Anti-Trump neo-con Republicans run pro-impeachment ads

By Vakkas Dogantekin

ANKARA (AA) - A neoconservative, non-profit Republican group that staunchly opposes U.S. President Donald Trump is waging a war on the sitting Republican leader by running a variety of pro-impeachment ads and commercials.

Led by political analyst Bill Kristol -- son of Irving Kristol, who was known to be one of the founders of neoconservatism -- Republicans for the Rule of Law urge a number of key White House officials to testify in the looming Senate impeachment trial.

The group runs billboard ads and television commercials in four different states, targeting constituents of four anti-Trump senators -- Mitt Romney (Utah), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Lamar Alexander (Tenn.).

In the ads, they demand former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and former National Security Advisor John Bolton to testify, forcibly if necessary, before the Senate at the expense of Trump.

Kristol's unpopular anti-Trump activism from the very beginning of his GOP nomination in 2016 elections costed him the shutdown of his conservative political magazine The Weekly Standard in December 2018 after diminishing support.

Trump hailed the demise of the publication, writing on Twitter at the time: "The pathetic and dishonest Weekly Standard, run by failed prognosticator Bill Kristol (who, like many others, never had a clue), is flat broke and out of business. Too bad. May it rest in peace!"

Opposing Trump's domestic Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda and foreign policy goals, Kristol also criticized Trump's planned withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan, a move very popular in the Republican base but greatly criticized by what Trump aides call the "warmongering military-industry complex" that want "endless wars."

Kristol ardently supported the pro-war, pro-sanctions agenda of the former U.S. administrations, including Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq following the 9/11 attack in New York, allegedly perpetrated by Saudi nationals.

U.S. officials at the time claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which was later admitted to be false.

Number of Iraq War casualties range from 151,000 violent deaths as of June 2006 per the Iraq Family Health Survey to over 1 million, according to the 2007 Opinion Research Business survey.