In the latest example of how foreign policy no longer neatly aligns with party politics, the Charles Koch Institute — the think tank founded and funded by energy billionaire Charles Koch — hosted an all-day event Wednesday featuring a set of speakers you would be more likely to associate with a left-wing anti-war rally than a gathering hosted by a longtime right-wing institution.
At the event, titled “Advancing American Security: The Future of U.S. Foreign Policy,” prominent realist and liberal foreign policy scholars took turns trashing the neoconservative worldview that has dominated the foreign policy thinking of the Republican Party — which the Koch brothers have been allied with for decades.
Most of the speakers assailed the Iraq War, nation building, and regime change. During a panel event also featuring former Obama Pentagon official Kathleen Hicks, foreign policy scholar John Mearsheimer brought the crowd to applause by denouncing American military overreach.
“We need to pull back, stop fighting all these wars. Stop defending rich people who are fully capable of defending themselves, and instead spend the money at home. Period. End of story!” he said, in remarks that began with a denunciation of the dilapidated state of the Washington Metrorail system.
“I completely agree on infrastructure,” Hicks said. “A big footprint in the Middle East is not helpful to the United States, politically, militarily, or otherwise.”
Chas Freeman, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, decried U.S. thinking on toppling foreign governments. “One has to start questioning the basic premise of regime change, whether it is to be accomplished by invasion and occupation or by covert action or the empowerment of NGO activity on the ground or other means,” he reflected. “Frankly, it generally doesn’t go well.”
“If you want to know why our bridges are rickety … our children are educationally malnourished, think of where we put the money,” concluded Freeman, pointing to the outsized military budget.
Over lunch, Stephen Walt, the Foreign Policy columnist and Harvard realist foreign policy scholar, said the presidential election is providing evidence that the military-restraint camp is starting to make progress. “On the campaign trail, both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have gotten receptive audiences when they questioned certain aspects of foreign policy. Really, Hillary Clinton is the only candidate defending the status quo,” he boasted. “I think those public doubts are not surprising because … our current policy has been a costly failure.”
Walt dubbed his own prescription for foreign policy “offshore balancing” — a middle ground between full-scale military engagement and isolationism, where the U.S. would engage diplomatically and economically first and foremost, and retain the capacity to militarily intervene only when major power imbalances occur, where one state would be able to threaten global security.
Mearshiemer, Walt, and Freeman are particularly despised by neocons, and not simply for their starkly different policy prescriptions. Walt and Mearsheimer’s 2006 book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy was critical of the U.S.-Israel relationship, arguing that it was overly influenced by domestic interest groups. Freeman’s nomination to an intelligence post in the Obama White House was derailed by behind-the-scenes accusations that he wasn’t sufficiently pro-Israel.
Bloomberg View columnist Eli Lake, a hawkish supporter of Israeli government policies, expressed horror at their appearance on institute panels in a column on Wednesday, writing that “the Kochs have stayed away from the uglier fringes that blame Israel and its supporters for hijacking U.S. foreign policy. That is, until now.”
The lone prominent hawk among the panelists was Michael O’Hanlon, the Brookings Institute scholar and liberal interventionist. But perhaps in deference to the audience’s skepticism of nation building and sustained military engagement, even O’Hanlon said we need to be “very selective about when we actually employ military force,” insisting that he preferred utilizing economic sanctions rather than war in possible future confrontations with Russian and Chinese spheres of influence.
Still unresolved is whether the institute intends to take on neoconservative orthodoxy on a regular basis. “Part of what the Charles Koch Institute can do is to help increase the range of arguments on the table, have that marketplace of ideas, so the best ideas can win so that our country can flourish,” said William Ruger, the institute’s vice president for research and policy. Ruger told The Intercept that numerous additional foreign policy-centric events are planned.
“I certainly think we’re uneasy with the status quo. It doesn’t seem like the status quo is making us safer, especially given the cost of this to our soldiers, especially given the high expense in terms of our fiscal situation. Also in terms of some of the ways it affects our civil liberties as well as our standing in the world. We want to make sure that we’re not missing opportunities for ideas to be added to this conversation.”
Related:
Thank you (Koch event participants) for working together on this issue. I am embarrassed to be an American.
Joke is on anyone who thinks Chuck Koch is doing anything but trying to soften the image. Just as with their prison initiative, this foreign policy ” shift ” is laughable. If the Koch leadership truly believed any of this, why would they continue to contribute and help elect miserable people like Tom Cotton ? Think about it….
The Koch brothers often can’t seem to decide whether they are mainstream “conservatives” or “libertarians.” If the article at http://rare.us/story/when-the-koch-brothers-gave-the-aclu-20-million-to-fight-the-patriot-act/ is true, their opposition to the military/spy state long predates the recent anti-war event. I, for one, am hoping that the “choice” likely to be offered to the American people between neo-con-running-as-democrat and complete lunatic will cause the Koch Brothers to provide heavy funding to Gary Johnson.
The fact that the Koch brothers have been “allied” with the Republican party doesn’t mean that they agree with the entirety of the Republican party platform or the views of any specific Republican candidates. It’s also naive, or maybe deliberately disingenuous, to paint the “right wing” as a monolith and then act surprised that some “right wing” folks would believe in a foreign policy of non-interventionism.
This is not some epiphany either. The Koch brothers have always been more secular and more libertarian than the Republicans at large, and especially the big government neocons who took over the Republican party during the Bush administration. David Koch even ran as VP on the Libertarian party ticket in 1980. Despite their support of Republicans, they have come out in support of same-sex marriage and decriminalization of marijuana.
Many “right wing” folks understand that a massive defense budget, perpetual war and global military empire are totally incompatible with the Republicans’ stated goals of smaller government and balanced budgets. Republicans who espouse fiscal conservatism and support the hawkish neocon agenda are either total hypocrites or suffering from cognitive dissonance.
I know of no self-identified Republicans either through the media or personally who have ever expressed a need for the US defense budget to be lowered. They are very consistent in wanking on about a need for small government and meager federal expenditures except in supporting a vast military industrial complex. They are per se afflicted with cognitive dissonance.
In related new. May 19, 2016 Kissinger Awarded by Obama on Way to Meet Trump
Welcome to New World Next Week — the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news.
https://youtu.be/1ZKOyipYk5w
Before I became nearly misty-eyed at the prospect of these little gatherings of newly minted peaceniks getting our country headed towards a less militaristic foreign policy, I recalled that former Saudi ambassador Freedom said above not that we shouldn’t intervene anywhere, but that we simply needed to change our approach as to how we do it. You know, should we invade? Should we occupy? Should we use covert action carrying out those activities? Damn those devilish details…
My spelling of Freeman as Freedom was pure typo, not a slam. Sorry, my mistake. I’m still curious why there is no editing option here, given that the vast majority of us are not professional writers or editors, and as such, are prone to occasional errors. They’ve probably explained it somewhere…
The commenting software here sucks. We regulars have been complaining about since forever, and we’ve been told several times something will be done about it. The journalism has become superb, but the commmenting software remains bullshit.
Thanks, Mona. That’s dismaying, but at least I found out I’m not alone.
An apt typo
In America, the left and right hands of America’s political establishment have evolved to largely coordinate their efforts in deference to its elite business class. The last century and a half of interventionist foreign policy has been largely fueled by the belief that economics is the lifeblood of any society. Given this perception, the overall goal of American foreign policy has been to:
1. create new markets (expand consumer base)
2. secure a steady stream of cheap labor
3. secure unfettered access to natural resources
4. create favorable conditions to the free flow of transnational capital
Even from its inception, a certain class of Americans were already deeply invested in promoting commerce for the primary purpose of maintaining their own elevated status as landed gentry. In opposition to these aristocrats, a countervailing political ethos emerged wherein civic virtue was pitted against vested self interest. Emerging out of this clash between commerce and virtue, was the early nineteenth century battle between federalists and republicans. As fate would have it, the Federalists won that battle and the foundation of American interventionist foreign policy was laid. By the 1840s, the architects of American foreign policy understood the need to create the physical mean by which America could extend its reach to all parts of the globe. Admiral Perry’s 1846 Tabasco victory of the Mexican-American war was followed just six years later by the forced opening of Japanese ports to American trade by means of gunboat diplomacy. By the time that Woodrow Wilson became president, an Atlanticist foreign policy establishment had emerged to advance Anglo American interests under the rubric of internationalism. Comprised of east-coast, upper-class lawyers, bankers, academics, and politicians, the Atlanticist establishment was purportedly committed to the goal of seeing the United States succeed Britain as “the military and economic guarantor and moral leader of an enlightened, liberal, democratic and capitalist world order.” Currently, the range of debate over US interventionism has been bookended by the neoliberal and neoconservative establishment. A choice for either position is merely a choice for the status quo. When combined, their faux opposition merely forms the ring in the nose of America’s body politic.
This is not surprising given that the Kochs are actually libertarians. They have traditionally aligned more with Republicans, but they’ve always tried to push them toward libertarian positions. Hopefully they can break it off the odd relationship altogether soon.
Let’s not forget that a realignment is also taking place between the military interventionists (Bush neocons) and covert ops regime change proponents (Clinton neoliberals). Note that Anne-Marie Slaughter (prominently featured in the Clinton email archive on the Libya debacle) and Michele Flournoy were also invited to this conference; Flournoy is a possible Clinton pick for Defense:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/17/michele-flournoy-hillary-clinton-possible-pentagon-chief-isis
She wants more money for the DoD (which means taking it away from domestic infrastructure, education, jobs programs, etc.); she wants a more aggressive stance against Iran (in line with Saudi and Israeli wishes); like Victoria Nuland, she wants to play the Cold War game with Russia in eastern Europe (more money for NATO) – basically the same agenda that Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney had during the Bush era.
That’s the neocon-neoliberal alignment which the corporate media is not reporting on; indeed, they’ve been almost silent on foreign policy issues during this campaign, which makes sense since they’re owned by Wall Street, and Wall Street owns Clinton, and foreign policy is where Clinton is weakest with the Democratic base, which opposes expanded military action in the Middle East. Clinton is just another war pig in the tradition of Margaret Thatcher and Condoleeza Rice.
Sanders has unfortunately been too quiet on this issue; he should have pointed out that the only way to finance domestic infrastructure reconstruction and expanded college education is to take the money away from NATO and from the Middle East (i.e cut CENTCOM’s budget). Trump, in contrast, has said he’d cut funding for NATO (which is nothing but a Cold War dinosaur that should have been dissolved when the Warsaw Pact was).
All in all, from a foreign policy and domestic needs perspective, Clinton is absolutely the worst candidate of all of them. A complete tool of Wall Street, the Israeli lobby, and the Saudis, who would almost certainly start a war as soon as she entered office.
There it is. Spot on. The establishment candydate’s formula for success, “foreign policy”. Whatever happened to American Policy? Oh that’s right, we’re just food for wallstreet thieves, we’re their cattle, they own, we do. The establishment gets to play global chess with our lives, children’s and on, it never ends, and everyone gets to roll the dice for a chance to be middle class as if we don’t have the right to earn it, the American dream – sounds like a parlor trick, or maybe we just live in their casino. They get to mine all our productivity, play us off against slave labor, and keep us safe from global thermonuclear war by playing the game of threatening global thermonuclear war.
Feinstein wants me to STFU about #BDS. And if i dont, she threatens fines and jail. I remember when she was American, at least i thought so. I suppose she thinks she has the leverage to be unamerican since israel is now in the position of nuking US.
Women always represented a force for life. I like that. I like the queen of England – especially when she scolds the boys for misbehaving, a truly grand mum. But when women start advocating or supporting war, they get ugly, they betray themselves, as if they’re owned by another spiritual force.
This article is encouraging. I hope this sentiment is not just a flash in the pan. If anything good can come out of Trump’s candidacy, maybe it’s this.
This report is one of the most important I have read at The Intercept. It reports on a forum sponsored by the Charles Koch Institute that sets out most important policy revisions needed by the citizens of the United States. This suggests to me that important influential opinion makers are seeing the STUPIDITY of our foreign (and derivative domestic) policy since WWI. THIS IS VERY POSITIVE! Charles Koch is many things but not a fool.
“Advancing American Security: The Future of U.S. Foreign Policy,” prominent realist and liberal foreign policy scholars took turns trashing the neoconservative worldview that has dominated the foreign policy thinking of the Republican Party — which the Koch brothers have been allied with for decades.”
Interesting. I am mentally parsing how Trump, Clinton, liberal policy scholars, the Koch brothers and ‘American Security: The Future of US Foreign Policy’ play together.
This event was likely designed for a desired outcome, I am just not sure what it is. The choice of language is interesting and also the speakers and sponsors.
Hummmm.
I have seen any number of circumstances over the years where Left and Right seem to be aligned, they seldom are except in a very narrow sense.
The likes of the Koch brothers and Arab “royalty” should in no way be trusted no matter what symposium they may sponsor.
So, these elites as always and as expected are looking to consolidate and expand their power. Neoliberal ideology is behind what they are doing, it has only to do with their own economic and power interests.
Lackeed Martin and Booze Allen and all the others are on the receiving end of 1.4 TRILLION dollars in military spending year after year. It will take a lot more than this to break up that cash flow.
I have zero confidence in the notion that established power is interested in anything but staying in power and becoming more powerful.
I think of the FDR open fraud. Sure the oligarchs of his time were angry and in fact some oligarch got together to organize a coup, but in the end they went along because they saw it would be in their long term interest to keep the hoi polloi off the streets. FDR did what he wanted to do “save capitalism” and in the blink of an eye the oligarchs had bribed and blackmailed themselves back to more complete control of where money goes after congress approves a budget, and avoid tax.
Capitalism is not just “human nature” it is a system which enriches oligarchs at the expense of society deliberately, it is what capitalism is for.
Most of the people mentioned are a part of the established power it is not advisable to let the establishment reform itself. It never will its entire reason for existence is to protect its power.
FDRs successful salvation of capitalism and reformation of the system from within was an utter failure in providing an equitable economic system. He laid the ground work for Neoliberlism.
I see very little to hang my hopes on here.
The bankrupt policies of the US go far beyond its extensive use of military power but to the core of institutionalized US power.
Just as an example, the field of economics is totally corrupt and in existential crisis because it has been so completely wrong on just about everything and the entire field is nothing more than one justification after the other for a capitalist system which has created a dystopia of over 4 billion people – 2/3rds of the human population with no access to clean water or a toilet. Economics will not reform itself it must be ripped out by its roots and that ain’t going to happen.
This article sounds encouraging, yet I remember reading this here recently: https://theintercept.com/2015/11/25/koch-alliance-on-criminal-justice-reform-exposed-as-trojan-horse/ Will people find out that this is another Koch “Trojan Horse”, meant to oppose some particular company’s bid or particular candidate i.e. Hillary for a very short term tactical purpose?
“Advancing American Security: The Future of U.S. Foreign Policy” is not exactly the right description. It should be “Advancing American Hegomy: The Future of U.S. wars of aggression.”
Libertarians are historically far more “left wing” than the Left in their actual aversion to policies leading to foreign intervention and war in foreign lands.
Even the most cursory review of history plainly demonstrates most US wars have been fomented and instigated by “great leaders” the Left tend to admire.
The irony of this hypocritical contradiction completely escapes them.
Actually, the history of American war is bi- multi- or non-partisan.
Left, right and center, we’ve always loved our wars.
Actually, that’s bullocks. The South certainly did not “love” the war inflicted on it by the North. (And a disproportionate number of military are southerners, at that.) I’ve never met a WWII vet who would even discuss their wartime activities — most just changed the subject. Nor do VN vets. Nor those who served in the Middle East. Who are these people who you think “love” war? Certainly not the vast majority of people who actually fight them.
The American people (and their leaders) had traditionally opposed foreign intervention since the founding. Wilson, the two Roosevelts, Johnson, and Kennedy were all “progressives” of one flavor or another. All were “internationalists”. All therefore favored military intervention (QED). And all are admired by the Left, who deflect criticism of their many costly blunders and odious personality defects.
As to the ever-beloved FDR … do we really have to debate whether he was a pathological liar whose own staff called him the Great Deceiver? Is there really any doubt that well over 90% of Americans (and the US Congress) opposed joining a war he desperately wanted and labored openly and in secret to bring about? Or that he jailed Americans without due process in concentration camps behind barbed wire guarded by the military in remote locations and well outside of observation by the American people? If he wasn’t an American, what would you call such a man?
While Americans are, indeed, non-partisan when it comes to taking up arms when called upon, it is the leaders who call them to arms — typically based on some outrageous deceit concocted to alarm them to action.
Until the Bushes, the US was involved in major wars only at the behest of “progressive” leaders — those therefore most admired by the “internationalist” Left who are eager to remake the world in their own image. Fortunately, Clinton had few opportunities (but did rue having already left office before 9/11 struck).
It is perhaps worth asking: had the US been around when Napoleon was on the march across Europe, should the US have jumped in to help defeat him? Why not? His aim for conquest was no less expansive than Hitler’s.
And why was it not also a moral necessity that we roll for Moscow to defeat Stalin (as Patton expressly suggested)? Plainly Stalin was a very bad man who sent a far larger number of his own people to an ugly death than did Hitler. Yet FDR and Churchill negotiated with him to divide the world, instead. No moral imperative, all of a sudden.
It is perhaps notable that Eisenhower (who maybe knew a thing or two about war) didn’t bite down on “saving” Indochina and was regarded as a “do-nothing” president (with a relatively balanced budget). It required a fool “progressive” president to undertake that enormous folly, despite MacArthur’s unambiguous warning to never engage in a land war in Asia. But Johnson, a profoundly crude man of enormous ego and limited intellect, thought himself wiser. Of course. He was an “internationist”. Of course. The two go together, like salt and pepper.
Here’s the forgotten lesson of history we must either relearn soon or decline ever deeper into national poverty:
There is an unlimited supply of evil abroad in the world but precious little blood and national treasure we can spare to defeat it. Until “internationalists” hankering to save the world get over themselves, that lesson will be ignored at our peril.
Until then, war will roll on to enrich the bankers and armaments dealers who are “doing God’s work” and steadily increase the power of government to do pretty much whatever it damn well pleases at home and abroad.
You write,
But the people of the South whose desires should be the main concern of genuine libertarians (as opposed to propertarians) almost universally did not regard that war as an imposition on them but as an opportunity for freedom from the imposition on them of chattel slavery! In fact, large numbers of those enslaved Southerners fled to the camps of the Northern, ‘Union’, army and sought, ultimately with success, to be incorporated into that army, where they swung the balance of forces in favor of the North.
Incidentally, a large number, perhaps even a majority, of white Southerners also opposed the slaveholders’ secession and ensuing war, as chronicled in the 1965 book, War within a war: the Confederacy against itself by Carleton Beals.
@bh2
I ‘d be willing to debate you on a point-by-point basis (I think you are both confused and mostly wrong), but my reading of your post suggests that you are simply an angry, partisan right-libertarian with a special chip on your shoulder for politicians you consider of the “left” — and that you don’t really have a clue who or what the left actually is.
I will say that you shouldn’t dismiss “bullocks” out of hand. They are very valuable domestic servants and companions, to this day, in much of the world. ;^)
Oh, and also, a small taste of historical reality:
You’re not talking about “the left.” You mean liberals. These are not the same thing.
Moreover, there’s never been a “libertarian” Western leader as the term is commonly understood. So what they would do when actually in power is wholly untested.
No, ma’am, I mean the Left. “Liberal” is a label appropriated from an earlier age which has no present meaning. Just as “Conservative” is a completely fake label describing nothing distinctive. (Look up “Old Right” to get a sense of how things have changed since an earlier age when those labels perhaps had more meaning.)
The Left are about as opposite “libertarian” as one can possibly imagine. The Right a bit less so among the few who may lean in a “libertarian” direction but will likewise never really get there (even those who may assert that false claim).
To be “libertarian” actually implies nothing to do with “left” or “right” politics or policy positions.
At its root, the term narrowly defines someone who rejects aggressive use of force (or threat thereof) as a means to compel or prohibit actions of other people not engaging in use of force. It is not pacifism. The Amish are not libertarians, and vice versa.
How this principle “reasons out” on particular issues of the day doesn’t necessarily lead all libertarians to the same exact conclusion. But most will land somewhere in the same familiar neighborhood.
A libertarian likely opposes drug laws — just like many on the “left”. But also likely opposes compelled association of people who do not wish to be associated — like many people on the “right”.
A libertarian may oppose state sanctioned “gay marriage” on grounds the state has no authority to “license” or otherwise regulate lawful contracts between natural persons. But for the same reason, a libertarian might oppose prohibition of any “marriage” performed in a manner consenting adult natural persons may desire . That position would likely be based on natural right of contract, however, and not on woolly superstitions about “fairness” or “equality” or other totemic nonsense.
Once you’ve sorted through all that, you may decide whether you are “libertarian” but not whether you are “left” or “right” (or “liberal”), since those empty political terms of art distinguish nothing in the real world apart from suggesting which list of specific behaviors you would compel or prohibit by force of law vs. a different list of choices by others about what they would force you to do or not do. Sauce for the goose…
As a case in point, I ask you: is Hillary Clinton “left” or “right”?
Any answer would, of course, be confounded by her actual history and behavior. It’s like asking what color is a chameleon. By the time you come to a tentative answer, it’s changed.
Where the left and right do share a strong common bond is their unquenchable thirst to order other people around as it suits their fancy. So they are fundamentally the same beasts of only different hues. Thus the need for phony political labels to promote a distinction without a difference to confuse the muppets.
As to your assertion that there are no Western leaders who are libertarian, I assume you actually meant to say you’ve never noticed any. Admittedly they are very few, however….
All elected Swiss leaders are necessarily “libertarian” since the government of that country is structured to assure power cannot be aggregated in a few hands and in no event can state power be directed to conduct external aggression. The Swiss government also has little sustainable power to override the wishes of its own people.
That’s a pretty good start on libertarian self rule (cf. Jefferson, The Declaration, and the US Constitution).
Political power lies with the people and the cantons, with no single executive, leaving little opportunity for leaders to develop the usual “cult of personality” typical of most governments. All major issues are voted by public referendum with a majority of cantons required to carry. The results are not announced in the NY Times because Swiss elections just aren’t that exciting. Government is more predictable, open, boring, limited, and difficult to corrupt.
Just the way it ought to be, in the minds of most practical libertarians. But decidedly unappealing to partisan sociopaths desperate to control under color of law.
Again: You mean liberals. Not a great many people of what is generally considered “the left.”
Your thinking is characteristic of a crank. The idea that the ideological descriptor “liberal” was “appropriated” is nonsense. The meaning of designations often evolves into new meanings, e.g., “Republican” today does not signify what it did when that party was founded. Nor is the word the same in any U.S. context as when used for the Irish “Republican” Army.
Again: your criticism applies, in the main, to 20th century U.S. liberals.
No “libertarian” leaders have existed in the West, and you cite none. Jefferson owned slaves and slavery was written into the United States Constitution.
Evidently you dont’ even know what ‘left’ is. LBJ was a war-monger, as is HIllary. But they are not leftists. One was a cold-war democrat- the early version of the foreign policy neo-liberal. Hillary is a real neo-liberal and liberal interventionist. Left and Liberal are actually two different things. Left is socialist, Marxist, anti-capitalist, anti-war.
Diplomacy may be temporarily in fashion. The Republicans are looking admiringly at Brazil and regime change seemingly accomplished with ease. And I admit those who advocate for war are a bit on the defensive. If there are more expedient ways of achieving its foreign policy goals, shouldn’t the US take advantage of them? Maybe, but like all things which seem too good to be true, it probably is.
Diplomacy is tricky. Foreigners tend to be clever and duplicitous and can outsmart you. This is especially true if, like the presumptive Republican nominee, you think you’re a better negotiator than you really are. I fear the Republicans may unwittingly be falling into a trap.
Wars on the other hand are decisive and tend to favor the country with the larger firepower. Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi aren’t going to re-seize power anytime soon. War is Hillary. This may not be popular with think tanks that yearn for some more sophisticated form of foreign policy. But Hillary Clinton and her neocon friends are keeping things simple. This will pay petrodollar dividends in the long run.
what repubes lack in courage they make up for in arrogance.
very good and thanks Zaid Jilani.
the NEOCONS AND HILLARY CLINTON & WALLSTREET WANT A WAR
the fraudulent US currency system does not work when growth is effectively dead – hence the thieving of American homes. Hence the invasion of Iraq. Hence the attack on Libya. Hence the attack on the twin towers.
Why? because the current fraudulent currency system is LOAN BASED. The current fraudulent currency system is requires a minimal amount of cash and a maximal amount of credit for completely fraudulent valuation of assets for sale (pricing) and assets being held (stocks). And the ability of wallstreet thieves to raise prices depends on being able to issue more credit. IT IS COMPLETE FRAUD.
A war will allow wallstreet thieves to run the trickle down from financing the MIC. Pure evil.
The kochores are in a bit of a frenzy to keep up their theft of public resources for life support and are trying to get into the fron of the line for the bailout.
America don’t need’m. No-one else wants’m.
“Part of what the Charles Koch Institute can do is to help increase the range of arguments on the table, have that marketplace of ideas, so the best ideas can win so that our country can flourish,” said William Ruger.
When playing a degenerate poker player be certain of three things: he is lying to you, distracting you, or setting you up for the next big lie.
We are so screwed as there is next to nothing that is spewed out over the media that is not sound bites of propaganda utterly insulting to anyone that does just basic research.
Even National Public Radio is a disgusting source of service to the greedy egotists that feel it is their duty to oppress the masses. While driving in my car today I could not count how any times NPR quoted or interviewed Heritage Foundation lords of corporate blasphemy.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. The quote says it all; one does not have to subscribe to an idea by merely hearing it, and the wise person carefully studies the thoughts of their opponents.
“Stop defending rich people who are fully capable of defending themselves”
Does anyone know who this guy’s talking about? Surely not Saudi Arabia. We don’t defend them.
Israel? We don’t defend them.
Europe? Is he talking about pulling out of Ramstein? I don’t think so.
Who else is rich? Don;t tell me Iraq and Afghanistan.
Umm, Baldie? I think you need a reality check.
I suppose the following countries fit the bill:
1) South Korea (more powerful than NK, but hopeless with or without U.S. aid against PRC)
2) Japan (same)
3) Qatar (rich, separated from threats by sea, but small)
4) Bahrain (same)
5) Saudi Arabia (implicit defense of SA)
6) European NATO (though European NATO or EU actually are way more powerful than Russia if one looks at the real world, so not really in need of foreign assistance at all)
Taiwan isn’t able to defend itself, but that’s due to its neglect of its land forces and its grand strategy doesn’t seem to rest much on military deterrence anyway.
Infrastucture!?!?! Congressional Republicans have refused to spend a penny on infrastructure so long as Obama was saying it was necessary!
This is long overdue — major political actors hosting a conference where this happened:
And, it’s well past time the American taxpayer stopped having to give what is to now be $4 billion in annual military aid to Israel. For, it’s also well past time this was said loudly and clearly:
The U.S. has to be freed fro the grip of the neocons and the closely related Israel Lobby. We can’t afford it in treasure, and our grossly imbalanced favoritism toward Israel also is costing us blood.
When Harry Truman felt virtually coerced into recognizing the State of Israel in 1948, he worried that he was unleashing WWIII. We never should have walked out onto that precipice, and it’s time to walk back.
If you are on the receiving end of a US bomb, or one delivered by an Israeli drone of which they have close to 70% market share of worldwide drone sales “marketed as battle tested”, you think it is WWIII already.
“. . . you think it is WWIII already.”
At least, your neighbors and surviving loved ones think so. ;^(
Economic sanctions are an act of war and end up being a devastating blow to an innocent civilian population.
The classic example is the case of sanctions against Iraq which led to the deaths of over 500,000 innocent children. When Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton’s current campaign adviser and former Secretary of State, was questioned about thousands of innocent children dying she said, “It was worth it.”
If Donald Trump adopts a clear non-interventionist, no regime change, no NGO meddling foreign policy (and he has Bush’s and Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s records to back him up), I think he will win the presidency.
Especially if he can logically explain how the U.S. being in a constant “war economy” mode CANNOT be “great again”:
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/05/16/peace-not-russia-is-real-threat-us-power.html
To Mrs. “She thinks it was worth it” how about considering this image: driving along a US freeway where each of those 500,000 innocent children is laid out three feet apart on the shoulder of the road. They would stretch out for more than 284 miles and it would take more than 4.73 hours to pass them by.” She thinks it worth it” should rot in hell.
And lest we forget this is the woman who says that women have a moral imperative to vote for Hillary Clinton.
“And lest we forget this is the woman who says that women have a moral imperative to vote for Hillary Clinton.”
Let’s not forget exactly whose Secy of State she was. Might be worth a ponder in this context.
Absolutely! Obama embraced the policies of his predecessor, and cannot be seen to differ from him in any practical sense. But still the media hacks of the DNC spout their lies about Obama’s “liberalism”; see for example the lead article in this week’s New Yorker.
The Clinton camp is counting on the loyalty of rank and file democrats whose party principles have long since abandoned them. Trump, on the other hand, has completely upset the status quo on the republican side. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the republican wing freed itself from its master elite before the democrat wing?
“If Donald Trump adopts a clear non-interventionist, no regime change, no NGO meddling foreign policy (and he has Bush’s and Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s records to back him up), I think he will win the presidency.”
Trump criticized Ted Cruz for being too soft on waterboarding. He definitely supports the national security state.
As far as non-interventionism consider that in the past he has supported the likes of Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, John McCain, Tom Delay and Newt Gingrich (who may well be his VP pick) none of whom ever seem to have met a war they didn’t like.
He has the support of Sheldon Adelson and the opposition of the Kochs which may suggest how he thinks.
Oh and don’t forget this gem from 2013…………..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm5Je73bYOY
Maybe Charles Koch is remembering that once he pretended to be a libertarian and that before that he actually was, and so opposed the warfare state. Maybe.
really cute/funny/sad that Eli Lake thinks he can pose as a rational human being when he retweets machiavellian war monger Michael Ledeen seriously about once a week. Not too thrilled that the Koch brothers are getting involved in the neocon bashing though, once Bill Kristol started going after Trump his timeline is filled with antisemitic noise instead of hard hitting abuse/critique