"Warning that the world was growing numb to the worsening crisis in Syria and Iraq, in which at least 13.6 million people had been displaced from their homes, the United Nations appealed to western countries to open their borders and make good on donation pledges." (As 13.6m people displaced, UN appeals to West for help, Ruth Pollard, Sydney Morning Herald,13/11/14)
"In the course of the past year [2002-03], a new belief has emerged in [Washington]: the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force of history. They believe that the right political idea entails a fusion of morality and force, human rights and grit. The philosophical underpinnings of the Washington neoconservatives are the writings of Machiavelli, Hobbes and Edmund Burke. They also admire Winston Churchill and the policy pursued by Ronald Reagan. They tend to read reality in terms of the failure of the 1930s (Munich) versus the success of the 1980s (the fall of the Berlin Wall)." (White man's burden, Ari Shavit, Haaretz, 3/4/03)
"What characterizes neoconservatives is not only their ideology... but also their personal interconnectedness in terms of organizations, publications, schooling, and even blood. Of crucial importance... is how the neocons, over the years, identified closely with the interests of Israel, and how their Middle East agenda paralleled that of the Israeli Likudnik right. In fact, much of the neocon approach to the Middle East can be seen to have originated in Likudnik thinking. And the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon worked in tandem with the neocons in supporting both the war on Iraq and later militant policies toward Iran and Syria. The overarching goal of both the neocons and the Likudniks was to create an improved strategic environment for Israel... to weaken and fragment Israel's Middle East adversaries and concomitantly increase Israel's relative strength, both externally and internally." (The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, & the National Interest of Israel, Stephen J Sniegoski, 2008,pp 4-5)
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The 25 or 30 'Neoconservatives' share more in common than "a passionate attachment to a nation not their own" or even a desire to get their hands on the levers of power to reorient and radically transform American foreign policy.
Many of them operate from the same cosy bunker in Washington D.C.
"The 2003 invasion of Iraq arguably was conceived at The 'American' Enterprise Institute, the right-wing think tank that is the mecca [sic] of American neoconservatism. Its boxy building across from the National Geographic Society's headquarters in downtown Washington D.C. was the roost of a variety of prominent hawks...The same building also houses the Weekly Standard , the torchbearer publication of neoconservatism, and The Project for the New 'American' Century."
P.94 "The Gamble", Thomas E. Ricks
Same aggressive Likudnik horse, even operating out of the same stable, same fanatical faces, same old claims that they are acting for America's best interests when they are clearly [unregistered] agents in the service of a foreign power.
With such open displays of reckless extremism, which have crippled America and destroyed its already tarnished reputation, it is a surprise that they have the hide to actually call themselves conservative at all.
Now THAT IS chutzpah.
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