Category Archives: Neoconservatism

From Bagram In Bondage

Barack Obama, Foreign Aid, Middle East, Military, Neoconservatism, War, Welfare

Windy and insubstantial is the kindest thing an honest newsman might say about the gimmick that is the Strategic Partnership Agreement, signed today by Barack Obama in Afghanistan. The president snuck into that US satrapy in secret. Had his intended “benevolence” toward the poor Pashtuns of Afghanistan been made public—the same people would have tried to blow Air Force One out of the sky.

“Afghanistan has a friend and a partner in the United States,” Obama said before he and Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement outlining cooperation between their countries once the U.S.-led international force withdraws in 2014. … “There will be difficult days ahead, but as we move forward in our transition, I’m confident that Afghan forces will grow stronger; the Afghan people will take control of their future,” Obama said.

(CNN)

Blah, blah, blah.

Stripped of the baffle-gab, the agreement from Bagram amounts to this: Even when U.S. forces in Afghanistan are reduced considerably, they will still maintain the necessary meaty presence.

Oops, I meant to say the “enduring partnership,” which would, ostensibly, “prevent the Taliban from waiting until the U.S. withdrawal to try to regain power.”

Essentially we’re paying to keep in power the authoritarian protectorate we’ve helped establish, headed by the puppet we appoint, all of whom are hated by the Pashtun majority.

Afghanistan was the war Obama could call his own. He increased America’s presence there from 30,000 troops to 90,000, and thus earned his commander-in-chief credentials. Electability in fin de siècle America hinges on projecting strength around the world—an American leader has to aspire to protect borders and people not his own. Obama needed a war he could call his own. Afghanistan served his purposes.

And he intends on keeping Afghanistan on America’s welfare rolls. Afghanistan’s GDP approximates the foreign aid it receives annually, and you know who supplies the lion’s share of that “GDP”? Counterfeiter-in Chief, Ben Bernanke and the US printing press.

At the expense of the American taxpayer.

It goes without saying that Republicans like Senators John McCain, Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, the three blind neoconservative mice, are elated about the signing of the “Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) with President Karzai,” as it “will allow the United States military to operate in Afghanistan, though without permanent bases.”

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Assange Makes Lamestream Run for Cover

libertarianism, Media, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Propaganda, Russia, Socialism, The State

It is no contest: RT leads the way with gritty broadcasting. RT does what a broadcaster should do; challenge the powers that be and probe every aspect of the story. Yes, the angle pursued is more often left-libertarian than paleo, but RT is also less statist than American mainstream media. (And they happen to feature my own paleolibertarian column, which takes courage too.)

As the talented Gayane Chichakyan has noted, Julian Assange’s new RT program is making the American mainstream nuttier than normal. Chichakyan has editorialized about mainstream’s protest against letting Assange loose on air—Bill O’Reilly, Megyn Kelly, Glenn Beck, Ed Schultz (who recommended death to Assange); all were apoplectic. (On The Other Channels, we’re accustomed to the wilderness of women reporters—Don Lemon, Anderson Cooper, Erin Burnett, Tamron Toots Hall, etc.)

Gayane hinted that the malfunctioning media’s objection to more of a variety in opinion seems to have at its goal the further closing of the already atherosclerotic American mind.

In any event, Assange is sure shaking things up, starting with an interview with Hezbollah leader Sayyid Nasrallah.

Next Assange refereed repartee between David Horowitz, whom he described as “a radical right-wing Zionist,” and “Slavoj Zizek, a Slovenian sociologist, philosopher and former anti-communist dissident, who turned communist.” (Yes, “Saying ‘I’m a Socialist’ = Saying ‘I’m a Massive idiot.'”)

I was disappointed that Mr. Horowitz was described as of the “radical right wing.” He himself would cop to neoconservatism.

UPDATE VI: Eunuchs at NRO Sack John Derbyshire (Cognitive Consonance)

Business, Canada, Free Speech, Intellectualism, Neoconservatism, Political Correctness, Race, Racism, Reason

Writes Facebook friend Aditya Vivek Barot:

Ms Mercer:

Mr. John Derbyshire, the man whose blurb appears on your book, has been unceremoniously sacked by the eunuchs at NRO.

What an apt appellation for that castrate, Rich Lowry.

Adds Peter Brimelow of VDARE.COM:

“[T]o appease a Left-wing lynch mob, John Derbyshire has just been fired from the new, Politically Correct National Review—despite (or perhaps because of) his unmatched brilliance there, to say nothing of his cancer and his years of loyal service.”

National Review has been PC—and worse, boring—for as long as I can remember.

John, who, as Aditya mentioned, had endorsed my book without flinching, was fired by the intellectual pygmies of NRO, for a tract titled “The Talk: Nonblack Version,“ published at Taki’s Magazine.

UPDATE I: NRO did at least employ John for a long time. They have never considered my work and have never replied to submissions.

UPDATE II: When you read Amy Davidson’s inane histrionic piffle, published in an elite magazine, you realize that ousting John for his views is more about enforcing mediocrity than enforcing conformity.

Americans cannot abide enormous talent, unless it is in a mindless or uncontroversial field such as sport or hard science. You have to be mediocre in writing and thinking and echo one of two party lines. I lived in Canada (I’m a Canadian) where my stuff appeared in the national press, no less. That could never happen in the US.

UPDATE III: Richard Spencer: “… it’s hard to mistake the trajectory of official ‘Conservatism’ as anything other than a gradual degeneration and dumbing-down. NR has gone from James Burnham and Russell Kirk to Kathryn Jean Lopez and various man-children spouting human-rights doctrines. … the mainstream Right [is] much stupider…more defined by the Goldbergs, Ponnurus, Lowrys, and Lopezes of the world…and more obviously a racket and dead-end. …”

UPDATE IV (April 10): In reply to the Facebook thread. Aditya, AMM, and others: To me, the Derb issue is never about whether you agree or disagree with his article, as Richard Spencer does (on FB, I quoted a slice of Spencer’s piece with which I agree). This perennial Soviet-style purging is never about “agreement,” to me. I do not know why people think that if you want to see a lot of well-written, wickedly witty, controversial writing in print (pixels or paper), as I do—you necessarily endorse all of it.

NONSENSE.

During the Iraq war, when the likes of Paul Craig Roberts, myself and other non-Beltway libertarians and paleos were writing up a storm against Bush’s barbarity–and being ousted and banished for it—Roberts noted that readers wanted to see a mirror of their opinions in his writing. This is so true. Readers judge me not in terms of style, thinking; quality of writing, a challenge to consensus, etc., but in accordance with how much I reflect their opinions; do they agree with me.

Cognitive consonance is what writing in the Age of the idiot is all about.

The narrowing of the American mind is not the fault of corporations; its The People’s fault, for heaven’s sake. Corporations would not survive if they ceased to cater to The People, who are tyrants in their own right. This leftist argument misconstrues the direction of the dumbing of America.

I am on record as saying that I am not comfortable with the racialist right’s tack. (To quote: “I think I reflect Western man’s disdain for race as an organizing principle, and for broad generalizations. Good luck with organizing modern westerners around race. I prefer to beat back the state so that individuals regain freedom of association, dominion over property, the absolute right of self-defense; the right to hire, fire, and, generally, associate at will. That’s the route to freedom.”)

But I simply love—and think it is necessary to a free society—to see all well-expressed, eloquent opinion and argument in print, at the pleasure of that print’s owners.

Of course, self-interest plays a role in wanting to see Derb and his work prevail. Derb is one of many canaries in this minefield of our own making.

UPDATE V: Maureen O’Connor of Gawker.com has actually done the job of a journalist in interviewing Derb. I hope he gets a book deal or makes a ton of money out of this shameful episode in the annals of NR.

UPDATE VI: “The first pessimists were the Old Testament prophets.” I love the Prophets, Jeremiah being my favorite. John Derbyshire on The B.S. of A. with Brian Sack (Full)

UPDATED: Putin Saves Us From Ourselves

Foreign Policy, Ilana Mercer, libertarianism, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Ron Paul, Russia, The West, War

“Putin Saves Us From Ourselves” is my new column (front page on RT, the column was buried at the bottom of WND’s second page, where two-day-old columns go to die, so is unlikely to edify the few who might have been amenable to edification). Here’s an excerpt:

“He vetoed a draft United Nations Security Council resolution calling on President Bashar Assad to step down. Such a resolution, he argued, would serve as a ruse for the US to do a Libya in Syria.

He made the case that the “Syrian crisis would be better resolved by Syrians themselves,” and that the West should confine itself to brokering a ceasefire in that country, and encouraging dialogue between the feuding factions.

And, “Six months ago,” by the Daily Star’s telling, he “vetoed an earlier draft resolution threatening Damascus with sanctions.”

He is Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president elect. And he has done nothing that Ron Paul, president of America’s libertarians, would not have done: work to avert another ill-conceived, idiotic American intervention in a country in which it has no business, advocate for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and oppose economic sanctions, which always and everywhere do more damage than good.

A just course of action is a just course of action irrespective of the actor.

The Sino-Russian alliance has been promoting the idea of an accord, involving “all the Syrians, the government and all opposition groups,” or so the Washington Post framed their side. NATO (nee the US) was champing at the bit to take the battle for Syria away from the Syrians and put it where they believe it belongs: the US military and its proxies.

Now, out of the blue, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is pretending that the United States and its Arab and European allies have always supported such a civilized solution in Syria, and were merely waiting on the Russians to get with the peace program. This is the same woman who came close to squatting on Gadhafi’s corpse, in honor of her country’s custom of peeing on its dead enemies.

Yes, one minute the Obama Administration and its UN and Arab-League lickspittles had been itching to oust Assad. The next, the same coalition was dusting Kofi Annan off and dispatching him, as a UN envoy, to mediate a resolution to Syria’s civil war.

What’s going on here? …

The complete column is “Putin Saves Us From Ourselves.”

If you’d like to feature this column in or on your publication (paper pr pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

Support this writer’s work by clicking to “Recommend,” “Tweet” and “Share” the “Paleolibertarian Column” on RT and “Return To Reason” on WND.

UPDATE: So true, Stephen Hayes. This is why I keep at my readers to post their responses to what they read here far and wide; post them to where my columns are featured, at RT (a new audience), and WND (which buried this column on the second page, where 2-day-old columns are posted), on Amazon (where is your Cannibal review, Stephen?), and other forums. Here on BAB, you are preaching to the converted.