The Boyz R Back! NeoCon War Cries Over Araby

The neoconservatives are back with a vengeance. While popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and other Arab countries had briefly rendered them irrelevant in the region, Western intervention in Libya signaled a new opportunity. Now Syria promises to usher a full return of neoconservatives into the Middle East fray.

“Washington must stop subcontracting Syria policy to the Turks, Saudis and Qataris. They are clearly part of the anti-Assad effort, but the United States cannot tolerate Syria becoming a proxy state for yet another regional power,” wrote Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (Washington Post, July 20).

Pletka, like many of her peers from neoconservative, pro-Israeli ‘think tanks’, should be a familiar name among Arab reporters, who are also well aware of the level of destruction brought to the Middle East as a result of neoconservative wisdom and policies. Rarely though are such infamous names evoked when the ongoing conflict in Syria is reported - as if the main powers responsible for redrawing the geopolitical maps of the region are suddenly insignificant.

A New Wave of Less Warlike GOP Politicians Detected

Marco Rubio didn't run on a platform that included getting out of Afghanistan, abolishing the TSA, and opposing the NDAA while appearing with Ron Paul. Ted Cruz did. In an interview with me, Mike Lee criticized the Libya war on substantive as well as constitutional grounds and didn't sound too enthusiastic about our other recent wars. Although Jim DeMint voted for the Iraq war, he was also one of just four Senate Republicans who voted to end its authorization.

Look, these candidates aren't noninterventionists (although a few of them, like Thomas Massie and Kerry Bentivolio, essentially are). But in the not-too-distant past, the most conservative candidates running in a Republican primary would have been without fail the most enthusiastic champions of the Bush Doctrine and dead-enders in support of unpopular foreign wars. The fact that these candidates don't fit that description doesn't necessarily mean they will be cautious on Iran, but it does mean something.

The Neocon and the CIA Drug Lord

Who is David Carlson? Carlson is a repellent neocon Republican party primary candidate for the U. S. Senate in Minnesota who is running a scurrilous attack ad on Fox News against Ron Paul and Kurt Bills (the GOP candidate endorsed by Dr. Paul). This disgraceful ad is replete with one vicious lie after another concerning Ron Paul’s character and beliefs. What is extremely curious about Carlson is the fact that on his campaign website, besides photos of him with Mitt Romney and John McCain, is featured one with the CIA’s Laotian opium drug lord, the late General Vang Pao. What was his connection to Vang Pao? Minnesota voters deserve an answer.

Is Mitt Being Neoconned Into War?

Has Mitt Romney given Israel a blank check for war?

So it seemed from the declaration in Jerusalem by his adviser Dan Senor, who all but flashed Israel a green light for war, signaling the Israelis that, if you go, Mitt’s got your back:

“If Israel has to take action on its own in order to stop Iran from developing that capability, the governor would respect that decision.”

“No option would be excluded. Gov. Romney recognizes Israel’s right to defend itself and that it is right for America to stand with it.”

What does “stand with” Israel, if she launches a surprise attack on Iran, mean? Does it mean the United States will guide Israeli planes to their targets and provide bases on their return? Does it mean U.S. air cover while Israeli planes strike Iran?

This would make America complicit in a preemptive strike and a co-belligerent in the war to follow.

What Senor said comes close to being a U.S. war guarantee for Israel, while leaving the decision as to when the war begins to them.

This country has never done that before.

The War Party-Panorama-BBC

The Magical Neocon Crystal Ball

Mighty Uncle Sam, the lone superpower, is going Athenian in his arrogance as he plods on in the Middle East, compounding his catastrophic and criminal actions in Iraq by eyeing Iran and Syria as his next targets. What I don’t understand is how normally clear thinkers such as William Hague can play the role of the chorus, repeating ad nauseam Netanyahu’s ravings about existential threats to Israel, the Middle East’s only nuclear-armed power.

Disgracefully, the Western media is echoing the Likudists. If it weren’t for the Israeli lobby in DC, the warmongering Likudists in Tel Aviv, money from the Saudis and Qatar, and the neocon sofa samurai in the American media, any clear-thinking person would realize that courting diplomatic cooperation from Russia and Iran could stop the war in Syria overnight.

Roots Of The Neo-Con Junta

If, as I have suggested, the neocon agenda rests more upon perpetual war than it does on "freedom, democracy and liberty", then it really doesn’t matter if the United States succeeds in its overseas adventures. As stated immediately after 911 by Donald Rumsfeld, this was to be a different kind of war, to be fought on many fronts, and over a long period of time.

The complete vision, as espoused by the Godfather of the Neocon movement Irving Kristol, is for the United States to enter a fascist renaissance of Nationalism, religion, and "a return to old fashioned values."

Mitt Can't Ignore Sarah

So says the always interesting English observer of Republican politics, Tim Stanley. And he's right about Palin being a towering figure in the Republican party, though out of office and unpopular with the GOP establishment. This is due not to her ideology--she's a thoroughgoing warmonger and statist under the neocon thumb of Bill Kristol--but her style and class. Ron Paul, I might note, is hated by the entire establishment, GOP and otherwise, for being the anti-neocon, and for his populism, too.

Rom can't ignore Ron, but Ron can certainly ignore Rom. Mitt is, after all, in all his various incarnations, always Mr. Un-Paul.

Why Romney Insulted the Palestinians

A favorite neocon theme is that the superiority of Western culture explains the world’s wealth disparities, not the accident of natural resources and the aggressive use of military force. Mitt Romney echoed those neocon sentiments in touting Israel and disparaging the Palestinians, reports Robert Parry.

Some pundits are excusing Mitt Romney’s comment about why Palestinians are so much poorer than Israelis as a slip of the tongue caused by a shortage of staff on his overseas trip, but the Republican presidential candidate makes the same point in his book, No Apology, which he claims to have written himself.

Romney insisted that he actually wrote his own book, although he acknowledged assistance and advice from many of America’s leading neoconservatives, including Robert and Frederick Kagan, and from a variety of right-wing think tanks.

Neocon Pressure Group's Latest Salvo: Attacking Obama For Not Visiting Israel While In Office

The neoconservative pressure group Emergency Committee For Israel (ECI) is pulling out all the stops ahead of Mitt Romney’s jaunt to Israel. Their latest salvo: television ads that criticize President Obama for not visiting Israel while in office.

On their website, ECI states what their ad is about: “President Obama is quite a world traveler. But not to Israel. An oversight? Or an indication? According to a front-page story in the Washington Post two weeks ago, Obama has pursued a strategy of putting ‘daylight’ between the U.S. and Israel. He’s traveled to the Middle East multiple times — to accept an award in Saudi Arabia, to give a major speech in Cairo, to hold town hall meetings in Turkey — but never stopped to visit our closest ally in the region.”

The Neoconservative War Criminals In Our Midst

The State Department has an office that hunts German war criminals. Bureaucracies being what they are, the office will exist into next century when any surviving German prison guards will be 200 years old. From time to time the State Department claims to have found a lowly German soldier who was assigned as a prison camp guard. The ancient personage, who had lived in the US for the past 50 or 60 years without doing harm to anyone, is then merciless persecuted, usually on the basis of hearsay. I have never understood what the State Department thinks the alleged prison guard was supposed to have done–freed the prisoners, resign his position?–when Prussian aristocrats, high-ranking German Army generals and Field Marshall and national hero Erwin Rommel were murdered for trying to overthrow Hitler.

What the State Department needs is an office that rounds up American war criminals.

They are in abundance and not hard to find. Indeed, recently 56 of them made themselves public by signing a letter to President Obama demanding that he send in the US Army to complete the destruction of Syria and its people that Washington has begun.

RESTAURANT REVIEW: The good war?

Somewhere in the bowels of the Pentagon, a young neocon yearns for the taste of an unfamiliar dish, and it is only a matter of time before this yearning manifests itself on the world stage.

Armed with this powerful new model of foreign relations, I set out to settle an open question in the foreign policy world: Was the war in Afghanistan a good idea? Was the juice worth the squeeze? And what better place to put the War in Afghanistan to the test than The Helmand. Owned by Mahmood Karzai, brother of President Karzai himself, The Helmand is clearly an official bid to earn the succor of wavering foreign policy wonks who now doubt whether Afghanistan deserves a continued U.S. troop presence.

Neocon pressure group’s latest salvo: attacking Obama for not visiting Israel

Syria: The vultures are circling

There’s a sea-change in the air when the Andrew McCarthys descry an American administration’s war machinations and the Richard Seymours hail US-supported “insurgents” as “liberators.” Remember this happened during the Clinton era, when the left supported the Balkan war of “liberation” in which we were on the same side as Qaeda - and conservatives balked. When the Republican-dominated House of Representatives threatened to withhold funding from Bill’s Balkan adventure, neocon grand strategist Bill Kristol threatened to leave the GOP.

Maybe this time he’ll carry out his threat. Kristol and his neocon comrades can issue all the letters they want, but it’ll be a cold day in Hell before grassroots conservatives will support the modern equivalent of the Hitler-Stalin Pact - a grand alliance between Washington and the world’s radicals. It doesn’t matter that the Israel Firsters are demanding they get in line and join the anti-Iranian popular front: any decent self-respecting conservative has to draw the line somewhere.

Arab Spring Comment Was a Romney Love Letter to the Israeli Right Wing

If you speak neocon, Romney’s Israel Hayom interview was crystal clear: the Islamist-electing Arab Spring was all Obama’s fault—because he failed to promote Bush’s freedom agenda. It’s all a message to Israel, says Michael Tomasky.

Usually Mitt Romney’s problem, as we saw in London, is that he says something obnoxious. But on Friday, to the right-wing Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, owned by Las Vegas mogul Sheldon Adelson, he said something that simply made no sense, about George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and the Arab Spring. Check that: it made no sense unless you keep up with the tergiversations and vanishing-commissar new versions of history propounded by the neocons and duly followed by Romney. Once again, Herr Mittens proves that there are times when he emphatically does not misspeak—when he’s sucking up to the right.

The WAR AGENDA Of The Dark NeoCon Army BEHIND Mitt Romney

Ready for another war? Since the beginning of Bush’s horrific war against Iraq, Americans have by and large ignored the real results of the war. Everyone needs to stop ignoring it and wake up before it’s too late.

Mitt Romney’s foreign policy advisers are made up of 70% Bush Cheney regime war hawks. Romney is beating war drums against Iran right now on his overseas “I’m not a foreign policy novice and I’ll prove it by refusing to discuss my foreign policy but instead, bashing the President” tour. Oh, and he added insulting Britain to his UK charm offensive.

Listen to Chris Matthews and his panel (Charles Blow and Joan Walsh) discuss the Bush Cheney regime behind Romney and tell me you’re not breaking out into a cold sweat:

Globalists and Neocons: Two potent forces opposing the Assad government in Syria

Writing in The Guardian, Charlie Skelton has produced a remarkable piece of journalism aimed at unearthing the connections among the Syrian opposition and their friends in high places in the West ( “The Syrian opposition: who’s doing the talking?“). The take home message is that there are two groups of non-Syrians who are promoting regime change: globalists and neocons—two powerful forces indeed. One can certainly understand that there would be disaffected Syrians—there are dissidents in every regime, and especially so in a society riven with religious and ethnic divisions with a government dominated by an ethnic and religious minority, the Alawites. But the ever greater success of the insurgency seems unlikely without powerful allies in the West.

Centered mainly on pro-Israel advocacy, the neocons mentioned by Skelton are an influential contingent in the opposition to the Syrian government. The most obvious motivation is that Syria is allied with Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy. (Dennis Ross, a longtime pro-Israel activist [he was head of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy], should be included in this category.) Prominent neocons mentioned by Skelton include Michael Weiss (“the director of communications and public relations at the Henry Jackson Society, an ultra-ultra-hawkish foreign policy thinktank.” Henry Jackson is a sainted figure in neocon lore (see here, p. 27ff), hiring figures such as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz as foreign policy aides well before they became synonymous with promoting eternal war on behalf of Israel. Other luminaries of the Henry Jackson Society mentioned in the article are a Who’s Who of neocons: Perle, Bill Kristol, Joshua Muravchik, and Robert Kagan. In a manner quite analogous to the role of Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and Abram Schulsky in creating the WMD myth in the lead up to the war in Iraq (see previous link, p. 48ff), Weiss’s function seems to be to produce atrocity propaganda for the media. For example,

Insiders: Mitt Romney’s Neocon, Hawkish Advisors on Foreign Policy

The Wall Street Journal reported July 22 that Mitt Romney has gathered a coterie of establishment neoconservatives interested in war with Iran, as he embarks upon a trip to Europe. “Mitt Romney is relying on both moderate and hawkish neoconservative advisers as he embarks this week on his first overseas trip as the presumptive Republican presidential candidate,” the Journal stated.

Among the advisors listed in the Wall Street Journal are:

Henry Kissinger (Nixon’s Secretary of State)
James Baker (George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of State)
George Shultz (Reagan’s Secretary of State)
Richard Williamson (George W. Bush’s Assistant Secretary of State)
Cofer Black (former CIA official, former vice president of Blackwater International)
Eliot Cohen (George W. Bush’s State Department official)
Paula Dobriansky (George W. Bush’s State Department official)
John Bolton (George W. Bush’s former UN ambassador)
John Lehman (Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy)

Neocons put Israel, and the United States, in a precarious position

Just a few months ago, Charles Krauthammer, who is the Washington Post’s neoconservative-in-residence, was asking, "Why aren’t we organizing, training and arming the Syrian rebels in Turkey?"

Now he’s giving the answer: "As for Syria, if and when Bashar Assad falls, the Brotherhood will almost certainly inherit power."

Neocon Radio Host Michael Savage Rages Over Blackballing

Boomer generation-spawned performance artist Michael Savage penned a thoughtful and even-keeled response to local media blogger Rich Lieberman's question about whether or not the neoconservative radio host thinks that he's being blackballed in San Francisco, listenership-wise. (Allegedly, everywhere in the U.S., except for here in Baghdad by the Bay, Savage is the no. 2 most listened to internet talk radio host. And his show, "The Savage Nation," is actually wildly entertaining. He's obsessed with gays.) Behold:

OF COURSE. I BUILT KNEW.AS A TALK STATION. ONE AD CZAR IS BLOCKING MY RETURN-STRICTLY FOR POLITICAL REASONS. MY SHOW WAS GROSSING SEVERAL MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR ON KNEW. THIS LUNATIC IS COSTING CLEAR CHANNEL A FORTUNE BY TERRORIZING MANAGEMENT. CLEAR CHANNEL SHOULD FIRE THIS AD IDIOT. I AM HEARD ON OVER 300 STATIONS ACROSS THE U.S.. MY SHOW IS THE #2 SHOW ON THE \INTERNET!." YOU CAN QUOTE ME.

Would Romney Pursue

Mitt Romney, who in the past was considered a moderate Republican, has surrounded himself with neoconservative foreign policy advisors. Romney’s chameleon approach to politics is to simply say, and sometimes do, whatever would appeal to his current audience. To win the governorship of Massachusetts, Romney had to be something of a liberal. To win the Republican presidential primaries, it was essential for Romney to place himself on the Right. In foreign policy this meant an appeal to the Christian Zionists and hard-line American nationalists who identify with the aggressive foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration, which especially focused on the Middle East, with Iran now being the major target. And all the major Republican presidential candidates took this position with the exception of Ron Paul.

Romney has gone as far as to threaten military action to stop Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. This naturally appealed to supporters of Israel, Iran being Israel’s foremost enemy, and it paid off bountifully for Romney in June, when multi-billionaire Zionist Sheldon Adelson, who had single-handedly kept Newt Gingrich in the Republican presidential primary race, pledged to spend $100 million or more to help Romney defeat President Obama.

Absurdity Rules the World

Yes, the Neoconservatives had it all in hand. Ronald Reagan had taken the first big step to load the dice. Anybody with a conscience was now going to be deprived of any realistic means of resetting the scales to a just balance. This was the beginning of the policy of ‘starving the beast’. The little people had no say. Only Big Money weighed heavily enough to tip the balance. Bill Clinton continued in the steps of his predecessors and the famous climbing ladder, supposed to be available to all Americans, became more and more of an illusion.

But the real introduction of lawlessness and the total contempt for the needs of the masses, that were soon to follow, were still only in the sick minds of the Neocon cavemen. In order to carry out their destructive projects, one factor was standing in their way. The people might become a powerful force against their openly unconstitutional planned take-over. Could even the Supreme Court be relied on to take the side of the Neocon monsters? The Project for the New American Century (PNAC)[1] may well have as its goal the promotion of American global leadership, but would the end justify the means? Could this little clique of psychopaths do their deeds and clear the hurdles that were still in clear view?

Hawk vs. Hawk

Redistricting has forced two freshmen House Republicans from Arizona to run for the same northwestern Phoenix seat. John McCain, the state’s senior senator, has a favorite. McCain endorsed Ben Quayle, son of the former vice president, for a very McCain-like reason.

In May, Quayle voted for the National Defense Authorization Act, which contained a provision that could lead to the indefinite detention of American citizens charged with but not convicted of terrorism. Quayle’s primary opponent Dave Schweikert voted against the bill. National Journal reported that this simple difference explained McCain’s endorsement.

Viguerie blasts Rice for being Pro-Choice AND! a NeoCon

NeoCons are now "Pro-Choice" on abortion? Who knew?

Noted social conservative and very, very old guy Richard Viguerie, sent out a press release criticizing Condoleeza Rice for being from the socially tolerant wing of the GOP, and at the same time accusing her of being a "NeoCon."

“We want someone who conservatives recognize as one of their own, not some nominal Republican who the news media thinks of as a conservative because he or she has an “R” for Republican beside their name.

Romney’s neocon dream team: Condoleezza Rice for VP?

Presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney hasn’t settled on a running mate yet, but a new name has made it to the list of rumored frontrunners. Americans might soon see former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the ballot this November.

The latest reports out of the Republican Party’s inner circle suggest that Rice, the Secretary of State under former President George W. Bush, is a viable option for Mr. Romney as he comes close to selecting a vice presidential candidate. Drudge Report, the heated political website overseen by conservative pundit Matt Drudge, alleged that Rice was among Romney’s top picks in a posting made this Thursday.

Cheney Gives Romney His Neocon Seal of Approval

Former Vice President Dick Cheney gave GOP hopeful Mitt Romney his seal of approval on Thursday, saying the presumptive nominee was the "only" candidate to trust on tough foreign policy decisions.

During a Wyoming fundraiser, the former vice president said that his experience in Washington taught him that every president would have to deal with an international crisis that could mean sending U.S. forces into harm's way.

Neocons Float “Mushroom Cloud” Condi as Romney VP

If selected in November, Mitt Romney will serve as the front man for the reinstallation of the neocon faction in the White House. Establishment media murmuring about his choice for vice president – Condoleezza Rice – underscores the return of the so-called Vulcans.

“No one in the Romney camp would confirm or deny the story, in keeping with the campaign’s tight-lipped approach to the selection process. But it’s possible the item was a trial balloon from the campaign attempting to gauge the reaction to Ms. Rice as a possible pick,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Neocon Nightmare Ticket (Romney/Rice) = Obama 2nd Term and/or WW3 (from Drudge)

Late Thursday evening, Mitt Romney's presidential campaign launched a new fundraising drive, 'Meet The VP' -- just as Romney himself has narrowed the field of candidates to a handful, sources reveal.

And a surprise name is now near the top of the list: Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice!

The timing of the announcement is now set for 'coming weeks'.

Better to Be a Former Ron Paul Staffer, or a War Planner?

The Republican National Committee’s hiring of a former Ron Paul campaign spokesman is drawing the ire of some pro-Israel Democrats who see the hire as a concession to Paul’s brand of foreign policy.

It would seem that according to the National Jewish Democratic Council, if you were involved in advocating or planning the Iraq war, which cost America trillions of dollars, thousands dead, tens of thousands crippled, and left nearly a million Iraqis dead, wounded, or homeless, that’s an absolutely superb foreign policy resume credential. But if you worked as a communications aide with Ron Paul, you’re beyond the pale.

Time will tell whether this becomes a talking point beyond Josh Block and the Democratic neocons, or whether more established Democratic elected officials will recoil from the stench. And also of course whether Romney fears more the Democrats’ branch of the Israel lobby or Ron Paul Republicans.

Former Neocon Becomes Ron Paul Supporter