The grip that neocons and liberal interventionists have on Official Washington’s opinion circles is now so strong that “realists” who once provided an important counterbalance have been almost banished from foreign policy debates, a dangerous dilemma that James W Carden explores.
By James W Carden
In a widely remarked upon article for the online version of Foreign Policy last week, Harvard’s Stephen Walt asked a very good question. Why, Walt asked, are elite outlets like the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times “allergic to realist views, given that realists have been (mostly) right about some very important issues, and the columnists they publish have often been wrong?”
Walt then went on to do something pundits are generally loath to do: he admitted that he’d didn’t really know the answer. This is not to say that I do, but I think Walt’s question is worth exploring.
Prominent neocon intellectual Robert Kagan. (Photo credit: Mariusz Kubik, http://www.mariuszkubik.pl)
Why indeed? My own hunch is that we realists are a source of discomfit for the Beltway armchair warrior class not so much because we have been right about every major U.S. foreign policy question since the invasion of Iraq, but because we dare to question the premise which undergirds the twin orthodoxies of neoconservatism and liberal interventionism.
The premise, shared by heroes of the Left and Right, is this: America, a “shining city on a hill” (John Winthrop, later vulgarized by Ronald Reagan) “remains the one indispensable nation” (Barack Obama) and deprived of America’s “benevolent global hegemony” (Robert Kagan) the world will surely collapse into anarchy.
This strain of messianic thinking has deep roots in the psyche of the American establishment and so, in a sense, neoconservatism, which is really little more than a latter-day Trotskyist sect, is as American as apple pie.
Common though it is to trace, or conflate, the rise of American messianism to 1898 when the country first emerged as a global power, the cult of “American exceptionalism” has its roots in Puritan theology.
In his indispensable work, The Irony of American History, the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr cites a tract from 1650 in which the colonial leader Edward Johnson wrote that New England was “where the Lord would create a new heaven and a new earth, new churches and a new commonwealth together.” Niebuhr wrote that the Puritans had a “sense of being a ‘separated’ nation which God was using to make a new beginning for mankind.”
This strain of American solipsism was also noted with distaste by that most perceptive chronicler of American democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville who, in 1840, wrote that it was “impossible to conceive of a more troublesome and garrulous patriotism.”
The historian John Lamberton Harper has observed that the strain of messianic thinking was evident throughout the Nineteenth Century, reminding us that Indiana Sen. Albert Beveridge once claimed that the good Lord had “marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world.”
And so on and so on.
Throughout the Twentieth Century, the messianic way of thinking became ever more firmly entrenched – particular among the governing class – as America continued what many felt was its inexorable rise to global supremacy. At the turn of the century prominent men of politics and letters such as Brooks Adams, Theodore Roosevelt and the geopolitical theorist Alfred MacKinder enthusiastically subscribed to the notion that “all signs point to the approaching supremacy of the United States.” Indeed, that this was so was an “inexorable decree of destiny.”
America’s entry into the First World War only deepened that sense of singularity. Here’s Walter Lippmann, who later in life became something like the dean of American realists, writing about President Woodrow Wilson in the New Republic in 1917: “other men have led nations to war to increase their glory, their wealth, their prestige no other statesman has ever so clearly identified the glory of his country with the peace and liberty of the world.”
Decades later, during the Cold War, Lippmann regained his sanity, while TNR all but lost its. And indeed, it was during that 40-year-long “twilight struggle” between the U.S. and the USSR that the messianic consensus grabbed hold of the American mind and, to this day, has not let go. But the roots of that way of thinking, as we have seen, are deep and long predate the Cold War.
And so I would submit that the reason the three major American newspapers are “allergic to realism” is because they are part and parcel of an establishment that has, for well over a century now, been in thrall to a messianic vision of global supremacy.
James W Carden is a contributing writer for The Nation and editor of The American Committee for East-West Accord’s eastwestaccord.com. He previously served as an advisor on Russia to the Special Representative for Global Inter-governmental Affairs at the US State Department.
Not sure the neocons can be entirely blamed for this state of affairs. The problem is that everybody (worried about their positions) (and thus nobody) in DC is implicated in the charade. Below is an excerpt from an American Conservative article about the futility of making an Afghan army and official haze about it:
“As Cordesman noted, the military establishment created a Potemkin Village, playing the press and Congress like violins during hearings and visits from congressional delegations. “The Afghan National Army is making tremendous progress and is a factor on the battlefield,†boasted a Pentagon press release in 2007. “Progress†is always relative of course, and while the soldiers might be a “factor,†reports dating back a decade are typically shrewd about how they define exactly what that means.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the late Michael Hastings’ book, The Operators. In that account, then-Gen. Stanley McChrystal shared his skepticism about the war with Hastings sotto voce, while publicly—and for Washington—he promoted it. When Hastings writes about this apparent contradiction, the mainstream media pounces on him for not playing along. He devotes an entire chapter of the book to the “Media-Military Industrial Complex.†“The unwritten rule I’d broken was a simple one,†he said. “You really weren’t supposed to write honestly about people in power,†or by extension, the war.”
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/nation-building-fails-again/
ZIONIST STRATEGY FOR WHITE GENOCIDE:
Jewish supremacists pretend they have the high moral ground as they endlessly promote open borders for Western countries.
Meanwhile the same Jew lobbies con Western countries into fighting Israel’s shameless wars of aggression against Israel’s neighbors, killing, maiming, torturing, humiliating, and rendering homeless lots of angry embittered Muslims.
The Jew lobbies then demand Western countries (NOT ISRAEL!!) take in all these Muslim refugees. Of course the Jew lobbies knew all along what would result — the West would be destroyed, and the Jewish diaspora in Western countries would flee to Greater (“Eretz”) Israel — which will by then stretch from the Euphrates to the Nile — courtesy of the same wars Israel instigates.
Meanwhile, Israelis enjoy the spectacle of Christians & Muslims hating & killing each other.
Former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind found out as much in a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. Recalling the incident in the Oct. 17, 2004, issue of The New York Times magazine, Suskind wrote:
“The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’â€
In effect, the neocons are saying to their duped supporters and anyone else foolish enough to listen: Don’t worry about the reckless spending, the bloody wars, the imperial overreach and the mounting burden on Americans. It’s all part of the plan. We create history. We create reality. And we can create a new historical reality where none of that matters.
Neoconservatism and Zionism
Neoconservatism is a political movement born in the United States during the 1960s. Neoconservatives peaked in influence during the presidency of George W. Bush, when they played a major role in promoting and planning the invasion of Iraq that left the country completely destroyed and divided. Neoconservatives frequently advocate the “assertive†promotion of democracy and promotion of “American national interest†in international affairs including by means of military force. Most neocons share unwavering support for Israel, which they see as crucial to US military sufficiency.
Zionism is a nationalist and political movement of Jews that supports the establishment of a “Jewish homeland†in the territory defined as the “historic Land of Israelâ€. Since the majority of Jews were not Zionists until after WWII, Zionists used an array of misleading strategies, including secret collaboration with the Nazis and false flag terrorist attacks, to push immigration. This growing violence culminated in Israel’s ruthless 1947-49 “War of Independence,â€in which at least 750,000 Palestinian men, women, and children were expelled from their homes by Israeli forces. This massive humanitarian disaster is known as ‘The Catastrophe,’ al Nakba in Arabic. In 1975, the General Assembly defined Zionism as a form of racism or racial discrimination. Today, over 7,000 Palestinian men, women, and children are imprisoned in Israeli jails under physically abusive conditions (many have not even been charged with a crime) and the basic human rights of all Palestinians under Israeli rule are routinely violated.
Chris Moore – The Politics of ‘Creative Destruction’
On March 11th, 2016, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh will speak at a conference of the Centre for Investigative Journalism in Berlin. The theme of the conference is “Power Challenge! Building Alliances against secrecy, surveillance and censorship “.
On January 14th, German Economic News interviewed the investigative reporter Seymour Hersh regarding Obama’s war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2016/01/15/seymour-hersch-us-militaers-haben-respekt-vor-leistung-der-russen-in-syrien/
Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten: Sie haben erst kürzlich einen vielbeachteten Essay in der London Review of Books geschrieben, in dem Sie aufzeigen, dass die US-Militärs gegen die Zerstörung Syriens war, doch Obama hat nicht auf ihren Rat gehört. Warum?
Seymour Hersh: Ich weiß es nicht, ich habe keine Erklärung. Tatsache ist, dass der Chairman of thee Joint Chief, zu Obama gegangen ist und ihm gesagt hat: Wenn Assad stürzt, bricht das Chaos aus. General Dempsey hat gesagt, wir müssen etwas tun, um Assad zu stützen. Auch den Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) hat den Amerikanern Informationen geliefert, dass Assad in der Bevölkerung fest verankert ist. Ich kann die Gedanken des Präsidenten nicht lesen, aber es war von Anfang an klar, dass es keine sogenannte „moderate Opposition“ gab. Es gab die radikalen Islamisten, aber die halten die Syrer für Verrückte. Die Syrer sind vor den Islamisten massenhaft nach Damaskus gefohlen und haben dort Schutz gesucht, weil sie sich von der syrischen Armee beschützt gefühlt haben.
[…] die Amerikaner haben vor allem eines nicht erkannt: Syrien war, wie der Irak und Libyen, ein säkularer Verbündeter des Westens, mit gemäßigten Sunniten. Und wir haben diese Länder überrannt, die Regierungen gestürzt, und damit jenen geholfen, die wir als unsere ärgsten Feinde bezeichnen – ISIS oder Daesh und all die anderen extremen Sunniten.
Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten: Gibt es Ihrer Meinung nach eine Absprache zwischen den USA und Russland, dass die Russen jetzt gewissermaßen die Amerikaner raushauen?
Seymour Hersch: Ich habe keine Belege für diese Annahme. Ich weiß nur, dass es sehr enge Kontakte zwischen Außenminister John Kerry und seinem russischen Kollegen Sergej Lawrow gibt. Lawrow ist ein sehr geradliniger Typ. Er hat immer offen gesagt, was die russische Position ist. Es ist leider in vielen unserer Mainstream-Medien so, dass die Leute so tun, als wäre alles, was ein russischer Politiker sagt, eine Lüge. Warum hört man denen nicht einfach genau zu? Ich kann nicht verstehen, warum Obama eine derart anti-russische Grundhaltung einnimmt. Die russischen Geheimdienste sind die besten der Welt, sie wissen mehr über die Region als wir. Sie wissen mehr über ISIS, Daesh und al-Baghdadi. Und sie haben immer – wie auch die Syrer – gesagt, dass sie offen sind für eine bessere Beziehung zu Amerika. Doch der Präsidenten führt einen überraschend harten Kurs gegen Russland – ich weiß nicht, warum.
Translation:
German Economic News: You recently issued a highly acclaimed essay in the London Review of Books in which you demonstrate that the US military was against the US invasion of Syria, but Obama didn’t listen to their advice. Why?
Seymour Hersh: I don’t know, I have no explanation. The fact is that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had gone to Obama and told him: If Assad falls, chaos will break out. General Dempsey said that we must support Assad against the Islamists. Even the Federal Intelligence Service (BND [Germany’s intelligence agency]) supplied information to the Americans indicating that Assad is firmly supported by the Syrian people. I can’t read the thoughts of the President, but it was clear at the outset that there was no so-called “moderate opposition†[such as Obama constantly referred to]. There were radical Islamists against Assad, but the vast majority of the Syrians were terrified of those fighters as being dangerous crazies. Syrians were fleeing from the Islamists, toward Damascus as refuge, because they felt protected by the Syrian Army
[…] the Americans have one thing above all: not recognized Syria, like Iraq and Libya, a secular ally of the West, with moderate Sunnis. And we have these countries overrun, overthrown governments, and thus helped those who we as our worst enemies designate – ISIS or Daesh and all the other extreme Sunnis.
German Economic News: Why didn’t Obama recognize what he was doing?
Seymour Hersh: I don’t know.
[…]
German Economic News: Is there in your opinion an agreement between the US and Russia that the Russians are now, so to speak, finished with the Americans?
Seymour Hersh: I have no evidence for this assumption. I just know that there are very close contacts between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. Lavrov is a very straightforward type. He always said openly what is the Russian position. There is in many of our mainstream media so that people pretend as if everything is a Russian politician says is a lie. Why not just hear those exactly? I can not understand why Obama occupies such an anti-Russian stance. The Russian secret services are the best in the world, they know more about the region than we do. They know more about ISIS, and al-Baghdadi Daesh. And they as well as the Syrians have always said that they are open to a better relationship with America. But the president leads a surprisingly hard line against Russia – I do not know why.
The House of empirical entropy Always WINS!
Former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind found out as much in a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. Recalling the incident in the Oct. 17, 2004, issue of The New York Times magazine, Suskind wrote:
“The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’â€
In effect, the neocons are saying to their duped supporters and anyone else foolish enough to listen: Don’t worry about the reckless spending, the bloody wars, the imperial overreach and the mounting burden on Americans. It’s all part of the plan. We create history. We create reality. And we can create a new historical reality where none of that matters.
Neoconservatism and Zionism
Neoconservatism is a political movement born in the United States during the 1960s. Neoconservatives peaked in influence during the presidency of George W. Bush, when they played a major role in promoting and planning the invasion of Iraq that left the country completely destroyed and divided. Neoconservatives frequently advocate the “assertive†promotion of democracy and promotion of “American national interest†in international affairs including by means of military force. Most neocons share unwavering support for Israel, which they see as crucial to US military sufficiency.
Zionism is a nationalist and political movement of Jews that supports the establishment of a “Jewish homeland†in the territory defined as the “historic Land of Israelâ€. Since the majority of Jews were not Zionists until after WWII, Zionists used an array of misleading strategies, including secret collaboration with the Nazis and false flag terrorist attacks, to push immigration. This growing violence culminated in Israel’s ruthless 1947-49 “War of Independence,â€in which at least 750,000 Palestinian men, women, and children were expelled from their homes by Israeli forces. This massive humanitarian disaster is known as ‘The Catastrophe,’ al Nakba in Arabic. In 1975, the General Assembly defined Zionism as a form of racism or racial discrimination. Today, over 7,000 Palestinian men, women, and children are imprisoned in Israeli jails under physically abusive conditions (many have not even been charged with a crime) and the basic human rights of all Palestinians under Israeli rule are routinely violated.
Chris Moore – The Politics of ‘Creative Destruction’
I have no doubt that the roots of U.S. “messianic exceptionalism†outlined in this article are accurate, however, how the fifth column in the U.S. manipulates this ideology and for what purpose should be exposed. If we pull back the neocon’s ideological curtain we’ll see what really drives them and it is the promotion of policies designed for the promotion of the zionist agenda. All these neocon initiatives (PNAC, A Clean Break, The Foreign Policy Initiative, etc.) have one goal: furthering the long-term right wing zionist policies at the expense of U.S. interests.
The link between neoconservatism and zionism should be obvious. It’s no accident that so much of the mainstream newsmedia (including the “liberal” NYT) is in the hands of the Israeli zionists. And the idea of “American exceptionalism” resonates with the idea of the ” chosen people”.
Former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind found out as much in a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. Recalling the incident in the Oct. 17, 2004, issue of The New York Times magazine, Suskind wrote:
“The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'”
In effect, the neocons are saying to their duped supporters and anyone else foolish enough to listen: Don’t worry about the reckless spending, the bloody wars, the imperial overreach and the mounting burden on Americans. It’s all part of the plan. We create history. We create reality. And we can create a new historical reality where none of that matters.
Neoconservatism and Zionism
Neoconservatism is a political movement born in the United States during the 1960s. Neoconservatives peaked in influence during the presidency of George W. Bush, when they played a major role in promoting and planning the invasion of Iraq that left the country completely destroyed and divided. Neoconservatives frequently advocate the “assertive” promotion of democracy and promotion of “American national interest” in international affairs including by means of military force. Most neocons share unwavering support for Israel, which they see as crucial to US military sufficiency.
Zionism is a nationalist and political movement of Jews that supports the establishment of a “Jewish homeland” in the territory defined as the “historic Land of Israel”. Since the majority of Jews were not Zionists until after WWII, Zionists used an array of misleading strategies, including secret collaboration with the Nazis and false flag terrorist attacks, to push immigration. This growing violence culminated in Israel’s ruthless 1947-49 “War of Independence,”in which at least 750,000 Palestinian men, women, and children were expelled from their homes by Israeli forces. This massive humanitarian disaster is known as ‘The Catastrophe,’ al Nakba in Arabic. In 1975, the General Assembly defined Zionism as a form of racism or racial discrimination. Today, over 7,000 Palestinian men, women, and children are imprisoned in Israeli jails under physically abusive conditions (many have not even been charged with a crime) and the basic human rights of all Palestinians under Israeli rule are routinely violated.
Chris Moore – The Politics of ‘Creative Destruction’
The ultra nationalist neocon agenda is nothing more than the ancient right-wing scheme of tyranny by creating enemies so as to pose as protectors and demand power, accusing their opponents of disloyalty. Aristotle warned of this means of tyranny over democracy millennia ago. The right wing Reps and Dems also loot the treasury by means of fearmongering to feed money to their parties.
There is no democracy involved. This is totalitarian control of public information by means of economic power. There is no patriotism involved. This is a right wing revolution against democracy, in its final stages.
There is no “liberal interventionism” in fact, because there is no intention to promote democracy or achieve any humanitarian objective: if there were, the US would have a long record of humanitarian assistance in any nation long before and after any military intervention. But in fact there are only pittances from its advertising budget, far less per capita than any other Western nation, and no more than one meal a year to the world at large. That is not liberal interventionism, it is fascism as sold to liberals.
The author’s professed lack of understanding of the propaganda functions of mass media, and its control by economic power, does not suit the readers here.
Ultra nationalist?You mean for Israel,not US in any shape or form,A bunch of traitors in our midst,they need purging now.
Agreed. We must distinguish “American exceptionalism” and other messianic utterances from messianic thinking. Barring the normal distribution of useful idiots, it seems clear that Neocons who invoke American exceptionalism do so for the same reason they invoke “patriotism”, “heroism” (when talking of our military), “Commander in Chief”, and other emotionally charged absolutes. Neocons use such language as fortifications to repel dissent and discredit factual arguments. “Neocon intellectuals” like Kagan are paid to buttress the facade. I doubt very much that the tripe they serve up reflects their actual beliefs and motives.
There is another motive that motivated the Puritans (they called themselves Independents BTW, meaning independent of Pope AND King. This my own ancestry; they came over in 1640). Puritans are the one faction within the “English-speaking Tribe” that took up arms against the Crown, and executed a King; a sort of “Oh Sh!t what now” moment. Crowns have long, nasty, vicious, vengeful memories, and we were NOT going to end up like the Irish with their own Nation turned into a “killing field” (the Irish are useful allies to us here in USA, as were ALL Europeans seeking escape from their various respective “Crowns”). The fight was on, throughout the enduring centuries. Well that particular Crown has since been subsumed within the Synarchist Movement Empire(SME) (FDR had his OSS agents loyal to him, get the intel on this Movement; those agents were later chased out of the OSS by the “Economic Royalist” Wall Street/SME Intel agents in post-war forties). Whatever is the outcome of all of this, some of us with “certain pedigrees” (Crowns just love keeping track of “Pedigrees”) know we’ll never gain acceptance from that long, vengeful memory. It’s the same reason WHY Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, are suffering; they once upon a time, turned to the Soviet Socialist REPUBLICS, another offender of a “Crown”, who’s interests have since been subsumed into SME, and they’re paying the price for “Disloyalty to The Crown”, along with Russia, which, like USA, is another “Targeted” Nation to be made example of (SME’s special tactic is to have two targeted Nations come-to-blows with each other, thus self-eliminating both enemies of the SME). As usual, very few people know of THIS hidden history. It’s all “Zionism” 24/7, which is just a particular, useful tactic of the SME. So, all of the outrageous things done in the NAME of USA, are actually done by our internal SME enemies-to-the-Republic, and to the unwitting U.S. citizenry.
I think its fine ,Mr Cardin,for arguments sake, to make these distinctions between “realist” and “neocon” foreign policy ideologies.
But the reality is, the “Neocon” foreign policies, that have dominated, represent a pernicious rupture in the fabric of international law and the basic mores of human decency that those laws underscore.
I think your arguments, Mr Carden, pay to much lip service to a potential “legitimacy” to the “neocon” enterprise, as though there might be some legitimacy there to begin with.
You need to be more honest, Mr Carden, and recognize the “neocon” policies for what they are, “a criminal enterprise”.
Initiating wars of aggression, based on entirely fraudulent claims, and draining our nation of trillions of dollars to prosecute them, can only be perceived by any clear eyed observers…as crimes against humanity.
The idea of giving the “neocons” some weight, by balancing them against the “realists”,is giving entirely too much credit to an ideology worthy of nothing more than contempt .
Were it not the case, I would gladly strive to say so.
A very good point that the neocon policies are a criminal enterprise. Both Reps and Dems would be prosecuted under the RICO act (racketeering influenced criminal organizations) if the racketeers did not already control the executive agencies and the judiciary, both state and federal.
The infamous neoconservative Washington DC think-tank The Project for the New American Century was re-branded for the Obama era into The Foreign Policy Initiative, acting as a outside agitator pushing the envelope on what the US should do in the new Cold War landscape.
As noted by Robert Parry https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/20/a-family-business-of-perpetual-war/
“Neoconservative pundit Robert Kagan and his wife, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, run a remarkable family business: she has sparked a hot war in Ukraine and helped launch Cold War II with Russia – and he steps in to demand that Congress jack up military spending […]
“This extraordinary husband-and-wife duo makes quite a one-two punch for the Military-Industrial Complex, an inside-outside team that creates the need for more military spending, applies political pressure to ensure higher appropriations, and watches as thankful weapons manufacturers lavish grants on like-minded hawkish Washington think tanks.”
After the Cold War, the US-NATO reach expanded significantly to take in most of the old Soviet Union clients in the Warsaw pact. Neoconservative darling Robert Kagan and his diplomat wife Victoria Nuland played key roles inside and out of various administrations and think tanks as they greased the skids for a US-sponsored coup in Ukraine.
A Very Heavy Agenda Part 2: How We Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the New Neocons shows the resurrection of old cold warriors from beltway depths to deliver blatant propaganda with techniques reminiscent of a Red Scare era that had only just faded from memory. US-funded outfits like Radio Free Liberty are pitted against Russia Today as each nation accuses the other of waging an ever more desperate and transparent “Information War.â€
A Very Heavy Agenda Part 2 TRAILER:
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/averyheavyagenda2/150461282
Film maker Robbie Martin explore the neocons as an intellectual force in America and how their premier group, Project for a New American Century, acts as the political arm for the American Deep State. Martin also discusses how the neocon agenda has destroyed much of the anti-war movement.
Martin and Pearse Redmond of Porkins Policy Review dive into how the real agenda behind this intellectual movement is about destroying Russia and maintaining perpetual warfare, and not about Islamic Terrorism, oil or anything else. Later they discuss the resurgence of the neocons and the rise of the “hipster neocons.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Eer7-PKhaw
Yes; perpetual war. Study the iconic symbolism of the Fasces: thin reeds, bundled together, making strong in grouping, that which is weak individually (the libertarian/individualist ploy, turning Organized Dissent into ineffective “lone-wolf” dissent, against the Fasces). The outward-facing AxeHead, chopping away madly at the “Enemy Out There”, thus justifying the tightly bound “thin reeds” into a National Security “Police State”. The Fasces tells The Story.
It seems to me that All Strategy is too biased to be considered Grand. Not to say that bits and pieces of Any strategy are helpful in any given situation but the moment one tries to fit something as complex as international relations into a nice theory; it will probably fail. Now that I write this, it sounds to me like I’m thinking pragmatism. Mr.Carden should define his version of realism. For instance, is Zbigniew Brzezinski a realist?
Still, it is difficult to argue against any one opposed to neoconservatism and the interventionists.
Note that in today’s edition of the “Wall Street Journal” (January 16, 2016), there is an essay entitled: “Europe’s New Midevil Map” by Robert D. Kaplan of The Center for a New American Security. In his article, Mr. Kaplan suggests that the EU is starting to disintegrate and could look like the first Holy Roman Empire which was “a rambling, multi-ethic configuration that was an empire in name but not in fact.” Of pertinence to Mr. Carden’s article and Professor Walt’s question is Mr. Kaplan’s statement in regard to the fraactionization of the EU: “This means there is still no alternative of American leadership in Europe.” No “realism” here.
The Roman Empire (Catholic Sphere)
The Roman Empire included most of what would now be considered Western Europe.
(Now NATO/ “Catholic”)
The empire was conquered by the Roman Army and a Roman way of life was established in these conquered countries. The main countries conquered were England/Wales (then known as Britannia), Spain (Hispania), France (Gaul or Gallia), Greece (Achaea), the Middle East (Judea) and the North African coastal region.
The Catholic Church held political Authority over all of Europe and the known world into the 19th century.
The “Rule of Law” came into being under Catholic ‘political order’ — please find & review “Law and Revolution” (the formation of the western legal tradition)- by Harold Berman
Find the dark paintings of Spanish artist Francisco Goya for depictions of Church applied torture.
Use this small list to refute Kaplan’s bullspit view of history- – –
(“a rambling, multi-ethic configuration that was an empire in name but not in fact.â€)
Also find the useful “The Rise and Fall Of the Roman Empire”
Self-education trumps the bullspit they offer.