Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The Sanitized Version of Neoconservatism

A number of books have come out recently dealing with the neoconservatives, which have been published by mainstream presses. It is significant that these works acknowledge some obvious truths that were denied and even largely taboo some time ago.

They admit, for example, that neoconservatives not only exist (something that was denied a few years ago, most especially by the neocons themselves), but that they have been influential in shaping American policy in the Middle East, a view that continues to be rejected even by many critics of American foreign policy—e.g., Noam Chomsky and his acolytes, who see American foreign policy shaped only by all-powerful corporate interests. What these books still conceal, however, is the fact that the neocons are motivated by their Jewish ethnicity and the interests of the state of Israel. Instead the neocons are made to appear as an ideological group loyal solely to what they believe is good for the US. Consequently, this approach, despite allowing for some elements of truth, distorts the overall picture in a serious way.

Best Job in Town: Pimping for Gaddafi

Until Gaddafi decided to become a “stealth” neocon and Israel lover back in 2002, he was considered the worst person in the world. He kept Libya in line with a powerful secret police and bribes to tribal leaders while the greatest part of Libya’s wealth disappeared into Swiss banks, wild African adventures and bribes, press, politicians, everyone worth owning, Gaddafi bought.

Gaddafi’s nuclear, biological and chemical warfare programs were larger than Iraq's in the 80's, (when they actually existed) and are due to be dismantled by 2045 according to agreements between Gaddafi and the Bush/Blair governments.

Untold millions of Gaddafi’s money went directly to terrorists. It still does.

Pawlenty Goes Chicken Hawk Two Weeks After Being Chicken

GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty accused President Obama of failing in his words, “to carry out an effective and coherent strategy in response” to the uprisings in the Middle East and Northern Africa, known as the “Arab Spring.”

Apparently seeking to carry the neocon mantle in the Republican field, Pawlenty accused the President of treating Israel “as a problem, rather than as an ally.”

The attacks on the Obama administration’s foreign policy came during an address today before the Council on Foreign Relations.

Our intervention in Libya makes the definition clearer than ever

Recently, my father suggested that it might be helpful if I explained what the term "neoconservative" means. "A lot of people don't know," he said. As usual, dad was right. I mentally filed away my father's suggestion, agreeing that an explanation of "neoconservative" might be helpful when the time was right. And now — as the American intervention in Libya has drawn a clearer line between neoconservatives and conventional Republicans than any event in recent memory — the time is right.

The "neocons" believe that American greatness is measured by our willingness to be a great power and that we accomplish that through a virtually unlimited global military involvement. As a result, the problems that other nations are experiencing become our own.

Tim Pawlenty neocon, Ron Paul anti-neocon; the great GOP clash

The latest new Tim Pawlenty is the born-again neoconservative moving to the far right on warmaking issues, destined to clash with Ron Paul in the presidential debates. Actually, Pawlenty is not a born-again neocon. This is his first birth as warmaker in his latest version of Pawlenty. By contrast with Ron Paul, who has always been Ron Paul.

Pawlenty was last seen declaring war against ObamneyCare, a war Pawlenty surrendered before the first battle. What a wimp! The latest Pawlenty, after heading for the hills in his war against Romney, is now escalating his war for Afghanistan. His new neocon position directly contradicts the long-held position of Ron Paul, setting the stage for a huge clash in the coming debates.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Neocons Return to War Debate With a Vengeance

Up until now, the neoconservatives within the national security establishment had been almost demure and decorous, content like cats to paw at the growing number of “isolationists” among the GOP coming out against the U.S. intervention in Libya and for a more rapid withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan.

But when President Obama announced his plan last week to bring home the 33,000 so-called surge troops by the summer of 2012, the sniping quickly turned into the kind of vanguard attack we’re more accustomed to. The neoconservative wing of the Republican Party—a stalwart civilian proxy of the military in Washington—will not relinquish its 10-year grip on the national security agenda willingly, and if you listen carefully, you’ll hear the scribbling of what will likely become the script for attacking Obama and any disobliging GOP contenders on foreign policy from here through the 2012 elections.

Monday, June 27, 2011

The Sanitized Version of Neoconservatism

Neoconservatism and American Foreign Policy: A Critical Analysis (New York: Routledge, 2011), authored by Danny Cooper by Stephen Sniegoski

What these books still conceal, however, is the fact that the neocons are motivated by their Jewish ethnicity and the interests of the state of Israel. Instead the neocons are made to appear as an ideological group loyal solely to what they believe is good for the US. Consequently, this approach, despite allowing for some elements of truth, distorts the overall picture in a serious way.

A number of books have come out recently dealing with the neoconservatives, which have been published by mainstream presses. It is significant that these works acknowledge some obvious truths that were denied and even largely taboo some time ago.

Hillary Clinton Channels the Neocons

It’s another example that there isn’t a lick of difference between the Obama Democrats and the Bush neocons. Both are warmongers determined to kick off the next world war.

On June 22, during press conference at the Ritz Carlton in Jamaica with that country’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister, a reporter said Libya is looking “increasingly quagmire-like” and Obama’s actions circumvented Congress (in addition to the Constitution, although the reporter did not say that).

“What is the – your vision for the endgame, a medium-term plan for U.S. involvement in Libya?” he asked.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

A War the Neocons Lost

In deciding to pull all of the 30,000 troops from the surge out of Afghanistan, six weeks before Election Day 2012, but only 10,000 by year’s end, President Obama has satisfied neither the generals nor the doves.

He has, however, well served his political interests.

A larger drawdown would have risked the gains made in Kandahar and Helmand and invited a revolt of the generals, some of whom might resign and denounce Obama for denying them the forces to prevail.

Sen. John McCain, citing some generals, is already saying that, with fewer troops and more missions per unit, U.S. casualties will rise.

A smaller drawdown would have enraged the left, whose support is indispensable to Obama’s winning a second term.

So, our president did what comes naturally: cut the baby in half.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Chaffetz Mocks Neocons On Afghanistan: ‘There’s Always An Argument To Stay There Forever’

Neocons and right-wing war hawks have been attacking their Republican colleagues recently for expressing doubts about carrying on the wars in Libya and particularly Afghanistan. The neocons have alleged that Republicans calling for withdrawal from Afghanistan are drifting toward “isolationism.”

That fight was on full display on CNN last night when neocon Wall Street Journal oped writer Bret Stephens took on Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) for questioning the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. “The grownups have left the field of the Republican Party,” Stephens said mockingly. Chaffetz fired back, saying the neocons are presenting a plan to stay in Afghanistan “forever”:

PNAC Cabal Warns Congress To Back Off Over Libya

The chicken hawk neoconservatives that make up the Project For A New American Century cabal have written on open letter to House Republicans warning them not to reduce or cut funding for U.S. involvement in the military aggression against Libya or face becoming an ” irresolute” nation.

The group, now re-named The Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), also claims that though it shares with Congress “concerns” over the conduct and justification of the military mission, “The problem is not that the President has done too much… but that he has done too little to achieve the goal of removing Qaddafi from power.”

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Neocon Group Calls On House GOP To Press For Widening Libya War

Foreign Policy Initiative issued an open letter to House Republicans calling on them to maintain funding for U.S. military action in Libya and press the Obama administration on expanding the war. The group, effectively Bill Kristol’s successor to the Project For a New American Century, got 38 neoconservative foreign policy pundits to sign the letter. They wrote that the administration “has done too little to achieve the goal of removing Qaddafi from power,” adding that the U.S. “should be doing more to help the Libyan opposition.”

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Letter from America: Shariah in America

Are Muslim Americans trying to impose a Taliban-style Shariah law in the USA? Seemingly, the answer is ‘yes’, if you are a Republican politician. The idea that America is this close to having her constitution replaced by the Muslim Scripture – the Qur’an - used to be a fringe notion in the post-9/11 era of Islamophobia that was packaged, promoted and propagated by malicious “Islamist watchdog” bloggers, neocon pundits with some think tanks and pen-pushing zealots.

But nowadays that absurd idea has inched closer to the mainstream, thanks to our Republican politicians. Truly, outside Ron Paul of Texas, I don’t know of any serious Republican politician who has not tried to bank on this ‘menace.’

Saturday, June 18, 2011

After a turbulent decade abroad, the Republican Party turns inward

Neoconservative foreign policy is dead -- or so I infer from the first Republican presidential debate, held June 13 in New Hampshire. None of the seven candidates talked about the moral purposes of American power. Quite the contrary: Those who addressed the current bombing campaign in Libya opposed it as a distraction from "national interests." Those who talked about the war in Afghanistan spoke of getting out rather than winning. And none showed any eagerness to talk about foreign policy at all; the subject absorbed a bit under 10 percent of the two-hour debate.

How times have changed! Fifteen years ago, William Kristol and Robert Kagan wrote an essay in Foreign Affairs titled "Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy." They chided the conservatives of the day for embracing a "tepid consensus" on foreign policy consisting chiefly of Kissingerian realism, and proposed in its stead President Ronald Reagan's policy of "military supremacy and moral confidence." They argued that the end of the Cold War era had left America with unrivaled power; rather than retreating from a destiny thrust upon it by history, America should accept its new role as the "benevolent global hegemon." They concluded that the United States should marshal its military, diplomatic, economic, and, yes, moral force in order not only to preserve the global order but to make it more like our own: more democratic, more committed to free markets.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Not One of Us - The Fall of Neoconservatism

The 2008 Presidential election may have been the last hurrah of the neoconservatives. The field in 2008 was replete with politicians parroting the neoconservative lines from the previous decade (save one) including top neoconservative leaders at the helms of their campaigns or holding top advisory positions. Conda for instance, was Mitt Romney’s economic policy advisor during his 2008 Presidential bid.

This aforementioned example of neoconservative angst is proof that even the neoconservatives themselves are starting to recognize that their ideas and influence are in decline.

The strength of the neoconservative movement was its ability to create the illusion that its philosophy - if it can be called that - was mainstream, rather than extremist; but that’s all it ever was, an illusion. Politicians bought in and were happy to repeat the baseless assertions of Kristol, et al. as long as it looked like they could get away with this. However, politicians, like their cousins the prostitutes, are fickle.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

More neocon nuttiness from Mark Levin

Levin and the rest of the radio Republican sycophants have been forced to admit Paul got everything right about domestic policy. In fact Levin was echoing Paul's thoughts on the Federal Reserve.

But on foreign policy, said Levin, Ron Paul has the same beliefs as George McGovern.

Now this is just stupid. The current world situation has nothing in common with the Cold War. Then we faced a left-wing enemy that shared a socialist ideology at least partly and sometimes completely with the American left.

Many Democrats of that era actually desired victory for various Marxist regimes.

As for Paul, he was as completely opposed to Marxist ideology at that time as any man in America.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Neocon flack: Weiner may have converted to Islam

A neoconservative public relations operative argues the Jewish congressman may have converted to Islam

We thought everything that could be said about Anthony Weiner's lewd photo scandal had been said. But Eliana Benador, a former influential neoconservative public relations operative, has proved us wrong.

Writing for the "Communities" section of the Washingtom Times' website, Benador argues that the Twitter scandal shows that ... the Jewish Weiner might have converted to Islam!

Benador, who is currently the U.S.-based "goodwill ambassador" for a group of Jewish settlers in the West Bank, advances an argument that is fairly difficult to follow, but it seems to go like this: Because a New York imam was quoted in the press seeming to take Weiner's side in the matter, and because Muslims (supposedly) practice deception as part of their faith, it's possible that Weiner is secretly a Muslim convert who is still presenting himself to the world as a Jew.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Keane Keen on Attacking Iran

Keane, now a member of Fordham's Board of Trustees, has been the go-to general for the neoconservatives in recent years. He indicated that he was about to catch a flight to Europe where he would lobby leaders of the 41 NATO countries who, except for three, have been "unwilling to ask their people to sacrifice" in places like Afghanistan. (It seems never to have crossed his mind that most Europeans have long since concluded that the war in Afghanistan - aka Vietnamistan - is a fool's errand, and that they are less susceptible to misleading rhetoric about the so-called War on Terror.)

Proceeding from general to specific, Keane mentioned that he had asked top UK military leaders at Sandhurst why even the British seem to be going wobbly on Afghanistan. He said that over cocktails British generals commiserated with Keane, asking him sheepishly, "Have you Americans lost confidence in us?"

Thursday, June 09, 2011

Neocons Spin Two ‘Lost’ Wars

American neocons still insist that they achieved “victory at last” in the Iraq War and can “win” in Afghanistan, although both bloody conflicts are now grinding inexorably toward grim conclusions as two of the worst strategic defeats in U.S. history.

Yet, paradoxically, the twin disasters carry possible political advantages for the neocons – if they can shift the blame for the defeats onto President Barack Obama. That prospect could even contribute to Obama’s defeat in 2012 and open the door to the neocons reclaiming control of U.S. foreign policy in 2013.

If that trick can be pulled off, the neocons could keep U.S. military in the service of Israel’s Likud hardliners as they confront new dangers from their Arab neighbors and may want help attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The neocons also realize that an Obama electoral loss in 2012 would protect the Pentagon’s budget which otherwise could face at least some modest trimming in a second Obama term. Republican leaders have declared that they would spare the Pentagon from budget cuts even as the GOP proposes slashing key social programs, including Medicare.

Ron Paul vs. the GOP Establishment

Ron's prescience isn't limited to economics: unlike most conservatives, Ron was clear from the very beginning that our foreign policy of global intervention would blow back in our faces some day, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks confirmed his view in a way that was not, at first, readily apparent. Yet Ron kept making this point, even in the wake of the war hysteria that followed the attacks, and ten years anon – as a war-weary and dead broke America staggers and seems about to fall – his views are seen as prophetic rather than marginal.

This is precisely what terrifies the Republican party Establishment, and positively enrages the neoconservatives, whose entire philosophy is predicated on the glorification of war. As might be expected, they are sharpening their knives and hoping to go in for the kill, but they can't do what Rudy Giuliani tried to do the last time around when he got up on his high horse and demanded Ron "take back" his statement that the 9/11 attacks were "blowback," in CIA parlance, an unintended consequence of our foreign policy adventurism in the Middle East. Rudy, for his trouble, got a grand total of one delegate in the 2008 Republican primaries, and this time around – he's made noises about entering the fray again – I wouldn't be surprised if he got less than that. Ron, on the other hand, went on to become the grand old man of the populist Tea Party movement, a candidate whose million-dollar "money-bombs" are a fundraiser's dream and whose political prospects brighten by the day.

Monday, June 06, 2011

Gen. Keane Keen on Iran Attack

Keane, now on Fordham University’s Board of Trustees, has been the go-to general for the neoconservatives in recent years. He said he was speaking to us before catching a flight to Europe where he would lobby leaders of the 41 NATO countries who, except for three, have been “unwilling to ask their people to sacrifice” in places like Afghanistan.

How do you justify the deaths of nearly 1,000 more U.S. soldiers and countless thousands of more Iraqis in exchange for sparing Bush, Cheney and the neocons the embarrassment of having the catastrophe in Iraq hung firmly around their necks?

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Barack Obama: A Neocon in sheep’s clothing

Ok, so you are still unconvinced that Barack Obama has not only continued Bush-era policy, but actually intensified it? Are you still unconvinced that Barack Obama is just another neocon in sheep's clothing? Well, in addition to recently continuing with Bush tax cuts for the rich, at a time when the US is facing the deepest deficit in its history, Obama also snuck through an extension of the Patriot Act minutes before it was set to expire.

The Patriot Act is a delightful piece of Bush legislation that was passed under our noses while America was in a code-red panic following the events of 9/11. It empowers US security agencies to implement wiretaps, determine what library books we are checking out, as well as conduct extensive searches. But that is only the tip of the iceberg concerning its powers, since there has never been a real democratic debate on this autocratic piece of legislation.

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

NOVO ORDO SECLORUM -- NeoCon Hell on Earth

The 20th Century was the most destructive era in history. Deaths from all the wars and the genocides estimated at 160 million may seem small if the planet descends into the approaching holocaust. Globalization is the catchword of the ruling class. Sovereign nations are obsolete to the corporatists. Militarization for suppressing conflicts is the mission, since warfare among nations are passé. The old alliances based upon ethnic composition or ideology has vanished. Only dissenters against the New World Order pose a threat to the Novo Ordo Seclorum.

This New Order of the Ages has been in the works for over a millennium. Lest you forget the horrors of man’s inhumanity to man, a short vignette looks back at some of the worst practices of Totalitarian Collectivism.