Neocons line up against donald trump

[mick silver]

NEOCONS LINE UP AGAINST DONALD TRUMPSource: Shadowproof (https://shadowproof.com/2016/03/03/neocons-line-up-against-donald-trump/)

It is now official: the neoconservatives are united against Donald Trump. A new open letter organized by Project for the New American Century (PNAC) co-founder Eliot Cohen states the signatories oppose a Trump presidency (http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/open-letter-on-donald-trump-from-gop-national-security-leaders/) and have committed to “working energetically” to see that he is not elected.
PNAC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century) was, notoriously, the neoconservative group that called for increased US imperialism in the Middle East, especially Iraq. Many of those who signed PNAC’s statement of principles and various letters went on to serve in the Bush Administration.
The letter comes after Trump’s ferocious attacks on neocon policies and narratives, such as the Iraq War and the idea that President George W. Bush kept the country safe despite being in office on 9/11. Those attacks were most pronounced just prior to the South Carolina primary when former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and the Bush Administration was the focus of Trump’s fire.
Trumps’ foreign policy has long been in the neocon cross-hairs. It already appeared as though many of the neocons were against Trump (https://theintercept.com/2016/02/29/neoconservatives-declare-war-on-donald-trump/); now it’s impossible to deny.
Journalist Josh Rogin, after talking to Trump advisors, lamented that (http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-01-31/the-trump-doctrine-revealed)“The practical application of that doctrine plays out in several ways. Trump’s narrow definition of ‘national interest’ does not include things like democracy promotion, humanitarian intervention, the responsibility to protect people from atrocities or the advocacy of human rights abroad. Trump believes that economic engagement will lead to political opening in the long run. He doesn’t think the U.S. government should spend blood or treasure on trying to change other countries’ systems.”
The other co-founder of PNAC, Robert Kagan, went even further, comparing Trump to a monster and claiming that (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-the-gops-frankenstein-monster-now-hes-strong-enough-to-destroy-the-party/2016/02/25/3e443f28-dbc1-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html), “For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be.”
Military historian Max Boot, also a signatory to the letter, has denounced Trump, saying (http://www.weeklystandard.com/selling-america-short/article/2001271), “A Trump presidency threatens the post-World War II liberal international order that American presidents of both parties have so laboriously built up.” He claimed that “A Trump presidency would represent the death knell of America as a great power.”
Many of those who signed the latest letter were also among those that signed PNAC communications including; Kagan, Boot, Cohen, Robert Zoellick, Daniel Blumenthal, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Thomas Donnelly, Aaron Friedberg, Randy Scheunemann, Jeffrey Gedmin, Gary Schmitt, and Dov Zakheim.
While many neocons and fellow travelers may be anxious to demonstrate their power and influence, it would seem, based on Trump’s electoral performance, that the Republican Party electorate is not very interested in what they have to offer.
The neocons best bet to have a seat at the table in 2017 is Hillary Clinton. (https://twitter.com/firedoglake/status/705120713259114496)

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[mick silver]

Eliot Cohen, a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), has been an important supporter of neoconservative-led foreign policy campaigns. Sometimes touted as "the most influential neocon in academe,"[1] Cohen had multiple roles in the George W. Bush administration—including advising Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and serving on the Defense Policy Board during Donald Rumsfeld's tenure as defense secretary—and was closely affiliated with the circle of hawks who surrounded Vice President Dick Cheney.[2] In October 2014, the "liberal hawk" think tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS) announced that Cohen was joining the center as an adjunct senior fellow contributing on defense and national security issues.In announcing the hiring, CNAS President Richard Fontaine described Cohen as "one of the nation's foremost thinkers and practitioners in national security affairs." Michèle Flournoy, cofounder of CNAS and former undersecretary of defense for policy in the Obama administration, added that Cohen "has a deep understanding of policy issues as well as the larger strategic and historical context in which policy decisions are made."[3] In November 2013, Cohen also joined the board of advisors of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a spinoff of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.[4] Cohen has been a vociferous critic of Barack Obama since the beginning of his presidency, often making overblown accusations about the administrations efforts to pursue negotiations. Ignoring the massive military commitments that Obama has made during his presidency, Cohen has accused Obama of being insufficiently committed to using military force and of being "promiscuous" in its diplomacy with traditional U.S. adversaries.[5] Diplomacy, Cohen says, only works when the military is seen as a "growling mastiff on the leash."[6] Cohen has blamed the Obama administration for the "wreckage" of U.S. foreign policy and his failure to understand "war is war." In an op-ed written for theWashington Post during the 2014 Gaza-Israel War, Cohen in essence called for President Obama to support Israel waging a war in Gaza similar to how U.S. Civil War general William Sherman waged war against the South—which Cohen described as marked by "devastation" and the burning "out thoroughly" of the Confederate-controlled Shenandoah Valley.[7] Cohen also censured Obama's approach on Russia during the 2014 Ukraine crisis and called for a more provocative approach. "Absent a severe penalty—one that inflicts pain where Putin can feel it, to include Russia's economy and his personal wealth and control of that country—the lesson learned will be, 'You can get away with it,'" Cohen purported in a 2014 Washington Post op-ed.[8] Similarly, Cohen opposed Obama's 2013 nomination of Chuck Hagel to lead the Department of Defense on the grounds that Hagel had "already made it clear that he does not want to engage in a confrontation with Iran." What was needed, Cohen said, was someone "who looks as if he's perfectly capable of waging war against you and happy to do it."[9] Cohen has called the Obama administration's approach to Syria "feckless." In a 2013 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Cohen echoed many neoconservative supporters of an attack by arguing that U.S. "credibility" depended on the willingness of the Obama administration to strike Syria after the regime's alleged use of chemical weapons in the country's civil war. "For better or for worse," he wrote, "the credibility not only of this president, but of America as a global power and a guarantor of international order, is on the line." If Washington decides against a strike, Cohen claimed, "profound conclusions will be drawn by a China ready to bully its neighbors, by a North Koreawhose scruples are already minimal, and by an Iran that has already killed many Americans in a covert war waged against us in Iraq and Afghanistan."[10] Cohen has suggested that a "serious bombing campaign" against "substantial targets" in Syria would be necessary, arguing that a"bout of therapeutic bombing is an even more feckless course of action than a principled refusal to act altogether." He warned that such an attack would entail "civilian casualties, at our hands," as well as U.S. casualties, "because the idea of a serious military effort without risk is fatuous."[11] He has argued that, given the risks, the president should seek "congressional support and authorization as a matter of good politics" and "out of respect for democratic legitimacy," but also insisted that "Barack Obama does not need congressional approval to launch a war."[12] Cohen has in fact expressed contempt for democratic legitimacy when it comes to the use of force, complaining openly about public weariness with the neoconservative agenda.Reasoning that most Americans had "not served in the armed forces," that "no one has raised our taxes to pay for war," and that "Americans can change the channel if they find the images too disturbing," Cohen suggested in September 2013 that average Americans had no right to be reticent about sending soldiers into new wars. "For the great mass of the American public," he wrote, and "for their leaders and the elites who shape public opinion, 'war-weariness' is unearned cant, unworthy of a serious nation and dangerous in a violent world." For Obama especially, Cohen added, "to confess to war-weariness is to confess weakness."[13] Calling Cohen's tirade against war-weariness "one of the most offensive columns I've read in a long time," Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum nominated Cohen for his "Asshole of the Year" award and quipped, "Cohen is simply apoplectic at the thought of anyone in America thinking they have a right to be tired of war merely because we've been at war for 12 continuous years for virtually zero observable gain."[14] For his part, Cohen appeared to disregard the possibility that disillusion with the policies he and other neoconservatives had advocated played any role in the public's increasing skepticism about foreign interventions. The real problem, according to Cohen, is that younger Americans"take [American] primacy and the stability and prosperity it has brought for granted," and that "leaders of the isolationist movement … speak loudly on Capitol Hill."[15] Romney Campaign In 2011-2012, Cohen served as an adviser to the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, notably authoring a white paper for the campaign that was intended to provide a strategy "to secure America's enduring interests and ideals." Titled "The American Century"—a not-so-subtle allusion to the nationalistic jingoism of the Project for the New American Century, whose work Cohen supported—the white paper argued that President Barack Obama's efforts to bridge the sharp diplomatic divide that emerged between the United States and the international community during the Bush years amounted to "a form of unilateral disarmament in the diplomatic and moral sphere." Cohen also argued that Obama has promoted the idea of "America in decline," ignoring how the policies Cohen himself promoted during the Bush administration—like invading Iraq—played a key role in encouraging this notion both in and outside the United States. He wrote, "This view of America in decline, and America as a potentially malign force, has percolated far and wide. It is intimately related to the torrent of criticism, unprecedented for an American president, that Barack Obama has directed at his own country."[16] Romney's views, according to Cohen, stood in stark contrast to Obama's. "Mitt Romney rejects the philosophy of decline in all of its variants," Cohen wrote. "He believes that a strong America is the best guarantor of peace and the best patron of liberty the world has ever known. That is the central lesson Romney finds in the history of America's role on the world stage."[17] In a Boston Globe op-ed coauthored with fellow Romney advisers Meghan O'Sullivan and Eric Edelman shortly before the election, Cohen summed up his critique of the Obama administration in an argument that relied on nebulous notions of American strength, "Because of the last four years we face a world in which our enemies do not fear us, our friends do not believe they can trust us, and those who maneuver between the two camps feel that they will not get in trouble by crossing us."[18] Neocons and Hawks Cohen has been closely affiliated with neoconservatism for decades. He was a founding signatory of the Project for the New American Century—the pressure group founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan in 1997 that played an important role building support for the invasion of Iraq—and advised the now-defunct Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which was founded in 2002 by former Lockheed Martin vice president Bruce Jackson with the sole purpose of promoting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. As of 2014, Cohen was also a member of the Council of Academic Advisers of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which has served as a key bastion of neoconservative ideological promotion. Serving alongside Cohen on the council have been numerous other long-standing neocons, including Gertrude Himmelfarb and Aaron Friedberg.[19] Bush Years and the Iraq War - See more at: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Cohen_Eliot#sthash.va6idXUa.dpuf

[monty]

Eliot Cohen, a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS),



Eliot Cohen, a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), has been an important supporter of neoconservative-led foreign policy campaigns. Sometimes touted as "the most influential neocon in academe,"

[1] Cohen had multiple roles in the George W. Bush administration—including advising Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and serving on the Defense Policy Board during Donald Rumsfeld's tenure as defense secretary—and was closely affiliated with the circle of hawks who surrounded Vice President Dick Cheney.

[2] In October 2014, the "liberal hawk" think tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS) announced that Cohen was joining the center as an adjunct senior fellow contributing on defense and national security issues.In announcing the hiring, CNAS President Richard Fontaine described Cohen as "one of the nation's foremost thinkers and practitioners in national security affairs." Michèle Flournoy, cofounder of CNAS and former undersecretary of defense for policy in the Obama administration, added that Cohen "has a deep understanding of policy issues as well as the larger strategic and historical context in which policy decisions are made."

[3] In November 2013, Cohen also joined the board of advisors of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a spinoff of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

[4] Cohen has been a vociferous critic of Barack Obama since the beginning of his presidency, often making overblown accusations about the administrations efforts to pursue negotiations. Ignoring the massive military commitments that Obama has made during his presidency, Cohen has accused Obama of being insufficiently committed to using military force and of being "promiscuous" in its diplomacy with traditional U.S. adversaries.

[5] Diplomacy, Cohen says, only works when the military is seen as a "growling mastiff on the leash."

[6] Cohen has blamed the Obama administration for the "wreckage" of U.S. foreign policy and his failure to understand "war is war." In an op-ed written for theWashington Post during the 2014 Gaza-Israel War, Cohen in essence called for President Obama to support Israel waging a war in Gaza similar to how U.S. Civil War general William Sherman waged war against the South—which Cohen described as marked by "devastation" and the burning "out thoroughly" of the Confederate-controlled Shenandoah Valley.

[7] Cohen also censured Obama's approach on Russia during the 2014 Ukraine crisis and called for a more provocative approach. "Absent a severe penalty—one that inflicts pain where Putin can feel it, to include Russia's economy and his personal wealth and control of that country—the lesson learned will be, 'You can get away with it,'" Cohen purported in a 2014 Washington Post op-ed.

[8] Similarly, Cohen opposed Obama's 2013 nomination of Chuck Hagel to lead the Department of Defense on the grounds that Hagel had "already made it clear that he does not want to engage in a confrontation with Iran." What was needed, Cohen said, was someone "who looks as if he's perfectly capable of waging war against you and happy to do it."

[9] Cohen has called the Obama administration's approach to Syria "feckless." In a 2013 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Cohen echoed many neoconservative supporters of an attack by arguing that U.S. "credibility" depended on the willingness of the Obama administration to strike Syria after the regime's alleged use of chemical weapons in the country's civil war. "For better or for worse," he wrote, "the credibility not only of this president, but of America as a global power and a guarantor of international order, is on the line." If Washington decides against a strike, Cohen claimed, "profound conclusions will be drawn by a China ready to bully its neighbors, by a North Koreawhose scruples are already minimal, and by an Iran that has already killed many Americans in a covert war waged against us in Iraq and Afghanistan."

[10] Cohen has suggested that a "serious bombing campaign" against "substantial targets" in Syria would be necessary, arguing that a"bout of therapeutic bombing is an even more feckless course of action than a principled refusal to act altogether." He warned that such an attack would entail "civilian casualties, at our hands," as well as U.S. casualties, "because the idea of a serious military effort without risk is fatuous."

[11] He has argued that, given the risks, the president should seek "congressional support and authorization as a matter of good politics" and "out of respect for democratic legitimacy," but also insisted that "Barack Obama does not need congressional approval to launch a war."

[12] Cohen has in fact expressed contempt for democratic legitimacy when it comes to the use of force, complaining openly about public weariness with the neoconservative agenda.Reasoning that most Americans had "not served in the armed forces," that "no one has raised our taxes to pay for war," and that "Americans can change the channel if they find the images too disturbing," Cohen suggested in September 2013 that average Americans had no right to be reticent about sending soldiers into new wars. "For the great mass of the American public," he wrote, and "for their leaders and the elites who shape public opinion, 'war-weariness' is unearned cant, unworthy of a serious nation and dangerous in a violent world." For Obama especially, Cohen added, "to confess to war-weariness is to confess weakness."

[13] Calling Cohen's tirade against war-weariness "one of the most offensive columns I've read in a long time," Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum nominated Cohen for his "Asshole of the Year" award and quipped, "Cohen is simply apoplectic at the thought of anyone in America thinking they have a right to be tired of war merely because we've been at war for 12 continuous years for virtually zero observable gain."

[14] For his part, Cohen appeared to disregard the possibility that disillusion with the policies he and other neoconservatives had advocated played any role in the public's increasing skepticism about foreign interventions. The real problem, according to Cohen, is that younger Americans"take [American] primacy and the stability and prosperity it has brought for granted," and that "leaders of the isolationist movement … speak loudly on Capitol Hill."

[15] Romney Campaign In 2011-2012, Cohen served as an adviser to the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, notably authoring a white paper for the campaign that was intended to provide a strategy "to secure America's enduring interests and ideals." Titled "The American Century"—a not-so-subtle allusion to the nationalistic jingoism of the Project for the New American Century, whose work Cohen supported—the white paper argued that President Barack Obama's efforts to bridge the sharp diplomatic divide that emerged between the United States and the international community during the Bush years amounted to "a form of unilateral disarmament in the diplomatic and moral sphere." Cohen also argued that Obama has promoted the idea of "America in decline," ignoring how the policies Cohen himself promoted during the Bush administration—like invading Iraq—played a key role in encouraging this notion both in and outside the United States. He wrote, "This view of America in decline, and America as a potentially malign force, has percolated far and wide. It is intimately related to the torrent of criticism, unprecedented for an American president, that Barack Obama has directed at his own country."

[16] Romney's views, according to Cohen, stood in stark contrast to Obama's. "Mitt Romney rejects the philosophy of decline in all of its variants," Cohen wrote. "He believes that a strong America is the best guarantor of peace and the best patron of liberty the world has ever known. That is the central lesson Romney finds in the history of America's role on the world stage."

[17] In a Boston Globe op-ed coauthored with fellow Romney advisers Meghan O'Sullivan and Eric Edelman shortly before the election, Cohen summed up his critique of the Obama administration in an argument that relied on nebulous notions of American strength, "Because of the last four years we face a world in which our enemies do not fear us, our friends do not believe they can trust us, and those who maneuver between the two camps feel that they will not get in trouble by crossing us."

[18] Neocons and Hawks Cohen has been closely affiliated with neoconservatism for decades. He was a founding signatory of the Project for the New American Century—the pressure group founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan in 1997 that played an important role building support for the invasion of Iraq—and advised the now-defunct Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which was founded in 2002 by former Lockheed Martin vice president Bruce Jackson with the sole purpose of promoting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. As of 2014, Cohen was also a member of the Council of Academic Advisers of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which has served as a key bastion of neoconservative ideological promotion. Serving alongside Cohen on the council have been numerous other long-standing neocons, including Gertrude Himmelfarb and Aaron Friedberg.

[19] Bush Years and the Iraq War - See more at:

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Cohen_Eliot#sthash.va6idXUa.dpuf (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Cohen_Eliot#sthash.va6idXUa.dpuf)