CT-Sen: Committee On the Present Danger

Joe Lieberman is the Honorary co-chairman of a group called Committee on the Present Danger. While it appears to have exactly one African-American member, it does have New Gingrich, Jon Kyl, Ben Gilman and Steve Forbes. It has major officials from the Reagan administration, including Jean Kirkpatrick Robert MacFarlane, George Schultz and Ed Meese. It also includes members and directors of the American Enterprise Institute, The Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution, and the Hudson Institute, all prominent think-tanks within the Republican Noise Machine. It has high ranking executive of Forbes, Ameriquest, Boeing, and other corporations. And yes, it has a few Democrats and Clinton appointees as well--all hawks, all uber-establishment, all making threats against Iran. It is, short, a who's who of the political arm of the military-industrial complex. And, like I said, it has one African-American member and Joe Lieberman is one of two honorary co-chair.

Members of this group have written about how Iraq transferred their WMD's to Syria just before the start of the Iraq war, and about how Russia moved Saddam's WMD's. Predictably, they have argued that the Supreme Court furthered a jihad against America by ruling against Gitmo. A look over their recent writing indicates that their favorite topic seems to be Iran. Like Joe Lieberman, they don't talk about Iraq much.

The amount of material connected to this website and the members listed on the website is enormous, and I have no doubt you could spend days surfing through and every few hours or so you will have uncovered enough material to make another one of these posts. It is also interesting that the only article they have posted on their news site that is not explicitly about foreign policy is titled A Ned Lamont Victory Would Jeopardize a Safe Democratic Seat and Undermine Party Unity. Strange that they decided to wade into electoral politics in that one election. Interesting that a group that is a who's who of the political arm of the military industrial complex finds that the only election worth commenting on in 2006. Even more bizarre that the group claims defeating Lieberman will undermine Democratic unity, since Lieberman was the only Democrat in Washington to not sign the new Democratic plan on Iraq. It seems to me that defeating Lieberman will only increase Democratic unity.

Then again, not really that strange at all. As Matt is slowly uncovering in some of his recent posts, much of the Democratic consultant establishment is so tied into the corporate lobbying world that in many ways much of the Democratic establishment has been tamed by entities such as the military industrial complex and the Republican Noise Machine. Now that a new political force not co-opted by those entities is threatening one of the major players within these establishment circles, they feel compelled to speak out on an American election. Ned Lamont's campaign is a direct threat to groups like this, which is why the establishment is falling all over themselves to defend Joe Lieberman at every turn.

Ned Lamont cannot boast groups like this among his supporters. Instead, he relies on people-powered tools such as the Family, Friends and Neighbors Program, as well as local blogs. The amount of establishment forces lined up against Ned never ceases to amazes me, but what I find even more remarkable is how the dedicated individuals on the ground in Connecticut are able to counter this massive machine at every turn. Keep it going.

Tags: CT-Sen, Joe Lieberman, Ned Lamont, progressive movement, vast right wing conspiracy (all tags)

Comments

13 Comments

Re: CT-Sen: Committee On the Present Danger

I JUST did a diary about this over at Kos - I found out because a certain Mr. Haas wrote a glowing editorial for Joe, and it appeared in the CT Post.

Which got me wondering just who exactly Mr. Haas was connected with:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/7/31/ 142718/198

by Sprinkles 2006-07-31 11:39AM | 0 recs
Re: CT-Sen: Committee On the Present Danger

We know consultants are evil, but how is the DC consultantocracy tied into this one? It sounds like an entierly Republican group.

by dantheman 2006-07-31 11:41AM | 0 recs
Re: CT-Sen: Committee On the Present Danger

Is it me or does the Committee on the Present Danger sound like something out of the old Soviet Union just like the Department of Homeland Security?  Can't help but find it ironic that the right wing keeps using Stalinist names for organizations.

by John Mills 2006-07-31 11:59AM | 0 recs
Re: CT-Sen: Committee On the Present Danger

Check out the history of the CPD. Many creeps in there over the years. Their last big thing was to be anti arms control and pro "Star Wars."

The last paragraph of the CPD mission statement says this:

The Committee will not urge, directly or indirectly, the election or defeat of candidates for office at any level of government.

Hmmm.

by demondeac 2006-07-31 12:09PM | 0 recs
Re: CT-Sen: Committee On the Present Danger

This goes back to another MYDD discussion -- about the need to make a very clear distinction between our side (Democratic) and their side (Republicans) -- so that the voters have a clear choice.

 So many of the names associated with fightingterror.org -- seem also to be Neocons.

 The membership list is setting off bells, for example:

Armchair Provocateur
Laurie Mylroie: The Neocons' favorite conspiracy theorist.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/feature s/2003/0312.bergen.html

 It does seem that the neocons and "Committee on the Present Danger" have similar if not identical agendas.

  And it would appear that Lieberman is also a neocon.

  Neocons are the bad guys -- traitors to America. That's my opinion -- after reading their plans for America.

 A virtual viper's nest has been uncovered in the membership list of "Committee on the Present Danger.  I'm having a wide awake nightmare.
 

by carbANDting 2006-07-31 12:10PM | 0 recs
501(c)(3)?

I don't have time to check, but is this "committee" a 501(c)(3)?

by Bruce Godfrey 2006-07-31 12:24PM | 0 recs
Re: 501(c)(3)?

501(c)(4)

by demondeac 2006-07-31 05:37PM | 0 recs
Re: CT-Sen: Committee On the Present Danger

This is a great example of the corporate elites using the government to further their agendas.  Thanks for shedding light on this nexus.

by kentuckydave 2006-07-31 12:31PM | 0 recs
Re: CT-Sen: Committee On the Present Danger

WOW!  Joementum is such a creep!!  It will be really cool when he's gone.

by island empire 2006-07-31 12:35PM | 0 recs
Re: CT-Sen: Committee On the Present Danger

Led by Harvard President James Conant and atomic scientist Vannevar Bush, the CPD splashed onto the scene in 1950 with a hard-line manifesto that pressed for full and immediate implementation of the NSC-68 blueprint.

While "the CPD did work hand in hand with the administration to legitimate the policy outlined in NSC-68" (Sanders 1983, 160), it approached this task like a bull in a china shop, trumpeting hard-line themes with minimal regard for nuance or subtlety. For example, the Committee pressed relentlessly for universal military service, pursuit of U.S. nuclear superiority, and permanent stationing of American troops in Europe. It distributed 100,000 copies of a cartooned-captioned pamphlet entitled, "The Danger of Hiding Our Heads." A series of CPD Sunday evening radio broadcasts on the Mutual Broadcasting System reached 550 affiliate stations throughout the nation. During one of these broadcasts, CPD member Major General William J. Donovan (ret.) called for "all-out employment of the nation's economic, political and psychological weapons to regain initiative in the Cold War." As an illustration of this NSC-68-style, 'any measures' necessary approach, Donovan mentioned the possibility of subversion by means of covert operation, arguing that the U.S. must "develop countermeasures that would prevent the loss of strategic areas." One area ripe for action was Iran, where Donovan said nationalization of the oil industry was caused by "Soviet maneuvers in the economic and political life of that country."

Donovan's radio broadcast proved prescient -- three years later the U.S. and Britain carried out operation Ajax, a covert CIA mission to oust Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadegh.

The "any measures" necessary logic of NSC-68 that authorized U.S. use of preventive force in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Indonesia, and Vietnam is echoed in the portions of the National Security Strategy of 2002 that underwrote preventive war against Iraq. Parallels also exist in the institutional practices designed to politically legitimate and implement the respective strategies. Just as the 1975-1976 Team B exercise neutralized CIA intelligence assessments that did not accord with the Committee on the Present Danger's drive for U.S. nuclear superiority, 16 years later PCTEG and OSP "fixed the intelligence and facts" on Saddam Hussein's ties to terrorism "around the policy"  of regime change in Iraq. Mere coincidence? Not according to analysts such as Daniel Benjamin, Steven Simon, and George Packer, who note that the original Team B subversion of the CIA and the recent PCTEG/OSP end run around the official Intelligence Community were conducted by several of the same key players.

The sense of Cold War déjà vu instilled by these parallels becomes more pronounced after visiting the Committee on the Present Danger's new website. In 2004, the committee reconstituted yet again, issuing a mission statement that invokes prominently the group's Cold War legacy:

Twice before in American history, The Committee on the Present Danger has risen to this challenge. It emerged in 1950 as a bipartisan education and advocacy organization dedicated to building a national consensus for the Truman Administration's policy aimed at "containment" of Soviet expansionism. In 1976, the Committee on the Present Danger reemerged, with leadership from the labor movement, bipartisan representatives of the foreign policy community and academia, all of them concerned about strategic drift in U.S. security policy and determined to support policies intended to bring the Cold War to a successful conclusion. In both previous periods, the Committee's mission was clear: raise awareness to the threat to American safety; communicate the risk inherent in appeasing totalitarianism; and build support for an assertive policy to promote the security of the United States and its allies and friends. With victory in the Cold War, the mission of the Committee on the Present Danger was considered complete and consequently it was deactivated. Today, radical Islamists threaten the safety of the American people and millions of others who prize liberty. . . . The road to victory begins with clear identification of the shifting threat and vigorous pursuit of policies to contain and defeat it.

The CPD's latest commentary and policy recommendations hearken back to 1953 and the days of Operation Ajax: "Wake Up, America!" exclaims one news release; "Iran is our new Soviet Union."  Echoing NSC-68, veteran CPD member William von Cleave declares: "Islamic terrorism is an unconditional and existential threat not only to America and Israel, but also to Judeo-Christian culture. . . . Only by denying success to this threat -- by a combination of anticipatory defensive and offensive measures -- can we defeat it."

Read more in Hitting First: Preventive Force in U.S. Security Strategy.

by Gordon M 2006-07-31 12:48PM | 0 recs
Re: CT-Sen: Committee On the Present Danger

This is a ridiculous post that seeks to make this group into some sort of neocon conspiracy.  First, let's not fall into the fallacy that because someone is a member of a group that has a minority of minority members then they are, by implication, a racist.  Second, Nobel Peace Prize winner Eli Wiesel is also a member, so if membership in a group is evidence of agreement with all the views of your fellow members then I guess we should a) Demand Wiesel give back his Nobel Prize or b) recognize that maybe there is a major flaw in the guilt by association argument.

I think you can make anti-Lieberman arguments without resorting to amaturish conspiracy theories, guilt by association, or racist by ommission (BTW, in a look at the roster of members there are well over a dozen women, four hispanics, and four Indian Americans, two Asians, and five Arab Americans).  

by eeor 2006-07-31 12:51PM | 0 recs
Re: CT-Sen: Committee On the Present Danger

Didn't I see you over at Kos spouting the same thing? I hope you are getting more money than the kids Joe is paying to pound the streets. (It was the Eli Wiesel comment that was the clue, kiddo).

by Sprinkles 2006-07-31 01:05PM | 0 recs
Re: CT-Sen: Committee On the Present Danger

Actually wasn't me bucko.  I guess great minds think alike.

by eeor 2006-08-01 12:06PM | 0 recs

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