Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: If You Like Bush, You'll Love McCain

If You Like Bush, You'll Love McCain  
Bush and McCain's shared foreign policy approach
On Wednesday, John McCain delivered what was billed as a "major foreign
policy" speech and today, David Brooks gushed that it was "as personal,
nuanced and ambitious a speech as any made by a presidential candidate
this year." In particular, Brooks said that the speech demonstrates just
how different McCain's foreign policy approach is from that of
Bush/Cheney: "Anybody who thinks McCain is merely continuing the Bush
agenda is not paying attention." 
The reality is exactly the opposite. Thematically, rhetorically and
substantively, McCain's speech, particularly as it concerned the Middle
East, was essentially a replica of the speech George Bush has been giving
for the last seven years. It trumpeted virtually every tenet of the
neoconservative faith: to be safe, the U.S. must slay tyranny around the
world, spread democracy, bring freedom to the grateful peoples of the
Middle East so they turn towards us and away from the Terrorists, using
"more than military force" -- but also military force. We'll only be safe
by controlling and transforming the Middle East to look the way we want it
to look. 
McCain is a pure neoconservative in exactly the way that Bush and Cheney
are, which is exactly why David Brooks, and like-minded ideologues like
Bill Kristol, swoon over McCain's foreign policy "principles." That's
fine. Brooks is a neoconservative and it's thus perfectly natural that he
would find a neoconservative foreign policy speech to be filled with
wisdom and insight. But to pretend that it's some grand departure from the
Bush/Cheney approach is pure deceit. 
Just as was true for Bush in 2000, McCain is running at a time when the
Republican brand is sullied (in 2000 because of the ugly
Gingrich/impeachment crusades and in 2008 because of the destructive Bush
years). Thus, McCain is being politically marketed in exactly the same way
that Bush the presidential candidate was (he's a uniter not divider; a new
kind of Republican; you always know where he stands; he's a conservative
who deviates from dogma and appeals to Democrats; he transcends
partisanship; we're going to be a more humble nation, etc. etc.). It's
exactly the same wrapping. And the media believed all of that about Bush
and they now believe it all about McCain. 
But beyond just the political packaging, McCain -- with a couple of
pointed exceptions -- is a carbon copy of Bush in substance as well, at
least with regard to war and foreign policy. Just compare McCain's
supposedly moving and novel foreign policy address with two randomly
selected Bush speeches on the "war on terror" from 2005 -- this one and
this one. On the key, defining points, they're virtually identical. I've
compared the key passages of McCain's speech to the same passages from the
Bush War on Terrorism speeches here. 
They sound like they have exactly the same speechwriters and precisely the
same world-view. And all of that is to say nothing of the self-evidently
identical positions they have on Iraq (we must stay forever) and Iran
(we'll bomb them if they seem like they might develop the know-how to
build a nuclear weapon). They're cut from the same cloth, except that
McCain might actually be even more willing to use military force than Bush
has been. 
It's true that, in his speech, McCain advocated a reduction in America's
nuclear weapon stockpile and called for a "a successor to the Kyoto
Treaty," something Bush/Cheney did not and would not accept. And he also
advocated the creation of what he calls "the League of Democracies" -- an
idea that, according to this Editorial in the right-wing Investor's
Business Daily, is the brainchild of the Right's premiere foreign policy
scholar and intellectual historian, Jonah J. Goldberg. 
But on the foreign policy issues that are most consequential, McCain is
George Bush. They pay lip service to the same pretty concepts of
internationalism and democracy in order to justify endless militarism,
occupation and war. They believe the "transcendent" obligation of America
is to use its military force and other resources to re-make the world in
our image. The Middle East is our personal playground and controlling it
will consume most of our attention and energy. We should work
cooperatively with other countries whenever they are willing to support
our foreign adventures. 
With regard to the most complex and dangerous conflicts, they even sound
almost exactly alike in their simple-minded belligerence. Here was Bush's
"solution" to the Israel/Hezbollah war, spat out between food bites to
Tony Blair:
What they really need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing
this shit, and it's over.
And here was McCain's equally insightful solution to the civil war in Iraq:
One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the
Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, "Stop the bullshit."
The American Emperor issues moronic dictates to the world's primitive
peoples, and they obey -- just as has happened for the last eight years --
and thousands-year old religious and ethnic conflicts vanish and freedom
and Western democracy sprout magically in their place. As Matt Welch,
author of McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, said in a February speech at the
Cato Institute:
[McCain's] whole career, his life, his training, his family background has
been to be a member of . . . the Imperial Class; [he's] motivated by an
inspiring trust of America's governance of the world; [and] he would be
the most imperial-oriented President, most militaristic President, since
Teddy Roosevelt, at least.
Just as one would expect, given their identical worldviews, Bush and
McCain burdened with exactly the same absurd contradictions. Hence: the
key to our security is to undermine Muslims' resentment towards the U.S.,
which we'll accomplish by occupying Iraq indefinitely and threatening
Iran. "Victory" in Iraq means a government supported by the majority of
Iraqis and yet which somehow is simultaneously a "key U.S. ally in the war
on terror" and a friend of Israel. 
And: We must stop supporting autocracies, as we pursue hegemonic policies
that make us increasingly dependent upon Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan.
Democracy is the linchpin of peace, yet our enemies are Hamas, Hezbollah,
and Iranian hardliners supported by large portions of those countries'
populations. We should continue to interfere in Middle East countries
(thus ensuring increased anti-Americanism) and simultaneously spread
democracy (thus ensuring the election of anti-American political leaders).
We must rein in government spending while pursuing hegemonic policies that
we can't remotely afford to pay for, etc. etc. 
Whatever all of that is, a departure from the Bush/Cheney doctrine isn't
it. It's precisely what has led us over the last eight years to where we
are. It isn't the role of journalists to decide whether we ought to
continue the Bush/Cheney policies, but it is their role to prevent John
McCain and his Brooksian supporters from pretending that this isn't what
he's advocating.
-- Glenn Greenwald
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#_McCain dopo i suoi primi annunci moderati alla candidatura, per i quali 
e`stato subito silurato da quel ultraconservatore di Rush Limbaugh (secondo 
il quale , piuttosto che un voto a lui sarebbe stato preferibile un voto 
alla Clinton) e`stato messo subito in riga dall'attuale cricca al potere.
Le sue vecchie discrepanze con Bush, messe inequivocabilmente in luce da un 
body talk di loro due davanti alle camere, sono gia`state superate, molto 
probabilmente dal vero comandante in capo (D.Cheney).
Giano