The Anti-ConservativesFebruary 28, 2005 Issue | Copyright � 2005 The American Conservative | by Patrick J. Buchanan
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A conservative knows not whether to laugh or weep, for Mr. Bush has just asserted a right to interfere in the internal affairs of every nation on earth. Why? Because the “survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.” But this is utterly ahistorical. The world has always been afflicted with despots. Yet America has always been free. And we have remained free by following the counsel of Washington, Jefferson, and Adams and staying out of foreign quarrels and foreign wars.
Who is feeding the president this interventionist nonsense?
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Who and what converted a president who came to office with no knowledge of the world to the idea that only a global crusade for democracy could keep us secure? Answer: 9/11—and the neoconservatives.
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The 9/11 killers were over here because we are over there. We were not attacked because of who we are but because of what we do. It is not our principles they hate. It is our policies. U.S. intervention in the Middle East was the cause of the 9/11 terror. Bush believes it is the cure. Has he learned nothing from Iraq?
In 2003, we invaded a nation that had not attacked us, did not threaten us, and did not want war with us to disarm it of weapons it did not have. Now, after plunging $200 billion and the lives of 1,400 of our best and bravest into this war and killing tens of thousands of Iraqis, we have reaped a harvest of hatred in the Arab world and, according to officials in our own government, have created a new nesting place and training ground for terrorists to replace the one we lately eradicated in Afghanistan.
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Urging Bush not to press Israel into making peace with the Palestinians until Palestine embraces democracy is a clever way to postpone peace indefinitely and let Israel expand its settlements and consolidate its hold over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. That may be in Israel’s interest. But it is not in America’s interest. Sharansky’s idealism just happens to coincide with Sharon’s agenda. Can President Bush not see this?
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Given that the neocons were wrong on every count about Iraq, does Bush truly wish to gamble the Middle East on their confident predictions that, once the Arab monarchies fall, Western democracy will flourish among people who seem to revile Bush and revere Osama bin Laden?
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Giddy with excitement, the neocons are falling all over one another to hail the president. They are not conservatives at all. They are anti-conservatives, and their crusade for democracy will end as did Wilson’s, in disillusionment for the president and tragedy for this country.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Cheney's Daughter Named to Mideast Post
Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Cheney's Daughter Named to Mideast Post: "Tuesday February 15, 2005 7:16 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) - Elizabeth Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is returning to the post of deputy assistant secretary of state for the Near East with added responsibilities.
Cheney, who held the post from 2002 to 2003 in the first Bush administration, will assist newly appointed Assistant Secretary David Welch and also coordinate U.S. efforts to promote democracy and economic progress in the Middle East and Northern Africa, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday.
A lawyer who has worked in the U.S. embassies in Hungary and Poland, she left her State Department post to work in her father's re-election campaign last year.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Elizabeth Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is returning to the post of deputy assistant secretary of state for the Near East with added responsibilities.
Cheney, who held the post from 2002 to 2003 in the first Bush administration, will assist newly appointed Assistant Secretary David Welch and also coordinate U.S. efforts to promote democracy and economic progress in the Middle East and Northern Africa, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday.
A lawyer who has worked in the U.S. embassies in Hungary and Poland, she left her State Department post to work in her father's re-election campaign last year.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Pentagon Spy Agency's Leader Quits After Disclosures: Pentagon created a new espionage team more than two years ago
courant.com | Pentagon Spy Agency's Leader Quits After Disclosures: "February 13, 2005 | By BARTON GELLMAN, Washington Post
The leader of a new Pentagon espionage unit has resigned shortly after public disclosure that the Defense Department is expanding into clandestine operations traditionally undertaken by the CIA.
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The Post disclosed last month that Rumsfeld has reinterpreted U.S. law to grant him broad authority to dispatch clandestine teams into friendly and unfriendly nations, whether or not conventional war is in prospect. Designed to help cure what Rumsfeld described as his "near-total dependence on CIA," the Strategic Support Branch gathers intelligence alongside newly empowered forces from the military's Joint Special Operations Command.
In Congress, the House and Senate intelligence committees have held closed briefings in the past two weeks with senior Defense officials, including Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone. In sometimes heated exchanges, witnesses said, members of both parties complained to Cambone about learning from a newspaper account that the Pentagon created a new espionage team more than two years ago, using funds "reprogrammed" from congressional appropriations. Members of Congress also asked about Pentagon legal theories under which Defense personnel could conduct "routine" and "traditional" operations without notifying Congress.
The leader of a new Pentagon espionage unit has resigned shortly after public disclosure that the Defense Department is expanding into clandestine operations traditionally undertaken by the CIA.
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The Post disclosed last month that Rumsfeld has reinterpreted U.S. law to grant him broad authority to dispatch clandestine teams into friendly and unfriendly nations, whether or not conventional war is in prospect. Designed to help cure what Rumsfeld described as his "near-total dependence on CIA," the Strategic Support Branch gathers intelligence alongside newly empowered forces from the military's Joint Special Operations Command.
In Congress, the House and Senate intelligence committees have held closed briefings in the past two weeks with senior Defense officials, including Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone. In sometimes heated exchanges, witnesses said, members of both parties complained to Cambone about learning from a newspaper account that the Pentagon created a new espionage team more than two years ago, using funds "reprogrammed" from congressional appropriations. Members of Congress also asked about Pentagon legal theories under which Defense personnel could conduct "routine" and "traditional" operations without notifying Congress.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Natan Sharansky [Israeli political official], [...Bush ... ] and US Israel Policy: Israeli author's thinking was "part of my presidential DNA."
Natan Sharansky and US Israel Policy - by Tom Barry: "February 8, 2005
There is little doubt that George W. Bush and Natan Sharansky, a Soviet �migr� who is a top political official in Israel, share a similar perspective about international affairs, especially in the Middle East.
Following his inaugural address, the U.S. president said that Sharansky's book The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, published last September, confirmed what he already believed. He added that the Israeli author's thinking was "part of my presidential DNA."
Paralleling Bush's own description of international affairs as a divide between good and evil, and those who are fighting terrorism and those who support it, Sharansky writes in his book that the world is "divided between those who are prepared to confront evil and those who are willing to appease it."
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The November session between Sharansky and the president was not the first time that Bush had met Sharansky. On an official visit to Israel in 1998, Bush, then governor of Texas, met with then Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Industry Minister Sharansky.
According to Bush, who had dinner with Netanyahu and was personally escorted on a helicopter tour of the occupied territories by Sharon, "Israel has got a tremendous amount of talent – smart folks – many of whom have immigrated from Russia."
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During his stay, Gov. Bush visited weapons-manufacturing plants, defense facilities, antiballistic missile sites, and industries doing business with Texans.
"I saw democracy firsthand in Israel," said Bush, adding that Israel "is short on natural resources in terms of resources you find in the ground, but it's very long on the most natural resource of all, which is brain power."
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The United States and Israel have much in common, according to Sharansky. One of the links, he said in a speech at a forum sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, which was the basis for an article in Commentary, the journal of the American Jewish Committee, is the spreading scourge of anti-Semitism.
"Anti-Americanism in the Islamic world and anti-Americanism in Europe are in fact linked," argues Sharansky, because "both bear an uncanny resemblance to anti-Semitism."
There is little doubt that George W. Bush and Natan Sharansky, a Soviet �migr� who is a top political official in Israel, share a similar perspective about international affairs, especially in the Middle East.
Following his inaugural address, the U.S. president said that Sharansky's book The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, published last September, confirmed what he already believed. He added that the Israeli author's thinking was "part of my presidential DNA."
Paralleling Bush's own description of international affairs as a divide between good and evil, and those who are fighting terrorism and those who support it, Sharansky writes in his book that the world is "divided between those who are prepared to confront evil and those who are willing to appease it."
...
The November session between Sharansky and the president was not the first time that Bush had met Sharansky. On an official visit to Israel in 1998, Bush, then governor of Texas, met with then Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Industry Minister Sharansky.
According to Bush, who had dinner with Netanyahu and was personally escorted on a helicopter tour of the occupied territories by Sharon, "Israel has got a tremendous amount of talent – smart folks – many of whom have immigrated from Russia."
...
During his stay, Gov. Bush visited weapons-manufacturing plants, defense facilities, antiballistic missile sites, and industries doing business with Texans.
"I saw democracy firsthand in Israel," said Bush, adding that Israel "is short on natural resources in terms of resources you find in the ground, but it's very long on the most natural resource of all, which is brain power."
...
The United States and Israel have much in common, according to Sharansky. One of the links, he said in a speech at a forum sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, which was the basis for an article in Commentary, the journal of the American Jewish Committee, is the spreading scourge of anti-Semitism.
"Anti-Americanism in the Islamic world and anti-Americanism in Europe are in fact linked," argues Sharansky, because "both bear an uncanny resemblance to anti-Semitism."
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Elliott Abrams -- Iran-Contra Figure [pardonned] promoted to Lead Democracy Efforts Abroad
Iran-Contra Figure to Lead Democracy Efforts Abroad: "From News Services | 02/03/05 'Washington Post' --
Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair, was promoted to deputy national security adviser to President Bush.
Abrams, who previously was in charge of Middle East affairs, will be responsible for pushing Bush's strategy for advancing democracy
The White House also announced yesterday that Faryar Shirzad, a deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, will take on added responsibilities for humanitarian affairs, stabilization and reconstruction efforts.
Prior to joining the NSC staff, Shirzad was assistant secretary for import administration at the Commerce Department. Before that, he was the lead coordinator of international trade policy for the Bush-Cheney transition team. "
Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair, was promoted to deputy national security adviser to President Bush.
Abrams, who previously was in charge of Middle East affairs, will be responsible for pushing Bush's strategy for advancing democracy
The White House also announced yesterday that Faryar Shirzad, a deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, will take on added responsibilities for humanitarian affairs, stabilization and reconstruction efforts.
Prior to joining the NSC staff, Shirzad was assistant secretary for import administration at the Commerce Department. Before that, he was the lead coordinator of international trade policy for the Bush-Cheney transition team. "
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Project for the New American Century: Letter to Congress on Increasing U.S. Ground Forces
Project for the New American Century: "Letter to Congress on Increasing U.S. Ground Forces | January 28, 2005
Dear Senator Frist, Senator Reid, Speaker Hastert, and Representative Pelosi:
The United States military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume. Those responsibilities are real and important. They are not going away. The United States will not and should not become less engaged in the world in the years to come. But our national security, global peace and stability, and the defense and promotion of freedom in the post-9/11 world require a larger military force than we have today. The administration has unfortunately resisted increasing our ground forces to the size needed to meet today's (and tomorrow's) missions and challenges."
...
In sum: We can afford the military we need. As a nation, we are spending a smaller percentage of our GDP on the military than at any time during the Cold War. ...
Respectfully,
Peter Beinart Jeffrey Bergner Daniel Blumenthal
Max Boot Eliot Cohen Ivo H. Daalder
Thomas Donnelly Michele Flournoy Frank F. Gaffney, Jr.
Reuel Marc Gerecht Lt. Gen. Buster C. Glosson (USAF, retired)
Bruce P. Jackson Frederick Kagan Robert Kagan
Craig Kennedy Paul Kennedy Col. Robert Killebrew (USA, retired)
William Kristol Will Marshall Clifford May
Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey (USA, retired) Daniel McKivergan
Joshua Muravchik Steven J. Nider Michael O'Hanlon
Mackubin Thomas Owens Ralph Peters Danielle Pletka
Stephen P. Rosen Major Gen. Robert H. Scales (USA, retired)
Randy Scheunemann Gary Schmitt
Walter Slocombe James B. Steinberg
Dear Senator Frist, Senator Reid, Speaker Hastert, and Representative Pelosi:
The United States military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume. Those responsibilities are real and important. They are not going away. The United States will not and should not become less engaged in the world in the years to come. But our national security, global peace and stability, and the defense and promotion of freedom in the post-9/11 world require a larger military force than we have today. The administration has unfortunately resisted increasing our ground forces to the size needed to meet today's (and tomorrow's) missions and challenges."
...
In sum: We can afford the military we need. As a nation, we are spending a smaller percentage of our GDP on the military than at any time during the Cold War. ...
Respectfully,
Peter Beinart Jeffrey Bergner Daniel Blumenthal
Max Boot Eliot Cohen Ivo H. Daalder
Thomas Donnelly Michele Flournoy Frank F. Gaffney, Jr.
Reuel Marc Gerecht Lt. Gen. Buster C. Glosson (USAF, retired)
Bruce P. Jackson Frederick Kagan Robert Kagan
Craig Kennedy Paul Kennedy Col. Robert Killebrew (USA, retired)
William Kristol Will Marshall Clifford May
Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey (USA, retired) Daniel McKivergan
Joshua Muravchik Steven J. Nider Michael O'Hanlon
Mackubin Thomas Owens Ralph Peters Danielle Pletka
Stephen P. Rosen Major Gen. Robert H. Scales (USA, retired)
Randy Scheunemann Gary Schmitt
Walter Slocombe James B. Steinberg
Feith Resigns Under Pressure of Investigations
Informed Comment: "Friday, January 28, 2005 | Feith Resigns Under Pressure of Investigations | Juan Cole
Douglas Feith, the number three man at the Pentagon who went there from the pro-Likud Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Project for a New American Century, will leave the Pentagon as of this summer. Feith's office is the subject of an FBI investigation as well as two Congressional investigations, one by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Feith helped set up an Office of Special Plans in the Near East and South Asia desk of the Pentagon to cherry-pick Iraq intelligence and create a case for Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and having operational links with al-Qaeda. At one point, contrary to Federal law, Feith's people actually briefed officials in the Executive on intelligence. Feith sent David Wurmser from the Office of Special Plans, once its work was well under way, over to the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney, so that he could stove pipe OSP analyses into the VP's office and thence directly to the president, doing an end run around the CIA and the State Department Intelligence and Research division.
Having a Likudnik as the number three man in the Pentagon is a nightmare for American national security, since Feith could never be trusted to put US interests over those of Ariel Sharon. In the build-up to the Iraq War, Feith had a phalanx of Israeli generals visiting him in the Pentagon and ignored post-9/11 requirements that they sign in. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was a vocal advocate of a US war against Iraq, who 'put pressure' on Washington about it. (If Sharon wanted a war against Iraq, why didn't he fight it himself instead of pushing it off on American boys?) "
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It is also important to underline that only a small minority of American Jews support the Likud Party or its policies, and that a majority of Jewish Americans opposed the Iraq war. In short, the problematic nature of Feith's tenure at the Department of Defense must not be made an excuse for any kind of bigotry.
Douglas Feith, the number three man at the Pentagon who went there from the pro-Likud Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Project for a New American Century, will leave the Pentagon as of this summer. Feith's office is the subject of an FBI investigation as well as two Congressional investigations, one by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Feith helped set up an Office of Special Plans in the Near East and South Asia desk of the Pentagon to cherry-pick Iraq intelligence and create a case for Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and having operational links with al-Qaeda. At one point, contrary to Federal law, Feith's people actually briefed officials in the Executive on intelligence. Feith sent David Wurmser from the Office of Special Plans, once its work was well under way, over to the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney, so that he could stove pipe OSP analyses into the VP's office and thence directly to the president, doing an end run around the CIA and the State Department Intelligence and Research division.
Having a Likudnik as the number three man in the Pentagon is a nightmare for American national security, since Feith could never be trusted to put US interests over those of Ariel Sharon. In the build-up to the Iraq War, Feith had a phalanx of Israeli generals visiting him in the Pentagon and ignored post-9/11 requirements that they sign in. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was a vocal advocate of a US war against Iraq, who 'put pressure' on Washington about it. (If Sharon wanted a war against Iraq, why didn't he fight it himself instead of pushing it off on American boys?) "
...
It is also important to underline that only a small minority of American Jews support the Likud Party or its policies, and that a majority of Jewish Americans opposed the Iraq war. In short, the problematic nature of Feith's tenure at the Department of Defense must not be made an excuse for any kind of bigotry.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Bush Pulls 'Neocons' Out of the Shadows - "then it means we have an extremist in the White House"
Bush Pulls 'Neocons' Out of the Shadows - Independent Media TVBy: Doyle McManus | January 22, 2005| Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — In the unending struggle over American foreign policy that consumes much of official Washington, one side claimed a victory this week: the neoconservatives, that determined band of hawkish idealists who promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq (news - web sites) and now seek to bring democracy to the rest of the Middle East.
For more than a year, since the occupation of Iraq turned into the Bush administration's biggest headache, many of the "neocons" have lowered their profiles and muted their rhetoric. During President Bush (news - web sites)'s reelection campaign, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the leading voices for invading Iraq, virtually disappeared from public view.
But on Thursday, Bush proclaimed in his inaugural address that the central purpose of his second term would be the promotion of democracy "in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" — a key neoconservative goal. Suddenly, the neocons were ascendant again.
"This is real neoconservatism," said Robert Kagan, a foreign policy scholar who has been a leading exponent of neocon thinking — and who sometimes has criticized the administration for not being neocon enough. "It would be hard to express it more clearly. If people were expecting Bush to rein in his ambitions and enthusiasms after the first term, they are discovering that they were wrong."
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On the other side of the Republican foreign policy divide, a leading "realist" — an exponent of the view that promoting democracy is nice, but not the central goal of U.S. foreign policy — agreed.
"If Bush means it literally, then it means we have an extremist in the White House," said Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center, a conservative think tank that reveres the less idealistic policies of Richard Nixon. "I hope and pray that he didn't mean it … [and] that it was merely an inspirational speech, not practical guidance for the conduct of foreign policy." ...
WASHINGTON — In the unending struggle over American foreign policy that consumes much of official Washington, one side claimed a victory this week: the neoconservatives, that determined band of hawkish idealists who promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq (news - web sites) and now seek to bring democracy to the rest of the Middle East.
For more than a year, since the occupation of Iraq turned into the Bush administration's biggest headache, many of the "neocons" have lowered their profiles and muted their rhetoric. During President Bush (news - web sites)'s reelection campaign, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the leading voices for invading Iraq, virtually disappeared from public view.
But on Thursday, Bush proclaimed in his inaugural address that the central purpose of his second term would be the promotion of democracy "in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" — a key neoconservative goal. Suddenly, the neocons were ascendant again.
"This is real neoconservatism," said Robert Kagan, a foreign policy scholar who has been a leading exponent of neocon thinking — and who sometimes has criticized the administration for not being neocon enough. "It would be hard to express it more clearly. If people were expecting Bush to rein in his ambitions and enthusiasms after the first term, they are discovering that they were wrong."
...
On the other side of the Republican foreign policy divide, a leading "realist" — an exponent of the view that promoting democracy is nice, but not the central goal of U.S. foreign policy — agreed.
"If Bush means it literally, then it means we have an extremist in the White House," said Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center, a conservative think tank that reveres the less idealistic policies of Richard Nixon. "I hope and pray that he didn't mean it … [and] that it was merely an inspirational speech, not practical guidance for the conduct of foreign policy." ...
Excite News
Excite News: "Democrats Call Rice Liar and a Apologist | Jan 25, 5:56 PM (ET) | By ANNE GEARAN
WASHINGTON (AP) - One Senate Democrat called Condoleezza Rice a liar Tuesday and others said she was an apologist for Bush administration failures in Iraq, but she remained on track for confirmation as secretary of state.
Rice, who has been President Bush's White House national security adviser for four years, was one of the loudest voices urging war, Democrats said. She repeatedly deceived members of Congress and Americans at large about justifications for the war, said Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn.
"I don't like impugning anyone's integrity, but I really don't like being lied to," Dayton said. "Repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally."
...
"My vote against this nominee is my statement that this administration's lies must stop now," Dayton said in opposing Rice's nomination on the Senate floor.
Politicians rarely use the word "lie," preferring some of the milder terms other Democrats used Tuesday.
(AP) Sen. Barbara Boxer D-Calif. speaks during the Senate debate on the confirmation of Condoleezza Rice...
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"There was no reason to go to war in Iraq when we did, the way we did and for the false reasons we were given," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.
Rice is not directly responsible for intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war that overestimated Saddam's nuclear capability, said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. "But she is responsible for her own distortions and exaggerations of the intelligence which was provided to her," Levin said.
"Dr. Rice is responsible for some of the most overblown rhetoric that the administration used to scare the American people," Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said. ...
WASHINGTON (AP) - One Senate Democrat called Condoleezza Rice a liar Tuesday and others said she was an apologist for Bush administration failures in Iraq, but she remained on track for confirmation as secretary of state.
Rice, who has been President Bush's White House national security adviser for four years, was one of the loudest voices urging war, Democrats said. She repeatedly deceived members of Congress and Americans at large about justifications for the war, said Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn.
"I don't like impugning anyone's integrity, but I really don't like being lied to," Dayton said. "Repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally."
...
"My vote against this nominee is my statement that this administration's lies must stop now," Dayton said in opposing Rice's nomination on the Senate floor.
Politicians rarely use the word "lie," preferring some of the milder terms other Democrats used Tuesday.
(AP) Sen. Barbara Boxer D-Calif. speaks during the Senate debate on the confirmation of Condoleezza Rice...
Full Image
"There was no reason to go to war in Iraq when we did, the way we did and for the false reasons we were given," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.
Rice is not directly responsible for intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war that overestimated Saddam's nuclear capability, said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. "But she is responsible for her own distortions and exaggerations of the intelligence which was provided to her," Levin said.
"Dr. Rice is responsible for some of the most overblown rhetoric that the administration used to scare the American people," Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said. ...
Monday, January 24, 2005
‘God-drenched’ pledges of the president split Republicans: "endless war" ... “somewhere between dreamy and disturbing”
Times Online - Sunday TimesJanuary 23, 2005 |‘God-drenched’ pledges of the president split Republicans | Tony Allen-Mills
PRESIDENT George Bush’s bold inauguration vow to end tyranny around the world does not amount to a “right turn” or signal dramatic changes in US foreign policy, according to senior administration officials.
Startled by reaction to what one well-known Republican described as the president’s “God-drenched” speech, the White House has discouraged speculation that Bush is embarking on a crusade to spread democracy around the globe.
...
The high-flown language used by Bush, notably his commitment to “the great objective of ending tyranny”, thrilled his neoconservative supporters, some of whom had worried that difficulties in Iraq might curb the president’s enthusiasm for promoting democracy abroad.
“It was a rare inaugural speech that will go down as a historic speech, I believe,” said Bill Kristol, one of several neoconservative thinkers who were consulted by the White House before the speech was written.
Other conservative Republicans were dismayed by the president’s missionary zeal. Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, found the oratory “somewhere between dreamy and disturbing”. ...
...
Patrick Buchanan, the former right-wing presidential candidate, said Bush had asserted a right “to intervene in the internal affairs of every nation on earth and that is, quite simply, a recipe for endless war. And war is the death of republics.”
PRESIDENT George Bush’s bold inauguration vow to end tyranny around the world does not amount to a “right turn” or signal dramatic changes in US foreign policy, according to senior administration officials.
Startled by reaction to what one well-known Republican described as the president’s “God-drenched” speech, the White House has discouraged speculation that Bush is embarking on a crusade to spread democracy around the globe.
...
The high-flown language used by Bush, notably his commitment to “the great objective of ending tyranny”, thrilled his neoconservative supporters, some of whom had worried that difficulties in Iraq might curb the president’s enthusiasm for promoting democracy abroad.
“It was a rare inaugural speech that will go down as a historic speech, I believe,” said Bill Kristol, one of several neoconservative thinkers who were consulted by the White House before the speech was written.
Other conservative Republicans were dismayed by the president’s missionary zeal. Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, found the oratory “somewhere between dreamy and disturbing”. ...
...
Patrick Buchanan, the former right-wing presidential candidate, said Bush had asserted a right “to intervene in the internal affairs of every nation on earth and that is, quite simply, a recipe for endless war. And war is the death of republics.”
Pentagon spy network revealed [... a new version parallel to the "Office of Special Plans" behind the war in Iraq? ed.]
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Pentagon spy network revealed: "Dan Glaister in Los Angeles | Monday January 24, 2005 | The Guardian
A previously unknown intelligence programme set up two years ago by the Pentagon has been operating in states deemed to be 'emerging target countries', the Washington Post reported yesterday.
...
The programme reportedly conducts operations in friendly and unfriendly states where conventional war might not even be a distant prospect. It deploys intelligence officers, including linguists, technical specialists and interrogators, alongside secret special forces in countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, the Philippines and Georgia, the Washington Post said.
The deployment of the unit further muddies the issue of accountability for covert and clandestine intelligence operations in the "war on terror". The programme was established by diverting existing Pentagon funds, thus freeing it from any congressional oversight.
Recent administration guidelines suggest that the Pentagon need not report all "deployment orders" to Congress, as it did previously. Pentagon lawyers argue that by defining the "war on terror" as indefinite, global and ongoing, the defence secretary's war powers are extended beyond times of imminent combat.
A previously unknown intelligence programme set up two years ago by the Pentagon has been operating in states deemed to be 'emerging target countries', the Washington Post reported yesterday.
...
The programme reportedly conducts operations in friendly and unfriendly states where conventional war might not even be a distant prospect. It deploys intelligence officers, including linguists, technical specialists and interrogators, alongside secret special forces in countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, the Philippines and Georgia, the Washington Post said.
The deployment of the unit further muddies the issue of accountability for covert and clandestine intelligence operations in the "war on terror". The programme was established by diverting existing Pentagon funds, thus freeing it from any congressional oversight.
Recent administration guidelines suggest that the Pentagon need not report all "deployment orders" to Congress, as it did previously. Pentagon lawyers argue that by defining the "war on terror" as indefinite, global and ongoing, the defence secretary's war powers are extended beyond times of imminent combat.
Friday, January 21, 2005
Leo Strauss' Philosophy of Deception: Deception, Religiosity, Nationalism
AlterNet: Leo Strauss' Philosophy of Deception: "By Jim Lobe, AlterNet. Posted May 19, 2003.
Many neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz are disciples of a philosopher who believed that the elite should use deception, religious fervor and perpetual war to control the ignorant masses.
What would you do if you wanted to topple Saddam Hussein, but your intelligence agencies couldn't find the evidence to justify a war?
A follower of Leo Strauss may just hire the "right" kind of men to get the job done – people with the intellect, acuity, and, if necessary, the political commitment, polemical skills, and, above all, the imagination to find the evidence that career intelligence officers could not detect.
The "right" man for Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, suggests Seymour Hersh in his recent New Yorker article entitled 'Selective Intelligence,' was Abram Shulsky, director of the Office of Special Plans (OSP) – an agency created specifically to find the evidence of WMDs and/or links with Al Qaeda, piece it together, and clinch the case for the invasion of Iraq.
Like Wolfowitz, Shulsky is a student of an obscure German Jewish political philosopher named Leo Strauss who arrived in the United States in 1938. Strauss taught at several major universities, including Wolfowitz and Shulsky's alma mater, the University of Chicago, before his death in 1973.
Strauss is a popular figure among the neoconservatives. Adherents of his ideas include prominent figures both within and outside the administration. They include 'Weekly Standard' editor William Kristol; his father and indeed the godfather of the neoconservative movement, Irving Kristol; the new Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen Cambone, a number of senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) (home to former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle and Lynne Cheney), and Gary Schmitt, the director of the influential Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which is chaired by Kristol the Younger.
Rule One: Deception
It's hardly surprising then why Strauss is so popular in an administration obsessed with secrecy, especially when it comes to matters of foreign policy. Not only did Strauss have few qualms about using deception in politics, he saw it as a necessity. While professing deep respect for American democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical – divided between an elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow. ...
Second Principle: Power of Religion
According to Drury, Strauss had a "huge contempt" for secular democracy. Nazism, he believed, was a nihilistic reaction to the irreligious and liberal nature of the Weimar Republic. Among other neoconservatives, Irving Kristol has long argued for a much greater role for religion in the public sphere, even suggesting that the Founding Fathers of the American Republic made a major mistake by insisting on the separation of church and state. And why? Because Strauss viewed religion as absolutely essential in order to impose moral law on the masses who otherwise would be out of control.
Third Principle: Aggressive Nationalism
Like Thomas Hobbes, Strauss believed that the inherently aggressive nature of human beings could only be restrained by a powerful nationalistic state. "Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed," he once wrote. "Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united – and they can only be united against other people."
Not surprisingly, Strauss' attitude toward foreign policy was distinctly Machiavellian. "Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat," Drury wrote in her book. "Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured (emphases added)."
"Perpetual war, not perpetual peace, is what Straussians believe in," says Drury.
Many neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz are disciples of a philosopher who believed that the elite should use deception, religious fervor and perpetual war to control the ignorant masses.
What would you do if you wanted to topple Saddam Hussein, but your intelligence agencies couldn't find the evidence to justify a war?
A follower of Leo Strauss may just hire the "right" kind of men to get the job done – people with the intellect, acuity, and, if necessary, the political commitment, polemical skills, and, above all, the imagination to find the evidence that career intelligence officers could not detect.
The "right" man for Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, suggests Seymour Hersh in his recent New Yorker article entitled 'Selective Intelligence,' was Abram Shulsky, director of the Office of Special Plans (OSP) – an agency created specifically to find the evidence of WMDs and/or links with Al Qaeda, piece it together, and clinch the case for the invasion of Iraq.
Like Wolfowitz, Shulsky is a student of an obscure German Jewish political philosopher named Leo Strauss who arrived in the United States in 1938. Strauss taught at several major universities, including Wolfowitz and Shulsky's alma mater, the University of Chicago, before his death in 1973.
Strauss is a popular figure among the neoconservatives. Adherents of his ideas include prominent figures both within and outside the administration. They include 'Weekly Standard' editor William Kristol; his father and indeed the godfather of the neoconservative movement, Irving Kristol; the new Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen Cambone, a number of senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) (home to former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle and Lynne Cheney), and Gary Schmitt, the director of the influential Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which is chaired by Kristol the Younger.
Rule One: Deception
It's hardly surprising then why Strauss is so popular in an administration obsessed with secrecy, especially when it comes to matters of foreign policy. Not only did Strauss have few qualms about using deception in politics, he saw it as a necessity. While professing deep respect for American democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical – divided between an elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow. ...
Second Principle: Power of Religion
According to Drury, Strauss had a "huge contempt" for secular democracy. Nazism, he believed, was a nihilistic reaction to the irreligious and liberal nature of the Weimar Republic. Among other neoconservatives, Irving Kristol has long argued for a much greater role for religion in the public sphere, even suggesting that the Founding Fathers of the American Republic made a major mistake by insisting on the separation of church and state. And why? Because Strauss viewed religion as absolutely essential in order to impose moral law on the masses who otherwise would be out of control.
Third Principle: Aggressive Nationalism
Like Thomas Hobbes, Strauss believed that the inherently aggressive nature of human beings could only be restrained by a powerful nationalistic state. "Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed," he once wrote. "Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united – and they can only be united against other people."
Not surprisingly, Strauss' attitude toward foreign policy was distinctly Machiavellian. "Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat," Drury wrote in her book. "Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured (emphases added)."
"Perpetual war, not perpetual peace, is what Straussians believe in," says Drury.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
(DV) Amr: From Axis of Evil to Exit Door for Weasels
(DV) Amr: From Axis of Evil to Exit Door for Weasels: "by Ahmed Amr | www.dissidentvoice.org | January 17, 2005
In making the case for the war against Iraq, the Bush administration insisted that Iraq had WMDs and intimate relationships with Bin Laden. Two years and a billion dollars later -- the search is over and the president will stage his inauguration party with yet another dry hole on his hands ....
Neither does the absence of WMDs bother the Likudnik neo-con architects of the war who played a decisive role in manufacturing the so-called “intelligence failure” - with the capable assistance of rogue intelligence operatives in the Office of Special Plans. As Wolfowitz has already admitted, the WMDs were just a convenient pretext ...
...
It might still be useful to probe the ideological background of the neocon chicken hawks like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and Elliot Abrams. Virtually all the major actors who promoted this quagmire trace their roots to think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute -- which is nothing more than a front organization for the Israeli lobby. One of the most intriguing aspects of this conflict is the intense coordination by neocon insiders with their fellow travelers in the mass media – like Judith Miller and Charles Krauthammer - who played a vital role in marketing this conflict to a gullible audience. ...
...
This is hardly the outcome that was expected by the neo-con wizards. But, no worries. George Bush has his spin teams hard at work. As his occupation army evacuates the Green Zone and hands over the keys of Abu Ghraib, and as Marine helicopters make one last reconnaissance flight over the ruins of Fallujah, Bush will declare that the United States has fought the good fight to bring democracy to Iraq. He can count on most Americans to buy that line. A good percentage of them continue to believe that WMDs have already been found and that Saddam was personally responsible for the 9/11 attacks....
In making the case for the war against Iraq, the Bush administration insisted that Iraq had WMDs and intimate relationships with Bin Laden. Two years and a billion dollars later -- the search is over and the president will stage his inauguration party with yet another dry hole on his hands ....
Neither does the absence of WMDs bother the Likudnik neo-con architects of the war who played a decisive role in manufacturing the so-called “intelligence failure” - with the capable assistance of rogue intelligence operatives in the Office of Special Plans. As Wolfowitz has already admitted, the WMDs were just a convenient pretext ...
...
It might still be useful to probe the ideological background of the neocon chicken hawks like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and Elliot Abrams. Virtually all the major actors who promoted this quagmire trace their roots to think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute -- which is nothing more than a front organization for the Israeli lobby. One of the most intriguing aspects of this conflict is the intense coordination by neocon insiders with their fellow travelers in the mass media – like Judith Miller and Charles Krauthammer - who played a vital role in marketing this conflict to a gullible audience. ...
...
This is hardly the outcome that was expected by the neo-con wizards. But, no worries. George Bush has his spin teams hard at work. As his occupation army evacuates the Green Zone and hands over the keys of Abu Ghraib, and as Marine helicopters make one last reconnaissance flight over the ruins of Fallujah, Bush will declare that the United States has fought the good fight to bring democracy to Iraq. He can count on most Americans to buy that line. A good percentage of them continue to believe that WMDs have already been found and that Saddam was personally responsible for the 9/11 attacks....
Bush: vindicated by his re-election and he did not need to hold to account any of the officials responsible for the miscalculations
Telegraph | News | The voters stood by me on Iraq, says Bush: "The voters stood by me on Iraq, says Bush
By Alec Russell in Washington
(Filed: 17/01/2005)
President George W Bush said yesterday the mission in Iraq had been vindicated by his re-election and he did not need to hold to account any of the officials responsible for the miscalculations before or after the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
'We had an accountability moment and that's called the 2004 elections,' he told the Washington Post."
By Alec Russell in Washington
(Filed: 17/01/2005)
President George W Bush said yesterday the mission in Iraq had been vindicated by his re-election and he did not need to hold to account any of the officials responsible for the miscalculations before or after the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
'We had an accountability moment and that's called the 2004 elections,' he told the Washington Post."
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Senator Boxer Proves Conde Rice a Liar
Senator Boxer Proves Conde Rice a Liar Sam Hamod
01/18/05 "Information Clearing House" -- This morning, at 9.40 a.m., Senator Barbara Boxer listed fact after fact, statements by Conde Rice, that showed she contradicted herself time and again about Al Qaeda, about Saddam and his alleged WMD’s, and his intentions—all of which led us into war against Iraq. Boxer even went on to show that Conde Rice, even recently, was lying the more in contradicting statements by the CIA’s own intelligence reports, contradicting statements by President Bush, and that her support for administration policies was stronger than her support for the safety of our nation.
...
Among the things that Senator Boxer pointed out were these contradictions: 1. Rice said that Al Qaeda areas had shrunk; Boxer pointed out that Al Qaeda now had more lands in which it was operating than before the war on Iraq; 2. Rice said that the war was not about WMD’s; Boxer pointed out that the congress supported the response based on fear of WMD’s and atomic weapons that the administration claimed existed in a dangerous situation for the U.S.; 3. Rice said that Saddam had worked with Al Qaeda; Boxer pointed out that they were enemies and no cooperation; 4. Rice said we’d made progress in the Arab and Muslims worlds; Boxer pointed out that there was more anger against America in Muslim and Arab lands since the invasion of Iraq, not less—this according to the CIA’s own intelligence bureau and the president’s own committee on combating terrorism; 5. Rice said that Al Qaeda was now more under control; Boxer pointed out that every governmental agency that has looked at the situation has made clear that Al Qaeda has appealed to more jihadist Muslims than anyone had ever imagined—Bin Laden’s hope had come true because of our attack on Iraq which proved to them that America was attacking and desiring to take-over Arab and Muslim lands. There were other points, but these are but a few. During this time, Rice would quote Bush when she felt it was helpful, but even then Boxer pointed out when she contradicted the president when it suited her self-defense (especially with reference to Saddam and his alleged “nuclear weapons”, his infamous aluminum tubes and his “nuclear facilities.”) ...
01/18/05 "Information Clearing House" -- This morning, at 9.40 a.m., Senator Barbara Boxer listed fact after fact, statements by Conde Rice, that showed she contradicted herself time and again about Al Qaeda, about Saddam and his alleged WMD’s, and his intentions—all of which led us into war against Iraq. Boxer even went on to show that Conde Rice, even recently, was lying the more in contradicting statements by the CIA’s own intelligence reports, contradicting statements by President Bush, and that her support for administration policies was stronger than her support for the safety of our nation.
...
Among the things that Senator Boxer pointed out were these contradictions: 1. Rice said that Al Qaeda areas had shrunk; Boxer pointed out that Al Qaeda now had more lands in which it was operating than before the war on Iraq; 2. Rice said that the war was not about WMD’s; Boxer pointed out that the congress supported the response based on fear of WMD’s and atomic weapons that the administration claimed existed in a dangerous situation for the U.S.; 3. Rice said that Saddam had worked with Al Qaeda; Boxer pointed out that they were enemies and no cooperation; 4. Rice said we’d made progress in the Arab and Muslims worlds; Boxer pointed out that there was more anger against America in Muslim and Arab lands since the invasion of Iraq, not less—this according to the CIA’s own intelligence bureau and the president’s own committee on combating terrorism; 5. Rice said that Al Qaeda was now more under control; Boxer pointed out that every governmental agency that has looked at the situation has made clear that Al Qaeda has appealed to more jihadist Muslims than anyone had ever imagined—Bin Laden’s hope had come true because of our attack on Iraq which proved to them that America was attacking and desiring to take-over Arab and Muslim lands. There were other points, but these are but a few. During this time, Rice would quote Bush when she felt it was helpful, but even then Boxer pointed out when she contradicted the president when it suited her self-defense (especially with reference to Saddam and his alleged “nuclear weapons”, his infamous aluminum tubes and his “nuclear facilities.”) ...
Monday, January 17, 2005
The Vote on Mr. Gonzales (washingtonpost.com): He does not deserve to be confirmed as attorney general.
The Vote on Mr. Gonzales (washingtonpost.com): "The Vote on Mr. Gonzales
Sunday, January 16, 2005; Page B06
DESPITE A POOR performance at his confirmation hearing, Alberto R. Gonzales appears almost certain to be confirmed by the Senate as attorney general. Senators of both parties declared themselves dissatisfied with Mr. Gonzales's lack of responsiveness to questions about his judgments as White House counsel on the detention of foreign prisoners. Some expressed dismay at his reluctance to state that it is illegal for American personnel to use torture, or for the president to order it. A number of senators clearly believe, as we do, that Mr. Gonzales bears partial responsibility for decisions that have led to shocking, systematic and ongoing violations of human rights by the United States. Most apparently intend to vote for him anyway. At a time when nominees for the Cabinet can be disqualified because of their failure to pay taxes on a nanny's salary, this reluctance to hold Mr. Gonzales accountable is shameful. He does not deserve to be confirmed as attorney general. "
Sunday, January 16, 2005; Page B06
DESPITE A POOR performance at his confirmation hearing, Alberto R. Gonzales appears almost certain to be confirmed by the Senate as attorney general. Senators of both parties declared themselves dissatisfied with Mr. Gonzales's lack of responsiveness to questions about his judgments as White House counsel on the detention of foreign prisoners. Some expressed dismay at his reluctance to state that it is illegal for American personnel to use torture, or for the president to order it. A number of senators clearly believe, as we do, that Mr. Gonzales bears partial responsibility for decisions that have led to shocking, systematic and ongoing violations of human rights by the United States. Most apparently intend to vote for him anyway. At a time when nominees for the Cabinet can be disqualified because of their failure to pay taxes on a nanny's salary, this reluctance to hold Mr. Gonzales accountable is shameful. He does not deserve to be confirmed as attorney general. "
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Pipes Favors Concentration Camps
Pipes Favors Concentration CampsWhy the Japanese internment still matters | By Daniel Pipes | Middle East Forum
12/30/04 "Star-Telegram" -- For years, it has been my position that the threat of radical Islam implies an imperative to focus security measures on Muslims. If searching for rapists, one looks only at the male population. Similarly, if searching for Islamists (adherents of radical Islam), one looks at the Muslim population.
And so, I was encouraged by a just-released Cornell University opinion survey that finds nearly half the U.S. population agreeing with this proposition.
Specifically, 44 percent of Americans believe that government authorities should direct special attention toward Muslims living in the United States, either by registering their whereabouts, profiling them, monitoring their mosques or infiltrating their organizations.
That's the good news; the bad news is the near-universal disapproval of this realism. Leftist and Islamist organizations have so successfully influenced public opinion that polite society shies away from endorsing a focus on Muslims.
In the United States, this intimidation results in large part from a revisionist interpretation of the evacuation, relocation and internment of ethnic Japanese during World War II.
Denying that the treatment of ethnic Japanese resulted from legitimate national security concerns, this lobby has established that it resulted solely from a combination of "wartime hysteria" and "racial prejudice."
As radical groups like the American Civil Liberties Union wield this interpretation, in the words of columnist Michelle Malkin, "like a bludgeon over the War on Terror debate," they pre-empt efforts to build an effective defense against today's Islamist enemy.
12/30/04 "Star-Telegram" -- For years, it has been my position that the threat of radical Islam implies an imperative to focus security measures on Muslims. If searching for rapists, one looks only at the male population. Similarly, if searching for Islamists (adherents of radical Islam), one looks at the Muslim population.
And so, I was encouraged by a just-released Cornell University opinion survey that finds nearly half the U.S. population agreeing with this proposition.
Specifically, 44 percent of Americans believe that government authorities should direct special attention toward Muslims living in the United States, either by registering their whereabouts, profiling them, monitoring their mosques or infiltrating their organizations.
That's the good news; the bad news is the near-universal disapproval of this realism. Leftist and Islamist organizations have so successfully influenced public opinion that polite society shies away from endorsing a focus on Muslims.
In the United States, this intimidation results in large part from a revisionist interpretation of the evacuation, relocation and internment of ethnic Japanese during World War II.
Denying that the treatment of ethnic Japanese resulted from legitimate national security concerns, this lobby has established that it resulted solely from a combination of "wartime hysteria" and "racial prejudice."
As radical groups like the American Civil Liberties Union wield this interpretation, in the words of columnist Michelle Malkin, "like a bludgeon over the War on Terror debate," they pre-empt efforts to build an effective defense against today's Islamist enemy.
Friday, December 31, 2004
A state of chaos: transition to President Bush's second term, filled with backstage betrayals, plots ... an excellent chapter of I, Claudius
Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | A state of chaos: "A state of chaos | Sidney Blumenthal | Thursday December 30, 2004 | The Guardian
George Bush has purged the last of his father's senior advisers, handing over control to his neocon allies
The transition to President Bush's second term, filled with backstage betrayals, plots and pathologies, would make for an excellent chapter of I, Claudius. To begin with, Bush has unceremoniously and without public acknowledgement dumped Brent Scowcroft, his father's closest associate and friend, as chairman of the foreign intelligence advisory board. ...
At the same time the vice president, Dick Cheney, has imposed his authority over secretary of state designate Condoleezza Rice, in order to blackball Arnold Kanter, former under secretary of state to James Baker and partner in the Scowcroft Group, as a candidate for deputy secretary of state.
...
Rice may have wanted to appoint as a deputy her old friend Robert Blackwill, whom she had put in charge of Iraq at the NSC. But Blackwill, a mercurial personality, allegedly assaulted a female US foreign service officer in Kuwait, and was forced to resign in November. Secretary of state Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, presented the evidence against Blackwill to Rice. "Condi only dismissed him after Powell and Armitage threatened to go public," a state department source said.
...
Meanwhile, key senior state department professionals, such as Marc Grossman, assistant secretary of state for European affairs, have abruptly resigned. According to colleagues who have chosen to remain (at least for now), they foresee the damage that will be done as Rice is charged with whipping the state department into line with the White House and Pentagon neocons. Rice has pleaded with Armitage to stay on, but "he colourfully said he would not", a state department official told me ...
...
The rejection of Kanter is a compound rejection of Scowcroft and of James Baker - the tough, results-oriented operator who as White House chief of staff saved the Reagan presidency from its ideologues, managed the elder Bush's campaign in 1988, and was summoned in 2000 to rescue Junior in Florida. In his 1995 memoir, Baker observed that the administration's "overriding strategic concern in the [first] Gulf war was to avoid what we often referred to as the Lebanonisation of Iraq, which we believed would create a geopolitical nightmare."
In private, Baker is scathing about the current occupant of the White House [Bush]. Now the one indispensable creator of the Bush family political fortunes is repudiated.
...
The outgoing secretary of state [Colin Powell], fighting his last battle, is leaking stories to the Washington Post about how his advice went unheeded. ...
George Bush has purged the last of his father's senior advisers, handing over control to his neocon allies
The transition to President Bush's second term, filled with backstage betrayals, plots and pathologies, would make for an excellent chapter of I, Claudius. To begin with, Bush has unceremoniously and without public acknowledgement dumped Brent Scowcroft, his father's closest associate and friend, as chairman of the foreign intelligence advisory board. ...
At the same time the vice president, Dick Cheney, has imposed his authority over secretary of state designate Condoleezza Rice, in order to blackball Arnold Kanter, former under secretary of state to James Baker and partner in the Scowcroft Group, as a candidate for deputy secretary of state.
...
Rice may have wanted to appoint as a deputy her old friend Robert Blackwill, whom she had put in charge of Iraq at the NSC. But Blackwill, a mercurial personality, allegedly assaulted a female US foreign service officer in Kuwait, and was forced to resign in November. Secretary of state Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, presented the evidence against Blackwill to Rice. "Condi only dismissed him after Powell and Armitage threatened to go public," a state department source said.
...
Meanwhile, key senior state department professionals, such as Marc Grossman, assistant secretary of state for European affairs, have abruptly resigned. According to colleagues who have chosen to remain (at least for now), they foresee the damage that will be done as Rice is charged with whipping the state department into line with the White House and Pentagon neocons. Rice has pleaded with Armitage to stay on, but "he colourfully said he would not", a state department official told me ...
...
The rejection of Kanter is a compound rejection of Scowcroft and of James Baker - the tough, results-oriented operator who as White House chief of staff saved the Reagan presidency from its ideologues, managed the elder Bush's campaign in 1988, and was summoned in 2000 to rescue Junior in Florida. In his 1995 memoir, Baker observed that the administration's "overriding strategic concern in the [first] Gulf war was to avoid what we often referred to as the Lebanonisation of Iraq, which we believed would create a geopolitical nightmare."
In private, Baker is scathing about the current occupant of the White House [Bush]. Now the one indispensable creator of the Bush family political fortunes is repudiated.
...
The outgoing secretary of state [Colin Powell], fighting his last battle, is leaking stories to the Washington Post about how his advice went unheeded. ...
Why is Rumsfeld being stabbed in the back [neo-cons]? When Rumsfeld goes, so too should every neo-conservative ....
Neo-cons can't escape responsibility for their Iraq miscalculations: "Neo-cons can't escape responsibility for their Iraq miscalculations
By Joseph L. Galloway
Knight Ridder Newspapers
12/29/04 'Knight Ridder' -- WASHINGTON - The most curious turn of the worm this season is the attack by the neo-conservatives on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the failures in Iraq.
It should be noted that until now Rumsfeld was the darling of that same bunch. He hired a batch of them as his most trusted aides and assistants in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Paul Wolfowitz as his undersecretary. Douglas Feith as his chief of planning. He installed the dean of the pack, Richard Perle, as chairman of the Defense Policy Board for a time.
The doyenne and room mother of the whole bunch, Midge Decter, wrote a fawning biography of Rumsfeld titled "Rumsfeld: A Personal Portrait."
Now, suddenly, the voice of the neo-conservative movement, William Kristol, editor of The Standard, suggests that Rumsfeld has fouled up everything in Iraq and ought to be fired for his failures. Ditto, writes Tom Donnelly of the right-thinking American Enterprise Institute.
Rumsfeld himself was never a neo-conservative. He just found them useful as he took over the Pentagon for the second time. Clearly the neo-cons found Rumsfeld useful as well as they pushed their ideas on transforming the Middle East.
So what happened? Why is Rumsfeld being stabbed in the back by those he trusted the most to back his play? By the very people who have argued for years in favor of taking out Saddam Hussein, installing democracy and creating a bully pulpit, and the military bases, from which the Middle East would be weaned from dictatorship and an implacable hatred of Israel and the United States.
Simple. They want someone else to be blamed besides them for fouling up their marvelous plans and schemes - someone who is a handy lightning rod and who is NOT a card-carrying neo-conservative...
...
We do not for a minute suggest that Rumsfeld be let off the hook, be absolved of responsibility for gross miscalculations and gross lack of planning in the Iraq war and, especially, the post-war period. But neither do we absolve the neo-conservatives for shooting the horse they've been riding the last four years.
...
When Rumsfeld goes, so too should every neo-conservative who squirmed his way into a Pentagon sinecure. They must also bear responsibility for a war that so far has cost nearly $200 billion and the lives of more than 1,300 American troops and has damaged America's standing in the world.
They cannot be allowed to load all the blame on Rumsfeld and scoot away to lick their wounds and dream again their large dreams of conquest and empire and pre-emptive strikes.
By Joseph L. Galloway
Knight Ridder Newspapers
12/29/04 'Knight Ridder' -- WASHINGTON - The most curious turn of the worm this season is the attack by the neo-conservatives on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the failures in Iraq.
It should be noted that until now Rumsfeld was the darling of that same bunch. He hired a batch of them as his most trusted aides and assistants in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Paul Wolfowitz as his undersecretary. Douglas Feith as his chief of planning. He installed the dean of the pack, Richard Perle, as chairman of the Defense Policy Board for a time.
The doyenne and room mother of the whole bunch, Midge Decter, wrote a fawning biography of Rumsfeld titled "Rumsfeld: A Personal Portrait."
Now, suddenly, the voice of the neo-conservative movement, William Kristol, editor of The Standard, suggests that Rumsfeld has fouled up everything in Iraq and ought to be fired for his failures. Ditto, writes Tom Donnelly of the right-thinking American Enterprise Institute.
Rumsfeld himself was never a neo-conservative. He just found them useful as he took over the Pentagon for the second time. Clearly the neo-cons found Rumsfeld useful as well as they pushed their ideas on transforming the Middle East.
So what happened? Why is Rumsfeld being stabbed in the back by those he trusted the most to back his play? By the very people who have argued for years in favor of taking out Saddam Hussein, installing democracy and creating a bully pulpit, and the military bases, from which the Middle East would be weaned from dictatorship and an implacable hatred of Israel and the United States.
Simple. They want someone else to be blamed besides them for fouling up their marvelous plans and schemes - someone who is a handy lightning rod and who is NOT a card-carrying neo-conservative...
...
We do not for a minute suggest that Rumsfeld be let off the hook, be absolved of responsibility for gross miscalculations and gross lack of planning in the Iraq war and, especially, the post-war period. But neither do we absolve the neo-conservatives for shooting the horse they've been riding the last four years.
...
When Rumsfeld goes, so too should every neo-conservative who squirmed his way into a Pentagon sinecure. They must also bear responsibility for a war that so far has cost nearly $200 billion and the lives of more than 1,300 American troops and has damaged America's standing in the world.
They cannot be allowed to load all the blame on Rumsfeld and scoot away to lick their wounds and dream again their large dreams of conquest and empire and pre-emptive strikes.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Another Shoe Drops at CIA: head of the CIA's analytic division resigning: forced out
Another Shoe Drops at CIA: "December 29, 2004 | By Greg Miller, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — The head of the CIA's analytic division told her staff Tuesday that she was resigning, becoming the latest high-level departure in an ongoing shake-up of the agency's senior ranks by new director Porter J. Goss.
Jami A. Miscik told colleagues that her last day as deputy director of intelligence would be Feb. 4, according to an internal CIA e-mail obtained by The Times.
She indicated in the message that she had been forced out.
...
One former official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the matter "wasn't handled in a particularly classy fashion." Sources said the request to step down was not delivered by Goss but by the agency's executive director.
"It's understandable that a new CIA director would want to have his own team," the former official said. "But it's unfortunate they're losing somebody like Jami, who in most circumstances would be exactly the kind of person you would want to have to solve problems."
Miscik's departure clears the way for Goss and his aides to begin revamping the agency's directorate of intelligence, which employs thousands of analysts and experts, and is responsible for many of the most important intelligence reports supplied to top government officials. Among them is the daily brief delivered to the president. ...
WASHINGTON — The head of the CIA's analytic division told her staff Tuesday that she was resigning, becoming the latest high-level departure in an ongoing shake-up of the agency's senior ranks by new director Porter J. Goss.
Jami A. Miscik told colleagues that her last day as deputy director of intelligence would be Feb. 4, according to an internal CIA e-mail obtained by The Times.
She indicated in the message that she had been forced out.
...
One former official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the matter "wasn't handled in a particularly classy fashion." Sources said the request to step down was not delivered by Goss but by the agency's executive director.
"It's understandable that a new CIA director would want to have his own team," the former official said. "But it's unfortunate they're losing somebody like Jami, who in most circumstances would be exactly the kind of person you would want to have to solve problems."
Miscik's departure clears the way for Goss and his aides to begin revamping the agency's directorate of intelligence, which employs thousands of analysts and experts, and is responsible for many of the most important intelligence reports supplied to top government officials. Among them is the daily brief delivered to the president. ...
Sunday, December 26, 2004
Shopping for War: Rumsfeld, Boykin and Feith consider commencing combat new operations chiefly to obtain intelligence
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Shopping for War: "By BOB HERBERT | Published: December 27, 2004
You might think that the debacle in Iraq would be enough for the Pentagon, that it would not be in the mood to seek out new routes to unnecessary wars for the United States to fight. But with Donald Rumsfeld at the apex of the defense establishment, enough is never enough.
So, as detailed in an article in The Times on Dec. 19, Mr. Rumsfeld's minions are concocting yet another grandiose and potentially disastrous scheme. Pentagon officials are putting together a plan that would give the military a more prominent role in intelligence gathering operations that traditionally have been handled by the Central Intelligence Agency. They envision the military doing more spying with humans, as opposed, for example, to surveillance with satellites.
Further encroachment by the military into intelligence matters better handled by civilians is bad enough. Now hold your breath. According to the article, "Among the ideas cited by Defense Department officials is the idea of 'fighting for intelligence,' or commencing combat operations chiefly to obtain intelligence."
That is utter madness. The geniuses in Washington have already launched one bogus war, which has cost tens of thousands of lives and provoked levels of suffering that are impossible to quantify. We don't need to be contemplating new forms of warfare waged for the sole purpose of gathering intelligence.
Part of this plan to further aggrandize Mr. Rumsfeld is being drafted under the direction of Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a deputy under secretary of defense who ... once had the job of directing the hunt for Osama bin Laden, is an evangelical Christian who believes God put President Bush in the White House. He has described the fight against Islamic militants as a struggle against Satan and declared that it can be won only "if we come at them in the name of Jesus."
General Boykin asserted his views in speeches that he delivered in his military uniform at religious functions around the country. In one speech, referring to a Muslim fighter in Somalia, the general said, "Well, you know what I knew - that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol."
General Boykin was forced to apologize after media accounts led to widespread criticism. But the Bush administration is still holding him tightly in its embrace. How difficult is it to come to the conclusion that this is not a fellow who should be making decisions on matters involving armed conflict with Muslims?
It's also time to rein in Mr. Rumsfeld. As The Times noted in a recent editorial, "The last time Mr. Rumsfeld tried to force himself into the intelligence collection and analysis business, he created a boutique C.I.A. in the bowels of the Pentagon under the command of Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy. The office essentially fabricated a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden - a link used to justify the Iraq invasion, and one that Mr. Rumsfeld was not getting from the C.I.A." ...
You might think that the debacle in Iraq would be enough for the Pentagon, that it would not be in the mood to seek out new routes to unnecessary wars for the United States to fight. But with Donald Rumsfeld at the apex of the defense establishment, enough is never enough.
So, as detailed in an article in The Times on Dec. 19, Mr. Rumsfeld's minions are concocting yet another grandiose and potentially disastrous scheme. Pentagon officials are putting together a plan that would give the military a more prominent role in intelligence gathering operations that traditionally have been handled by the Central Intelligence Agency. They envision the military doing more spying with humans, as opposed, for example, to surveillance with satellites.
Further encroachment by the military into intelligence matters better handled by civilians is bad enough. Now hold your breath. According to the article, "Among the ideas cited by Defense Department officials is the idea of 'fighting for intelligence,' or commencing combat operations chiefly to obtain intelligence."
That is utter madness. The geniuses in Washington have already launched one bogus war, which has cost tens of thousands of lives and provoked levels of suffering that are impossible to quantify. We don't need to be contemplating new forms of warfare waged for the sole purpose of gathering intelligence.
Part of this plan to further aggrandize Mr. Rumsfeld is being drafted under the direction of Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a deputy under secretary of defense who ... once had the job of directing the hunt for Osama bin Laden, is an evangelical Christian who believes God put President Bush in the White House. He has described the fight against Islamic militants as a struggle against Satan and declared that it can be won only "if we come at them in the name of Jesus."
General Boykin asserted his views in speeches that he delivered in his military uniform at religious functions around the country. In one speech, referring to a Muslim fighter in Somalia, the general said, "Well, you know what I knew - that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol."
General Boykin was forced to apologize after media accounts led to widespread criticism. But the Bush administration is still holding him tightly in its embrace. How difficult is it to come to the conclusion that this is not a fellow who should be making decisions on matters involving armed conflict with Muslims?
It's also time to rein in Mr. Rumsfeld. As The Times noted in a recent editorial, "The last time Mr. Rumsfeld tried to force himself into the intelligence collection and analysis business, he created a boutique C.I.A. in the bowels of the Pentagon under the command of Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy. The office essentially fabricated a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden - a link used to justify the Iraq invasion, and one that Mr. Rumsfeld was not getting from the C.I.A." ...
Thursday, December 16, 2004
The Iraq war ... brought to you by ...
Asia Times: "THE ROVING EYE | This war is brought to you by ... | By Pepe Escobar
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt - They've won. They got their war against Afghanistan (planned before September 11). They're getting their war against Iraq (planned slightly after September 11). After Iraq, they plan to get their wars against Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Last Sunday, one of them, Vice President Dick Cheney, said that President George W Bush would have to make 'a very difficult decision' on Iraq. Not really. The decision had already been taken for him in the autumn of 2001.
... An Asia Times Online investigation reveals this is no conspiracy theory: it's all about the implementation of a project.
The lexicon of the Bush doctrine of unilateral world domination is laid out in detail by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), founded in Washington in 1997. The ideological, political, economic and military fundamentals of American foreign policy - and uncontested world hegemony - for the 21st century are there for all to see.
The PNAC mixes a peculiar brand of messianic internationalism with realpolitik founded over a stark analysis of American oil interests. Its key document, dated June 1997, reads like a manifesto. Horrified by the "debased" Bill Clinton, PNAC exponents lavishly praise "the essential elements of the Reagan administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities". These exponents include Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an advisory panel to the Pentagon made up of leading figures in national security and defense, Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Reagan-era White House adviser Elliott Abrahms.
...
The signatories of this 1997 document read like a who's who of Washington power today: among them, in addition to those mentioned above, Eliot Cohen, Steve Forbes, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, William Bennett, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz and Dan Quayle.
...
Iraq counts only as the first strike in a high-tech replay of the domino theory: the next dominoes will be Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The idea is to carve up Syria; let Turkey invade northern Iraq; overthrow the Saudi royal family; restore the Hashemites to the Hijaz in Arabia.
...
September 2002's National Security Strategy (NSS) document simply delighted the members of the PNAC. No wonder: it reproduced almost verbatim a September 2000 report by the PNAC, which in turn was based on the now famous 1992 draft Defense Policy Guidance (DPG), written under the supervision of Wolfowitz for then secretary of defense Cheney. ...
...
It's no surprise that Bush, on February 26, chose to unveil his vision of a new Middle Eastern order at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a right-wing Washington think tank. The PNAC's office is nowhere else than on the 5th floor of the AEI building on 17th St, in downtown Washington. The AEI is the key node of a collection of neoconservative foreign policy experts and scholars, the most influential of whom are members of the PNAC.
The AEI is intimately connected to the Likud Party in Israel - which for all practical purposes has a deep impact on American foreign policy in the Middle East, thanks to the AEI's influence. In this mutually-beneficial environment, AEI stalwarts are known as Likudniks. It's no surprise, then, how unparalleled is the AEI's intellectual Islamophobia. ... Lynn Cheney, vice president Dick's wife, a historian and essayist, is also an AEI senior fellow.
The AEI's former executive vice president is John Bolton, one of the Bush administration's key operatives as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. Largely thanks to Bolton, the US unilaterally withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty ...
The AEI's foreign policy agenda is presided over by none other than Richard Perle. As Perle is a longtime friend and advisor to Rumsfeld, he was rewarded with the post of chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board ... Perle is also a very close friend of Pentagon number two Wolfowitz, since they were students at the University of Chicago in the late 1960s. Perle now reports to Wolfowitz.
...
... The PNAC detested the Camp David accords between Israel and the Palestinians. For the PNAC, a simmering, undeclared state of war against Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Iran is a matter of policy.
...
... He is very close to ultra-hawk Douglas Feith, who was his special counsel under Reagan and is now assistant secretary of defense for policy (one of the Pentagon's four most senior posts) and also a partner in a small Washington law firm that represents Israeli suppliers of munitions seeking deals with American weapons manufacturers. It was thanks to Perle - who personally defended his candidate to Rumsfeld - that Feith got his current job. ...
David Wurmser, former head of Middle Eastern projects at the AEI, is now special assistant to PNAC founder John Bolton, the undersecretary of State for arms control and a fierce enemy of multilateralism. Wurmser wrote Tyranny's Ally: America's failure to defeat Saddam Hussein, a book published by the AEI. The foreword is by none other than Perle. Meyrav Wurmser, David's wife, is a co-founder of the Middle East Media Research Institute.
In July 1996, Perle, Feith and the Wurmser couple wrote the notorious paper for an Israeli think tank charting a roadmap for Likud superhawk and then-incoming Israeli prime minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu. The paper is called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm". Perle, Feith and the Wurmsers tell Bibi that Israel must shelve the Oslo Accords, the so-called peace process, the concept of "land for peace", go for it and permanently annex the entire West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The paper also recommends that Israel must insist on the elimination of Saddam, and the restoration of the Hashemite monarchy in Baghdad. This would be the first domino to fall, and then regime change would follow in Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Saudi Arabia. This 1996 blueprint is nothing else than Ariel Sharon's current agenda in action. ...
...
The AEI and the PNAC shaped the now official Bush policy of introducing democracy - by bombing Iraq - and then "successfully transforming the lives of millions of people throughout the Middle East", in the words of AEI scholar Michael Ledeen. ...
..
Johnson is just one among many who suspect that "after being out of power with Clinton and back to power with Bush ... the neocons were waiting for a 'catastrophic and catalyzing' event - like a new Pearl Harbor" that would mobilize the public and allow them to put their theories and plans into practice. September 11 was, of course, precisely what they needed ...
The Iraq war is above all Paul Wolfowitz's war. It's his holy mission. His cue was September 11. Slightly after Rumsfeld, on September 15, 2001 at Camp David, Wolfowitz was already advocating an attack on Iraq. ...
Former CIA director James Woolsey, a certified five-star hawk, is a great friend of Wolfowitz. Woolsey is also the author of what could be dubbed "the high noon" theory that defines nothing less than Bush's vision of the world. According to the theory, Bush is not a six-shooter: he is the leader of a posse. ...
...
Wolfowitz and Perle, though close, are not the same thing. Perle is virtually indistinguishable from the hardcore policies of the Likud in Israel. Perle thinks that the only possible way out for the US - not the West, because he despises Europe as a political player - is a multi-faceted, long-term, vicious confrontation against the Arab and Muslim world. Wolfowitz is more sophisticated: he has already served as American ambassador to Indonesia. He definitely does not subscribe to the fallacious Samuel Huntington theory of a clash of civilizations. Wolfowitz even believes in an independent Palestine - something that for Perle is beyond anathema.
...
Wolfowitz and his proteges's are hardcore "Straussians" - after Leo Strauss, a Jewish intellectual who managed to escape the Nazis, ...
...
... Plenty of neo-hawks followed Bloom's courses at the University of Chicago: Wolfowitz of course, but also Francis Fukuyama of "end of history" fame, and John Podhoretz, who reigns over the editorial pages of the ultra-reactionary Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid the New York Post. As to Mansfield, his most notorious student was probably William Kristol, the editor of the also Rupert Murdoch-financed magazine Weekly Standard. In Kristol's own formulation, all these Straussians are morally conservative, religiously inclined, anti-Utopian, anti-modern and skeptical towards the left but also towards the reactionary right.
...
Perle and Wolfowitz may shape policy, but that would not enhance their mundane status among the political chattering classes if they didn't have a bulldog to disseminate their clout in the media. That's where William Kristol, the chairman of the Project for a New American Century and the director of the magazine Weekly Standard comes in. Kristol's co-chairman at the PNAC is Robert Kagan, former deputy for policy in the State Department in the bureau for Inter-American affairs. Kagan is the author of Of Paradise and Power: America vs Europe in the New World Order - where, according to a fallacious formula, Europeans living in a kind of peaceful, Utopian paradise will be forced to stomach unbridled American power. ...
...
William is the son of Irving Kristol and Gertrud Himmelfarb, classic New York Jewish intellectuals and ironically former Trotskyite who then made a sharp turn to the extreme right. Former Trotskyites have a tendency to believe that history will vindicate them in the end. Irving, at 82 a former neo-Marxist, neo-Trotskyite, neo-socialist and neo-liberal, today is officially a neoconservative and one of the AEI's stalwarts.
...
... Kristol of course is a very good friend of Wolfowitz, Kagan and former ex-CIA chief James Woolsey, who not by accident heaps lavish praise on The War over Iraq: Saddam's tyranny and America's mission, a book by Lawrence Kaplan and ... William Kristol. ...
...
Under Bush senior, William Kristol was Dan Quayle's chief of staff. Under Clinton, he was in the wilderness until he finally managed to launch the Weekly Standard. Who financed it? None other than Rupert Murdoch, whose tabloidish Fox News is widely known as Bush TV. The Weekly Standard loses money in direct proportion to the expansion of its influence. It remains invaluable as the voice of "Hawk Central".
...
For both the AEI and the PNAC, the Middle East is a land without people, and oil without land - and this is something anyone will confirm in the streets or power corridors in Cairo, Amman, Beirut, Ramallah, Damascus or Baghdad. The image fits the AEI and PNAC's acute and indiscriminate loathing and contempt for Arabs. The implementation of the AEI's and the PNAC's policies has led to the transformation of Ariel Sharon into a "man of peace" - Bush's own words at the White House - and the semi-fascist Likud Party becoming the undisputed number one ally of American civilization. The occupied Palestinian territories - see never-complied, forever-spurned UN resolution 242 plus dozens of others - became "the so-called occupied territories" (in Rumsfeld's own words). Jewish moderates, inside and outside Israel, are extremely alarmed.
...
As much as Israel is widely regarded by most 1.3 billion Muslims as the de facto 51st American state, many responsible Americans denounce the Iraq war as Sharon's war. Washington's Likudniks - the AEI and PNAC people - allied with evangelical Christians - are running US foreign policy in the Middle East. ... Meanwhile, Sharon, in a relentless campaign, managed to convince Bush that war on Palestine was equal to war against terrorism. But he went one step beyond: he convinced Bush that the Palestinian Intifada, al-Qaeda and Saddam are all cats in the same bag, plotting a concerted three-pronged offensive to destroy Judeo-Christian civilization. Thus the subsequent, overwhelming Bush administration campaign to try to convince public opinion that Saddam is an ally of bin Laden. ...
...
In a recent hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, undersecretary of state for political affairs Mark Grossman and undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith talked for four hours and through 86 pages, apparently detailing how the US will rebuild Iraq after liberation through massive bombing. Feith has been on record saying that this war of course "is not about oil", while stating a few sentences later that "the US will be the new OPEC". A source confirms that it was clear at the Senate hearing both Feith and Grossman had absolutely no idea what the Arab world is all about. Senators asked how much the war would cost (Yale economist William Nordhaus said the occupation may cost between $17 billion and $45 billion a year): nobody had an answer. Feith and Grossman said it was "unknowable". Rumsfeld is also a major exponent of the "not knowable" school. The cost of war for American taxpayers - some estimates go as high as $200 billion - is "not knowable". ...
...
The men in the AEI and the PNAC galaxy may be accused of intolerance, arrogance of power, undisguised fascist tendencies, ignorance of history and cultural parochialism - in various degrees. This is all open to debate. They may be "chicken hawks" like Kristol junior or attack dogs like Rumsfeld. But most of all what baffles educated publics across the world - especially the overwhelming majority of public opinion in Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain - is the current non-separation of Church and State in the US.
The men in the AEI and the PNAC galaxy may be accused of intolerance, arrogance of power, undisguised fascist tendencies, ignorance of history and cultural parochialism - in various degrees. This is all open to debate. They may be "chicken hawks" like Kristol junior or attack dogs like Rumsfeld. But most of all what baffles educated publics across the world - especially the overwhelming majority of public opinion in Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain - is the current non-separation of Church and State in the US. ... For former weapons inspector Scott Ritter, Bush is "a fundamentalist who does not respect international law. The United States is becoming a crusader state." For the absolute majority of 1.3 billion Muslims, a sinister crusader it is.
...
American diplomats are appalled by the devastating political and diplomatic failure of the Bush administration. They know that by deciding to go to war unilaterally - and leaving the international system in shambles - the US has squandered its biggest capital: its international legitimacy. And to make matters worse there was absolutely no debate - in the Senate, or in the public opinion arena - about it.
Americans still have to wake up to the fact of how startlingly isolated they are in the world. The world, for its part, will keep deploying its weapons of mass democracy. There can be no "international community" as long as the popular perception lingers in so many parts of the world of a clash between the West and Islam. Always ready to recognize and love the best America has to offer, hundreds of millions of people would rather try to save it from the fatal unilateralism distilled by the American fundamentalists of the PNAC and the AEI. Everyone in Baghdad, the former great capital of Islam at its apex, is fond of saying how it has survived the Mongols, the barbarians at the gate. The evangelic apostles of armed democratization cannot even imagine the fury a new breed of barbarians may unleash at the gate of the new American century.
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt - They've won. They got their war against Afghanistan (planned before September 11). They're getting their war against Iraq (planned slightly after September 11). After Iraq, they plan to get their wars against Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Last Sunday, one of them, Vice President Dick Cheney, said that President George W Bush would have to make 'a very difficult decision' on Iraq. Not really. The decision had already been taken for him in the autumn of 2001.
... An Asia Times Online investigation reveals this is no conspiracy theory: it's all about the implementation of a project.
The lexicon of the Bush doctrine of unilateral world domination is laid out in detail by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), founded in Washington in 1997. The ideological, political, economic and military fundamentals of American foreign policy - and uncontested world hegemony - for the 21st century are there for all to see.
The PNAC mixes a peculiar brand of messianic internationalism with realpolitik founded over a stark analysis of American oil interests. Its key document, dated June 1997, reads like a manifesto. Horrified by the "debased" Bill Clinton, PNAC exponents lavishly praise "the essential elements of the Reagan administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities". These exponents include Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an advisory panel to the Pentagon made up of leading figures in national security and defense, Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Reagan-era White House adviser Elliott Abrahms.
...
The signatories of this 1997 document read like a who's who of Washington power today: among them, in addition to those mentioned above, Eliot Cohen, Steve Forbes, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, William Bennett, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz and Dan Quayle.
...
Iraq counts only as the first strike in a high-tech replay of the domino theory: the next dominoes will be Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The idea is to carve up Syria; let Turkey invade northern Iraq; overthrow the Saudi royal family; restore the Hashemites to the Hijaz in Arabia.
...
September 2002's National Security Strategy (NSS) document simply delighted the members of the PNAC. No wonder: it reproduced almost verbatim a September 2000 report by the PNAC, which in turn was based on the now famous 1992 draft Defense Policy Guidance (DPG), written under the supervision of Wolfowitz for then secretary of defense Cheney. ...
...
It's no surprise that Bush, on February 26, chose to unveil his vision of a new Middle Eastern order at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a right-wing Washington think tank. The PNAC's office is nowhere else than on the 5th floor of the AEI building on 17th St, in downtown Washington. The AEI is the key node of a collection of neoconservative foreign policy experts and scholars, the most influential of whom are members of the PNAC.
The AEI is intimately connected to the Likud Party in Israel - which for all practical purposes has a deep impact on American foreign policy in the Middle East, thanks to the AEI's influence. In this mutually-beneficial environment, AEI stalwarts are known as Likudniks. It's no surprise, then, how unparalleled is the AEI's intellectual Islamophobia. ... Lynn Cheney, vice president Dick's wife, a historian and essayist, is also an AEI senior fellow.
The AEI's former executive vice president is John Bolton, one of the Bush administration's key operatives as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. Largely thanks to Bolton, the US unilaterally withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty ...
The AEI's foreign policy agenda is presided over by none other than Richard Perle. As Perle is a longtime friend and advisor to Rumsfeld, he was rewarded with the post of chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board ... Perle is also a very close friend of Pentagon number two Wolfowitz, since they were students at the University of Chicago in the late 1960s. Perle now reports to Wolfowitz.
...
... The PNAC detested the Camp David accords between Israel and the Palestinians. For the PNAC, a simmering, undeclared state of war against Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Iran is a matter of policy.
...
... He is very close to ultra-hawk Douglas Feith, who was his special counsel under Reagan and is now assistant secretary of defense for policy (one of the Pentagon's four most senior posts) and also a partner in a small Washington law firm that represents Israeli suppliers of munitions seeking deals with American weapons manufacturers. It was thanks to Perle - who personally defended his candidate to Rumsfeld - that Feith got his current job. ...
David Wurmser, former head of Middle Eastern projects at the AEI, is now special assistant to PNAC founder John Bolton, the undersecretary of State for arms control and a fierce enemy of multilateralism. Wurmser wrote Tyranny's Ally: America's failure to defeat Saddam Hussein, a book published by the AEI. The foreword is by none other than Perle. Meyrav Wurmser, David's wife, is a co-founder of the Middle East Media Research Institute.
In July 1996, Perle, Feith and the Wurmser couple wrote the notorious paper for an Israeli think tank charting a roadmap for Likud superhawk and then-incoming Israeli prime minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu. The paper is called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm". Perle, Feith and the Wurmsers tell Bibi that Israel must shelve the Oslo Accords, the so-called peace process, the concept of "land for peace", go for it and permanently annex the entire West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The paper also recommends that Israel must insist on the elimination of Saddam, and the restoration of the Hashemite monarchy in Baghdad. This would be the first domino to fall, and then regime change would follow in Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Saudi Arabia. This 1996 blueprint is nothing else than Ariel Sharon's current agenda in action. ...
...
The AEI and the PNAC shaped the now official Bush policy of introducing democracy - by bombing Iraq - and then "successfully transforming the lives of millions of people throughout the Middle East", in the words of AEI scholar Michael Ledeen. ...
..
Johnson is just one among many who suspect that "after being out of power with Clinton and back to power with Bush ... the neocons were waiting for a 'catastrophic and catalyzing' event - like a new Pearl Harbor" that would mobilize the public and allow them to put their theories and plans into practice. September 11 was, of course, precisely what they needed ...
The Iraq war is above all Paul Wolfowitz's war. It's his holy mission. His cue was September 11. Slightly after Rumsfeld, on September 15, 2001 at Camp David, Wolfowitz was already advocating an attack on Iraq. ...
Former CIA director James Woolsey, a certified five-star hawk, is a great friend of Wolfowitz. Woolsey is also the author of what could be dubbed "the high noon" theory that defines nothing less than Bush's vision of the world. According to the theory, Bush is not a six-shooter: he is the leader of a posse. ...
...
Wolfowitz and Perle, though close, are not the same thing. Perle is virtually indistinguishable from the hardcore policies of the Likud in Israel. Perle thinks that the only possible way out for the US - not the West, because he despises Europe as a political player - is a multi-faceted, long-term, vicious confrontation against the Arab and Muslim world. Wolfowitz is more sophisticated: he has already served as American ambassador to Indonesia. He definitely does not subscribe to the fallacious Samuel Huntington theory of a clash of civilizations. Wolfowitz even believes in an independent Palestine - something that for Perle is beyond anathema.
...
Wolfowitz and his proteges's are hardcore "Straussians" - after Leo Strauss, a Jewish intellectual who managed to escape the Nazis, ...
...
... Plenty of neo-hawks followed Bloom's courses at the University of Chicago: Wolfowitz of course, but also Francis Fukuyama of "end of history" fame, and John Podhoretz, who reigns over the editorial pages of the ultra-reactionary Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid the New York Post. As to Mansfield, his most notorious student was probably William Kristol, the editor of the also Rupert Murdoch-financed magazine Weekly Standard. In Kristol's own formulation, all these Straussians are morally conservative, religiously inclined, anti-Utopian, anti-modern and skeptical towards the left but also towards the reactionary right.
...
Perle and Wolfowitz may shape policy, but that would not enhance their mundane status among the political chattering classes if they didn't have a bulldog to disseminate their clout in the media. That's where William Kristol, the chairman of the Project for a New American Century and the director of the magazine Weekly Standard comes in. Kristol's co-chairman at the PNAC is Robert Kagan, former deputy for policy in the State Department in the bureau for Inter-American affairs. Kagan is the author of Of Paradise and Power: America vs Europe in the New World Order - where, according to a fallacious formula, Europeans living in a kind of peaceful, Utopian paradise will be forced to stomach unbridled American power. ...
...
William is the son of Irving Kristol and Gertrud Himmelfarb, classic New York Jewish intellectuals and ironically former Trotskyite who then made a sharp turn to the extreme right. Former Trotskyites have a tendency to believe that history will vindicate them in the end. Irving, at 82 a former neo-Marxist, neo-Trotskyite, neo-socialist and neo-liberal, today is officially a neoconservative and one of the AEI's stalwarts.
...
... Kristol of course is a very good friend of Wolfowitz, Kagan and former ex-CIA chief James Woolsey, who not by accident heaps lavish praise on The War over Iraq: Saddam's tyranny and America's mission, a book by Lawrence Kaplan and ... William Kristol. ...
...
Under Bush senior, William Kristol was Dan Quayle's chief of staff. Under Clinton, he was in the wilderness until he finally managed to launch the Weekly Standard. Who financed it? None other than Rupert Murdoch, whose tabloidish Fox News is widely known as Bush TV. The Weekly Standard loses money in direct proportion to the expansion of its influence. It remains invaluable as the voice of "Hawk Central".
...
For both the AEI and the PNAC, the Middle East is a land without people, and oil without land - and this is something anyone will confirm in the streets or power corridors in Cairo, Amman, Beirut, Ramallah, Damascus or Baghdad. The image fits the AEI and PNAC's acute and indiscriminate loathing and contempt for Arabs. The implementation of the AEI's and the PNAC's policies has led to the transformation of Ariel Sharon into a "man of peace" - Bush's own words at the White House - and the semi-fascist Likud Party becoming the undisputed number one ally of American civilization. The occupied Palestinian territories - see never-complied, forever-spurned UN resolution 242 plus dozens of others - became "the so-called occupied territories" (in Rumsfeld's own words). Jewish moderates, inside and outside Israel, are extremely alarmed.
...
As much as Israel is widely regarded by most 1.3 billion Muslims as the de facto 51st American state, many responsible Americans denounce the Iraq war as Sharon's war. Washington's Likudniks - the AEI and PNAC people - allied with evangelical Christians - are running US foreign policy in the Middle East. ... Meanwhile, Sharon, in a relentless campaign, managed to convince Bush that war on Palestine was equal to war against terrorism. But he went one step beyond: he convinced Bush that the Palestinian Intifada, al-Qaeda and Saddam are all cats in the same bag, plotting a concerted three-pronged offensive to destroy Judeo-Christian civilization. Thus the subsequent, overwhelming Bush administration campaign to try to convince public opinion that Saddam is an ally of bin Laden. ...
...
In a recent hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, undersecretary of state for political affairs Mark Grossman and undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith talked for four hours and through 86 pages, apparently detailing how the US will rebuild Iraq after liberation through massive bombing. Feith has been on record saying that this war of course "is not about oil", while stating a few sentences later that "the US will be the new OPEC". A source confirms that it was clear at the Senate hearing both Feith and Grossman had absolutely no idea what the Arab world is all about. Senators asked how much the war would cost (Yale economist William Nordhaus said the occupation may cost between $17 billion and $45 billion a year): nobody had an answer. Feith and Grossman said it was "unknowable". Rumsfeld is also a major exponent of the "not knowable" school. The cost of war for American taxpayers - some estimates go as high as $200 billion - is "not knowable". ...
...
The men in the AEI and the PNAC galaxy may be accused of intolerance, arrogance of power, undisguised fascist tendencies, ignorance of history and cultural parochialism - in various degrees. This is all open to debate. They may be "chicken hawks" like Kristol junior or attack dogs like Rumsfeld. But most of all what baffles educated publics across the world - especially the overwhelming majority of public opinion in Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain - is the current non-separation of Church and State in the US.
The men in the AEI and the PNAC galaxy may be accused of intolerance, arrogance of power, undisguised fascist tendencies, ignorance of history and cultural parochialism - in various degrees. This is all open to debate. They may be "chicken hawks" like Kristol junior or attack dogs like Rumsfeld. But most of all what baffles educated publics across the world - especially the overwhelming majority of public opinion in Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain - is the current non-separation of Church and State in the US. ... For former weapons inspector Scott Ritter, Bush is "a fundamentalist who does not respect international law. The United States is becoming a crusader state." For the absolute majority of 1.3 billion Muslims, a sinister crusader it is.
...
American diplomats are appalled by the devastating political and diplomatic failure of the Bush administration. They know that by deciding to go to war unilaterally - and leaving the international system in shambles - the US has squandered its biggest capital: its international legitimacy. And to make matters worse there was absolutely no debate - in the Senate, or in the public opinion arena - about it.
Americans still have to wake up to the fact of how startlingly isolated they are in the world. The world, for its part, will keep deploying its weapons of mass democracy. There can be no "international community" as long as the popular perception lingers in so many parts of the world of a clash between the West and Islam. Always ready to recognize and love the best America has to offer, hundreds of millions of people would rather try to save it from the fatal unilateralism distilled by the American fundamentalists of the PNAC and the AEI. Everyone in Baghdad, the former great capital of Islam at its apex, is fond of saying how it has survived the Mongols, the barbarians at the gate. The evangelic apostles of armed democratization cannot even imagine the fury a new breed of barbarians may unleash at the gate of the new American century.
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
MSNBC - Rumsfeld under fire over Iraq
MSNBC - Rumsfeld under fire over Iraq: "Rumsfeld under fire over Iraq
McCain says he has �no confidence�; Schwarzkopf expresses anger | NBC, MSNBC and news services
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has come under attack from Republican Sen. John McCain and retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf over his handling of the Iraq war.
In separate interviews, McCain, of Arizona, said he had “no confidence” in Rumsfeld, citing his handling of the war in Iraq and the failure of the Pentagon to send more troops, while Schwarzkopf, the allied commander in the first Gulf War, said Rumsfeld seemed to be passing the buck when quizzed last week about the armor supply for troops on the ground.
McCain says he has �no confidence�; Schwarzkopf expresses anger | NBC, MSNBC and news services
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has come under attack from Republican Sen. John McCain and retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf over his handling of the Iraq war.
In separate interviews, McCain, of Arizona, said he had “no confidence” in Rumsfeld, citing his handling of the war in Iraq and the failure of the Pentagon to send more troops, while Schwarzkopf, the allied commander in the first Gulf War, said Rumsfeld seemed to be passing the buck when quizzed last week about the armor supply for troops on the ground.
Monday, December 13, 2004
Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World
Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World: "Dec. 12, 2004 3:24 | Updated Dec. 12, 2004 16:06
Feith to 'Post': US action against Iran can't be ruled out
By CAROLINE GLICK"
The US hopes that Iran will follow Libya's lead in abandoning its nuclear program, but nobody should rule out the possibility of military action against Teheran's nuclear sites if it does not, US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview.
...
But strikingly, whereas British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw last month ruled out any possibility of military action against Iranian nuclear sites should the diplomatic path lead to failure, Feith said that "I don't think that anybody should be ruling in or ruling out anything while we are conducting diplomacy." ...
...
As a principal architect of the US war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, Feith is one of the most controversial members of the Bush administration. Disliked in liberal circles in the US and internationally, Feith, a staunch supporter of Israel, began his government career in 1981 as an assistant to Soviet expert Richard Pipes at the US National Security Council in the Reagan administration. In that position, as he does today for the Middle East, Feith advocated the advancement of the cause of democracy and human rights in the former Soviet bloc as a means of bringing about the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. ...
Feith to 'Post': US action against Iran can't be ruled out
By CAROLINE GLICK"
The US hopes that Iran will follow Libya's lead in abandoning its nuclear program, but nobody should rule out the possibility of military action against Teheran's nuclear sites if it does not, US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview.
...
But strikingly, whereas British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw last month ruled out any possibility of military action against Iranian nuclear sites should the diplomatic path lead to failure, Feith said that "I don't think that anybody should be ruling in or ruling out anything while we are conducting diplomacy." ...
...
As a principal architect of the US war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, Feith is one of the most controversial members of the Bush administration. Disliked in liberal circles in the US and internationally, Feith, a staunch supporter of Israel, began his government career in 1981 as an assistant to Soviet expert Richard Pipes at the US National Security Council in the Reagan administration. In that position, as he does today for the Middle East, Feith advocated the advancement of the cause of democracy and human rights in the former Soviet bloc as a means of bringing about the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. ...
Friday, December 10, 2004
Laurie Mylroie: necon crackpot: bolstered the argument that led us into a costly war in Iraq and swayed key opinion-makers
"Armchair Provocateur" by Peter Bergen: "December 2003 | Laurie Mylroie: The Neocons' favorite conspiracy theorist.
...
... What, then, gave neoconservatives like Wolfowitz and Perle such abiding faith in their own positions?
Historians will be debating that question for years, but an important part of the reason has to do with someone you may well have never heard of: Laurie Mylroie. Mylroie has an impressive array of credentials that certify her as an expert on the Middle East, national security, and, above all, Iraq. She has held faculty positions at Harvard and the U.S. Naval War College and worked at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as well as serving as an advisor on Iraq to the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign. During the 1980s, Mylroie was an apologist for Saddam's regime, but reversed her position upon his invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and, with the zeal of the academic spurned, became rabidly anti-Saddam. In the run up to the first Gulf War, Mylroie with New York Times reporter Judith Miller wrote Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, a well-reviewed bestseller translated into more than a dozen languages.
...
None of which was out of the ordinary, except for this: Mylroie became enamored of her theory that Saddam was the mastermind of a vast anti-U.S. terrorist conspiracy in the face of virtually all evidence and expert opinion to the contrary. In what amounts to the discovery of a unified field theory of terrorism, Mylroie believes that Saddam was not only behind the '93 Trade Center attack, but also every anti-American terrorist incident of the past decade, from the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania to the leveling of the federal building in Oklahoma City to September 11 itself. She is, in short, a crackpot, ...
...
Unfortunately, Mylroie's researches have proven to be more than merely academic, as her theories have bolstered the argument that led us into a costly war in Iraq and swayed key opinion-makers in the Bush administration, who then managed to persuade seven out of 10 Americans that the Iraqi dictator had a role in the attacks on Washington and New York. So, her specious theories of Iraq's involvement in anti-American terrorism have now become part of the American zeitgeist. Meanwhile, in a recent, telling quote to Newsweek, Mylroie observed: "I take satisfaction that we went to war with Iraq and got rid of Saddam Hussein. The rest is details." Now she tells us.
...
... What, then, gave neoconservatives like Wolfowitz and Perle such abiding faith in their own positions?
Historians will be debating that question for years, but an important part of the reason has to do with someone you may well have never heard of: Laurie Mylroie. Mylroie has an impressive array of credentials that certify her as an expert on the Middle East, national security, and, above all, Iraq. She has held faculty positions at Harvard and the U.S. Naval War College and worked at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as well as serving as an advisor on Iraq to the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign. During the 1980s, Mylroie was an apologist for Saddam's regime, but reversed her position upon his invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and, with the zeal of the academic spurned, became rabidly anti-Saddam. In the run up to the first Gulf War, Mylroie with New York Times reporter Judith Miller wrote Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, a well-reviewed bestseller translated into more than a dozen languages.
...
None of which was out of the ordinary, except for this: Mylroie became enamored of her theory that Saddam was the mastermind of a vast anti-U.S. terrorist conspiracy in the face of virtually all evidence and expert opinion to the contrary. In what amounts to the discovery of a unified field theory of terrorism, Mylroie believes that Saddam was not only behind the '93 Trade Center attack, but also every anti-American terrorist incident of the past decade, from the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania to the leveling of the federal building in Oklahoma City to September 11 itself. She is, in short, a crackpot, ...
...
Unfortunately, Mylroie's researches have proven to be more than merely academic, as her theories have bolstered the argument that led us into a costly war in Iraq and swayed key opinion-makers in the Bush administration, who then managed to persuade seven out of 10 Americans that the Iraqi dictator had a role in the attacks on Washington and New York. So, her specious theories of Iraq's involvement in anti-American terrorism have now become part of the American zeitgeist. Meanwhile, in a recent, telling quote to Newsweek, Mylroie observed: "I take satisfaction that we went to war with Iraq and got rid of Saddam Hussein. The rest is details." Now she tells us.