‘intense, methodical, rigorous, earnest’

by on December 6, 2009 23

Adjectives applied to Obama's approach to enlarging the war by Peter Baker, the New York Times neoconservative newsroom minder, in today's lead story. The escalation is getting the same kind of praise from Kristol, Kagan, Brooks, Packer, and Peretz, with others doubtless to follow. Obama is exactly where he wants to be.

Posted in Neocons, US Politics, War on Terror

{ 23 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. Chaos4700 says:
    December 6, 2009 at 6:27 pm

    Great, I’m sure those guys will be rightbehind Obama when the war effort collapses, turns out even worse than Vietnam and we get to see just how it was that Afghanistan earned it’s reputation as the empire killer.

  3. radii says:
    December 6, 2009 at 7:10 pm

    Obama wouldn’t have set himself up for a grand capitulation with his Cairo speech – no one with the ego to be President will cast themselves in the role of the fool willingly … so we are left to wonder once again – what dirt did israel have on Obama? Israel plays it meaner and dirtier than anyone anywhere ever, so did they get him in a honey-trap? Homosexual blackmail? Money? Threats to his life and that of his family? How does israel do it again and again – get powerful leaders and nations to bend over to take their ass-rape? The Kagans are the current agents of israel leading the current round of endless war for israel’s regional superpower goals and McChrystal and now Obama/Clinton/Jones/et al have fallen in line. In less than a year Obama’s Hope message goes Pppfffffttt If the U.S. was going to send troops anywhere to serve the national interest, it would be to israel to try to find the trillion dollars Dov Zakheim “lost” while managing the Pentagon’s money, and to leash and collar those zionist monsters and make them make peace.

    • Citizen says:
      December 6, 2009 at 7:53 pm

      It seems to mean that the Lobby is much stronger than M & W told us, and that we have been able to deduce on our own. It also seems to mean that anybody with any influence in our government is much weaker that one might think. The system has been taken over.

      • Todd says:
        December 6, 2009 at 9:33 pm

        How strong is the Lobby? Is it more entrenched than strong?

        • Chaos4700 says:
          December 6, 2009 at 9:49 pm

          Is there a functional difference between being entrenched versus being strong?

        • Todd says:
          December 6, 2009 at 9:52 pm

          I would think so. Is the system weaker with the Lobby in place than it was with the majority WASPs running things?

        • Chaos4700 says:
          December 6, 2009 at 10:14 pm

          Which system do you mean, precisely? I don’t mean to be responding a question with a question (that was a response to another question, heh) but I’m honestly not sure where this conversation is going.

          It seems to me that being entrenched is the primary source of strength for any organization with political influence. Just look at the way two-party politics in the US works as a result of the entrenchment of two political parties that seem to have more in common — today anyway — than not. And that’s purely because Americans in the majority are unwilling (stupidly, if I may inject some personal commentary) to vote off-ticket, or even for “third” parties that make it to the ticket.

          And we see that principle at work in other similar venues. The war effort has been going on for over eight years now; because its supporters are entrenched, they get political pull no matter how many abject failures they are responsible for. Likewise, because Zionist colonial expansion (and American collaboration) is entrenched, it holds sway over American politics, no matter how many cliffs it forces the United States to drive off of, diplomatically, economically and otherwise.

          In American politics, really, it seems to me, there are currently pretty much only two “values” that define strength — money, and entrenchment. Whoever can grab onto the microphone longer wins the debate, no matter how idiotic the content of their actual message is.

        • Todd says:
          December 6, 2009 at 11:38 pm

          My point is that being entrenched in a broken system isn’t the same as being entrenched in a system that is strong. I was responding originally to Citizen’s comment about the Lobby being stronger than W&M believed, and that it has taken over the system of government. I could be wrong, but I just don’t believe that the United States is under good management at the moment, and being influential doesn’t mean all that much in the long run.

        • Chaos4700 says:
          December 7, 2009 at 12:45 am

          Okay, I can accept that. Little consolation that the Lobby is basically bleeding its investment in steering the discourse in US politics dry by goading us to run ourselves off the cliff is minimal, is there? I think at this point all there is to get out of the United States is squeezing it until the pulp stops juicing, and that will be the end of the proverbial road. I’m guessing Franklin and Jefferson and Washington weren’t envisioning that as the destiny of the United States, huh.

    • MRW says:
      December 7, 2009 at 4:45 am

      radii,

      Obama wouldn’t have set himself up for a grand capitulation with his Cairo speech – no one with the ego to be President will cast themselves in the role of the fool willingly … so we are left to wonder once again – what dirt did israel have on Obama?

      It wasn’t Obama, it was Congress. Dont you remember July? The Lobby got Congress to sign those letters. Then the Lobby took those congressmen to Israel at the end of August.

    • MRW says:
      December 7, 2009 at 5:14 am

      radii,

      For more on how this works, listen to Jeffrey Blankfort here at 19:30 -20:50 min:
      link to pulsemedia.org

      But the next 3.5 minutes is interesting as well.

  4. Citizen says:
    December 6, 2009 at 7:58 pm

    This has historical model. There will be a new (fake) secular messiah. Palin and Beck are mere signs in the sky. It will come; later, after the misguided, attempted justice, people born after us will be asking the same questions asked here.

  5. Citizen says:
    December 6, 2009 at 8:29 pm

    Yeah, let’s enlarge the war to protect Israel right or wrong–or not?:
    link to sabbah.biz

  6. America First says:
    December 6, 2009 at 8:36 pm

    ‘Intense, methodical, rigorous, earnest’: wasn’t the same said of McNamara’s policies on Vietnam?

  7. VR says:
    December 6, 2009 at 11:02 pm

    There have been a number of different times that I have attempted on this site to show the centrality of the military industrial complex in the US system. One has only to look at the money spent in regard to the overall budget to get the idea of the centrality of the military forces –

    A FULL 51% TO DEFENSE

    Essentially the question has never been shall there be wars and other activity of a military nature, but where shall the wars be for and for what purposes. This is where the vying for influence comes from, which interest is not the question but what elite group(s) can muster enough influence which controls over 50% of the budget. This is because in giving yourself over to empire and the complex as central, it begins to under-gird the purpose of the given host country (republic, whatever).

    Not very long ago on this blog I tried to show the overarching predominance of military activity and how it works into the “vision” for the direction of the US interest (unfortunately I was discussing the point with a disingenuous individual who wanted to do nothing but debunk Chomsky and engage in endless banter regarding causal theories, not a peep about the “proofs” I was supposed to provide and this being one of the strongest), perhaps the best to date is the Thomas Barnett who serves as a debriefer to generals about Washington’s immediate and ultimate goals -

    THE PENTAGONS NEW MAP

    I think it might be worthwhile to examine these points, and to understand that no matter how much you want to pin all of the ills of the nation on a single cause, that it is merely an exercise in simplicity and ignores the dynamics of confluence of interests. So that you end up running in endless circles thinking you have unearthed the reason for all of the ills, and yet ignore the whole systemic debacle. This does not mean that you ignore the Lobby, nor its current influence and what must be done to see it halted, but that you understand the breadth of the problem and how it found in the foundation of the system which ultimate must be dismantled and changed. So that in this way, you cut the various elite interests, and whoever happens to be in the saddle at the time, from the root up.

    • Chaos4700 says:
      December 7, 2009 at 12:40 am

      You know, that actually gives me something of an epiphany into why Zionism has so much pull in American politics, particularly in a post-Cold War era. Like you said, with the structure of the US economy and government around the war machine, war isn’t a question of if but where and when. Whereas most of our allies around the world — Europe, other former British colonies, even Middle Eastern countries like Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia which are ostensibly US allies — actually live in relative peace, it is Israel who has pretty much inflicted continuous war in its neck of the woods since its founding (arguably even since earlier, at its inception).

      And that would explain why Israel has so much sway. It’s not merely about money — else Saudi Arabia could easily displace Israel as our favorite — and it’s not about heritage and history, or else Great Britain would be leading us around, not vice versa. What makes Israel indispensable (and therefore inviolate) is it is an endless source of war, and therefore it is an endless source of justification for the war machine of the US.

      Israel is, if you will, the fuel pump for the American war machine when it comes to rhetorical and political survival.

      You know, that is not a pleasant revelation.

      • VR says:
        December 7, 2009 at 1:46 am

        Israel is not merely the engine for war in the Middle East, but actually all over the world. The US, if you bothered to listen to the Barnett video I linked to sees itself as the “enforcer” for the global system, to be there in the so called “hot spots” and the handle used for the exercise is the so-called war on terror, which is an ever expanding process. Unless you think this is a coincidence -

        “Israel spends the highest amount in the world on arming its war machine relative to its population than any other country in the world. That’s why it’s considered one of the best trained and equipped army in the world.”

        ISRAEL SPENDS MORE ON DEFENSE THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY PER CAPITA

        It is literally involved in every part of the globe, trying to be a player in helping the newly developed countries (India as an example) to develop its “national security state.” It is heavily involved in Latin America, Africa, almost every “hot spot.” It even bills its occupation on the so-called “war on terror.”

        A simple graph can show you the truth about defense in Israel, its GDP is 96% defense –

        ISRAEL DEFENSE SPENDING

        I could elaborate more, but this is where the hand in glove relationship between Israel and the US is more than apparent.

  8. VR says:
    December 7, 2009 at 1:48 am

    If you want further information why not go to Israel’s own site of foreign affairs in regard to its defense industry –

    ISRAEL DEFENSE INDUSTRY

  9. VR says:
    December 7, 2009 at 2:37 am

    Now make a comparison to the US counterpart of the military industrial complex, to get a full view –

    MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

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