Max Boot (Credit: U.S. Navy) and Bill Kristol (Credit: Gage Skidmore)
Tucker Carlson, American Conservative: Why Are These Professional War Peddlers Still Around?
Pundits like Max Boot and Bill Kristol got everything after 9/11 wrong but are still considered "experts."
One thing that every late-stage ruling class has in common is a high tolerance for mediocrity. Standards decline, the edges fray, but nobody in charge seems to notice. They’re happy in their sinecures and getting richer. In a culture like this, there’s no penalty for being wrong. The talentless prosper, rising inexorably toward positions of greater power, and breaking things along the way. It happened to the Ottomans. Max Boot is living proof that it’s happening in America.
Boot is a professional foreign policy expert, a job category that doesn’t exist outside of a select number of cities. Boot has degrees from Berkeley and Yale, and is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has written a number of books and countless newspaper columns on foreign affairs and military history. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, an influential British think tank, describes Boot as one of the “world’s leading authorities on armed conflict.”
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WNU Editor: I have been following U.S. foreign policy experts for decades, especially on those whose focus is on armed conflicts. How both of these men are still considered foreign policy experts and experts on armed conflicts is beyond me. I gave up on following and listening to Bill Kristol a long time ago, but I do follow Max Boot's Twitter account to see what these people (who are as elitists as you can get) are thinking. As an outsider all that I can say is that if this is the state of the U.S. foreign policy community today, the U.S. is really screwed.
Hat tip to Robert for the above link.
5 comments:
Going to War in Iraq or Afghanistan might seemed ill advised, but both are or were winnable.
Bill Kristol has skin in the game unlike Obama or the Clintons. I d not believe he was wrong on Iraq. On Iraq Kristol was in the same company as other national level Democrat elites, senators, presidential candidates and other bigwigs. He in the same company as Nancy Pelowsy. He was until the Democrats lost the 2000 presidential election and the going got tough after 2003.
The Soviets had legitimate reasons to go into Afghanistan to protect the Central Asia region of the USSR. The Bavarian Corporal could have won Afghanistan and he was 1/2 nuts. The Politburo refused to commit sufficient troops early enough to secure Afghanistan before the Chinese, Americans, Pakistanis, Iranians, Brits, Gulf Arabs and the rest of the world started to bring pressure to bear. Certainly, if meow-man Carter had won re-election, the USSR would have had a better chance in Afghanistan. The Politburo was afraid of pulling troops from East German and environs to Afghanistan and being decisive. Or maybe that is a bullshit argument on my part because the Soviets did not have the logistical wherewithal to support that many troops. Victory was certainly within sight for the Soviets. It was no mirage.
If there was no victory in these cases, the elites are responsible.
Max Boob is more accurate. He should be given the boot. Total CFR clown.
The rot extends all across the US nations security government agencies. From the Pentagon to the NRO. It’s the civil services that are corrupt and senior military who are not warriors with a brain.
Of course the other clowns have laid out alternatives with likely or potential outcomes for having the Taliban saying "No, we will not hand over mass murderer Osama" and doing nothing about it.
That would have turned out well.
I for one liked seeing Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, and Abu Boo-Boo getting waxed due to US intervention into armistice breaker and "invader of Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia" Iraq.
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