MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
Hillary Clinton’s cozy ties to Washington’s powerful neocons have paid off with the endorsement of Robert Kagan, one of the most influential neocons. But it also should raise questions among Democrats about what kind of foreign policy a President Hillary Clinton would pursue
Comments
Another great advisor to help Hillary on foreign policy. Maybe some candidate should consider these guys.
by A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 9:18pm
This is ridiculous. Kagan wrote a long screed saying that the republican party has gone insane and that Trump is the Frankenstein monster the crazy party has created. In the last paragraph he writes one sentence about Hillary, "For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton." It's not an endorsement of Hillary it's an anyone but Trump vote.
If there are any sane republicans left I think we'll se a lot of this. It doesn't tell us anything about Hillary. It tells us about Trump.
by ocean-kat on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 9:46pm
Here's one.
by barefooted on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 10:04pm
Yes, that must hurt.
The GOP is a falling apart. It will be interesting to see how this plays out after the nominations.
by moat on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 8:12pm
Kagan has been kissing up to Hilary since at lest 2014. He has been getting back lots of tongue for his efforts. Neocons, at least some of them, have no particular political loyalty to either party. They think they are the brilliant philosophers that whisper in the king's ear. Kagan is looking for an ear to lick and it appears he has found one that will keep him and his wife and his cohorts in positions of influence. He is both betting on Hillary and helping her so as to feather his own bed and to advance his political ideology. That ideology is one that I think sucks big time. Apparently Hillary disagrees with me.
by A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 10:46pm
You've offered no evidence to back up your vilely voiced opinions. It would be different if Kagan had written in praise of Hillary's foreign policy views explaining why he agrees with them as his reason for endorsing her, but in your link he doesn't mention policy positions at all. It's all about the crazy republican party and their insane choice of Trump as the nominee. The disgusting language you so often seem to choose when discussing Hillary tells me all I need to know about the reason you're making your choice.
by ocean-kat on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 11:19pm
Kagan says that he is no longer a Republican and gives a host of reasons why he will vote against him with a vote for Hillary Clinton. He is using his position on the national stage to say that the country can still be saved by voting for her. He makes a case that can be considered as one for why he is choosing the lesser evil and he can agree with virtually everyone here that Trump is a horrible choice but he doesn’t suggest that Sanders is a viable alternative, does he? His column is at the top of the Washington Post’s most read list. He says he will vote for Hillary to save the country. Can you really convince yourself that the case he makes is somehow not an “endorsement” and do you think you can convince others that it is not? Keep trying, you're not there yet..
by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 7:34am
The leading GOP candidate is an unhinged racist xenophobe with 0 common sense in foreign policy, just wants to bomb or get allies to bomb and otherwise bully the world in "negotiations", the 2 GOP challengers are lightweight Hispanic immigrant-haters despite being immigrants and whose foreign policy depth is "make the desert glow", the Democratic challenger just wants to step back from foreign encounters and let the Russians, Iranians or Saudis handle it all, and then there's Hillary. Lesser of Five Evils, anyone?
I have a script for a movie, it's called "3 Whackos and a Lady", loosely based on....
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 8:01am
I don't care who endorses someone. I read so I don't have to rely on endorsements from authority figures to direct my vote. I care why they endorse someone. Kagan makes it very clear why he's voting for Hillary and none of his reasons include any of her positions on foreign policy. As I said, if you have a link where Kagan discusses Hillary's foreign policy views and the reasons he supports them I'll be happy to read it.
I don't come here to convince anyone. No one ever changes their mind in any of these debates. I come here because I read the news, like to discuss the things I read, and none of my friends read much news so I can't talk about it with them. I come here for the same reason I go to the book club at the local library, to discuss something I've read with people who have also read it. This month we're reading The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
by ocean-kat on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 12:56pm
Let's face it, if Trump is a nominee, a lot of conservatives and Republicans are going to come out for HRC and it will all say very little about what she believes.
by Michael Maiello on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 4:44pm
I think that's true, I hope it's true. If there are any sane republicans it will be true. Trump is dangerously unqualified to be president. I have to admit though, I'm very afraid that it's not true.
by ocean-kat on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 5:17pm
Former Chief of Staff to McCain coming out saying Trump has to be stopped even if it means electing HRC.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/02/24/donald_trump_the_an...
Mavericky, I know!
by Michael Maiello on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 5:55pm
Excellent, I hope to see more like this. It's illustrative of how extreme Trump is that such a reasonable article can paint such an ugly picture.
But you should be careful about posting such links. LuLu is likely to use the endorsement as evidence that Hillary plans to bomb Iran.
by ocean-kat on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 6:26pm
It will be interesting to see how things shake out after Tuesday, if HRC does put a fork in this nomination process. Perhaps this nonsense about Hillary being a neocon or even conservative on foreign policy issues is just the result of heightened tensions as Hillary closes in on the nomination.
by Michael Maiello on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 6:32pm
I have gently chided several commenters for attacking other bloggers. In this comment, I challenge ocean-kat for taking personally Lulu's use of explicit imagery to describe the relationship between Kagan and Clinton. Yes, the "lots of tongue" is arguably a bit much. But Hillary did choose Kagan's wife Victoria Nuland - a noted neocon in her own right - to be one of her spokespeople at State. I guess that qualifies as some tongue.
My bigger point though is that there's a qualitative difference between crude, even sexually charged, but ultimately fact-based attacks on powerful government figures (who by the way are seeking even more power over us) and trolling, sarcasm, and obscenities leveled at individual contributors here.
Regarding the question of whether neocon Kagan agrees with non-neocon (per Michael Maiello) Clinton's foreign policy views, here's what Kagan told the NYT in 2014 (by the way, I believe I first learned of this quote right here at Dagblog but can't find the previous post, I'm guessing Lulu):
by HSG on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 7:59am
Hal, Nuland's a career foreign service officer and Russia expert, not a "neocon", a pejorative that serves you to tear down anyone that's not placing flowers in front of the Pentagon. She served in successive State Departments and European diplomatic roles from Ragan to Bush Sr. to Bill Clinton through W Bush and Obama (including post-Hillary). "Spokesperson" of course means a non-decision-making presentation position, so why would it matter there whether Nuland were a neocon or a Nova Scotian? Nuland's performance in Ukraine as NATO ambassador was certainly more deft and helpful to our interests than standard neocon fare, no? She helped bolster Ukraine's position as an EU satellite aspirant vs. part of the corrupt ex-Soviet umbrella and Obama/Nuland avoided a full-out Russian invasion that Ukraine was completely unprepared for, losing only Crimea with some mild chaos in Donbas. Compare the success in navigating Ukraine's crisis relatively peacefully with the chaotic failure in Syria. Hardly a neocon approach, and one shared largely by Angela Merkel (or is she a neocon too?)
And your equating Nuland with her husband because of marriage is again tone-deaf, sexist, pathetically anachronistic and counter to progressive principles. James Carville is married to Mary Matalin, You can quite reasonably call her a neocon. You'd be daft to imply he's even conservative.
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 8:40am
Hal, if one of my friends talked about another of my female friends with such disgusting sexist language I'd inform them that how they speak in public is their own business but they will not speak that way in my house. Their choice is to stop or leave. If any of my friends showed such a lack of impulse control as lulu has with his violently angry outbursts I'd cut them out of my life completely.
That's how I deal with it in my life. How you handle that type of behavior is up to you.
by ocean-kat on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 3:23pm
O Kat, the metaphorical use of the terms “kiss up” or “kissing up” is quite common when talking about ambitious people who “brown nose” others who are in position to benefit them. When I said that Kagan gets a lot of tongue back from his kissing up I was blending the idea that Clinton metaphorically kisses back with the idea that she gives tongue as speech, that she speaks both in admiration of Kagan and his policy advice and to reflect praise onto herself by advertising his praise of her. I honestly wonder if you really believe that my opposition to Hillary Clinton is based on sexism and that what I said was so disgustingly sexist or if you are just looking for ways to lash out based on your own anger that your chosen candidate is open to so much honest criticism that you just cannot stand to hear. As has been the case several times, when you respond like you did above you do not sensibly address any point I have attempted to make.
by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 5:14pm
I addressed every point you made and then added my points. Why would I lie or spin when I don't believe anything we post on this little site in a back corner of the internet influences the election in any way at all? Why would I lie or spin when no one ever changes their mind in any of the debates we have here? Tell me, has anyone you've debated with here ever changed their mind and come around to your point of view? It's never happened for me or to me and I've never seen it happen to anyone else so please send me a link. So what possible reason do you think I would have for being anything but bluntly honest?
by ocean-kat on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 6:00pm
Is Hillary Clinton one of your female friends or is she one of the most powerful and wealthiest people on the planet? Was the language really that "disgusting" and "sexist" or was it offensive but not an attack on Mrs. Clinton's gender?
by HSG on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 7:23pm
Kagan's slithering into bed with HRC just shows how little division there actually is between the Liberal establishment and the Neocon establishment. Trump certainly threatens these elite's positions and influence because he hasn't been groomed and conditioned for submission to their 'wisdom' and guidance.
Sanders created some fear among the established democrats but Trump is creating true panic among the elite.
by Peter (not verified) on Fri, 02/26/2016 - 11:51pm
First you say Hillary's too divisive, then you say she's bringing together the wrong kind of people. The idea tha Bernie could attract the disaffected Bundy faction and other tea party types gave all his supporters wet dreams.
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 12:35am
Given that every other candidate is basically an isolationist or mad bomber, who else would Kagan possibly endorse?
by Michael Maiello on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 12:52am
This makes no sense at all. Kagan's a neocon and Clinton isn't . . . or is she?
by HSG on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 7:16am
People are complicated. So you can't define somebody by who endorses them. I mean, I'm still planning to vote for Bernie, but I'm not a Democratic Socialist, so does that make him not what he says he is?
by Michael Maiello on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 10:11am
Do you endorse Bernie or is he the candidate who comes closest to your value system? For example, I'll vote for Hillary if she's the Democratic nominee but I won't endorse her. Do you share Bernie's view that the government should play a crucial role in assuring every citizen access to free or at a minimum easily healthcare, education (up to and including college and perhaps graduate school), meaningful employment, food, shelter, and clothing? If so, then you meet Sanders' definition of a Democratic Socialist. Regarding whether Kagan is voting for Clinton (I don't think the Post article constitutes an endorsement), even though he doesn't consider her a neocon, in the past he all but called Clinton a neocon and she did hire his neocon wife.
by HSG on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 2:04pm
Let's find out if PP
and Maiellocan integrate intotheirhis mindsetsevidence that doesn't supporttheirhis worldview:https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-purported-reco...
An analysis of Nuland's remarks and actions from Foreign Policy Journal:
And from Truth-out:
by HSG on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 10:31am
The "Fuck the EU" referred to the EU moving as slow as shit as usual - "was dismissively referring to slow-moving European efforts to address political paralysis and a looming fiscal crisis in Ukraine". The call was wiretapped and leaked to embarrass, but frankly I think she looks good enough. You'd prefer a humanitarian catastrophe like Yugoslavia or Libya? "Nuland also assessed the political skills of Ukrainian opposition figures with unusual candor" - wow, scandalous appraisal of the opposition - she should have just called them jackbooted Nazis like the US "progressives" have ever since.
"they discuss which Ukrainians would be to Washington’s liking in a new government, and which not" - you've got to be fucking kidding me. I would fire a diplomat who *WASN'T" thinking at least in part in those terms. We're talking about a slow roll towards the European Union and a potential war with Russia and a recently fled corrupt leader who might try to come back - yes, we need to know who our allies are, how it will affect NATO and the EU, who we might be defending, etc. In Egypt we played it stupidly naive and ended up with the Muslim Brotherhood running things, quite a lot worse than the old stalwarts in Ukraine.
And didn't you notice that the stupid fuckers at TruthOut were wrong, that their paranoid alliance between "ultranationalist brown shirt neo-Nazis" and Islamic jihad had never materialized, yet you're going to offer up the same crap a year later? Sorry dude, damaged goods, past shelf-life. Actually, Svoboda lost a lot of support in August with a hand grenade that killed 20 and threatening Poroshenko with a revolt. Game largely over.
How about this one - "Vladimir's Putin’s son-in-law given $1.7bn Russian state-backed loan: Kirill Shamalov married Putin’s youngest daughter on a ski resort in 2013" or as The Guardian adds: "A businessman believed to be the son-in-law of Vladimir Putin ...signed a contract worth 790.6bn roubles (£7.4bn) with state-controlled gas giant Gazprom to build a gas refinery in the Amur region, reportedly the biggest deal ever included on the government procurement register...Borrowing $1.3bn (£934m) from a bank headed by a Putin associate, he bought a 17% stake in the petrochemical company Sibur from oligarch Gennady Timchenko, another long-time acquaintance of Putin. Shamalov’s total 21.3% holding in Sibur, the parent company of NIPIgazpererabotka, is now valued at $2.85bn." Sounds a lot like Yanukovych that ran to Russia as soon as he was exposed. Yeah, I'm sure the remaining Ukrainians are hugely corrupt, but probably cleaner than Putin's gang and at least Ukrainian.
Everybody does propaganda - including the far left in the US, intent on exaggerating every blood detail in the conflict and continually playing chicken little.
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 1:47pm
"Let's find out if PP can integrate into his mindset evidence that doesn't support his worldview." Looks like we found out.
by HSG on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 2:04pm
They're not evidence - they're brainfart opinions, don't you see? or non-brainfart opinions if you believe them. Can't you tell an opinion from a fact?
Russia said the US was meddling in the affairs of one of its close neighbors and "inappropriately championing the opposition cause". Of course they'll say that. And of course we'll say democracy trumps oligarchy, even though we know things aren't that easy to separate. If you believe in EU democracy, you probably support Ukraine's right to choose. If you think everything EU is evil, maybe you support Putin. These are *SUBJECTIVE* choices based on your worldview. The evidence doesn't contradict either of our worldviews - it's simply more events we can decide if are good or bad.
I didn't deny we weren't active in Yanukovych's successor just like we were active in Mubarek's successor. Did we start the protests in Cairo? No, but we sure have a stake in figuring out a secure hopefully pro-democracy replacement rather than a Maliki that pulls a bloody grudge match against the other faction. For me, that's pragmatic - not to the "realpolitik" fairly amoral posturing of Henry Kissinger, but still, something short of la-la land. Your opinion obviously differs - BUT IT'S NOT FACT, AND IT'S NOT "EVIDENCE" - even if some analyst at Foreign Policy or National Review or Counterpunch wrote it - these are just other opinions, even if possibly more pedigreed - and I doubt if you or I care much about Kissinger's pedigree, so where does it stop?
The EU was terribly slow and ineffectual in stopping the bloodshed in Yugoslavia, and Bill Clinton has a stain of not doing more in Rwanda. BUT YOU'VE NEVER ANSWERED ME REGARDING WHEN THERE'S A VALID USE OF FORCE!!! Humanitarian? Prevent a Srebrenica, a Cambodia, a ....??? Stop a Ukrainian Hladomor or mass purges and executions and gulags in Siberia? You know how to criticize in the particular, but never suggest an overall workable policy - that would make you too vulnerable. Instead it's "oh, never regime change" - so what are the options you do support? What should we have done in Afghanistan when Taliban wouldn't turn over Al Qaeda leaders after attacking us? What to do when Hussein occupied Kuwait? Need some real answers.
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 2:34pm
Still waiting, Hal - lots of criticism that reeks of progressive cant, but never specific advice when difficult choices involved, especially where military and humanitarian crises intersect.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 5:59am
I don't need to read Kagan to take a guess at what Clinton's foreign policy might be. The positions she has taken over the years, in and out of various offices, make it clear that she will be more aggressive than Obama in general.
Kagan is unlikely to be a part of any Clinton administration. Who those people will be is better represented by those presently helping to carry water for her in her campaign against Sanders.
Now that letter they all signed was an easy smack down of something the Sanders campaign threw out. But it also demonstrates how much more is needed by those who would offer a competing National Security Strategy to any Clinton will likely promulgate. I am not asking Sanders to be Chomsky on steroids but I am asking for more than simple prescriptions that ignore history.
by moat on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 4:59pm
I agree completely with your first paragraph. That said, arguments, assertions, beliefs, and evidence presented by links to historical actions, proclamations, votes, etc have been offered up to support or criticize every aspect of Hillary's political life. It has all been part of the conversation which, as OceanKat says somewhere above, is not expected to change anybody's mind. The fact that Kagan supports Hilary though is certainly more significant than the fact that I do not support her. He will probably change a few votes and though Hillary fans wil welcome the votes can we be happy with his advice? The fact that she chooses him as a trusted adviser and speaks of it in her campaign is evidence of her foreign policy leanings and for those who think that foreign policy is an extremely important factor when considering who to vote for I consider it and important thing to keep up front in the debate even if the debate is purely academic.
While I would, if I had the deciding vote, choose Sanders in a heartbeat over Clinton I would also remind that I was one of the first here at Dag, maybe THE first, to criticize Sanders as being weak on foreign policy. For me it is a case of him not being particularly good compared to her being particularly bad. There was a time not so long ago when it was good form to point out how so many who had been so wrong were still considered to be the go-to experts, how none had paid any price for being so wrong about some things so important. Now the ones who were so often and so consequentially wrong but are part of Hilary's team are touted. It is enough to drive a guy to drinking. I am aware enough to know that it is a complicated world and there are no easy answers but when disgusting attitudes are the subject then an attitude about an action which has caused untold thousands of deaths and millions of refugees and no benefit that can be admitted to as a motive, and that attitude is expressed by "We came, we saw, he died, ha ha ha", I am inclined to look for someone with a little more human empathy.
How seriously can we take the idea of being active parts of a representative democracy and ignore the moral implications of our governments responsibility for so much carnage? I have read a little about "Just War" theory and do not see any justification there for so much of what we do. I see R2P so selectively implemented as to be just a propagandist way of selling an interventionist policy formalized by the neocons but given a different name. [There is such a thing as neocon] Is there a credible philosophy which would approve of our governments actions in this area, actions based on an attitude, and I suppose a philosophy, which are ones we can expect to continue and probably intensify under Hillary's command?
by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 9:27pm
I will be very happy if republicans vote for Hillary. I will be very happy if republicans I hate endorse her. It's not just important that a democrat win this year. For all that is good about America Trump must be repudiated in a bipartisan fashion by an overwhelming majority of the electorate. If the democratic nominee for president wins a close race against Trump I will be horrified for America and disappointed in her people.
by ocean-kat on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 10:14pm
I think you know and understand the difference between voting against Trump and voting for Hillary. I too will be glad for any vote against Trump.
Edited to add that a vote for Hillary is not the only vote that would be a repudiation of Trump. There is an available vote that would be not just a repudiation of Trump but also a positive vote for a change in a positive direction. And yes, it would probably only be an incremental change.
by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 10:51pm
And, consider this. Suppose a truly crazy candidate gained traction as a Democrat, one that was so far from the principles that you hold dear that you had to look at and consider as the only viable alternative the Republican candidate. Suppose that person gained such traction within th Democratic Party that they got the nomination. Would you then recommend the Republican candidate that was most closely aligned with what were previously Democratic positions or would you recommend one whose positions were radically different from the positions you would really like to see implemented?
by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 02/27/2016 - 11:14pm
They're not desperately suggesting a vote for Bernie because they don't see him as the likely alternative. Neither do I.
by barefooted on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 12:06am
The Democratic nominee to be President has not yet been decided. There is still an alternative to Hillary that could potentially be the choice of the voters. His name is Bernie Sanders. Kagan is an example of a Republican supporter who voted for Reagan, Bush, Dole, Bush, and Romney but is showing himself to be smart enough to oppose Trump. He can be comfortable voting for Hillary as an alternative to the crazy person because she is so much like his previous choices in the ways he thinks are important. He does not suggest voting for anybody but Trump. He does not suggest that if Sanders is the candidate he will vote for him and, though I cannot prove it, I believe that the reason is obvious. He says he will vote for Hillary. He endorses her as the candidate who can save America and it seems clearly evident to me that his reasoning for that conclusion is that she is so much like the Republican candidates that he favored in the past. Sanders is not. Sanders is an alternative in the true sense of the word.
by A Guy Called LULU on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 7:06am
Sure, Sanders is an alternative - but Kagan's not likely to vote socialist or isolationist, is he? Nor is a foreign policy careerist likely to vote for 2 foreign policy lightweights - possibly learned lessons from Bush and/or just realizes these GOP bozos are too foolish for any advisor to help. (he was none too impressed with Colin Powell either.)
Yes, in these times, a left-centrist serious-on-security Democrat is good enough compared to the batshit crazy alternatives - not much fine print to read or leaps of logic needed.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 8:33am
[Sarcasm alert] But how could we possibly know what sort of candidate Kagan might vote for? Are you suggesting that he is a well enough known "public intellectual" that his positions are likely to be known by someone interested in his field of supposed expertise [foreign policy] or at least easily discoverable?
by A Guy Called LULU on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 9:20am
I'm suggesting he's a self-serving jackass, and any support for HIllary is probably a sign that the Republicans are falling apart and he was nowhere else to go, since 2016 GOP doesn't quite do foreign policy anymore aside from "making sand glow" and "build the wall 10 feet higher", does it?
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 12:51pm
Edited to delete double posting.
by A Guy Called LULU on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 7:07am
I do know and understand the difference between voting against Trump and voting for Hillary. That's exactly what I've been talking about throughout this thread. You're the one that apparently doesn't understand the difference. This is getting silly. Until I read an article by Kagan listing Hillary's foreign policy views and his reasoning as to why he thinks they're right all I have to go on is his "Trump is a Frankenstein monster" reasoning for voting for Hillary. If there was such a article I think you would have found it by now. I'd lay odds both you and Hal have been searching desperately for it since this thread began.
by ocean-kat on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 1:09am
LULU and I have both posted this but why not once more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/us/politics/historians-critique-of-oba...
In the same article the Times notes:
So Kagan's position is we never should have left Iraq and should have had troops on the ground in Syria. This is precisely Hillary Clinton's position with respect to Syria. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/hillary-clinton.... Regarding the Iraq troop withdrawal, Clinton has taken the position it was necessitated by W's approval of total withdrawal before he left office and the refusal of Al-Maliki to guarantee American troops from criminal and civil immunity. In other words, she and Kagan share the view that ISIL's rise is due to the US decision to leave Iraq in by the end of 2011 not the decision, for which she voted, to invade Iraq and change regimes.
In Kagan's own New Republic article published May 26, 2014, he praises Clinton (Bill) to the skies:
by HSG on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 9:19am
It looks like Kagan doesn't want to be in the garbage pail of history, so he redefines neocon to mean "staying involved militarily" rather than the much more activist unilateral regime change approach that characterized W & Cheney's regime.
If Kagan's fine with Bill Clinton's approach, I'm okay with that, but it leaves all the cronyism, incompetence and extralegal approach to Iraq unanswered for.
"George W. Bush’s decision to remove Saddam Hussein, whether that decision was wise or foolish, was driven more by concerns for world order than by narrow self-interest" - cough, bullshit. Bush was distributing oil rights and remaking world order specifically for narrow self-interest, him and his buddies.
But this is far from Hillary, so if we're not able to differentiate say from a multi-nation agreed approach in Libya vs. a hijacked UN resolution in Iraq, there's not much use talking politics.
PS - the NY Times piece - parts 1 & 2 - on Libya is quite good. Besides not being a typical neocon job, its failures I would guess likely give more learning experience to Hillary rather than encourage her in optimism. (as they notice, the urge to act vs. just fiddle indefinitely was born out of Srebrenica and Rwanda calamities.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 12:08pm
The Atlantic interview you link to does not have Clinton saying there should be U.S. troops on the ground in Syria. She is talking about supporting rebel groups earlier in the civil war. Kagan calls for heavy intervention right now. Clinton has not advocated for that.
In the interview, Clinton plainly states that the Iraq War was a "stupid" one. Now I read that as a judgment upon a number of decisions she has made in support for it. I understand that I could be wrong and she is just saying it for political expediency. But her work for the Obama administration certainly gave her the chance to see the consequences of those decisions. The big difference between Kagan and the Clinton as seen through this interview is that Clinton sees we don't have the luxury to act as if foreign policy was a game of Risk. Kagan has consistently called Clinton a coward over the years when she cited a limit to our nation's freedom of movement. Kagan is certainly not on board with Clinton when she says that U.S. citizens want to see our way of life improve here before they will support any grand strategy for the rest of the world.
As far as being a thinker on a grand scale, Kagan is weak beer. He has been writing the same point over and over again: The U.S. is powerful and is obligated to stay powerful. Pretty gripping stuff.
by moat on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 11:37am
Per the NYT, Kagan believed "action in Syria would have averted the crisis."
Per Hillary Clinton in the Atlantic:
No difference.
by HSG on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 4:32pm
Kagan did and is still calling for U.S. troops on the ground. Clinton was talking about supporting groups fighting Assad.
Big difference.
by moat on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 4:45pm
Both said action was what was needed. In 2014, Clinton did not say that she opposed boots on the ground. This past October, she stated she supported the deployment of "special operations" forces "to work with local ground forces in the fight against Islamic State militants." Moreover, the distinction between military advisors and actual troops on the ground is as we all know from our Vietnam history an extremely murky one that tends to become murkier over time. Also Clinton's call for a "no-fly zone" mirrors Kagan's call for a "safe zone". "Big difference?" No difference.
by HSG on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 5:59pm
Hal, we have military advisors in every single country in Africa. Which one do you think is in danger of getting "murky"? We have military advisors in Ukraine - there's not a chance we're going to do any fighting in the field. And how is a no-boots-on-the-ground no-fly zone the same as having Kagan's 50,000 troops policing some kind of safe haven? We had a no-fly zone over Iraq for 10 years - worked fine for as far as it went. Aside from the 1998 bombing raid, it was very low contact, low involvement.
And again, you rest behind never ever ever suggesting what you think we should do in precarious humanitarian disasters and military threats, only throwing darts at all your perceived opponents for not being brilliant and doing the wrong thing. Once you start equating everything with everything, ignoring huge obvious differences, it really is useless to prattle on.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 6:29pm
Does this reference to Clinton agreeing several months ago to use a small number of special forces vs Kagan's idea to send in 50,000 troops supposed to shore up your misrepresentation of Clinton's remark in the NYT interview that was talking about choices made three years ago?
It is hard to take your positions seriously when you abandon them the moment they no longer serve your purpose or are proved to be simply incorrect.
by moat on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 6:31pm
There are many liberals and democrats who would like a more robust foreign policy. I see Obama's hands off policies as creating problems or at least not solving them. I don't think we can ignore the lack of stability in the region that has lead to the massive and on going refugee crisis in Europe. I don't think we can walk away from these problems and leave them to Europe to solve simply because the refugees can't walk across the Atlantic Ocean to the US.
Your analysis lacks nuance. Your black/white thinking lumps any involvement at all as neocon. There are middle grounds between the neocon Kagan Bush strategy and Obama's mostly hands off policies. I hope Hillary can find that middle ground. It's worrisome to increase our involvement with the risks of too much involvement. Striking some sort of balance is very tricky but something more has to be done.
by ocean-kat on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 6:44pm
I think this is a reasonably fair critique of what I have been writing. I have not embraced nuance. Moreover, the situation is very fraught in the Middle East and we do need to do something. A big reason for the civil war in Syria, though, is the Bush/Cheney war on Iraq which Clinton supported. Another huge problem in the region of course is the Libya intervention which Clinton championed. Yet she has not acknowledged the utter disaster that the regime change strategy has been. It is true that Kagan called for lots of troops on the ground in Syria and Clinton has not done so. Neither however has she argued against such a call and she does claim that more military involvement on the side of the Syrian rebels early on would have resolved the crisis. This makes no sense whatsoever to me. Her call for a "no-fly zone" is also extremely bellicose. You accuse me of failing to see real daylight between Kagan and Clinton. This is not unfair. Is it possible you see more separation than exists?
by HSG on Mon, 02/29/2016 - 8:34am
"Is it possible you see more separation than exists?" - how about is it possible you see no separation where there are huge differences. Clinton was a junior Senator in the opposition in 2002 while George W Bush was a very popular President with the Republicans holding majorities in House or Senate (at least by Nov 2002). The discussion in September 2002 was requiring inspections out of Hussein or we go to war, and from prior experience Hussein would not budge unless there was some credible threat. Clinton was not given a serious alternative to "inspections + war authorization", and it was going to easily pass with or without her or any other Democrat. She did not support war so much as pushing inspections, since our intelligence was seriously out-of-date by late 2002 and after 9/11 having a possibly armed Hussein in the midst of the region making threats & potentially linking up with some terrorist faction was an unspecified risk we no longer felt comfortable accepting.
Re: LIbya, as the NY Times noted, it was France's baby largely, and during the Arab Spring uprisings in various countries there was concern about protecting both protesters and innocent civilians. This has been a concern from Tiananmen & the Velvet Revolution to independence protests in the Baltic states (Gorbachev noting he'd been rather restrained compared to the Chinese), the protests in Serbia, on through peaceful uprisings in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Bahrain, Iran, Syria and Libya - only the latter two having an armed rebel component - and Georgia's Rose revolution and Ukraine's earlier Orange Revolution and the more recent Maidan. The human casualties in Benghazi were exaggerated, but as the TImes article noted, our human intelligence was poor and Qaddafi - largely a US ally after 9/11 - didn't help his case by saying he was going to go door to door to wipe out the protestors.
Unlike with the no-flight zones in Iraq, the no-flight zones in Syria and LIbya allow protesters to mix with air strikes, roughly turning the foreign NATO control of the air into an armed contingent of the rebel movements below. It is not clear how much air "protection" or "offense" to provide, much as the Russians used their "no-flight" status to attack Syrian rebels rather than just try to keep the peace.
Kagan is an entirely different matter and hard to reconcile with most of Hillary's efforts in foreign affairs. Hillary in Libya failed in protecting a popular protester-led revolt (one that also grew out of the ethnic split between east and west Libya), not even particularly trying to promote the rebels among, even though the article noted she vetted the opposition to see if they were able to promote a liberaly democracy afterwards (with an over-optimistic "yes" as the answer). At the time, I wanted the EU to step forward with a well-defined observer /aspirant/2nd sphere definition for newly democratic Muslim states, but as usual - ref. "Fuck the EU" - they were way too slow in mobilizing any critical emergency response to building democratic structures for quick adoption, only successfully cooperating on the military side primarily through France & Italy.
The question "what do you do if there's a largely peaceful uprising and the dictator insists on wiping them out" comes up frequently. The answer is not simple and it's not binary and takes into account a lot of considerations. We haven't even begun to take the nuance of foreign policy seriously - it's only "they voted one way once at least, so they're the antiChrist". Simply unhelpful.
by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 02/29/2016 - 9:39am
Kagan's support for Hillary Clinton and Lloyd Blankfein's apparent support for her are two strong reasons to vote for her opponent in November - assuming as appears very likely she's the Democratic candidate. I will not vote for the Republican, whoever he may be, but these two men are in significant part responsible for many of the world's most serious problems today.
As Bernie has repeatedly said, our war on Iraq was our biggest foreign policy blunder since Vietnam and is directly responsible for the rise of global terrorism. Kagan was one of the main architects of that war. The global economic meltdown in 2007-2008 stemmed from 1) deregulatory policies championed by GS luminaries like Robert Rubin and Blankfein, 2) their business practices including pressuring countries to take on far too much debt, and 3) their insistence that debtor nations practice austerity.
I won't say that because these two villains hate Trump there must be something good about him. What I will say is the enemy of my enemy sometimes is my friend.
by HSG on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 9:28am
LULU,
I have read a fair amount of Kagan. He has these general sets of principles he has been repeating for decades and then he has particular policy prescriptions he argues for. Clinton hasn't been making him happy on that latter score during the last eight years except for wanting the same trade agreements Obama has supported.
I linked to the letter to Sanders mostly in order to point to the kind of people who would likely be on Clinton's team. Check them out. They are all professionals who have had held demanding jobs in government for years. They certainly are a far cry from the Cheney Cabal that came through the door with Bush.
Yes, there is such a thing as neoconservative. I don't want to deny their existence but resist the way they are treated as self explanatory beings.I think it is more helpful to see them in the specific context of their appearance as I discussed in Hal's depiction. The philosophy you are in opposition to is not just inculcated in the minds of office holders with a general point of view. It is written into National Security Strategies that prioritize and coordinate government policy and executive decision.
The Bush Doctrine called for the use of preventative war to fight non-state actors who worked to destroy the U.S. and hostile states who had the means and will to use weapons of mass destruction. These claims of just military action have two sides to them (at least). Should these be accepted as legitimate uses of force? Having adopted them as legitimate, are they being used in such a way that brings about the results they are working toward? There has not been an updated Strategy that revokes the prerogatives Bush claimed were necessary. There has been lots of reason to have become much more careful about measuring what a result looks like.
In addition to thinking about methods and the results attained through their use, the real gap in the Bush Doctrine is that it invokes its dire prescriptions as a failure to use other means. It is a strategy that has given up on strategy. What should that strategy be?
In my mind, addressing these elements are more important than putting name tags on people.
by moat on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 2:01pm
Thanks moat for the time spent and effort expended but to be honest, I am not at all clear on all that you are saying. I expect that I'll come back to this later and also spend some time with your response to Hal which you linked to. I do think that you are on to something when you suggest that strategy has been given up on. Looked at that way I think it is then clear that there are just too damned many tactics being employed.
by A Guy Called LULU on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 8:49pm
Yes, that second to last paragraph is too sketchy. I will work on that.
Thank you for giving my point of view a hearing. I will keep an eye out for any further comments you put forward regarding the topic(s).
Tactics in place of Strategy; now that is a thing.
by moat on Sun, 02/28/2016 - 10:15pm