What the uber neocon derives from the Afghan mess

What Krauthammer is intimating here is that, far from calling our entire involvement in Afghanistan into question, this most recent expression of Mohammedan unreason only calls into question whether the Western powers should be preparing to leave at all. The thing that he is calling into question is not our attempt to make Afghanistan into a functioning country free from Taliban militancy, but our plans to "hand the war over" to the national Afghan forces. (Of course, the idea that any Afghan government will carry on our war after we leave has always been lunacy.)

So Krauthammer is a neocon holdout to the very last, even as the Republican rank and file are starting to abandon ship. Faced with clear evidence that we are never going to Westernize that God-forsaken place, because one cannot win over such people if our entire effort can be undone by the inadvertent disposal of several books, Krauthammer concludes that the question is now whether and how America can leave at all. Having debated these issues with some average joes who are suckers for the Grand Democracy Project, I've found that devotion to the idea of global (and especially Muslim) democratic nation-building is almost a psychosis--at some point you have to write people off as unreachable by any evidence or argument. So it is with Charles Krauthammer.

Forget the Quran, the neocons must have burned their history books

Never mind history, though. The so-called “neo” conservatives are still at it, none more prominently than Newt Gingrich.

After that Quran crisis erupted last week, Gingrich tried to score some political points at President Obama’s expense by attacking him for apologizing to the Afghan people.

"There seems to be nothing that radical Islamists can do to get Barack Obama's attention in a negative way, and he is consistently apologizing to people who do not deserve the apology of the President of the United States, period," the ex-House Speaker said on a campaign stop in Washington state.

The False Neocon View of Reagan

OF ALL the U.S. presidents since Franklin Roosevelt, none stands taller in history or exercises a greater lingering influence on American politics than Ronald Reagan. Republican politicians invoke his name as example and lodestar, and Democrats have granted him increasing respect as the passions of his presidential years have ebbed with time. Surveys of academics on presidential performance, initially dismissive, now rank him among the best of the White House breed. Even President Obama has extolled his approach to presidential leadership.

This veneration poses a dark danger—that Reagan will become associated with philosophies he never held and policies he never pursued. This is happening today with increasing force as neoconservative intellectuals and politicians seek to conflate Reagan’s Cold War strategy with their push for American global dominance in the name of American values. Their aim is to equate today’s Islamic fundamentalism with Russian Bolshevism and thus boost the argument that U.S. military actions in the Middle East are a natural extension of Reagan’s forceful—and successful—confrontation with Soviet Communism in the 1980s.

Syrian Opponent Mamoun Al-Homsi's Israel Connection

Mamoun Al-Homsi is pictured above at the Prague Security Conference (NeoCon) with the Israeli-Italian right wing politician and hardline Zionist, Fiamma Nirenstein. Nirenstein who is a neocon Zionist has spent much of her life in an illegal East Jerusalem Settlement called Gilo where she still maintains a home.

Nirenstein is known for translating books of Nathan Sharansky, Bernard Lewis and Ruthie Bloom; she led efforts on behalf of the Israeli government to thwart the Palestinian bid for full UN membership and Statehood.

She is also known for hardline Zionist quotes like "every Jew in the world is an Israeli even if he’s not aware of it. Anyone who doesn’t know it is making a big mistake" and "morally speaking, there mustn’t be negotiations with Hamas, which thinks that Jews are the sons of monkeys and pigs. You can’t negotiate with cannibals, who eat human beings".

A Neocon’s Views Of American Power In 2012

How does a nation in economic disarray and extricating itself from two military misadventures find itself being goaded by senior officials, presidential candidates and media to start two new wars in Syria and Iran? A key remains the Neocon AgitProp engine and their internal views on American relative and objective power in today’s world. Contrary to popular belief, they didn’t go away.

Popular sentiment attributed to social media and existing strains of humanitarian interventionism ideology propel Obama’s policy as well, notably in Libya and now Syria.

But the Neocons – however diminished – agitate for two new major wars on Middle Eastern littoral. As before, Neocons today are as comfortable as Newt in dismissing the military’s considered opinion when it suits their purpose.

Israel first ‘Neocon John’ McCain sides with Netanyahu against top US general

On Iran, Government And Doublethink

Senator Lindsey Graham (Neocon-S.C.), who once claimed to be a veteran of Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm but who never left the States during the war and served only as a military lawyer, is one of the leading saber rattlers for more war. It seems he finds a new enemy hiding under his bed every morning.

“Our strategic interests in Syria are much greater than they were in Libya. This regime is the biggest ally of Iran, which threatens the world even more so than the Assad regime,” Graham told CNN’s Erin Burnett.

Graham, Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act proponent, has never met a war he didn’t like. CNN, Fox News and the rest of the corporate media love war because their ratings soar.

Danger on the road to Damascus

NEOCONS are not dead; they were only sleeping. As the nostrils of hibernating bears twitch in the warming breeze after winter, so the smell of cordite from Syria wafts across the armchairs of the liberal interventionists and appetites quicken. Trigger fingers start to quiver.

Out come all the old arguments, time-honoured cues for the easy applause that has cheered on blunder after blunder down the ages and cheered on the Crusaders in the same place in another age. "Something must be done." "We cannot stand idly by." "Just because we cannot do everything doesn't mean we can't do anything." "Never mind the logic, cut through the legalism: this is quite simply the right thing to do."
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The Neocon Agenda

John Bolton Dodges Question; Insults Anti-War Veteran

Lieberman edges U.S. to war with Iran

Sen. Joe Lieberman is leading a group of nearly one-third of the U.S. Senate urging that the red line on war with Iran be shifted from building a nuclear weapon to the vague notion of Iran having the “capability” to build one. The neoconservative senator from Connecticut has introduced a “Sense of the Senate” resolution that would put the body on record as rejecting a situation that arguably already exists, in which Iran has the know-how to build a bomb even if it has no intention to do so.

American neocons have moved the United States closer to war with Iran via a subtle change in the “red line” phrasing, inserting the word “capability” after the usual threats to take out an Iranian “nuclear weapon.” Now, Sen. Joe Lieberman is making the shift official.

Neocon Warmonger Michael Savage: "We Have To Go To War With Iran ... Forget Habeas Corpus!"

War And Iran

It has been festering for months and now the GOP candidates with the prodding of John Bolton, the NeoCon think tank spokesperson, is urging that America bomb Iran. These crazies beat the same drum in 2001 and G.W. Bush convinced Congress through lies and deception to attack Iraq.

That mistake cost America almost 5,000 lives of our very best men and women in uniform . It also cost tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and carnage through murder.

After 10 years of Republican idiocy and a trillion dollars President Obama is getting America out of Iraq .

US General: "Iran a Rational Actor", but is US one?

Do people really understand what a NeoCon IS?

I hear people accusing other politicians of being a NeoCon on the Daily Paul and mostly they are right, but sometimes way off.

Of course you can go to wiki and get those sometimes limited definitions.

Let me give you a more direct definition.

First - NeoCon is the direct opposite of PaleoCon. ( look it up)

To help you Dr. Paul is half PaleoCon and half Libertarian.

The objective of NeoCons is to spread the wealth around the world, same as Obama with one big difference. Obama wants global government via a hybrid socialism/communism, the NeoCons want global Government via Corporatism/Elitism.

Neocon version of sacrifices

I had no idea that the Newsweek has started a Pakistan Edition till today, when I found a copy of this new publication; with a bold title page heading “The War on Christians” in a book shop . Inside the cover the feature is titled “ The Rise of Christianphobia”, a term invented as if in justification of Islamophobia which as is evidenced from the writings in the Western media first surfaced in the West in the early eighties, probably due to the success of Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution and strong reaction to Anwar Sadat’s Camp David agreements. The Gulf War, the American onslaught on Iraq, the War in Afghanistan were the events which led to the birth of terrorism. Earlier creation of Israel as is admitted by the historians sowed the seeds of anti-Western-ism in the Muslim world , What is being witnessed now is an anti-West phenomena not an anti-Christian one, and what is happening in the Middle East, in Asia and in Africa cannot be lumped together.

In the Middle East it is imposition of Israel reminiscence of settling the accounts of the Christian’s defeat in Crusades is looked upon. Black out of the entire recent history in the West itself which accounted for the new wave of animosity against the west has been blanketed in this article of Newsweek. No Muslim can be anti-Christianity which as is his belief is a Devine religion, To equate anti-west wave with Christianphobia is highly incorrect. Anti-West yes, Christianphobia no. One can check the number of Muslims Bush’s wars and now Obama’s war in Afghanistan . Could it be about 10,000 and destruction of cities, and incidents of Abu Gharib have added to this wave of anti-West. No one would describe these neo-colonialist acts as Christian acts or just starts writing on the phenomenon as inter religious wars but neo- colonial acts of war.

Univision goes neoconservative

It's not often that Univision, the leading Spanish-language television network in the United States, releases its content in languages other than Spanish. It is, after all, a Spanish-language television network. But earlier this month the broadcaster did something out of the ordinary, screening an English version of a recent report on Iran that's received a rapturous reception from neoconservatives in Washington. And it at least appears to have done so at the behest of its hawkish new fan club.

Why would a network best known for sappy telenovelas shift to producing sloppy war propaganda - and English-language propaganda at that? Perhaps, as is usually the case with the corporate press, Univision's bias and peculiar programming choices are best explained by simply noting who owns it: Israeli-American businessman Haim Saban, a self-described “one-issue guy” - that issue being Israel - who has been up front about purchasing media outlets to promote his own political views.

Neocon Arguments For Iran War Are Tired Cliches

Writing in today's Washington Post, columnist Fareed Zakaria does a terrific job destroying some arguments for war with Iran. He does it by, of all things, citing history.

First, Zakaria takes apart the argument, often made by Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, that the "window" to stop Iran from developing a nuclear capability is closing and that rushing to war — without, of course, knowing how a war would play out — is essential. Zakaria explains that this is one of the oldest justifications for war in the book:

Lieberman Edges US to War with Iran

A Neocon Comeback

Since the grim writing was on the wall about the Iraq outcome, American neocons have been looking for new ways to get their imperial agenda back on track, with Iran’s nuclear program just the latest opportunity.

So, Iranian efforts to negotiate confidence-building initiatives regarding its nuclear program, such as agreeing to a Turkish-Brazilian plan in 2010 to trade about half of Iran’s low-enriched uranium for radioactive isotopes needed for medical research, have been blocked by neocons in Congress and their allies in the Obama administration, with the support of key U.S. media outlets, like the Washington Post and New York Times.

The cost of Zionism & Neo-fascism

The US is the richest country on earth but an estimated 1 million Americans die preventable deaths each year due to gross fiscal perversion whereby trillions of dollars are spent on the military, wars and killing people abroad rather than on keeping Americans alive at home. The Neocon and Zionist Establishment 1% responsible for this passive mass murder of 1 million Americans each year should be exposed and sidelined by the long-suffering 99% of ordinary Americans. For those who care about ordinary Americans and have been inspired by great American humanitarians, there are some truly shocking statistics.

The US has a Gross National Product of $14.5 trillion, has a national debt of $9.1 trillion that is 63% of GDP, and devotes $698 billion each year to military expenditure, this representing 4.8% of GDP, 43% of World military expenditure and $698,000 million/ 314.7 million = $2,217 per person. By way of comparison, total US expenditure on health per capita is $7,410, total expenditure on health as % of GDP is 16.2% (2009 data from WHO) and total annual US expenditure of health is accordingly $7,410 per person x 314.7 million persons = $2.3 trillion or $2,300 billion per year.

League of Acceptable Nations

In his recent syndicated column “A U.N. for the good guys,” Jonah Goldberg evokes the mindset of seventeenth-century puritanism. This is entirely understandable. Much of what the American left teaches, including its neoconservative element, resembles American Calvinism – albeit in a warmed-over form. In Puritan New England, Congregationalists – the only authorized communicants – were deeply troubled that unredeemed polluted their assemblies. Those who considered themselves visible saints were forced to break bread with those who could not properly prove their divine election. This led to a sectarian split that resulted in Rhode Island’s settlement by breakaway Calvinists disgusted by the toleration of impure religious assemblies in Massachusetts. This determined group of dissenters formed a purified congregation of the saints

In a similar way Jonah is looking for pure souls. He is agitated that Russia and China would not vote for “a fairly toothless U.N. resolution condemning the regime in Syria and calling for President Bashar Assad, the lipless murderer who runs the place, to step down.” Jonah points to a terrible spiritual defect in the governments that opposed the resolution. To him it is an outrage that the UN Security Council assigns seats to countries “because they are powerful, not because they are decent, wise or democratic.” This stems from what Jonah says is a “category error”: “There is nothing in the UN Charter…that says a government has to be democratic or even care for the welfare of its people.” The UN does something even more grievous from the neoconservative standpoint: It serves as a “counterweight to the United States” and allows morally reprehensible countries to thumb their noses at America..

Mainstream Media Lying

Australia is one of the World’s oldest democracies but is now a corporate-, US- and Zionist-perverted country in which neocon, pro-war, pro-US, pro-Zionist, corporatist Australian Mainstream media (including the taxpayer-funded ABC, the Australian equivalent of the taxpayer-funded UK BBC) remorselessly censor news, reader comments and foreign perversion of Australian democracy (Google “Censorship by The Age”, “ABC Censorship” and “Mainstream Media Lying”). Such Mainstream media (MSM) lying isd general throughout the Western Murdochracies and Lobbyocracies.

Below is an example of censorship by The Age newspaper, Melbourne, of non-anonymous, credentialed reader comments referring to an excellent article by outstanding expatriate Australian journalist John Pilger in Green Left Weekly (“Threat to Assange a threat to us all", GLW, 8 February 2012) and an excellent article by outstanding anti-racist Jewish Australian writer Antony Loewenstein (“Does the Zionist Lobby have blood on its hands in Australia?", 2010 ).

We've Been Neo-Conned

The modern-day, limited-government movement has been co-opted. The conservatives have failed in their effort to shrink the size of government. There has not been, nor will there soon be, a conservative revolution in Washington. Political party control of the federal government has changed, but the inexorable growth in the size and scope of government has continued unabated. The liberal arguments for limited government in personal affairs and foreign military adventurism were never seriously considered as part of this revolution.

Since the change of the political party in charge has not made a difference, who's really in charge? If the particular party in power makes little difference, whose policy is it that permits expanded government programs, increased spending, huge deficits, nation building and the pervasive invasion of our privacy, with fewer Fourth Amendment protections than ever before?

Neocon zealot goes ballistic on Occupy

Andrew Breitbart, the neocon media zealot best known for airing deceptively edited videos of anyone to the left of Dick Cheney and leading to crusade to discredit Oakland’s own Van Jones, got a taste of his own medicine Friday when he was confronted with Occupy protesters outside the gathering of the Conservative Political Action Committee in Washington last night.

Simply put, he became unhinged, allowing his true feelings to escape, in which Occupy folk are “raping people.”

Cathy Young: Smells Like a Neocon

A simple response to Reason Contributor Cathy Young’s piece arguing the necessity of true libertarians to support American interventionism would be to link to this article published the same day that details the inevitable fruits of this interventionism applied here at home. The conclusion is obvious: if you support American interventionism abroad then you support the same here at home. To think or suggest otherwise is either disingenious or inexcusably naive.

The byline to Young’s article, “Ron Paul’s foreign policy should worry true libertarians,” is yet another exhibit of the worthlessness of “libertarianism” as a political value. But I will nonetheless assuage the apparent fears of our “true libertarians” of every stripe: don’t worry, Paul’s foreign policy ain’t happening. But this obvious fact doesn’t stop Young from the need to reiterate the boiler plate talking points lifted directly from the likes of The Weekly Standard and The New Republic. Indeed, she manages to reproduce the entire checklist.

Neocon Very Afraid of Ron Paul's Message of Peace

In an interview on National Radio in Denmark--an interview made in Tel Aviv--Foundation for the Defense of Democracies chairman James Woolsey tells that he is very afraid of Ron Paul. The interview edited and is in English: press 'hør indslag'.
http://www.dr.dk/P1/orientering/indslag/2012/02/07/160328_1_1_1_1_1_1.htm

Great Moments In Neocon Strategizing: Bomb Paraguay!

As far as I can tell, there's no grand, carefully plotted, centrally controlled neocon conspiracy. There is just a small, somewhat loose network of energetic and overly excitable intellectuals who continue to have far more influence than their track record would suggest they deserve, and far more immunity from criticism of their network and their tendencies than is wise. They have a number of tendencies -- a love of international Rube Goldberg schemes; a love of conspiracy theorizing; dual loyalties; a strong willingness to play the anti-Semitism card to bully skeptics into silence; an aversion to leave well enough alone, to let sleeping dogs lie, and to try to fix things that aren't all that broken; an unhealthy love of violence in the abstract; and so forth. Not all of the neocons share all these tendencies, but there is plenty of overlap. And these problems generally get worse over time, because not only are they backed by powerful and wealthy interests so that they don't suffer much from their world-historical screw-ups like pushing the Iraq Attaq, but they aren't even exposed much to more than piecemeal criticism.

Let me go back to an incident I blogged about in 2005:

You may recall that prominent neocon Francis "End of History" Fukuyama jumped ship awhile ago and criticized Charles Krauthammer in The National Interest for his lack of realism about the Iraq War. Krauthammer responded, predictably, by playing the anti-Semitism card. Here is part of Fukuyama's rebuttal:

The failed Plan for A New American Century (PNAC)

The think tankers were not expecting a failure of such magnitude, the PNAC was derailed by Bush and cronies who followed a personal agenda supported by the Pro Zionists to attack Iraq under a false pretext (A belligerent and horrible lie).

It was Bush’s assumption the Afghanistan w-ar was at an end surprised by the lack of resistance from the Afghans notorious for resisting.

Rather than Bush cement some real long lasting relationship with Afghans, rebuilding Afghanistan he turned is focus to Iraq leaving his Neocon Afghanistan focus blind that has cost America her Project for the New American Century without Iraq, Afghanistan and the wider Middle East.

Why the Neo-Con Turn?

Despite Rick Santorum’s successes this week in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, the Republican establishment should still be able to get its way, notwithstanding Sheldon Adelson’s money and spirited resistance from the party’s base. The only contender for the Republican nomination whom they deem fit to do their bidding, Mitt Romney, will still, in all likelihood, become the Republican nominee.

Too bad for them, though, that they will then be saddled with such an unappealing standard bearer, and that their party will be divided against itself. Therefore, even in this post-Citizens’ United world, where corporations and plutocrats are free to spend all they want, Obama – who is no slouch at raising malefactor money in his own right — can hardly lose. That should be OK with Romney’s backers; they like Mitt better, but they win either way.

Has Obama MASTERED the art of marketing Neocon policies to the left and Democratic leaning voters?

He signed two extensions of the Patriot Act, signed NDAA into law (allows for indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without charges), assassinated an American citizen (George W. Bush didn't even do this), kept Guantanamo open (after promising to close it in his first year), still raids legal medical marijuana facilities (after saying he would stop this practice), tripled the number of troops in Afghanistan (which is apparently the same as "ending the war" to Obama supporters), kept Bush's guy running the federal reserve (Seriously...Bush's guy?), helped arm Mexican drug cartels (Operation Fast and Furious), mandated all citizens make a purchase from a for-profit company (rehashed REPUBLICAN idea from the early 90s).