Hayden Daniel upholds "isolationism", yet calls Mark Levin a "neocon"

Wow, I thought it was bad enough when the Federalist's senior editor, John Daniel Davidson, was opposing wars to defeat evil entities, and practically saying what followers of Islam would want to hear. Now, prior to when Donald Trump approved of US military strikes on Iran's nuclear sites, Hayden Daniel wrote similar blabber, claiming they're nothing more than "forever wars", and even calling Mark Levin a "neocon", which happens to be the description best applied to right-wingers who uphold isolationism. Here's what Daniel says:

Now, Mark Levin, in his zealous crusade to push the United States into directly joining Israel’s strikes against Iran, has invoked the most tired and most misconstrued talking point related to the Second World War: appeasement.

Levin’s screed (it’s far too light on substance to be called an op-ed), titled “Isolationism is the same as appeasement — and it’s keeping Trump, Netanyahu from transforming the Middle East,” does little more than launch ad hominem attacks and provide a masterclass in projection. It’s amazing to read sentences like these: “They’re too self-righteous in their ignorance to realize how absurd they sound. … In fact, they’re so blind and self-important that they don’t see the new foreign policy taking place in real time, right in front of their eyes!” and not even detect even a hint of self-awareness from a man who is advocating for the United States to become stuck in yet another Middle East quagmire.

Remember how all those other times our attempts to “transform” the Muslim world worked out so well?

Afraid that his readers won’t be convinced by merely insulting the intelligence of so-called “isolationists,” Levin tries to morally blackmail any potential skeptics by blowing the appeasement dog whistle as loudly as he can. “There’s nothing new or good about isolationism, which, in a word, is appeasement. It’s old and promotes war, such as World War II,” he writes bluntly.

Or, more specifically, enables barbarism to take hold. It's already happening in Africa, with Christian communities being slaughtered by jihadists, and all the while, Mr. Daniel and his ilk say nothing, and practically erase the existence of the victims of jihadism. Is that also what Daniel and company think following September 11, 2001 to boot?

What Mr. Daniel and company fail to understand is that refusing in any way, shape or form to convince the Islamic world to abandon adherence to the Religion of Peace is the reason for failure in the middle east. Not to mention failure to promote belief systems that emphasize vigilance against evil along with respect for human dignity and demand the inhabitants, especially leader figures, take them up and follow those instead? Unwillingness to firmly make such points is exactly why we still have the crisis of Islam on our hands. Daniel continues:

It seems like whenever very reasonable people object to yet another forever war, neocons crawl out of the woodwork to screech “appeasement!” to try to cow their foreign policy opponents into embarrassed silence. If you don’t agree with the neocons’ next regime-change project, you’re no better than British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who meekly gave in to Adolf Hitler in 1938 and emboldened Nazi aggression — thereby unleashing all of the devastation that ravaged Europe. If you don’t believe in toppling tinpot dictator No. 12, installing an American puppet state, and sacrificing untold amounts of American blood and treasure, you, specifically, are setting the stage for another World War II, another Holocaust. At least, that’s the implication.

Notice that the columnist totally obscures another issue one could make a more valid case about - that Trump would make any kind of deal with Syria's new autocrat, al-Sharaa. Nobody on the left said anything about that, and the real neocons-in-negative-sense like Mr. Daniel haven't either. If he's a Christian adherent, he's sold out Syria's adherents as well. And then, Mr. Daniel has the shame to smear Levin as a neocon?!? I think Levin denied in subsequent TV broadcasts the whole notion he's a neocon, one more reason why Daniel practically owes an apology to Levin for this blatant attack on his belief that the USA cannot stand idly by while tyranny, nuclear, physical or otherwise, exists in any way. Perhaps the Federalist should be renamed the Defeatist if this is what they're going to embrace now, and even before this, there were some very fishy articles they published that obscured the topic of Islamofascism in France, in example, and even normalized it when talking about LGBT propaganda being shoved down everyone's throats. What good does that do? It will not change the viewpoint of Islamists regarding Jews one bit. Next thing you know, if neo-nazism had institutions in the USA, they'd whitewash such a movement if that's what it took to battle against LGBT ideology, and even communism would abruptly get a pass. The Federalist is really going to the dogs now.

On which note, Elle Purnell may have more restrained, but tragically, she too appears to be siding with the Tucker Carlson crowd, no matter how subtle she tries to be. And she says:

Insofar as Cruz and others who cite the Abrahamic covenant in foreign policy discussions are advocating for general goodwill and moral support toward Israel and against homicidal Iranian clerics, that’s not controversial among Christians. Nor is the fact that America and Israel’s relationship as strong political allies commands a certain level of support from the sidelines.

But it is something else entirely to insist that God’s promise to Abraham in the Old Testament requires the United States government to base its political decisions on the objectives of the 21st-century Israeli nation-state. Taken to extremes, that would mean the United States has an obligation to make foreign policy decisions, no matter how much they may contradict the interests of the United States, based on whether those decisions benefit the nation-state of Israel.

Here's the problem: she doesn't acknowledge that the Religion of Peace is a serious issue that can't be taken lightly or allowed to reign, even today, in countries like Saudi Arabia. Or, she doesn't acknowledge that the most vital reason to battle Iran is because such religiously-influenced barbarism cannot be ignored. It doesn't have to be based on biblical beliefs in order to make a point. Yet Purnell does little better than Daniel in addressing the topic. If you think Cruz's approach is flawed, that's one thing. But ignoring what the Religion of Peace is built upon does nothing to improve the argument, and is exactly why we're at this point in history now.

As it so happens, Melanie Phillips wrote about the troubles with neocons as described in this particular era, and even before, and how they're still a serious problem themselves:

Earlier this week, an out-and-out antisemite was revealed to be holding a senior position in the Pentagon.

In an exclusive story on JNS, Washington correspondent Andrew Bernard revealed that Col. Nathan McCormack, the Levant and Egypt branch chief at the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s J5 planning directorate, had referred publicly to Israel as a “death cult”.

In April, he suggested that the United States “might be Israel’s proxy and not realised it yet”.

In May, he wrote: “Netanyahu and his Judeo-supremacist cronies are determined to prolong the conflict for their own goals: either to remain in power or to annex the land.”

Within hours of the story appearing, McCormack was moved to another position while the Pentagon investigated. Questions may well be asked about how such an individual could be appointed to a senior defence post.

However, the main thrust of his noxious assertions has long been a widespread view in Western establishment circles and has even been legitimised in public debate. This is the belief that the Jews manipulate governments and drag them into foreign wars that serve Jewish interests at the expense of others losing their lives.

This is, of course, a classic blood libel that stretches back into antiquity. Today, it’s found on both the left and right.

“The US must make it clear that we will not be dragged into another Netanyahu war,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), echoed by members of the progressive “Squad” in the US House of Representatives. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said: “We cannot let [Israel’s prime minister] drag our country into a war with Iran.”

For his part, McCormack referenced the 2007 book by authors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, which accused the pro-Israel lobby in America of shaping its foreign policy to support Israel in ways that harmed the United States.

Although the Anti-Defamation League called the book “a classical conspiratorial antisemitic analysis invoking the canards of Jewish power and Jewish control,” the authors continued to be treated with respect in academic circles as “realists”.

The isolationism that gives rise to such views has a long lineage in America. It was in dismaying evidence during the 1930s and 1940s, when Nazism was plunging Europe into darkness.

Most notoriously, the celebrity aviator Charles Lindbergh announced at an America First rally in 1941 that the Jews were “pressing this country toward war” and trying to “force a free and independent people into war against its will”.

So back in WW2, a certain creep was employing the "America First" slogan for bad purposes. By contrast, Trump didn't do that when he argued in favor of putting the USA's internal concerns first. He just meant that security and business matters, along with local workers, are the ones that should matter. Trump's position in no way whatsoever made foreigners in distress out to look like their lives were worthless, in contrast to Lindbergh, who clearly didn't give a damn if Islam was leading to the deaths of innocent people in the middle east either. And lest we forget the National Socialists collaborated with the Religion of Peace decades before too.

Those who were against the US invasion of Iraq tendentiously blamed it on “the neocons”. This was code for “the Jews,” because a number of influential “neocon” analysts who supported the war happened to be Jewish.

The false claim that Israel had taken America to war in Iraq became a common meme on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2004, Thomas Friedman wrote that Ariel Sharon, then Israel’s prime minister, had President George W. Bush “under house arrest in the Oval Office”.

In London, a British colonel told me that “Ariel Sharon has his hand up Bush’s back” — and was astonished when I replied that Israel had told the United States it was Iran, not Iraq, that posed the greatest danger.

Well both Bush and Sharon turned out to be a very bad lot in their own ways, and took actions that got Israel to where it's at now. Let's not forget that. Neither one deserves any genuine awards like statues or institutions named after them, as a result. Neither did anything genuine to prevent Islamofascism from gaining more footholds, and thanks to that, this is exactly why we're now dealing with rocket attacks from Iran. Somehow, I doubt Sharon would give a damn, recalling he began his undeserved career as more of a leftist.

Anyway, the Federalist, much like other sites, has now published a report on the air strike the USAF conducted, and also noted:

Trump has long said Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and has favored negotiation and peace talks between Iran and Israel. But Iran has been unwilling to engage in a discussion that would lead to dismantling its nuclear weapons program.

The United States is reportedly the only country with so-called bunker-buster bombs large enough to potentially penetrate Iran’s deeply buried nuclear sites and the aircraft capable of delivering those bombs. Bunker-busters were needed to destroy the Fordow nuclear site, which was tunneled deep under a mountain in Iran.

Note that their report appears neutral, which is probably what to expect now that their shoddy opposition to destroying Iran's nuclear labs has been mooted. But it doesn't mean they're reevaluating, and that's sad. Regarding the whole description of neocons, I thought years ago it alluded to possible liberals who became supporters of conservatism. And, it quite possibly did. But now, we have a new problem emerging with defeatists who're hijacking the very slogan for bad purposes, and then the Federalist makes things worse by lecturing us that figures like Levin are neocons?!? Well that just proves how mendacious the actual neocons in this particular case really are. First take a certain slang and sully it, then pretend it's the folks who want to defeat barbarism who're neocons instead. What's the world coming to?

I'll give the Federalist staff credit for once acknowledging in the past that the first leaders of the modern Israeli state were sadly communists who'd acted sadistically towards their conservative rivals. But these latest op-eds make clear the site's writers are deteriorating in terms of objectivity, and from what I've noticed, their comprehension of Islam is very unclear, if at all. That's why I can't support their site anymore on a regular basis, because they're not being sufficient realists.