Neocons vs Neoliberal - is there any difference at all?

[Emit]

Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Neocons vs Neoliberal - is there any difference at all?

Neolibs and Neocons, United and Interchangeable
Philip Giraldi

When it comes to foreign policy, particularly as it relates to the Middle East, there is not a whole lot of separation between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Republicans tend to be more bellicose in their statements, but Democrats have more than made up for that with their steely resolve to take the fight to the enemy wherever he might be. Both Republicans and Democrats reflexively support Israel, and nearly all candidates are in agreement on a number of other areas, including an aggressive policy toward Iran.

This unanimity is not particularly surprising as there is little or no serious debate on foreign policy and many of the leading candidates' advisers are graduates of the same school of thought, i.e., that the United States must use its military power to impose certain standards on the rest of the world. Neoconservatives and neoliberals are really quite similar, so it doesn't matter who gets elected in 2008. The American public, weary of preemptive attacks, democracy-promotion, and nation-building, will still get war either way.

The key to understanding the direction that candidates will take is to examine their foreign policy advisers. ...

The two leading Democratic candidates for president are undeniably Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Hillary is regarded as by far the more conservative candidate in that she has carefully triangulated her potential supporters and is unwilling to say that her vote in the Senate in support of the Iraq war was a mistake. She has also positioned herself with the Israel lobby through her pledge to disarm Iran by whatever means necessary and her threat to use nuclear weapons on terrorists. Her foreign policy advisers are a who's who of neoliberal hawks, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who famously believed that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children due to sanctions was "worth it." Clinton is also being advised by Richard Holbrooke, who is reported to be close to Paul Wolfowitz. Holbrooke is a possible candidate for secretary of state if Clinton is elected president. Holbrooke has been a supporter of the Iraq war, and he was an architect of the 1999 bombing of Serbia. Strobe Talbott, who advised Bill Clinton and was also involved with the bombing of Serbia, is reported to be another Hillary adviser.

Barack Obama is somewhat more enigmatic, but his recent ill-advised pledge to attack Pakistan if Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf does not do something about the Taliban and al-Qaeda shows that he is working hard to catch up. Obama's key advisers who speak for him on foreign policy include Gregory Craig, Anthony Lake, and Samantha Power. Craig is a leading Washington lawyer who was a White House special counsel under Bill Clinton and defended the president in his impeachment trial. Lake was also a Bill Clinton adviser who was involved in the Bosnian conflict. Power is an Irish-born Harvard professor from the Kennedy School who is regarded as an expert on Third World issues. None of the three is considered to be particularly partisan on any foreign policy issues but genocide, which Power has written a book about, but Obama is also accelerating his efforts to woo Jewish donors and to improve his standing with AIPAC, which has been suspicious of him because of youthful indiscretions that included expressions of sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians. He recently appointed Eric Lynn to develop an aggressive program of outreach to the Jewish community on his record of support for Israel, which he claims is unwavering. Obama fully endorsed Israel's invasion of Lebanon last year, and he has also cited his more recent sponsorship of the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of May 2007, another irresponsible piece of legislation by Congress that will increase the suffering of the Iranian people while doing nothing to change the country's leadership. He has pledged that Iran will not be allowed to threaten Israel through its nuclear program, but he is vague on exactly what he would do to stop it.

~snip~

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2007/08/neocons-vs-neoliberal-is-there-any.html

[griffi94]

1. this can't be right

obama is for hope and change....and this looks like ssdd

[Emit]

4. Talking about hope and change and employing

foreign policy advisors who've been around almost 50 years... Regardless of who we support, we should all be aware of the limitations of our candidates' promises:


During the 1960 presidential elections, Brzezinski was an advisor to the John F. Kennedy campaign ...

For the 1968 presidential campaign, Brzezinski was chairman of the Hubert Humphrey Foreign Policy Task Force...

During the 1960s Brzezinski acted as an adviser to Kennedy and Johnson administration officials. ...

For the 1968 presidential campaign, Brzezinski was chairman of the Hubert Humphrey Foreign Policy Task Force...

Out of this thesis, Brzezinski co-founded the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller, serving as director from 1973 to 1976. The Trilateral Commission is a group of prominent political and business leaders and academics primarily from the United States, Western Europe and Japan. Its purpose is to strengthen relations among the three most industrially advanced regions of the free world. Brzezinski selected Georgia governor Jimmy Carter as a member. ... Carter announced his candidacy for the 1976 presidential campaign to a skeptical media and proclaimed himself an "eager student" of Brzezinski. Brzezinski became Carter's principal foreign policy advisor by late 1975 ... After his victory in 1976, Carter made Brzezinski National Security Adviser ...

In 1985, under the Reagan administration, Brzezinski served as a member of the President’s Chemical Warfare Commission....

In 1988, Brzezinski was co-chairman of the Bush National Security Advisory Task Force and endorsed Bush for president, breaking with the Democratic party (coincidentally hurting the career of his former student Madeleine Albright, who was Dukakis's foreign policy advisor). ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski

[OHdem10]

2. Historically, I believe they were initially called Neo Liberals

before changeing to Neoconservatives.

[Emit]

3. I do not believe that is the case. n/t

[Exultant Democracy]

9. You are right about that. Neo-liberal neo-conservitism are the same school of thought

[Radical Activist]

5. More guilt by association games.

A lot of tea leaf reading going on in that article. Its hard to take seriously.

[Emit]

6. I think there is little argument to the fact that neither candidate has embrace the anti-war

stance that many of their constituents (i.e., the people) hold dear. It would be political nightmare for either to do so in this day and age, IMHO. The people need to be aware of what hope and promises of change really mean.

[Exultant Democracy]

7. Neo-Conservitism sprang like Minerva from the head of Neo-Liberalism

In fact neo-conservatism is for the most part just plan old neo-liberalism, but you could never get republican votes calling yourself a neo-liberal.

[Emit]

10. I see how they overlap, but I am not aware that one 'sprang' from the other.

[mmonk]

8. Only in the spelling.

[Emit]

11. lol.

After having read your post entitled "Brzezinski's War," I would have assumed you would be familiar with the similarities of neoconservatism and neoliberalism.

Now that Brzezinski has endorsed Obama and is on his list of foreign policy advisors, I think we all need to be aware of what kind of hope and change is to occur if Obama is our nominee. Whether Clinton or Obama, or a combination thereof is on the ballot come November, we may not get a much different foreign policy than we had under the neocons. Gawd, I hope I'm wrong.

edit typo