Will Tulsi Gabbard “shrink the bloated bureaucracy” in DC?
Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is America’s Director of National Intelligence. Here’s a part of the ceremony, with President Trump’s introduction:
What struck me in watching the short ceremony was Trump’s words about “the threat of a warmongering military-industrial complex.” Bold words indeed, as well as his call for Tulsi Gabbard to “shrink the bloated bureaucracy” in DC.
In her brief remarks, Tulsi mentioned an almost forbidden word in DC: peace. She mentioned war as an absolute last resort rather than the first action selected by the “warmongering” (Trump’s word) military-industrial complex. I find that remarkable as well as encouraging.
There are many reasons why I like Tulsi as DNI, but the biggest one is this: She has President Trump’s respect. He likes her. Meaning he’ll listen to her when she briefs him on a daily basis about the threats facing America and the options he has to address those threats.
In his first term as president, Trump was notorious for not caring much about his daily intelligence briefing. Tulsi will change that—and that and her commitment to military action as a last resort is again highly encouraging.
Now it’s take and take and takeover, takeover It’s all take and never give All these trumped up towers They’re just golden showers Where are people supposed to live?
Yesterday, President Trump said the U.S. would take over the redevelopment of the devastated Gaza Strip (destroyed mostly by bombs, shells, and bullets made in the USA), turning it into a “new Riviera,” not for the Palestinians, obviously, but for Israelis.
To borrow from Don Henley, Where are the Palestinians supposed to live? Not in Gaza, where their presence would interfere with Zionism as well as Israeli desires to control profits from offshore gas fields. Roughly 1.8 million Palestinians are simply supposed to leave the Gaza “hellhole” (Trump’s descriptor), after which a lot of men with briefcases (and bulldozers) will move in to turn Gaza into a paradise on earth, free of Palestinian “savages” (a word I’ve seen employed often online, and obviously one that echoes how the white man saw Native Americans, whose land was ruthlessly stolen from them as well).
So, where will be the Palestinian “reservation”? Trump has floated Egypt and Jordan, but both countries have expressed no enthusiasm for this scheme. Greenland, maybe?
Trump has the virtue of saying the quiet part out loud. There will be no Palestinian state, no two-state solution. There will be one state, Greater Israel, with Palestinians either killed or ethnically cleansed from their lands. This was the policy of the Biden administration, even if that administration gave lip service to a two-state solution. Trump just states it plainly, like a mafia don intoning: “It’s nothing personal—it’s strictly business.”
Congress, which is owned by AIPAC, may grouse a bit about Trump’s terminology, but look for most members to rubber-stamp this plan, if one can call it that.
I suppose Trump’s admirers might say he’s cut the Gordian knot here—that peace in the region will only be attained when Israel is completely dominant and Palestinians are simply gone for good—but something tells me the fantastical new Riviera in Gaza is another manifestation of “trumped up towers.”
A friend of mine sent along a typical militarized think-tank article and asked for my comments. Here’s the title, with a link:
Moneyball Military: An Affordable, Achievable, and Capable Alternative to Deter China
It was published by the Hoover Institution out of “liberal” Stanford University.
“Moneyball” is a baseball term, the idea being that smaller market (and budget) teams can compete with larger teams (like the LA Dodgers or NY Yankees) by being smarter, by using metrics and stats to identify “cheap” but good players as well as more effective tactics to win ballgames. Check out the movie with the same title starring Brad Pitt.
Brad Pitt in “Moneyball.” But war, especially a land war in Asia, isn’t a game.
The “Moneyball Military” article basically argues the U.S. military must become more innovative, more responsive, more nimble, more flexible, etc., to meet the challenge of China. What articles like this one never suggest is diplomacy and the pursuit of PEACE. They never suggest that major cuts can be made to the Pentagon budget because the U.S. is fundamentally safe from invasion. They usually argue instead for more Pentagon spending, only “smarter.”
Why does the U.S. “need” 800 military bases around the globe? Why does it “need” to dominate the global trade in arms? Why has the U.S. wasted $10 trillion on unwinnable wars and conflicts (Iraq, Afghanistan, the GWOT, et al.) since 9/11? Why is China, a major U.S. trading partner and holder of U.S. debt, seen as an “enemy”?
These are questions that aren’t raised in think-tank articles like this one.
If you believe the polls, the U.S. is allegedly a Christian nation. Is there a worse sin than killing other humans in massive numbers? How do we stop doing this? Didn’t Christ say “Blessed are the peacemakers”? Why is the U.S. ennobling and saluting the warmakers instead? Why are we always envisioning wars with other peoples?
Again, is China really America’s enemy? Is China really planning to invade Taiwan? If so, wouldn’t diplomacy be a far smarter way of addressing this rather than a land war in Asia?
When one encounters think-tank articles like this one, one would be wise to remember Ray McGovern’s acronym, MICIMATT, which rightly includes these think tanks among the powerful entities that form America’s military-industrial-congressional complex.
When it comes to a land war in Asia, there is no smart way to “moneyball” it. The smart thing to do is to not play “ball” at all.
When I was a kid, at the height of the U.S. space program and the Apollo missions to the moon, I was an avid consumer of space food sticks and Tang. They were “cool,” or so it seemed to me, because the astronauts (and product advertisers) said so. Of course, space food sticks tasted something like cardboard and Tang was a poor imitation of orange juice, but the power of image and advertising sold them to me, at least for a time. Then I smartened up and returned to Charleston Chews and real OJ. Breakfast of champions!
It’s truly amazing what the powers that be can sell to Americans. Lately, we’ve been sold a series of wars based on lies, most recently Iraq and Afghanistan and Ukraine. We’ve even been sold a genocide in Gaza, billed as a defensive operation for America’s guiltless and democratic ally, Israel, which only wants to assert its “right to exist.” Whether we’ll ever smarten up about these “products” we’re being sold remains to be seen.
These thoughts were on my mind as I read Caitlin Johnstone’s recent article where she mentions the Russia-Ukraine War. She references Time Magazine, the mainstream media in a nutshell, and a telling admission that U.S. support of Ukraine has been all about weakening Russia and Putin, with no thought given to military victory or the cost of that war to Ukraine.
Not that there haven’t been plenty of mask-off moments during the dementia-muddled chaos of the Biden administration as well. A new article in Time titled “Why Biden’s Ukraine Win Was Zelensky’s Loss” is a good example of this; the report cites a former member of Biden’s National Security Council saying that victory for Ukraine was never part of the Biden administration’s plan.
The opening paragraph reads as follows:
“When Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago, President Joe Biden set three objectives for the U.S. response. Ukraine’s victory was never among them. The phrase the White House used to describe its mission at the time — supporting Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes’ — was intentionally vague. It also raised the question: As long as it takes to do what?”
Well, at least Zelensky and his wife enjoyed the Vogue treatment:
America, a good motto to keep in mind is this one:
I’m Already Against the Next War
Don’t let them sell a new war to you, no matter how many crummy commercials they use to convince you that space food sticks, Tang—heck, even genocide and war—are great.
If one side is armed with cap guns and the other with bazookas, would we call that a “war” between roughly equal powers?
I thought of this as I turned to Antiwar.com to see that President Biden has approved yet another massive arms shipment to Israel, to the tune of $8 billion. Here’s the report:
The sale includes AIM-120C-8 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, Hellfire AGM-114 missiles, 155 MM artillery rounds, small-diameter bombs, JDAM kits, and 500-pound bombs. Many of these munitions have been used by Israel during its campaign of extermination in Gaza, including in attacks on civilian targets.
In June, CNN reported that Israel used US small-diameter bombs in an attack on a school that killed 40 civilians. In October, The Washington Post noted, “The Biden administration has received nearly 500 reports alleging Israel used U.S.-supplied weapons for attacks that caused unnecessary harm to civilians in the Gaza Strip.”
Remember when human rights used to matter (just a little bit)? Remember when genocide was considered morally reprehensible—a murderous wrong? The U.S. government simply ignores human rights except when they advance a particular agenda. And genocide? It’s OK when it’s couched as Israel doing it in the cause of “defending” its “right to exist.”
If your “right to exist” involves denying millions of others their right to exist, have you not bought that “right” with blood money?
Of course, we’re all told by the “experts” that the situation in the Middle East is immensely complicated. Certainly, the history of the region is complex. But what’s happening there today to the Palestinians isn’t complex. In Israel, Zionism has run amuck as Israel grabs land, water, oil and gas rights, indeed everything it can, in the cause of creating a Greater Israel. It just doesn’t matter to most Israelis, and the U.S. government as well, that two million Palestinians will be killed, wounded, or displaced. Might makes right here, accentuated by media spin and government propaganda.
Speaking of the Middle East, I watched a superb documentary recently: “This Is Not a Movie: Robert Fisk and the Politics of Truth.” I highly recommend it. Fisk was a foreign affairs journalist for The Independent. When I lived in Britain from 1992 to 1995, I used to read his articles in that paper. He lived in Beirut and covered the Middle East, ultimately spending forty years living in and writing about the region. The documentary follows him on assignment, demonstrating what a principled and brave man he was. Fisk did journalism the old fashioned way: he got out among the people, he journeyed to the front lines, he saw the dead bodies from massacres (indeed, in one horrific moment, he was forced to climb over a “barricade” of dead bodies, a nightmarish moment for him, as one would expect).
There are very few journalists like Fisk left today. A truth-seeker, he was unafraid to criticize the powerful when they deserved it. He always sought to understand what was happening through knowledge gleaned at firsthand, carrying his trusty notebook and a pen or pencil.
Check out the documentary on Fisk. You’ll learn a lot and be inspired by a man of considerable courage and unimpeachable integrity
I caught this headline in the morning send-out for the New York Times:
It Can Be Lonely to Have a Middle-of-the Road Opinion on the Middle East
Some college students and faculty members are seeking space for nuanced perspectives on the Israel-Hamas war on deeply divided campuses.
See, it’s a “war” between Israel and Hamas, and what’s really needed here is “space” for “nuanced perspectives.”
Don’t you want to have “a middle of the road opinion” on genocide in Gaza? Don’t you want to explore all the “nuances” of Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza, where the death toll is likely to have reached 200,000 and counting? (Or not counting, since apparently Palestinian deaths don’t count for much.)
Here are some “nuances”: As Chris Hedges recently noted, the genocide in Gaza resembles that of Armenians during World War I. It’s happening in the open, unlike the Holocaust which the Nazis tried to hide, yet not enough people, especially in the West, are seeking to stop it.
In fact, the U.S. government is deeply complicit in the genocide in Gaza, arming Israel and providing military and diplomatic cover at a cost of scores of billions of dollars (when you factor in maintaining two carrier strike groups in the region as well as all the weapons shipments to Israel).
The intent is obvious: the creation of a Greater Israel in which Gaza and the West Bank cease to exist as lands for a Palestinian state. The “nuance” here is a “no-state solution,” as Palestinians are killed or forced from their land in the name of Israel’s “right to exist.” The fall of the Syrian government, meanwhile, sees Israel expanding into the Golan Heights and beyond, also in the name of protecting Israel.
It’s a land grab, a water grab, a gas reserves grab, a power grab, all for Israel and its big brother, the USA. It’s an illustration of Thucydides’ lesson that “The strong do what they will; the weak suffer what they must.” Israel, supported wholeheartedly by the U.S. government, is strong; the Palestinians (and now the Syrians) are weak; so the latter suffer.
The New York Times article suggests I should be looking for “middle ground” here, but I have news for them: Israel has already seized and occupied it.
What is the point of playing Russian roulette—with Russia?
As the Biden administration fades into oblivion, among its last decisions has been to allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with U.S.-made ATACMS, a missile with a range of 300 kilometers (190 miles). Ukraine’s recent use of these missiles brought a worrisome response from Russia: hypersonic intermediate-range missiles. If Ukraine persists in striking deeper into Russia with U.S., British, and French missiles, the Russian response will be proportionately greater, and possibly escalatory against NATO.
Here’s the thing: These missiles are too few in number to have a decisive impact on the course of the war. Ukraine isn’t going to “win” by launching ATACMS and similar tactical missiles. Yes, they can inflict more pain on Russia, hitting targets like ammunition dumps, military bases, and the like. But nobody is pretending these are war-winning weapons. All they promise is more dead bodies on both sides.
In World War I, new weapons were often introduced because it was believed they would prove decisive on the battlefield, weapons such as poison gas (1915) and tanks (1916). Of course, the other side adapted fairly quickly and the war dragged on, but at least there was a sincere belief that new weapons might break the awful stalemate of trench warfare.
There is no such sincere belief today. The main objective seems to be to complicate matters for the incoming Trump administration and its stated goal to end the Russia-Ukraine War. To that end, the Biden administration is using all means at its disposal to send the remaining $6 billion or so in weapons and related aid to Ukraine before Trump’s inauguration in January. Even anti-personnel mines are included in the mix.
Here’s how Antony Blinken put it:
President Biden is committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and January 20.
We’re making sure that Ukraine has the air defenses it needs, that it has the artillery it needs, that it has the armored vehicles it needs.
If only the Biden administration had been so committed to helping Americans in need.
In playing Russian roulette with Russia, Biden and Blinken have demonstrated unconscionable levels of recklessness and stupidity.
In my morning news feed from the New York Times came this article on Tulsi Gabbard:
How Tulsi Gabbard Became a Favorite of Russia’s State Media
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to be the director of national intelligence has raised alarms among national security officials.
Here’s the key paragraph from the article, which, of course, is delayed until the sixth paragraph:
No evidence has emerged that she has ever collaborated in any way with Russia’s intelligence agencies. Instead, according to analysts and former officials, Ms. Gabbard seems to simply share the Kremlin’s geopolitical views, especially when it comes to the exercise of American military power. [Emphasis added]
Did you get that? NO EVIDENCE. Tulsi has never collaborated with Russia in any way. The problem is that she’s a critic of unnecessary and disastrous wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. She’s a critic of massive U.S. military aid to Ukraine. And since those criticisms are vaguely useful to Russia, she must therefore be a “Russian asset,” a dupe of Putin, according to Hillary Clinton and now the New York Times.
Within the so-called intelligence community (IC), you are allowed to be a cheerleader, a booster, even a selective critic in the sense that you may call for more money for the IC because of certain limitations or oversights, but you are not allowed to question America’s disastrously wasteful imperial foreign policy.
No matter how poorly the IC performs (consider the colossal failure of 9/11, or the total obliviousness about the impending collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, or recent disastrous wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya), no one is ever held accountable, even as the IC gets more money and authority.
Tulsi Gabbard with President-elect Trump. (Jim Vondruska for the NYT)
Tulsi Gabbard promises to be a game-changer. Skeptical of the blatant misuse of American military power, she’s been an articulate critic of forever wars. She is especially sensitive to deploying U.S. troops in harm’s way for purposes other than the defense of the United States.
The “liberal” New York Times is having none of that. Consider this remarkable paragraph:
“Nominating Gabbard for director of national intelligence is the way to Putin’s heart, and it tells the world that America under Trump will be the Kremlin’s ally rather than an adversary,” Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history at New York University and the author of “Strongmen,” a 2020 book about authoritarian leaders, wrote on Friday. “And so we would have a national security official who would potentially compromise our national security.” [Emphasis added]
Who knew that “Putin’s heart” could be won so easily? And note the weasel wording that Tulsi could “potentially compromise” U.S. national security. Again, no evidence is presented.
Well, we certainly don’t want the U.S. to have a rapprochement with Putin. He must always be our adversary, am I right? How dare that Trump and Gabbard might, just might, pursue a policy that is less antagonistic toward the Kremlin? Don’t you enjoy teetering on the brink of a world-ending nuclear exchange? I much prefer that to listening and negotiation.
In making enemies of Hillary Clinton and now the New York Times, Tulsi Gabbard has demonstrated she has what it takes to serve as director of national intelligence.
President Joe Biden has authorized Ukraine to use powerful long-range US weapons deep inside Russia.
Why now? Biden is a lame duck president, shuffling out the door, and now he decides to allow Ukraine to use American ATACMS missiles, with a range of roughly 190 miles, inside Russia. It’s also expected that these and similar longer-range missiles provided by the French and British will have no decisive impact on the war. They may kill and wound more Russians and inspire responses in kind by Russia against Ukraine, but their use won’t contribute to “victory” for Ukraine. So what’s the point?
My wife put it well when she learned of the decision: “stupid” and “ridiculous” were her words of choice. It’s amazing how well our “experts” feed the obscenity of war.
How dare you handcuff our missiles!
I take my title from a comment made by President-elect Trump’s nominee for National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, who said we should take the handcuffs off of U.S. missiles in Ukraine, as if those missiles were people being held prisoner.
Whether in the Biden or Trump administrations, the advisers at the top are moral midgets, murderously so. I wonder how they’d feel being targeted by ATACMS. Hey, we just took the handcuffs off, Mr. Waltz. Enjoy your time being bombarded by these liberated missiles.
At the end of September, I noted how Vladimir Putin had redefined Russian nuclear policy to include a possible nuclear response to the use of “tactical” missiles like ATACMS. Here’s what I wrote then:
Vladimir Putin is redefining Russian policy for the use of nuclear weapons. He’s sending a clear warning that Ukraine’s use of U.S. and Franco-British missiles like ATACMS and Storm Shadow deep within Russia could draw a nuclear response. To my knowledge, the U.S. has not yet approved of the use of ATACMS deep within Russia, though Ukraine is pushing for it.
It seems many brain-dead, zombie-like advisers and “experts” insist that Russia is bluffing. They’re willing to bet the health and safety of the world that Russia won’t respond with nuclear weapons. And for what? ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles aren’t war-winning weapons. The Russia-Ukraine War is a slog, an attritional struggle, featuring trenches and artillery and high casualties, a situation akin to World War I. It’s not going to be won by conventional tactical missile strikes.
Yet certain “experts” seemingly want it to escalate to World War III with nukes.
Just about 80 years ago, we humans entered the atomic age at the Trinity test site in July of 1945. We still haven’t come to grips with how the world changed when the first atomic “gadget” exploded in the desert in New Mexico. We had better hurry up and grow up before we all burn.
So, Putin has warned that deep strikes within Russia could draw a nuclear response, and Biden has now approved said strikes just before he leaves the White House. “Stupid” and “ridiculous” are indeed good descriptors here.
The obscenity of war knows no handcuffs in America.
Former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has been nominated as Director of National Intelligence by President-elect Donald Trump. The so-called intelligence community is up in arms about this. That is a very good thing.
Tulsi Gabbard (Reuters, Jeenah Moon photo)
Here’s what Reuters has to say:
WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Tulsi Gabbard as U.S. intelligence chief has sent shockwaves through the national security establishment, adding to concerns that the sprawling intelligence community will become increasingly politicized.
Trump’s nomination of Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman who lacks deep intelligence experience and is seen as soft on Russia and Syria, is among several high-level picks that suggest he may be prioritizing personal allegiance over competence as he assembles his second-term team.
Among the risks, say current and former intelligence officials and independent experts, are that top advisers could feed the incoming Republican president a distorted view of global threats based on what they believe will please him and that foreign allies may be reluctant to share vital information.
Randal Phillips, a former CIA operations directorate official who worked as the agency’s top representative in China, said that with Trump loyalists in top government posts, “this could become the avenue of choice for some really questionable actions” by the leadership of the intelligence community. [Emphasis added.]
As if the intelligence “community” isn’t already politicized! And who sees Gabbard as allegedly “soft” on Russia and Syria? Hillary Clinton? The “queen of warmongers,” as Gabbard memorably described her?
Wow. We might get “some really questionable actions” by the IC (intelligence community). I’m glad we’ve never had any of those before.
Tulsi has a wealth of experience in the military (she remains a lieutenant colonel), she’s a former Congresswoman who’s served on important committees dealing with national security, and she’s tough as nails, having survived ruthless attacks on her character by the neocon Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. She is an excellent choice as Director.
What Tulsi has is integrity. Honesty. Poise. Perhaps even more importantly, she has Trump’s ear and his respect. As Director, she will oversee the preparation of Trump’s daily intelligence briefs. Trump was notorious in his first term in office for not paying much attention to those briefs. He should do better with Tulsi, somebody he trusts, preparing them.
Tulsi won my respect in 2016 when she supported Bernie Sanders and revealed how the Democratic presidential primary process was being fixed for Hillary Clinton. Tulsi has paid a high price for her principled stance, being smeared by Clinton and mainstream media outlets like NBC as a “Russian asset,” maybe even a stooge for Vladimir Putin. Politics is a rough game, but accusing a serving U.S. military officer and Congresswoman of being a “Putin puppet” is truly reckless and defamatory. Good for Tulsi for punching back.
The establishment Democratic party hates Tulsi because she refused to play their game. She refused to bow to the Clintons. Tulsi has also questioned America’s constant warmongering and knows a thing or two about the horrendous costs of war. She even has a normal life as a surfer. She has a connection to nature that I respect.
Her poise, her toughness, her integrity, makes her a superb choice as DNI. The more the intelligence “community” complains about her, the louder certain Democrats scream, the more certain I am that Trump has made a smart decision here.
Recall when Kamala Harris vowed to put a Republican in her cabinet? Well, Trump has made Gabbard his DNI and RFK Jr. will lead Health and Human Services. He’s picked two (former) Democrats for important posts and the Democrats can’t stand it.
On this occasion, with these appointments, I applaud Trump. You go, Tulsi. Ride the wave. Continue to serve our country as you always have.
Bracing Views 