Tag Archives: #BillKristol

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Yet another war in which Bill Kristol wants the US involved

I was at the tire shop early this afternoon — the left steering tire on my 2010 Ford F-150 broke a belt and the tire got out-of-round — and tweeted from my phone, at 1:10 PM EST:

I saw a news blurb while at the tire store, in which former and future President Trump said that we should stay out of the mess in Syria, so I wonder how soon the warmongers like @BillKristol and @AmbJohnBolton will want to get involved there.

Well, it didn’t take long!

At least as of this writing, Mr Bolton hasn’t tweeted anything, but Bill Kristol, who turned 18 in 1970 and thus could have enlisted and served in Vietnam — he had a high draft lottery number, and wasn’t conscripted — has, and the man who wants to see the US involved in every war on earth is pushing again.

There are no good guys in Syria. Bashir al-Assad is a murderous thug, while the recently advancing rebel forces are Islamist in nature and a former offshoot of al Qaeda. The Turks are in the north, trying to seize land and attacking the Kurds. Whichever side wins is a loss for Western civilization. President Assad has, reportedly, made overtures to the United States and Israel to help him, in exchange for promises to end Iranian involvement with his government and expel Hezbollah fighters, but if those reports are true, no one could take Mr Assad at his word anyway.

Mr Kristol knows all of that, but he still wants the US involved. In this case, incoming President Trump is right: we should stay out of it!

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Bill Kristol and the Neocons sure love them some war Mr Kristol never served, but he's very willing to get other people's kids killed!

See Robert Stacy McCain: A Self-Inflicted Disaster as Republi-cans Vote to Boot Kevin McCarthy as Speaker

With the comedy show playing out in the House of Representatives over Kevin McCarthy being booted out of the Speaker’s chair, the warmongers are calling on the Representatives who support Ukraine to refuse to support anyone for Speaker who does not promise to hold a vote to continue funding Ukraine in the war there.

According to the neocons like Bill Kristol[1]Mr Kristol, born into a well-to-do family, now with an estimated net worth of $10 million, was born on December 23, 1952, which had him turning 18 in late 1970. If he really believed that war was a … Continue reading and Matt Boot, if Russia wins in Ukraine, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will then send his troops into other countries, NATO countries, in further wars of conquest. After all, we didn’t stop Adolf Hitler at Munich, right, and after he took the Sudetenland, and the rest of Czechoslovakia, he sent the Wehrmacht rolling into Poland.

But this isn’t 1939, and the Russian army hasn’t rolled over Ukraine in three weeks, the way the Nazis did in their half of Poland.[2]The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact ‘gave’ the USSR the eastern half of Poland, which the Red Army took. It’s been over a year and a half since the Russians invaded, and the war has been a costly stalemate for Russia, which holds part of Ukraine, but if the Russians are not advancing and conquering the whole country, the Ukrainians have been unable to kick the Russians out. Ukraine is being devastated, industries damaged or destroyed, and people are being killed, but the war is simply not moving much.

This is where the neocons have gotten it all wrong. Even if Russia, in the end, finally wins and conquers Ukraine, its army has been seriously weakened, through the loss of men and machines. For a victorious Russia to then turn against one of the Baltic States, all of which are NATO member, would require many years, probably a decade of rebuilding, rearming, and re-equipping the Russian army. Simply put, Russia can’t turn against Estonia quickly.

There’s more. Adolf Hitler was just 50 years old when Germany invaded Poland; President Putin turns 71 in three days. If it takes Russia ten years to rebuild its army to invade another country, Vladimir Vladimirovich would be 81 years old by that time. Will Mr Putin still be in power at age 81? Will he even live to see that age?

There is some serious World War II thinking infecting the neocons, but it isn’t World War II we are facing or fighting. The potential, if we get as involved as Mr Kristol wants, is not World War II, but World War III.

References

References
↑1 Mr Kristol, born into a well-to-do family, now with an estimated net worth of $10 million, was born on December 23, 1952, which had him turning 18 in late 1970. If he really believed that war was a great idea, he was of age to have enlisted in the United States Army to help fight in Vietnam .  .  . but he didn’t. His draft lotter number was 171, so he was kind of on the cusp of being called up to serve, but in any event, never served a single day in uniform. Being Jewish, Mr Kristol could also have volunteered to serve in the Israeli Defence Force, which could have used his service in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, but he didn’t do that, either.
↑2 The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact ‘gave’ the USSR the eastern half of Poland, which the Red Army took.
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Neoconservatives want to fight for American-style freedom and democracy everywhere, but don’t seem to want Americans to have individual rights

If someone was asked to put names to a list of neoconservatives in the United States, Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, and Norman Podhoretz might come to mind. Irving Kristol was an editor and publisher who served as the managing editor of Commentary magazine, founded the now-defunct magazine The Public Interest, and was described by Jonah Goldberg as the “godfather of neoconservatism.” His son, William Kristol, founded the magazine The Weekly Standard, which quickly took hold to challenge National Review for primacy among conservative opinion journals.

The Weekly Standard failed because, as a fervent #NeverTrumper, Mr Kristol guided the journal into being all-Never Trump, all the time, while National Review, with plenty of Never Trumpers in its fold, still tried to allow pro-Trump articles in its pages and on its website. Mr Kristol (probably) realized that yes, Donald Trump was a factor in Republican politics, and yes, some conservatives really did like his views and his style, but The Weekly Standard was never going to tolerate the views of the riff-raff to pollute its pages and website!

We have already noted how neo-conservative Max Boot of The Washington Post wants to make vaccinations against COVID-19 mandatory. The Post’s other neocon, Jennifer Rubin, while I have not seen anything from her yet urging making vaccination mandatory, certainly wants to do everything that can be done to stifle opposing views. The Post also supports “vaccine passports.”

Now comes the younger Mr Kristol, who, like so many others, wants to force you to be vaccinated. Not trusting Mr Kristol not to delete that tweet, this is a screenshot of it, but the hyperlink will take you to the original. If it’s difficult to see, you can click on it to enlarge it.

Mr Kristol and the neoconservatives, frequently fairly liberal when it comes to domestic and social issues, very much wanted to spread the ideas of American-style freedom and democracy around the world. But I have to ask: when so many of them are now opposed to individual liberty and individual rights, just what does their commitment to American-style freedom and democracy mean? One of the most basic freedoms of all, the right to decide what you will put into your own body, is a freedom they would deny people who have decided differently than they have.

Full disclosure: I have been vaccinated myself, a choice I made freely, and I believe that others should take the same decision I did. While no vaccine is 100% without risk, the benefits of being vaccinated outweigh the risks. But I respect the right, and yes, “right” is precisely the word I mean to use, of other people to choose whether or not to take the vaccine. That’s a right that the neoconservatives don’t seem to want you to have.
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