appealed Friday for the United States and NATO to "immediately" prepare military action to help bring down the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and end the violence that is believed to have killed well over a thousand people in the past week.

The appeal, which came in the form of a letter signed by 40 policy analysts, including more than a dozen former senior officials who served under President George W. Bush, was organized and released by the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), a two-year-old neo-conservative group that is widely seen as the successor to the more-famous – or infamous – Project for the New American Century (PNAC