New neocon group gets egg on face
It was clearly meant to be an impressive launch... Tuesday, Senators Joe Lieberman and Jon Kyl had an op-ed in the WaPo where they announced the launch of the third incarnation of a high-level, militaristic lobbying group called the Committee on the Present Danger. Wednesday, the relaunched CPD took full-age ads in the WaPo and the NYT-- and maybe elsewhere, too?-- laying out their manifesto.
It terrifyingly identified the "present danger" facing the "American people" as coming from "radical Islamists" and "rogue regimes"... (Are you scared yet?)
Later Wednesday, however, the CPD's managing director, Peter Hannaford, had to step down after journo-blogger Laura Rozen had revealed that he once represented Austrian neo-Nazi Jorg Haidar in Washington. (See also this.)
Egg on face. Great. May the banana skin of history continue to lie just under the shoes of these dangerous people!
Great work, Laura.
We should note that CPD-2, the previous incarnation of this organization, was one of the main incubators of today's well-organized network of neo-cons. If you want a concise history of CPD-1 and CPD-2, this is one good place to start-- though the info there hasn't been updated since July 1989.
Of course, shortly after July 1989 the Soviet Union, which had been the focus of CPD-1 and CPD-2's agitation, collapsed completely. Many of the CPD-2 people, who were well embedded in the two Reagan administrations, and fairly well represented in the Bush-1 administration, subsequently claimed credit for that.
But hey, we can't have a militarized republic, and the taxpayers agreeing to divert huge proportions of public monies from essential social needs at home to the maintenance of a massive military abroad, without having another "present danger", can we?
Reading through the list of people--in addition to Hannaford!-- who are on CPD-3 is an interesting, if faintly depressing, exercise...
There are the totally wacko Laurie Mylroie and Danielle Pletka, along with older-generation members of the neo-'con' network like Ken Adelman, Max Kampelman, etc. Sad to see Steve Solarz and Dov Zakheim on the list. I'd have expected more intelligence from those two. Oh well, that's how it goes.
One question: what would Joe Lieberman have been like as Vice-President, huh? Interesting thought.
Anyway, though he and Sen. Kyl are described on that list as "Honorary Co-Chairmen" of CPD-3, only one person is listed as (actual) "Co-Chairman", and that is Jim Woolsey, the increasingly kookie guy who from '93 through '95 was Clinton's Director of the CIA.
Woolsey has been a long-time member of the board of a dedicatedly rightwing and pro-Likud outfit called the Jewish Institute for Natinal Security Affairs. JINSA used to have a fairly small board--seemingly, of trustees--on which Woolsey was the only goy. Now, he's listed a member of their much larger Board of Advisors. Interesting to see the overlap between the folks listed on the pulldown menu there, and those on CPD-3...
Since I'm writing about JINSA, I can't resist just urging you to go to their web-page About JINSA where you will see the following amazing juxtaposition of text and image:
- JINSA has a Two-Fold Mandate:
...
2. To inform the American defense and foreign affairs community about the important role Israel can and does play in bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
the name is Haider, not Haidar and he's certainly no a nazi. If you know better you should tell your readers why.
Helena, thanks to all the watchdogs and watchblogs, our republic and our constitution have a better chance of surviving.
Your work and the work of people like Laura Rozen is much appreciated!
I'm glad I found your blog. Been enjoying your writing for about a month now. Thanks.
Looks to me like JINSA and the Bush administration has the same goal:
deliver democracy via bullets and bombs.
I cannot think of a single incidence where this actually worked. Oh, I know, people will cite Japan and Germany...... but those people started the fight, were pounded into the ground, and the resulting occupation has legitimacy in the world's eyes. None of which is true in the middle east.
Seems like JINSA is just a front for promotion of the US military-industrial complex. Some would propose that it exists to promote Israel's interests, but I don't think what they are promoting is in Israel's interest, unless constant conflict and resulting death is good for Israel. How come they have tax exempt status?
Hi Helena,
Thank you for posting about the Committee of Present Danger. I read their call in the Washington Post last week and was scandalized. I can't understand that some in the US want to go back to the McCarthyism. I can't believe it is a bipartisan initiative, undersigned by Joe Lieberman. I don't understand America anymore. I have the feeling that we in the EU don't share the same values anymore.
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