"Ron Paul Rips Neocons: Their ‘Greatest Fear Is For Peace to Break Out’" Reisman

"In a damning critique of what is still the Republican line on Iran, the former congressman characterized neocons as fear-mongering, trigger-happy hawks who would rather launch pre-emptive war than allow nonviolent diplomatic efforts to succeed. Their “greatest fear,” he writes, “is for peace to break out.”

Conservative pols and pundits have been working themselves into a tizzy, trying to spin recent developments in the U.S.-Iran relationship into a narrative of American folly and weakness. Never mind that those developments include the release of four political prisoners, as well as a brief altercation with the U.S. Navy, which ended — much to some conservatives’ consternation — without violence.

Conversely, Paul, the onetime Republican presidential candidate and father of current GOP hopeful (and debate no-show) Rand, praised what he described as the triumph of diplomacy thanks to both the efforts of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, as well as their counterparts in Tehran."  Reisman

http://www.mediaite.com/online/ron-paul-rips-neocons-their-greatest-fear-is-for-peace-to-break-out/

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Hilary Clinton has come to the fore lately as the country's leading neocon.  Her strident calls for unending and un-relenting hostility to Iran are indicative of the character of the "advice" she is getting and the fear of abandonment by AIPAC that seems to grip her.

The People (in the constitutional sense of the term) do not trust her.  They watch her well rehearsed performances and recognize them for the contrived, coached things that they are. 

Now the multi-billionaire Zionist Michael Bloomberg is floating the rumor that if there is a Trump/Sanders election he MAY run as an independent and spend a billion dollars of his own money in the process.   He also says that if HC is the Democratic candidate he probably WOULD NOT run against her.  Does this mean that HC is acceptable to the billionaire class and to Zionists like little Mike, but Sanders is not?

Senator Sanders is far to the left of me politically.  He would do a lot of things that I would not like, but he is not a neocon.  pl

 

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

How much of the civil government acts in direct support or indirect support of the many military ops? Should the CIA ops be subject to a Chain of Command? What is a signature Drone strike?

[SAC Brat]

George Spiggott (Lucifer): We've been hit very badly by this peace scare. - "Bedazzled" 1967

[alba etie]

All
IMO Senator Sanders is our best hope to stop the NeoCon agenda . And I do not want any fellow travelers here at SST to think I am wearing a Che Guvera gimme cap - but a single payer healthcare system, Medicare E for everyone as Sanders proposes - I think could a good outcome . My wife & I spend somewhere north of $ 18,000 a year on premiums , I would rather take that money and give it to the doctors & nurses that see us then the CEO at the Mega Insurance companies. And yes I also sent money to Sen Paul's campaign early on - I hope he retains his Senate seat . ( Standing by for Tyler's response to this posting - I can hear him not about to pounce :) )

[steve]

Maybe, but do we have any idea who his foreign policy advisers will be? From my POV it looks as though the neocons are so dominant amongst the "serious" foreign policy crowd that it will be difficult to make up a team w/o their influence. I am not so certain that Sanders wouldn't be pushed towards their policies anyway, and then we would still have a far left agenda to contend with domestically. OTOH, I guess it is pretty much a given that all of the other candidates on the left and right, except maybe Paul, would enthusiastically take up the neocon cause, so perhaps we should take whatever resistance we can get.

Steve

[Old Microbiologist]

alba,
I am with you. I supported both Paul's and they are very clearly the only ones who have run with the intelligence, morals, and skills to be a good President and do what is right for the US. They also have zero chance of being elected.

Having spent my entire adult life in the most communistic system in the world, aka the US military, I do not see a problem with that kind of system. One where everyone is paid to work, and must work, obey orders etc. the salary is commensurate with responsibility, and everything is provided from cradle to grave seems to work. Here in Hungary where I live now, the majority of the people here are jaundiced with the evils that capitalism has brought and wish communism would return. Life was far better for the average Hungarian before the fall of the Soviet Union.

That said, I believe Sanders has a lot of good ideas but I also believe he cannot pull it off. He is too much a naive gentleman to effectively control the plutocrats in Congress. Trump, who should be the exact opposite, has in his platform many of the identical things Sanders does, but the difference is that he can pull it off if anyone can. He doesn't appear to be shy of exposing hypocrisy and using it to his advantage.

This looks to be a very interesting race this year with the poster girl of corruption HRC facing off against an egocentric billionaire and a semi-socialistic American Jew from Brooklyn. Add in the potential for Bloomberg and it gets even weirder. I don't see either Cruz or Rubio and especially Bush having a chance without some intense interference from the plutocrats in charge of the GOP. Anyway, get some popcorn and enjoy the show.

[SAC Brat]

It doesn't make more than a blip in the MSM because it is issues related instead of soap opera but Donald Trump has peed in some neocon wheaties. He failed to kiss something at a Jewish conference and canceled making the pilgrimage until after he is elected. Criticizing the special friends' big adventures didn't help win admirers either with the big thinkers. His poor math skills keep leading him to 2+2=4 instead of "What answer would you like?".

It has been fun watching Sanders and Trump drag reality into the election cotillion.

[DC]

HRC's minions in the op-ed press have been pushing the canard that "he can't pull it off" as a logical reason not to vote for Sanders. I don't see that logic: it is common (if not expected) that a political platform will include policies and goals that stand little chance of getting through the legislature. The candidate's values that should be important to the voter, not the likelihood of his aspirations being passed into law.

IMO, if Sanders can attract a much more conservative candidate to serve as his VP, preferably one with military experience, he becomes a viable threat to both parties' traditional establishment.

[505thPIR]

Ralph Nader has some very good insights into Senator Sanders, his campaign, its strengths, potential and its weaknesses. Very good podcast here: http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/audio_robert_scheer_interviews_ralph_nader_consumer_advocate_20160122

[oofda]

A more conservative candidate, such as Jim Webb?

[Old Microbiologist]

Nah. Sanders is too old and too genteel to be effective. His failure to embrace the email controversy proves that. So, he won't do anything else. As a man I am sure is a fine person much like Carter and likely equally ineffective. We need a junkyard dog to take on Congress. Trump is the only reasonable madman to fill that role. Of course as a megalomaniac he could be terrible but given our last 6 presidents and especially the last one I can't see any way he could be worse. HRC could be a lot worse though. If she is elected prepare for nuclear war. She is very an insane neocon.

[SAC Brat]

Shorter Trump: "They tell you it's chocolate. It isn't chocolate. You know it isn't chocolate." He's getting the natives riled up.

[Valissa]

Pat Buchanan explains the "arrival" of a candidate like Donald Trump...

Davos Man Meets Donald Trump http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/davos-man-meets-donald-trump/
Who caused this crisis of political legitimacy now gripping the nations of the West? Was it Donald Trump, who gives voice to the anger of those who believe themselves to have been betrayed? Or the elites who betrayed them?

Can that crowd at Davos not understand that it is despised because it is seen as having subordinated the interests of the nations and people in whose name it presumes to speak, to advance an agenda that serves, first and foremost, its own naked self-interest?
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Suggest reading the whole thing!

[b]

In interior policies Sanders is a middle-of-the-road European social democrat. In that he would be good for the average U.S. citizen.

In foreign policy he is not a neocon but in no way a radical peacenik. On Israel he is strongly on the zionist side and would make zero progress.
http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/the-distorted-radicalism-of-bernie-sanders

On Syria he sounds like any other U.S. politician. The military would surely ambush him (like they did earlier with Obama and a request for a 80,000 troop surge for Afghanistan) and would try to get its way. He would have to fire general left and right to get that under control but he is probably a too nice man for that.

I therefore would not expect much change from him on foreign policy.

But all together he is IMHO currently the best in the field. As a longterm member of Congress he may know how to get his way there. Even if not the presidential powers have been raised immensely over the last years and he could do a lot even without Congress support.

[Babak Makkinejad]

All:

Dr. Vali Nasr on "The War for Islam".

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/01/22/the-war-for-islam-sunni-shiite-iraq-syria/

Dr. Nasr is a Shia and from Iranian descent.

[JMH]

So Nader has not had a call back from Sanders in 15 years, hmmm I wonder why?

[Babak Makkinejad]

All:

Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter on Libya (August 2011)

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/18cb7f14-ce3c-11e0-99ec-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3yBvtULFY

and on Syria (February 2012)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/opinion/how-to-halt-the-butchery-in-syria.html?_r=0

[505thPIR]

Mr. Nader states why in his interview.

[VietnamVet]

Valissa,

This is a strange new world when I agree with Pat Buchanan. The collapse of middle class jobs in the West was not happenstance. This was done on purpose to benefit a very few. The Bush, Clinton and Blair clans implemented it. They are not liberals or progressives. They sure are not democratic socialists. They are grifters riding on the backs of their marks into the Davos Elite.

Donald Trump reminds me of Boris Yeltsin. The fall of the Soviet Union was due to communist party propaganda having no correlation with reality.

America’s middle class is disappearing but corporate propaganda ignores it. http://billmoyers.com/2015/01/26/middle-class/
Or, Old Microbiologist above; “Life was far better for the average Hungarian before the fall of the Soviet Union.”

Corporate news always ends with a bit about how this is the best of all possible worlds while the longevity of middle America declines just like it did in Russia a generation ago. If this isn’t reversed by electoral politics, a bourgeoisie revolt is inevitable. When my government pension ends, I am dead.

[different clue]

Steve,

I remember Richard Nixon's Attorney General John Mitchell saying early in the Nixon Administration: "This country is going so far to the Right you won't recognize it." From then to now that's been the steady push.

A lot of what Sanders wants to see restored is thought of as left to far-left nowadays, but was an accepted part of the mainstream FDR-Truman-Eisenhower consensus back then. Sanders calls it Democratic Socialism because of his emotional belief in Democratic Socialism. I call it New Deal Reactionism, and since I am a New Deal Reactionary myself, I would like to a lot of that once-upon-a-time sensible mainstream stuff re-established. Social Security accepted and respected. Glass-Steagall restored and multifunction megabanks broken back up into regulatable pieces. Progressively escalating tax-bracket rates restored against a money-power accumulating OverClass. repealed Estate Taxes restored to re-restrain that same OverClass Elite's power. Things like that.

A President Sanders would have trouble finding any no-neo advice from within government and its satellite spin-mills because they have all been neo-contaminated over time. But his distaste for neo-connery might lead him to look for input beyond the Inner Circles of Thought Leadership. For instance, he might well confer with Professor Steven Cohen on how to think about Russia, Ukraine, etc. That's just a speculative thought on my part, of course.

[different clue]

DC,

Hmmmm . . . like Senator Webb? If Senator Webb could stand the thought of being anyone's VP? And if Senator Webb could bring himself to see the Iran Deal as a good thing?

[J]

The alternative to Bernie Sanders, is former Governor Jesse Ventura as a write-in candidate. I personally like Jesse's statement that our military should be withdrawn to a 550 mile radius from American shores. That would really incense all those who belly up to the American feeding trough while stabbing U.S. in the back at the same time. Would put a fitting end to their fat-cat ways.

Jesse for write-in as an alternative to Bernie.

Now I'll get off my soap-box. LOL.

[readerOfTeaLeaves]

I respectfully disagree about Sanders' handling of Hillary's email problem.
Myself, and everyone else that I talk politics with -- of a fair spectrum of views -- are sick to death of 'neener, neener' politics; Sanders was shrewd enough to take The Political High Road with respect to Hillary's emails. In doing so, he evaded the Benghazi Pandemonia, and refused to fit inside the boxing match boundaries the Media had designed ('Cage fight! Cage fight!').

IOW, his refusal to wallow in the mire of Hillary's Emails seemed like a moment of political jiujitsu, rather than the usual attempt to hammer the opponent(s) up against the ropes. Damn refreshing!
All the more delightful that a 71 year old gramps pulled it off.

Meanwhile, the uber-donors of the GOP have squandered at least $50,000,000 on Jeb Bush. One supposes that about 50 'citizens united' gave at least $1,000,000 per head, so the ROI is not in Jeb's favor.
Karma may be a bitch, but she has a delicious sense of irony.

Should you be interested, a US-based financial website contrasted and analyzed ads by Clinton, and Sanders. Hillary 'will save us all' (from Putin, from GOP, from Scary Threatening Things) with her Illustrious Super Duper Overachiever Resume.
OTOH, Sanders's ad turns the camera primarily on voters. He appears to excel at political jiujitsu.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/01/sanders-clinton-their-ads-and-the-politics-of-trench-warfare.html

[Jack]

All

A Romney aide with a Super PAC is running an ad against Trump. The Republican establishment it seems is falling apart.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/donald-trump-liberal-positions-super-pac-218144

Trump Tapes Vol. 1: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rcUCLwWCihE

[Cee]

PL,

Senator Sanders is far to the left of me politically. He would do a lot of things that I would not like, but he is not a neocon.

Trump isn't a neocon either which is why the National Review went after him. I can smell the fear.

[Jack]

ROTL,

Sanders America ad with the Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack is brilliant IMO. But....the proof is in the pudding. Iowa caucus happens next week and Super Tuesday in a month. We will know if Sanders can compete with Hillary for Democrat delegates soon enough.