Tag: William Kristol

Obama And Neocons Agree?

PNAC attempts to resurrect themselves?

Neo-Con Ideologues Launch New Foreign Policy Group

By Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe

IPS Inter Press Service, 2009

WASHINGTON, Mar 25 (IPS) – A newly-formed and still obscure neo-conservative foreign policy organisation is giving some observers flashbacks to the 1990s, when its predecessor staked out the aggressively unilateralist foreign policy that came to fruition under the George W. Bush administration.

The blandly-named Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) – the brainchild of Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, neo-conservative foreign policy guru Robert Kagan, and former Bush administration official Dan Senor – has thus far kept a low profile; its only activity to this point has been to sponsor a conference pushing for a U.S. “surge” in Afghanistan.

Read the rest here…

It appears Mr. Obama is happy to accomodate them, with fearmongering rhetoric indistinguishable from Bush’s.

Obama sets Qaeda defeat as top goal in Afghanistan

Reuters, Fri Mar 27, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama unveiled a new war strategy for Afghanistan on Friday with a key goal — to crush al Qaeda militants there and in Pakistan who he said were plotting new attacks on the United States.

“The situation is increasingly perilous,” Obama said in a somber speech in which he sought to explain to Americans why he was boosting U.S. involvement in the seven-year-old war and expanding its focus to include Pakistan.

The new strategy comes with violence in Afghanistan at its highest level since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001 for sheltering al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11 attacks on the United States. The militia has escalated its attacks, often operating from safe havens in border regions of Pakistan.

“The world cannot afford the price that will come due if Afghanistan slides back into chaos or al Qaeda operates unchecked,” Obama said, stressing that stabilizing Afghanistan required an international effort, not just an American one.

The Afghan Plan, “Mr. Obama’s War”

by Kimberly Dozier, CBS News, March 30, 2009

As I write this, it’s been about 72 hours since President Obama official announced his new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy.

The only thing everyone seems to agree on is that this is now “Mr. Obama’s war.”

He says it’s “America’s war,” but we in the media have anointed it otherwise. He owns it.

The Gray Lady

The NYT’s latest Kristol embarrassment

by Glenn Greenwald, Salon

Monday May 19, 2008 12:47 EDT

The NYT should be very proud of itself. Of course, Kristol was hired at the NYT because his dad, Irv, was really good friends with former NYT Executive Editor Abe Rosenthal, whose son, Andy, currently runs the NYT Op-Ed page. Andy and Bill followed in their dad’s footsteps by becoming good friends (and in every other sense), and Andy then hired his friend, Bill (son of his dad’s friend), as the new NYT Op-Ed writer. So this is typically what one gets — and deserves — when driven by nepotistic impulse.

Rosenthal actually claimed when he hired Kristol that he did so to achieve “balance” and to create diversity on the Op-Ed page. Indeed. Last Monday, Kristol’s column compared Americans who don’t want to fight for Israel to Neville Chamberlain appeasers. Then, on Wednesday, Tom Friedman declared a “cold war” whereby Israel and the U.S. fight together (along with Sunni Arab dictators) against Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. Then, on Friday, David Brooks declared Obama suspect when it comes to hating Hezbollah enough, writing that Obama’s statements bear “the whiff of what President Bush described yesterday as appeasement” and that “if Obama believes all this, he’s not just a Jimmy Carter-style liberal. He’s off in Noam Chomskyland.” Obama then had to call Brooks, demonstrate his commitment to hating Hezbollah, and was cleared by Brooks (for now) of the charge of insufficient devotion to fighting Israel’s enemies.