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Title: Bill Kristol Calls For Americans to be ‘Awakened and Rallied’ to War
Source:
AntiWar.com
URL Source: http://antiwar.com/blog/2014/03/17/ ... e-awakened-and-rallied-to-war/
Published: Mar 17, 2014
Author: John Glaser
Post Date: 2014-03-18 18:17:32 by X-15
Keywords: None
Views: 715
Comments: 24
Bill Kristol is not shy about his fetish for war. His latest piece at the neoconservative Weekly Standard borders on self-parody in the way that it openly longs for a return to a time when Americans were eager to send the U.S. military off on unnecessary, imperialistic adventures. Kristol is frustrated by the “war-weariness” of the nation. He laments the reluctance on the part of the Republican Party to “challenge” “the idol of war-weariness.” “A war-weary public can be awakened and rallied,” Kristol cheers. “Indeed, events are right now doing the awakening. All that’s needed is the rallying. And the turnaround can be fast.” People like Kristol are so blinded by ideology that they breach the etiquette which calls on elite commentators to camouflage their enthusiasm for war with superficial appeals to peace. He loves death and destruction and wars of choice and he doesn’t care who knows it! He is way out of the closet. That he can explicitly call for Americans to be “awakened and rallied” for new wars and not be embarrassed by the Hitler-esque tone of such despicable cravings is an indication of how lacking in self-awareness he is. His foreign policy beliefs are the kind that are not susceptible to reasoning or disconfirming evidence. His worship for the warfare state is religious in its persuasion. Kristol condemns using war-weariness “as an excuse to avoid maintaining our defenses or shouldering our responsibilities.” In other words, the fact that Kristol’s preferred policies were implemented throughout the Bush administration and it led to war crimes, hundreds of thousands killed, trillions of dollars wasted, region-wide instability in the Middle East, and clear geo-political losses for the United States shouldn’t deter us from continuing to spend more than the rest of the world combined on our military or from “shouldering our responsibilities” of ruling the world through force and war. To Kristol, war-weariness is a kind of ailment that Americans need to be cured of. He calls for war-weary Americans to be rallied to some unspecified military crusade just around the corner. Iran, Russia, China…anything will do, I suppose. I’m reminded of what Noam Chomsky wrote in his book Media Control about this ailment, or “malady” of being averse to extreme violence and war. “The Reaganite intellectual Norman Podhoretz defined it as ‘the sickly inhibitions against the use of military force,’” Chomsky writes. “There were these sickly inhibitions against violence on the part of a large part of the public. People just didn’t understand why we should go around torturing people and killing people and carpet bombing them.” “It’s very dangerous for a population to be overcome by these sickly inhibitions, as Goebbels understood, because then there’s a limit on foreign adventures,” he explains. “It’s necessary, as the Washington Post put it rather proudly during the [first] Gulf War hysteria, to instill in people a respect for ‘martial value.’ That’s important. If you want to have a violent society that uses force around the world to achieve the ends of its own domestic elite, it’s necessary to have a proper appreciation of the martial values and none of these sickly inhibitions about using violence.” That’s the real threat of our resistance to extreme violence. Anything that puts a limit on foreign adventures is like kryptonite to Kristol and his ilk.
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#1. To: X-15 (#0)
Can we parachute old liver lips straight into Tehran with a slingshot and a box of Depends?
corruptissima re publica plurimae leges - Tacitus
He'd piss on his sack of shekels where his balls should be if he got within 100 miles of Iran.
#2. To: Dakmar (#1)
-Alex Kurtagic
#3. To: X-15 (#2)
Holy Cow that would be fun to watch!
corruptissima re publica plurimae leges - Tacitus
#4. To: X-15 (#0)
If he were on my gill string i would throw it all in the prop.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams 
#5. To: Dakmar, Rotara, *The hook-nosed Jew* (#3)
-Alex Kurtagic
#6. To: X-15 (#0)
The way to stop warmongering by crazy Jews is to mandate conscription and active front-line duty by anyone trying to instigate wars of aggression.
#7. To: X-15 (#0) (Edited)
That SOB never served a day in the military. Why didn't he get his ass to Vietnam and fight?! I don't think it is too late, get him in basic training and get his ass to Afghanistan pronto!
God is always good!
#8. To: RickyJ (#7)
It drives these people insane to know that their propaganda is no longer working as it once did. Their lies have caught up with them over the years. They are fully aware that at this time only another 9/11 style attack will do it and that is scary considering how fanatical and diabolical these people are. You can not put anything past them. Gentile neocons need to be stripped of any power and authority they have and some need to be tried for treason. The jewish neocons need to be immediately deported. I am extremely tired of both varieties, the Kristols and the McCains. They serve no good purpose whatsoever for this country. It is amusing watching one of them chimp every other day or so over Syria, Russia, Iran, etc. If you look at the comment section after one of their chimpouts, you will see that probably 90% of the comments are from people who are also tired of them and think they are insane.
-Alex Kurtagic
#9. To: X-15 (#0)
Good article. Too bad it doesn't mention the "weariness" of the combat veterans - and their sad fate.
#10. To: SKYDRIFTER, war weary gentiles (#9)
-Alex Kurtagic
#11. To: All (#10)
This Just In From Our Sociopath Bureau Can Republicans do no better than shamefully to emulate Somerset and Obama ("I assure you nobody ends up being more war-weary than me")? Will no brave leader step forward to honorably awaken us from our unworthy sleep? Blow me, you monstrous, bloodthirsty fraud, you silly, stupid chickenhawk motherfker who plays army man with the children of people who are so much better than you are, and who would feed innocent civilians in lands you will never visit into your own personal meatgrinder to service your semi-annual martial erection. You and the rest of your cowardly cohort helped prepare the ground for the worst geopolitical mistake the country has made in 30 years. You fought the battle of the Green Rooms and the think tanks while other people's sons and daughters died for your fantasy of how the world would work if you really were the pimply, adolescent Zeus you see when you look in the mirror every morning. The country does not need you lectures any more. The country does not need your counsel. The country does not need your advice. And, as sure as human beings have become dead because of your lectures, and counsel, and advice, human beings about whom you otherwise care nothing, the country does not need your hectoring that it has become insufficiently bellicose to fulfill your newest, blood-drenched fantasies. Even here, even now, you hide behind the skirts of a woman from Indiana who, while I believe her to be wrong, seems to be genuine in her beliefs. You are unworthy of her intellectual camouflage. You should be driven from polite society, consigned to an ideological Molokai so you can no longer infect the rest of us. People should shun you. You should wear the bell for the rest of your miserable days. http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/bill-kristol-war-weariness-031814? src=spr_TWITTER&spr_id=1456_49317767 
-Alex Kurtagic
#12. To: X-15 (#11)
Outstanding volley from Fannin - thank you, the civilized world.
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
#13. To: X-15 (#8)
Seems D.C. hasn't got the message though. It drives these people insane to know that their propaganda is no longer working as it once did.
"Resolve to serve no more,” he says, “and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.”
Étienne de La Boétie
#14. To: All (#0)
Condi Rice lectures on war ‘weariness’ Condoleezza Rice has somehow cultivated a reputation as being one of the more sensible voices from George W. Bush’s team. While it’s easy to roll one’s eyes and ignore assorted tirades from the likes of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, Rice is often perceived as less partisan and more cerebral; less of a hack and more of an academic. It’s well past time for a reevaluation of this reputation. Just one week after Bill Kristol decided he had the credibility needed to lecture America’s “war weary” public, Rice agreed to do the same. Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice says that American leaders need to resist the temptation to become weary of war, according to a report of her remarks at a fundraiser. “I fully understand the sense of weariness,” she told a GOP fundraiser Wednesday, according to reports. “I fully understand that we must think: ‘Us, again?’ I know that we’ve been through two wars. I know that we’ve been vigilant against terrorism. I know that it’s hard. But leaders can’t afford to get tired. Leaders can’t afford to be weary.” Based on reports, Rice didn’t specify exactly which military confrontation – or confrontations – she’d like the United States to prepare for, though she apparently complained about U.S. policy towards Syria and Russia. On a substantive level, Rice’s complaints ring hollow. For all of her handwringing about that rascally Obama administration withdrawing from the role of global leadership, there’s ample evidence to the contrary. It President Obama and his team who’ve helped isolate Russia in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis; it was Obama and his team that helped change regimes in Libya; it’s Obama and his team that’s disarming Syria of its chemical weapons; it’s Obama and his team that’s had far more success against al Qaeda than the previous administration. For that matter, we’ve also seen this administration tackle foreign-policy issues – climate change, human rights – that have nothing to military force. For Rice, a president who ends two disastrous wars is somehow necessarily responsible for creating a leadership vacuum on the global stage. That’s both foolish and backwards. But even putting this aside, why in the world is Condi Rice giving lectures on this subject in the first place? I’ve long marveled at the misplaced affection Rice tends to receive from the Beltway, but hearing one of the officials responsible for the invasion of Iraq complain about American war “weariness” is especially tough to stomach. Credibility and accountability should still matter, at least a little. And when it comes to Rice’s recent past, the ignominious record is evident to anyone who looks. She was, for example, a rather dreadful National Security Advisor, where she had a nasty habit of saying things in public that weren’t true and politicizing her office – during two wars – in ways no one has ever seen. After failing at the job, Rice was given a promotion to Secretary of State – becoming the nation’s top diplomat – despite not having any background in diplomacy, where she helped oversee the foreign policy of an administration burdened by a series of international debacles. She then transitioned to a “surprisingly partisan” role for a failed presidential candidate. “Leaders can’t afford to be weary”? Fine. But is it all right for the rest of us be weary of Condoleezza Rice?
-Alex Kurtagic
#15. To: X-15 (#14)
Condi needs to stop continually checking to see if Kristol has any foreskin left.
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
#16. To: X-15 (#14)
Washington speaks out of both sides of its one mouth, left and right, but remember it all comes from the same source. It keeps the rubes happy with the good guy, bad guy type of affair. Vote and you legitimize this corrupt, criminal government.
#17. To: X-15 (#14)
For that matter, we’ve also seen this administration tackle foreign-policy issues – climate change, human rights – that have nothing to military force. Buzz Killer. On a substantive level, Rice’s complaints ring hollow. For all of her handwringing about that rascally Obama administration withdrawing from the role of global leadership, there’s ample evidence to the contrary. It President Obama and his team who’ve helped isolate Russia in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis; it was Obama and his team that helped change regimes in Libya; it’s Obama and his team that’s disarming Syria of its chemical weapons; it’s Obama and his team that’s had far more success against al Qaeda than the previous administration.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
#18. To: X-15 (#14)
She then transitioned to a “surprisingly partisan” role for a failed presidential candidate. “Leaders can’t afford to be weary”? Fine. But is it all right for the rest of us be weary of Condoleezza Rice? Careful there X, Condoleezma will smash your ass to smithereens. After failing at the job, Rice was given a promotion to Secretary of State – becoming the nation’s top diplomat – despite not having any background in diplomacy, where she helped oversee the foreign policy of an administration burdened by a series of international debacles.
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
Paul Craig Roberts
#19. To: James Deffenbach (#18)
She might get caught in Obummers trap.
#20. To: Itistoolate (#19)
She might at that but I strongly suspect she probably voted for Obama, just like Colon Powell.
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
Paul Craig Roberts
#21. To: X-15 (#8)
Kristol has a son. Did he join the military - I mean, the US one not the IDF - to make war? McCain has a daughter who looks big enough to wage war. She could dress in military fatigues ( they make a size XXL jumpsuits, don't they?). Did she join the US military? I am extremely tired of both varieties, the Kristols and the McCains.
#22. To: scrapper2 (#21)
Skunks like Kristol need to be "awakened" with an axe handle. By Faiz Shakir on April 26, 2007 at 6:41 pm During a C-SPAN appearance this morning, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol was confronted by a military wife living in Ft. Hood, TX, who called in to criticize him for “pushing the war.” The woman explained the incredible stress of having her husband deployed in Iraq: I’m sure when your head hits the pillow you have a luxury of dreaming about anything that your mind will allow you to dream about… I sleep with the phone under the pillow. My kids — if someone rings the doorbell, instead of normal kids they freeze. And they’re in elementary school. You all don’t understand. We are military people but we are people, too. And the stress that we are under is tremendous. While she spoke, Kristol appeared uncomfortable, looking downward and scratching markings into a piece of paper. The caller also told Kristol that he was a “liar” for claiming that it’s “mostly the insurgents attacking us,” versus members of the Iraqi population. “They don’t want us there,” she said. “I understand you truly believe what you’re saying but it’s not working. We can’t want it for them more than they want it for themselves.” Watch it: [flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/04/kristolmilwife.320.240.flv] Kristol offered little in response, using the caller’s criticism of the stress she’s under to advocate for a larger Army. He concluded, “The strains on family life are obviously very real…and I hope we do more to deal with that.” Digg It! Transcript: HOST: You are on the air. CALLER: Yes, thank you. I do listen to the discussion. I’m a military wife. My husband on the third tour to Iraq. I just want to if I could look Mr. Kristol and people like him from the American Enterprise Institute and the people pushing the war, I’m sure when your head hits the pillow, you know, you have a luxury of dreaming about, you know, anything that your mind will allow you to dream about. I’m waiting — i sleep with the phone under the pillow. My kids — if someone rings the doorbell, instead of normal kids they freeze. And they’re in elementary school. You all don’t understand. We are military people but we are people, too. And the stress that we are under is tremendous. So I make a proposal before I have to leave the air. If this war is as important as you on the right and the hawks say it is, and if it is truly essential to our vital interest to do this, then institute the draft so we can have a break. We are at the breaking point. I just had to counsel a friend last night who has had a solid marriage for 14 years because their marriage is falling apart because they’re military and haven’t lived under the same roof together in five years. We’re people. We can’t keep up the stress level. Our children can’t keep up the stress level. The spouses left behind can’t keep up the stress level and all you all keep saying, you just called my husband and all the troops a liar saying it is mostly the insurgents attacking us. Because when I do get the luxury of speaking to my husband, what I’m hearing is Iraqis let us through the gates, the security forces let us through and 30 minutes after we pass through, they’re laying down IEDs to blow us up if we come back through. They don’t want us there. I understand you truly believe what you’re saying but it’s not working. We can’t want it for them more than they want it for themselves. Please bring my husband home, the brave troops. We are tired. We’re really tired. KRISTOL: Well, look. the army some of us that argue — first of all, I respect the service of those who’ve been over there. I just had dinner last night with close friends whose son just came back from Iraq and it is tough duty and now we’re on second and third tours. some of us argued for a long time before 9/11 and very much after 9/11 that the army and marines were too small for the world we are living in. the foreign policy obligations we are likely to have to impose for the all-volunteer military and finally we are increasing the size of the army and the marines and paying a price for that in terms of longer tours and people going back a second and third times and the strains on family life are obviously very real and obviously it’s a tough job over there. so i hope we do more to deal with that. War Hawk Kristol Confronted By Military Wife: ‘You All Don’t Understand…We Are People Too’
Know guns, know safety, know liberty. No guns, no safety, no liberty.
#23. To: randge (#22)
There it is, right there. That jackass has his fucking nerve daring to speak for the State Department. the foreign policy obligations we are likely to have to impose for the all-volunteer military
-Alex Kurtagic
#24. To: X-15 (#11)
Since he and his ilk so much like to play army man with other people's children, I think they might also like to find themselves "playing" International Military Tribunal for real as the Defendants: Crime against peace - Wikipedia In 1945, the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal defined three categories of crimes, including crimes against peace. This definition was first used in Finland to prosecute the political leadership in the War- responsibility trials in Finland. The principles were later known as the Nuremberg Principles. In 1950, the Nuremberg Tribunal defined Crimes against Peace (in Principle VI.a, submitted to the United Nations General Assembly) as (i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
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"They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
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