Inspired by today's inclusion of the racist hate propaganda DVD "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" in the Raleigh News & Observer's Saturday Edition, I decided to (once again) try to bring focus to the most important factor in the upcoming national election: whether or not we will allow the empire-builders to continue taking our country down their delusional path to world dominance. And I chose the title (and picture) for a reason: unless their progress is arrested, they will slowly and methodically continue until they reach their objective.
http://projects.newsobserver.com/...
As a primer, I will (once again) reference the powerful organization that was formed to radically alter the course of American foreign policy, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC).
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
I've posted this before, but I'm going to do it again. This is what the neocons require in order to fulfill their goal of American world supremacy:
ESTABLISH FOUR CORE MISSIONS for the U.S. military:
• defend the American homeland;
• fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;
• perform the "constabulary" duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions;
• transform U.S. forces to exploit the "revolution in military affairs"
For those true conservatives reading this, pay attention to that third thing. "Constabulary" is their way of saying we need to be the "World's Police", which is something most conservatives I've known have claimed we should not be. This is not the only issue conservatives (should) have with neocons, but it's a big one.
What does all this have to do with John McCain and that crazy DVD the N&O is going to be tossing on front porches tomorrow morning? Timing. You don't even need a tinfoil hat (but it helps) to detect the orchestration of events:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/...
Advisers to Sen. John McCain on Tuesday blasted Sen. Barack Obama as "naive" and "delusional" in his approach to terrorism in one of the harshest exchanges over national security in the fledgling general election fight.
The attacks were so severe that one McCain adviser, Randy Scheunemann, predicted it would be described by the Obama campaign as the "politics of fear" -- the model perfected by President Bush. (Click here for audio of the call.)
"He's advocating a policy of delusion," Scheunemann said of Obama. Former CIA director James Woolsey, who was also on the campaign call with reporters, said Obama's attitude "ignores that we are in a war against terrorism."
That was back in June, and this little jewel came from the gun-totin' Annie Oakley in her VP acceptance speech last week:
http://www.cnn.com/...
Al Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he's worried that someone won't read them their rights.
And tomorrow many North Carolinians will join the millions of others in contested states to receive a free DVD documentary reminding us just how insane and dangerous radical Islamic terrorists are.
One of the main narrators in this film is Daniel Pipes, a pro-Israel extremist that created the Big Brother-ish Campus Watch:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Pipes' think tank the Middle East Forum established a website in 2002 called Campus Watch, which identified what it saw as five problems in the teaching of Middle Eastern studies at American universities: "analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students." According to the New York Times, Campus Watch is the project for which Pipes is "perhaps best known."[3]
Through Campus Watch, Pipes encouraged students and faculty to submit information on "Middle East-related scholarship, lectures, classes, demonstrations, and other activities relevant to Campus Watch".[9] The project was accused of "McCarthyesque intimidation" of professors who criticized Israel when it published "dossiers" on eight professors it thought "hostile" to America. In protest, more than 100 academics demanded to be added to what some called a "blacklist". In October 2002 Campus Watch removed the dossiers from their website
What do Daniel Pipes, Randy Scheunemann and James Woolsey have in common? That's right, they're all three PNAC signatories. And so are the following individuals who were listed as McCain advisors last October:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Richard Lee Armitage, President George W. Bush’s deputy secretary of state and an international business consultant and lobbyist, informal foreign policy adviser
Robert Kagan; senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington Post columnist and former speechwriter for then-secretary of state George P. Shultz; informal foreign policy adviser
William Kristol, The Weekly Standard editor, informal foreign policy adviser
Gary Schmitt, former staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee and now an American Enterprise Institute scholar, foreign policy adviser
And in charge of tasteless campaign propaganda, including the McCain Report Blog from the official campaign website, is McCain's Deputy Director of Communications, a chap by the name of Michael Goldfarb. He's the guy that accused all us Democrats of being Dungeons & Dragons freaks. He's also a former research associate on the Project Staff for PNAC.
http://www.johnmccain.com/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
McCain is literally dripping with former PNAC staff and signatories, just like George W. Bush was. But the one guy I'm (currently) the most worried about is Randy Scheunemann.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
If you've been paying attention to the news, you'll know that Scheunemann is McCain's top foreign policy advisor, and you've also probably heard about this:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmem...
Last year, Scheunemann's firm, Orion Strategies, signed a $200,000 lobbying contract with Georgia on the same day McCain spoke on the phone with the country's president and issued a public statement in support of the government.
But what you may not be aware of is that Scheunemann was one of the five Project Directors for PNAC, and was instrumental in the push to convince Bush to invade Iraq. The fact that you (probably) didn't know this is alarming, and one of the main reasons for this diary. And I'm not the only one who is concerned:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmem...
Over the weekend, The New York Times noted that some of John McCain's foreign policy advisers from the "realist" camp are uneasy with the amount of influence enjoyed by neoconservatives like Randy Scheunemann, who's been serving as McCain's chief foreign policy aide and spokesman.
But it isn't only his internal rivals who have reason to worry about Scheunemann. Not only does he have McCain's ear, he also has a track record of being consistently wrong on the major foreign policy question of the day -- Iraq. Of all the hawkish Washington foreign-policy types pushing both before and after 9/11 for war with Iraq -- a war that an overwhelming majority of Americans now considers a mistake -- Scheunemann, though not a marquee name, was among the most energetic and influential. And in the invasion's aftermath, he consistently opposed steps that might have helped stabilize the country.
And yet, the political press has largely given McCain a pass on the fact that his top foreign policy adviser was at the center of perhaps the biggest strategic folly in our history.
Does anybody remember when I accurately predicted that Robert Zoellick would replace Paul Wolfowitz (both PNAC signatories) as the President of the World Bank? That wasn't luck or clairvoyance on my part, it came from the knowledge that PNAC is still an entity with a purpose. Rumsfeld and Libby and Perle might have fell by the wayside, but the beat goes on.
I realize this diary is a little wordy, link-laden and quote-ridden, but I'm afraid we're being distracted at the worst possible time. And James is right about not spending too much time grousing about Palin. She's a distraction, and probably an intentional one. For that matter, McCain is a damned distraction. The real danger lies in the influence PNAC is still able to wield, and it's entirely possible that Scheunemann could end up as Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, or some other position where he can jeopardize our national security and standing in the world.
So: tomorrow, when some of you conservatives or undecideds are getting ready to watch your free DVD about those bloodthirsty Islamofascists, please try to understand that you are being manipulated. You're not afraid enough or angry enough to make the wrong decision, and they're trying to remedy that.
Crossposted from those crazy liberals at
http://bluenc.com/