The Walrus Strikes

John Bolton's literary team has displayed some serious book marketing chops. We are impressed. 

Tucker Carlson, who up till yesterday this blog thought unreasonably hated the man, is not amused.

Here's what we wrote about Bolton last year.

We are amused that the Democrat Party, who for a decade and a half has treated John Bolton like a condensed rock of evil sitting in a toaster oven*, now pin their hopes on him. A disgruntled employee with a book to sell is a great witness, no?

*Reference.

John Bolton: Last of the Neocons

My latest over at Inforos:

John Bolton’s tenure as National Security Advisor ended in spectacular fashion this week when President Trump fired him. Bolton insists he resigned. Critics on both the right and left celebrated Bolton’s exit from the White House. The left saw Bolton as a war-monger and war-criminal directly responsible for the five-year campaign in Iraq. The right saw him as a Neoconservative holdover looking for new enemies and determined to keep America in Afghanistan for as long as it takes to defeat the Taliban.

Click on over... 

Neocon goes Paleo

Those are Norman Podhoretz's words, more or less.

Podhoretz is one of the most important, and certainly the most interesting intellectual of the second half of the 20th centuryand.

A Jewish immigrant, like a lot of Jewish immigrants he started out a communist, became a New Deal Democrat, but left the Dems in the 70's.

Thus Neoconservatism was born.

The term has had various meanings at various times, but at it's core neoconservatism means conservatives who used to be Democrats. Famous paleocons like Pat Buchanan or Robert Novak rejected the New Deal, but neocons embraced it and won the argument. In his inaugural speech as House Speaker in 1995, Newt Gingrich called FDR the greatest president of the 20th century.

The Reagan Administration was full of Neocons. So are the World War 1990 books. These were men like Richard Pearle, Elliot Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz; the later is Seceratary of Defense by the beggining Castro's Folly.

Like the author Podhoretz, has come around on Trump, marking yet another intellectual development for the man. Remarkable at the age of 89.

The Foreign Standard

The now defunct Weekly Standard was the right's flagship publication for an interventionist foreign policy.

In other places it has been argued that the Standard is most responsible for drumming up 'war fever' against Saddam.

They certainly had a lot of influence in Washington. The Neo-Cons in the White House had the president's ear becuase after 9/11 they were the only one's with a coherent plan. The old foreign policy pros, Baker, Scowcroft, etc etc, argued for containment and maintaining stability in the Middle East.

The Neo-Cons argued the opposite, calling for the destabilization of the Middle East. Why not destabilize a region full of secular dictators, kleptocrats, and religious whack-jobs?  Recall that after the liberation of Iraq a civilian defense policy review board chaired by Neocon extraordinaire Richard Pearl called for the seizure of Saudi Arabia's oil fields.

While the liberation of Iraq was certainly a Neoconservative project they were not the only one's calling for it. We're thinking of centrist 'new age' squishes like Tom Freidman here in the US and Michael Ignatief, the Canadian version of Tom Freidman.

We agreed and agree with all of the above.

We're trying to remember our mindset in the days after 9/11. We recall a vague sense that the Middle East had to be changed through war. In the spring of 2003 it seemed that was happening, no? Saddam had been toppled. Bush and Blair had just sidelined Yasser Arafat. It seemed to us that the next target was the Iranian Mullahs, who could be removed through some sort of internal revolution, dare we call it a 'Persian Spring'?

We thought that by liberating Iraq, the United States could wage cultural and ideological war from the heart of the Middle East. Heh, in the days following the 'Arab Spring' Kristol and company tried to take credit for the movement. In 2011 we understood that was Beltway crap. They didn't.

Which is one of the reasons why the Weekly Standard is no more.

The Neocon Challenged

Last week we took note of Tucker Carlson's explosive interview with Ralph Peters and Max Boot. Here's the episode with Boot, which is the more important of the two:

Boot is an intellectual. He writes books. He has a fellowship and a fancy pants foreign policy think tank.

Watching this clip one gets the impression that this was the first time in decades Boot's been challenged. He didn't do very well, did he?

Over at the National Interest we have an interesting article on the episode. Basically, Carlson was once a hawk but not anymore.

See, speaking as a neocons myself, the problem is your always looking for the next enemy. I subscribed to William Kristol's The Weekly Standard from the first issue. All through the late 90's they were ginning up China as the enemy. Now you have to remember something. During the Reagan Administration the people running the state department were neocons, guys like Wolfowitz and Pearle and Abrrams and a host of others. With the Soviet Union gone these guys had nothing to do.

Whether or not the Iraq campaign was wrong or worth it no longer matters. Ten years ago now we were finally winning via the Surge. For our part we are far more interested in the mechanics and details of the Iraq campaign than the arguments for and against. We think the evens of 2006-2008 are fascinating. We will go on record again as supporting the liberation Iraq, still.

The point is we have learned. Syria is basically a smaller version of Iraq and when it comes to intervention we have no stomach for it. That said we don't think a few tomahawk strikes on the Syrian air force are a big deal.

But it seems Boot and company are eager to get into Syria. Worse, they think Russia is the great existential threat. Just like China in the late 90's, the neocons must now gin up Russia as the enemy. Look, Russia is not our friend. We are not best buddies. We're never really going to get on. We rivals, we're adversaries. That doesn't make Russia an existential threat. What the hell do we care if Putin is monkeying around with Ukraine? Besides, Putin is killing a lot of ISIS terrorists, isn't he?

Hey, World War 1990: Arctic Storm, World War 1990: Eastern Storm, and World War 1990: Castro's Folly all have neocon characters like Kristol and Wolfowitz. There's a reason why as the series progresses they become more sinister. From World War 1990: Operation Arctic Storm,

Since the war began, Bull Feathers had remained open 24 hours a day. Located down the street from the Cannon House Office Building, the owner felt it was his patriotic duty to remain open so congressional staff had a place to unwind after Congresses marathon sessions. Besides, he was making a small fortune.

            The time approached midnight as the Vice President's chief of staff sat down at a table in the back corner, far away from the chattering young congressional staffers. The chief watched in amusement. Young people dropped shot glasses into beer classes and chugged. One young man did a Jell-O shot from between the breasts of a young woman, the pair shouted 'bipartisanship!' and high fived.  The chief  wasn't surprised by the display. His colleagues at the District's major universities, George Washington and Georgetown, reported that students were skipping class, ignoring course work and generally enjoying themselves. A certain fatalism had set in amongst the young, he had noticed, a consequence, he supposed of being raised on tales of nuclear Armageddon. He wondered what he would do if he were twenty years old.

            The chief finally saw the rest of his party. The under secretary of defense walked past the gaggle of young drunks and sat down. The two shook hands.

            'Bill,' the undersecretary said, 'Thanks for meeting me here.'

            'Not at all, Paul,' Bill replied. He pointed to his drink, 'Want one?'

            'Sure.'

            Paul flagged down a waitress and ordered a whisky.

            Bill nodded to the young people at the bar and said, 'You think they know something we don't?'

            Paul smirked, 'I think they're acting like young people.'

            Bill shook his head. 'The whole city is paralyzed. Those who haven't left town stay indoors. It took me ten minutes to get here from my house in Northern Virginia.'

            'I think those kids,' Paul nodded to the bar again, 'are using this as an excuse.'

            Bill sipped his drink and shook his head. 'I think if you had seen movies like The Day After as a kid, you might be fatalistic about the war.'

            'Eh. I saw On the Beach as a kid.' Paul sipped his drink. 'Business?'

            'Business,' Bill agreed.

            'Tell me, what does your boss think about the war?'

            'He doesn't,' said Bill. 'The Vice President is grateful that the President has found a role for him.'

            'I think inviting him to the NSA meetings is the right thing,' Paul said. 'I know the president insisted, in case something happens to him, he wants Quayle up to speed.'

            Bill nodded.

            'Let me ask you, what does the vice president think should happen next?'

            Bill laughed. 'So that's what this is about.'

            Paul nodded.

            'The Vice President is not in the policy loop and he hasn't expressed one way or the other what he thinks should happen next.'

            'Do you know what transpired at meeting at St. John  last week?'

            'No.'

            'Thatcher wants to invade Eastern Europe.'        

            'Jesus.'                                                                                                                

            'So does Kohl.'

            'They're serious?' Bill asked.

            Paul nodded.

            'What does the president think?'

            'He's cautious as you know.'

            'Is that bad?'

            'I didn't say it was bad. Just that he is cautious.'

            'What do you think?'

            'Think about this, Bill, and Thatcher made this point at St. John. What if the war stops, the Soviets recoup, and we have to do this all over again?'

            'Mmmmm,' Bill said in thought.

            'What if it's like 1918 and the Soviet Army feels it's been stabbed in the back?'

            'I see where you're headed.'

            'Now think about this, and I think you'll agree. What if we win the war decisively? What if we took away the Soviet's ability to wage war on the west?'

            'You mean, what if we free Eastern Europe.'

            Paul nodded.

            For a moment, Bill imagined the possibilities.

            'We can go even further, I think. '

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 [SA1]really Will ?!?!?!?!?

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The Neocon Strikes Back

The great lie of the Iraq Campaign was that it stokes terror, created terrorists, made enemies, and radicalized your every day Muslim.

Really, you think Saddam didn't have WMD? Do you also think the Moon Landing was faked?

I suggest that if seeing news one doesn't like is enough to turn your average Muslim into a suicide bomber, then well, that religion has a huge problem.

Of course, your sophisticated and classy continental nations stayed out of Iraq, and the Islamic War in general. France, Belgium, Germany haven't had much to do or say.

In the last 15 years Spain's been attacked, Britain, Australia, Canada, India, the US of course.

For a while smug continentals could claim that since they stayed our of le American's adventure, they weren't antagonizing the Muslim world.

Well, last night Isis completed the trifecta with a terrorist attack in Munich. This follows the horrific blood-letting in France this year and last, Nice, Paris, Charlie Hebdo...I dunno, it all merges together after a while. These nations were broadly unsympathetic to the United States, stayed out of Iraq and barely contributed anything to Afghanistan.

Still their streets are soaked in blood.

Hell of a lot of good it did them, eh?

I'd like to leave France, Belgium the Krauts with this motivational speech: