A Family Business of Perpetual War

[newthinking]

We need to connect the dots ..... The NeoCon Project for A New American Century did not die, it is still alive and kicking unfortunately.


A Family Business of Perpetual War
March 20, 2015

Exclusive: Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan have a great mom-and-pop business going. From the State Department, she generates wars and – from op-ed pages – he demands Congress buy more weapons. There’s a pay-off, too, as grateful military contractors kick in money to think tanks where other Kagans work, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

Neoconservative pundit Robert Kagan and his wife, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, run a remarkable family business: she has sparked a hot war in Ukraine and helped launch Cold War II with Russia – and he steps in to demand that Congress jack up military spending so America can meet these new security threats.

This extraordinary husband-and-wife duo makes quite a one-two punch for the Military-Industrial Complex, an inside-outside team that creates the need for more military spending, applies political pressure to ensure higher appropriations, and watches as thankful weapons manufacturers lavish grants on like-minded hawkish Washington think tanks.

Prominent neocon intellectual Robert Kagan. (Photo credit: Mariusz Kubik, http://www.mariuszkubik.pl)

Not only does the broader community of neoconservatives stand to benefit but so do other members of the Kagan clan, including Robert’s brother Frederick at the American Enterprise Institute and his wife Kimberly, who runs her own shop called the Institute for the Study of War.

Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (which doesn’t disclose details on its funders), used his prized perch on the Washington Post’s op-ed page on Friday to bait Republicans into abandoning the sequester caps limiting the Pentagon’s budget, which he calculated at about $523 billion (apparently not counting extra war spending). Kagan called on the GOP legislators to add at least $38 billion and preferably more like $54 billion to $117 billion:

Continued:
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/20/a-family-business-of-perpetual-war/

[dgibby]

1. Troubling, to say the least. n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. How did Nuland get the Ass't Sec. of state job if she is such a conservative?

Of course I ask that question as if real world politics doesn't matter.

[newthinking]

4. Very good question!

[yurbud]

8. our first secretary of state probably recommended her.

[swilton]

3. Nuland

is a holdover from the Bush Administration where she was an aide to Dick Cheney.

Considering the academic talent in Washington, DC, Nuland who according to bio's posted on the web only has an undergraduate degree, is rather limited by those standards. Unfortunately, it seems that DC (inside the beltway) is one of those places where one gets ahead by telling tptb what they want to hear. In short she's a sycophant.

[KoKo]

5. Put in Place and never removed...n/t

[newthinking]

6. She was promoted to her current position during this term.

[Judi Lynn]

7. "Prominent neocon intellectual" Does that mean he has memorized "Atlas Shrugged"? n/t