Ex-Bush adviser Scowcroft endorses Clinton*

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, is endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.

Scowcroft said Clinton has the "wisdom and experience to lead our country at this critical time," mentioning her time as secretary of State, New York senator and first lady.








http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/284495-scowcroft-endorses-clinton











*Scowcroft was one of Bush Pere's advisers who broke with Dubya over Iraq War ll. Scowcroft was a leading Republican critic of American policy towards Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion, which war critics in particular have seen as significant given Scowcroft's close ties to former President George H.W. Bush.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Scowcroft

[blackspade]

1. Brent Scowcroft can fuck off.

Another Neocon who wants relevancy again.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. Scowcroft was part of the realist school. He has never been a neocon.

Here is the list of members of PNAC:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

His name is conspicuously absent.

Scowcroft was a leading Republican critic of American policy towards Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion, which war critics in particular have seen as significant given Scowcroft's close ties to former President George H.W. Bush.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Scowcroft

[blackspade]

17. He doesn't need to be a signator to be a Neocon

He's still a right winger, so his endorsement should be rejected.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

20. What if some voter who is sitting on the fence...

What if some voter who is sitting on the fence sees the endorsement and says to himself or herself I really don't like Hillary Clinton but Trump must be so dangerous and unhinged that even old guard Republicans are repudiating him?

[Lord Magus]

23. He's a RWer so fuck him.

But if he's slightly smarter than the average RWer (the extreme faintness of that praise is intentional) and is willing to vote for a liberal who will keep America intact instead of a lunatic like Trump, I'm fine with that.

[BainsBane]

32. One cannot be both a realist and a neocon

They are opposing views of foreign policy. He was also a critic of Bush II in Iraq and was widely regarded as the interlocutor for expressing Bush I's concerns about his son's policies there.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

37. What is the difference between a liberal internationalist and a neocon?

We need to be careful and precise when we start throwing these terms around.


Four schools of thought:

-neo-conservatism
-realism
-liberal internationalism
-pacifism

[DLCWIdem]

25. Iraq war 2

Didn't papa Bush send Scofield in 2003-4 to take Dubya to the woodshed. I seem to remember Tweety reporting on this

[TwilightZone]

5. Yeah, no.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2213552

[DCBob]

7. You dont have a clue what you are talking about.

[blackspade]

18. ....

[Rose Siding]

12. So has the new information about Snowcroft changed your opinion?

Seeing as how he isn't what you said he was and all?

[Octafish]

13. Took over as Ford's National Security Advisor from Kissinger

Big Time Friend of Cheney and Rumsfeld, too.

Smarter than them, but still one of them.

http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=brent_scowcroft

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. I believe Senator Sanders supported the operation to liberate Kosovo

I believe Senator Sanders supported the operation to liberate Kosovo and the war against Afghanistan so he would be part of the realist school too. Maybe the Democratic party should have a pacifist and blanket non-interventionist wing but it doesn't and never had.



Also, he provides cover against the absurd charge from Trump that Obama and Clinton are responsible for the mess in the M E.

[Octafish]

15. Don't know about that. Do know what Ted Kennedy observed about Scowcroft...

He was concerned Poppy Bush sent him to China just days after Tienanmen Massacre to show there were no hard feelings.

Details from DU2 in 2005:

Know your BFEE: The China-Bush Axis

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. I am not a fan of any Republican

On the other hand there are sane Republicans and insane Republicans. I would put Brent Scowcroft in the former category. The neo-cons Supported regime change. The realists advocated the judicious use of force where it can be demonstrated it could do more harm than good.

If you want the U S to have a non-interventionist and pacific foreign policy I respect that but that has never been the foreign policy of any Democratic administration.


The United States has military personnel in 150 nations and bases in 38 of them. I don't see any politician, sans the libertarians, arguing we should withdraw from them.

[blackspade]

19. Exactly

Apparently we're tooting a right winger's horn at DU now just because he endorsed our candidate....

[stevenleser]

35. I would like to think no DUer would need this explained to them. However, just in case...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512200908#post67

[Thinkingabout]

2. Kick, thanks for sharing, always like to see the endorsements.

[oasis]

4. "Hillary Clinton has the wisdom and experience" he says.

Another reason ImWithHer.

[HereSince1628]

6. Another high profile Refugee Republican shows the way out

I hope these people's backgrounds, belief systems, and associations are vetted.

People suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanities maybe should not be allowed to circulate with the rest of the Democratic population.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. He was an opponent of Gulf War ll.

Scowcroft was a leading Republican critic of American policy towards Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion, which war critics in particular have seen as significant given Scowcroft's close ties to former President George H.W. Bush.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Scowcroft

And

Brent Scowcroft Echoes Obama: We Need To Talk To Enemies

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/28/brent-scowcroft-echoes-ob_n_99026.html

NOT A NEOCON.

[PufPuf23]

21. Yet Scowcroft was Chairman of GWB's President's Intelligence Advisory Board from 2001

to 2005..??

Prior to the GWB administration, Scowcroft was Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates.

Scowcroft has a long association with Henry Kissinger; he served as his assistant when Kissinger was the National Security Adviser under Richard Nixon. Scowcroft served on the Nixon, Ford, GHWB, and GWB administrations and has decades long close relations with Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Kissinger, among others.

Not all endorsements reflect well on the Democratic nominee for POTUS.

IMHO Scowcroft's endorsement is because Hillary Clinton is an unfettered path to the continuation and possible expansion of the violent and aggressive neo-conservative foreign policy that has tainted the USA.

The fact that Hillary Clinton is by far the best active candidate and the presumptive Democratic nominee for 2016 POTUS. An endorsement by the likes of Scowcroft is counter to the wants of most Americans and most Democratic party members. People want less war. Corporations and the wealthy and powerful want more war.

Scowcroft is a neo-conservative; he did not agree upon a specific action at a specific time (Iraq) but is still a neo-conservative. Despite being Chairman of GWB's PIAB from 2001 to 2005 and being close to key figures in and out of the GWB administration, Scowcroft was ineffective with his criticism of Iraq War policy.

Neo-conservative defined:

Relating to or denoting a return to a modified form of a traditional viewpoint, in particular a political ideology characterized by an emphasis on free-market capitalism and an interventionist foreign policy.

To be a neo-conservative one does not require one be a signatory to PNAC documents. Also PNAC no longer exists. There were American neo-conservatives before and after PNAC. PNAC was a convenient skin to shed for the neo-conservatives.

Scowcroft is a hard core neo-conservative and has been for decades.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

24. "I love that guy."-Barack Obama

Obama, unlike liberal interventionists, is an admirer of the foreign-policy realism of President George H. W. Bush and, in particular, of Bush’s national-security adviser, Brent Scowcroft (“I love that guy,” Obama once told me)

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/

The Iran deal: An epochal moment that Congress shouldn’t squander


By Brent Scowcroft


So I urge strongly that Congress support this agreement. But there is more that Congress should do. Implementation and verification will be the key to success, and Congress has an important role. It should ensure that the International Atomic Energy Agency, other relevant bodies and U.S. intelligence agencies have all the resources necessary to facilitate inspection and monitor compliance. Congress should ensure that military assistance, ballistic missile defense and training commitments that the United States made to GCC leaders at Camp David in May are fully funded and implemented without delay. And it should ensure that the United States works closely with the GCC and other allies to moderate Iranian behavior in the region, countering it where necessary.

...

My generation is on the sidelines of policymaking now; this is a natural development. But decades of experience strongly suggest that there are epochal moments that should not be squandered. President Nixon realized it with China. Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush realized it with the Soviet Union. And I believe we face it with Iran today.

http://tinyurl.com/zb6y9sq

Scowcroft is a hard core neo-conservative and has been for decades.

-PuffPuf23

Could you please cite all the " hard core neo-conservatives" who supported the Iran nuclear agreement?

Thank you in advance.

Good painters don't paint with a broad brush.

[PufPuf23]

26. The Iran Nuclear Arms deal is consistent with neo-conservative philosophy.

Neo-conservatives differ in opinions and tactics among themselves; neo-conservatism is not monolithic.

It has been said that only Nixon could have opened China and it was good to open relations with China and it is also probably true that the overture made by Nixon to China could not have been made by a Democratic POTUS.

You do not think that the fall of the USSR did not advance neo-conservative philosophy?

Look at the vacuum created and then exploited in the break away Soviet republics. Ukraine now is a neo-conservative project.

You do not think that there has been a long strand of essentially neo-conservatism centered on Kissinger as an authority for nearly 50 years?

All neo-conservatives are not hawks to the degree to support unwise interventions that serve no purpose or over extend our capabilities.

Can you see your own reflection in a mirror?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

27. Can you see your own reflection in a mirror?

Can you see your own reflection in a mirror?

Yes and I can see an ad hominem attack a mile away...

If President Obama and Secretary Clinton are neo-cons then I revel in the term.

[stevenleser]

34. Virtually the entire Republican establishment opposed the Iran deal and still does.

Heck even the non-establishment Republicans like Trump oppose the Iran deal. It's hard to find a Republican in favor of it.

Nixon was not a neo-conservative. Neo-Conservatism didn't exist back then.

[PufPuf23]

36. The GOP Congress (and Trump) oppose everything from the Democratic party.

Neo-conservatism as a common term for a school of political philosophy did not exist then but the movement was past nascent by the prime of Nixon and Kissinger.

The theories, actions, and philosophy of neo-conservatism policies certainly did exist but was contained within the GOP.

The theory and actions had commenced by Nixon and many of the same names and personalities and their successors exist to present.

[stevenleser]

38. Exactly, thank you for agreeing with my point. Republicans and neocons oppose everything from the

Democratic Party. Including the Iran deal.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

39. Reagan was a neo-con.

Reagan specifically repudiated detente which was a creation of the ultimate realist, Henry Kissinger, who was a devotee of Metternich. If we are going to use terms as epithets it is incumbent on us to use them properly.

Realism and neo-conservatism are mutually exclusive schools of thought. In fact liberal internationalism and neo-conservatism have common elements.

[HereSince1628]

28. Perhaps. Perhaps he even objected to the ruse of babies being killed in Kuwaiti incubators

The point of my comment isn't really him in particular. It is that once powerful republicans, now refugees, are turning. Some will come seeking power again.

Sometimes things are not what they seem.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

29. That, of course, was a bogus story.

But the principle that powerful nations shouldn't prey on less powerful ones is a principle worth upholding.

[HereSince1628]

30. So imo is the caution about vetting former enemies before welcoming them

into circles of influence

[DemocratSinceBirth]

33. I agree...However I do think it is a valuable endorsement.

He praised her work at State. Trump is saying Obama and her threw the world into turmoil. His endorsement is a rebuke of Trump's "analysis".

[DCBob]

8. Excellent news. Hillary is raking in the Trumpless Republicans.

[cosmicone]

9. What Trump will say...

"He is loser folks ... loser .. never won a war ... he was stupid... we're going to get the best generals folks ... the winners... people who can really fight" blah blah blah

[Rose Siding]

10. Wow, that's a good endorsement.

[rhett o rick]

22. Good grief Scowcroft? She should reject the endorsement. nm