Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Neocon Bunker Hunker

by Jeff Huber

If you know neither your enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

-- Sun Tzu

It ain't over just because they've been voted out of power. Until January, young Mr. Bush is still commander in chief and Dick Cheney is still in charge. Surge architect Fred Kagan is putting the finishing touches on the "resurgence" strategy, and the neocons have two months left to do that voodoo that they do so well.

A former professor of military history at West Point, Fred knows the components of a classic advance-to-the-rear maneuver: the main body backs down toward safe haven where it can regroup for the counter-offensive, leaving skirmishers in its wake to mine, booby trap, burn bridges and otherwise harass the advancing enemy.

Know Your Enemy

In the case of the neocons, safe haven amounts to a well established network of think tanks, academic citadels and media outlets. Among the scholars and fellows camped out at the American Enterprise Institute are Kagan, John Bolton, Lynne Cheney, David Frum, Newt Gingrich, Irving Kristol (Bill's dad and the "godfather of neoconservatism"), Richard Perle, Gary Schmitt, the completely despicable Paul Wolfowitz and the possibly even more despicable John Yoo. Midge Decter, Steve Forbes and Richard Scaife anchor the board of trustees at the Heritage Foundation; Bill Bennet and Ed Meese hang out there too. Meese, Condi Rice, John Abizaid, Tom Sowell and James Woolsey haunt the hallowed halls of Stanford for the Hoover Institution.

John Yoo, whose sophist interpretation of the president's constitutional powers made young Mr. Bush into a virtual deity, teaches law at the University of California, Berkley. Bill Kristol is on the faculty at Harvard's Kennedy school of Government, and Mackubin Thomas Owens, coauthor of the neocon manifesto Rebuilding America's Defenses, is associate dean of academics at the U.S. Naval War College. Donald Kagan, father of Robert and Fred Kagan, is a professor of history at Yale. Condi will doubtless reclaim her chair at Stanford, even if she has to step over the corpses of half the student body and faculty to get to it.

Noted Cheney chamberlain and dumbest freaking guy on the planet Doug Feith finally got the boot from his visiting professor gig at Georgetown University, but don't shed a single crocodile tear for him. He'll be joining Norm Podhoretz and a host of other B-list Likudniks at the Hudson Institute.

Rupert Murdoch has ensured the warmongers will always have a balcony and a megaphone handy. Bill Kristol and collaborator Robert Kagan (Fred's brother) are well established at the Weekly Standard, and Kristol is now a fixture at the feckless New York Times. Charles Krauthammer holds down the fort at the other "liberal" bastion, the Washington Post. Max Boot has a long-standing relationship with the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and many other publications. Ralph Peters and Newt are columnists with the right wing New York Post; Cal Thomas and Suzanne Fields write for the equally laughable Washington Times.

That's just the tip of the print media iceberg. Add the broadcast sewage from talk radio and FOX News to the mix and, great Caesar's ghost, it's a wonder there's a sentient being left in America.

So don’t worry that those poor neocons won't have two nickels to rub together or a place to rest their wicked heads. They have silk-lined coffins stashed all over the place.

As strategists, the neocons are no Sun Tzu. For all the damage they've managed to do, they did darn little in the way of detailed planning for it. In fact, one can hardly call them strategists at all. What grand scheme they have amounts to a simple tactic, similar to ice hockey's "dump and chase" offense, where your fling the puck into the other guy's end, fight for it in the corner, and try to slide it out to a teammate open in front of the other guy's net. No skilled maneuvers, no coordinated efforts, no sophistication, and nothing remotely creative. The only talents required are speed, brute strength and persistence, all of which the neocons, like all bullies, have an unlimited supply.

If the tactic doesn't work, oh well. You back check and live to dump and chase another day. Or, as Chairman Mao dictated, "Make trouble, fail, make trouble again, fail again."

Know Yourself

As the latest shenanigans in Syria and Pakistan confirm, the warmongery intends to drill the puck as deep into eternal war territory as it can while it still controls play. Obama may not be able to exert much influence on their behavior, but he needs to straighten out a few closets in his own house before he takes on the job of straightening out the abject disarray young Mr. Bush leaves behind.

In an April 2007 Washington Post column, Robert Kagan wrote that, "Obama wants to increase defense spending. He wants to add 65,000 troops to the Army and recruit 27,000 more Marines. Why? To fight terrorism."

Kagan went on to directly quote Obama, writing, "He wants the American military to 'stay on the offense, from Djibouti to Kandahar,' and he believes that 'the ability to put boots on the ground will be critical in eliminating the shadowy terrorist networks we now face.' He wants to ensure that we continue to have 'the strongest, best-equipped military in the world.'"

"Obama never once says that military force should be used only as a last resort," Kagan gloated. "Rather, he insists that 'no president should ever hesitate to use force -- unilaterally if necessary,' not only 'to protect ourselves . . . when we are attacked,' but also to protect 'our vital interests' when they are 'imminently threatened.' That's known as preemptive military action." (Italics mine.)

"This is a left-liberal foreign policy?" Kagan taunted. "Ask Noam Chomsky the next time you see him."

Come election time, Obama might have stiff-armed jibes made by a leading neocon over a year and a half before, but he did just the opposite. When the Republican National Committee ran a deceptive ad in the military-centric Norfolk, Virginia market accusing Obama of planning to cut defense spending by 25 percent, Obama shot back with an ad that quoted the 2007 Kagan article, bringing specific attention to Kagan's observation that Obama wants to expand the military to "fight terrorism."

If that's Obama's idea of change we can believe in, I believe we just rejected Johnny McDitto and voted in Sam O'Same-o.

Next: Know Your Friends

Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes at Pen and Sword . Jeff's novel Bathtub Admirals (Kunati Books), a lampoon on America's rise to global dominance, is on sale now. Also catch Scott Horton's interview with Jeff at Antiwar Radio.

17 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:52 AM

    Do you think those pheasants will form an alliance with cage raised quails, form a pincer movement and off Cheney with the 'peck' maneuver?

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  2. Somebody with brains will have to clean up this mess.

    Comfortable shoes, water, snacks, patience.

    VOTE!

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  3. Well, that first line sounds hopeful, anyway. Here's hoping you don't have to amend it.

    Anyone else having fun watching the extreme-right pundits and AM radio jackasses slit their wrists? Good times, good times.

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  4. JP,

    I haven't yet been able to look at all the "wicked witch meet bucket of water" scenes.

    Jeff

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  5. The high point for me (so far) was Sean Hannity warning his listeners that if Obama gets in, he'll slash the defense budget by "tens of millions." Gasp! Those stealth bomber bake sales are just around the corner, folks.

    So get out and vote, Republicans! Your very lives may be at stake...

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  6. Anonymous7:04 PM

    For what it's worth, Eric Margolis also writes that Obama has been taken in by Washington's powerful special interests.

    Once again, I question how well America's two party system serves the country, as opposed to its politicians.

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  7. Tens of millions, eh? Well, that shows once again how plugged into reality Hannity is.

    Anon,

    There's a difference between the parties. Just not a big enough difference.

    Jeff

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  8. Anonymous6:54 AM

    Commander


    On behalf of Oz let me say congratulations!

    I think it's fair to say that apart from the racial barrier being smashed, Thatcherism and Reaganomics and the Bush 'doctrine' of pre-emption finally got a pants down spanking!

    Halleh - bloody - lujah!

    Your mate Down Under


    Ozebloke

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  9. Anonymous7:18 AM

    BRAVO Sir Pen, dagger and wow you have even included the "Sword of Damocles?!"

    Naming names, places and the cast of characters are certainly befitting of Cicero:

    "... A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."

    I say, let us create a COMIC style fine art rendition of these NAZIs (it is who and what THEY, THEM, THOSE HERE ArE, AfTeRaLL)

    No matter how they hide out in their new digs and wrap up the crimes in jingoistic BS, American style.

    More Cicero for these times, to remind the new PREZ (I have a prediction about this so Jeff, we have to hurry-up and create our new book -- you do the bulk of the writing and we have the fine artists to create the caricatures in real time):

    "... The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

    Last, BUT NOT LEAST:

    Marcus Tullius Cicero quotes:

    "... Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered."

    Thank you Maestro JH!!

    Biloxi Marx

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  10. Commander,

    One BIG, HUGE, difference may be that we are now more vigilant than we have been in a long time.

    Those internet "tubes" allow us to read you, and HuffPost, and TPM, and Daily Kos, and Democracy Now!, Bill Moyers, Buzzflash, At Largely, etc., when we don't want to watch what they (the other side) has to say, even though the thought process may monopolize the air waves.

    So, if the MSM feeds us only Kagen, et al, Heritage, American Enterprise, etc., we don't any longer have to eat only from that trough.

    There will be new commissioners at the FEC.

    There will be a new Attorney General. And, we can only hope this next one will be "The People's Lawyer."

    Contrary to popular opinion, The Revolution Was Televised.

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  11. EL,

    I'm hoping you're right. My motto remains: In God I trust, all others...

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  12. Anonymous9:22 AM

    Jeff, on the Hudson Institute - I was in conversation with a top and I do mean TOP level decision maker at the HI, but upon my investigation I found the people that this president level occupant wanted me to provide practices to (ancient teachings of the "Tao"), were/are ISRAELIS who were conducting the FOOD trip, so to speak.

    Meaning, the new experiments that the Israelis (call them what they are not, JEWS) and let us shine the light on all these EUGENICISTS, NAZI ZIONISTS, who are continuing in their super race (although I do not see CONDI RICE AS ANYTHING HAVING TO DO WITH SUPER, add the other mass murdering criminals to the list of not anything, but criminally insane).

    But, I digress.

    The new SEED BANK set-up by the Rockefellers and Gates Foundations and we cannot forget Mr. Warren Buffett, the ORACLE.

    See/Read: F.W. Engdahl's SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION

    BIRDS AND OTHER FOOD "experiments" are being conducted ONLY INSIDE CONTAMINATION FREE FACILITIES.

    Thus, with all these fanciful institutions that have been purposely constructed (GOEBBELS DID HIS PART TOO, comic books in the schools for the CHILDREN OF THE FUTURE) ...

    It, the PROJECT, is already in place:

    The United Nations has PARTNERED with MARVEL COMICS ...

    Why? To create comic books for THE FUTURE CHILDREN!

    THEME: "How to live in a war torn world."

    Do we think for even a moment that these Nazis redux have found redemption?

    Nah, only a RECKONING can enlighten these cannibals to the fact that human beings on earth have grown-up and choose not to be disposable commodities ("collateral damage") for the mass satanists, and most certainly we do not believe that we are "unnecessary eaters" (especially since Henry Kissinger is the fat Zionist Toadie WHOSE TURN HAS COME!).

    Have I missed something - I don't think so. It is the 21st Century and now all these pre-Magna Carta idiots must learn how to read and write in the modern world.

    Too bad they're all brain dead.

    We must work our fingers to the bone to turn around this madness since the modern technology has provided these mongol-driven (the true tribes in charge came from this abomination of thinking, in actuality .. certain writings trace these outcasts to their own choosing from brain chemistry of insanity), and; therefore, the MINDS of these collective beasts of our species must be dealt with.

    Political Ponerology by Andrew M. Lobaczewski is an excellent pre-primer on how these "families" construct their ideas and belief systems of domination.

    The time has come for America to wake-up and grow-up at the same time. Tough call.

    Comic renditions of who, what, why, where and how, and more.

    Children must have an alternative to WAR.

    It is up to the children of the future to create the new IDEA and ... "one picture is worth a thousand words."

    Fine art illustrations, to accompany the whole sordid truth.

    Goebbels did it and look where we are in this "modern world," with the technology to perfectly well akimbo those insane brains to the one world domination over and over again.

    Picture books for children:

    "How to live in peace, love, joy, happiness, VERVE and other earthly treasures?"

    You have my email address, Jeff.

    Best, Biloxi

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  13. It's So good to see all is well in your little world Jeff.

    Enjoy the next 4 years. I look forward to your insightful comments.
    DS

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  14. Anonymous3:41 PM

    Regarding those "silk-lined coffins," don't forget your columnist colleague Frank Gaffney and his Center for Security Policy. Not to mention Keith Payne and the National Institute for Public Policy, which concentrates on promoting nuclear weapons and missile defense.

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  15. Things must be boring in yours, ds.

    Russ,

    Thanks for the additions. I find "Bull Goose" Gaffney especially loony.

    Jeff

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  16. Anonymous9:00 AM

    Spot on, Commander. Very incisive.
    SF

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  17. I'll have more on this Friday, but Obama just doesn't seem to be applying the same analytical criteria to his foreign policy platform that he uses on everything else.

    Jeff

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