Just a Freelancer, or the Voice of the Administration's Id?
Former temporary US envoy to the UN John Bolton has used his post-envoy period to become a popular talking head, more so, oddly, in the UK even than here. That headhood reached an apotheosis Sunday when he was invited to speak to the Conservative Party conference. This is the British opposition party which never opposed Tony Blair's war policy, and is still trying to find its way out of its long-term electoral hole. Enter Bolton, to scare the horses, calling for limited military strikes on Iran to deal with its (purported) nukes as well as for regime change, to get rid of the "source of the problem, Ahmadinejad":
The US once had the capability to engineer the clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back," he said.
In case any new people have recently wandered into the room, let's review those wonderful days gone by: the US overthrew at least three governments I remember, all three of them (how odd!) democratically elected: in Iran (things have gone so well there since then), Guatemala (ditto), and Chile. The latter regime change brought to power Gen. Pinochet, who recently died just as he was about to stand trial for the murder of thousands of his countrymen. Most spectacularly, one of those murders took place on the streets of our own capital. Yeah, I miss those kinds of balls, too.
Is Bolton just a wondrously goofy free-lancer? Or, in taking him semi-seriously, do the Brits perceive something we don't, that he's the unrestrained, uninhibited id of the Bush administration, wishing for what his brethren still in power are planning?
Longer view: what makes Bolton and his ilk so bizarre is that, on the one hand, they are the primary believers in American exceptionalism, the notion that something or somebody (God? Satan?) imbued this country with inherent moral good, so that we're immune to the evils and ills that plague all the other nations, no matter what we do (to argue otherwise, they say, is to engage in "moral relativism"). Yet, on the other hand, they most eagerly ignore those very elements -- painstakingly woven into the fundamental document of the nation by our founders -- that sought to keep this country from succumbing to the same ills -- meddling in the affairs of others, centralizing power in the executive -- that drove them to revolution, and to try to make this a nation apart..
But then, ids aren't supposed to be rational.
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A good, if somewhat brief article. Please understand that the Brits don't really take Bolton semi-seriously. For one thing he was hired by the Conservatives and they are pretty desperate to get anyone to their conferences who will take THEM semi-seriously. My experience of UK coverage of Bolton's activities is that news shows wheel him on when they want a genuine American villain who will obligingly froth at the mouth, declare everyone evil, bless the POTUS, and threaten passing muslims. He is a political scarecrow, and a neutered one at that since his ignoble failure to hold his UN post.
SAVE THE PARTY.
The republicans have been so disgraced and so discredited by the corruption --the perverts and the war that the GOP has sent out all the people they can muster up to try to save whatever dignity they can. Even creepy Bolton.
Also GWB's legacy is at stake and screw the troops I guess if they die--they die---because only if we remain in IRAQ since benchmarks weren't made---with propaganda spread the war into the country next door like IRAN or SYRIA.
It wasn't an overthrow, but you could also include South Vietnam and that whole war as an exercise in overzealous "clandestine engineering" in the name of democracy.
Actually, the CIA and the US Embassy in Saigon were instrumental in green-lighting -- and perhaps providing logistics support -- for the November, 1963 overthrow of South Vietnam president Ngo Dinh Diem.
... and his assesination.
Yes, but my MSM and the Regressive Right tell me they hate us for our freedom! NOT because we've been meddling in their countries and subverting their governments for years on end!
Boy, I sure wish the USA was as good and great and innocent (and free) as they tell us we are.
Nope, they (almost the whole world) hate us cause we have Britney, OJ and a lot of others, and they don't!
Bolton is a war-monger just like the rest. Why he would be looking to get us into another war NOW is beyond comprehension. Whackjob he is!
If the Iraq war is for profit, then Exxon and Unocal should pay for it.
The American Enterprise Institute is the voice of America's id. In that respect,Bolton is just another idiot. With Bob Schieffer yesterday was Robin Wright, from the Washington Post and another woman, this one from the AEI. I live for the day when someone from this "think Tank" will be introduced as "from the American Enterprise Institute, which played the lead war drum in the drumbeating of America into Iraq". But no, the AEI is treated as just another bipartisan observer of our Philip K. Dick political scene. Et tu, Bob.
The fantasy of the US being the "world's policeman" seems to be bogged down in the reality of Iraq.
Is Blackwater a privately held company or can I buy some stock?
Privately held
Yea private now, but who knows? Other than oil it might become the hottest thing on the market some day.
IN OLDEN DAYS. . . . .
A PUBLIC HORSE-WHIPPING GENERALLY HANDLED FOLKS LIKE JOHN BOLTON (AND THEIR PROMOTERS).
BUT, Alas, Olden Days are gone, along with their ideals/goals/standards. Instead we have the BUSH/CHENEY ideals/goals/standards.
BOLTON IS REALLY A TERRORIST IN REVERSE...THE US DOMINATE THE PLANET... ISN'T IT THE SAME AS THE MUSLIMS WANT???
Thought it "interesting" , that but recently, a reailitory of sorts when Iran declared the US and its CIA /etc are considered TERRORISTS..uh, wondered what took so long for THEM to use same method of "justification" or perhaps they have been, WE just did NOT get such "reported" and what with the "marketing" by the BushlerBrigade, well, "we" have allowed the perceptions that only OTHERS are "terrorista's" and of course pat ourselves on the back declaring we wear the "white hats",ergo we are to be "considered" the good guys and then "we" get upset when OTHERS dare to say NOT SO FAST,etc and point out how many of our US fingers have been messing in their "pots" and stirring up whatnots and etc's that did not result in OTHERS greater common good but DID seemingly manage to serve our US "interests" (althou, not in OUR best interests either if being that of our citizenry greater common good" unless of course that is corporate profiteering /etc....)
Don't forget our helping to install the colonels in Greece, torturing the population of Nicaragua until they voted out the Sandanistas, and the invasion of the Dominican Republic (the inspiration for Tom Lehrer's "Send the Marines").
Will the theft of the recent election in Mexico be added to that list? They've gotten cagier about destroying the evidence since Watergate, beginning with Ollie and Fawn up all night playing with the shredders in the basement of the White House.
Dolton: File under Chicken Hawk.
He is a typical Arm Chair General Neo Con who loves war but never fought in one.
I'd have this to say to him. If America is in such great danger, why aren't you and your buddies fighting?
Somewhat the definition of a voyeur sadist.
I remember laughing at John Bolton when he were talking about invading Iraq.
That said, the last sentence of Seymour Hersh's latest New Yorker article is teaser enough...
"The retired four-star general confirmed that British intelligence “was worried” about passing the information along. “The Brits don’t trust the Iranians,” the retired general said, “but they also don’t trust Bush and Cheney.”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/08/071008fa_fact_hersh
"There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States.", John Bolton 1994
At the base of Friedmans NEW WORLD ORDER is the Economnic Theory that once the worlds resources, including labor, is under Corporate Control the true value of resources can be determined. Does anyone really care what the TRUE VALUE of water or copper is? If you need it you need it right. Can you belive people are now fighting the police because their water has been divertied to Privatized water and poer systems.
That is the reson to Privatize everything to PROVE A THEORY. In Chile no attempts to prove the Theory they just stole all the natural resources they could. How is getting stuff nearly free proving a theory. Those resources belonged to the citizens of Chile not the People you put in power in Chile. Our Government actually overthew ans elected Government to get their natural resources. and used the Countries military against their own citizens.
In Argentina they bankrupted the whole government with Privatization. They had 300% inflation for years.
Now these same people want to control the middle east and are using our military to do it. Are we going to be a party to this overt act of aggression. Do we really want our Government to be the WORLDS POLICEMAN.
I can't belive they want to attack Iran and want to do it from Iraq. Most of the Iraqi's have family in Iran or they came from Iran. Do they think Iraq will ever be safe if they attack Iran ? GET REAL!
"Do we really want our Government to be the WORLDS POLICEMAN."
NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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