THE WISDOM FUND: News & Views
March 15, 2017
Consortiumnews.com

The Kagans Are Back; Wars to Follow

Putin's interference in thwarting the neocons' dream of a Syrian 'regime change' war moved Putin to the top of their enemies' list

by Robert Parry

The Kagan family, America's neoconservative aristocracy, has reemerged having recovered from the letdown over not gaining its expected influence from the election of Hillary Clinton and from its loss of official power at the start of the Trump presidency. . . .

Neoconservative pundit Robert Kagan and his wife, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, run a remarkable family business: she has sparked a hot war in Ukraine and helped launch Cold War II with Russia and he steps in to demand that Congress jack up military spending so America can meet these new security threats.

This extraordinary husband-and-wife duo makes quite a one-two punch for the Military-Industrial Complex, an inside-outside team that creates the need for more military spending, applies political pressure to ensure higher appropriations, and watches as thankful weapons manufacturers lavish grants on like-minded hawkish Washington think tanks.

Not only does the broader community of neoconservatives stand to benefit but so do other members of the Kagan clan, including Robert's brother Frederick at the American Enterprise Institute and his wife Kimberly, who runs her own shop called the Institute for the Study of War. . . .

The neocons were tossed a lifeline by Democrats and liberals who detested Trump so much that they were happy to pick up Nuland's fallen banner of the New Cold War with Russia. As part of a dubious scheme to drive Trump from office, Democrats and liberals hyped evidence-free allegations that Russia had colluded with Trump's team to rig the U.S. election. . . .

Family Kagan has charted the course of action -- batter Republicans into joining the all-out Russia-bashing and then persuade a softened Trump to launch a full-scale invasion of Syria. . . .

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Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. He is the author of America's Stolen Narrative and the editor of Consortium News.

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[Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan have a great mom-and-pop business going. From the State Department, she generates wars and from op-ed pages he demands Congress buy more weapons. There's a pay-off, too, as grateful military contractors kick in money to think tanks where other Kagans work--Robert Parry, "A Family Business of Perpetual War," consortiumnews.com, March 20, 2015]

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[Trump: "There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers. You think our country is so innocent?"--William Blum, "The United States and the Russian Devil: 1917-2017," CounterPunch, March 8, 2017]

[James Comey did confirm that his FBI has found nothing to support President Trump's tweet that President Obama ordered him wiretapped. . . .

Former Director of National Intelligence Gen. James Clapper has said that, as of his departure day, Jan. 20, he had seen no evidence of a Russia-Trump collusion.--Patrick J. Buchanan, "Will Russiagate Backfire on the Left?," antiwar.com, March 21, 2017]

[First, Trump seeks Moscow's cooperation on global issues; second, he believes that Washington shares the blame for soured relations; and third, he acknowledges "the right of all nations to put their own interests first," adding that the United States does "not seek to impose our way of life on anyone."--Robert David English, "Russia, Trump, and a New Detente," foreignaffairs.com, March 10, 2017]

[Steele, who had worked for Britain's MI-6 in Russia, said he tapped into ex-colleagues and unnamed sources inside Russia, including leadership figures in the Kremlin, to piece together a series of sensational reports that became the basis of the current congressional and FBI investigations into Trump's alleged ties to Moscow.--Robert Parry, "The Sleazy Origins of Russia-gate," foreignaffairs.com, March 29, 2017]

[The United States has provided Israel with $233.7 billion in adjusted for inflation aid between 1948 through the end of 2012--Philip Giraldi, "The True Cost of Israel," consortiumnews.com, April 12, 2017]

[the open secret of Israeli influence is studiously ignored, even as presidential candidates prostrate themselves before the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. . . .

Congress is no different. It has given Israel's controversial Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a record-tying three invitations to address joint sessions of Congress--Robert Parry, "Why Not a Probe of 'Israel-gate'?," consortiumnews.com, April 20, 2017]

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[The New York Times has finally admitted that one of the favorite Russia-gate canards - that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies concurred on the assessment of Russian hacking of Democratic emails - is false.--Robert Parry, "NYT Finally Retracts Russia-gate Canard," consortiumnews.com, June 29, 2017]

[If America stumbles into a war with Russia that all our Cold War presidents avoided, the Russia baiters and Putin haters will be put in same circle of hell by history as the idiot war hawks of 1914 and the three blind men of Versailles in 1919.--Patrick J. Buchanan, "Russia Baiters and Putin Haters," antiwar.com, July 14, 2017]

[Calling itself the Alliance for Securing Democracy, the group describes itself as "a bipartisan, transatlantic initiative" that "will develop comprehensive strategies to defend against, deter, and raise the costs on Russian and other state actors' efforts to undermine democracy and democratic institutions," and also "will work to publicly document and expose Vladimir Putin's ongoing efforts to subvert democracy in the United States and Europe."--Glenn Greenwald, "With New D.C. Policy Group, Dems Continue to Rehabilitate and Unify With Bush-Era Neocons," theintercept.com, July 17, 2017]

[The MEK is a weird political cult built around a husband and wife team of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. It has been guilty of numerous terrorist acts and was on the U.S. government's formal list of terrorist organizations until February 2012.--Ted Galen Carpenter, "This Group Hopes to Push America Toward Regime Change in Iran," nationalinterest.org, July 17, 2017]

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[Alliance for Securing Democracy as the source of the allegations about the NFL protests. According to the Times, the ASD has tracked 600 Twitter accounts supposedly "linked to Russian influence operations" and exposed their nefarious agenda. . . .

the ASD recruited the most recognizable face of neoconservatism in Washington, Bill Kristol. --Max Blumenthal, "McCarthyism Inc: Introducing the Counter-Terror 'Experts' Hyping Russian Threats and Undermining Our Civil Liberties," consortiumnews.com, November 10, 2017]

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AUDIO:Ray McGovern, "Russia and U.S. Senators Want Disarmament, U.S. Media Does Not," consortiumnews.com, April 25, 2018

[There is no historical example of an imperial power renouncing its interests in compliance with a paper agreement. It only abides with agreements when it has no other options.--James Petras, "Imperial Road to Conquest: Peace and Disarmament Agreements," informationclearinghouse.info, April 30, 2018]

[The Las Vegas billionaire gave Republicans $82m for the 2016 elections and his views, notably staunch support for Netanyahu's Israel, are now the official US line--Chris McGreal, "Sheldon Adelson: the casino mogul driving Trump's Middle East policy," theguardian.com, June 8, 2018]

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[Lewis not only mentored various neoconservatives, but he also elevated the status of Middle East natives that he approved of. For instance, he was behind the promotion of Fouad Ajami (he dedicated one of this books to him), just as he was behind introducing Ahmad Chalabi to the political elite in DC.--Asad AbuKhalil, "The Legacy and Fallacies of Bernard Lewis," consortiumnews.com, June 29, 2018]

[Clifford May, rebranded a small pro-Israel nonprofit called EMET . . . into FDD, which, according to its mission, "promotes informed debate about policies and positions that most effectively end the scourge of international terrorism."--James Carden, "This Think Tank is Pushing Regime Change in Iran -- and the White House is Listening," thenation.com, July 12, 2018]

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[Pundits like Max Boot and Bill Kristol got everything after 9/11 wrong but are still considered "experts."--Tucker Carlson, "Why Are These Professional War Peddlers Still Around?," theamericanconservative.com, February 15, 2019]

['The Special Counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election."--Stephen F Cohen, "The Real Costs of Russiagate," The Nation, March 27, 2019

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[To head the Iran Mission Center, the CIA appointed Michael D'Andrea. D'Andrea was central to the post-9/11 interrogation program, and he ran the CIA's Counterterrorism Center.--Vijay Prashad, "Have You Heard Of The CIA's Iran Mission Center?," russia-insider.com, June 29, 2019]

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[Feb. 7-10, 1990: Secretary of State James Baker negotiates a quid pro quo; Soviet acceptance of the bitter pill of a reunited Germany (inside NATO), in return for an oral U.S. promise not to enlarge NATO "one inch more" to the East.
Dec. 1991: the USSR falls apart. Suddenly it does matter that Khrushchev gave Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR; Moscow and Kyiv work out long-term arrangements for the Soviet navy to use the naval base at Sevastopol.--Ray McGovern, "Ukraine For Dummies," consortiumnews.com, November 14, 2019]

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[The leadership of the Democrats in hopes of flipping the White House to their party control have partnered with the CIA and the likes of its former director John Brennan (2013-2017), who introduced the Russia "hacking" story to the MSM in 2016. . . .
What the hawkish Clinton could not achieve, the less strident imperialist Joe Biden hopes to carry on. . . .
In 2004, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) teamed up with the State Department, USAID, Freedom House, George Soros's Open Society Institute, Britain's Westminster Institute, the political consultant Dick Morris, and other government groups, including the CIA, to block Viktor Yanukovych from taking office as president following an election in 2004, which the US and domestic enemies of Yanukovych branded as rigged. That year alone, according to the State Department, the US spent about $34 million on regime change initiatives in Ukraine, while Soros pitched in about $1.6 million in support of a local "Freedom of Choice" NGO coalition and Ukraine's "New Choice 2004."--Gerald Sussman, "Biden's Ukrainegate Problem," counterpunch.org, August 10, 2020]

Paul Brian and Arthur Bloom, "Another Opinion Columnist Pushing War With Iran Who Doesn't Actually Exist," theamericanconservative.com, September 2, 2020

[The Biden administration is packed with the same neocons who championed the U.S. wars of choice in Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Syria (2011), Libya (2011), and who did so much to provoke Russia's invasion of Ukraine.--Jeffrey D. Sachs, " Ukraine Is the Latest Neocon Disaster," theamericanconservative.com, July 1, 2022]

The Editorial Board, "Why the Durham Report Matters to Democracy: It is a damning account of the corruption of the FBI and its accomplices," wsj.com, May 16, 2023

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