Tag: Center for a New American Security

Hawks seek revival with new group

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Hawks seek revival with new group

As senior director for Near East and North African affairs from 2002 to 2009, Abrams played a key role in encouraging the U.S. invasion of Iraq and urging other interventions in the region and supported an armed coup attempt against the democratically elected Hamas government in Gaza, touching off a brief civil war that left the Islamist group stronger than ever. His advocacy as special envoy for Venezuela and Iran of ever-stronger sanctions against the governments in those two countries succeeded only in strengthening hard-line forces in both nations and pushing much of their middle classes into poverty. Given that record, why Vandenberg’s backers would choose him as the group’s chairman and public face, is intriguing, to say the least.

Tanks and Think Tanks: How Taiwanese Cash is Funding the Push to War with China

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Twenty years ago, a group of neoconservative think tanks used their power to push for disastrous wars in the Middle East. Now, a new set of think tanks staffed with many of the same experts and funded by Taiwanese money is working hard to convince Americans that there is a new existential threat: China.

Tanks and Think Tanks: How Taiwanese Cash is Funding the Push to War with China

Water wars loom amid climate collapse & plans for unprecedented imperialist destruction

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Water wars loom amid climate collapse & plans for unprecedented imperialist destruction

While Harris clearly had a Freudian slip in that she rather flippantly revealed an unacknowledged truth about foreign policy — which is the fact that oil is the reason why America remains at war — it seems that from her perspective as a driver of imperialist machinations, this was a benign statement given our current situation. It appears to now be common sense among the imperialist technocrats that for capital to be preserved in the face of the climate crisis, wars are going to need to be waged for increasingly scarce resources like water, and that these wars will need to be tied into the near-future economic developments within the imperial center.

How Biden’s Foreign-Policy Team Got Rich

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

How Biden’s Foreign-Policy Team Got Rich

Tasked by Obama to end the Iraq War, Biden supported Nouri El-Maliki, the leader he knew, and rescued the Iraqi prime minister’s career even though it ended up fracturing the country. When Maliki narrowly lost in 2010, Biden didn’t give Iraqi political parties time to broker a new coalition. With Biden’s endorsement, Maliki gained a second term; he grew more authoritarian, which is now widely believed to have led to the rise of ISIS. Biden ignored experts who were skeptical of Maliki and preferred to glad-hand. “He came to deal with Iraqi politicians like local political kingpins in Delaware or Pennsylvania,” said Robert Ford, who was deputy ambassador in Baghdad from 2008 to 2010.

Biden’s “normalcy” means return of “ancien régime”

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

There has been a spate of reports in the American media that the US president-elect Joe Biden is assembling his cabinet of ministers. Most reports mention that Biden’s secretary of state will be Susan Rice, former US ambassador to the United Nations and National Security Advisor in the Barack Obama administration. Reportedly, Biden’s choice for US defence secretary is likely to be Michele Flournoy, who had previously served as a senior defence adviser in Bill Clinton and Barack Obama’s administrations.

Biden’s “normalcy” means return of “ancien régime”

What a Flournoy Pentagon Could Mean for the Air Force

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

What a Flournoy Pentagon Could Mean for the Air Force

While serving as under secretary of defense for policy under Gates, Flournoy was a key architect of the “surge” in Afghanistan and the proliferation of counter insurgency doctrine in that theater and Iraq. She has served as a close advisor to former Defense Secretary James N. Mattis, who reportedly considered her for a top position in the Pentagon. In August, she said there is no quick end to the war in Afghanistan. “It would be a mistake for the U.S. to precipitously draw down or withdraw, particularly to leave Afghanistan before that peace is solidified, because we basically would be pulling the carpet out from under our Afghan partners, Afghan women, Afghan civil society that we’ve fought so hard to help them,” she said.

Related:

How to Prevent a War in Asia

House Democrats Warn Biden Against Hiring SecDef With Arms Industry Ties

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

House Democrats Warn Biden Against Hiring SecDef With Arms Industry Ties

Related:

Progressive House Democrats urge Biden against Defense chief with contractor ties

“The transition from President Trump’s administration to yours promises to be the end of what you have called ‘the dark era,’ ” they added. “The legacy of Trump’s presidency will undoubtedly linger, but one way we can quickly distance the nation from the stain of his tenure is to immediately remove the profiteering ethos Donald Trump fostered throughout government.”