Neocons declare war on Trump

Donald Trump calls the Iraq War a lie-fueled fiasco, admires Vladimir Putin and says he would be a "neutral" arbiter between Israel and the Palestinians. When it comes to America’s global role he asks, “Why are we always at the forefront of everything?"

Even more than his economic positions, Trump's foreign policy views challenge GOP orthodoxy in fundamental ways. But while parts of the party establishment are resigning themselves or even backing Trump's runaway train, one group is bitterly digging in against him: the hawkish foreign policy elites known as neoconservatives.

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Neocon Armchair Warhawks Panic Over Trump Foreign Policy

The neocons are renowned for their courage on the battlefield. There is no keyboard they are afraid to finger. No pen they won’t commandeer. When the battle cry is sounded, they unhesitatingly push the “on” button at their computers and saddle up for battle. Off with the loafers and under the desk! “Caution to the wind! Bring in a wine spritzer, dammit, I’m off to waaar!”

While this Institute and this column most definitely do not take a position on any candidate and in fact your correspondent views voting itself with disdain in today’s corrupt US political system, it is impossible to avoid viewing with extreme amusement the collective neocon hysterical breakdown over the possibility that voters of the Republican Party – a party neocons crashed en masse starting in 1972 and especially 1976 – may be sending as their nominee for president a man who has committed the cardinal sins of:

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Neoconservatives Declare War on Donald Trump

Neoconservative historian Robert Kagan — one of the prime intellectual backers of the Iraq War and an advocate for Syrian intervention — announced in the Washington Post last week that if Trump secures the nomination, “the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton.”

Max Boot, an unrepentant supporter of the Iraq War, wrote in the Weekly Standard that a “Trump presidency would represent the death knell of America as a great power,” citing, among other things, Trump’s objection to a large American troop presence in South Korea.

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Can the Neocons Trump Donald?

The excellent Glenn Greenwald, the Intercept’s co-founding editor and a journalist who always keeps his eye on the ball, has been chronicling how leading Neocons are coming out openly in support of Hillary Clinton. He’s also been highlighting the hypocrisy of Republican establishment figures who claimed to be shocked by Trump’s tactics and statements.

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Washington’s Neocon Occupation Upholds The Illusion Of Choice In The Two-Party Duopoly

Obama even out-Bushed Dubya by expanding the “War on Terror” to benefit the military-industrial complex. He allowed for the strengthening of extreme right-wing militias and governments, the emboldening of Gulf monarchies and apartheid Israel, and the development of a foreign policy agenda that’s become increasingly aligned with al-Qaida.

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Marco Rubio: The Neocon Man

The neoconservatives are busily decrying Donald Trump as a nasty intruder into the ranks of the Republican party. But they themselves are, in many ways, the interlopers, with their ultimate origins dating all the way back to Leon Trotsky. As neoconservative godfather Irving Kristol once observed, “I regard myself as lucky to have been a young Trotskyite and I have not a single bitter memory.” The polemics and crusading fervor of Trotsky’s Fourth International have left their mark on the movement down to the present. In an audacious volte-face, one extreme, you could even say, was switched out for another.

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The Neocon Trotskyist Attacks Start on Donald Trump

Just as I predicted last night, the neoconservative Trotskyist attacks have begun. They are of course, lead by a one William Kristol; who is the son of one of the men, who pressured George W. Bush to invade and occupy Iraq — Irving Kristol. These two are of the “Ethnicity that shall never be named“, of course. So, it is natural that they would be adverse to any sort of American Nationalism.

Kristol mocking a Christian pastor by the name of Pat Robertson writes:

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Why Trump Is Panicking Robert Kagan

Anyone looking for further converts to the Hillary Clinton campaign might do well to look at the Marco Rubio campaign. If Clinton is the leading liberal hawk, Rubio is the foremost neocon candidate. In 2014 National Review published an article about him titled “The neocons return.”

Whether it’s Cuba or Iran or Russia, he stakes out the most intransigent line: “I disagree with voices in my own party who argue we should not engage at all, who warn we should heed the words of John Quincy Adams not to go ‘abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.'” Not surprisingly, he’s surrounded himself with neocon advisers, ranging from Max Boot to Jamie Fly to Elliott Abrams.

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Neocon Kagan Endorses Hillary Clinton

Prominent neocon Robert Kagan has endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, saying she represents the best hope for saving the United States from populist billionaire Donald Trump, who has repudiated the neoconservative cause of U.S. military interventions in line with Israel’s interests.

In a Washington Post op-ed published on Thursday, Kagan excoriated the Republican Party for creating the conditions for Trump’s rise and then asked, “So what to do now? The Republicans’ creation will soon be let loose on the land, leaving to others the job the party failed to carry out.”

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Sanders the ‘Realist’; Hillary the ‘Neocon’

But what if Sanders came out of the closet and “confessed” to being a “realist” while posing the alternative question: Is Hillary Clinton a “closet neocon” who is seen by key neocons as “the vessel” in which they have placed their hopes for extending their power and expanding their policies? Might that question reenergize Sanders’s suddenly flagging campaign and force Clinton to venture beyond a few talking points on foreign policy?

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Mark Gaffney on neocon-Zionist 9/11 suspects and how they did it

Mark Gaffney, author of Black 9/11: Money, Motive and Technology, joins us to discuss his new article:

9/11: A Wilderness of Mirrors and the Prince of Darkness

Mark, like so many other 9/11 researchers, is moving toward the emerging consensus: Neocon-Zionist fanatics more loyal to Greater Israel than to the USA engineered the 9/11 coup d’état. His conclusion:

“On September 11, 2001 we Americans witnessed the calculated use of terror to traumatize our nation in order to impose a neoconservative political agenda that has been a disaster for the whole world, especially the Mideast. In 2016, all of this is clear, or should be with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. But any Americans who read the neoconservative policy papers in the 1990s, understood the extreme ideas that were being expressed, saw the future, and tried to warn the rest of us about what was coming, were no doubt either dismissed as kooks or smeared as anti-semitic.”

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Neocon Freak-out over Syria

Neocon-dominated Official Washington is in freak-out mode about the success of the Russian-backed Syrian army around Aleppo, reviving long-discredited claims about “moderate” rebels and ignoring Al Qaeda’s key presence. This neocon frenzy also demands a new Cold War, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes.

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Giving Peace Very Little Chance

After nearly 15 years of Mideast war – with those conflicts growing ever grimmer – you might expect that peace would be a major topic of the 2016 presidential race. Instead, there has been a mix of warmongering bluster from most candidates and some confused mutterings against endless war from a few.

No one, it seems, wants to risk offending Official Washington’s neocon-dominated foreign policy establishment that is ready to castigate any candidate who suggests that there are other strategies – besides more and more “regime changes” – that might extricate the United States from the Middle East quicksand.

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Frank Rich: 'Far Right' Rubio Is 'Truculent Neocon,' Some Hillary 'Scandals' 'Are Not'

Appearing as a guest on Tuesday's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC, New York magazine's Frank Rich asserted that GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio is "quite far to the right" and has a "very truculent neocon foreign policy" as he and host O'Donnell discussed whether the Florida Senator has the best chance of the "establishment" Republican candidates of being nominated.

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Russian jets + American boots = Neocon madness in Syria

Is it just coincidence that shortly after Russia begins a successful bombing campaign against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) positions in Syria, US think-tanks suddenly called for American boots on the ground in the Arab Republic?

The US military has some of the world’s most advanced surveillance technology, capable of identifying suspected terrorists and eliminating them with state-of-the-art unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). So why do US neocons insist that the only way to beat Islamic State forces in Syria is to put boots on the ground?

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Neocon Surveillance & Neocon Surveillance Network are Now Online: Critique, Commentary & Satire!

Wallace Runnymede and Appleseed Ike have recently launched Neocon Surveillance and Neocon Surveillance Network! These two anti-war and pro-peace sites provide both prose commentary and satire, in order severely and indeed mercilessly critique the current Neocon/Liberal Interventionist consensus.

A. Neocon Surveillance Network provides some basic factual data, e.g. free advertizing opportunities, news of protests, and information on anniversaries related to war and peace.

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'Carpet Bomber' Cruz: Libertarian or Neocon?

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is being advertised in some circles as the heir to the Ron Paul libertarian movement, yet one look at his foreign policy and it is immediately evident that he is anything but. His advisors are Bill Kristol, John Bolton, James Woolsey, Elliot Abrams and other washed-up neocon has-beens. No wonder he screams about "carpet bombing" the Middle East and making the sand glow in the dark. The libertarian movement is essentially built around rejection of wars of aggression and against interventionism. Ted Cruz, neocon, in today's Liberty Report:

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US Hawks Ignore Top Israeli Official on Iran

Take, for example, the many adherents of a right-wing pro-Israel worldview-including Washington’s neoconservatives. They now dominate the Republican Party and make up a large, pro-Israel circle of hawks in the Democratic Party as well-both on Capitol Hill and beyond. What are the chances that this esteemed class of commentators, pundits, and politicians will even begin to address the remarks that Eisenkot just made? Allow me this bold prediction: few if any will deign to address them at all. I’m guessing, for example, that this news item won’t be linked in newsletters from neocon groups like the Israel Project and the Foreign Policy Initiative, which focus heavily on Iran and Israel matters. And I certainly can’t imagine they’ll appear in the neoconservative publications-Commentary, The Weekly Standard, and so on-that supply hawkish and Republican Washington with its talking points.

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Despite Jabs And Attacks, GOP Hawks Take Second Look At Ted Cruz

Cruz, it turns out, hasn’t fully burned his bridges with that set of advisers and supporters of George W. Bush — figures like Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and former National Security Council official Elliott Abrams, who aren’t closed off to Cruz, especially in the case of Abrams. Indeed, despite some lingering resentment and suspicion, there are even glimmers of rapprochement as the Republican primary looks like it could become a two-man race.

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A Crazy Establishment Demands ‘Sanity’

It was, after all, Official Washington’s Establishment – led by the neoconservatives and their sidekicks, the liberal interventionists – that embraced President George W. Bush’s catastrophic invasion of Iraq in 2003. However, as costly as that decision was in terms of blood and money and cascading chaos – now destabilizing Europe – the Wise Men and Women imposed virtually zero accountability on themselves or other chief culprits.

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Hillary Clinton Seeks Neocon Shelter

But the Clinton campaign’s distortions aside, there is the question of whether or not the Democratic base has begun to reject Official Washington’s whatever-Israel-wants orthodoxy.

Hillary Clinton seems to be betting that rank-and-file Democrats remain enthralled to Israel and afraid to challenge the powerful neocon propaganda machine that controls the U.S. establishment’s foreign policy by dominating major op-ed pages, TV political chat shows and leading think tanks. The neocons also maintain close ties to the “liberal interventionists” who hold down key jobs in the Obama administration.

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Trump Takes on the Neo-Cons

Hats off to Donald Trump for his disparaging remarks about The National Review and their pitiful attempt at a demo job on his campaign in their latest issue. TNR has assembled a collection of testimonials from personalities reputed to be “conservative” and all laying into The Donald.

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How the Iran Deal Highlights Partisan Politics and Neocon Lies

The long red carpet is being rolled out from Tehran, and we should all hope that what strolls out is copious amounts of pistachios, fancy rugs, and caviar. And oil… oh boy the oil! Yes, the big Iran Deal appears to have been pulled off, and like a man walking out into the sunlight after being in a pitch-black room for a few days, there is some heavy blinking going on. Freedom can be really exciting at first. For those of us who are “Non-Aggression Principle” libertarians, we applaud. When the principles of liberty gain some ground, we find the urge to dance, even when it’s in the middle of a terrible republic in the Middle East.

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Hillary Clinton Seeks Neocon Shelter

By attaching herself to this neocon approach of hyping every conceivable offense by Iran while largely excusing the human rights crimes of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Sunni-run states, Clinton is betting that most Democratic voters share the neocon-dominated “group think” of Official Washington: “Iran-our-enemy, Israel/Saudi Arabia-our-friends.”

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Pre-launch of ‘Neocon Surveillance’ Site Jan 21! Plus Another War & Peace Story on Glossy News…

The pre-launch for Neocon Surveillance has just been accomplished! The site can be found here: http://neoconsurveillance.blogspot.co.uk/

This site is devoted to mainstream (centre left through centre right, or vice versa!) critique and satire of neoconservativism, liberal interventionism, responsibility to protect, and general self-serving warmongering and opportunism. If you wish to write for this site, please drop your co-irritants a line: wallacerunnymede@gmail.com, appleseedike@gmail.com

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Ted Cruz's Closest Counselors Are Neocons

Recently, Infogram published brief but illuminating biographies of several of Cruz’s key foreign policy advisors. The information disclosed in these revelations could trouble many constitutionalists otherwise keen on the senator and who rely on him to restore the rule of law to the White House.

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American state media partners with neocon smear blog: RFE/RL falls from the moral high ground

By partnering with the virulently anti-Russian Interpreter blog, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty further erodes its claims of even-handed reporting. That type of fall from the moral high ground might hurt.

Imagine you are Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former Russian oligarch convicted of tax evasion and embezzlement.By your own admission, you have ambitions to one day become the President of Russia. As in many walks of life, there are things you can do to further that ambition and other options that would damage it.

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Iran Media: ‘Jewish Neocons’ Behind New Obama Sanctions

An “investigative journalist” on Iran’s state-run PressTV Monday claimed to have discovered why the Obama Administration is both offering sanctions relief to the Ayatollah’s Islamic Republic while also imposing a new round of sanctions on Tehran: “Jewish neocons,” according to Tehran’s English-language media outfit.

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Everything the Neocons Said about Sailorgate Is Wrong

You knew, when Iran detained 10 American sailors in its territorial waters just before President Obama delivered his State of the Union, that the reaction from the right was going to be ugly. But I must confess to watching the flood of tweets and other commentary from neoconservatives and their hawkish Washington allies with some awe: the neocons truly outdid themselves. This is not to say that the hawks aren’t without some valid points. Rather, they go so far beyond those points as to render their legitimate arguments as clownish asides amid a flurry of invective.

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When Peace Breaks Out With Iran…

This has been the most dramatic week in US/Iranian relations since 1979.

Last weekend ten US Navy personnel were caught in Iranian waters, as the Pentagon kept changing its story on how they got there. It could have been a disaster for President Obama’s big gamble on diplomacy over conflict with Iran. But after several rounds of telephone diplomacy between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif, the Iranian leadership – which we are told by the neocons is too irrational to even talk to – did a most rational thing: weighing the costs and benefits they decided it made more sense not to belabor the question of what an armed US Naval vessel was doing just miles from an Iranian military base. Instead of escalating, the Iranian government fed the sailors and sent them back to their base in Bahrain.

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