TBR News March 17, 2017

Mar 17 2017

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C. March 17, 2017: “Here is interesting information, from a source whose son works in the Justice Department, that there are on the drawing board, plans to implement a so-called “National Security State.”

This bit of fascistic nonsense is not new but has been updated and is now waiting for the “right moment.” This moment is stated to be a response to the next serious terrorist incident within the US.A protocol of this report is available but all I have is a listing at this point in time.

This plan calls for:

1.Federal control of all domestic media, the internet, all computerized records, through overview of all domestic fax, mail and telephone conversations,

2.A national ID card, universal SS cards being mandatory,

3.Seizure and forced deportation of all illegal aliens, including millions of Mexicans and Central Americans, intensive observation and penetration of Asian groups, especially Indonesian and Chinese,

4.A reinstitution of a universal draft (mandatory service at 18 years for all male American youths…based on the German Arbeitsdienst)

  1. Closer coordination of administration views and domestic policies with various approved religious groups,
  2. An enlargement of the current “no travel” lists drawn up in the Justice Department that prevents “subversive” element from flying, (this list will include “peaceniks” and most categories of Muslims)
  3. The automatic death penalty for any proven acts of sedition,
  4. The forbidding of abortion, any use of medical marijuana,
  5. Any public approval of homosexual or lesbian behavior to include magazines, websites, political action groups and so on.

There are about a hundred other categories and I am stressing that these plans are not going to be implemented unless, and until, there is an overriding excuse for them at which time the public will see the need to be protected. Once the lid goes on, it will not come off voluntarily.”

Table of Contents

  • Key Democratic Officials Now Warning Base Not to Expect Evidence of Trump/Russia Collusion
  • SECRECY NEWS
  • How To End the Korean War
  • The Kagans Are Back; Wars to Follow
  • Who are the leading neo-cons?
  • Email from a German BND official to an American counterpart

 Key Democratic Officials Now Warning Base Not to Expect Evidence of Trump/Russia Collusion

March 16 2017

by Glenn Greenwald

The Intercept

From MSNBC politics shows to town hall meetings across the country, the overarching issue for the Democratic Party’s base since Trump’s victory has been Russia, often suffocating attention for other issues. This fixation has persisted even though it has no chance to sink the Trump presidency unless it is proven that high levels of the Trump campaign actively colluded with the Kremlin to manipulate the outcome of the U.S. election — a claim for which absolutely no evidence has thus far been presented.

The principal problem for Democrats is that so many media figures and online charlatans are personally benefiting from feeding the base increasingly unhinged, fact-free conspiracies — just as right-wing media polemicists did after both Bill Clinton and Obama were elected — that there are now millions of partisan soldiers absolutely convinced of a Trump/Russia conspiracy for which, at least as of now, there is no evidence. And they are all waiting for the day, which they regard as inevitable and imminent, when this theory will be proven and Trump will be removed.

Key Democratic officials are clearly worried about the expectations that have been purposely stoked and are now trying to tamp them down. Many of them have tried to signal that the beliefs the base has been led to adopt have no basis in reason or evidence.

The latest official to throw cold water on the MSNBC-led circus is President Obama’s former acting CIA chief Michael Morell. What makes him particularly notable in this context is that Morell was one of Clinton’s most vocal CIA surrogates. In August, he not only endorsed Clinton in the pages of the New York Times but also became the first high official to explicitly accuse Trump of disloyalty, claiming, “In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”

But on Wednesday night, Morell appeared at an intelligence community forum to “cast doubt” on “allegations that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.” “On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire at all,” he said, adding, “There’s no little campfire, there’s no little candle, there’s no spark. And there’s a lot of people looking for it.”

Obama’s former CIA chief also cast serious doubt on the credibility of the infamous, explosive “dossier” originally published by BuzzFeed, saying that its author, Christopher Steele, paid intermediaries to talk to the sources for it. The dossier, he said, “doesn’t take you anywhere, I don’t think.”

Morell’s comments echo the categorical remarks by Obama’s top national security official, James Clapper, who told Meet the Press last week that during the time he was Obama’s DNI, he saw no evidence to support claims of a Trump/Russia conspiracy. “We had no evidence of such collusion,” Clapper stated unequivocally. Unlike Morell, who left his official CIA position in 2013 but remains very integrated into the intelligence community, Clapper was Obama’s DNI until just seven weeks ago, leaving on January 20.

Perhaps most revealing of all are the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee — charged with investigating these matters — who recently told BuzzFeed how petrified they are of what the Democratic base will do if they do not find evidence of collusion, as they now suspect will likely be the case. “There’s a tangible frustration over what one official called ‘wildly inflated’ expectations surrounding the panel’s fledgling investigation,” BuzzFeed’s Ali Watkins wrote.

Moreover, “several committee sources grudgingly say, it feels as though the investigation will be seen as a sham if the Senate doesn’t find a silver bullet connecting Trump and Russian intelligence operatives.” One member told Watkins: “I don’t think the conclusions are going to meet people’s expectations.”

What makes all of this most significant is that officials like Clapper and Morell are trained disinformation agents; Clapper in particular has proven he will lie to advance his interests. Yet even with all the incentive to do so, they are refusing to claim there is evidence of such collusion; in fact, they are expressly urging people to stop thinking it exists. As even the law recognizes, statements that otherwise lack credibility become more believable when they are ones made “against interest.”

Media figures have similarly begun trying to tamp down expectations. Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, which published the Steele dossier, published an article yesterday warning that the Democratic base’s expectation of a smoking gun “is so strong that Twitter and cable news are full of the theories of what my colleague Charlie Warzel calls the Blue Detectives — the left’s new version of Glenn Beck, digital blackboards full of lines and arrows.” Smith added: “It is also a simple fact that while news of Russian actions on Trump’s behalf is clear, hard details of coordination between his aides and Putin’s haven’t emerged.” And Smith’s core warning is this:

Trump’s critics last year were horrified at the rise of “fake news” and the specter of a politics shaped by alternative facts, predominantly on the right. They need to be careful now not to succumb to the same delusional temptations as their political adversaries, and not to sink into a filter bubble which, after all, draws its strength not from conservative or progressive politics but from human nature.

And those of us covering the story and the stew of real information, fantasy, and — now — forgery around it need to continue to report and think clearly about what we know and what we don’t, and to resist the sugar high that comes with telling people exactly what they want to hear.

For so long, Democrats demonized and smeared anyone trying to inject basic reason, rationality, and skepticism into this Trump/Russia discourse by labeling them all Kremlin agents and Putin lovers. Just this week, the Center for American Progress released a report using the language of treason to announce the existence of a “Fifth Column” in the U.S. that serves Russia (similar to Andrew Sullivan’s notorious 2001 decree that anyone opposing the war on terror composed an anti-American “Fifth Column”), while John McCain listened to Rand Paul express doubts about the wisdom of NATO further expanding to include Montenegro and then promptly announced: “Paul is working for Vladimir Putin.”

But with serious doubts — and fears — now emerging about what the Democratic base has been led to believe by self-interested carnival barkers and partisan hacks, there is a sudden, concerted effort to rein in the excesses of this story. With so many people now doing this, it will be increasingly difficult to smear them all as traitors and Russian loyalists, but it may be far too little, too late, given the pitched hysteria that has been deliberately cultivated around these issues for months. Many Democrats have reached the classic stage of deranged conspiracists where evidence that disproves the theory is viewed as further proof of its existence, and those pointing to it are instantly deemed suspect.

A formal, credible investigation into all these questions, where the evidence is publicly disclosed, is still urgently needed. That’s true primarily so that conspiracies no longer linger and these questions are resolved by facts rather than agenda-driven anonymous leaks from the CIA and cable news hosts required to feed a partisan mob.

It’s certainly possible to envision an indictment of a low-level operative like Carter Page, or the prosecution of someone like Paul Manafort on matters unrelated to hacking, but the silver bullet that Democrats have been led to expect will sink Trump appears further away than ever.

But given the way these Russia conspiracies have drowned out other critical issues being virtually ignored under the Trump presidency, it’s vital that everything be done now to make clear what is based in evidence and what is based in partisan delusions. And most of what the Democratic base has been fed for the last six months by their unhinged stable of media, online, and party leaders has decisively fallen into the latter category, as even their own officials are now desperately trying to warn.

 SECRECY NEWS

From the FAS Project on Government Secrecy

Volume 2017, Issue No. 20

March 17, 2017

“COMPETING OBSERVABLES” COMPLICATE DECEPTION

Deception plays an important role in many military operations. But is hard to deceive an opponent (or anyone else) when evidence of that deception is visible in plain sight.

A new military term — “competing observable” — has been introduced to capture this problem.

In the context of military deception, an ordinary “observable” is defined as “an indicator within an adversary’s conduit [or information pathway] intended to cause action or inaction by the deception target.”

But a “competing observable” is “any observable that contradicts the deception story, casts doubt on, or diminishes the impact of one or more required or supporting observables.”

The term “competing observable” was incorporated in the latest edition of the official DoD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms this month. The Dictionary, a copy of which appeared in our conduit, provides standard definitions for thousands of words and phrases that constitute the lexicon of U.S. military thought.

Each new update removes some terms, and adds or modifies others in an ongoing adaptation to current military doctrine.

The latest edition, for example, eliminates “berm” (“The nearly horizontal portion of a beach or backshore…”) and “honey pot” (“A trap set to detect, deflect, or in some manner counteract attempts at unauthorized use of information systems…”). These and several other such terms were removed from the Dictionary this month since they are “not used.”

The term “ruse” was slightly modified and is now defined as “an action designed to deceive the adversary, usually involving the deliberate exposure of false information to the adversary’s intelligence collection system.”

SCIENCE & TECH ISSUES FACING CONGRESS, & MORE FROM CRS

Science and technology policy issues that may soon come before Congress were surveyed in a new report from the Congressional Research Service.

Overarching issues include the impact of recent reductions in federal spending for research and development.

“Concerns about reductions in federal R&D funding have been exacerbated by increases in the R&D investments of other nations (China, in particular); globalization of R&D and manufacturing activities; and trade deficits in advanced technology products, an area in which the United States previously ran trade surpluses. At the same time, some Members of Congress have expressed concerns about the level of federal funding in light of the current federal fiscal condition. In addition, R&D funding decisions may be affected by differing perspectives on the appropriate role of the federal government in advancing science and technology.”

See Science and Technology Issues in the 115th Congress, March 14, 2017.

Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

The American Health Care Act, March 14, 2017

Previewing a 2018 Farm Bill, March 15, 2017

EPA Policies Concerning Integrated Planning and Affordability of Water Infrastructure, updated March 14, 2017

National Park Service: FY2017 Appropriations and Ten-Year Trends, updated March 14, 2017

Qatar: Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy, updated March 15, 2017

Northern Ireland: Current Issues and Ongoing Challenges in the Peace Process, updated March 14, 2017

Navy LX(R) Amphibious Ship Program: Background and Issues for Congress, updated March 14, 2017

How To End the Korean War

You mean you didn’t know it never ended?

March 17, 2017

by Justin Raimondo,

AntiWar

What in the name of all that’s holy is going on in North Korea?

This question is always hard to answer because they don’t call it the Hermit Kingdom for nothing. Very little comes out of the notoriously reclusive – and repressive – Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, and not that much gets in. But occasionally there is a burst of activity that, like the eruption of a volcano, is hard to miss – the recent launching of four ballistic missiles being one of them.

The missiles landed in the Sea of Japan, about 190 miles off the Japanese coast, sending shockwaves throughout the region. Both Tokyo and Seoul protested, while the North Koreans characterized the action as a logical reaction to the perceived threat of imminent military action by the US and South Korea. Pyongyang’s fear is not unfounded.

The exercises, conducted jointly by US and South Korea and dubbed “Foal Eagle,” are a dress rehearsal for all-out war with the North. In addition to the USS Carl Vinson and a strike force of two guided missile destroyers and a cruiser, the US sent in a squadron of stealth fighter jets as well as B-52s and B-1Bs – these latter capable of carrying nuclear payloads. “Foal Eagle” is an annual exercise, but every year the amount of US firepower gets bigger – and in the context of rapidly rising tensions between Pyongyang and the rest of the world, this does nothing to ease the former’s well-known paranoia.

But it isn’t just paranoia that is motivating North Korean behavior: for the first time, there is open talk in US ruling circles of launching a preemptive strike against the regime of Kim Jong Un. As Time magazine puts it:

“Taking out North Korea’s two major nuclear sites with air strikes would be dangerous but probably not too difficult, U.S. officials say. The possibility of North Korean retaliation against Seoul, South Korea’s capital of 10 million and only 35 miles from North Korea, would be a complicating factor, they concede.”

Yes, the continued existence of 10 million South Koreas, not to mention the 30,000 or so American soldiers stationed on the peninsula, is indeed “a complicating factor.” That’s one way of putting it.

The reality is that Pyongyang has a crude but workable nuclear arsenal. This means that, in a sane world, military action is off the proverbial table. The problem is that we don’t live in such a world. And as crazy as Kim Jong Un may be, the talk of a preemptive strike proves the insanity is not limited to Pyongyang,

Right now, US policymakers must ask themselves two questions: how did we get here, and how do we get out?

We got here because the administration of George W. Bush quashed the beginnings of a political solution to the Korean conundrum.

Remember that the Korean War never officially ended: the fighting stopped when a truce was declared. A peace treaty was never signed: officially, we and our South Korean allies are still at war with Pyongyang. The demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas has been described as the most dangerous place in the world, and there have been a number of shooting incidents over the years, rising and falling as tensions between the two Koreas waxed and waned.

Yet there was a moment when the tensions were at a low point, and the possibility of a political solution was raised: this was the result of the so-called “Sunshine Policy” initiated by South Korean President Kim Dae Jung. The goal: reunification of the Koreas, a project both the North and the South have officially endorsed for many years. The Koreans are a fiercely nationalistic people, and the halving of the nation has been a painful affair. Then North Korean leader Kim Jong Il (Kim Jong Un’s father) agreed to meet the South Korean President at a three-day summit, at the end of which they signed a nonaggression pact and agreed to pursue the path of reunification.

This made sense from the North Korean perspective: the Communist state was strangling on its own repression, famine was sweeping the land, the economy was tanking, and people were literally eating the bark off the trees. The infusion of South Korean investment that followed the summit gave them a lifeline, and tens of thousands of South Koreans visited the North: factories were set up in the North that employed thousands of North Korean workers. Slowly but surely the Hermit Kingdom was letting down its defenses and opening up to the world.

And then came George W. Bush, who received the South Korean President in Washington in March of 2001 and promptly threw shade on the Sunshine policy. As the late Mary McGrory put it:

“Bush, as he was eager to demonstrate, was not a fan. Kim’s sin? He was instituting a sunshine policy with the North, ending a half-century of estrangement. Bush, who looked upon North Korea as the most potent argument for his obsession to build a national missile defense, saw Kim, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, as nothing but trouble. He sent him home humiliated and empty-handed.”

The North Koreans pulled back, and announced a military buildup. Bush upped the ante with his “axis of evil speech,” naming Pyongyang as one of the spokes on the wheel of wickedness. The North Koreans responded that this sounded to them like an outright “declaration of war,” a not unreasonable interpretation of Bush’s remarks.

Just to make sure he had crushed the last hope of a political solution, Bush visited South Korea in 2002, where he paid a visit to the DMZ:

“Standing atop a sandbag bunker and protected by bulletproof glass, US President George W. Bush peered through binoculars at North Korea on Wednesday and bluntly called it ‘evil.’

“… Among the things Bush could see were North Korean signs written in large, white Korean characters with slogans such as: ‘Anti-America’ and ‘Our General is the best”’ – a reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

“Bush spent about 10 minutes atop the bunker and then he and Secretary of State Colin Powell sat down to a lunch of cold cuts, potato chips, fruit and cookies with about a dozen US soldiers who help man the post 24 hours a day.

“Asked what he thought when he looked out over the North, Bush said: ‘We’re ready.’”

Ready, that is, for war. So much for the Sunshine policy.

Yet the US and the North Koreans were still bound by an agreement, reached under the Clilnton administration, by which the latter would refrain from building nukes as long as shipments of oil and the lifting of sanctions was permitted. Yet this agreement – initiated by former President Jimmy Carter and signed by Pyongyang in 1994 – was nixed by Washington’s sudden announcement that the North Koreans had violated it, and that therefore the deal was off.

But did the North Koreans really violate the agreement? Selig Harrison, writing in Foreign Affairs, didn’t think so:

“Much has been written about the North Korean nuclear danger, but one crucial issue has been ignored: just how much credible evidence is there to back up Washington’s uranium accusation? Although it is now widely recognized that the Bush administration misrepresented and distorted the intelligence data it used to justify the invasion of Iraq, most observers have accepted at face value the assessments the administration has used to reverse the previously established US policy toward North Korea.

“But what if those assessments were exaggerated and blurred the important distinction between weapons-grade uranium enrichment (which would clearly violate the 1994 Agreed Framework) and lower levels of enrichment (which were technically forbidden by the 1994 accord but are permitted by the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty [NPT] and do not produce uranium suitable for nuclear weapons)?

“A review of the available evidence suggests that this is just what happened. Relying on sketchy data, the Bush administration presented a worst-case scenario as an incontrovertible truth and distorted its intelligence on North Korea (much as it did on Iraq), seriously exaggerating the danger that Pyongyang is secretly making uranium-based nuclear weapons. This failure to distinguish between civilian and military uranium-enrichment capabilities has greatly complicated what would, in any case, have been difficult negotiations to end all existing North Korean nuclear weapons programs and to prevent any future efforts through rigorous inspection.”

As Donald Trump said of Bush’s “evidence” for Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction”:  “They lied, they said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none and they knew that there were none.”

Here is another mess the neocon-dominated administration of George W. Bush has left us, which Trump is now supposed to clean up. But he can’t do it if he reenacts Bush’s belligerent bone-headedness. The author of The Art of the Deal has got to make a deal – or face the prospect of a nuclear catastrophe on the Korean peninsula and perhaps beyond.

Part of the deal-making process is understanding the psychology of those you are dealing with, and in the case of the North Koreans this is absolutely essential.

Since Bush torpedoed the Sunshine policy, the North has been on a downward spiral, not only economically but also in terms of the regime’s stability. The death of Kim Jong Il and the succession of Kim Jong Un to the role of supreme leader has not made for a smooth transition. Since the regime cannot provide for even the most basic material needs of its subjects, it must maintain legitimacy by other means, which boil down to 1) supporting a quasi-religious cult centered around the worship of the hereditary Supreme Leader, and 2) the invocation of a permanent threat from the West.

Fulfillment of the first part of this formula has gotten more difficult unto the third generation of the “royal family.” Kim Il Sung, who established the DPRK, won his legitimacy by beating the Japanese invaders and fighting off attempts by the South to dominate the North. He subsequently established the Communist dictatorship, eliminated all factional rivals, and even resisted both the Soviet Union and the Chinese when they tried to interfere in his nation’s internal affairs. His cult retained enough sway after his death to ensure that his son, Kim Jong Il, would succeed him unopposed, although there were some rumored purges. However, by the third generation, and under the pressure of an economic downturn – and even widespread famine – the semi-mystical theology of “Kimilsungism” has lost much of its mystique. The result has been signs of increased political instability and a ruthless crackdown on Kim Jong Un’s part.

Rumors of an attempted assassination, pitched gun battles between rival factions in the army, and signs of a Chinese plot to replace the increasingly nutty Kim Jong Un with his estranged half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, provoked a wave of violent purges. Top figures in the regime, such as Kim Jong Un’s uncle, have been killed: the uncle was reportedly shot with an antitank gun! Another high-ranking figure was purged and killed for having “bad posture.” And finally the half-brother was assassinated at the Kuala Lumpur airport when two women approached him and sprayed him with poison. Although Pyongyang denies doing it, no one doubts this was done under Kim Jong Un’s orders.

While the North Korean regime has a long history of conducting periodic purges against perceived internal enemies, high-ranking victims were rarely killed: instead they were either sent to the country’s ever-expanding network of prison camps or else exiled. The current wave of executions signals a new phase in the ungluing of the regime.

Besieged on every side by enemies both real and imagined, Kim Jong Un has one card left to play: the threat from the West. As long as he can present himself as the bulwark protecting the people from the “Yankee imperialists” and their “running dog lackeys” in the South, he retains his hold on legitimacy. The “Foal Eagle” exercises and rumblings of war emanating from Washington bolster his faltering regime.

Just as George W. Bush’s spiking of the Sunshine policy was motivated by the need to appease the neoconservative wing of the Republican party and thus retain legitimacy on the home front, so Kim Jong Un’s belligerence is dictated by the need to legitimize his dynastic succession to the throne of Pyongyang. North Korea’s foreign policy, like that of any other state’s, whether despotic or democratic, is determined by the political needs of the rulers at the time.

Once we begin to understand the implications of this universal principle, and apply it to the Korean conundrum, the outlines of a solution are visible.

To begin with, it’s time to face facts: there is no military solution to the problem posed by North Korea. Pyongyang is holding the entire peninsula hostage. War is unthinkable – although, unfortunately, far from impossible.

As dire as the situation may seem, it’s not too late to prevent a catastrophe: a political solution is still within reach. The recent impeachment of the South Korean President – the daughter of a former right-wing military dictator – means that her successor will be a liberal politician in the tradition of Kim Dae Jung. With the South Koreans ready to give the Sunshine policy another chance, and an American President famous for making deals, it’s entirely possible that a deal with the North can be struck.

However, this depends on the Trump administration having a) some knowledge of the intricacies – and particularly the history – of the two Koreas, and b) the imagination to reject the old Bush-neocon policy of confrontation.

Also, it won’t be along before the Trumpians realize that Trump’s oft-stated policy of depending on the Chinese to bring Pyongyang to heel is a non-starter: relations between the two ostensibly Communist regimes haven’t been good for a long time, and they just got worse with the missile tests and the death of Kim Jong Nam.

Indeed, the North Korean leader’s half-brother had long been under the protection of China, where he had lived with his wife, his two daughters, and his mistress in Macau. Beijing was reportedly nurturing him as a possible replacement for the troublesome Kim Jong Un, which is why he met such an untimely end.

No, China is not the key to ending the impending North Korean crisis: with the installation of an antimissile system in South Korea, which the Chinese think is aimed at them, they aren’t likely to cooperate in any meaningful way. And, in any case, their influence is very limited, since their relations with Pyongyang have never been worse.

The initiative is going to have to come from Seoul, which has the most to lose if war breaks out. And when this initiative does come, Washington must welcome it, and do everything to foster it. When Trump was campaigning for President, he questioned the US presence in the South and wondered aloud why we had to risk war and bankruptcy providing for Seoul’s defense. His instincts were right: now perhaps we’ll get to see if his policies match his campaign rhetoric. I’m not optimistic – pressure from the John McCain wing of the GOP is relentless, and Trump may not want to fight on this terrain – but you never know..

The ultimate goal of any negotiation must begin the process of reunifying the Korean nation, a process that can only end with the withdrawal of all US forces. This would pull the rug out from under Kim Jong Un’s nightmarish regime, depriving it of an external threat on which it bases much of its legitimacy. It’s long past time to bring the Korean war to a formal end – because the only alternative is a resumption of hostilities. And in the nuclear age, the meaning of that ought to be clear enough.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is now in South Korea as part of his trip to the region, where he met with Japanese leaders as well. He is declaring that we need “a new approach” to North Korea. As to what this means, exactly, is not at all clear: Tillerson is not currently revealing any details, although his statement that “the people of North Korea have nothing to fear from us or our allies” is encouraging. He is reportedly headed for the DMZ, where hopefully he’ll react in a far different way than George W. Bush did.

The Kagans Are Back; Wars to Follow

The neocon royalty Kagans are counting on Democrats and liberals to be the foot soldiers in the new neocon campaign to push Republicans and President Trump into more “regime change” wars,

March 15, 2017

Consortium News

The Kagan family, America’s neoconservative aristocracy, has reemerged having recovered from the letdown over not gaining its expected influence from the election of Hillary Clinton and from its loss of official power at the start of the Trump presidency.

Back pontificating on prominent op-ed pages, the Family Kagan now is pushing for an expanded U.S. military invasion of Syria and baiting Republicans for not joining more enthusiastically in the anti-Russian witch hunt over Moscow’s alleged help in electing Donald Trump.

In a Washington Post op-ed on March 7, Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century and a key architect of the Iraq War, jabbed at Republicans for serving as “Russia’s accomplices after the fact” by not investigating more aggressively.

Then, Frederick Kagan, director of the Critical Threats Project at the neocon American Enterprise Institute, and his wife, Kimberly Kagan, president of her own think tank, Institute for the Study of War, touted the idea of a bigger U.S. invasion of Syria in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on March 15.

Yet, as much standing as the Kagans retain in Official Washington’s world of think tanks and op-ed placements, they remain mostly outside the new Trump-era power centers looking in, although they seem to have detected a door being forced open.

Still, a year ago, their prospects looked much brighter. They could pick from a large field of neocon-oriented Republican presidential contenders or – like Robert Kagan – they could support the establishment Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, whose “liberal interventionism” matched closely with neoconservatism, differing only slightly in the rationalizations used for justifying wars and more wars.

There was also hope that a President Hillary Clinton would recognize how sympatico the liberal hawks and the neocons were by promoting Robert Kagan’s neocon wife, Victoria Nuland, from Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs to Secretary of State.

Then, there would have been a powerful momentum for both increasing the U.S. military intervention in Syria and escalating the New Cold War with Russia, putting “regime change” back on the agenda for those two countries. So, early last year, the possibilities seemed endless for the Family Kagan to flex their muscles and make lots of money.

A Family Business

As I noted two years ago in an article entitled “A Family Business of Perpetual War”: “Neoconservative pundit Robert Kagan and his wife, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, run a remarkable family business: she has sparked a hot war in Ukraine and helped launch Cold War II with Russia and he steps in to demand that Congress jack up military spending so America can meet these new security threats.

“This extraordinary husband-and-wife duo makes quite a one-two punch for the Military-Industrial Complex, an inside-outside team that creates the need for more military spending, applies political pressure to ensure higher appropriations, and watches as thankful weapons manufacturers lavish grants on like-minded hawkish Washington think tanks.

“Not only does the broader community of neoconservatives stand to benefit but so do other members of the Kagan clan, including Robert’s brother Frederick at the American Enterprise Institute and his wife Kimberly, who runs her own shop called the Institute for the Study of War.”

But things didn’t quite turn out as the Kagans had drawn them up. The neocon Republicans stumbled through the GOP primaries losing out to Donald Trump and then – after Hillary Clinton muscled aside Sen. Bernie Sanders to claim the Democratic nomination – she fumbled away the general election to Trump.

After his surprising victory, Trump – for all his many shortcomings – recognized that the neocons were not his friends and mostly left them out in the cold. Nuland not only lost her politically appointed job as Assistant Secretary but resigned from the Foreign Service, too.

With Trump in the White House, Official Washington’s neocon-dominated foreign policy establishment was down but far from out. The neocons were tossed a lifeline by Democrats and liberals who detested Trump so much that they were happy to pick up Nuland’s fallen banner of the New Cold War with Russia. As part of a dubious scheme to drive Trump from office, Democrats and liberals hyped evidence-free allegations that Russia had colluded with Trump’s team to rig the U.S. election.

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman spoke for many of this group when he compared Russia’s alleged “meddling” to Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor and Al Qaeda’s 9/11 terror attacks.

On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show, Friedman demanded that the Russia hacking allegations be treated as a casus belli: “That was a 9/11 scale event. They attacked the core of our democracy. That was a Pearl Harbor scale event.” Both Pearl Harbor and 9/11 led to wars.

So, with many liberals blinded by their hatred of Trump, the path was open for neocons to reassert themselves.

Baiting Republicans

Robert Kagan took to the high-profile op-ed page of The Washington Post to bait key Republicans, such as Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who was pictured above the Post article and its headline, “Running interference for Russia.”

Kagan wrote: “It would have been impossible to imagine a year ago that the Republican Party’s leaders would be effectively serving as enablers of Russian interference in this country’s political system. Yet, astonishingly, that is the role the Republican Party is playing.”

Kagan then reprised Official Washington’s groupthink that accepted without skepticism the claims from President Obama’s outgoing intelligence chiefs that Russia had “hacked” Democratic emails and released them via WikiLeaks to embarrass the Clinton campaign.

Though Obama’s intelligence officials offered no verifiable evidence to support the claims – and WikiLeaks denied getting the two batches of emails from the Russians – the allegations were widely accepted across Official Washington as grounds for discrediting Trump and possibly seeking his removal from office.

Ignoring the political conflict of interest for Obama’s appointees, Kagan judged that “given the significance of this particular finding [about Russian meddling], the evidence must be compelling” and justified “a serious, wide-ranging and open investigation.”

But Kagan also must have recognized the potential for the neocons to claw their way back to power behind the smokescreen of a New Cold War with Russia.

He declared: “The most important question concerns Russia’s ability to manipulate U.S. elections. That is not a political issue. It is a national security issue. If the Russian government did interfere in the United States’ electoral processes last year, then it has the capacity to do so in every election going forward. This is a powerful and dangerous weapon, more than warships or tanks or bombers.

“Neither Russia nor any potential adversary has the power to damage the U.S. political system with weapons of war. But by creating doubts about the validity, integrity and reliability of U.S. elections, it can shake that system to its foundations.”

A Different Reality

As alarmist as Kagan’s op-ed was, the reality was far different. Even if the Russians did hack the Democratic emails and somehow slipped the information to WikiLeaks – an unsubstantiated and disputed contention – those two rounds of email disclosures were not that significant to the election’s outcome.

Hillary Clinton blamed her surprise defeat on FBI Director James Comey briefly reopening the investigation into her use of a private email server while serving as Secretary of State.

Further, by all accounts, the WikiLeaks-released emails were real and revealed wrongdoing by leading Democrats, such as the Democratic National Committee’s tilting of the primaries against Sen. Bernie Sanders and in favor of Clinton. The emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta disclosed the contents of Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street, which she was trying to hide from voters, as well as some pay-to-play features of the Clinton Foundation.

In other words, the WikiLeaks’ releases helped inform American voters about abuses to the U.S. democratic process. The emails were not “disinformation” or “fake news.” They were real news.

A similar disclosure occurred both before the election and this week when someone leaked details about Trump’s tax returns, which are protected by law. However, except for the Trump camp, almost no one thought that this illegal act of releasing a citizen’s tax returns was somehow a threat to American democracy.

The general feeling was that Americans have a right to know such details about someone seeking the White House. I agree, but doesn’t it equally follow that we had a right to know about the DNC abusing its power to grease the skids for Clinton’s nomination, about the contents of Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street bankers, and about foreign governments seeking pay-to-play influence by contributing to the Clinton Foundation?

Yet, because Obama’s political appointees in the U.S. intelligence community “assess” that Russia was the source of the WikiLeaks emails, the assault on U.S. democracy is a reason for World War III.

More Loose Talk

But Kagan was not satisfied with unsubstantiated accusations regarding Russia undermining U.S. democracy. He asserted as “fact” – although again without presenting evidence – that Russia is “interfering in the coming elections in France and Germany, and it has already interfered in Italy’s recent referendum and in numerous other elections across Europe. Russia is deploying this weapon against as many democracies as it can to sap public confidence in democratic institutions.”

There’s been a lot of handwringing in Official Washington and across the Mainstream Media about the “post-truth” era, but these supposed avatars for truth are as guilty as anyone, acting as if constantly repeating a fact-free claim is the same as proving it.

But it’s clear what Kagan and other neocons have in mind, an escalation of hostilities with Russia and a substantial increase in spending on U.S. military hardware and on Western propaganda to “counter” what is deemed “Russian propaganda.”

Kagan recognizes that he already has many key Democrats and liberals on his side. So he is taking aim at Republicans to force them to join in the full-throated Russia-bashing, writing:

“But it is the Republicans who are covering up. The party’s current leader, the president, questions the intelligence community’s findings, motives and integrity. Republican leaders in Congress have opposed the creation of any special investigating committee, either inside or outside Congress. They have insisted that inquiries be conducted by the two intelligence committees.

“Yet the Republican chairman of the committee in the House has indicated that he sees no great urgency to the investigation and has even questioned the seriousness and validity of the accusations. The Republican chairman of the committee in the Senate has approached the task grudgingly.

“The result is that the investigations seem destined to move slowly, produce little information and provide even less to the public. It is hard not to conclude that this is precisely the intent of the Republican Party’s leadership, both in the White House and Congress. …

“When Republicans stand in the way of thorough, open and immediate investigations, they become Russia’s accomplices after the fact.”

Lying with the Neocons

Many Democrats and liberals may find it encouraging that a leading neocon who helped pave the road to war in Iraq is now by their side in running down Republicans for not enthusiastically joining the latest Russian witch hunt. But they also might pause to ask themselves how they let their hatred of Trump get them into an alliance with the neocons.

On Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, Robert Kagan’s brother Frederick and his wife Kimberly dropped the other shoe, laying out the neocons’ long-held dream of a full-scale U.S. invasion of Syria, a project that was put on hold in 2004 because of U.S. military reversals in Iraq.

But the neocons have long lusted for “regime change” in Syria and were not satisfied with Obama’s arming of anti-government rebels and the limited infiltration of U.S. Special Forces into northern Syria to assist in the retaking of the Islamic State’s “capital” of Raqqa.

In the Journal op-ed, Frederick and Kimberly Kagan call for opening a new military front in southeastern Syria:

“American military forces will be necessary. But the U.S. can recruit new Sunni Arab partners by fighting alongside them in their land. The goal in the beginning must be against ISIS because it controls the last areas in Syria where the U.S. can reasonably hope to find Sunni allies not yet under the influence of al Qaeda. But the aim after evicting ISIS must be to raise a Sunni Arab army that can ultimately defeat al Qaeda and help negotiate a settlement of the war.

“The U.S. will have to pressure the Assad regime, Iran and Russia to end the conflict on terms that the Sunni Arabs will accept. That will be easier to do with the independence and leverage of a secure base inside Syria. … President Trump should break through the flawed logic and poor planning that he inherited from his predecessor. He can transform this struggle, but only by transforming America’s approach to it.”

A New Scheme on Syria

In other words, the neocons are back to their clever word games and their strategic maneuverings to entice the U.S. military into a “regime change” project in Syria.

The neocons thought they had almost pulled off that goal by pinning a mysterious sarin gas attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013, on the Syrian government and mousetrapping Obama into launching a major U.S. air assault on the Syrian military.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin stepped in to arrange for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to surrender all his chemical weapons even as Assad continued to deny any role in the sarin attack.

Putin’s interference in thwarting the neocons’ dream of a Syrian “regime change” war moved Putin to the top of their enemies’ list. Soon key neocons, such as National Endowment for Democracy president Carl Gershman, were taking aim at Ukraine, which Gershman deemed “the biggest prize” and a steppingstone toward eventually ousting Putin in Moscow.

It fell to Assistant Secretary Victoria “Toria” Nuland to oversee the “regime change” in Ukraine. She was caught on an unsecured phone line in late January or early February 2014 discussing with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt how “to glue” or “to midwife” a change in Ukraine’s elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Several weeks later, neo-Nazi and ultranationalist street fighters spearheaded a violent assault on government buildings forcing Yanukovych and other officials to flee for their lives, with the U.S. government quickly hailing the coup regime as “legitimate.”

But the Ukraine putsch led to the secession of Crimea and a bloody civil war in eastern Ukraine with ethnic Russians, events that the State Department and the mainstream Western media deemed “Russian aggression” or a “Russian invasion.”

So, by the last years of the Obama administration, the stage was set for the neocons and the Family Kagan to lead the next stage of the strategy of cornering Russia and instituting a “regime change” in Syria.

All that was needed was for Hillary Clinton to be elected president. But these best-laid plans surprisingly went astray. Despite his overall unfitness for the presidency, Trump defeated Clinton, a bitter disappointment for the neocons and their liberal interventionist sidekicks.

Yet, the so-called “#Resistance” to Trump’s presidency and President Obama’s unprecedented use of his intelligence agencies to paint Trump as a Russian “Manchurian candidate” gave new hope to the neocons and their agenda.

It has taken them a few months to reorganize and regroup but they now see hope in pressuring Trump so hard regarding Russia that he will have little choice but to buy into their belligerent schemes.

As often is the case, the Family Kagan has charted the course of action – batter Republicans into joining the all-out Russia-bashing and then persuade a softened Trump to launch a full-scale invasion of Syria. In this endeavor, the Kagans have Democrats and liberals as the foot soldiers.

 

Who are the leading neo-cons?

 

  1. Richard Perle: Was one of Bush’s top foreign policy advisors, he was the chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board. Perle was expelled from Senator Henry Jackson’s office in the 1970s after the National Security Agency (NSA) caught him passing highly classified (National Security) documents to the Israeli Embassy. He later worked for the Israeli weapons firm, Soltam. Perle came from one the pro-Israel think tanks, the AEI.

Note: On March 27, 2003, it was announced in the media that Perle had resigned as Chairman of the Defense Policy Board. His involvement in assisting the Global Crossing bankrupts and his purported $700,000 fee for his work was apparently too much for even the corrupt Bush administration to swallow. A subsequent official report completely exonerated Perle of “any wrongdoing whatsoever” and claimed his actions were “completely within official regulations.” In February of 2004, Perle reluctantly resigned his official duties so as “not to become an embarrassment to President Bush’s reelection campaign.”

  1. Paul Wolfowitz: Deputy Defense Secretary, and member of Perle’s Defense Policy Board, in the Pentagon. Wolfowitz was a close associate of Perle and has had close ties to the Israeli military. Wolfowitz holds Israeli citizenship and his sister lives in Israel. Wolfowitz was connected with the think tank, JINSA. Wolfowitz was the number two leader within the Bush administration behind the disastrous Iraqi war. He has been targeted by Iraqi resistance fighters on several occasions and they only narrowly missed blowing him up in his well-guarded headquarters in Baghdad. Wolfowitz was subsequently appointed by President Bush to head the World Bank
  2. Douglas Feith: Under Secretary of Defense and Policy Advisor at the Pentagon. He was a close associate of Perle and had served as his Special Counsel extremist, advocating anti-Arab policies. Feith ran a small law firm, Feith and Zell, which only had one International office, in Israel. The majority of their legal work represented Israeli interests. His firm’s own website stated, prior to his appointment, that Feith “represents Israeli Armaments Manufacturers.” Feith, like Perle and Wolfowitz, campaigned intensely for war against Iraq. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy, 1984-1986 and was Special Counsel to Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Peale 1982-1984. In 2001, Feith returned to DoD as Donald Rumsfeld’s Undersecretary for Policy, and it was in his office that “OSP”, the Office of Special Plans, was created. The OSP was created to manufacture intelligence information to justify the invasion of Iraq. This intelligence flowed directly from Ariel Sharon’s office to the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon. The OSP also miss-planned the post-war reconstruction there, and continues to point an accusing finger at Iran and Syria, as per Zionist plans to control the Middle East and funnel Arab oil to Israeli refineries. Feith is a graduate of Harvard College and Georgetown University Law Center and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Like Perle and the others, Feith is a pro-Israel extremist, who has advocated anti-Arab policies in the past. He is closely associated with the extremist group, the Zionist Organization of America, which even attacks Jews that don’t agree with its extremist views. Feith frequently speaks at ZOA conferences4. Edward Luttwak: Member of the National Security Study Group of the Department of Defence at the Pentagon. Luttwak is an Israeli citizen and has taught in Israel. He frequently writes for Israeli and pro-Israeli newspapers and journals. Luttwak is an extremist whose main theme in many of his articles is the necessity of the U.S. waging war against Iraq.
  3. William Kristol: Co-Founder of PNAC. Kristol publishes the Weekly Standard, a Rupert Murdoch-financed magazine that promotes the neocon credo, that was a must-read in Cheney’s office. In 2002, Media Bypass reported, “In what has been called ‘punditgate,’ conservative journalists Bill Kristol and Erwin Stelzer of The Weekly Standard … have been exposed for accepting Enron largesse. … Kristol, chief of staff to former Vice President Dan Quayle, took $100,000 without disclosing the payments at the time.
  4. Henry Kissinger: One of many Pentagon Advisors, Kissinger sat on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board under Perle. For detailed information about Kissinger’s evil past, read Seymour Hersch’s book, Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House. Kissinger had a part in the Watergate crimes; Southeast Asian mass murders under the CIA’s Operation Phoenix (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos); overthrowing the legitimate government of Chile and installing Chilean mass murdering dictator Pinochet; Operation Condor’s mass killings in South America; and more recently served as Serbia’s ex-dictator Slobodan Milosevic’s advisor. He consistently advocated going to war against Iraq. Kissinger was the Ariel Sharon of the U.S. Typically, President Bush nominated Kissinger as chairman of the September 11 investigating commission. This was tantamount to selecting Enron’s Ken Lay to investigate a fraud scandal. The ensuing public outcry about this nomination caused Kissinger to beat a hasty retreat and he promptly resigned.
  5. Dov Zakheim: Under Secretary of Defense, Comptroller, and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for the Department of Defense. He is an ordained rabbi and holds Israeli citizenship. Zakheim attended the Jewish College in London and became an ordained Orthodox Jewish Rabbi in 1973. He was adjunct professor at New York’s Jewish Yeshiva University.
  6. Kenneth Adelman: Once one of many Pentagon Advisors, Adelman also sat on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board under Perle, and was another supporter of war against Iraq. Adelman frequently was a guest on “Fox News” and often expressed extremist and often ridiculous anti-Arab and anti-Muslim views.
  7. I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby: Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff. As the chief pro-Israel Jewish advisor to Cheney, Libby was in a perfect position to influence Cheney’s stand on invading Iraq. Libby is a longtime associate of Wolfowitz. Libby was also a lawyer for convicted felon and Israeli spy Mark Rich, whom Clinton pardoned in his last days as president.
  8. Robert Satloff: U.S. National Security Council Advisor, Satloff was the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
  9. Elliott Abrams: A former National Security Council Advisor. Abrams previously worked at Washington-based “think tank” Ethics and Public Policy Center. During the Reagan Administration, he was the Assistant Secretary of State, handling, for the most part, Latin American affairs. He played an important role in the Iran-Contra Scandal, which involved illegally selling U.S. weapons to Iran to fight Iraq, and illegally funding the contra rebels fighting to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. He also actively deceived three congressional committees about his involvement and thereby faced felony charges based on his testimony. Abrams pled guilty in 1991 to two misdemeanors and was sentenced to a year’s probation and 100 hours of community service. A year later, former President Bush (Senior) granted Abrams a full pardon. He previously worked at Washington-based “Think Tank” Ethics and Public Policy Center. Abrams is the son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz, editor emeritus of Commentary, whose magazine has for decades branded critics of Israel as anti-Semites. Abrams is a diehard PNACer, having “authored the chapter on the Middle East in the 2000 blueprint for U.S. foreign policy by the Project on the New American Century. Edited by PNAC founders William Kristol and Robert Kagan, Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy is a chapter-by-chapter playbook on how to deal with America’s current and future adversaries.”

During the Reagan Administration, Abrams was the Assistant Secretary of State, handling, for the most part, Latin American affairs. He played an important role in the Iran-Contra Scandal, which involved illegally selling U.S. weapons to Iran to fight Iraq, and illegally funding the contra rebels fighting to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. He also actively deceived three congressional committees about his involvement and thereby faced felony charges based on his testimony. Abrams pled guilty in 1991 to two misdemeanors and was sentenced to a year’s probation and 100 hours of community service. A year later, former President Bush (Senior) granted Abrams a full pardon. He was one of the more hawkish pro-Israel Jews in the Reagan Administration’s State Department.

  1. Marc Grossman: Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He was Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources at the Department of State. Grossman was one of many of the officials from the Clinton Administration that Bush promoted to higher posts.
  2. Richard Haass:A former director of Policy Planning at the State Department and Ambassador at large. He was also Director of National Security Programs and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Haass was one of the more hawkish pro-Israelis in the first Bush Administration and sat on the National Security Council, consistently advocating war against Iraq. Haass was also a member of the Defense Department’s National Security Study Group, at the Pentagon. Director of Policy Planning at the State Department and Ambassador at large.
  3. Robert Zoellick: A former U.S. Trade Representative, a cabinet-level position. He was also one of the more hawkish members of the George W. Bush Administration who advocated invading Iraq and occupying a portion of the country in order to set up a Vichy-style puppet government. Zoellick was (2005) promoted to Deputy Secretary of State

Member of CFR and Project for the New American Century signatory. Formerly U.S. Trade Representative and Under Secretary of State in the Bush administration. It is no accident that Robert Zoellick was in line with the loudest chicken-hawks in promoting the Iraq War, and at the same tme acted to increase our unemployment lines in America. Robert Zoellick has been instrumental in fostering outsourcing of American jobs to the Third World.

  1. Ari Fleischer:A former official White House Press Spokesman for the Bush (Jr.) Administration. Fleischer was closely connected to the group called the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidics, who follow the Qabala and hold very extremist and insulting views of non-Jews. Fleischer was the co-president of Chabad’s Capitol Jewish Forum. He received the Young Leadership Award from the American Friends of Lubavitch in October, 2001. Fleischer subsequently resigned his White House post.
  2. James Schlesinger: One of many former Pentagon advisors, Schlesinger also sat on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board under Perle and was another supporter of the war against Iraq. Schlesinger was also a commissioner of the Defense Department’s National Security Study Group, at the Pentagon.

17 David Frum: White House speechwriter behind the “Axis of Evil” label. Frumm lumped together all the Administration’s outright lies and accusations against Iraq for Bush to justify the war.

  1. Joshua Bolten: White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Bolton was previously a banker, former legislative aide.
  2. John Bolton: Formerly Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Bolton was also a Senior Advisor to President Bush. Prior to this position, Bolton was Senior Vice President of the above mentioned think tank, AEI. In October 2002, Bolton accused Syria of having a nuclear program so an attack Syria could be justified after a subjugation of Iraq. President Bush has appointed Bolton, an extremely opinionated and abrasive individual, to the post of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. His appointment was the subject of strong controversy and as of this writing, Bolton has not been officially appointed. Yale graduate. A prime architect of Bush’s Iraq policy, Bolton served Bush Snr and Reagan in the state department, justice department and USAid and was later under-secretary for arms control and international security in Bush Jnr’s state department. His appointment was intended to counter the dove-ish Colin Powell. Bolton is part of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Project for the New American Century and is a vice-president at the American Enterprise Institute. He was also one of Bush’s chad-counters during the Florida count. Bolton has long advocated Taiwan getting a UN seat — he’s been on the payroll of the Taiwanese government. The US unilateralist is a regular contributor to William Kristol’s right-wing Weekly Standard and vilified UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Bolton was an opponent of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and a cheerleader for the Star Wars Defense System. He had hinted at targeting Cuba in the war on terror. His financial interests have include oil and arms firms and JP Morgan Chase, like Shultz. It is said that Bolton believes in the inevitability of Armageddon. Like Woolsey, Bolton is said to believe we are in the midst of world war four which he estimates could take 40 years to finish. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary they believed Iraq was involved in September 11. With Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Khalilzad, Bennet, Woolsey, Perle and Kristol, Bolton co-signed a letter in 1998 urging President Bill Clinton to take military action in Iraq.
  3. David Wurmser: Was Special Assistant to John Bolton (above), the under-secretary for arms control and international security. Wurmser also worked at the AEI with Perle and Bolton. His wife, Meyrav Wurmser, along with Colonel Yigal Carmon, formerly of Israeli military intelligence, co-founded the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a Washington-based Israeli outfit which distributes articles translated from Arabic newspapers portraying Arabs in a bad light. He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, which on July 7, 1996 which issued a paper by six ”prominent opinion makers” laying out ”a new vision for the U.S.-Israeli partnership” that urged an end to ”land-for-peace” concessions. Among many suggestions was to ”focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.”

Wurmser, of American Enterprise Institute joined his former colleague, John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, to be a special assistant. While at AEI Wurmser wrote that any attack on the U.S. military overseas should be met by Washington with a response of massive killing of civilians in the offending nation. Bolton is known for arguing that Washington should disregard international law. He “promptly dismantled or obstructed nearly every multilateral treaty in sight,” He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, which on July 7, 1996 which issued a paper by six ”prominent opinion makers” laying out ”a new vision for the U.S.-Israeli partnership” that urged an end to ”land-for-peace” concessions. Among many suggestions was to ”focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.”

  1. Eliot Cohen: A former member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board under Perle; another extremist pro-Israel advisor. Like Adelman, Cohen often expressed extremist and often ridiculous anti-Arab and anti-Muslim views.Later, he wrote an opinion article in the Wall Street Journal openly admitting his racist hatred of Islam and claiming that Islam and not terrorism should be the enemy.
  2. Mel Sembler: A former president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. A prominent Republican and Former National Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee. The Export-Import Bank facilitates trade relationships between U.S. businesses and foreign countries, specifically those with financial problems.
  3. Michael Chertoff: Formerly Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, at the Justice Department. Mr. Chertoff subsequently was appointed to head the Department of Homeland Security. Homeland Security Czar Holds dual Israeli citizenship.
  4. Steve Goldsmith: Formerly a Senior Advisor to the President, and Bush’s Jewish Domestic Policy advisor. He also served as liaison in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (White House OFBCI) within the Executive Office of the President. Goldsmith was the former mayor of Indianapolis.
  5. Christopher Gersten: Formerly Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Administration for Children and Families at HHS.
  6. Mark Weinberger: Formerly Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy.
  7. Samuel Bodman: Formerly Deputy Secretary of Commerce. He was the Chairman and CEO of Cabot Corporation in Boston, Massachusetts.
  8. 28. Bonnie Cohen: Formerly Under Secretary of State for Management.
  9. 29. Ruth Davis: Formerly Director of Foreign Service Institute, reporting to the Office of Under Secretary for Management. This Office is responsible for training all Department of State staff (including ambassadors).
  10. Lincoln Bloomfield: Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs.
  11. 31. Jay Lefkowitz: General Counsel of the Office of Budget and Management.
  12. Ken Melman: Formerly White House Political Director.
  13. Brad Blakeman: Formerly White House Director of Scheduling.
  14. Stephen David Bryen : In 1979 Bryen was investigated for espionage. He had been overheard in the Madison Hotel Coffee Shop, offering classified documents to an official of the Israeli Embassy in the presence of the director of AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. It was later determined that the Embassy official was Zvi Rafiah, the Mossad station chief in Washington. Bryen refused to be poly-graphed by the FBI on the purpose and details of the meeting; whereas the person who’d witnessed it agreed to be poly-graphed and passed the test. The investigation was squashed by Philip Heymann. Bryen was asked to resign from his Foreign Relations Committee post shortly before the investigation was concluded in late 1979. For the following year and a half, he served as Executive Director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), and provided consulting services to AIPAC.

In April, 1981, the FBI received an application by the Defense Department for a Top Secret security clearance for Dr. Bryen. Richard Perle, who had just been nominated as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, was proposing Bryen as his Deputy Assistant Secretary! Within six months, with Perle pushing hard, Bryen received both Top Secret-SCI (sensitive compartmented information) and Top Secret “NATO/COSMIC” clearances.

In 1988, while serving as the Director (and founder) of DTSA (Defense Technology Security Administration) in the DOD office, Bryen was involved attempting to export sensitive military technology to Israel. In late 1988, Bryen resigned from his DOD post, and for a period worked in the private sector with a variety of defense technology consulting firms.

  1. 35. Michael Ledeen: A fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Ledeen holds a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin. In 1983, on the recommendation of Richard Perle, Ledeen was hired at the Department of Defense as a consultant on terrorism. While being investigated as a security risk by his supervisor, Noel Koch, it was learned from the CIA station that Ledeen had been carried in Agency files as an agent of influence of a foreign government: Israel.

After having his access to classified materials blocked he ceased working there. He next appeared at the National Security Council as a consultant working with NSC head Robert McFarlane. Ledeen was involved in the transfer of arms to Iran during the Iran-Contra affair — an adventure that he documented in the book “Perilous Statecraft: An Insider’s Account of the Iran-Contra Affair.” A prominent member of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) board of governors and the Center for Security Policy (CSP), he advocates “total war” inline with the “Grand Strategy for the Middle East” which advocates “Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot and Egypt as the prize.” Ledeen later was serving member on the China Commission and, with the support of DOD Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith, he had been, since 2001,employed as a consultant for the Office of Special Plans OSP). He was involved in the handling of classified materials and had high-level security clearances

  1. Michael Joyce: The former president of the Bradley Foundation, one of the largest and most influential right-wing organizations in America. It set up the PNAC led by William Kristol. Kristol’s Weekly Standard is viewed in Washington as the in-house paper for Team Bush. The Standard is bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch. Joyce once said that Bush’s key people such as Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz “were clearly influenced by Bradley Foundation thinking”.

 

Email from a German BND official to an American counterpart

I agree with you on most of your points. Especially the one about the Jews in American politics (neocons) who hijacked foreign policy of the United States and practically took over the power in the White House, Department of State and Pentagon.

I have considerable doubts about wisdom of an average American (constituency) who must make a choice between Goebbels- like, neocon propaganda, and the facts which American media are very reluctant to expose. The most important election in the United States which, may in fact do or undo America, as we know it, will come this November. Unfortunately Americans do not have too many choices.

Neocons took over the White House during the Bush administration and they were in power. By neocons, I mean Zionists, the most pro Israel group which ever managed to assemble in Washington DC. Those people are very dangerous to America and its future. Those people can’t go on and must be stopped as soon as possible. I, however, do have a lot of doubts if American voters will be able to stop them. If they have the ability to see the grave danger which looms over their country?

Europe is not in need of American protection anymore. Europe is getting stronger than America and perhaps will surpass this, squeaking-limping empire, faster than anybody can say USA. European Union is building itself into the solid block in which policies of sanity and reality are the guiding light for the future.

Nato has become obsolete. America is becoming obsolete. Today, many Europeans look at the USA like at a fossil of a dinosaur which tries to scare with its size but its stillness is so apparent that it causes a laughter among worldly audience. Only falling bones may hurt those who come too close to it.

On such carcass all parasites flourish fattening itself with the hope for more…But when the host will be gone they will have to die too.

Jews in America hijacked the most important positions in politics and the media. They managed to wage the campaign of blackmails and deception. They managed to create the buzz word which became the anathema in American politics, the word anti-Semite.

Jews took important seats in American congress (Joe Liberman) and painted themselves as liberal Americans with the intentions to deceit America and work diligently for the benefit of rabid Zionists of Likud party.

It is visible from Europe. It is very important to those of us who remember how Jews wanted to take over Germany during Munich revolt in 1918.

Unfortunately to them, that became their end in this country and, almost the end in Europe. Today, they found safe haven in the USA which in its gullible tradition of fake tolerance let them take over the most important centers of power and academia. As focused as Americans might be, their focus is not aimed in the right direction. American culture of consumerism and materialistic approach to life is becoming the undoing of America. Today Americans are ready to make a deal with anybody who will promise them mountains of gold, let it be in the form of cheap oil or any other materialistic gains. Today America ceased to be a nation and became an amalgam of entities which in its greed are ready to destroy all on their way to so called success, including their own society.

Jews are applauding for this is their goal. To weaken those who know how to live only for 15 minutes, who know how to grab fast and run even faster.

I have no doubts that the future of America will not be in the hands of Americans anymore. It may remain in the hands of those who dreamed to leach on the body of this country like their leached on the bodies of others for centuries.

 

 

 

 

2 responses so far

  1. WHO ARE YOU? Years ago I subscribed to World Nees by Dr. JOhn Coleman, an expert in the Constitution. I learned about the eluminati & the Bildiburgers etc. He is British, ironically an expert in our Constitution, which our schools do not teach and our Congressman are dumb to it.

    Now you come along. Your writings remind me of Dr. Coleman, you should be flattered.

    Thank you for your truthfulness, I for one appreciate your writings, quite long, surprisingly I do understand the “big word”

    I am an 80 yo grandmother from Garfield, NJ. Exercising my brain reading your expose’ s. (Spelling?)

    Thank you again for the truth, someone like you to TRUST!

    GOd Bless America,
    Joan

  2. I am nobody in particular and I thank you for your comments. This nation is heading towards Niagara Falls fairly soon now and I much prefer to stand on the shore and watch rather that go out in a boat. WS

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