Patrick Buchanan, man of the right and scourge of the neo-cons, has written a new column that helps us to understand the McCain campaigns strong and aggressive reaction to the Russian incursion into Georgia. And the key to that understanding? McCains principal foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann.
In addition to being McCains foreign policy guru Scheunemann is the principal of Orion Stategies, a lobbying and consulting group that has as its client the nation of Georgia. The payments to Orion from Georgia (at the same time Scheunemann was working for McCain) totaled $290,000. From the Buchanan piece:
From January 2007 to March 2008, the McCain campaign paid Scheunemann $70,000 — pocket change compared to the $290,000 his Orion Strategies banked in those same 15 months from the Georgian regime of Mikheil Saakashvili.
What were Mikheil’s marching orders to Tbilisi’s man in Washington? Get Georgia a NATO war guarantee. Get America committed to fight Russia, if necessary, on behalf of Georgia.
Scheunemann came close to succeeding.
Had he done so, U.S. soldiers and Marines from Idaho and West Virginia would be killing Russians in the Caucasus, and dying to protect Scheunemann’s client, who launched this idiotic war the night of Aug. 7. That people like Scheunemann hire themselves out to put American lives on the line for their clients is a classic corruption of American democracy.
Scheunemann has other foreign clients as well. Buchanan has identified those clients in his column, and detailed the riches garnered for representing foreign interests in Washington.
Not only did Scheunemann’s two-man lobbying firm receive $730,000 since 2001 to get Georgia a NATO war guarantee, he was paid by Romania and Latvia to do the same. And he succeeded.
The result of his lobbying for the government of Latvia?
Thanks to the lobbying of Scheunemann and friends, Latvia has been brought into NATO and given a U.S. war guarantee. If Russia intervenes to halt some nasty ethnic violence in Riga, the United States is committed to come in and drive the Russians out.
This is the situation in which the interventionists have placed our country: committed to go to war for countries and causes that do not justify war, against a Russia that is re-emerging as a great power only to find NATO squatting on her doorstep.
Scheunemann has a long history of promoting the U.S. into needless foreign entanglements. Lets look at that history to see where a McCain foreign policy team would take us.
Scheunemann’s resume as a War Party apparatchik is lengthy. He signed the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) letter to President Clinton urging war on Iraq, four years before 9-11. He signed the PNAC ultimatum to Bush, nine days after 9-11, threatening him with political reprisal if he did not go to war against Iraq. He was executive director of the “Committee for the Liberation of Iraq,” a propaganda front for Ahmad Chalabi and his pack of liars who deceived us into war.
Now Scheunemann is the neocon agent in place in McCain’s camp.
Some pretty unsound judgements and associations by the neocons man to McCain. And what does conservative Pat Buchanan think? His indictment of the neocons is searing.
The neocons got their war with Iraq. They are pushing for war on Iran. And they are now baiting the Russian Bear.
Is this what McCain has on offer? Endless war?
Why would McCain seek foreign policy counsel from the same discredited crowd that has all but destroyed the presidency of George Bush?
Buchanan is a polemecist of the first order, and he finishes with a flourish.
“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence … a free people ought to be constantly awake,” Washington warned in his Farewell Address. Our Founding Father was warning against the Randy Scheunemanns among us, agents hired by foreign powers to deceive Americans into fighting their wars. And none dare call it treason.
If this is indicative of the prospective McCain foreign policy maybe Bush 43 was only the opening act. Read the Buchanan column here.
Bill Manzi.com 
Your Honor,
I notice you always dip into Patrick Buchanan commentary when you want to make a nasty point about John McCain
I personally KNOW nothing about Randy Scheunemann’s activity or his cash flow activity. I presume neither do you.
Using your guilt by association then, many things are on the table about your boy;
That great pal of Obama’s Mr. Ayers
That Chicago citizen of the year Mr. Rezko
That preacher of concience, Rev. Wright.
These are the crooks, terroists and hate mongers that have influenced Barack Obama for decades.
The Messiah has even blocked public records about his relationship with Ayers from release by the University of Chicago. (Is that true?)
These are not just third hand rumors, these are public utterances and records.
Now does that mean we can look forward to support of crooked or terrorist activities from the future Democratic president along with the gang of Pelosi and Reid?
In all fairness I will check out Buchanan’s charges.
I guess the name calling is back in vogue again.
Jules
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No need to look into Buchanan’s charges Jules. Those financial records likely come from the law that requires agents of foreign governments to register and reveal the payments made for services rendered. Scheunemann is a registered agent of those foreign clients listed by Buchanan.
I have used Buchanan’s stuff here frequently. Why? Because despite wide areas of disagreement Buchanan has the neocons and their agenda down pat. (No pun intended).
And Jules unlike the Rev Wright or Bill Ayers Scheunemann is the foreign policy guru to John McCain. McCain relies on him not for spiritual advice but rather for policy advice. Maybe Obama should have condemned Ayers acts of violence in stronger terms, but Scheunemann is preparing policy statements on the Russian issue while being on the payroll of the nation of Georgia, and driving U.S. policy towards a confrontation that serves his clients interests, not the interests of the United States.
These comparisions are ludicrous, and show that even when a principled man of the right criticizes the insane foreign policy of this group of neocons you just can’t bring yourself to acknowledge that the real conservative here is Buchanan. The neocons are frauds, and have led us down the road to disaster.
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Your Honor,
We are at loggerheads on this one. Scheunemann
Has actually influenced any one to take action.
Mr Buchanan and i don’t run on the same trust level.
As far as Obama’s friends, I look to their decades old influence on how he conducts himself in office, if he should win.
Be back at you.
Jules
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Your Honor,
As you noted, Scheunemann’s relationships are well documented so McCain is well aware of the point of view of this source of advice. You imply that McCain would blindly follow this advice. As you arque that McCain is being lead by Scheunemann’s advice, Jules argue is on equal ground. His close friend and church paster for over 20 years must have had an influence on Obama. As did his chief financial supporter for his state elections in Mr. Rezko. Lets not even start with Mr. & Mrs. Ayers. How can a person that supported funding for a known domestic terriorist who as recently as 5 years ago said they were proud of their Weatherman terriorist group and it’s robberies, bombings, and murder.
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Neal,
Scheunemann’s activities being well documented do not make them either correct or ethical. But lets move beyond that for a second. It appears that when an issue is raised on the motivations for major policy statements by the Republican nominee for President the response is that we should
1)talk about Bill Ayers
2)Talk about Rev. Wright
3)talk about Tony Rezko
Well we can talk about them, and they are certainly legitimate discussion topics. But you use them to divert from the subject of THIS posting, which is the Scheunemann paid connection to a foreign government, and how that payment may impact advice he gives as the chief foreign policy advisor to John McCain.
Finally I never implied or stated that McCain blindly followed Scheunemann’s advice. As his chief foreign policy advisor I would assume that Scheunemann has major influence on foreign policy pronouncements. That what you have chief foreign policy advisors for. I guess a good analogy might be that if we found out Condi Rice was or had been in the employ of a foreign government while she was dispensing advice to President Bush about that country or countries. Would leave a huge stink out there. This does as well, and the person exposing the truth is a conservative fed up with the neocons who have done us so much harm.
Bill
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Volken,
Ob Herr Schuenemann ist so Sie sagen, denn er ist ein Verrater. auf unseren Gegend, die Vereingte Staaten von Amerika.
Schuenemann muss neutralisieren von mehr Aussetzen sein.
Danke
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