Tonight there will be a compelling event in New York, a discussion between former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill (under Geo W Bush) and his biographer, Ron Suskind, sponsored by the Culture Project (which sponsored our Goldstone conversation last May).
The Price of Loyalty, Suskind’s book on fO’Neill, is filled with insight into the rise of the neocons. O’Neill left the Bush administration in part because of the craziness of the Iraq war, which O’Neill said was on George Bush’s agenda from Day 1. And where did that agenda arise? Here is Suskind/O’Neill on the neocons:
[In 1998] The governor was beginning to think about what it might mean to be President. He had insights into only one foreign country thanks to Texas’s long shared border with Mexico. [Condoleezza] Rice teamed up with Paul Wolfowitz, and a tutorial commenced. Over the next year and a half, others were called in, almost all of whom were part of a small, neoconservative community.
Renditions of what went on in these sessions are sketchy. What the governor knew–what he learned and from whom–is mostly limited to comments about his having ‘good instincts’. One exception is from the loquacious Richard Perles, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, who commented publicly, ‘The first time I met Bush 43, I knew he was different. Two things became clear. One, he didn’t know very much. The other was he had the confidence to ask questions that revealed he didn’t know very much…. You’d raise a point, and he’d say, “I didn’t realize that. Can you explain that?” He was eager to learn.’
O’Neill and Suskind understand the role of the neocons in forming our disastrous foreign policy over the last 15 years. I’m going to try and make it tonight. And if I do, I’ll ask O’Neill: How did Stuart Levey, Marty Peretz’s former student who was dedicated to the “Zionist dream,” as he wrote in college, become an Under Secretary of Treasury with responsibility for going after Iran?
Phil wrote:
“I’m going to try and make it tonight. And if I do, I’ll ask O’Neill: How did Stuart Levey, Marty Peretz’s former student who was dedicated to the ‘Zionist dream,’ as he wrote in college, become an Under Secretary of Treasury…”
And if you get the chance to ask another how about …
“How does a person who is open about being dedicated to a foreign country get considered, appointed and then obtain the security clearances necessary for such a U.S. government job other than with the help of a network of similar-minded people in power?”
I don’t care what other foreign country or power it may be—be it England or Puerto Rico—if you are on record or open about being dedicated to it you are going to have major problems getting any kind of even mid-level security clearance in this government. And yet we see this Levey, we see our current Ambassador to Israel, and on and on just keep waltzing effortlessly into positions of great power and access to information.
Just who does this country exist for anyway?
You could make the argument that the former CEO of Alcoa and the RAND corporation has had as much to do with the “disaster” that is current day America as the neo-cons.
I mean, the neo-cons are bad, but this guy’s work led directly to Michelle Rhee and her ilk. This guy is definitely no saint.
That’s going to be a fascinating talk. I listened to Dylan Ratigan interview Suskind on his radio show in October. He’s sharp as hell and doesn’t seem to be running any agenda. Suskind was, of course, talking to Ratigan about the economic crisis and what caused it, the genesis. His knowledge of history (I mean 200 years ago and how it relates to now) impressed me because it fell out of him without pretense just to make a point, and it was something I never heard before.
The audio
http://www.dylanratigan.com/2011/10/11/ron-suskind-its-a-crossroads-moment-in-america/
The transcript
http://www.dylanratigan.com/2011/10/11/ron-suskind-its-a-crossroads-moment-in-america/
I read “The Price of Loyalty” as soon as it came out. Was able to get on the Diane Rehm show and ask Susskind a question about the book years ago. Forget my question. But more than likely about how O’Neill was hammered after he started investigating Saudi family money attached to some of the 9/11 bombers. I believe Cheney shut him down.
Within the first several chapters Susskind reports that O’Neil reported that during the very first Bush cabinet meetings in early 2001 Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld were all over going into Iraq.
Those Cheney Energy Task Force meeting records have never been released.
Phil just read over at Race for Iran in someone’s comments that “mushroom cloud” Rice and Stephen Hadley have a foreign policy advisory company.
Now that is absurd. The two people that former counterterroism expert Richard Clarke said ignored all of his warnings about potential terrorist/Al Queda attacks. The two people in the Bush administration that would not give Clarke the time of day
I wondered when O’Neil would surface again