The Neocon Foreign Policy Walmart
By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | August 30, 2015
One of the most depressing things about watching — even from a distance — the quadrennial race for the White House is seeing what passes for debate on the one area where the president does have some Constitutional authority: foreign policy.
Candidates who have spent little or no time studying or traveling to the rest of the world, and, in the fashion of many Americans in the age of Empire, see the rest of the world as just a series of US colonial outposts, apparently consider foreign policy unworthy of serious consideration.
So little do Republican candidates care about foreign policy that most of them have “outsourced” their foreign policy to a single neocon-dominated foreign policy shop called the “John Hay Initiative.” If you wonder why most Republican candidates sound exactly the same on foreign policy, it’s because they are nearly all getting their advice from the same people.
When nearly all candidates look to someone like Eliot Cohen, a founding member of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), to provide an off-the-shelf foreign policy, it should be no surprise that the “debate” in the Republican party is only over which country to attack first.
Any candidate who thinks so little about something so important as America’s place in the world should be automatically disqualified.
But the neocons love it! The “experts” who brought us the 2003 Iraq war and the Libya “liberation” are still in the driver’s seat when it comes to foreign policy.
“Jeb!” has John Hay Initiative members Michael Chertoff and Michael Hayden (remember those crooks?) on board as his advisors.
Marco Rubio reportedly draws from Hay Project member Roger Zakheim, the son of GW Bush administration “vulcan,” Dov Zakheim. Zakheim père, we remember, joined with his fellow neocons to lie the US into war with Iraq, enriching the military-industrial complex, before absconding to the “private sector” to make his millions from the same military-industrial complex. Zakheim quickly and quietly left his position as the Pentagon’s chief financial officer after a trillion dollars went missing and the Government Accountability Office was critical of his handling of matters.
Scott Walker, a soporific candidate who nevertheless still gives neocons like Bill Kristol the vapors, also shops the neocon Walmart of foreign policy, the John Hay Initiative. It should be no surprise, then, that at his big foreign policy coming out speech at the Citadel military college Friday, he unveiled an “aggressive” foreign policy — crying out “America will not be intimidated. And neither will I” — as he promised more war and vowed that “the retreat is over!”
Is this the retreat he is talking about?
Walker reportedly taps into the McCain Institute’s David Kramer, a John Hay member, for his foreign policy wisdom. Kramer is another PNAC alumni, also putting in time at the CIA-affiliated Freedom House and as director of the Bush State Department’s Office of Policy Planning. This must explain Walker’s obsession with taking out Iran. He vowed to “roll back the theocrats in Tehran,” but in fact unlike the US, Tehran has not invaded another country in hundreds of years. What’s to “roll back?”
If Walker actually paid any attention to the quality of advice he gets from his PNAC/John Hay gang he might call for his money back. Walker’s speech was peppered with macho language about “defeat[ing] the barbarians of ISIS,” while also vowing to destroy the two forces actually fighting ISIS — Syria and Iran! In fact, his vow to use the US military to overthrow the Syrian government would without question result in the greatest ISIS victory to date — control of Syria. One need not sympathize with Assad to recognize that he is literally the only thing keeping the whole of Syria out of the hands of ISIS.
John Hay Initiative “experts” also wrote the foreign policy speeches of candidates Carly Fiorina and Chris Christie. No doubt they were behind Fiorina’s astonishingly ignorant vow to make her first call as president to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to “to reassure him that we stand with the state of Israel” and to make her second call to Iran to “to tell him that whatever the deal is that he signed with Obama, there’s a new deal and the new deal is this: Until you submit every facility [where] you have nuclear uranium enrichment to a full set of inspections, we’re going to make it as hard as possible for you to move money around the global financial system.”
Pure PNAC.
These neocons should be in jail, not still deeply ensconced in the Beltway foreign policy halls of power, dining in sumptuous splendor while the rest of America is impoverished by the destructive wars they push. Their lies have cost millions of innocent lives overseas as well. They are a cancer on the country. Any candidate who cares so little about the issues as to accept a “virtual staff” of foreign policy “experts” from those who have gotten every single major foreign policy issue of our time totally and catastrophically wrong has no business holding any elected office.
John Hay? I’d rather shop for a foreign policy expert at Walmart.
US Troops in Ukraine Violate Minsk Deal – Russian Foreign Ministry
Sputnik – 03.09.2015
MOSCOW – The deployment of US soldiers on Ukrainian territory violates the ceasefire deal agreed earlier this year, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday.
“US soldiers are firmly entrenched in Ukraine, which constitutes a flagrant violation of article 10 of the February 12 Minsk Agreement,” Zakharova said at a briefing in Moscow.
Article 10 of the ceasefire agreement reached in the Belarusian capital of Minsk calls for the pullout of all foreign armed formations, military equipment and mercenaries from Ukraine.
As part of its security assistance program launched last year, the United States sent 300 military instructors to Ukraine in April this year and has provided $245 million of security-related aid to the country.
Ukraine hosted a number of NATO military exercises under US leadership this year, including Saber Guardian/Rapid Trident-2015 in late July. The drills involved over 1,800 servicemen from 18 NATO and other partner nations.
This month, Ukraine is hosting Sea Breeze-2015 naval military exercises in the Black Sea involving around 2,500 NATO forces and 150 warships, helicopters and armored vehicles.
The Ukrainian government has said it is planning to hold three joint drills with US troops later this year.
Pentagon understated cost of new bomber by $25bn, blames ‘human error’
RT | August 31, 2015
Very little is known about the US Air Force’s new long-range strike bomber (LRSB) – including, apparently, the cost. Facing questions over a $25 billion discrepancy in development costs, the Pentagon blamed “human error” and shrugged it off as a “mistake.”
The LRSB project is intended to replace the aging and expensive US bomber fleet by the mid-2020s, at the cost of $500 million per plane. Two aerospace conglomerates, Northrop Grumman and Boeing-Lockheed Martin, are bidding for the contract.
Last year, the Air Force told Congress that the 10-year cost of developing the bomber, between 2015 and 2024, would be $33.1 billion. This year, however, the estimate for 2016-2026 rose to $58.2 billion. The 76 percent increase prompted Representative Jackie Speier (D-California), ranking minority member on the House Armed Services oversight and investigations subcommittee, to ask about the $25 billion gap.
“This sudden 76 percent increase in estimated cost is alarming, because it raises questions about the management of a crucial program that lacks transparency, on which we cannot afford serious cost overruns, development errors, and reduced production numbers that would deprive the United States of one of its core military capabilities,” wrote Speier.
The response from Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James only added to the confusion, by introducing another number to claim that the cost estimate hasn’t actually changed. According to James, the real figure was $41.7 billion all along.
“There has been no change in the costing factors over the last two years … it was a mistake. It was a regrettable mistake,” James said during a Pentagon press briefing last week. “It occurred in part because of human error and in part because of process error, meaning a couple of people got the figures wrong and the process of coordination was not fully carried out in this case.”
James said that senior officials have “counseled” the people involved, “tightened up” the process, corrected the price tag with Congress and double-checked all the other figures contained in the reports.
“The key thing is there has been no change in those cost figures,” she said.
Northrop Grumman was behind the B-2 ‘Spirit’ stealth bomber, manufactured between 1989 and 2000 at the cost of $737 million per plane. The total cost of the program stood at $45 billion in 2004. Only 16 B-2s are currently operational, and cost $135,000 per hour to fly, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin has been catching flak over the cost overruns that have plagued the F-35, a fifth-generation strike fighter produced in three separate configurations for the Air Force, Navy and the US Marine Corps. By 2011 estimates, the US government was going to spend $1 trillion on the fleet of F-35s – $382 billion to buy 2,443 aircraft, and another $650 billion in operating expenses. That was more than the entire GDP of Australia at the time ($924 billion), according to The Atlantic. The costs have only gone up since, even as the F-35 failed combat tests to a 1970s design currently in service.
Lockheed also produced the F-22A Raptor, the current US air superiority fighter, between 1997 and 2011. Fewer than 200 Raptors were made, at a cost of $150 million each and the overall program cost of $66.7 billion as of 2011.
The contract for developing the LRSB was supposed to be awarded in June or July, but the Air Force has already missed that deadline. Unconfirmed reports from defense sources speak of a September or October announcement.
NATO kicks off naval drills in Black Sea with Ukraine
RT | August 31, 2015
Ukraine is hosting naval military exercises in the Black Sea with NATO forces, involving 2,500 troops and some 150 military vehicles, from warships and helicopters to armored cars.
The host nation of Sea Breeze 2015 has deployed 1,000 troops, nine warships and eight aircraft for the drill. The US has sent 1,000 troops as well as five warships, two submarines and six aircraft.
The remaining 500 troops, six warships, three submarines and 6six aircraft were provided by Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Romania, Turkey, the UK and the non-NATO nations Moldova and Sweden.
“The exercise is meant to boost trust and security in the region, [and to increase] the compatibility between the Ukrainian Navy and the navies of NATO members and partner countries,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Sea Breeze is held in Ukraine’s Odessa and Nikolaevsk region not far from Russia’s Crimea, which Kiev and its foreign sponsors consider to be Ukrainian. It will last till mid-September. Ukraine will be participating in a total of 11 NATO drills in 2015.
NATO is also currently conducting another war game, called Swift Response, in Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and Romania. It is one of the largest such events since the Cold War and is planned to last until September 13. A separate exercise, called Simple Strike, is under way in the Baltic.
Bernie Sanders: I would continue assassination drone program
A US MQ-9 Reaper assassination drone
Press TV – August 30, 2015
Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who is seeking Democratic nomination for the 2016 US presidential election, says he will continue the Pentagon’s assassination drone program.
In an interview with ABC News on Sunday, Sanders said that he would limit the use of US terror drones, but said that he would not end the targeted killing campaign.
“I think we have to use drones very, very selectively and effectively. That has not always been the case,” Sanders said.
“What you can argue is that there are times and places where drone attacks have been effective,” he added.
“There are times and places where they have been absolutely counter-effective and have caused more problems than they have solved. When you kill innocent people, what the end result is that people in the region become anti-American who otherwise would not have been,” said the junior senator from Vermont.
Since 2001, the United States has been carrying out drone attacks in several countries, including Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia.
The aerial attacks were initiated by former US President George W. Bush but have been escalated under President Barack Obama.
Former US drone operator Brandon Bryant, who was involved in the killing of more than 1,600 people, revealed earlier this year that aerial strikes are conducted with complete uncertainty.
Bryant, who worked for almost five years in America’s secret drone program bombing targets in Afghanistan and other countries, such as Pakistan and Iraq, said operators lacked visibility and were not sure about the identity of the people they were shooting at.
“We see silhouette, shadows of people, and we kill those shadows,” he said.
SNP dubs belated Chilcot inquiry ‘ludicrous’
Press TV – August 30, 2015
The Scottish National Party (SNP) has called on the British government to set a deadline for the much-delayed report of the Iraq war inquiry.
SNP said it was unacceptable that the inquiry has not reported after six years and a cost of nearly 16 million dollars.
The ruling Scottish party, which on its website described the delays as ludicrous, called for a definitive answer to what it called the failures of the Iraq war.
It added that the current Conservative government is also responsible for the Labour-initiated war as Conservatives overwhelmingly backed the invasion of Iraq.
The so-called Chilcot inquiry, named after John Chilcot who chairs the Iraq war investigation, began in 2009 and has repeatedly delayed its report under the pretext that it needs to interview all individuals implicated in the US-led invasion of the country.
The last of the hearings of the inquiry was held more than four years ago.
Chilcot has already declined to set out a timetable for his Iraq inquiry despite a threat of legal action by families of British troops killed in the unpopular US-led war.
Earlier this month, Lawyers representing 29 families said they would move to the London High Court, if the Chilcot inquiry fails to give a publication deadline in two weeks.
“There have been outrageous delays to date and it seems as though those delays would simply be interminable,” Matthew Jury, a lawyer representing the families said.
The US-led invasion of Iraq began in 2003 and lasted for over 8 years. The war, which was initiated under the false pretense of weapons of mass destruction, took the lives of 179 UK personnel and nearly 4,500 US soldiers.
The number of Iraqi civilian deaths has been estimated to be over one million by some sources.
Kiev Defies Minsk Accords, Resists Western Demands for Donbass Self-Rule
Sputnik – 30.08.2015
France and Germany are pressing Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to ensure partial self-rule for the country’s independence-minded east before the upcoming local election there, Ukrainian media reported on Saturday.
Poroshenko refuses to comply, citing legal, political and organizational hurdles preventing the implementation of the law, which would grant broader autonomy to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, the Kiev-based Weekly Mirror newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources in the government.
In keeping with the provisions of the Minsk accords, reached in February 2015, President Poroshenko agreed to grant a special status to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
Article 4 of the 13-point Minsk Protocol outlined the modalities of conducting local elections in particular districts of Donetsk and Lugansk regions and their future status.
Article 11 described decentralization of particular districts of Donetsk and Lugansk regions and their special status as the key elements of the proposed constitutional reform in Ukraine.
On August 24, President Poroshenko met in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.
Briefing the media after the talks, Angela Merkel said that the three leaders had gathered in Berlin to endorse the Misk-2 accords, which she described as pivotal to a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian conflict.
Addressing members of his Solidarity bloc shortly before the August 24 trip to Berlin, Petro Poroshenko said that the proposed constitutional reforms ruled out any federalization or other special statuses for any part of Ukraine.
Israeli forces evacuate Palestinian families for military drill
Ma’an – August 30, 2015
TUBAS – Israeli troops on Sunday morning evacuated 14 Palestinian families from their houses in the al-Ras al-Ahmar area of Khirbet Atuf village east of Tubas in the northern Jordan Valley area of the West Bank, local sources said.
Local sources reported that the “Israeli occupation” told the 14 families that Israeli forces will be carrying out military drills in the area for five days.
During the five days of military exercises, Palestinian residents in the area will be evacuated for six hours every day, local sources told Ma’an.
The evacuation was done under the argument that evacuating protects residents.
Earlier this year military drills in Tubas resulted in a fire that swept across some 3,000 to 4,000 dunams (750 to 1,000 acres) of Jordan Valley farmland.
The majority of the Jordan Valley is under full Israeli military control, despite being within the West Bank.The district of Tubas is one of the occupied West Bank’s most important agricultural centers.
According to the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem, more than 15,000 dunams (3,700 acres) of land in the Tubas district have been confiscated by Israel for military bases with a further 8,000 dunams (2,000 acres) seized for illegal Israeli settlements.
Israel’s JINSA Earns Return on Investment: 190 Americans Admirals and Generals Oppose Iran Deal
By John Stanton | CounterPunch | August 28, 2015
According to Carol Greenwald writing at American Thinker on 27 August 2015, Washington Post writer “[Carol] Morello does not mention how incredible it was that a few people, mostly a woman named Marsha Halteman from New Orleans, in one week could get 190 flag officers to sign a public letter stating that “the JCPOA [Iran Deal] would threaten the national security and vital interests of the United States and, therefore, should be disapproved by the Congress.”
Well not so incredible at all thanks to the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs (JINSA) very successful Generals and Admiral Program that has been in operation for many years. It has been the pipeline for 400 American military officers to visit Israel. Israel also runs similar programs for US military academy students and US law enforcement personnel.
The purpose of bringing American military personnel—and military academy students—is to maintain “Continued and robust military-to-military dialogue between the American and Israeli defense establishments is central to JINSA’s philosophy. The annual Generals and Admirals Program to Israel, in which recently retired American generals and admirals are invited to visit Israel with JINSA to meet the top echelon of the Israeli military and political leadership, ensures that the American delegation is well briefed on the security concerns of Israel, as well as the key role Israel plays as a friend and ally of the U.S. To date, JINSA has taken close to 400 retired officers to Israel, many of whom serve on JINSA’s Board of Advisors.”
As of this writing the Washington Post does not appear to have updated its story on the incredible effort of Marsha Halteman who is the recipient of a prestigious award from a US combatant command.
“It gives us great pleasure to announce that JINSA’s Marsha Halteman will be honored by the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) with their Outstanding Civilian Service Medal for her tireless work on JINSA’s Soldiers Appeal, which raises funds for military members and their families who are in need of financial assistance. Her selfless and hard work is instrumental in actively supporting a USSOCOM priority – enhancing the quality of life of the individual warrior and family. Established by the Commander of USSOCOM in September 1998, the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal recognizes civilians who have provided outstanding support or service. For Marsha, this work has been both an act of love and admiration for our men and women in uniform, as well as above and beyond the call of duty. She has truly made a difference in the lives of so many soldiers and their families and she is most deserving of this award. This prestigious award will be presented to Marsha by a senior member of the USSOCOM Command at JINSA’s Spring 2014 Leadership Conference. Details of this meeting and a formal “Save the Date” will be released soon. We hope that many of you will be able to join us for the meeting and to honor Marsha.”
If the US national security and political establishment had the dedication, tenacity and thoroughness of the Israeli’s—in their pursuit of their national security interests, the USA would be a far more powerful country abroad and maybe at home. Israel’s interests are represented in every nook and cranny in the United States at the local, state and federal levels. They believe in Israel, nothing else. That deserves respect. American leaders, comparatively, are pathetic.
Purge of Corbyn voters unmasks Labour
By Jonathon Cook | The Blog From Nazareth | August 27, 2015
The British political and media elite have been agreed on one thing this summer: the need to character-assassinate Jeremy Corbyn, the only half-decent politician (make that, human being) running for the Labour leadership.
If Corbyn wins, it would be the first time in living memory that the UK has had a Labour leader who is actually of the left. It is a prospect terrifying our supposedly liberal media, including the BBC and most of the Guardian’s senior staff, from Polly Toynbee to Jonathan Freedland.
Because all indications are that Corbyn will win in a fair fight, the caretaker Labour leadership is trying to stitch up the election to ensure he loses. Corbyn’s entry into the race has led to a tripling of Labour’s membership, as those who had grown disillusioned with Labour politics or joined the Greens consider returning to the Labour fold. You would think the Labour party would be cock-a-hoop. Think again.
The problem is that, if Labour admits Corbyn is actually harnessing massive support from the real left, it would also have to concede that long ago it departed from its roots, becoming just another wing of the neoliberal elite. And more significantly, it would also have to be prepared to contemplate changing course, opening itself up to the possibility that someone with social democratic convictions might again lead the party.
Neither is about to happen, so Labour is finding the flimsiest of excuses to purge itself of any voters it can identify as likely to back Corbyn in the leadership vote. Farcically, among those is Mark Serwotka, the leader of one of the UK’s biggest trade unions, after he said he would consider affiliating his PCS civil servants union with Labour if Corbyn wins.
Below is a great article from Kerry-anne Mendoza, another of those purged. She’s not a Tory mischief-maker or a Militant entryist. She’s an old-fashioned Labour supporter. Her mistake was to tweet her local Labour MP before the last election to say she would be voting Green after becoming fed up with the neoliberal takeover of Labour. That was the pretext to bar her from the coming leadership vote.
As she points out, she’s exactly the kind of voter the Labour party needs if it ever wants to form a government again. Instead she’s been cast out.
Notice also how the self-righteous New Labour elites characterise her – a long-standing Labour supporter who became disillusioned with the party – as an “infiltrator”. They were so sure of themselves they even included her in a list of people they had barred from the vote that they then issued to the media. The list ended up being published uncritically by the Guardian.
If despite all this, Corbyn does win, there can be no doubt it will be far from the end of the story. The Labour party establishment will make the job of leading the party impossible, and Corbyn will face an even more intense campaign to discredit him from all parts of the media.
If there is any consolation to be drawn from these events, it is this: the pervasive myth that Britain still enjoys pluralism in its politics and media may finally be unmasked.
US Committed to Playing Active Role in Transnistria Dispute Negotiations
Sputnik — 26.08.2015
Washington is committed to be fully engaged in the talks aimed at settling the Transnistria conflict, US Secretary of State John Kerry stated in a statement on Wednesday.
“You may be sure that America will remain unwavering in its support for Moldova’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and will continue to play an active role in the 5+2 negotiations aimed at peacefully resolving the Transnistria dispute,” Kerry said.
Kerry issued his statement on the occasion of Moldova’s National Day. The secretary stressed the US support for Moldova government’s efforts to undertake reforms.
Transnistria, a region with a predominantly Russian and Ukrainian population broke away from the Soviet republic of Moldova in 1990, fearing its government could seek reintegration with neighboring Romania. The initiative triggered Moldova’s offensive on the region in 1992, after which it lost control over the Dniester River’s left bank.
The region is now striving for international recognition, while Moldova offers Transnistria autonomy within a unitary state.
The 5+2 format negotiators include Russia, Moldova, Transnistria, Ukraine, the OSCE and observers from the European Union and the United States.
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