by
Michael S. Rozeff

Recently
by Michael S. Rozeff: Cut
Defense Spending by 75 Percent

There are people
vigorously promoting America’s entry into new wars in Syria and
Iran. Many of them eagerly advocated the U.S. aggressions against
Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite the failures of these wars to achieve
the projected goals, they are urging new U.S. wars. They are the
neoconservatives. They applaud U.S. military action in places like
Libya, Yemen, and Somalia. The neoconservative paradigm also looks
favorably upon a U.S. military presence in countries like Uganda,
Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, and the Central African Republic.

Neoconservatives
seek democracy almost everywhere, with the choice and emphasis depending
on their interpretation of American interests and with lip service
to costs. Zachary
Selden writes

“The
realist school of thought contrasts sharply with the neoconservative
camp, whose agenda could not be unfamiliar to Woodrow Wilson.
He too sought to remake the international system from a position
of relative strength, to spread democracy and the rule of law.
It is true that today’s [neoconservative] crusaders are not about
to place their trust in international institutions to do the job,
but the basic ideals are similar in that they seek to use American
power to reshape the global environment in the name of a set of
liberal democratic ideals.”

However, democracy
is a failure in America and there are good reasons why it is a failure.
(See Hoppe
here.) Democracy doesn’t produce wealth. (For some evidence,
see here.)
Capitalism does. Capitalism involves free markets, the division
of labor, the price system, the search for and making of profits,
and well-defined and secure property rights, Democracy, especially
of the unlimited variety that America increasingly resembles, involves
endless political battles over the gains in wealth that capitalism
produces. These battles and the resulting laws (supported by both
major political parties) destroy capitalism. If liberalism in an
economy means capitalism and if liberalism in politics is construed
to mean democracy, they are in mortal conflict.

The neoconservative
agenda by its expansive and highly challenging nature that involves
war and remaking whole countries brings enormous costs without benefits.
This is already evident. If I said that the neoconservatives in
pushing for new wars have learned nothing from their erroneous aims
and methods, I might be partly right, because I think they have
little or no understanding of economics and capitalism. I’d also
be partly wrong, because these people are intelligent and they know
what has happened in these failed wars. It therefore also appears
that they do not care what has happened. They are focused
on their goals and attempts to reach those goals, no matter what
the costs are. Even actual outcomes that are bad and do not achieve
their goals do not matter to them. They stubbornly continue to call
for more warfare and more interference in other nations.

What goals
do the neoconservatives have? I will suggest only one at the moment,
and it will be a goal that is much broader and deeper than what
Selden has suggested. The most important leaders among the neoconservatives,
such as William Kristol, promote American supremacy throughout the
world. They want the U.S. to be the sole superpower and to remain
the sole superpower. Their goal is the global hegemony of the U.S.
See here
and here.

If neoconservatives
promote democracies, it is in order broadly to replicate the U.S.
system and in the process to produce satellites that are compliant
allies of the U.S. To achieve global hegemony, the neoconservatives
want to build up a worldwide American military organization that
dominates every continent along with worldwide economic institutions
that tie every country to the U.S. The latter are by nature anti-capitalistic.
They are centralized and monopolistic. They are instruments of tyranny
run by an elite consisting of people who look just like neoconservatives.

The pro-war
coalition has been very successful in getting America into wars
in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan and elsewhere. It’s now working
on Syria and Iran. Ordinary Americans have nothing to show for these
wars. This is because global hegemony is a politico-military concept
that does not translate into the generalized economic well-being
of Americans. America has gone downhill since getting militarily
involved in Iraq and Afghanistan. I challenge any and all neoconservatives
to prove that ordinary Americans are better off for having the U.S.
government spend 3.7
to 4.4 trillion dollars on these wars in Iraq and Central Asia.
The burden of proof is on them because they promoted these wars.
I would like to see them prove even that the $115
billion in “assistance” to Israel (over many years)
has made ordinary Americans better off. The Congressional Research
Service goes into great technical detail about the composition of
this aid, but there is not a word about what its benefits are to
Americans.

What the pro-war
people consistently fail to do while spreading their ideas is to
mention the many costs of their policies. These costs include but
are not limited to

• the
  1993 Trade Towers bombing
• the 9/11
  catastrophe in 2001
• the deaths
  of thousand of American soldiers
• the injuries,
  wounds and traumas of many more thousands of American soldiers
• the deaths
  and injuries of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis
• trillions
  of dollars to pay for military and aid expenditures
• slower economic
  growth, due to higher taxes and the diversion of labor and capital
  to war rather than industry
• discouragement
  of economic growth by peaceful capitalistic means
• decreased
  security within America due to enhanced risks of foreign retaliation
• police state
  measures at airports and borders
• police state
  measures in all forms of transportation
• the militarization
  of domestic police
• the setting
  aside of rights of Americans
• the assumption
  of power by the president and rule by executive order
• the ignoring
  of constitutional declarations of war
• the movement
  toward use of military forces within America to bypass and weaken
  the Posse Comitatus Act
• the use
  of torture and rendition, indefinite detentions and secret prisons
• the claim
  to and use of a presidential power of assassination, including
  use against American citizens
• a government
  heavily in debt
• a depreciating
  currency
• violations
  of international laws, mores and standards that make war criminals
  out of American leaders
• encouragement
  of violent resistance against the U.S. from domestic dissidents
• encouragement
  of violent resistance against the U.S. from foreign sources intent
  on terror, revenge, etc.
• encouragement
  of resistance against the U.S. from nuclear-armed nations like
  Russia and China

The near total
silence of the neoconservatives and others who are promoting these
wars regarding these costs suggests to me that they are blind to
and ignorant of these costs and that they just do not give a darn
about the costs. They don’t experience these costs personally, indeed
they experience benefits from their activities, and so they simply
ignore the costs or shuffle over them quickly in their minds and
hearts.

Here in America,
the people within the pro-war coalition achieve success in fomenting
wars through working the American political system. Working that
system involves well-paid and/or comfortable positions in education,
government, political campaigns, foundations and journalism. It
involves, writing, advising, consulting, and speeches. It involves
media appearances, articles, books, reports, letters, press reports,
and statements. All of this activity is intellectual in nature,
but it is not primarily or solely in the service of scholarship
and research to discover truths. It is not scientific research.
Instead, what is called research frequently is to promote political
goals, to write possible laws, and to influence congressional legislation.
For example, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies tells us
that

“As
part of a comprehensive strategy to prevent Iran’s leaders from
acquiring nuclear weapons, continuing to support terrorist acts
and oppressing their own people, the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies conducts extensive research on ways to deny the Iranian
regime the profits of its energy sector.”

Within the
pro-war coalition, individual motives, opinions and judgments vary.
People vary their positions over time. These variations are unimportant,
but because of the variance some pro-war people may have occasionally
been critical in the past of some of the positions of other pro-war
people. They may also have been critical at one time or another
of government officials who in other respects have done exactly
as they desired. The pro-war people almost surely have justified
their positions using different rationales. None of these frictions,
differences, contradictions and variations are major as compared
with the fact that they have urged the U.S. government to make war
and have successfully convinced it to do so. These intramural differences,
interesting as they may be, are a source of confusion to observers.
They should not be allowed to obscure the main fact: there is a
strong coalition for war in this nation. The coalition has definite
aims but they are deeply flawed. What they claim is good for America
and Americans is not good at all.

This article
lists a few of these advocates of war, 56 of them to be exact. These
56 want the U.S. to intervene in Syria. These 56 people wrote an
open
letter to President Obama on Feb. 17, 2012 in which they urged
him to take certain immediate actions:

“Immediately
establish safe zones within Syrian territory, as well as no-go
zones for the Assad regime’s military and security forces, around
Homs, Idlib, and other threatened areas…”

“Establish
contacts with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and, in conjunction with
allies in the Middle East and Europe, provide a full range of
direct assistance, including self-defense aid to the FSA.”

“Improve
U.S. coordination with political opposition groups and provide
them with secure communications technologies and other assistance
that will help to improve their ability to prepare for a post-Assad
Syria.”

“Work
with Congress to impose crippling U.S. and multilateral sanctions
on the Syrian government, especially on Syria’s energy, banking,
and shipping sectors.”

These actions
amount to the U.S. making war in Syria. They do not ask Congress
to declare such a war. Instead they ask the President to initiate
the war on his own authority.

This letter
emanates from two organizations: The Foreign Policy Initiative and
the Foundation
for the Defense of Democracies (FDD). William Kristol is behind
both of these intellectually and organizationally; major funding
sources are provided in the linked article.

The 56 people
who signed the letter are listed below in an appendix.

Some of these
people are familiar names. Many others you and I have never heard
of before. In a way, that’s the point. Although these and others
like them are the people influencing government policies, and although
they often have been in government themselves, you and I and most
Americans have never heard of them much less control them or influence
them.

Who wants the
U.S. to make war in Syria? We have here a sample of 56 people. There
are many ways to characterize them. There appear to be about 7 from
either Syria or the Middle East. The exact number isn’t important.
We’d expect such a contingent who are trying to get the U.S. directly
involved.

Beyond this
group is another substantial sub-group, namely, pro-Israel Jews.
There are around 22 in this group, possibly a few more, possibly
a few less. It is of obvious importance to the interests of Americans
to know that a concentrated group of pro-Israel Jews is promoting
U.S. entry into another Middle Eastern country. The same thing happened
with Iraq, with such neoconservatives as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard
Perle, and Douglas Feith leading the charge. America is not Israel.
The interests of Americans are not the interests of the State of
Israel or of specific interest groups within Israel. America should
not be led, pushed, or drawn into wars either by Jewish voters in
America or by pro-Israel interests who concentrate in offices in
Washington to generate articles, promote their agenda and broadcast
their views widely. When this happens, as it has, it provides an
example of the negative fallout of an unlimited democracy.

The third and
largest group that overlaps the pro-Israel Jews consists of neoconservatives,
some of whom probably just call themselves conservatives. This takes
up most of those who signed the letter. It is no surprise to find
neoconservatives again calling for the U.S. to make war.

Of equal interest
to the latter breakdown are four other properties of the signatories.
First, they are unrepresentative of America by almost any criterion
one might name. Second, they move in an axis consisting of government,
universities, foundations and quite often the literary world. Third,
their habitat is primarily Washington D.C. Fourth, they are highly-educated
intellectuals who are heavily engaged in writing and speaking for
a living.

Strong support
for war is not a new feature for intellectuals. Randolph
Bourne observed it in 1917. I offer some conjectures. These
are not central to the thesis of this article. Many scribblers are
not content with being scribblers. Some who are not really creative
or talented scribblers look for a different way to use what talents
and skills they have in order to get ahead financially, to hobnob
with those in power, to influence them, to make history, and even
to exercise power. I conjecture that war is a means of vicarious
power for some intellectuals. American dominance is a substitute
for a deity to worship. Global hegemony is a springboard for moral
crusades. It serves as a vicarious means of redemption for its proponents.

Regardless
of these conjectures, I do not suspect these 56 people of duplicity.
I suspect that they are doing what they believe in. However, I believe
that what they are promoting is wrong. A policy of endless global
wars by Americans for the “American system” and with little
or no regard for the costs being imposed upon Americans and foreign
peoples is wrong

Neoconservative
intellectuals do not have the best interests of Americans at heart.
I seriously wonder if such a concern ever enters their minds, for
they hardly ever push or advertise their policies in terms of what
they concretely do for Americans. When they do, do they do so with
a true understanding? In promoting global hegemony, William Kristol
and Robert Kagan write
in 1996:

“Somehow
most Americans have failed to notice that they have never had
it so good. They have never lived in a world more conducive to
their fundamental interests in a liberal international order,
the spread of freedom and democratic governance, an international
economic system of free-market capitalism and free trade, and
the security of Americans not only to live within their own borders
but to travel and do business safely and without encumbrance almost
anywhere in the world.”

Most of this
thinking was mistaken when it was written, and it’s even less the
case today after the U.S. government adopted the neoconservative
agenda and attempted to actualize global hegemony. Americans did
not have it that good in 1996. Income growth was slowing down decade
after decade and that slowdown has continued. What was and is conducive
to economic well-being is capitalism, not “democratic governance”.
Freedom has been deteriorating in America. It was nowhere near what
it should have been in 1996. Freedom is even more abridged today.
Neoconservatism is partly responsible. Furthermore, freedom cannot
be equated to democratic governance or linked with it. Kristol and
Kagan were also wrong to characterize the international economic
system as one of free-market capitalism and free trade. Those are
good goals but the system then and now is far from those goals.

This passage
illustrates what I argued earlier, namely, that neoconservatives
do not understand economic matters and consider them secondary to
politics and power.

Kristol and
Kagan were more accurate when they observed that Americans were
secure here and relatively secure traveling elsewhere “without
encumbrance”. However, under the neoconservative policies,
unencumbered travel is no longer the case.

Neoconservative
intellectuals frequently propagate propaganda that calls for war
and that disregards its costs. They are out for themselves, plus
they are out for a vision of American political supremacy that warms
their hearts. As we have seen, a large number are out for Israel,
not America.

If neooconservative
intellectuals as a group have any understanding of free markets,
wealth accumulation, private property rights and their protection,
capitalism and Austrian economics, I have yet to see it. They seem
almost entirely locked up in a world of their own that revolves
around politics, international relations and power. That world is
real. It cannot be ignored. But do the neoconservatives even have
a correct take on how America should proceed in such a world? It
appears that they do not.

APPENDIX

I’ve used the
internet to find out what the people who signed the Feb. 17, 2012
letter do for a living and/or some biographical information. After
each name comes a quotation with a portion of that information.
The links over their names provide the sources of these quotes and
a more complete biography. After a few of the names, I provide a
few further facts and comments; but this article doesn’t go into
detail about each person. The biographical information should not
in all cases be taken as providing an accurate picture of a person’s
actual accomplishments, capacities or capabilities. It is common
for vitas to be padded and bios to be exaggerated in order to present
a glowing portrait of a person’s life and work.

By reading
this material and occasionally linking on through to see pictures
of these people, you will get an idea of what persons, interests
and interest groups are promoting U.S. intervention. It is by no
means a complete picture, but you will see a sample of people in
the pro-war coalition, and you will get a feel for how it operates.

Khairi
Abaza “Khairi Abaza is a scholar at FDD [Foundation
for the Defense of Democracies], noted for his focus on democratic
reform in the Arab world, the spread of terrorism, and the influence
of the media on politics.”

FDD is a neoconservative
organization. The FDD “team” or “Leadership
Council” consists of R. James Woolsey (Chairman, former
Director of the CIA), Steve Forbes (the CEO of Forbes Magazine),
Bill Kristol (the editor of The Weekly Standard), Richard Carlson
(former Director of the Voice of America), Judge Louis J. Freeh
(former Director of the FBI), Joseph Lierberman (U.S. Senator),
Dr. Paula A. Dobriansky (former Under Secretary of State for Democracy
and Global Affairs), Max M. Kampelman (former Ambassador, recipient
of the Presidential Medal of Freedom), and Robert ‘Bud’ McFarlane
(former National Security Advisor).

Who funds FDD?
They say “FDD is funded by a diverse group of individual philanthropists
and foundations. FDD has also received grants from the U.S. State
Department.” But also see
here.

Ammar
Abdulhamid “Ammar Abdulhamid is a leading Syrian human
rights and pro-democracy activist and author. An FDD fellow and
member of FDD’s Syria Working Group, Mr. Abdulhamid is also the
founder and director of the Tharwa Foundation, a grassroots organization
that works to break the Assad government’s information blockade
by enlisting a cadre of local activists and citizen journalists
to report on sociopolitical issues in Syria.”

Hussain
Abdul-Hussain “…a journalist and expert on the Middle
East. He currently works as a correspondent with the Kuwaiti daily
Al Rai…and lives in Washington DC. Hussain Abdul-Hussain worked
for the United States Congress-funded Arabic TV, Alhurra, as a news
producer.

Tony
Badran “Research Fellow at the Foundation for Defense
of Democracies (FDD) in Washington, DC. He focuses on Lebanon, Syria
and Hezbollah…Mr. Badran’s writings appear regularly in a range
of publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Forbes.com,
National Review Online, ForeignPolicy.com, the Jerusalem Post,
the Daily Star, NOW Lebanon, and the Mideast Monitor…”

Paul
Berman “…a leading writer on politics and literature
whose articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications…Berman
argued that the NATO war in the former Yugoslavia in 1999 was justified
by the doctrine of ‘liberal interventionism’: an intervention intended
to rescue endangered populations from extreme oppression and to
promote liberal and democratic freedom. He looked on the 2001 invasion
of Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq in the same light.”

Max
Boot “Max Boot (born September 12, 1969) is an American
author, consultant, editorialist, lecturer, and military historian…He
has been a prominent advocate for American power. He once described
his ideas as ‘American might to promote American ideals.’”

Ellen
Bork “Ellen Bork is the Director, Democracy and Human
Rights at the Foreign Policy Initiative. Before taking this position,
Ms. Bork was the Senior Programs Manager for Human Rights at Freedom
House a democracy promotion organization based in Washington, D.C.
From 1996 to 1998, Bork was the Senior Professional Staff member
for Asia and the Pacific at the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations.”

The
Foreign Policy Initiative is another neoconservative organization.
The four persons on its board are Eric S. Edelman, Robert Kagan,
William Kristol and Dan Senor. Edelman in November of 2011 co-authored
an article “Why Obama should take out Iran’s nuclear
program”. Kagan and Kristol are well-known and very influential
neoconservatives. Senor
is apparently a Romney advisor at present.

L.
Paul Bremer “Bremer arrived in Iraq as the U.S. Presidential
Envoy on May 2003, and on May 11 replaced lieutenant general Jay
Garner as Director of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian
Assistance. In June, the Office was transformed into the Coalition
Provisional Authority, and Bremer, as U.S. Administrator of Iraq,
became the chief executive authority in the country.

“As the
top civil administrator of the former Coalition Provisional Authority,
Bremer was permitted to rule by decree. Among his first and most
notable decrees were Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number
1 which banned the Ba’ath party in all forms and Coalition Provisional
Authority Order Number 2 dismantled the Iraqi Army.”

Bremer’s order
to de-Ba’athify Iraq was a mistake. For some explanation of its
differences from de-Nazification, see here.

Matthew
R. J. Brodsky “Matthew RJ Brodsky is the Director of
Policy for the Jewish Policy Center and the editor of the JPC’s
journal, inFOCUS Quarterly. Before joining the JPC, Mr. Brodsky
was the Senior Geopolitical Analyst for IntelliWhiz LLC and a Legacy
Heritage Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. He has briefed
and advised members of Congress, the Department of State, the Department
of Defense, Special Operations Command, and the National Security
Council. A specialist in Middle East affairs and Arab politics,
he holds a Master of Arts degree from Tel Aviv University in Middle
East History.”

Elizabeth
Cheney According to another
source, “Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of Dick Cheney,
is an outspoken and controversial proponent of hardline U.S. foreign
and domestic policies on the ‘war on terror.’ During the George
W. Bush presidency, Cheney worked in the State Department overseeing
Middle East policy. After the election of Barack Obama, she became
a standard-bearer for the militarist agenda pursued by her father
during the Bush years, founding a right-wing lobbying group called
Keep America Safe and serving as a go-to pundit on conservative
media outlets like Fox News.”

Seth
Cropsey is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Toby
Dershowitz “As FDD’s Vice President for Government
Relations and Strategy, she engages in policy roadmapping that identifies
the conceptual issues and the strategy necessary to move the dial
in the policy arena.”

James
Denton “James Denton is the publisher and editor of
the bimonthly print journal World Affairs and its online daily edition
at WorldAffairsJournal.org.”

Mark
Dubowitz “Mark Dubowitz is executive director of the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington D.C., where
he leads projects on sanctions, nonproliferation, and countering
electronic repression.”

Nicholas
Eberstadt “Nicholas Eberstadt is a political economist
who holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American
Enterprise Institute (AEI).”

Eric
S. Edelman “Eric Steven Edelman (born 1951) is a former
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, former U.S. Ambassador to
Turkey (2003–2005), former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Finland
(1998–2001), and former Principal Deputy Assistant to the Vice President
for National Security Affairs (2001–2003).”

Jamie
M. Fly “Jamie Fly has served as the Executive Director
of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) since its founding in early
2009. Prior to joining FPI, Mr. Fly served in the Bush administration
at the National Security Council (2008-2009) and in the Office of
the Secretary of Defense (2005-2008). He was Director for Counterproliferation
Strategy at the National Security Council, where his portfolio included
the Iranian nuclear program, Syria, missile defense, chemical weapons,
proliferation finance, and other counterproliferation issues.”

Reuel
Marc Gerecht “Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow
with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies…He was previously
a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the director
of the Middle East Initiative at the Project for the New American
Century. Earlier, he served as a specialist at the CIA’s Directorate
of Operations.”

On July 11,
2012, Gerecht wrote a Wall
Street Journal piece titled “To Topple Assad, Unleash
the CIA”.

Abe
Greenwald “Abe Greenwald is senior editor of Commentary.
His work has appeared in various publications, and he is a regular
contributor to the Commentary blog.”

Greenwald
endorsed John McCain in 2008 in the course of which he penned
these words: “Simply consider Iraq. Senator McCain has the
distinction on Capital Hill of being both the most energetic supporter
of the Iraq War and the first, most vocal critic of the Rumsfeld
strategy. He actually believed in the importance of the cause, and
therefore the necessity of victory. A liberated state is not a goal
to be scrapped when things go wrong; it’s a principle worthy of
unwavering stamina and ingenuity.”

John
P. Hannah “John Peter Hannah (born January 5, 1962),
is a senior fellow at the Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington,
DC think tank which was founded in 1985. He is a former national
security adviser to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney from 2005 to
2009.”

William
Inboden “William Inboden is a Distinguished Scholar
at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law and an
Assistant Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University
of Texas-Austin…Previously he served as Senior Director for Strategic
Planning on the National Security Council at the White House…”

Bruce
Pitcairn Jackson “He has served as the Chairman of
the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and as chair of
the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI). He is a member of
the Council on Foreign Relations.

“According
to John B. Judis, Jackson played a key role both in establishing
the CLI and in lining up Eastern European nations to join the Bush
administration’s coalition of the willing that supported the invasion
of Iraq. ‘In the late 1990s, while working for Lockheed Martin,
Jackson avidly promoted the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe,’
he writes. ‘This year Jackson was able to parlay his NATO connections
into support for the administration’s war plans for Iraq.’”

Ash
Jain “Ash Jain, a former member of the State Department’s
Policy Planning Staff, is a Non-Resident Fellow with the German
Marshall Fund of the United States…Mr. Jain focused on a range
of strategic challenges facing the United States and its allies.
In addition to covering political developments related to Iran and
the Middle East, he analyzed prospects for strengthening multilateral
alliances and partnerships and the future of the international system.”

Kenneth
Jensen This may be Kenneth D. M. Jensen, Associate Director
of the Economic Warfare Institute, based in Washington, D.C. I’m
not sure.

Allison Johnson
(No information.)

Sirwan
Kajjo “He is a freelance journalist and a human rights
activist. He now lives in Washington, D.C. after being granted asylum
in 2008. He has worked as a reporter for Kurdistan TV in their Beirut
Office. He worked with the Tharwa Foundation, which is a Washington-based
non-profit organization dedicated to democracy and human rights
in Syria. Sirwan is now a freelance journalist based in Washington,
DC. Sirwan has published many news articles and research on Syrian
Kurdish politics.”

Lawrence
F. Kaplan “Lawrence F. Kaplan is editor of Entanglements:
Arguing America and the World, a website of The New Republic devoted
to foreign policy…”

Irina
Krasovskaya “Dr. Krasovskaya is the founder and President
of ‘We Remember Foundation,’ a civic initiative that seeks justice
for the disappeared and other victims of political repression in
Belarus.”

William
Kristol “In 2003, Kristol and Lawrence F. Kaplan wrote,
The
War Over Iraq: America’s Mission and Saddam’s Tyranny, in
which the authors analyzed the Bush Doctrine and the history of
US-Iraq relations. In the book, Kristol and Kaplan provided support
and justifications for war in Iraq.

“He also
served as a foreign policy advisor for Senator John McCain’s presidential
campaign.

“Kristol
is a harsh critic of Texas congressman and presidential candidate,
Dr. Ron Paul-(R) and his supporters, he has been quoted as stating
that he ‘would be happy if Paul ( and his supporters) were purged
from the GOP’. He is a sharp critic of anyone who questions the
distributions of taxpayer money to Israel.”

Michael
Ledeen “He is a former consultant to the United States
National Security Council, the United States Department of State,
and the United States Department of Defense. He has also served
as a special adviser to the United States Secretary of State. He
held the Freedom Scholar chair at the American Enterprise Institute
where he was a scholar for twenty years and now holds the similarly
named chair at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.”

“Writing
in The Nation, Jack Huberman, who describes Ledeen as ‘the
most influential and unabashed warmonger of our time’, attributes
these quotes to Ledeen:

• ‘the level
  of casualties (in Iraq) is secondary’
• ‘we are
  a warlike people (Americans)…we love war’
• ‘Change
  – above all violent change – is the essence of human history’
• ‘the only
  way to achieve peace is through total war’
• ‘The purpose
  of total war is to permanently force your will onto another people’
• ‘Every
  ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small
  crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show
  the world we mean business’”

Tod
Lindberg “Tod Lindberg is an American political expert
and a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
His research focuses on political theory, international relations,
national security policy, and American politics. He also serves
as the editor of Policy Review, the Hoover Institution’s Washington,
D.C.–based bimonthly journal. He is a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations.”

Herbert
I. London “Herbert I. London is President Emeritus
of Hudson Institute.”

Clifford
D. May “Clifford D. May is the President of the Foundation
for Defense of Democracies, created immediately following the 9/11
attacks on the United States.”

Ann
Marlowe “Ann Marlowe, a Hudson Institute Visiting Fellow,
is a writer and businesswoman based in New York City. A frequent
traveler to Afghanistan – who has embedded with the U.S. Army numerous
times – Marlowe writes on Afghanistan’s politics, economy, culture,
and U.S. counterinsurgency strategy for the Wall Street Journal,
the Weekly Standard, the New York Post, The Daily
Beast, Newsweek, and other outlets. In 2011 she made
four reporting trips to Libya, spending almost four months in the
country, and returned in March-April 2012.”

Ms. Marlowe
has downplayed
the antics of American soldiers in Afghanistan, writing
“Men at war demonize their enemy and enact their triumph over
him symbolically. That is part of the psychology that makes them
able to kill.” Is it unfair of me to point out that there is
something else about the psychology of killing that severely affects
the killer? Nicholas
D. Kristof writes “An American soldier dies every day
and a half, on average, in Iraq or Afghanistan. Veterans kill themselves
at a rate of one every 80 minutes. More than 6,500 veteran suicides
are logged every year – more than the total number of soldiers killed
in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since those wars began.”

Robert
C. McFarlane “Robert Carl ‘Bud’ McFarlane (born July
12, 1937) was a National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan,
serving from 1983 through 1985.

“After
a career in the Marines, he became part of the Reagan administration,
and was a leading architect of the Strategic Defense Initiative
(SDI) for defending the United States against missile attack. Subsequently,
he was involved in the Iran-Contra affair.”

Joshua
Muravchik “Joshua Muravchik is a long-standing proponent
of interventionist U.S. foreign policies who has played an important
role in shaping neoconservative ideology for decades. An erstwhile
Socialist Party activist, Muravchik has been affiliated with numerous
political pressure groups, rightist think tanks, and organizations
associated with the ‘Israel lobby’ in the United States.

Martin
Peretz “Martin H. ‘Marty’ Peretz…is an American publisher.
Formerly an assistant professor at Harvard University, he purchased
The New Republic in 1974 and took editorial control soon afterwards.”

Danielle
Pletka “Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign
and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute,
a conservative think tank based in Washington, DC.”

“On the
use of torture, she told the BBC:

‘I’m not
a big fan of torture. Unfortunately, there are times in war when
it is necessary to do things in a way that is absolutely and completely
abhorrent to most good, decent people. I don’t want to say that
the United States has engaged routinely in such practices, because
I don’t think that it is routine by any standard. But that said,
if it is absolutely imperative to find something out at that moment,
then it is imperative to find something out at that moment, and
Club Med is not the place to do it.’”

If Pletka can’t
condemn torture out of hand, I hate to think about what sort of
treatment that she would find appropriate for the U.S. government
to use against its own citizens.

John
Podhoretz He “is an American neoconservative columnist
for the New York Post, the editor of Commentary magazine, the author
of several books on politics, and a former presidential speechwriter.”

Stephen
Rademaker “Stephen Geoffrey Rademaker is an attorney,
lobbyist and former Bush Administration government official.”

Karl
Rove “Karl Christian Rove (born December 25, 1950)
is an American political consultant and policy advisor. He was Senior
Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff during the George W. Bush administration
until Rove’s resignation on August 31, 2007.”

Jonathan
Schanzer “Jonathan Schanzer is an American author
scholar in Middle Eastern studies, and vice president of research
at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.”

Randy
Scheunemann “Randall J ‘Randy’ Scheunemann (born January
12, 1960) is an American neoconservative lobbyist. He is the President
of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which was created by
the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), of which he is
a board member. He was Trent Lott’s National Security Aide and was
an advisor to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Iraq. He is a
paid lobbyist for the country of Georgia and was 2008 Presidential
candidate John McCain’s foreign-policy aide.”

I’ve
written about Scheunemann before

“Randy
Scheunemann was a key figure in drafting this legislation [Iraq
Liberation Act, 1998], and his hawkish (neocon) connections are
spread far and wide, including links to the world’s largest military
contractor Lockheed Martin. He headed a lobbyist firm that represented
Lockheed Martin and was President of The Committee for the Liberation
of Iraq alongside Chairman Bruce P. Jackson, a former vice-president
of Lockheed Martin. Scheunemann, a consultant and advisor to Donald
Rumsfeld on Iraq sometime in 2001/2002, joined with William Kristol
and others in supporting military intervention in Iraq. His public
statements stress moral and other reasons for the Iraq intervention.
A board member of the Project for a New American Century, Scheunemann
like all of those associated with PNAC automatically assumes that
American Empire is both right and prudent. In his work as an aide
to Trent Lott, Jesse Helms, John McCain, and Bob Dole, he has
been associated with American efforts in Panama, Somalia, Korea,
Bosnia, and Haiti as well as with the expansion of NATO.”

Gary
J. Schmitt “Gary James Schmitt served as executive
director (1999–2001) and president (2002–2005) of the New Citizenship
Project. He was the executive director of the Project for the New
American Century (PNAC) from 1998 to 2005. He is now a resident
scholar and director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Program
on Advanced Strategic Studies.”

“Schmitt
helped found and direct the Project for the New American Century
(PNAC), a key neoconservative letterhead group formed in 1997 that
played a leading role advocating war in Iraq.”

Daniel
S. Senor “He is also a Fox News contributor and a frequent
contributor to The Wall Street Journal among other publications.
He is co-author the book Start-up
Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, about the
economy of Israel and globalization in the Middle East. Senor is
most noted for his former position as chief spokesperson for the
Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.”

Lee
Smith “Lee Smith is a writer based at the neoconservative
Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) known for his belligerent
defense of hawkish U.S. and Israeli policies. Formerly a visiting
fellow at the Hudson Institute, Smith contributes to several media
outlets, including Tablet Magazine, the Weekly Standard,
and the Wall Street Journal, where he frequently lambasts
the purported weakness of liberals in confronting terrorism, attacks
writers who are critical of Israeli policies as being ‘Jew-baiters,’
and promotes hardline views of Middle East peace.”

Henry
D. Sokolski “Henry D. Sokolski is the Executive Director
of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, a Washington-based
nonprofit organization founded in 1994 to promote a better understanding
of strategic weapons proliferation issues among policymakers, scholars
and the media. He was appointed by the U.S. Congress to serve on
the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction
Proliferation and terrorism, which filed its final report in December
2008.”

Daniel
Twining “Daniel Twining is Senior Fellow for Asia at
the German Marshall Fund of the United States…He previously served
as a Member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, where
he was responsible for South Asia and regional issues in East Asia;
as the Foreign Policy Advisor to Senator John McCain, for whom he
handled foreign and defense policy in the United States Senate;
and as a staff member of the U.S. Trade Representative. Dr. Twining
has also served as senior policy advisor and foreign policy spokesman
for several presidential campaigns.”

Peter
Wehner “Peter Wehner is a senior fellow at the Ethics
and Public Policy Center (EPPC), a neoconservative-led organization
founded in the 1970s that promotes an increased role for Christianity
in public policy. A former advisor in the George W. Bush White House,
Wehner’s track record also includes stints in the Reagan and George
H. W. Bush administrations. Wehner has worked with a number of other
rightist groups, including the William Bennett-founded Empower America
and the Hudson Institute, and he has been closely associated with
leading neoconservative figures like William Kristol.”

“Although
his writings often focus on domestic policy and Christian morality,
Wehner is a reliable hawk on foreign affairs, at times teaming up
with like-minded activists to push militarist overseas policies.
In September 2011, for example, Wehner joined a coterie of Iraq
War promoters in signing an open letter to President Barack Obama
that called for maintaining a large U.S. military presence in Iraq
after the end of 2011.”

My comment
is that a focus on Christianity and Christian morality is no guarantee
of anything.

Kenneth
R. Weinstein “Kenneth R. Weinstein is the President
and Chief Executive Officer of Hudson Institute. He oversees the
institute’s research, project management, external affairs, marketing,
and government relations efforts.”

Leon
Wieseltier “A widely recognized writer of books, articles,
and essays on everything from religion to culture, Leon Wieseltier,
literary editor of the New Republic, is generally considered a political
moderate even though his views on foreign affairs tend to veer to
the neoconservative extreme, especially when dealing with Israel
and the Middle East. He has supported the work of hawkish advocacy
groups, including the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
and the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.”

R.
James Woolsey “Robert James Woolsey, Jr. (born September
21, 1941) is a foreign policy specialist and former Director of
Central Intelligence and head of the Central Intelligence Agency
(February 5, 1993–January 10, 1995).”

Khawla
Yusuf Yusuf is a human-rights activist who fled Syria in
2005 with her husband Ammar Abdulhamid. They founded the Tharwa
Project in 2003 in Syria and later added the Tharwa Foundation.

Dov
S. Zakheim “Dov S. Zakheim is a former official of
the United States government…He was part of the Project for the
New American Century.”

“Dov Zakheim’s
most recent book, A
Vulcan’s Tale: How the Bush Administration Mismanaged the Reconstruction
of Afghanistan (Brookings Institution Press, 2011), discusses
the Bush administration’s missed opportunities and struggles to
manage two wars, particularly the seemingly endless conflict in
Afghanistan.”

“In
October 2011 he was mentioned as adviser on the Middle East for
Republican Presidential contender Mitt Romney.”

Robert
Zarate “Prior to joining FPI [The Foreign Policy Initiative],
Robert Zarate worked as a legislative assistant for a Member of
the U.S. House of Representatives, focusing on foreign affairs,
national security, homeland security and immigration, and appropriations
issues (2009-2011), and earlier as a legislative fellow on the House
Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and
Trade (2009).”

Radwan
Ziadeh “Radwan Ziadeh is a Senior Fellow at the U.S
Institute of Peace in Washington D.C, and Fellow at the Institute
for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) in Washington D.C.”

Ziadeh
belongs to the Syrian dissident/rebel group known as the Syrian
National Council. He has previously supported a NATO-led intervention
in Syria. Ziadeh is shown here (holding the white paper) on Hillary
Clinton’s left:

July
17, 2012

Michael
S. Rozeff [send him mail]
is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York.
He is the author of the free e-book Essays
on American Empire: Liberty vs. Domination and the free e-book
The U.S. Constitution
and Money: Corruption and Decline.

Copyright
© 2012 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in
part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

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