Of all the appalling revisionist war-crime apologia spewed during the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the worst is an article in National Review by the genocide walrus himself.
Listen to a reading of this article.
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com
In order to narrative-manage the public conversation about the Iraq War on the 20th anniversary of the invasion, those who helped unleash that horror upon our world have briefly paused their relentless torrent of “Ukraine proves the hawks were always right” takes, to churn out a deluge of “Actually the Iraq War wasn’t based on lies and turned out pretty great after all” takes instead.
Council on Foreign Relations chief Richard Haas — who worked in the U.S. State Department under Colin Powell when Bush launched his criminal invasion — got a piece published in Project Syndicate falsely claiming that the U.S. government and his former boss did not lie about weapons of mass destruction, and that “governments can and do get things wrong without lying.”
Former Bush speechwriter David “Axis of Evil” Frum cooked up a lie-filled spin piece for The Atlantic claiming that “What the U.S. did in Iraq was not an act of unprovoked aggression” and suggesting that perhaps Iraqis are better off as a result of the invasion, or at least no worse off than they would otherwise have been.
Neoconservative war propagandist Eli Lake, who has been described by journalist Ken Silverstein as “an open and ardent promoter of the Iraq War and the various myths trotted out to justify it,” has an essay published in Commentary with the extraordinary claim that the war “wasn’t the disaster everyone now says it was” and that “Iraq is better off today than it was 20 years ago.”
But by far the most appalling piece of revisionist war crime apologia that’s come out during the 20th anniversary of the invasion has been an article published in National Review by the genocide walrus himself, John Bolton.
Lumping everything together as “Iraq War” critics do is a disservice to the careful analysis of what America accomplished, or didn’t. It is not one indivisible, 20-year-long block of granite that can be judged only all or nothing. In fact, the brunt of https://t.co/2lhQ3EnqWW…
— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) March 17, 2023
Bolton sets himself apart from his fellow Iraq war architects by arguing that the actual invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein “was close to flawless,” and that the only thing the U.S. did wrong was fail to kill more people and topple the government of Iran.
Bolton criticizes “the Bush administration’s failure to take advantage of its substantial presence in Iraq and Afghanistan to seek regime change in between, in Iran,” writing that “we had a clear opportunity to empower Iran’s opposition to depose the ayatollahs.”
“Unfortunately, however, as was the case after expelling Saddam from Kuwait in 1991, the United States stopped too soon,” Bolton writes.
Bolton claims that the notoriously cruel sanctions that were inflicted upon Iraq between 1991 and 2003 were too lenient, saying there should have been “crushing sanctions” that were “enforced cold-bloodedly.”
As Reason’s Eric Boehm notes in his own critique of Bolton’s essay, perhaps the most galling part is where Bolton dismisses any responsibility the U.S. might have for the consequences and fallout from the Iraq invasion, attempting to compartmentalize the “flawless” initial invasion away from all the destabilization and human suffering which followed by saying “they did not inevitably, inexorably, deterministically, and unalterably flow from the decision to invade and overthrow.”
“Whatever Bush’s batting average in post-Saddam decisions (not perfect, but respectable, in my view), it is separable, conceptually and functionally, from the invasion decision. The subsequent history, for good or ill, cannot detract from the logic, fundamental necessity, and success of overthrowing Saddam,” Bolton writes.
This is self-evidently absurd. A Bush administration warmonger arguing that you can’t logically connect the invasion to its aftereffects is like an arsonist saying you can’t logically connect his lighting a fire in the living room to the incineration of the entire house. He’s just trying to wave off any accountability for that war and his role in it.
“One might suspect that Bolton imagines a world where actions should not have consequences because he’s been living in exactly that type of world for the past two decades,” Boehm writes. “Somehow, he’s retained his Washington status as a foreign policy expert, media commentator, and presidential advisor despite having been so horrifically wrong about Iraq.”
It takes a special kind of hubris and a serious shortage of respect for the lives of other human beings to sit here, in the year 2023, and argue that the real problem with America's post-9/11 wars is that *they didn't go far enough.*
My latest @Reason: https://t.co/5gd4kH83Fb
— Eric Boehm (@EricBoehm87) March 20, 2023
And that to me is what’s the most jaw-dropping about all this. Not that John Bolton still in the year 2023 thinks the invasion of Iraq was a great idea and should have gone much further, but that the kind of psychopath who would say such a thing is still a prominent news media pundit who is platformed by the most influential outlets in the world for his “expertise.”
It’s actually a completely damning indictment of all Western media if you think about it, and really of our entire civilization. The fact that an actual, literal psychopath whose entire goal in life is to try to get as many people killed by violence as he possibly can at every opportunity is routinely given columns and interviews in The Washington Post, and is regularly brought on CNN as an expert analyst, proves our entire society is diseased.
To be clear, when I say that John Bolton is a psychopath, I am not using hyperbole to make a point. I am simply voicing the only logical conclusion that one can come to when reading reports about things like how he threatened the children of the OPCW chief whose successful diplomatic efforts in early 2002 were making the case for invasion hard to build, or how he spent weeks verbally abusing a terrified woman in her hotel room, pounding on her door and screaming obscenities at her.
“We Know Where Your Kids Live” John Bolton threatened head of chemical weapons commission as part of effort launch war against Iraq https://t.co/p8uluxbWGH
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 2, 2018
And that’s just Bolton’s personality. The actual policies he has worked to push through, sometimes successfully, are far more horrifying. This is the freak who has argued rabidly for the bombing of Iran, for bombing North Korea, for attacking Cuba over nonexistent WMD, for assassinating Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, and many other acts of war. Who helped cover up the Iran-Contra scandal, who openly admitted to participating in coups against foreign governments, and who tried to push President Donald Trump into starting a war with Iran during his terrifying stint as U.S. national security adviser.
[Related: Joe Lauria — The Pathology of John Bolton]
This man is a monster who belongs in a cage, but instead he’s one of the most influential voices in the most powerful country on earth. This is because we are ruled by a giant globe-spanning empire that is held together by the exact sort of murderous ideology that John Bolton promotes.
Bolton is not elevated at maximum amplification in spite of his psychopathic bloodlust, but exactly because of it. That’s the sort of civilization we live in, and that’s the sort of media environment in which Westerners are forming their worldviews. We are ruled by murderous tyrants, and we are propagandized into accepting their murderousness by mass media which elevate bloodthirsty psychos like John Bolton as part of that propaganda.
That’s the world we live in. That’s what we’re up against here.
"The Iraq War was a national undertaking. Its broad domestic support owed in large measure to its advancement of the vital interests of state, as those were understood in relation to America’s stake in a decent and durable global order." https://t.co/6e08quvk7L
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) March 18, 2023
And that’s why they’ve been working so hard to rewrite the history on Iraq. They need us to accept Iraq as either a greater good that came at a heavy price or a terrible mistake that will never be repeated, so that they can lead us into more horrific wars in the future.
We are being paced. Until now, “Iraq” has been a devastating one-word rebuttal to both the horror and failure of U.S. interventionism. The essays these imperial spinmeisters have been churning out are the early parlay in a long-game effort to take away that word’s historical meaning and power. Don’t let them shift it even an inch.
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This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
The media’s behaviour in this respect is truly awful.
Let us not forget also how Hilary Clinton’s CBS ‘interviewer’ joined in with her celebration of the brutal killing of Gaddafi (interview available on YouTube).
It was also in the early 2000s when National Review had an article titled “Unpatriotic Conservatives” that condemned the likes of Patrick Buchanan and everyone else on The American Conservative as “unpatriotic” for not supporting the Iraq War – i.e. tying support for the war with a sense of “patriotism”.
“Neocons” aren’t sane people. They’re fanatics who have no qualms about killing millions abroad if it’s in “US interests”. They meet the psychiatric DSM-5 criteria for psychopaths, and they’re directing our foreign policy now. Biden’s 50 year record in the Senate and 2 years as President reveals that he’s the embodiment of all that necons represent.
Germany had the Jews, the West has the Russians. It is important for nations to “Other-ize” and scapegoat bogeymen. If you are against immigrants, Muslims, Blacks, UkroNAZIs and Russians, you are an American bigot. But if you can focus your hate on the Russian people, you are a True Patriot.
The only solution the US has for every foreign problem is to kill, maim and destroy the homes of their Enemy. Then install American puppets.
What has Russia ever done to anyone compared to the American War Machine which exists only to “save the village by destroying it”? American democracy.
I used to believe that Hitler was a historical exception, but not anymore, there are many like him and possibly even worse than he.
Bolton is where he is because other people like the late Sheldon Adelson want him there. I think the larger question is who are these other people and what do they want.
I also challenge the idea that the Iraq war was a “catastrophe”, at least for the neocons. I see no evidence that they feel burned by that war; I think it accomplished exactly what they wanted– the destruction of Iraq, and they want to repeat this destruction for other countries. The neocons put on a big show about being interested in human rights, but this is just for the consumption of a gullible American public. The late Robert Parry once observed that the neocons have studied the propaganda methods of the CIA.
Wehren canIfind abutton for Translation?
The orange button on the the bottom left of the screen.
John Bolton is simply history repeating itself. And, like it or not, this will never end unless artificial intelligence replaces humans. Unfortunately AI was borne by humans and, despite its so-called intelligence, is apt but not guaranteed to repeat our mistakes in one form or another. That “not guaranteed” is what I call hope even as climate change and GMO erases even that unless geniuses like Elon Musk can float us into space, something not even Gawd has, to date, managed to let us accomplish. Of course, I could easily be wrong and everything will end (pun intended) up great.
Most every country on this world is run by an oligarchy of psychopaths and the most horrible thing is that we in the so-called free West are led to believe we live in a democracy. Every time we we are fooled and run into the trap. Look at my country, the Netherlands. Now for more then twelve years we are led by the “democratc” nose-ring held by Mark Rutte.
1. There is a housing crises. Prices of houses went sky-high after one his cronies Stef Blok “liberated” the “housing market” He even had the audacity to advertise with an English website the opportunity to buy houses in the Netherlands, trying to lure big foreign investment companies to “invest”. These companies don’t care a hood about living conditions of their tenants. We are about 100.000 houses short. Young people have stay at their parents home cause they can’t find a house to call their home or are unable to afford the extremely high prices.
2. Health care & health insurance. That was also turned into a market and the prices of the insurance are steadily rising over the years. At the same time there are not enough doctors and nursing work force to tend to the growing number of elderly people.
3. Education. On third or a quarter (have to look it up) of the children who leave primary education are semi-illiterate, because teachers are undervalued, under-payed and over-pressurized because of the workload, as much and much more task is added to the curriculum. I know, I used to be a teacher of special education
4. Food banks are growing bigger and bigger as more people do not earn enough money to provide for normal daily living. This is a bloody shame as the overall economy of my country is doing very well.
5. Migration crisis. We let everybody in, even people from so-called safe-countries, who then are denied the right to stay but can not be expelled because there is hardly enough people to enforce these laws. Enforcing laws is a dirty word in the Netherlands because we rather condone wrong doing then taking necessary action. We could learn sa lesson or two from Denmark, but we refuse to do it. The “we” I am talking about are the governments run by Mark Rutte.
6. Netherlands narco-state. Fighting gangs shoot at each other over lost “cargo” as sometimes Dutch police make a great catch. Actually these detectives are quite good at that. E.g. breaking into special art of secret smart phones, revealing a wealth of messages from the criminals
7…
8…
There is much much more rotten in the boroughs of the Low Lands, This is just the tip of the iceberg.
NL is a slow-motion Titanic what used to be a pretty decent and nice vessel of a country.
The psychopatic inmates are running NL turning it into an asylum.
I am a real Kaaskop.
I love my country
I am a patriot.
My heart bleeds.
BTW. Plz read works by Robert D. Hare and Paul Babiak
hello Edmond,
Thanks for that info Ed.
The world is getting into a state. The only that can help now is………..the bible.
So far there is no error in the king James, used with a concordance. An example of bible prophecy…….. Isaiah 19 states that Egypt is going to become the people of Jehovah ( Yhwh)…. and in 2013 , he delivered them from morsi who tried to introduce a conservative constitution (based on the other book)(begins with q or k), but he was overthrown by the army and Egypt was saved from that. ……. in line with bible prophecy. The same chapter and verses:18-25) says , Assyria( N. Iraq ) are also going to become the people of yhwh.
So I advise….. try to find an error in the King James Bible…… obtain a Strong’s concordance from a local Christian bookshop…… and try to see what the bible says Christ is……and .start talking to the Maker at least twice a day. ( the bi ble teaches how and what to pray).
NL needs the bible.
All the best.
Joseph.
UK.
The Bible is only a book. God doesn’t write books. Only humans do that, and humans are corruptible. Hence, the Bible is corruptible. If you want to read a message from a divine creator, you need to walk amidst her/his works: forests and seashores and nature uncorrupted by humans. The Bible is not natural. It is an implement of social domination, nothing more.
Bolton is enough to convince one that there really is a Satan and he is but one incarnation of the red-horned devil!
Bolton is the ideal person to act in the interests of the owners of the collective west – the main banking houses, war profiteers/fascist mega-corporations. People like Bolton and similar to him collection of Straussians at the US State Department and the Institute of War are cheerleaders for full-spectrum dominance (hegemony), a very simple concept underlying the character of the modern US as the genocidal Gangster and mega Looter. The same people who put Julian Assange into a high-security prison for him being an honest journalist (as compared to the presstituting flower beds at ALL main MSM channels), exactly the same people support and protect the thuggish Bolton, a dirty old man drunk on his unaccountability and obnoxiousness.
Bonjour,
Votre pays n’a jamais pu exporter ce qu’il n’a pas, la démocratie, plus de 46 millions de personnes aux tickets alimentaires, pas de soins de santé (une honte), , quand il attaque, c’est pour voler !!! on se demande comment le pays qui a racketté le monde entier avec son billet vert vomi peut s’endetter à ce point, à l’école, ces gens devraient apprendre à compter ! quand on est le roi du monde par racket, normalement, on paye ce dont on a besoin, on peut le faire, au lieu de cela, ben non, ils aiment massacrer !!!! et surtout, piller ! parce que en Syrie, ce qui les intéresse est le pétrole pas du tout les gens ! sinon, pourquoi les sanctions ? mais cette fausse réalité tombe et votre pays vivra, enfin, sur ses propres moyens et plus comme un parasite international et on verra, au final, que ce n’est pas du tout un pays où il fait bon vivre tellement les riches ont tout volé aux productifs ! l’illusion américaine est finie, les USA sont enfin reconnus comme le paria qu’ils ont toujours été et 80% du monde se désengage lentement de tout ce qui les liait à cet assassin congénital; il était temps; En France, avec le parasite macron, nous avons nous aussi de grandes responsabilités : comment un nain intellectuel comme lui peut voler la présidence ? et surtout, ne pas laisser ce sociopathes massacrer ces français qu’il déteste tant !
Bonjour,
J’ai une bonne méthode pour soigner Bolton et sa clique de malades mentaux, envoyez les donc en Ukraine devant l’armée russe, dans le hachoir à viande, là est leur place ! ! c’est tout ce que méritent ces pauvres mecs sans cerveau, des gens de la secte ! des fous ! des résidus sur lesquels il faut tirer la chasse d’eau !
Ce ignobles sans courage, ces lâches qui envoient les autres à la mort sans jamais en être menacés ! au hachoir à viande les lâches !
Bolton is a symptom of American politics. The kind of politics that now has set the stage for Americas’ downfall.
Fitting, really, that America will be destroyed by the very same men (and women) who pushed for the destruction of other countries.
Something’s rotten in America. Bolton’s prominence is indicative of not just a sickness in our leadership, or our institutions, but in the American people themselves, who have accepted such a monster into positions of power. The deep enmity toward Russia, or whomever the enemy in fashion, is almost always simplified and personalized as the leader of the targeted nation. Thus today it is Putin who is responsible for everything wrong in the world. The willingness to go along with such mobilized hatred is a fundamental character flaw which will prove our own self-destruction should we not come to grips with and let go of it.
Yes, I think about that often. It’s more than a little disturbing to me to live in a country where tens of millions of my fellow citizens either pay it no mind, or think that it’s beyond them and doesn’t affect their daily business, when it does if only in an inadvertent way. I feel as if I’m living in a nightmare.
But we (the minority non-consequentials) are living in your nightmare J Anthony.
Aside from the inadvertent effects on the tens of millions who pay it no mind, there will be consequences for us all eventually. It’s the classic nightmare of trying to scream a warning, but you have no voice.
Well yes, and I feel that every minute of my waking being. That sense of futility drives me to despair. However I would prefer to not be weak and fall apart over it. I would prefer to fight it till my dying breath, and do whatever I can, no matter how seemingly small or inconsequential, to help myself and others around me. But that’s on me, I know.
It’s not Bolton that is the problem. There are many homocidal maniacs in the world.
The real problem are those that give him a platform and use him as their front.
Bolton is a psychopath and America is run by a pathocracy-its that simple.
The problem is that there was not the equivalent of a Nuremberg court to try and convict George Bush II, Dick Cheney, Colin P owel, Donald Rumsfeld and the whole lot of the neocon intellectuals for their part in a war of aggression, which is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime. In short, it is too bad they were’nt all sentenced to death by hanging.
Well said!
Nobody at the State Department liked dealing with Bolton – he was a real jerk.
Revoltin’ Boltin is a real piece of work.
What the maniac seems to believe is that it remains a worthy effort to have attempted to remake all the countries our bellicose government has invaded in the image and likeness of the United States (which is itself highly flawed and far from peaceful, egalitarian and democratic, usually favoring war as a first choice of diplomacy rather than the last) even though we made some unfortunate miscalculations every time, including “torturing some folks,” as Obama later so colorfully put it, and killing, maiming, or displacing literally millions of people unfortunate enough to live on the geography we targeted, who Bolton considers no better or worse dead than living under Saddam, Gaddafi, Mullah Omar, or Assad. Moreover, he’s always ready to work further miracles in regime changing in countries like Iran, Yemen, Somalia and even Russia and China, fomenting coups to set the stage in proxy wars designed to decimate no-count third party populations (but not Americans, so A-Okay) as cannon fodder, as they were so very clever to do in Ukraine which is surely a highly traumatized victim of American support for “freedom and democracy.” After repeated failure resulting in astounding carnage and suffering, the man still makes no small plans.
Of course, John Bolton is not the only such psychopathic specimen given free reign to kill and destroy all he may encounter in other countries quite far away and having no business at all with the United States. Even today, the warmongering demented maniac Loco Joe Biden says with a straight face that he means no harm and wants no conflict with Iran after he orders the deaths of 11 of that nation’s citizens legally invited in country to defend Syria by its legitimate elected government. Some sole American invading “contractor” (i.e., mercenary) gets killed by an Iranian drone quite legally protecting Syria against such attacks by the American forces illegally occupying nearly a third of their territory, including all of their oil fields, and this piracy allegedly deserves Loco Joe’s wrath and vengeance against the victims, along with a typical deceitful, “sorry, no offense, just fighting terrorism in Syria as any good American would.” Anything ever said by the official mouthpieces of the American predators in this shooting gallery has long ago departed from any semblance of sanity or reality. It’s all beyond surreal and permits any depravity by our American “boy scouts” inflicted upon the world.
You diatribe against Biden is outside the current Overton window. Since USA is a pluralistic democracy, it has to allow some diversity of opinion, so Bolton is useful to make mayhem moderate. After all, Biden (and Trump, who hired and fired Bolton, an important clue to his way of thinking) did not start a hot war with Iran, and he is still a bit stingy with weapons and funds to Ukraine, when we use unceasing lamentation of Zelensky to mark right side of the window.
The role of Bolton is to make people like Biden, Blinken or even Nuland seem reasonable.
Another fine piece from Johnstone. No one should be surprised to see the likes of Bolton still on the scene spouting his war mongering imperialistic B.S. The US is way beyond having shame for anything it does in our ‘post-truth’ political and media culture. Michael Gordon of the NY Times, as well as many others, was faithful to the US imperium, relaying whatever crap he was fed by the Pentagon. He still fills that role today on matters about US-NATO/Ukraine/Russia. Numerous “experts” who were wrong on grave matters of life & death are routinely trotted out as people with ‘gravitas’ to sell the empire’s official narratives. After all, that is the primary function of our corporate media.
………. There was recent reporting about how the truth of NO WMDs in Iraq was well known within the Bush regime WAY before the murderous invasion. ……. The US was never held accountable for its viscous war on Vietnam. Same goes for another illegal war on Iraq.
…..Why would the US fascists feel a need to behave any differently when it can do virtually anything and get away with it??
Is it any wonder why much of the world is turning to China for diplomatic/economic leadership?? The US empire is, thankfully, coming to an end, dragging with them a handful of lackey nations who’re betting on the wrong horse. The only question remaining is——-> will the US eventually accept its place as a regional power, one of 193 countries ,behaving in a civil, respectful manner in matters of diplomacy and trade, WITHOUT resorting to using nukes to forestall the inevitable???
You know, it is perfectly, harmoniously ironic that about twenty years after the crime of the US war against Vietnam GHW Bush waged a war in Iraq to dispel “Vietnam Syndrome,” and now about 20 years after his son’s continuing the family project of destroying Mesopotamia some POTUS may have to commit another crime to dispel the hangover of “Iraq Syndrome.”
Yup – it’s called “Ukraine”
“Our hope is in the young people, not the warriors and warmongers. They are all too close to the caveman age.” That is a quote from 104-year old Clifford Holiday, a Canadian veteran of World War I, named to the Légion d’Honneur by the government of France for his service at Vimy Ridge. He was interviewed while living in California, by the Ottawa Citizen, for a story that appeared April 9, 2003. From Caitlin Johnstone we find confirmation that nothing has changed in 20 years.
I agree that Bolton is a psychopath. But it’s not saying much, Obama is a psychopath, Al Gore is a psychopath, Bill Clinton is a psychopath, even Jimmy Carter is a psychopath (Oscar Romero, East Timor, Nicaragua, Guatamala, El Salvlador, etc … long list). The bar is pretty low.
This man is the chaff that must be removed from the highest levels of our government. He is a horror monster that treads upon us like Godzilla himself. The big question is how to get rid of him?
Gather up every living, breathing, capable human being – we ALL must fight. If we aren’t willing to die for our freedom – we will have a miserable life left. We’ve already given up WAY too much of our power. We have a long, hard fight to get it back.
We need to put Bolton into uniform as a private (second class) and send him (and all the chickenhawks) to the front in the next war.
Why wait – send him to Ukraine
Yeah, send him to the Russian Front, and watch the pathetic coward soil himself before he even got to the combat zone. I would pay good money to see that.
He’s a poster boy for the Freak Show that is US politics.
Yes. Ukraine is a good place for him. They are running short of soldiers. They need support for a few hours on the front line.
These psychopaths do not think and act like normal human beings, they do not have the morals, the ethics, the humanity that one would expect of a normal human being.
Unfortunately for all, the press gives these psychopaths a forum, a platform to spout their evil mutterings.
They do need to be exposed for what they are, as this article does, and ridiculed as this article does.
Bolton was spawned in the secret imperialists pig era wars of the Bush/ Reagan ’80’s. The military at least convinced HW from going onto Baghdad in ’91 after his false flag ploy with Kuwait. HW got to announce our shame over losing in Viet Nam was over in ’91, which Whack A Mole’s like Bolton eat up. But of course some how some mysterious grenade (which never went off) shows up in ’92 when George Hot War Bush shows up in Iraq for God knows what reason!
running a close second to this creepy draft dodger’ JoeLieberman. Connecticut’s most notorious draft dodger and war monger.
Pundits trying to rewrite Iraq because it eerily feels similar to Russia’s justification to invade Ukraine.
There are no similarities between Iraq and Ukraine:
– Iraq had no WMD, and the US knew and lied about it. It was a pure war of aggression using 9/11 as a false pretext. Over a million Iraqis have died because of US actions.
– Ukraine has been shelling the ethnic Russians of Donbas since 2014, and in collusion with France, Germany and the U.S., deceived Russia with the Minsk peace agreements while arming and preparing for this U.S. proxy war with Russia. To this one can add the US led regime change in 2014, and NATO’s relentless expansion right up to Russia’s borders, and the US destruction of the NS pipelines in an act of international terrorism. An estimated 325,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been sent to their death by Zelensky.
Thank you, dead on. America’s culture elevates psychopaths. Well, if Mr. Bolton, chicken-hawk extraordinaire who has throughout his life kept himself safely out of harms way while urging others to go to fight and die would like to pull on his little boots and finally head for the front lines in Ukraine, I’m sure we could crowd-source a ticket for him.
Chicken-hawk extraordinaire – exactly. These warmongers are mostly a bunch of bed-wetting cowards who constantly urge others to fight and die. They are worse than sociopaths, but it would take a psychologist to list all of their mental illnesses.
Many believe, and still believe the BS blah blah from bloviating conman Trump. The fact that he appointed this a-hole should have sent a message, not to mention Pompeo.
Jonny: Thank you. Yes, it seems to be a consistent characteristic in neocon circles. I guess they just know that they are too valuable to the world to risk out there in the field…
I also agree about Trump’s appointees. I have to wonder though if he has learned anything. I have to observe that he didn’t institute even more military conflict abroad despite the probably constant urgings of exactly these two dyed-in-the-wool neos. For the most part, he actually resisted their advice. I guess he figured that he knew better. Biden seems to be the opposite of that.
In any case, the issue for me is that Biden, Nuland, Sullivan and Blinken are a known quantity. I don’t have to speculate on what they are likely to do especially if it is their last chance. And the DP supports them. I really do think they are mad and if they cannot be right they will blow us all to hell. I wouldn’t expect anything good from Trump. Perhaps less acutely bad, and maybe more importantly for the rest of the world. But at this point whichever way you go, it’s a roll of the dice.
Despite trumps myriad pathologies, I have to acknowledge to myself that he really does not want to generate more foreign military conflicts with the US military.
He seems to be pretty clear and honest about at least that one thing.
So what does it mean that Bolton and Pompeo held such powerful positions in his administration? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?
It does seem that Trump was a uccessful at that one policy value. When was the last time a US president did not use the US military overtly or covertly to thwart democracy in a foreign country? 100 years? More?
Bolton was appointed what? Trump’s Emissary of Overthrow to Venezuela? And he at least failed to invade. Something seems odd about that to me.
A lot of people are justifying their Trump-vote with this logic, that at least he didn’t start any more military conflagrations. Maybe he attempted to resist, maybe not, I thought his blowing up if that Iranian general was a pretty obvious attempt to get into it with Iran, luckily it was Iran who resisted. Again, there may be truth to the notion that Trump would stand up to the MIC and try to stop all this, but I wouldn’t count on it. Right now our “choices” for leadership are a clear lose-lose scenario. The sooner we accept that and maybe do something about it, the better off we’ll be.
Slobobba: Thank you. Good questions. I can only guess that Trump enjoyed the bluster they put on if not so much the substance. And since he is a CEO type, not a politician, there was probably a lot of maneuvering in setting up his cabinet. Perhaps Pompeo and Bolton were the deep state’s contribution.
I don’t know if he ever had any plan more than self-aggrandizement but if he did, these two deep state, war mongering reps certainly helped fuck it up for him. No doubt they were constantly lobbying him for more war. I’m sure they made it seem to be a very appealing tough-guy image.
But at least Trump does not seem to hold a personal hatred toward Putin. How much of the current conflict, even before Ukraine, I wonder, stems from the personal animosity of Nuland, Blinken, Sulllivan and Biden, HRC and others. Not to mention the intelligence community that Ray McGovern has explained is filled with ideological Russia-haters. In fact, I also read somewhere that Nuland and Blinken are of Ukrainian descent. I have not confirmed that. Remember though that Nuland, Blinken and Sullivan, and Biden have been working on the Ukraine project since 2014 and even before. They are invested. If they get elected in 2024, it’s their last chance to complete a decades long effort.
All speculation on my part but it seems to me that Trump likes people to love or worship him in contrast to people like Bolton, Pompeo and HRC (and Nuland) who only feel in control if their boot is on your neck and rather like pulling the trigger to see the effect.