Why No One Should Ever Listen to Max Boot

American Thinker ^ | March 15, 2023 | Paul Krause

[Widget Jr]

Max Boot, one of the most bloodthirsty American analysts and commentators, has apparently woken up long after most Americans with half his education, about the limits of American power and the disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thankfully for us, he has penned his reawakening in the pages of Foreign Affairs, that astute bulwark of the establishment, a journal of which I am, in fact, a subscriber.

For 20 years, Boot has been calling for regime change, democracy building abroad, and even leaving American troops in dangerous brushfire to “polic[e] the frontiers of the Pax Americana.” Now, he says he’s changed...

...Boot’s essay explaining his transformation, and desire to retire the term “neocon,” comes with a lot of deliberate misrepresentations on his own part.

...But Boot’s attempt to claim that he has returned to the older strain of realist neoconservatism is misleading too.

...But the neoconservatism described by Boot is only a small selective presentation of what neoconservatism was actually about. It was more than level-headed rationalism or a skepticism toward big government social engineering and a cautioning against idealistic overreach.

Neoconservatism, as Irving Kristol also wrote and explained, was about an acceptance of free-market capitalism (“two cheers for capitalism,” but not three), the recognition that moral reform and religious revival was necessary for a strong, free, and prosperous society, and, lo and behold, nationalism, “The three pillars of modern conservatism are religion, nationalism, and economic growth.”

[ Excerpted / FR copyright policy ]

[Widget Jr]

Another one for thew site's Max Boot collection after his Mea Culpa in Foreign Affairs. Posted for the point about what Neoconservativism means historically and theoretically, instead of a put down.

When Max Boot talks about conservativism in any form, its is usually about international policy, rarely about domesitic policy. For Boot, conservativism is more of a excuse for a expanionist US foreign policy, without any ideological framework behind. Boot becomes a bloodthirsty chickenhawk first. Conservative, or any political ideology is secondary and just a means for his ends.

Questions, comments, informed criticisms, angry wailing gnashing of teeth?

Tear Collection Kits available at poster's expense.

(Since this is about Max Boot, probably not necessary)

[SaveFerris]

(Make no mistake, Boot has risen through the of the Council of Foreign Relations despite being wrong, wrong, wrong.)

Perhaps there’s another problem there as well...🤔

[nuconvert]

Boot’s very long & pathetic apology

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4137354/posts

[tophat9000]

Really... I loved Trumps approach

He took the attitude that “My job as President United States is to do what in best for OUR country and its people..

And I also expect that other leaders of other Countries job is to do the best for their country in their people...

In fact I wouldn’t respect them if they weren’t working in the best interests of their own countries....

And from that premise we find mutually beneficial. The win-win.

I believe even Henry Kissinger acknowledged Trump had a great grasp and was a master of what they called “realpolitik”

[PGR88]

The CIA’s and Raytheon’s checks stopped clearing

[frank ballenger]

RE: kit....

Can’t believe this was invented even as a joke.

But there is a an admonishment in the Talmud

“A man should never make a woman cry. God is counting her tears.”

I’ll have to answer for my sins on that one.

[AndyJackson]

Despite? I think being wrong was a qualification.

[cgbg]

The neocon primary objective is to make the world safe for perverts.

They have never dared speak it out loud.

[Widget Jr]

When I first scanned the comments, I did a double take as I thought you said “pathological”.

[euram]

Time to boot Max’s a$$ back to Moscow where he belongs.

Boot was born in Moscow.[5] His parents and grandmother, all Russian-Jews, fled from the Soviet Union in 1976 as refugees and moved to Los Angeles, where he was raised and eventually gained naturalized U.S. citizenship.[5][6]

[Widget Jr]

What was surprising was how Trump’s refusal to obsequiously pander to any of the Republican coalition intellectual cliques. That pissed them off so much the bigger names turned on him for it. It showed their loyalties are to the status quo establishment more than Republican or conservative principles or interests.

[Larry Lucido]

I used to read his brother, Das Boot.

[SaveFerris]

Exactly

[higgmeister]

I had to Google him to remind me who he is.

Boot left the Journal in 2002 to join the Council on Foreign Relations as a Senior Fellow in National Security Studies.[3] His initial writings with the CFR appeared in several publications, including The New York Post, The Times, Financial Times, and International Herald Tribune.[11]

Now I know why I haven't been exposed to the fool.

Boot attended the University of California, Berkeley where he graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1991 and Yale University with an MA in Diplomatic History in 1992.

Max dog dung on his boot.

[TheWriterTX]

Do crocodile tears count?

I don’t cry easily. I shed tears over important things; the death of my parents, 9-11, devastating medical news, the struggles of my children.

I know women who use tears as a control mechanism or to get their way. I believe the sin is theirs, not the husbands.

[BobL]

“Boot’s essay explaining his transformation, and desire to retire the term “neocon,””

Several here would like to see that term disappear, now that it has as much likeability as Jeffrey Epstein...but others here, including yours truly, WILL NOT allow the term to be retired - at least until the Neocons are, once and for all, no longer trying to get World War 3 started.’

[17th Miss Regt]

I used to read his brother, Das Boot.

His brother likes to keep a low profile, almost underwater, you might say.

[frank ballenger]

Thanks. Guys need all the breaks we can get.

[Pearfect]

AGREED, NOBODY SHOULD LISTEN TO MAX BOOT.