John Bolton: As ignorant as he is dangerous

DECEMBER 6, 2014 BY 21WIRE 
21st Century Wire says…

Behind the ‘walrus mustache’ might be one of the most dangerous men in the world, and here’s why…


Neoconservative war advocate, John Bolton, appeared on FOX News with host Greta Van Susteren last night, where he made a grand declaration that the US ‘does not do propaganda’. He was in mid conversation, and while trying to admonish Russia and Vladimir Putin for covering the Ferguson and NTC protests, Bolton saw an opportunity to pander to his neocon core base, blaming the Russians for propagating negative US media coverage. Incredibly, Bolton then said: 

“We don’t have an effective propaganda capacity in the United States, we don’t try to sell our own story…”.Did Bolton just say that? Yes, he did. That’s probably one of the most delusional statements ever made. Of course, Bolton probably feels he doesn’t need to keep pace with the news, because if he did, he’d have noticed that his own government has recently made it ‘legal’ to aim its official version of reality at US citizens, thanks to the repeal of the Smith-Munt Act “anti-propaganda” law.

For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government’s mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences. But on July 2 (2013), that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January. The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts.

Everyone does propaganda, but now the U.S. is only nation on earth that’s so bold and openly authoritarian as to put a law on its books to protecting its own propaganda efforts.As for propaganda waged by Washington, the history books are full of good examples of how US network broadcasters and media perform propaganda functions for the Pentagon and its corporate partners, however, Bolton would have also missed that fact that only this week, the US Congress passed a new resolution calling for, among other things, funding for US propaganda overseas designed to weaken Russia’s public relations image in Ukraine and eastern Europe. 


There’s also the issue of direct propaganda, which has become a daily exercise for the US State Department, as evidenced when their spokesperson Jen Psaki (photo, above) was caught on a hot mic, frustrated as she complained about her pre-prepared government issued propaganda statements about Egypt. Psaki was told by her information ministers to read this meaningless platitude:

“Generally, we continue to believe that upholding impartial standards of accountability will advance the political consensus on which Egypt’s long-term stability and economic growth depends”.

Off camera, she could be heard complaining, “This is ridiculous”.

We’re told that John Bolton is still thinking about a presidential run in 2016, but before we go there, it’s worth pointing out that  Bolton was one of the key cheerleaders for the US-led war in Iraq in 2003, and regularly appeared on majors like CNN and Fox News - as a war propagandist.

That’s not all, Bolton has also had more than his share of scandals, and one should really ask if, with that much dirt under his paws, is he actually fit for public office? Bolton spent years doing dirty jobs behind the scenes for the establishment and from 2000 he moved into the spotlight as a kind of advocate. Before he was appointed by GW Bush as the US Ambassador to the UN, he famously said, “If I were redoing the Security Council today, I’d have one permanent member (the US) because that’s the real reflection of the distribution of power in the world.”
He’s been spending a great deal of time in recent years trying to spruce up his tainted image, to reclaim his status as America’s top war hawk, it just goes to prove, you can’t put lipstick on awalrus. While we’re at it, let’s just review some of his shady scandals:

Spousal Abuse: According to reports, his first wife fled the couple’s marital home while he was traveling abroad in mid-August 1982, and said that she was forced to engage in group sex. To date, these allegations have not been refuted in a court of law. 

Iran-Contra: This is how Bolton made his bones. According to reports on the event, “At the Justice Department, Bolton acted as the Department’s ‘no man’ refusing to provide congressional committees documents on Supreme Court nominees William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy. He also refused to provide information, including his personal notes regarding the Iran-Contra scandal, and aided congressional Republicans who attempted to stop investigations of Contra drug smuggling.”

Taiwangate: “The Taiwangate affair–which involves a $100 million secret Taiwan government slush fund that financed intelligence, propaganda, and influence activities within the United States and elsewhere–seems to be in the latter category ['fizzle'] at the moment. The beneficiaries of the lack of attention include three prominent Bush appointees at the State Department who, before joining the Bush administration, received money from this account. And one of these officials, John Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, submitted pro-Taiwan testimony to Congress in the 1990s without revealing he was a paid consultant to Taiwan. His work for Taiwan, it turns out, was financed by this slush fund.”

Absent at the UN: In June 2006 the United Nations Security Council reported that Bolton had not attended any of the four missions undertaken by the Council to foreign countries.

Bolton’s PAC’s: John has gotten into big money political fundraising recently, and has both a standard political action committee and a Super PAC – both are focused on rewarding ‘hawkish’candidates who are “determined to reverse the Obama policies of decline, retreat, and the mistrust of American exceptionalism”, according to Bolton’s website.

When they mean ‘hawkish’, they really mean candidates who are pro-Israel, and war-hawkish (in the foreign policy sense).

It’s incredible to think that Americans would throw their hard earned cash at someone like Bolton, and trusting him to redistribute those funds to his ‘favorite candidates’, but the majority of his financial support will no doubt be coming from the defense industry. Bolton was also one of the original signatories to the pro-war lobbist ‘think tank’ founded in 1997, known as Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Other core members included Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey, Elliot Abrams, and of course, Richard Perle. PNAC stated in its mission statement that it would seek out wars in order to prove that US could fight and win on multiple fronts simultaneously, “To fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars”, and ‘Perform the constabulary duties’ associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions”.PNAC was merely the American version of an Israeli ‘wish list’ of tasks that Washington needed to complete on behalf of Israel. The original framework for Bolton’s PNAC came in 1996, in a research paper entitled, ‘A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm‘, which included early plans for armed incursions into Lebanon, and possible strikes against Syria and Iran.Top of the neoconservative agenda, besides bombing Iran and killing civilians in the process, is the encirclement of Russia by NATO. Looking forward to the 2016 Presidential election, and seeing the Jeb Bush is being touted as the GOP favorite right now, it’s almost certain that John Bolton will be jockeying for either of the following the positions: Secretary of State, Defense Secretary, and NSA Director.

In all but name, this week’s US Congressional resolution against Russia is preliminary declaration of war, the last formal step before war. But Washington will likely opt for waging Wiemar-style undeclared wars, as well as bypassing its domestic Constitutional checks-and-balances by waging most of its future wars through NATO.

Bolton is one of the key hatchet men whose job it is to make those wars happen.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!