Politics

Trump's Vision of a Militarized America

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=19796">William Hartung, TomDispatch</a>

Friday, 03 February 2017 15:33

Hartung writes: "At over $600 billion a year and counting, the Pentagon already receives significantly more than its fair share of federal funds. If President Donald Trump has his way, though, that will prove a sum for pikers and misers."

U.S. jet takes off from an aircraft carrier. (photo: Getty)

Trump's Vision of a Militarized America

By William Hartung, TomDispatch

03 February 17

[Note for TomDispatch Readers: As you may have noticed, in the era of Donald Trump and �alternative facts,� a wave of old dystopian novels headed by George Orwell�s 1984 has hit the bestseller list. It�s a striking phenomenon. At Dispatch Books, our own publishing line, we sensed that this might be coming and recently put out TomDispatch regular John Feffer�s stunning dystopian novel, Splinterlands. Unlike the older ones, from Sinclair Lewis�s It Can�t Happen Here to Aldous Huxley�s Brave New World, it reads as if you had stumbled upon the work of a journalist on a shattered planet in the very near future. If you�re in a dystopian mood, get yourself a copy as soon as possible (and lend us a little helping hand at the same time). Alternatively, if you go to the TomDispatch donation page and contribute $100 ($125 if you live outside the USA), Feffer will send you a signed, personalized copy of the book. Either way, it�s the perfect reading for our dystopian moment. Tom]

Last Friday, Donald Trump made his first visit to the Pentagon where he spoke of signing an order to begin �a great rebuilding of the armed services of the United States,� something he�s been advocating for quite a while. As TomDispatch regular Bill Hartung indicates today, this will mean a massive surge in federal dollars pouring into the abyss of the Pentagon, which has shown itself quite capable of absorbing such moneys in the past and seems to lack the slightest ability to account for what�s done with them. (The Pentagon has never even managed to pass an audit.) We already know that this will mean more troops, more ships, more planes, and as a draft executive order for the new president put it, �a desire to invest in a host of military capabilities, including Special Operations forces and nuclear weapons.�

These are two areas in which �build up� is already the operative phrase. At approximately 70,000 personnel, the elite Special Operations forces are now an enormous, secretive military -- larger than the armies of some sizable countries -- cocooned inside the regular armed forces. Special ops types are now dispatched annually to about 70% of the nations on the planet. As for those nuclear forces, under President Obama who won a Nobel Peace Prize in part for his abolitionist sentiments, they were already launched on a trillion dollar, three-decade �modernization� program, involving the creation of new delivery systems and �smart nukes� as well. If each of these forces is now to be expanded even more rapidly and expensively, that�s a genuine upping of the military ante on the planet.

As former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who, with President Ronald Reagan, came remarkably close to negotiating nuclear weapons out of existence, pointed out recently in Time magazine, �it looks as if the world is preparing for war... Today,... the nuclear threat once again seems real. Relations between the great powers have been going from bad to worse for several years now. The advocates for arms build-up and the military-industrial complex are rubbing their hands.�

Indeed, at the dawn of the Trump era, it�s worth remembering that, despite the obvious power of the United States, this is no longer a one-way planet. Take the new �nationalism� of the president (and his close adviser Steve Bannon). As the guiding principle of American foreign policy, nationalism will prove a distinctly two-way street, as is already the case in Mexico where Trump�s wall, his immigration policies, and his tax threats against Mexican products may only stoke Mexican nationalism, uniting an otherwise riven country in a fierce spirit of anti-Americanism.

And don�t expect a staggering American military build-up to be a one-way phenomenon either, especially on the nuclear front. Before he�s done, Donald Trump, who has a yearning for the 1950s, could well put the planet on the kind of military footing that hasn�t been seen since at least the height of the Cold War. He could well spark a potentially out of control three-way arms race that would include China and Russia, while heightening increasingly pugnacious nationalist feelings across the planet. Worse yet, as Hartung points out today, if your money is going to head massively into the military (while civilian spending is slashed), when problems or crises arrive, as they will on such a planet, it�s obvious where you�re most likely to turn. At this point, only two weeks into his presidency, the Earth looks like a distinctly more dangerous place. No wonder the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has just moved its Doomsday Clock 30 seconds "closer to catastrophe� at 2� minutes to midnight.

-Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch

What Happens When All We Have Left Is The Pentagon?
Trump�s Vision of a Militarized America

t over $600 billion a year and counting, the Pentagon already receives significantly more than its fair share of federal funds. If President Donald Trump has his way, though, that will prove a sum for pikers and misers. He and his team are now promising that spending on defense and homeland security will increase dramatically in the years to come, even as domestic programs are slashed and entire civilian agencies shuttered.

The new administration is reportedly considering a plan -- modeled on proposals from the military-industrial-complex-backed Heritage Foundation -- that would cut a staggering $10.5 trillion in federal spending over the next decade. The Departments of Energy, Commerce, Transportation, and State might see their budgets slashed to the bone; the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized; and (though the money involved would amount to chicken feed) the National Endowments for the Arts and for the Humanities would be eliminated altogether. In the meantime, the ranks of the Army and Marines would be expanded, a huge naval buildup would be launched, and a new Star Wars-style missile defense system would be developed -- all at a combined cost of up to $1 trillion beyond the already munificent current Pentagon plans for that same decade.

The specifics won�t be known until Trump�s first budget becomes public in perhaps April or May, but as we wait for it, Republican Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain has just taken the unusual step of releasing his own spending blueprint for the military. It suggests that a key senator and the president and his team are on the same page when it comes to military funding. At an extra $430 billion over the next five years, the numbers in McCain�s plan are similar to the potential Trump buildup.

One thing is already clear: this drastic tilt toward yet more Pentagon spending and away from investment in diplomacy abroad and civilian needs at home will only further militarize American society, accelerate inequality, and distort the country�s already highly questionable foreign policy. After all, if your military is the only well-funded, well-stocked arm of the government, it�s obvious whom you�re going to turn to in any crisis.

This process was already visibly underway even before Donald Trump took the oath of office. His gut decision to entrust national security policymaking only to military figures was particularly troubling. From National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Secretary of Defense James Mattis to head of the Department of Homeland Security John Kelly, retired generals and other ex-military types now abound in his administration. Defense analyst and former White House budget official Gordon Adams summed up the risks of this approach recently in this way:

�Putting military officers in charge of the entire architecture of national security reinforces the trend toward militarizing policy and risks cementing in place �the military-industrial complex� that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of. To borrow the psychologist Abraham H. Maslow�s words, if all the men around President Trump are hammers, the temptation will be �to treat everything as if it were a nail.��

How the Military Came to Dominate Foreign Policy

President Trump won�t, of course, be starting from scratch in his urge to further elevate the military in foreign and domestic affairs. He�s building on a process that�s already well under way. In the Obama years, for instance, there were a record number of drone strikes, especially outside official U.S. war zones -- 10 times the number launched by the Bush administration. Similarly, the Obama administration paved the way for various Trumpian urges by waging wars on multiple fronts and instituting a historic crackdown on whistleblowers in the military and the intelligence communities. It also approved record levels of U.S. arms sales abroad, $278 billion worth of them, or more than double those of the Bush years. (In Trumpian terms: jobs!)

In addition, as part of his pledge to avoid large, �boots-on-the-ground� conflicts like the Bush administration�s 2003 invasion of Iraq, President Obama oversaw a sharp increase in the size of the U.S. Special Operations forces, sending them abroad to arm, train, and fight alongside militaries in 138 countries in 2016. Think of this approach -- having a �lighter footprint� while expanding the number of conflicts the United States is involved in -- as a case of what I�ve called �politically sustainable warfare.� It seems cheaper, is far less visible, and involves fewer U.S. casualties than full-scale invasions and occupations.

In these years, the Pentagon has also continued to encroach on turf previously occupied by the State Department and the Agency for International Development, including funding its own arms and training programs and engaging in economic development projects. Under the euphemistic term �building partner capacity,� the Pentagon now has the authority to arm and train foreign military forces through no less than 70 separate programs.

To be fair, the drift toward military dominance of foreign policy began well before Barack Obama took office. In her 2003 book The Mission, Dana Priest of the Washington Post described the increasing role of regional combatant commanders in shaping policymaking in Washington. They could leverage their greater resources and close connections to foreign leaders to outstrip U.S. ambassadors in power and influence. And their growing role was just a symptom of a larger problem that Priest described at the time and that has only become more obvious in the years since: the urge of American leaders to turn to the military for solutions to problems �that are often, at their root, political and economic.� As retired General Anthony Zinni, former head of the U.S. Central Command, noted for instance, �There is no military solution to terrorism.� That�s a conclusion shared by other American military leaders, but one that has had little effect on U.S. efforts to use force as the primary tool for combatting terrorism in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen, a process that has only led to more failed and failing states and the further spread of terror groups.

Donald Trump may indeed gut the diplomatic corps, but don�t forget that State Department funding was long ago overwhelmed by the largesse available to what the new president regularly refers to as our �depleted� military. The Pentagon�s budget is today more than 12 times as large as the State Department�s, a disparity sure to grow in the years to come. As former Defense Secretary Robert Gates noted some years ago, there are more military personnel stationed on one aircraft carrier task force than trained diplomats in the U.S. Foreign Service. And keep in mind that the United States currently has 10 active aircraft carriers, which themselves will be just a small part of the Trump administration�s proposed 350-ship Navy.

Even the intelligence community is likely to be further militarized in the Trump years. While he was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Security Advisor Michael Flynn tried to increase its influence at the expense of the CIA. Expect him to attempt to seize control of the nation�s intelligence apparatus and put it in service to his own distorted view of the world. From failing to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union to allowing itself to be used to put forward misleading information about Saddam Hussein�s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. Intelligence Community has hardly covered itself in glory. Still, it does contain a cadre of professional analysts who can provide sitting presidents with actual information contradicting prevailing prejudices. This was even true in the case of Iraq, where a number of analysts dissented from the claim that Iraq had nuclear weapons, while others only acquiesced after being browbeaten by Vice President Dick Cheney and the band of neoconservatives in his office.

In the years to come, expect the Cheney model of intelligence manufacturing to be replicated, especially by Flynn, whose extreme views include a belief that Islam is not a real religion, that Iran is the �linchpin� of a global anti-American coalition of enemies extending from Cuba and Venezuela to North Korea, China, and Russia, and that Islamic �Sharia law� is actually being imposed in parts of our country. Flynn�s views on Islam would have been beyond the pale for a top adviser in any prior administration. Now, however, he�s positioned to regularly press his views on Donald Trump, who doesn�t read and seems inclined to believe the last person he talks to.

A Military-First Administration

To imagine how Flynn might wield his new power, consider his attempt, while still at the DIA, to get subordinates to prove that Iran was the �hidden hand� behind the 2012 attacks on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stephens. As the New York Times reported, �Like many other investigations into Benghazi, theirs found no evidence of any links, and the general�s stubborn insistence reminded some officials at the agency of how the Bush administration had once relentlessly sought to connect Saddam Hussein and Iraq to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.�

Trump and his men now seem poised to purge the CIA and other intelligence agencies of analysts who might have opinions contrary to their own fantasy view of the world. Expect Flynn, in particular, to try to shape the intelligence community�s products towards his ends while serving as interpreter of last resort for the president. Getting Trump to swallow intelligence assessments skewed toward his particular set of prejudices and inclinations should be an easy feat, given that he can�t even acknowledge the size of the crowd at his own inauguration or let go of the demonstrably false claim that millions of undocumented immigrants voted illegally in the 2016 election.

The only likely obstacle to Flynn's ambitions to impose his twisted view of the world on Trump is the other "big league" Islamophobe in the administration, White House counselor Steve Bannon. As a recent New York Times account noted, Bannon has already attempted to outmaneuver Flynn in the battle for access to the president on foreign policy issues and his elevation to the National Security Council at the expense of the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence is just the latest indication of how influential he's likely to be in shaping Trump's foreign policy agenda. This is hardly good news, as on certain issues he may be even more extreme than Flynn, if that's possible.

Trump�s predictably militarized approach to policymaking could have serious impacts on the domestic front as well. On his fifth day in office, for example, he threatened by tweet to �send in the Feds� to Chicago if the city government didn�t take steps to �end the carnage� there. It was unclear whether he meant federal law enforcement personnel or federal troops, a vagueness troubling in its own right. And don�t forget that his pledge to �build a wall� ensures a significant jump in funding for the further militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border, already being patrolled by unarmed drones and growing numbers of armed federal agents. After all, it took him just days after his inauguration to announce a plan to add 5,000 personnel to the Border Patrol and 10,000 agents to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.

As in all matters Trumpian, some will say we shouldn�t take him at his word, or that we should wait for his first budget proposal and other such documents to see what he�s really going to do. But the evidence is already abundant that the Trump administration is on a path toward undermining our democracy by pouring taxpayer dollars galore into the U.S. military. This will happen despite the fact that, 15 years after 9/11, that military has won nothing and settled no conflicts to Washington�s advantage, even as terror groups have spread across the Greater Middle East and Africa. It�s a decade-and-a-half-long record that should lead to almost any other set of plans than the ones the Trump administration clearly has in mind. But don�t tell them. They could care less.

Frightening as it may be, it�s important to recognize that Trump�s impulse to further militarize American society is by no means a done deal. Democrats in the Senate are in a position to stop him by voting as a bloc against any proposal to dramatically ratchet up spending on the Pentagon, which would deprive Republicans of the 60 votes they need to move forward on a spending proposal. In addition, the new president�s plans to pump up the Pentagon, dramatically slash taxes, invest in expensive new programs like the border wall, and create a trillion dollar infrastructure plan could set the stage for massive deficits that will undoubtedly unnerve constituencies ranging from fiscal conservatives to important sectors of the business community.

And keep in mind that significant numbers of military and intelligence professionals truly believe in civilian control of the military and don�t want to take on tasks unrelated to traditional military missions. In addition, Trump has already pledged to target overpriced weapons systems like the F-35 and force the Pentagon to get its books in order so it can at last pass an audit. Whether or not he follows through on these promises, he will have put them on the public agenda, reinforcing one reality: the way so much of the money currently going to the Pentagon has more to do with lining the pockets of contractors than with defending the United States and its allies.

The military-first direction in which Trump is going to take his administration will predictably lead to yet more militarized policies in the world. It�s that hammer and nail again. He should take a lesson from history by listening to the speeches of the former Supreme Allied Commander in World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, a military man who also rose to the pinnacle of power in Washington. As president, Eisenhower not only spoke out against the dangers of the military-industrial complex but also stressed that America�s power is ultimately rooted in the strength of its economy and the health of its citizens, not in seeking magical military solutions or in overspending on the Pentagon. Unfortunately, Donald Trump is no Dwight D. Eisenhower.

William D. Hartung, a TomDispatch regular, is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy. He is the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, John Feffer's dystopian novel Splinterlands, as well as Nick Turse�s Next Time They�ll Come to Count the Dead, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

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FOCUS: The Democrats Need to Try Out Being the 'Party of No'

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=6853">Frank Rich, New York Magazine</a>

Friday, 03 February 2017 11:40

Rich writes: "At a time like this, it is clearly incumbent upon Democrats in Washington to oppose, obstruct, or resist every presidential action they can."

Senator Charles Schumer. (photo: Win McNamee/Getty)

The Democrats Need to Try Out Being the 'Party of No'

By Frank Rich, New York Magazine

03 February 17

Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. Today: the president�s SCOTUS pick, Paul Ryan�s support for Trump�s executive order on immigration, and Samantha Bee�s alternative White House Correspondents� Dinner.

onald Trump has selected Neil Gorsuch, an originalist in the model of the late Justice Scalia, to fill Merrick Garland�s �stolen seat� on the Supreme Court. How should the Democrats respond to the nomination?

The Trump administration is still less than two weeks old, but based on what we�ve seen so far, the verdict is in: It has no respect for the Constitution, for the officials and institutions essential to a functioning democratic government, even for the most fundamental American freedoms granted to religious minorities and the press. The Trump White House has if anything declared war on American governance itself, all to facilitate �the birth of a new political order� guided by the ideas of Steve Bannon, until recently the proprietor of a white-nationalist fake-news organization, and Jeff Sessions, the attorney general�designate who has tried but not succeeded in covering up his past as a stalwart opponent of civil rights in Alabama. At a time like this, it is clearly incumbent upon Democrats in Washington to oppose, obstruct, or resist every presidential action they can. Their constituents, many of whom were less than enamored with the Clinton party Establishment that fell to Trump, have had enough and are taking to the streets. The burden is on the party�s leaders, such as they are, to catch up. Otherwise they might as well just go out of business.

In the case of Trump�s Supreme Court nominee, it�s a no-brainer: It is not hyperbole to say that the Republican Senate majority stole a Supreme Court appointment from President Obama on the spurious grounds that he only had a year left in his presidency when Scalia died. The Democrats can argue no less spuriously that a president who lost the popular vote lacks the standing to fill that same seat.

So, what is the argument for Senate Democrats behaving better than their GOP peers? The case was made by the Washington Post editorial page, the most prominent Beltway champion of bipartisanship in a capital where there hasn�t been bipartisanship in the two decades since the Bill Clinton impeachment. In urging the Democrats to practice �due deference� to Trump�s nominee, the Post warned that fierce opposition might provoke the Republicans to resort to the so-called �nuclear option� of abolishing the filibuster so that a Supreme Court nominee could be approved by a simple majority of 51 votes rather than 60. If the GOP did this, the Post explained, it �would leave Democrats disarmed of that weapon against a second Trump pick should another vacancy arrive during his presidency.� How na�ve can you be? The Senate Republicans would happily invoke the �nuclear option� for the second Trump pick if it doesn�t do so with Gorsuch. There�s no rationale for Democrats engaging in premature unilateral disarmament. The GOP will stop at nothing to install Trump�s court nominees, so the Democrats might as well stand up and fight from the get-go.

The Post�s other argument is that Democratic mobilization against a Trump nominee would �deepen� the �harmful politicization� that is afflicting the Senatorial process of advise-and-consent. How much deeper could that politicization be than it already is? The Democrats, President Obama included, got nowhere by trying to make nice with the Party of No for the past eight years. From the day Obama entered the White House, the GOP did everything it could to try to delegitimize his presidency, ultimately to rally around a presidential candidate who was a leader of the birther movement. That candidate, as president, now dismisses Democratic leaders like Chuck Schumer as �clowns.� It is no time for a pacifist response.

In any case, the approval process for Gorsuch has already been politicized by Trump. His decision to announce his nominee to the court in prime time � before an audience of cheering toadies more appropriate to So You Think You Can Dance � reduced Gorsuch to the stature of a supplicant at a corrupt royal court. When Trump referred to the �late, great� Justice Scalia in his remarks, he was using language you�d expect to hear from a Vegas lounge singer paying homage to Sinatra. All that was missing was a reprise of Trump�s chosen inaugural-ball anthem, �My Way� � though, contrary to that song�s lyric, the end is not near, alas.

After silence in the face of nationwide protests and pushback on both sides of the aisle, and despite speaking out against a Muslim ban when Trump proposed it on the campaign trail, Speaker Paul Ryan has come out in support of Trump�s executive action on immigration (though he admitted the �rollout� was �regrettable�). Is he making a mistake?

As I and others have been saying ad infinitum, Paul Ryan is the leading Vichy Republican, a coward who will do anything to hold on to power. His Hamlet-like equivocations about Trump during the campaign always ended with capitulation. This surrender was just more of the same � he once again weighed in late, with trying-to-have-it-both-ways language, and with no discernible moral compass.

Is he making a mistake? Not with the Trump base he is terrified by and panders to. Polls show that the overwhelming majority of Republicans � 80 per cent-plus � still approve of Trump. But when the wind changes, you can bet Ryan will change with it. Though he�s fond of releasing lofty policy prescriptions laced with cooked numbers, his only real concerns are politics and self-preservation. Can anyone name a single accomplishment he has achieved in office that befits his august station of Speaker of the House?

Samantha Bee announced an alternative gala to the White House Correspondents� Dinner � to be held in Washington on the same night, of April 29 � partly, she says, out of a concern that the main event would be canceled this year. Does this increase or decrease the odds of that happening?

We can only hope that Bee�s alternative gala � which will offer better comedy and attract a superior audience both in the flesh and among television viewers � will force the White House Correspondents� Dinner to cancel despite its claim that its own show will go on. This annual rite has been an embarrassment for a couple of decades: a cheesy spectacle in which prominent journalists can be found sucking up to their official sources, to corporate patrons who shell out for the high-priced tables, and to show-business celebrities, not all of whom are of the first or even second tier. When a comedian hired to host the event actually draws blood from the dais with satirical darts � as Stephen Colbert most famously did in 2006 � the easily affronted audience sulks and whines and never quite grasps the fact that the joke is on them.

Some presidents, most especially Obama in his now historic takedown of Trump, make the best of their coerced appearances there. But few, if any, of them have liked having to show up. Until this president. The Correspondents� Dinner is tailor-made for Trump; he�ll bend it easily to his will because the one subject he knows something about is show business, a trade about which the Washington-press types who run the event are utterly clueless. One way or another Trump will manipulate and usurp the night to his own advantage. The White House Correspondents� Association should not give him the platform to do so.

There�s another reason the dinner should bite the dust. The real-news industry is under siege as never before in modern America. Steve Bannon has defamed the media as �the opposition party� and, in league with the legions of �fake news� purveyors, is doing everything he can to undermine the press�s credibility as well as to brand it as an elitist cartel out of touch with the country it covers. The sight of Wolf Blitzer posing on a red carpet, or of a newspaper reporter yukking it up with Kendall Jenner, plays directly into Bannon�s hands. In announcing that the dinner will go on despite the competition from Bee�s counter-fest, the correspondents� association cited the fact that it gives awards to �promising young student journalists� as part of each year�s festivities. It�s pathetic that it is using innocent students as a beard to justify its unseemly bacchanal. The money the association will save by canceling the dinner should be donated to a legal-defense fund for the journalists certain to be battling the Trump administration�s efforts to roll back the First Amendment in the years to come.

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This Is the Winter of America's Discontent

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=40776">Dan Rather, Dan Rather's Facebook Page</a>

Friday, 03 February 2017 09:56

Rather writes: "As the calendar shifts from January to February, the thermometer in most of the country shows the frigid digits of winter. But there's a chill in the air independent from the dead of winter."

Dan Rather. (photo: Mark Sagliocco/Getty)

This Is the Winter of America's Discontent

By Dan Rather, Dan Rather's Facebook Page

03 February 17

s the calendar shifts from January to February, the thermometer in most of the country shows the frigid digits of winter. But there's a chill in the air independent from the dead of winter.

We are 12 days into the Presidency of Donald Trump, and we have had to endure more disruptions and tumult in our government than has been seen in a long time. Mr. Trump and his team clearly have a strategy to strike hard, strike fast and strike often. For some this is no doubt exhilarating as they view him as delivering on campaign promises. For others--the polls suggest the majority of the country--it is disturbing, even scary.

Those who are signing up, amidst a flurry of dissent, for what is euphemistically being called "The Resistance" have a long, hard row to hoe. Turning a flurry into a groundswell is difficult. But that said, there is something emerging in this frosty air...which we can see with each inhale and exhale, a visual reminder in the breath one takes that there is life in this cold.

Democrats are boycotting hearings. More than a thousand State Department officials have petitioned against the immigration ban (the one based partly on religion.) A Trump-friendly CEO suffered a damaging boycott. And then there is what is surging on social media, and in the streets. There is a growing social awareness coupled with political dissent. I'm partial to a term young people use--these protestors are "woke." Mr. Trump's firing of acting Attorney General Susan Yates for defying his immigration ban added fuel to the bubbling fervor.

From the protest signs... to the memes, this movement is more than passionate; it is ebullient. I'm curious to see if we will witness a counter movement from Americans who support Trump.

At least some of the Trump chaos will continue. His reputation as a kind of "Captain Chaos" seems destined to grow. With it, the drum beat of resistance feels steady, maybe even getting louder. And the wind whispers "this is the winter of America's discontent."

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Trump's Muslim Ban Makes America a "Bad Horror Movie"

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=38164">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, The Hollywood Reporter</a>

Thursday, 02 February 2017 14:11

Abdul-Jabbar writes: "When the leader of the free world creates a hostile environment for Muslims, as this ban surely does, it can have violent repercussions as other racists and xenophobes are encouraged to act on their hatred."

Protesters at Los Angeles International Airport demonstrate against President Donald Trump's Muslim ban. (photo: Getty)

Trump's Muslim Ban Makes America a "Bad Horror Movie"

By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, The Hollywood Reporter

02 February 17

"We can't suspend our rational minds while a schlockmeister-in-chief turns our foreign policy into the tacky 'Plan 9 From Outer Space,'" writes the cultural commentator and NBA legend.

hat makes the haunted house genre so scary is that the hapless victims are trapped in a confined space from which it is almost impossible to escape � a house, a spaceship, the woods, the ocean � and they are being stalked by a terrifying entity that is malevolently irrational and supremely powerful. There can be no appealing to the beast logically or emotionally, no defeating it through sheer force. To quote Yeats, it is as �pitiless as the sun.�

For civilized societies, the absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle. The manifestation of this evil can be supernatural (Poltergeist, The Conjuring), natural (Jaws, Alien) or a twisted version of humanity�s worst behavior (Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street). President Trump�s recent executive order to bar citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries has resulted in Muslim-Americans feeling as if we�re now trapped in a menacing haunted house battling a powerful but irrational specter. There is no escape, nowhere to hide, no one believes us when we tell them about the horrible noises (�Grab them by the pussy�), and no help from the authorities is coming because they�re already possessed and mindlessly doing the creature�s bidding.

The weakness in every horror movie is motivation. Do you really expect us to believe the ghost wants your severed head because someone dropped them down a well? Or that a shark wants to eat you out of revenge? Coming up with a believable motivation for the relentless entity often results in contrived and convoluted reasoning that forces the audience to struggle with our willing suspension of disbelief. President Trump�s Muslim ban continues this challenge to our suspension of disbelief because we can find no rational motivation for the scary creature�s horrific actions. His ban cites 9/11 as its rationale, yet the ban doesn�t include any countries that those hijackers came from (nor any countries that Trump does business with). Refugees who have already been vetted � which can take two to three years of intense scrutiny � were interrogated about their attitudes toward Trump. Some were forced to show officials their social media. Some were handcuffed without provocation. Even the federal government�s own lawyers, sent to justify the ban in court in response to an ACLU challenge, were unable to find legal support. When the federal judge questioned Eastern District U.S. Attorney Susan Riley on the government�s reasoning, she admitted, �[W]e haven�t had an opportunity to address the issues, the important legal issues." When Riley was unable to even estimate the number of people detained, the judge said that was exactly why she would grant the ACLU�s request for a stay.

The audience�s willing suspension of disbelief is great for poorly written horror films, but when government tries to promote it to the American people, us buying into it would be social suicide. We can�t suspend our rational minds while a schlockmeister-in-chief turns our foreign policy into the tacky Plan 9 From Outer Space. The only way Trump can make a ban like this work, since it is so egregiously unconstitutional, is to convince the people that there is no legitimate source of truth except his administration. Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway describes the president�s first week of extensive lying as "alternate facts" and, in a Fox interview, even used references that compared Trump to Jesus. Trump strategist Steve Bannon has called the media �the opposition party.� They are trying to convince the public that no one has the moral integrity to judge what they say or do. Just like the royalty of old that Americans fought to get away from, they rule through God�s grace and so are infallible. Just ask them.

A little over a year ago, Vice President Mike Pence tweeted, �Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional." Later that same day, he told reporters, �The United States cannot, and should not discriminate on the basis of religion.� Now he applauds Trump's unconstitutional religious discrimination. Alternative facts? Or just a terminal case of brown-nosing? It is part of the administration�s contempt for the American people that they believe they can continually lie to us and we, including even former Trump supporters, will not fight back.

What�s even more horrifying than those cinematic stories of blood-curdling terrors are the real terrors and indignities that we are capable of inflicting on other people, with as little rational justification as the vengeful apparition or toothy shark. This country condemned Nazi Germany for its inhumanity while we incarcerated Japanese in our own concentration camps, which President Reagan apologized for when signing the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. When we passed that act, the country was announcing that we had learned from our mistakes and were pledging not to make them again.

Not so fast.

When the leader of the free world creates a hostile environment for Muslims, as this ban surely does, it can have violent repercussions as other racists and xenophobes are encouraged to act on their hatred. Sunday night�s shooting at a Quebec mosque where, during evening prayers, someone fired on about 60-100 worshipers, killing six (one gunman is in custody), is such a repercussion that we all share responsibility for if we sit back and allow such policies as Trump�s ban to define who we are as a country.

In 1939, a real horror story took place. The MS St. Louis left Hamburg, Germany, carrying 937 Jews bound for Cuba, where they would live free from Nazi persecution. When they arrived in Havana, Cuban authorities refused to let them enter. Turns out that the whole voyage was a ruse, a devious publicity stunt by the Nazis to prove that the rest of the world hated the Jews as much as Germany, thus justifying their maltreatment of Jews. Shockingly, the United States aided the Nazis by also refusing to give the ship's passengers refuge. We were the monster in the horror story. The ship had no choice but to return to Europe. When the ship�s captain threatened to run the ship aground in Great Britain, Britain, Belgium, France and the Netherlands offered to take in some passengers. But not all. Of the 937 Jews aboard, 600 died in Nazi concentration camps. So much for �Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.� Today, because of Trump�s ban, we are trying to return Syrian refugees to a war-ravaged battleground where they could die. Have we not learned from our disgusting and embarrassing past behavior?

A movie version of the events aboard the MS St. Louis was released in 1976, called Voyage of the Damned. But in light of current events, we have to ask ourselves who the damned really are: the ones who are abandoned to face their deaths in concentration camps? Or the ones who abandoned them?

The sins of the past are never past redeeming if we admit to them. And vow to never make them again.

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FOCUS: Of Scarecrows and Whistleblowers

Thursday, 02 February 2017 13:00

Sterling writes: "It may have been Mr. Gladwell's intention to contemplate the merits of acceptable whistleblowing vis-a-vis Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden, but that is not the article's end result. He is explaining and attempting to justify a system of governance. Lost in his unabashed blandishment is consideration of the illegitimacy and illegality of that system."

Whistleblowers Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden. (photo: Ole Von Uexkull/Facebook/John Cusack)

Of Scarecrows and Whistleblowers

By Jeffrey Sterling, Reader Supported News

02 February 17

find myself doing a lot of reading in prison of late, and one article in particular caught my attention. It speaks to many issues that are indicative of my being in prison. The article is �The Outside Man� and in it, Malcolm Gladwell muses over the differences between Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden. From my �inside� perspective, the distinctions Mr. Gladwell makes and the justifications for doing so are troubling. Mr. Gladwell�s perspective espouses a form of �good government� that the Bard warns against in typical Shakespearean eloquence and ageless wisdom:

�We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch and not their terror.�

It may have been Mr. Gladwell�s intention to contemplate the merits of acceptable whistleblowing vis-a-vis Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden, but that is not the article�s end result. He is explaining and attempting to justify a system of governance. Lost in his unabashed blandishment is consideration of the illegitimacy and illegality of that system.

Mr. Gladwell painstakingly points out the differences between Daniel Ellsberg, whom he christens as the �archetypical modern whistleblower� and Edward Snowden, whom he characterizes, disparately, as a ne�er-do-well hacker. Status is an overriding determinant for Mr. Gladwell:

�� the man [Ellsberg] who defined the modern category of whistle-blower was the sort who gave career advice to Henry Kissinger. Ellsberg was an insider � and that fact puts him in stark contrast with the man who has come to be seen as his heir, Edward Snowden.�

He further delineates the insider/outsider distinction by pointing out that Ellsberg was:

�handsome and charismatic. He had served in the Marine Corps as a company commander in Korea.... a studious political science Ph.D....�

While Snowden is characterized as:

�a community college dropout, a member of the murky hacking counterculture.... a technician who helped service the computer systems ... a graduate student, who realizes, with great disappointment, that his thesis adviser has not kept up with the literature.�

And for good measure, as someone who hasn�t seen �Dr. Strangelove� as Ellsberg has.

The distinctions made by Mr. Gladwell are steeped in elitist class bias and absolutely necessary to justify what he calls a �ritual that obliges its participants to play by certain rules.� And it is this ritual that epitomizes the illegitimacy of Mr. Gladwell�s benevolence towards Daniel Ellsberg and demonization of Edward Snowden.

The ritual is the source/beneficiary symbiosis whereby the government (the source) leaks �carefully curated� information to the press (the beneficiary). Mr. Gladwell refers to Columbia Law Professor David Pozen to define the importance of this ritual as:

�... a form of governmental �self binding�... using periodic disclosure... to justify to the public the extraordinary power it wields... [and] maintain its power.�

Mr. Gladwell sees this ritual as an essential aspect, not necessarily of government, but by government for legitimacy, as long as the �certain rules� are observed by both source and beneficiary.

�... a common understanding among participants, a degree of discretion and judgment. You need to have laws against leaking � and occasionally enforce them � You can�t over-enforce those laws, though ... The press, meanwhile, has to preserve the ambiguity of plants, in order to preserve its access to leaks. And the press [must not] discredit the institution of leaking, by airing disclosures too damaging to the national interest ...�

What Mr. Gladwell lauds, with the postulates of Professor Pozen, is a smoke-filled room sort of governance which is above the law and designed to manipulate the public by encouraging, if not mandating, breaking the law for the sole purpose of maintaining power. That this system and its ritual are patently illegitimate is evident in Mr. Gladwell�s need to use Daniel Ellsberg as sort of distorted poster child to garner legitimacy. In fact, Mr. Gladwell does a disservice to Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, and whistleblowing by either associating or disavowing them within a ritual that is an affront to them all.

Mr. Gladwell is correct in calling Daniel Ellsberg a prime example of the modern whistleblower. However he is incorrect in applying whistleblowing as ushered in by Daniel Ellsberg to his ritual of leaking. Jim Naureckas, in his counter to Mr. Gladwell, points out Daniel Ellsberg�s reasoning for his act:

�The only thing that I could personally hope to achieve by my own efforts was to make these documents available to the American public for them to read and to learn from ...�

Daniel Ellsberg�s were the actions of a man who had the public interest in mind, not the maintenance of power through manipulation. Daniel Ellsberg�s actions and intentions were those of a whistleblower. Herein lies a difficulty in Mr. Gladwell�s viewpoint: he sees no difference between leaking and whistleblowing. Therefore, Daniel Ellsberg will fit nicely into the ritual. However leaks, plants, and whistleblowing are not interchangeable terms of art.

Mr. Gladwell�s ritual is centered on, as Professor Pozen explains, information leaked �with the full authorization of the White House.� What can be considered more �insider� than that which is blessed, if not encouraged, by the highest level of government? Such information-peddling is nothing more than a plant, a tidy bit of propaganda to serve as little more than a symbolic ray of sunshine upon government merely to assuage the public. Mr. Gladwell attempts to distinguish between leaks and plants by stating that leaks are unauthorized and tolerated in order to �water� or add some hint of credibility to the plants which are authorized. By his own argument, then, there really can be no distinction. The ritual is one of plants whether deemed authorized or not; they both serve the overall purpose to manipulate the public (and the law) to garner support for those in power, whether warranted or not. In contrast, whistleblowers do not undertake the tremendous risk they do out of any motivation to �build support� for the very issue and governmental activity of concern. They are spurred by a desire to bring accountability to power, not create it. The interest of a whistleblower, as embodied in Daniel Ellsberg�s own words, is an informed public; that of a plant or leak is a manipulated public. It can and should be argued that Edward Snowden shared the same motivation as Daniel Ellsberg, as a whistleblower; neither should therefore be associated with Mr. Gladwell�s ritual.

Another critical aspect that adds to the fallacy of Mr. Gladwell�s ritual is enforcement of the law, or lack thereof. While one of the ritual rules acknowledges the need for law against leaking, they are not to be �over-enforced.� This rule is explicit � that for the ritual to function as intended, the willing participation of law enforcement (specifically the Department of Justice) is required. Professor Pozen points to the fact that even with:

�... the recent uptick in leak prosecutions during the Obama Administration ... the degree of underenforcement is stunning.�

Mr. Gladwell emphasizes the duplicity of law enforcement by pointing out that administrations are indeed able to find leakers because �information � particularly secretive information � has a pedigree.� So the reason there are not more leak prosecutions is because the ritual requires administrations to play by the rules and look the other way. What is troubling for me is that I have been condemned to prison as a result of that so-called stunningly under-enforced enforcement. To Mr. Gladwell, and most likely Professor Pozen, my prosecution represented the ritual in action: that instance of occasional enforcement lending credibility to a woefully illegitimate system. Instead of serving as a shining example of the ritual at work (or the penultimate success of the Obama administration�s campaign against whistleblowers), the prosecution and imprisonment of an innocent man should serve as a warning of the real dangers of a ritual viewed as crucial to good government.

Professor Pozen�s miniscule numbers for leak prosecutions are misleading. Given the need for law enforcement�s participation, those numbers necessarily reflect enforcement only when it comes to those participating in and benefiting from this ritual, insiders. I hazard to guess that the enforcement numbers against outsiders is much higher. The contrast in enforcement between those of the ritual and those outside of it is what is stunning.

When it comes to those not considered worthy enough to be part of the ritual, enforcement is swift and devastating. Mr. Gladwell fails to address a common aspect that both insiders and outsiders are bound by, the secrecy agreement, where disparate enforcement of the law is most obvious.

Kevin Shipp details how whistleblowers face an unrelenting system of destruction, noting that:

�US government intelligence agencies have perfected a complex, sequential system to systematically silence or destroy an employee, including his or her family, who attempts to reveal illegal or unconstitutional activities conducted as part of secret government operations.�

This system of destruction is not limited to the in-house actions that relevant agencies are able to take against whistleblowers. The ritual necessarily requires the participation of other government entities:

�When the employee attempts to blow the whistle to the Congressional committees, their response is ignored. It is made clear to committee members that they are not to touch such cases ... If the employee contacts a member of the news media, they are immediately cited with violating their secrecy agreement and criminal penalties are filed against them. Several news media outlets are connected to the CIA and NSA and notify them of the employee�s contact.�

This is the self-protectionist ritual at work. Its effectiveness and cohesion � though not necessarily coordinated by as much as understood by those in government who benefit by the rules being followed � is impressive. Shipp points out that the employee (or public for that matter) is:

�... not fully aware of all that is being done. The full scope of the system is only known at the higher levels of the organization and is hidden from employees, until its use necessary.�

And when a whistleblower comes forward, not a leaker or plant, is when it is necessary.

The participants of Mr. Gladwell�s ritual do not face such enthusiastic enforcement of the law. In fact, he refers to the enforcement against Daniel Ellsberg as a �farcical denouement.� From the standpoint of the whistleblower, there is nothing farcical about the ritual striking out to protect itself. I don�t think Daniel Ellsberg thought the very real actions against him by the Nixon administration were farcical and I am sure whistleblowers like John Kiriakou, Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning, and the other �occasional enforcements� by the Obama administration view their experiences as not so whimsical. And I can�t imagine Edward Snowden having a laugh about his situation.

To the acceptable or traditional ritual participants, it certainly is a farce. When it comes to leaks or plants of the proper sort, the government does indeed look the other way. Mr. Gladwell uses CIA drone strikes against Yemen as an authorized plant but he fails to mention any denouement farcical or otherwise to that release of classified information that did not come from an official news conference. His farcical denouement is also epitomized with the Obama administration�s plant related to the classified STUXNET Operation. The �occasional enforcement� chose General Cartwright (known as Obama�s favorite general) as the focus of what can only be characterized as a true farcical denouement. General Cartwright, in what gave the appearance of a very cordial, almost apologetic investigation and prosecution, pleaded to a watered-down felony for lying to the FBI. Indeed, a sweetheart deal to play the sacrificial, ritual lamb. I can remember seeing the news from the prison TV room about his plea and possible (emphasis on �possible� because every newscast I heard speculated that there would most likely be no prison for General Cartwright) prison sentence and feeling dismayed. There would be no charges for disclosing classified information; his disclosure was an �authorized� plant and as such the ritual required any denouement to be farcical, mainly at least giving the appearance of enforcement. And that is exactly the end result when on January 17, 2017, then-President Obama pardoned General Cartwright. The ritual protects its own. General Cartwright will face none of the real perils true whistleblowers do; he won�t see a day in prison for doing far more than an average whistleblower; he will retain his rank, pension and status in government. There can be no better example of the ritual in action. I can�t help but be struck by the fact that the overall subject connecting me and General Cartwright is Iran. But the differences more than explain the disparate treatment between the two of us: I am not an insider as General Cartwright is, therefore I am not entitled to the same �mercy� from the highest level of government, and more importantly, I am innocent.

What�s more, having law enforcement play such a crucial role in the ritual allows such farcical denouements to become commonplace for insiders whether their actions are part of the ritual or not. Mr. Gladwell�s ritual is the same system that turns the other way or engages in similar farcical denouements when insiders blatantly disregard their sworn obligation to secrecy for personal convenience or gain. Such has been the case with Hillary Clinton and General David Petraeus. No outsider has received such unjustified favorable treatment, which has amounted to little more than officially sanctioned chastisement with eventual forgiveness. I got the impression that Mr. Gladwell imagines that Daniel Ellsberg was, or at least should have been, treated like an insider, and Edward Snowden relegated to the treatment afforded his worth. That worth of course being determined by the ritual.

What is particularly disturbing is that Mr. Gladwell is using Daniel Ellsberg to lend credibility to the one aspect of the ritual that should be the most abhorred by it: the press. But not just any press; Mr. Gladwell makes it clear that only the elite press or establishment journalism is allowed to participate. After all, Daniel Ellsberg reached out to The New York Times, which Mr. Gladwell considers �the most august institution in American journalism.� Mr. Gladwell proudly acknowledges the willing and the duplicitous participation of the press:

�When I worked [at] the Washington Post, my colleagues and I would read a front-page story by our counterparts at the Times and invariably know where the leak ... came from. The first order of business was typically to call the leaker and complain that he or she was playing favorites.�

Notice Mr. Gladwell makes no assertions as to the veracity of the press�s role; concern is solely focused on abiding by the rules and preserving the ritual. Of course, the press, particularly establishment journalism, has every reason to be a willing participant; there is little risk and it is a guarantee of access to government.

My trial provided a rare opportunity to realize just how intertwined the press is in the ritual. That the �august� or establishment press is merely an appendage of government, and particularly the ritual, came from the words of one who was at the highest level of government. During my trial, a former National Security Adviser to the George W. Bush administration, Condoleezza Rice, testified under oath that it was routine practice, in reaction to a story of concern, for the White House to call in reporters and their editors to either delay, kill, or �correct� the story in question. Ms. Rice was describing the ritual in action: the source/beneficiary symbiosis that Mr. Gladwell describes.

Furthermore, when it became apparent the government was planning on forcing a journalist to reveal his sources, the establishment press was up in arms. Clearly, exposing the press to such a risk was counter to the ritual rules. There was such anxiety among the press that during the years-long interlocutory appeal, the case was no longer US vs. Jeffrey Sterling, it was dubbed the �Jim Risen� case. There was absolutely no concern for whether I was innocent or not; I was not part of the ritual and my prosecution threatened to disrupt the sanctity of it. Forcing the press to reveal sources presents a problem for the ritual because, as Mr. Gladwell notes:

�When the origin of the disclosure is uncertain, all parties save face.�

Calm, however, was restored when, even though the appellate court ruled that the press can be compelled to reveal sources, the government decided not to do so (a decision which, by the way, was leaked). Order was restored to the ritual.

The system that Mr. Gladwell has participated in, and is a proponent of, is not as he believes a ritual of �good government,� it is an elitist cabal of self-serving manipulation, and he fails in his attempt to grant it credibility by associating it with Daniel Ellsberg. Mr. Gladwell is engaging in nothing more than character assassination directed at Edward Snowden, not unlike the many other detractors who find it more expedient to focus on the messenger than the message. What is unique about Mr. Gladwell�s article is that in denouncing Edward Snowden he pulls the curtain back on a system and ritual that necessarily fears Snowden and what he represents � an informed public. The ritual is the thing for Mr. Gladwell, and neither does Edward Snowden fit within nor Daniel Ellsberg lend credibility to it. It is a ritual which has become the custom to those in established power, designed to manipulate the law and public trust. Mr. Gladwell�s ritual does indeed make a scarecrow of both (the law and the public) and everyone knows that scarecrows are set up to protect the plants.

The Obama administration was adept at utilizing and protecting the ritual, as demonstrated by the witch-hunt against whistleblowing that spanned his entire presidential tenure and was crowned by the pardon for General Cartwright. It has yet to be seen whether the Trump administration will be as ritual-enthusiastic. I imagine that Mr. Gladwell is anxiously wondering the same thing.

Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA case officer, is currently serving a 3 1/2-year prison sentence for leaking classified information to a New York Times reporter. His forthcoming book will be published by Nation Books.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

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