Exclusive: Donald Trump’s appointment of war hawk John Bolton is a cause for concern, Daniel Lazare writes, but what is perhaps an even bigger concern is that both major U.S. political parties are dominated by war hawks.
By Daniel Lazare
John Bolton is a hawk’s hawk, a militarist who never saw a U.S. war of aggression he didn’t like. The best thing one can say about his appointment as national security adviser is that Trump will probably ignore him the way he does all his other advisers and fire him six months down the road. If so, the sky won’t fall right away. But make no mistake – it will soon.
Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton speaking at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo: Gage Skidmore
Rarely has war fever in Washington been deeper and more broad-based. Everybody’s jumping on board – liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, human-rights advocates and neoconservatives. With the 2018 midterms fast approaching, it seems that the only choice voters will have is between a military conflict from column A and one from column B. Which will it be – the clash with Putin that liberals are talking themselves into? Or the showdown with Iran that Bolton has long advocated?
It’s a choice between cyanide and arsenic. One moment, Trump is threatening “Little Rocket Man” Kim Jong Un with “fire and fury” while, in the next, the New York Times is demanding that he take off the gloves with regard to the Kremlin. The title of a Times editorial on Friday, March 15, said it all: “Finally, Trump Has Something Bad to Say About Russia.”
It blasted the Orange-Haired One for being slow to impose sanctions in retaliation “for the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 election” – still unproven, by the way – and of holding off “for reasons that have never been made completely clear.” This last point was rich considering how often the Times denounces Trump as a “Siberian candidate” that Russia installed in the White House to do its bidding. The editorial slammed Putin as “an authoritarian leader” who “has paid little or no price for his aggressions” in Syria and the Crimea, and it predicted that the Russian president “won’t stop until he knows that the United States will stand up to him and work with its allies to impose stronger financial and diplomatic measures to rein him in.”
If financial and diplomatic measures don’t work, what then – military force? Five days later, Editorial Page Editor James Bennet issued another schoolyard taunt, this time an editorial entitled, “Why Is Trump So Afraid of Russia?” The occasion was a remark that ex-CIA Director John Brennan had just made on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”: “I think he’s afraid of the president of Russia. … The Russians, I think, have had long experience with Mr. Trump and may have things they could expose.” (Quote begins at 5:05.) The comment was an excuse for yet more Times paranoia:
“The possibility that Mr. Putin could have some hold on the American president has lurked in the background over the past year as Mr. Trump displayed a mystifying affection for the Russian leader and ignored or excused his aggressive behavior and nefarious activities, most important, his interference in the 2016 campaign, a subject of the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.”
Of course, it’s a subject of Mueller’s investigation, and it will continue to be so as long as Congress gives him carte blanche to look for dirt wherever he pleases, regardless of whether it has anything to do with Russian collusion or not. The editorial then went at Trump once again for the sin of insufficient hostility: “…it’s hard to see how praising and appeasing a bully will advance American interests. That’s not the approach Mr. Trump has taken with adversaries like North Korea or Iran, or, for that matter, even with some allies.”
“If Mr. Trump isn’t Mr. Putin’s lackey,” it concluded, “it’s past time for him to prove it” – perhaps by threatening to incinerate Moscow the way he has threatened Pyongyang.
The relationship between adolescent rhetoric like this and Trump’s decision to bring semi-fascists like Bolton and Tea Partier Mike Pompeo on board is clear. The more the Times, not to mention the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, and others, taunt him as soft on Russia, the more he taunts them right back for being soft on Iran and then adopts confrontational tactics to demonstrate his own machismo.
Bolton is the latest example of where such tit-for-tat madness is leading. The former U.S. ambassador to the UN is famous as an opponent of the 2015 Iran nuclear accord and advocate of Iranian regime change. On this, he and Trump see eye to eye, which suggests that years of fist-shaking may finally give way to something more concrete, like cruise missiles and bunker-busting bombs.
With Pompeo as secretary of state, Trita Parsi, leader of the National Iranian American Council, tweets that “Trump is assembling a WAR CABINET” – and the judgment may well be on the mark. If so, Tehran will undoubtedly respond by shoring up its defenses along the “Shi‘ite crescent” stretching across Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. The Arab gulf states will ratchet up their anti-Shi‘ite sectarianism while Turkey and Israel may conclude that it’s now open season on Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and likewise send in the bombers and troops.
After a momentary lull, the effect will be to thrust the region into yet another round of war, one even bigger and more ferocious than the last. All the usual horrors will ensue – refugees, terrorism, social collapse, and renewed xenophobia in Europe and the US.
But Iran is where things get complicated. It’s allied with Russia while both states are allied with Assad, whom Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Barack Obama spent years trying to topple. Trump opposes the 2015 Iran accord but wants to make nice with Putin, while liberals back the agreement while at the same time viewing the Russian president as the devil incarnate even though he helped negotiate it. Their neocon allies are meanwhile hostile to all three.
Chuck Schumer, leader of the glorious anti-Trump #Resistance in the Senate, voted against the Iran agreement, as did fellow New York Democrat Eliot L. Engel in the House. William Kristol, leader of the never-Trump neocons, campaigned against it along with fellow neocon Trump-basher Max Boot.
So the more Trump moves against Iran and Syria, the more divisions are likely to emerge in the anti-Trump camp between neocons who see nothing wrong with confronting Tehran and liberals who would be more comfortable with a stepped-up military response in the eastern Ukraine. Regardless of where it takes place, war will grow more likely rather than less. Bernie Sanders may finally speak out against such spiraling levels of insanity, but it will be too little too late.
John Bolton is without doubt a dangerous man. Not only did he champion the war against Saddam Hussein, but, even before U.S. troops had set foot in Iraq, he told Israeli leaders that the next step would be to take out Syria, Iran, and North Korea, a goal he has pursued with single-minded consistency ever since. For Bolton, the aim is to create a growing cascade of Third World wars so as to propel the U.S. into a position as unchallenged military dictator of the entire globe. The more numerous the conflicts, the more he’s convinced that the U.S. will come up on top.
The problem though is that Democrats have been no less bellicose. Breaking ranks with Democrats like Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis, Bill Clinton set the pace in 1984 by allowing the Arkansas National Guard to be transferred to Honduras in support of Ronald Reagan’s regime-change efforts in neighboring Nicaragua. Democrats supported George Bush Sr.’s invasion of Panama in late 1989 and the 1990-91 Gulf War too. As president, Bill Clinton launched round-the-clock air attacks on the Balkans while Hillary championed the post-9/11invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Clinton, Obama, and John Kerry upped the ante even more after the 2011 Arab Spring by launching a bombing campaign that reduced Libya to anarchy and spending billions more to do the same to Syria.
The former has been set back generations as Al Qaeda and ISIS-linked Islamist militias battle one another in the streets, black African migrants are bought and sold as slaves, and women are subjected to draconian Saudi-like restrictions. According to the World Bank, Syria has suffered an estimated $226 billion in war damage, a staggering sum for a country of 21 million people with a per-capita income as of 2010 of just $1,700.
The problem with Washington is that it doesn’t have one war party, but two. The more they go at one another, the more they export America’s domestic chaos overseas in the form of Third World military conflict. Could it be that America is turning into the biggest failed state of them all?
Daniel Lazare is the author of The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy (Harcourt Brace, 1996) and other books about American politics. He has written for a wide variety of publications from The Nation to Le MondeDiplomatique, and his articles about the Middle East, terrorism, Eastern Europe, and other topics appear regularly on such websites as Jacobin and The American Conservative.
The US has to choose between defeating China in their economic and financial wars and protecting Israel’s security in the Middle East. It is no longer capable of doing both at the same time. The America has been the wealthiest country in the world, but most of those wealth are in the hands of private multinational corporations and top1%, not of the government.
“Which will it be – the clash with Putin that liberals are talking themselves into? Or the showdown with Iran that Bolton has long advocated?” Honestly, I find it hard to comprehend that even after all these years there seems to be no human brainpower at work to observe what has happened up to now. Do the PTB in the USA not notice their wars are lost? Do they not believe Pres. Putin, who speaks clearly, does not bluff, has tried to arrange talks with”partners” for 14 years and now gives an ultimatum? Does Iran have any other enemies beside Israel (for dubious reasons) and several neocon maniacs like Bolton?
There is a youtube: Bernard Freedman a jewish man who spoke about Theodore Hertzl and how they are got us into WW1 and 2. When I looked at the youtube a few years ago it was there…just went to the site and youtube has all but squashed it claiming it was “offensive to some people”. If you persist and want to view it you can…this youtube and this man was my earliest experience between judasim and zionism and the difference…says a lot about where we are today….John Bolton is a neo con who supports the Greater Israel..
To: Elizabeth Allen
Here are some less controversial historical references and maps on the Middle East, WWI and borders. They pertain more to Chaim Weizmann than Theodor Herzl. Unfortunately, many of them have to be purchased:
[] The Balfour Declaration | Jonathan Schneer | Downpour | 2012
https://www.downpour.com/the-balfour-declaration?sp=185853
[] Damascus Protocol Map
https://www.google.com/search?q=Damascus+protocol+map+pic&client=opera&hs=zwe&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=A5EGCRNGuHivpM%253A%252C1eDDIsT_YuCx3M%252C_&usg=__aN8daFTNC2k8qXysB959dyB3tJE%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiowrzTipnaAhWLyVMKHeWXA-sQ9QEIKzAA#imgrc=A5EGCRNGuHivpM:
[] Sykes-Picot Agreement Map
https://www.google.com/search?q=sykes-picot+map&client=opera&hs=oye&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=C6UC_IiVuk86gM%253A%252CX6jaQF6hTRuXUM%252C_&usg=__C6-6CtoyvjUGhiOpmCDtc1e4Rs0%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiN5ayJi5naAhWJwFMKHVqKAqUQ9QEILDAC#imgrc=C6UC_IiVuk86gM:
[] Israel Armistice Lines Map (1949-1967)
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/aboutisrael/maps/pages/1949-1967%20armistice%20lines.aspx
[] Israel After the Six Day War Map (1967)
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/aboutisrael/maps/pages/june%2010-%201967-%20israel%20after%20the%20six%20day%20war.aspx
[] The Warburgs | Ron Chernow | Amazon | 2016 (No longer available on Downpour)
https://www.amazon.com/Warburgs-Twentieth-Century-Odyssey-Remarkable-Jewish/dp/0525431837
[] Palestine, Zionism & Arab-Israeli Conflict | The Great Courses (Discontinued)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4452649-the-teaching-company—palestine-zionism-and-the-arab-israeli-conflic
[] The United States and the Middle East: 1914 to 9/11 | The Great Courses
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/united-states-and-the-middle-east-1914-to-9-11.html
[] Seven Pillars of Wisdom | TE Lawrence | Downpour
https://www.downpour.com/seven-pillars-of-wisdom?sp=109210
[] PDF Download: The Art of the Possible: TE Lawrence & Coaltion Liaison | Curtis Milan | 2001
http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA397025
[] From Coal to Oil | Eric J Dahl | 2000
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a524799.pdf
[] History of the Arab Peoples | Hourani | Downpour
https://www.downpour.com/a-history-of-the-arab-peoples?sp=199253
[] Geacron:Interactive World History Atlas since 3000 BC
http://geacron.com/home-en/
Correction to my above comment: “The Warburgs” by Ron Chernow is available on Downpour.
Finally, Trump the most despised alt right warmonger in his cabinet. Should we be afraid, at 76 I am now more terrified than ever in my life…yeah that takes care of the Bush regime and Vietnam and the Coldwar. Get ready people, we will have to stay in the streets, on our feet to make sure they don’t pull out the nukes, when Kim and Trump and Bolton meet. Trump will come back saying he cant make a deal and surprise surprise, we will wake up to a nuclear war…
He need to be admitted to a home for the insane elderly, alternately a Supermax
the man is a menace. I won’t obfuscate any further. ha!
Gee, I thought Trump made himself the target of the deep state by being a pacifist.
According to Ralph Nader, “John Bolton’s career of pushing for bombing countries like Iran and North Korea, and his having played an active role in the Bush/Cheney regime’s criminal war of aggression that destroyed Iraq, makes him a clear and present danger to our country and world peace.” This article should have asked ” What was President Trump thinking when he appointed John Bolton as his national security advisor.” Unfortunately, only Trump has the answer to this riddle.
Bolton doesn’t really have any power at all and Trump thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room, always. Maybe he’s right , I don’t know I’m not in the room. . Trump’s about face yesterday and the pronouncement that will be leaving Syria “very soon” kind of turns things on it’s ear. That flies in the face of a military build up on Iran’s flank. Military Intelligence would definitely not allow our nation to cede it’s position in Syria if an attack on Iran was/is imminent. Maybe We the People can exert more power than we think we have and force a new focus on Domestic Policy and Infrastructure.There are elections this year and there is a crazy bubble in high end real estate and the stock market There is danger ahead . Furthermore China and Germany can basically stop a war attack on Iran and we aren’t going to attack Russia, Period. So I think Bolton will be as ineffectual as ever/ they’ll come up with an excuse to let him fade out in a few months.
Trump saying the US was coming out of Syria, but someone else was going in to take our place, leads me to believe that someone else is going to be Israel. The Saudis or the Jordanians would get their clocks cleaned. The Turks are already fighting Washington’s Kurdish allies. But Israel would get the chance it has always wanted to go toe-to-toe with Iranian forces. From Syria the war spreads to Iran. What the fools can’t control is that from there it spreads to Russia and possibly China. After that, world-wide peace. No troublesome biological activity whatsoever, anywhere, except maybe at some mid-ocean hydrothermal vents. Some sulphur-oxidizing archeons and giant tube worms shall rule the earth. The UFO’s will have to find a new refueling station.
As an Australian, your Government scares the shit out of me. In fact it has done so for decades. Many of us here respected the US for its role in Australia’s defence in the WW2 war in the Pacific but as your country went on to the disaster in Vietnam( which sadly we supported for a long time) and the many subsequent clumsy, expensive and misguided regime changes prompted by a fear of “reds”, we have watched the massively expensive in human and economic terms, spread of destruction across the Middle East. America’s(and Australia’s) sycophancy to Israel is a large part of this disease. However America’s bellicosity, along with an apparent willingness to bankrupt the country while keeping its citizenry impoverished and its mercenaries enriched, gives cause for tremendous fear. The US needs to pull its nose out of the Mid East and return to defending its own borders. This might encourage Russia to downscale as well and we could then allow the Middle East to sort out their own problems.
There is no government in the usa, there is only a shameless front group of treacherous cowardly selfserving elected greedheads hiding the unelected deep state which is a powerful and massive globalist financial matrix working hand in glove with the military industrial cabal of weapons purveyors and an enormous network of treacherous intelligence agency “security” spooks and the whole anti-constitutional profiteering empire is run using state secrets privilege, fear and intimidation, blackmail, secrecy, propaganda – every tool these psychopathic pinheads can see will serve their murderous purposes. And while I’m at it, Israel is not a state. It’s a bloody ruthless terrorist organization funded and armed by the bought and paid foe congress of the usa who rob their constituents blind while the banksters load the working families with fraudulent debt that can never be repaid and the criminally complicit media talking heads misinform them with a relentless diet of premeditated lies to keep them confused and too busy toiling just to stay alive to ever unlearn what isn’t true and therefore proceed to put an end to the tyranny-slavery dystem about to kill every one of us and this pretty planet.
The dumbest way to run a country or a planet is to allow people to go after unlimited fortunes, which are unlimited power, which means the least scrupulous will always go hardest after the wealth they cannot possibly have earned and then the 1% get to tyrannize the 99% forever. Humans are obviously too damn stupid to survive and live as equals, so it’s nuclear kaboom for all of us in 3 years, give or take 3 years. We should never have come down out of the trees.
E,Leete,…”There is no government in the usa, there is only a shameless front group of treacherous cowardly selfserving elected greedheads hiding the unelected deep state”…the sad truth…and if a disaster happened tomorrow, nuclear or otherwise, few would know where to point the blame…the vast majority of the public has been brainwashed.
America may well be the end point of an interesting, but failed species.
Heh, heh, heh. Trump is assembling a real war cabinet. Including Bolton ( the devil incarnate). This is while he is also supplying weapons of mass destruction to Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Nicky Haley (ambitious as Lucifer) is constantly on the warpath in the UNSC..
The very great warning about Gog and Magog going to trouble humankind is coming true at last. Gog, the US and its minions, and Magog, the violence-loving and bloodthirsty fundamentalists led by the Saudis, crazed jihadists and co.
I guess the end may be near for many of us. There are no responsible adults in power anymore. I can’t imagine sanity breaking out soon.
I wonder whether we ought to limit the wealth of individuals in our democracy (?????????) so that billionaires should not become too powerful?? Witness Adelson, the rabid zionist, calling the shots for the Republican party by getting Bolton, the rabid anti-Iranian appointed our security advisor (really the war promoter). Our Defense Department is really our War Department.
Good luck trying to corral Adelson, who has casinos in Vegas and Singapore. It’s a money laundering empire and since he pays the political hacks already, who is going to stop him?
Would it blow your mind if facts were found and facts proved a two-headed political beast has no spine?
How scared should we be?
Try this on for size;
https://youtu.be/snTaSJk0n_Y
A more relevant and realistic title for Mr. Lazare’s insightful writing, given the current worrisome international situation, may have been: “The Bolton Appointment: Where Are The World’s Peacemakers?”
Right Jerry. We don’t hear much about peace anymore. She has been drowned out by the war drums$$$$$$$$…………
To: Independent Comment:
The country is plagued by consumer, corporate and national debt, high taxes that disadvantage price competitiveness and take-home pay resulting in trade deficits, bankruptcies, ineffective tariffs that raise consumer prices that reduce sales, socialized capitalism[1] and questionable regulations that stifle new business creation. Government is not willing to reform the tax regime by replacing and consolidating the income tax, sales tax, excise tax, and tariff with a decentralized form of Edgar Feiges APT tax with limits on extreme inheritance and reigning in extreme monopolies.
So,… to keep inflating the monetary system, war preparations and public works projects are being used to extract more dollars from taxpayers (similar to the 1930’s) to feather the nests of unproductive capital gains on Wall Street, the National Security State and capital-rich investors. Let’s hope we don’t have a sudden and drastic devaluation of the dollar as we did with the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, albeit implemented differently. To paper over the economic decline and loss of social mobility, the Mighty Wurlitzer is playing a patriotic tune of war and everyone knows there are great amoral profits to be had during war.
There is some resemblance to the latter days of the Roman Empire:
1) Bribing soldiers with promises of higher pay (Trump harping about pay raises)
2) Use of mercenaries (private military companies)
3) Coin-clipping (monetary inflation) and higher taxes (more tariffs, less tax deductions)
4) Promising citizenship to barbarians who fight for Rome (immigrants for the US)
5) Military failure in foreign lands (Iraq, Syria,…)
6) Paying off barbarians (Moderate rebel funding, foreign aid)
…
[1] Socializing Capital | WG Roy | 1997
http://14.139.206.50:8080/jspui/bitstream/1/2906/1/Roy,%20William%20-%20Socializing%20Capital.pdf
Behind it all: HUBRIS. The dream of ruling the world with an iron fist. The climax of the Kali Yuga, the Age of Iron. Those who have killed and conned their way to the top have become addicted to power – and they want it ALL!
Trump appointed Bolton because the GOP is desperate for Adelson’s campaign contributions (read bribery) for this November’s elections. The Republicans are vulnerable this fall and they well know it. Bolton’s always been Sheldon’s special little boy. Adelson’s the most rabid and violent Zionist billionaire on the planet, if he and Bolton had their druthers Washington would annihilate Tehran tonight.
The Iran nuke deal — one of the few good things Obama accomplished — is now going to be dead in the water, putting the world on the brink of another major economic crisis since if the Zionists get their regime change war on Iran gas will spike to $5 per gallon causing an immediate global recession. Of course an impending economic recession should be of the least concern with the eventual tens of thousands of innocent Iranian deaths, American soldier casualties lasting into a decades long PTSD nightmare future, and Russia deeply concerned about its own survival.
Assuming Russia would stand by and do nothing to prevent Iran from being devastated. Putin recently said that would NOT be the case.
Right, mike k. We could potentially be on the brink of WWIII.
You should read the Brookings report on “The Path to Persia”. The Iran Nuke Deal was conceived with the realization that, after the Iraq fiasco, a case for war with Iran would have to be built up by making it appear the the extra mile had been travelled to avoid war. It could buy time until Assad was overthrown in Syria in order to secure Israel. Since Assad is apparently secure despite helping the “freedom fighters” (ie ISIL), time is running out. Now, violations will have to be found/created by the Israel Lobby. Alternatively, the Israel Lobby, through Trump, can just scrap the deal. But if that happens, there will be no “coalition of the willing” other than the US.
Brookings is filled with extremely dangerous warmongers, always has been. The reason they’re extremely dangerous is b/c they’re smart, articulate and smooth operators behind the scenes. They know exactly how to pound the drums for war in order to get the casual and liberal minded citizen on board. I vividly remember in the run-up to the 2003 war on Iraq Brookings sent out some of their most astute charlatans to run cover for the looming war by appearing on the Oprah Show and assuring everyone in righteous and worldly tones that we just had to do something about Saddam’s WMDs.
“Which Path to Persia?: Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran” was authored by a team of pro-Israel war hawks headed by Martin Indyk, a former staffer at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran_strategy.pdf
On 3 December 2017, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser on Middle East/Israel issues, gave his first on-the-record appearance at the Saban Forum at the Brookings Institution.
Addressing the audience at Brookings, Kushner said, “It’s really an honor to be able to talk about this topic with so many people who I respect so much, who have given so much to this issue.” He acknowledged that “We’ve solicited a lot of ideas from a lot of places.”
Kushner used pro-Israel Lobby bellicose rhetoric about “Iran’s aggression” and claims about “their nuclear ambitions and their expansive regional mischief”.
Trump’s Administration, as Kushner’s remarks clearly indicate, obviously bases its understanding of “regional dynamics” on “a lot of ideas” from the pro-Israel war hawks at the Brookings Institution.
Indyk, the “director” of the Saban Center at Brookings, cofounded the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in 1985 with the wife of AIPAC Chairman Lawrence Weinberg and former president of the Jewish Federation, Barbi Weinberg. Despite his well known affiliation with the Israel Lobby and his Australian nationality, Bill Clinton appointed Indyk as the first foreign-born US Ambassador to Israel in 1995. The issuance of his US nationality had been expedited for his previous appointment by Clinton in 1993 as Middle East adviser on the National Security Council.
Kenneth M. Pollack, the “director of research” at the Saban Center, is a former CIA analyst and National Security Council staffer under Bill Clinton. A prominent “liberal hawk” cheerleader for the Iraq War, Pollack is credited with persuading liberals to endorse the invasion of Iraq. His 2002 book, The Threatening Storm, was influential in selling the “WMD” case. His 2005 book, The Persian Puzzle, recycled many of the same arguments, this time directed at Iran.
Michael E. O’Hanlon, the “director of foreign policy research” at Brookings, is a war hawk and frequent op-ed writer for major news outlets like the Washington Post. In recent years, O’Hanlon has pushed for U.S. intervention in Syria. In April 2007, O’Hanlon and Fred Kagan urged the United States to invade and occupy Iran.
In March 2003, shortly after the United States invaded Iraq, O’Hanlon contributed his name to an open letter published by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neoconservative advocacy outfit closely associated with American Enterprise Institute that played a major role generating public support for the invasion of Iraq and pushing an expansive “war on terror.” Among those contributing their names to the document were hardline neocons like Max Boot, Eliot Cohen, Joshua Muravchik, and William Kristol, as well as liberal interventionists like O’Hanlon and Ivo Daalder, also a scholar based at Brookings.
In their landmark book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (2007), American political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt note that the Saban Center at Brookings is “part of the pro-Israel chorus” (pg 156).
Mearsheimer and Walt observed that “Saban Center publications never question US support for Israel and rarely, if ever, offer significant criticism of key Israeli policies.”
Reply to Drew Hunkins: This comment is a bit verbose, however I do have several points to make.
As a born and raised American with four generations removed from the practice of Judaism, this writer (myself) will make a few personal observations regarding America, the Israel lobby and Zionism; As an American, I’m painfully aware of our country’s heritage, stealing land, one way or another from the original occupants, The Red man, the American Indian and racially mixed Mexicans, bears a certain uncomfortable resemblance to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We, North Americans share a certain “land grab” accusation made against Israel. This picture gets cloudier still when Zionism and what constitutes a Jew enters the equation. By this I mean to say, there are no genetic markers for being identified as a Jew, it’s more than anything else, based on religious beliefs. In my option the true Jews are practicing Ultra-orthodox and Conservatives. I reference here an expert on this issue, Professor of History, Sholmo Sand of Hebrew University. In any case, the majority of Zionists are atheists and hide their political agendas behind the homeland or motherland of Israel and their citizenry. The Adelson(s), Janet Yellen, Stanley Fisher, Henry Kissinger types, Paul Wolfowitz, Mario Monti, Peter Sutherland are mere marionettes, this includes closely associated institutions such as Goldman Sachs, Trilateral Commission and of course at the very top, The World Bank. However, these Zionists and their One World Order agenda have one single class of puppet masters, The Rothschild and City of London bankers. These families are the trillion-aires, call the shots, not AIPAC or Israeli lobbists, not Prime Minister Netanyahu or the Mossad or millionaire Zionists. Clearly they are not true Jews either, The Rothschilds are descendants of the Edomites, not Jews, and London’s CBD district bankers may be “Zionists” but I’ve yet to hear of any true affiliation with the Church of England or any sort of theocracy (s). Truth is, these London Banksters, and the spawn from old European dynasties Houses of Savoy, Zähringer, Habsburg, and Kyburg continue to rule the world BUT well behind the scenes. They will use a country like Israel, the United States and excuses for “integration” like the EU for promoting a one world government. Again the truth is, these are same puppet masters that precipitated the war of 1812 with the USA and now wish to start another conflict with Russia, BRICS and the SCO group of alliances. Why? because their banking and currency systems will not be under the thumb of the Rothschild group and it’s empire into the foreseeable future, got it?
(President Trump; Potential “Thug 4 Life” ???)
*
Trump on China’s Xi: Maybe US could have a president for life someday
‘He’s now president for life. President for life. And he’s great,’ says US president
The US President applauded Xi Jinping’s bid to usher China back into an era of a one man dictatorship
Maya Oppenheim
4 March 2018
Donald Trump has heaped praise on the Chinese president’s apparent moves to maintain his grip on power indefinitely, and contemplated whether America might follow suit.
The US president applauded Xi Jinping’s bid to usher China back into an era of a one man dictatorship – hailing the world leader as “great” and praising the fact he now holds office “for life”.
China’s most powerful leader in a generation, who took power in 2012, had been expected to rule until 2023. However, last week China’s ruling Communist Party proposed removing a constitutional clause limiting presidential service to two consecutive terms, potentially paving the way for China’s authoritarian leader to stay in office indefinitely.
“He’s now president for life. President for life. And he’s great,” Mr Trump reportedly told Republican donors at a fundraising event at his Mar-a-Lago estate where he hosted Mr Xi last April.
“And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot some day,” the US president added …
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-xi-jinping-us-president-for-life-maralago-estate-a8238896.html
Is Trump the megalomaniac many people claimed he is?
http://www.atimes.com/article/hawk-flies-back-white-house-shake-world-order/
http://www.atimes.com/article/pompeos-rise-ups-odds-middle-east-war/
The proposal to do away with term limits in China does not excuse the President from facing periodic elections. And before someone says there is no democracy in China, they might read China Rising by Jeff Brown, foreword by Pepe Escobar. Our ideas in America about China are shaped by decades of US propaganda. They have a hell of a lot sounder democracy than the crooked game played in the USA.
Note that all these pundits who carry on about China going “back to a one-man dictatorship” would not dare to speak in the same terms about the identical move in the USA that allowed FDR to win another term in office.
Nor do they mention the fact that Merkel just started her fourth term, that many of them favored the attempt to make a third member of the Bush family within a couple of decades president of the USA, or that a British prime minister has no such restrictions of any kind, of course, for lack of a constitution.
Bolton is symbolic of something much deeper and in essence, is predatory. The worlds’ citizenry had better wise up, this is a very old predation game, repeated, with dazzling regularity, throughout history. In the smoke filled rooms, behind so called sovereign countries, their establishments and political facades, are the billionaires, trillion-aires, East and West, who fashion imaginary, pretended, “enemies” for the proles to fear, culminating into some Orwellian “two minute hate”. In the end it adds up to just this: Autocracies and their plutocrats making a lot of money, living off both tax revenues and fear, thus perpetuating the military industrial complex(es), that should have been dismantled after the last world war(s) and then reinvested into social democracies (the only global thing I’m all for). The black art(s) of spilling blood wherever the autocrats can light a match, not in the name of justice but in the name of bottomless greed. The Russians do this, The Western Occident does this and oddly, China is getting the “hang of it” by diverting monies away from the new silk road and investments in Africa into bigger navy and air defenses. Yup, Xi’s Ober Fuhrer’s within the CCP, finally “fell for” it. The it, being the one and only real game in town, greed. Greed and it’s spawn; control, domination and this moral turpitude translates into hardship for the rest of humanity.
As if China didn’t have good reason to arm itself against the global hegemon. And to imply that China is “just as bad” as the US doesn’t fly well either. But most of your other comments make sense to me.
Reply to mike k…China’s CCP has greatly underestimated it’s best weapon- soft power. Building big flotillas and faster missiles are plainly, the Western world’s mistaken idea of power. Modernizing the various branches of the military, throws money down a black hole, east or west- irregardless. This was may original point: When one theater of WMD’s fail (during a major war), another will be used, Chemical/Biological. There’s simply is no way out of this ever evolving, brave new world of ours.
Again, people everywhere must come to realize the folly and greed hidden behind a century long, perpetual conspiracy, promoted and created by the banker class. Their motive is perfectly clear, financial gain thru fear and the looting of anything that resembles a mound of money, be it, social security funds, state pension funds, priceless cultural artifacts, common interstate roads, the varieties of thieving are endless and made legal by using the pretense or guise of “privatization”.
Outer space is the next con job, as I’ve previously stated in various CONSORTIUMNEWS commentaries, the total information awareness campaign can be irreversibly defeated by aiming a few A-warheads fixed onto a few ICBM’s, launched into commercial and military satellite space. The gig’s up, they know it but we the proles don’t. The bankers have their escape routes and islands all picked out, once there’s a total financial collapse and or global war and that’s the only global, one world, we’re ever going to come to witness.
Lest we forget:
“Amid much hysteria, the notion [had] been widely peddled in the United States that President Obama’s ‘new’ foreign policy doctrine, announced [in March 2014] at West Point, rejects neo-cons and neo-liberals and is, essentially, post-imperialist and a demonstration of realpolitik.
“Not so fast. Although stepping back from the excesses of the Cheney regime – as in bombing whole nations into ‘democracy’ – the ‘desire to lead’ still crystallizes might is right.
“Moreover, ‘exceptionalism’ remains the norm. Now not so blatant, but still implemented via a nasty set of tools, from financial warfare to cyber-war, from National Endowment for Democracy-style promotion of ‘democracy’ to Joint Special Operations Command-driven counter-terrorism, drone war and all shades of shadow wars.
“In the early 2000s, the model was the physical destruction and occupation of Iraq. In the 2010s the model is the slow-mo destruction, by proxy, of Syria.
“And still, those who ‘conceptualized’ the destruction of Iraq keep rearing their Alien-like slimy head. Their icon is of course Robert Kagan – one of the founders of the apocalyptically funereal Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and husband of crypto-Ukrainian hell raiser Victoria ‘F**k the EU’ Nuland (thus their dream of Ukraine as the Khaganate of Nulands, or simply Nulandistan.)
“Kagan has been devastatingly misguided on everything, as in his 2003 best-seller Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, an eulogy of ‘benign’ Americans standing guard against the ‘threats’ (as in Muslim fundamentalism) emanating from a Hobbesian world way beyond the cozy Kantian precinct inhabited by Europe.
“Then, in The Return of History and the End of Dreams (2008), the ‘evil’ was not Muslim fundamentalism anymore (too shabby), but the emerging of those vast autocracies, Russia and China, antithetical to Western democracies. But with The World America Made (2012), the paradisiacal shining city on the hill would once again triumph, more than capable to see those autocracies off; after all, the only reliable guarantee of global peace is American exceptionalism.
“Kagan still commands the attention even of the otherwise aloof Commander-in-Chief, who avidly consumed The World America Made before his 2012 State of the Union Address, in which he proclaimed ‘America is back’.
“It’s enlightening to flash back to Kagan writing in the Weekly Standard in March 2011, sounding like an awestruck schoolboy praising Obama; ‘He thoroughly rejected the so-called realist approach, extolled American exceptionalism, spoke of universal values and insisted that American power should be used, when appropriate, on behalf of those values.’
“Any similarity with Obama’s ‘new’ foreign policy doctrine is, indeed, intentional.”
Return of the living (neo-con) dead
By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-030614.html
To: Abe
Here’s a recent view from the President of the Council on Foreign Relations:
[1] Liberal World Order, R.I.P. | RICHARD N. HAASS | Mar 21, 2018
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/end-of-liberal-world-order-by-richard-n–haass-2018-03
Haass continues to spout CFR fact-free “liberal interventionist” propaganda boilerplate about the Israeli-Saudi-U.S. Axis “dirty war” om Syria:
“The world has stood by as humanitarian nightmares play out in Syria […] doing little at the UN or elsewhere in response to the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons.”
Back in 2012, Hasss was railing against Russian and Chinese veto power on the United Nations Security Council, complaining that the UN has no “monopoly on legitimacy”.
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/07/2012720115714757837.html
Haass has encouraged the United States to once again form ‘a coalition of the willing and able’, composed of NATO countries, selected Arab governments, and others that are committed to increasing sanctions against not just Syria but those countries supporting it, building up the strength and political appeal of the Syrian opposition, pressing for war crimes indictments against Bashar al-Assad and his inner circle, planning for strikes against Syrian chemical munitions” and other tender “liberal” mercies.
For Haass, it’s OK to bomb the hell out of anybody you want as long as you’re not “authoritarian”.
Anyone on the Council of Foreign Relations are Pro Israel. Israel has invaded and indoctrinated every so called pro democracy group we have. There are so few liberal publications who actually print something on Israel…you can count them on two fingers.
Thanks- I could hardly believe the terrible lies making up the comments of this person who is the suggested replacement for Bolton by the pundit I formerly admired- Colonel Larry Wilkerson, normally a reasonable Republican!
The so-called “neocons” and “liberal interventionists” are factions of the pro-Israel Lobby.
Sibel Edmonds noted in a recent Boiling Frogs Post Roundtable that the most honest and clear policy statement ever written was Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knWWAhiaApU
(Watch video minutes 59:00-1:02:00)
In The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2207), John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt named Max Boot as a leading “pundit” that represented the pro-Israeli Lobby’s positions, notably within the Council of Foreign Relations. The authors argued that Boot and other figures dishonestly warp American foreign policy away from its national interest.
Boot served as a foreign policy adviser to John McCain in 2008, having stated in an editorial in World Affairs Journal that he saw strong parallels between Theodore Roosevelt and McCain.
Boot praised President Obama’s decision to appoint General David Petraeus as the ground commander of the Afghanistan campaign, and he said that the conflict is winnable. He also mentioned that he has served as a civilian adviser to both Petraeus and his predecessor Stanley McChrystal.
Boot wrote for the Council through 2010 and 2011 for various publications such as Newsweek, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, and The Weekly Standard among others. He particularly argued that President Obama’s health care plans made maintaining the U.S. superpower status harder, that withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq occurred prematurely while making another war there more likely, and that the initial U.S. victory in Afghanistan had been undone by government complacency though forces could still pull off a victory. He also wrote op-eds criticizing planned budget austerity measures in both the U.S. and the U.K. as hurting their national security interests.
In April 2011, Obama nominated Petraeus to become the new Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. During his tenure at CIA (September 6, 2011 – November 9, 2012), Petraeus was well-positioned to coordinate a “new way forward” in the Syrian conflict. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Al-Qaeda re-boot, rapidly expanded.
In September 2012, Boot co-wrote with Brookings Institution senior fellow Michael Doran a New York Times op-ed titled “5 Reasons to Intervene in Syria Now”, advocating U.S military force to create a countrywide no-fly zone reminiscent of NATO’s role in the Kosovo War. Boot stated first and second that “American intervention would diminish Iran’s influence in the Arab world” and that “a more muscular American policy could keep the conflict from spreading” with “sectarian strife in Lebanon and Iraq”. Third, Boot argued that “training and equipping reliable partners within Syria’s internal opposition” could help “create a bulwark against extremist groups like Al Qaeda”. He concluded that “American leadership on Syria could improve relations with key allies like Turkey and Qatar” as well as “end a terrible human-rights disaster”.
There you have it. Liberal interventionism is simply left-wing pro-Israel Lobby thinking. Samantha Power was the pro-Israel Lobby UN Ambassador from Hell.
The next two years of Republican political theater and neocon kvetching about Obama were just foreplay until the pro-Israel big stick passed back from the left hand to the right hand in 2016.
When Obama was a state senator he was pro palestinan and the two state solution. In office, he did little to bring about peace, because the Kudnicks were all over him and he needed to run again. Anyone who doesn’t believe what we are saying simply google: Project for a new American Century, and the Greater Israel.
The right always claims a liberal bias in the middle…couldnt be further from the truth..I have seen Max Boot on MNSBC…all our corporate media (even their talking heads) are PRO Israel… Evangelicals are pro trump because they believe the end times will end in their lifetime and begins In Israel…That is the ONLY reason they are pro Trump.
It’s time to ditch the weasel words and call these characters what they are: pro-Israel warhawks.
Bolton has repeatedly urged military strikes against Iran:
“Naming Bolton suggests Trump is ready to pull out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal by May 12, the deadline for Trump to waive sanctions. The deal trades sanctions relief for a rollback of Iran’s nuclear program. Bolton is a staunch opponent of the deal, as is Mike Pompeo, the CIA chief Trump nominated last week to replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. […]
“Bolton has close relations with the pro-Israel community stemming from his success in 1991 in getting the United Nations to rescind its Zionism is racism resolution. Bolton was at the time the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs under President George H. W. Bush.
“Bush’s son, George W. Bush, nominated Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations in 2005 and named him acting ambassador. Bolton never cleared the Senate nominating process, in part because of his hawkishness on Middle Eastern issues, but also because subordinates at the State Department emerged to describe him as an abusive boss. Bolton had under the younger Bush been the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs.
“Pro-Israel groups, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, at the time broke with their protocol against endorsing a nominee and lobbied for Bolton’s confrimation, but to no avail. Bolton was forced to step down from the U.N. post.
“McMaster got along well with his Israeli counterparts but angered some on the right wing of the pro-Israel community because of reports that he blocked Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Trump ultimately recognized Jerusalem last December.”
https://www.jta.org/2018/03/22/news-opinion/politics/trump-set-name-john-bolton-iran-hawk-pro-israel-advocate-national-security-adviser
Bolton served as a U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 5 August 2005 until 31 December 2006. Bolton is currently a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and a Fox News Channel commentator. He was a foreign policy adviser to 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
A pro-Israel Lobby zealot for U.S. Wars for Israel, Bolton is closely involved with several pro-Israel think tanks, policy institutes and special interest groups, including the infamous Project for the New American Century (PNAC), and the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA).
Bolton also serves as Chairman of the Gatestone Institute, a New York-based pro-Israel think tank whose founder and President Nina Rosenfield, an heiress to the Sears Roebuck fortune, is an ardent Zionist.
Rosenfield was vice president of Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), and has served on the board of directors of many pro-Israel organizations, including Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Center for Security Policy (CSP), and the Hudson Institute. In 2003, Rosenfield was given an award by the Zionist Organization of America for her pro-Israel advocacy. She also serves on the board of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), headed by former IDF Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin.
Make no mistake: there are pro-Israel warhawks aplenty in both the Republican and Democratic parties.
The only difference is the Dems, including Bernie Sanders, are more rabid in their enthusiasm for the idiotic “Russia-gate” theory, and their avoidance of the “Israel-gate” reality that underlies the whole grotesque and dangerous charade.
Abe. You are missing the Big Picture as usual.
A virtuoso performance by “WC” last year
Zac. All I have been saying from the beginning is the problems of this world go way beyond your and Abe’s obsession with Israel. In your ideological war to save the world, you are fighting regional battles, which is fine if your ultimate target is to aim much higher.
I am also of the opinion there is no “Fix” for any of this because the problem ultimately goes to our human nature and what motivates it – both good and bad. And there is no fixing that without altering our DNA. No amount of laws or moral platitudes will prevent our dark side from coming out. Our history proves that beyond any shadow of a doubt. We will always have greedy opportunists, sociopaths and psychopaths. And no matter what system of government you come up with, these same sick, yet highly motivated individuals, will eventually worm their way in and corrupt it to their own gain, be it money, power, sex, or just the thrill of wholesale destruction, which generates more $$, power, etc..
If we can agree the .01% have this planet firmly in their grip, I find myself asking what their ultimate objective is? A logical deduction would say they want to find a way to stay in control and preserve their wealth and power, or even better, expand it! So the real question everyone should be asking is how do they plan to accomplish this?
With that thought in mind, do you really think a change in government in Israel will change the overall direction of the country any more than changing the government in the USA will? The best you can hope for is the usual political cosmetics because (if I am to listen to what all of you are saying on this site) the politicians don’t matter.
So bash away at your Israeli Zionists, etc.. all you want if you think this will improve matters. But while doing so, I wouldn’t lose sight of the Big Picture.
And finally, before I am barraged with idealism, despite my believing there is no “fix” for any of this, fighting for some breathing room from these monsters is a worth while endeavor. :)
There lives Darth in all of us.
Hasbara troll “WC” popped up out of his hole on March 23 – the day after the Bolton announcement – “after a 4 month hiatus”.
The sudden re-animation of comrade “WC” is certainly no surprise given the troll’s extensive track record of Hasbara antics.
See the chronicle of chronicle “WC”s li’l “ideological war” in the CN comments here:
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/03/22/how-many-millions-of-people-have-been-killed-in-americas-post-9-11-wars-part-one-iraq/
As usual, whenever Israel is mentioned, comrade “WC” mutters some claptrap about how we’re all somehow “missing the Big Picture”. Hilarity ensues.
In reality, the intense Israeli-Saudi-US Axis focus – we certainly can call it an “obsession” – with “regime change” threatens to provoke a major military escalation between nuclear-armed states.
The Hasbara troll army wants us all to stop mentioning the li’l “regional issue” of Israeli-Saudi-US Axis warmongering.
The history of comrade “WC”s numerous “ideological war” posts proves that beyond any shadow of a doubt that we’ll be hearing more of the same from this troll and Hasbara troll army “friends” who “agree”.
Abe. While I have your blind spot well diagnosed, I have yet to put my finger on the disconnect others have coming to terms with all of this. If it is just wishful thinking and idealism, this is no better than sticking your head in the sand.
In your mind the “Big Picture” is ” the intense Israeli-Saudi-US Axis focus . . . [that] threatens to provoke a major military escalation between nuclear-armed states.” But where your thinking appears to stop is understanding this is simply a TACTIC toward a bigger objective. What’s the END GAME??? Or can’t you answer that question?
Superpower is the unraveling end game, and this reality has been addressed here at CN.
Hasbara troll “WC” keeps on spinning propaganda yarns.
Abe. Regrettably, the Spam/Algorithm program at CN is on and off with moderation and some of my comments have disappeared into cyberspace, making it very difficult for me to have a productive conversation with you.
What you wrote above sounds right and you have no disagreement from me. But this is still a regional issue you are talking about. I wrote a response to Zac (unless that is gone as well) that covers this “regional” view. If it appears, I would be very interested in your reply. :)
Actually WC. Abe and I have had ‘words together’ but in this case he is right on target. I mentioned last year my distain with/at Bolton meeting with Sheldon Adelson and then heading the next day to the White House, which were too obvious in their nature to ignore. Bolton is a scary guy and too pro Israeli wars, and his desire to assist Israel in their ill-gotten prosper and gain through force and wars and an arsenal of undeclared WMDs a reality the world must face. And his meeting/greeting outside the Pentagon today where ‘mad dog’ called him the “devil incarnate” was a bit too true. I’m sure they were said with chuckles and ‘guy jabbing bs’ but Mad Dog was not far off in reality.
It’s time for your wake-up alarm to ring.
Curious. No one is arguing that Bolton is not a “scary guy” or that the Israeli lobby has too much influence on the USA or that Zionists have too much money and power. But to listen to just about everyone on this site moan and complain about this one issue is not the be all and end all of the world’s problems.
Abe believes I am saying all of this as a “distraction” in order to stifle “organized, effective political action”. When all I am saying is if you want real “effective political action”, one must have an understanding of the “Big Picture”. Where’s that conversation on this site??
Hasbara troll “WC” has one hilarious propaganda shtick: Kvetching that “everyone” at “this site” is “missing the Big Picture”.
The Israeli-Saudi-U.S. Axis project’s geo-strategic objectives obviously include control over over Eurasian energy resources and transit corridors, and an increasingly desperate effort to preserve petro-dollar hegemony.
Multiple contributors at Consortium news provide ongoing analysis of these dimensions.
Israel is deeply embedded in the steerage of this project, which is flailing to the point of nuclear brinksmanship.
That’s why “WC” and his Hasbara troll army “friends” are so very eager to entertain us.
Thank you Abe. Joe
ON SO-CALLED US “EXCEPTIONALISM”
This phrase is common today. A close scrutiny of the history of
the North American invasion (by EuroAmericans) will demonstrate
—and document— that versions of “exceptionalism” have pervaded
the history of North America from its invasion (15trh century) through
its many phases. See Francis Jennings, INVASION OF AMERICA”
and his later/last landmark works CREATING AMERICA.
The central role of economics is apparent. Note also the role
of the largest Euroamerican colonies such as Virginia. (Slavery was
retained in the US for a century while it waqs outlawed in the US.
—Peter KLoeb, Boston, MA, USA
“It’s time to ditch the weasel words and call these characters what they are: pro-Israel warhawks.”
Warhawks? Try a more clear and forceful word, “fascists”. We’re in Germany’s phase of about 1936. Read Defying Hitler by Sebastian Haffner. It will change your mentality.
Dear Abe: you may be closer to the truth than you think when you assert that “Bolton is closely involved with several pro-Israel think tanks, policy institutes and special interest groups…” When Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006, then-Ambassador John Bolton worked to prevent a ceasefire, acting as “an asset for Israel against the interests of his own secretary of state, his own State Department, his own superiors, and his own president,” says Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies. Bolton could very well be a true trojan horse. Good post Abe.
Abe, your telling the truth!…every Congress critter and every presidential candidate has to submit to Israel or your not elected. As we speak zionists are slaughtering palestinans…Kushner an rabid zionist delivering jerusalem to Israel violates international law…but so what…who will reign them in….no one.
Mr. Lazare belabors the obvious: that America is a militarist warfare state, while failing to answer his own question. In other words, he does not add anything to our understanding. Sorry, no attack on Mr. Lazare intended.
He also fails to note that there is a very serious mental abnormality about Bolton and many others in this administration. In fact Trump seems to be the sanest person there so that tells you something about the rest of them.
I agree.
The only deep state is the one created by Dick Cheney when he created the “Continuity of Government”, burying alt right war mongers deep into every agency. The US is a warmongering terrorist nation. Every where we go we create chaos, mass slaughter of innocent people, and we wonder why “they hate us”…they hate us cuz we are killing masses of people, destroying their country, and then STEALING their assets…Why are we still in Afganistan…the poppy crop…the US is bringing out heroin for a world wide market. If they can dope up and destroy generations they dont have to worry about them acting out, and protesting.