Stephen Walt Confuses Marketing Claims With Products
I admire Stephen Walt for his work exposing the Israel Lobby in the United States and I do like his general realist position. But this is some serious claptrap nonsense not worth the electrons it is traveling on:
All three post-Cold War presidents have made their fair share of errors, but there is a common taproot to many of their failings. That taproot has been the pervasive influence of liberal idealism in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, an influence that crosses party lines and unites Democratic liberal internationalists with Republican neoconservatives. The desire to extend liberalism into Eastern Europe lay behind NATO expansion, and it is a big reason that so-called liberal hawks jumped on the neocon bandwagon in Iraq. It explains why the United States tried to export democracy to Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East, instead of focusing laser-like on al Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks.
This is utter bullshit. All the "liberal idealism" is just a marketing ploy to sell imperial wars for global hegemony. The wars and actions of the post cold-war presidents had nothing to do with liberalism and all to do with resource grabs and general hatred against any independent entity.
If there were a "liberal idealism" based foreign policy how could the U.S. be allied to the Saudis, to a colonial Israel and dozens of nefarious dictatorships throughout the world? When have the neocons or the liberal interventionists ever argued for overthrowing the Saudi regime or the playstation king dictator of Jordan?
Any talk of "liberty" or "promoting democracy" by Washington think tanks and politicians is ALWAYS just a marketing argument that has nothing to do with the real products they are peddling.
That a supposed realist is selling this false claim of "We are only exporting liberal values. If that creates a mess it was not intended" is disturbing especially because the reality is quite different. The creation of the "mess" is what the policy intends and its result.
Here Noam Chomsky looks at the factual record of the real U.S. foreign policy and finds that it is nothing but a corporate protection racket that has nothing to do do with "liberal idealism".
After the cold war ended and the "threat" of the Soviet Union vanished Washington continued to rape other countries just like before. With the "threat of communism" gone it simply used different arguments, all of the false, to sell the rape of Panama, El Salvador, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, Libya and other not so open wars.
Non of these wars had anything to do with "liberal idealism". That claim only helped to sell the wars at home. In none of these wars and their aftermath were "liberal ideals" any concern for those who implemented U.S. policies. The money spend in and after these wars ended in the pockets of U.S. fat cats and the policies implemented in those foreign countries were only to ensure that those countries would stay enslaved to Washington's demands.
How a "realist" studying the actual historical records can not see that is beyond me.
Posted by b on July 2, 2014 at 18:14 UTC | Permalink
« previous pageOh and if you think otherwise, feel free to show where I was "confused" or "self-contradictory", with quotes and explanation please.
Posted by: T2015 | Jul 7 2014 7:48 utc | 102
"Liberal Interventionism" seems actually to be "Neo-Conservative". Sadly, the "Centrist" Democrat Clinton shifted the "Liberal" label waaaaayyyyy to the right. You might even say they abandoned Liberals after adopting the war-mongering Neo-Conservative agenda. And then, after the Neo-Con driven W. Bush years, the Democrat Obama continued and disturbingly expanded the Neo-Conservative agenda. One might argue that Obama is a stronger Neo-Conservative than George W. Bush in terms of continued implementing and successfully accomplishing the Neo-Con agenda. When people accuse Obama of being a Socialist, I'm astounded since he's been a more effective Neo-Con in actions (under a so-called Democrat label) than the Neo-Cons themselves!
Posted by: Murican | Jul 12 2014 21:11 utc | 103
The comments to this entry are closed.
@ okie farmer 88: sorry, dude, but you seem to be confused in your head a bit. You write such nonsensical rants with zero real contents and then YOU call ME a troll? Seriously, are you insane?
Posted by: T2015 | Jul 7 2014 7:46 utc | 101