reflectivepundit

The First 10 Days: Who Pulls Strings in the Trump White House?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The first ten days of the Trump presidency gave enough reasons for alarm. Not merely because of President DJT’s continued bias in favor of alternative facts.

Clueless in matters of democratic governance and the truism that details matter in the implementation of executive orders and laws the president and his motley crew acted according to a reckless blueprint in unprecedented haste and thoughtlessness.

The ideological scheme guiding the new administration is the work of Steve Bannon, the former boss of Breitbart, one of the more influential among the far-right nationalist, nativist, and conspiracy theory promoting online organs.

During last year’s campaign, when Trump emerged as a serious presidential contender, some neo-Nazi voices expressed support for the reality show star with the caveat that as president Trump would only be a temporary front-man for the real national-socialist revolution under a bona fide leader of the cause.

For now, Trump’s chief strategist Bannon is foremost among those pulling the strings in the White House as he was in the decisive stretch of the presidential campaign.

He was the one who wrote the inauguration speech along with fellow hardliner and White House advisor Stephen Miller.

Bannon was—and is--the strongest advocate of Trump’s controversial executive order against Muslims that was enacted Friday night before relevant government agencies were informed of its full content and meaning. Not surprisingly, Bannon and Miller overruled Department of Homeland Security officials who did not want to include green card holders in the travel ban.

That the ban excludes Muslim majority countries whose citizens actually committed terrorism within America’s borders and/or have acute problems with terrorism today seems to suggest that the grey eminence in the White House does take his boss’s business interests into consideration, namely, in Turkey, the Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Those countries, along with others, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, are not part of the ban. That much for principles in fighting terrorism at home…

I actually agree with President Trump that terrorists are evil. I disagree that we must be equally as evil—or more so—in order to defeat terrorism.  

Most troublesome among the dubious decisions in the opening days of Trump’s governance were changes in the operations of the National Security Council which is led by the conspiracy theorist and Islamophobia-in-chief Michael Flynn. While Steve Bannon will be a regular at Council meetings, the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will no longer attend all meetings but merely those falling into their responsibilities and expertise. What a scary state of affairs: Leading intelligence and military officials are no longer regulars leaving lots of room to maneuver for Flynn, formerly a paid contributor to Vladimir Putin’s RT propaganda network, and Bannon, like his boss an admirer of Putin and authoritarian rulers in general.

What's next?

P.S. According to Politico, Senator John McCain said today, “I am worried about the National Security Council. Who are the members of it and who are the permanent members? The appointment of Mr. Bannon is something which is a radical departure from any National Security Council in history." 

Unfortunately, McCain praised Security Advisor Flynn although he is very critical of his pro-Russian stance.

Dick Cheney did Not Learn from Iraq Debacle, Wants Repeat

By Brigitte L. Nacos

It is difficult enough to listen to John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and others in the camp of perennial foreign policy hawks who have not seen a violent conflict or a perceived major threat abroad without demanding American military aid or military deployment. This was the case in the Libyan uprising against Gaddafi, the Syrian civil war, the conflict in the Ukraine, Iraq, again. And, of course, Iran!

It is more difficult to watch former Vice President Dick Cheney making the same case. He wants more of our military in Iraq, left more forces in Afghanistan, and, strangely, told ABC’s John Karl he “would definitely be helping the resistance up in Syria, in ISIS' backyard, with training and weapons and so forth, in order to be able to do a more effective job on that end of the party.”  Karl did not call him on that. ISIS is by far strongest force of the Syrian resistance against the Assad regime. How, then, would Cheney support the Syrian National Coalition and prevail?  

While out of the country I missed some of Cheney’s frequent media appearances. He has his lines remembered, repeats them at every stop. Especially when ask about the Iraq invasion. “I believed in it then. I look back on it now - it was absolutely the right thing to do.” That’s what he said the other day during a friendly “Playbook Lunch” hosted by Politico’s Mike Allen. That’s what he said when interviewed on ABC’s “This Week.” That’s what he had repeated elsewhere according to transcripts and reports I read today.

 “At this stage, you know I’m not spending a lot of time looking back 12 or 14 years at what was or wasn’t done then,” Cheney told the Daily Caller, “I’m concerned about the future. And about the threats were going to face and do face as a nation at this very moment.”

Sure, instead of pondering his starring role in past blunders, he rather criticizes President Obama for his measured foreign policy decisions, especially, as they relate to the Middle East and South Asia.

In the interview with Karl he said, “I don't intend any disrespect for the president, but I fundamentally disagree with him. I think he's dead wrong in terms of the course he's taken this nation and I think we're in for big trouble in the years ahead because of his refusal to recognize reality and because of his continual emphasis upon getting the U.S. basically to withdraw from that part of the world.”

Interestingly, just as Cheney has fundamental disagreements with the president, he has the same problem with fellow-Republican Rand Paul who actually agrees with Barack Obama on these foreign and security issues.

Bill O’Reilly: “There's got to be some downside to having a woman president.”

Transcript Excerpts with Comments by Brigitte L. Nacos

With Hillary Clinton the only woman in the discussed line-up for the 2016 presidential race, Bill O’Reilly put forth the argument that there must be a downside to having a woman president. In the following excerpts from the January 26^th “The O’Reilly Factor” program, I added my comments in brackets.  

 

O'REILLY: Last night on THE FACTOR Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said that she believes some Americans do not feel the USA is ready for a woman President -- very provocative. [And that from a woman who ran for president last time around! Ah, well, she did not lose because she is wacky but because Americans were not ready for a woman in the White House] Joining us from Washington is Kate Obenshain a Republican and Kirsten Powers is a Democrat and Fox News analyst.

O'REILLY: There's got to be some downside to having a woman president, right? Something -- something that may not fit with that office, correct? [It takes a male with a superiority complex to make such a statement. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has a downside as head of Germany’s government?]

POWERS: I'm going to say no, Bill.

O'REILLY: So there is no downside to having a woman.

POWERS: Well just because you're female that would something -- let me ask you this. What's the downside of a man being president?

O'REILLY: Oh you've got three -- you've got three years? I mean look at the guys we've had in there since.

POWERS: That's because they are a man or it's because of the people that are in office.

O'REILLY: Look, men are men and women are women. There is a difference, Kate. There is a difference between the genders. [What a smart observation] Now men, they are tied up and a lot of them macho image and that kind of thing and they act like you are not going to push me around. That could be a deficit you know they are not as kind of open to sensitive discussion maybe as women. [Why would that be a deficit since you and your conservative brethren love sable rattling macho guys in Washington? Your guys are not sensitive and discuss, they act] There's got to be a downside for a woman. Do you know one?

KATE OBENSHAIN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: You know, I'm having a tough time with this one, too Bill. I think it depends on the individual. Of course there is a downside to certain individual women, you know --

O'REILLY: But in general you both don't see any gender deficiency to lead the free world?

OBENSHAIN: I don't generalize all women or all men.

POWERS: Well I actually can think of something.

OBENSHAIN: Oh good.

POWERS: I mean if you can take -- if you can take your example of men being macho a woman might feel like she needs to act macho, for example, maybe feel like she had to take -- vote for say the Iraq war, I'm just going to say theoretically to make it look like she would be a tough leader when she was in office and that she is not afraid to use military force. [Are the female guests falling in line now?]

O'REILLY: That's what Hillary Clinton did. [Yeah—she is the real target of discussion]

O'REILLY: There haven't been that many strong women leaders throughout history. I mean we have Golda Meir.

O'REILLY: We have Margaret Thatcher.

POWERS: Both of them were very tough.

O'REILLY: We have a bunch, you know a bunch of people in American on the senate level and the Congress level. But you know, when you are President of the United States you've got it deal with people like Putin, Kate, you've got to deal with real ornery. There are the mullahs in Iran. [So, we forget about Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher since they did not have to deal with Putin and the mullahs in Iran—the toughest guys of all]

Take a Deep Breath and Think Before Making Missteps in the Ukrainian Crisis

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry told  Bob Schieffer of CBS News that Russia’s move into Crimea is “an incredible act of aggression. It is really a stunning, willful choice by President Putin to invade another country.” According to Kerry, Russia has violated Ukraine's sovereignty and several of its obligations under international agreements. "You just don't in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext," he said.

I wondered: Did Kerry indeed say that in the 21^st century you are not invading another country on completely trumped up pretext? Yes, he did. Obviously Washington’s diplomat-in-chief chose not to remember the invasion of Iraq some 11 years ago that fell squarely into the 21^st century and was trumped up with bogus justifications.

I certainly do not applaud or justify Russia’s military move into the Crimean peninsula. But one cannot ignore that the European Union and NATO contributed a great deal to Vladimir Putin’s reaction, overreaction, to the violence accompanying the political crisis in the Ukraine.

By relentlessly pursuing their goal to bring the former Soviet republics into the fold of the European Union and NATO, the leading European players and Washington expanded their western alliance ever closer to the Russian Federation’s borders with the Ukraine as the latest domino at the verge of falling from the Russian-dominated to the western sphere.

Long part of Russia, in 1954 Moscow transferred Crimea to the Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. That symbolic administrative change came to haunt Russia after the crumbling of the Soviet Union and the subsequent independence of former Soviet Republics. Russia has multiple interests in the Ukraine, most of all in transporting natural gas through Ukrainian pipelines, and in the Crimean peninsula, most of all as access to the Black Sea and site of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

When the clashes in Kiev and elsewhere unfolded, the U.S. and European governments were eagerly supporting the pro-EU side. I was stunned when a U.S. Assistant Secretary of State visited and encouraged pro-western protesters in Kiev and provided them with cookies. Just imagine the reaction here, if a Russian assistant foreign minister whipped up anti-war protesters before the Iraq invasion before TV cameras and microphones. 

The Shame of a Nation: Giving in to Gun Fanatics and Gutless Politicians

 By Brigitte L. Nacos

With a touch of indignation in his voice veteran newsman Bob Schieffer told his CBS News audience this morning that the National Rifle Association is the most influential among the mighty lobbies in Washington. Of course, this is absolutely true. And it is equally true that politicians on both sides of the aisle shake in their boots, when the topic of effective gun control comes up.

And they shut up.

With the exception of Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy whose husband was killed in a multiple shooting incident in a Long Island Railroad train and who has relentlessly fought for sensible gun control.

In vain.

President Obama’s words yesterday reflected the heart-breaking sentiments of many, many Americans. “We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics,” he said.

But these words are not enough in the face of still another unspeakable massacre.

President Obama must embrace Mayor Michel Bloomberg’s categorical pro-gun-control stand and force members of congress to follow the will of the vast majority of Americans who are in favor of gun control.

The gun fanatics like to tell us that guns do not kill—that people kill.

The enablers of these armed madmen do not acknowledge that there are far more incidents of public shootings in states without gun-control than in those that have restrictions on gun ownership.

Why in heaven do we Americans allow assault weapons in the hands of literally anyone who wants them?

Yesterday, the day of the Newtown school shooting, the state of Michigan passed a bill that allows the carrying of concealed weapons in previously off-limits areas, including schools. The gun-happy Michigan legislators did not pause when they learned of the mass shooting in Connecticut. Instead, Michigan House Speaker Jase Bolger claimed that the new law might have been “the difference between life and death for many innocent bystanders.”

Can you believe such nonsense? Does this guy tell us to arm our children and send them to school with concealed weapons on their hips—so that they can defend themselves against bad guys with semiautomatic weapons?

Time for President Obama to Use the Bully Pulpit and Assert Strong Leadership

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Thanks to his clear victory this week President Obama has replenished political capital to assert the same strong leadership he displayed in reaction to Hurricane Sandy.

To be sure, Republican leaders in Congress have shown none of the qualities that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie demonstrated when he abandoned partisan politics and cooperated closely with the president in the face of a horrendous crisis for the benefit of the many hard hit hurricane victims in his state.

President Obama must nevertheless strive to install the bipartisan Obama-Christie cooperation model in Washington in order to find agreements to solve the nation’s most pressing problems. Never mind that Republican leaders, who might want to cooperate, will continue to feel threatened by the wrath of uncompromising Tea Partiers and Grover Norquist, the unelected ruler of the GOP’s no-new-tax dictate.

The president’s stump speeches in the last phase of the campaign underscored that he is an excellent communicator if he so chooses.

Unfortunately, the great communicator Obama was mostly absent from the political arena for most of his first term. Had he explained, for example, in plain language the provisions of the “Obamacare” package, he could have enlisted solid public support.

He left it to the opposition to fill the gap with misinformation.

This must change. In today’s mass society with its many forms of mass communication and mass self-communication a strong leader must constantly inform and engage the people rallying their support for policies benefiting the vast majority and opposition against those measures designed for the super-wealthy 1 percent.

First of all, and before the new congress convenes, the so-called fiscal cliff must be dealt with decisively. Unless there is finally a fair agreement on how to handle the expiring tax cuts adopted during the George W. Bush presidency, there will be across-the-board spending cuts in Pentagon and domestic programs.

President Obama must insist on doing away with all of the favorable tax rates for the rich and super-rich while preserving those for the lowest and middle income groups. He should muster all his communicative qualities to lead a vigorous public discourse on good and bad ways to deal with the fiscal crisis.

And he should try to win former President Bill Clinton to be his negotiator-in-chief with congressional leaders in the upcoming struggle to avoid going over the financial cliff.

But ultimately it is the presidential bully pulpit that matters most.

The Tea Party’s War on America: Another Kind of Terrorism?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Those who have compared tea partiers to terrorists have a point. Just like terrorists, they fight a total war against evil enemies—those who do not share their fanatic conviction and agenda.  Just like terrorists, they divide the world around them into an in-group of freedom fighters and the bad out-group of those who do not buy into their mission. They write and rewrite an “us” against “them” scenario with the credo, “If you are not with us, you are with the enemy.” Like terrorist groups, tea partiers have leaders and followers; like modern-day terrorists, they use the Internet for their propaganda, recruitment, fundraising, and operations.

Terrorists attack and destroy with real weapons; tea partiers attack with hate speech, destroy policies, and threaten public officials that do not embrace their agenda.

The following paragraphs from the 9-12 Project’s handbook “Starting the Revolution: Your Guide to Being a Block Captain” reveal the extremist ideas of Tea Party leaders and the extent of their declared war on America as we know it:

“Today, we are in war for the heart and soul of America. The next few short years will determine the fate of American for perhaps 100 years, or much longer. Should America’s patriots falter, the horror and evil of Socialism will march all over America. And without America to stop Socialism’s advance, the entire planet will fall before its menace.

It is important to understand the stakes in this war. Should we win, we stand to gain back our nation. Should we fail, we stand to lose freedom, entirely; for ourselves and our children, and our grandchildren.

Declare victory TODAY! Commit to being a lifelong soldier and patriot. Commit to being a lover or freedom and a steward of liberty. Commit to answering freedom's call and to fighting forever until the war is Unconditionally Won. Start and WIN the Revolution! Commit!”

“Tea Party 1.0 was about the birth of the first massive, spontaneous grassroots movement in a generation. It was about rallying the troops and waking up America to realize that the inmates are running the asylum; that the first Manchurian Candidate became the first Manchurian President; that government programs and government spending were poised to destroy our children’s future.”

“Tea Party 2.0, is characterized by the swift march of Tea Party Patriots into political activism on a permanent basis. Tea Party 2.0 is an unstoppable freight train.”  

Representative Giffords’ Attacker: A Criminal or a Terrorist?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

According to evidence presented by law enforcement officials in court, Jared Lee Loughner planned the assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) well in advance. While little about his motives has been revealed so far, there cannot be any doubt that the attack was politically motivated. He left a trail of anti-government rants, often complaining about the Federal Reserve and the fact that the currency is not backed by gold and silver.

Right-extremists, among them militia groups, are among those who insist that a gold or silver standard would be the only way to assure a stable currency. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume that the Tucson shooter shared other causes and grievances of the right-extremist milieu—predominantly directed against the “unpatriotic” liberal and moderate enemies that do share their extreme ideas. For that, he did not have to attend actual meetings of so-called patriot or militia groups or even know any of those movements’ activists.

Today, the Internet is most instrumental of spreading extremists’ propaganda and winning over followers to extremist causes.

That is precisely the reason why FBI director Robert Mueller told reporters yesterday,

 “The ubiquitous nature of the Internet means that not only threats but also hate speech and other inciteful speech is much more readily available to individuals than quite clearly it was 8 or 10 or 15 years ago.”

In the hours and days after the massacre, the perpetrator has received many labels by public officials and by reporters and media commentators, among them madman, crazy, disturbed, alienated, deranged, unbalanced, and the likes.

Was the attack, then, the insane act of a mad young man?

As far as I am concerned, the premeditated attack that killed six persons and wounding a dozen others was an act of terrorism by definition. Terrorism means after all the deliberate, politically motivated targeting of civilians or non-combatants.

It is interesting, though, that neither the statements by officials nor by news personnel and analysts have called the incident an act of terrorism and/or the shooter Jared Lee Loughner a terrorists.

On the “Morning Joe” show this morning I heard somebody note that there was nothing political about the incident.

Of course it was.

Strange, that the chattering class has far less of a problem calling similar acts of violence inside the United States “terrorism,” when the perpetrators are identified as Muslim Americans.

Take the Fort Hoods shooting more than a year ago, when U.S. Army major Nidal Hasan killed 13 persons and wounded more than two dozens. Or think of the would-be Times Square bomber Faizal Shahzad, a naturalized citizen, who hoped to kill as many people as possible.

McChrystal Does Not Survive—Afghanistan War Strategy Does

By Brigitte L. Nacos

By removing General Stanley McChrystal as top commander in the Afghan theater of war and replacing him with General David Petraeus, President Barack Obama missed a golden opportunity to revise the losing Afghanistan strategy that transcends his declared goals of disrupting, dismantling and defeating Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Instead, the president said, “It is a change in personnel, but it is not a change in policy” as General Petraeus, Defense Secretary Gates, and Vice President Biden stood next to him.

Both Petraeus as commander in Iraq and McChrystal as commander in Afghanistan were eager to translate the so-called insurgency theory into practice—Petraeus once the troop surge was on the way in 2007 and McChrystal once Obama sided last December with his counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan combined with a troop surge of 30,000 that came on top of 21,000 additional troops he ordered in March 2009 to Kabul. 

Although the history of counterinsurgency campaigns is littered with failures and although the news from Afghanistan has been grim of late, the counterinsurgency strategy survives McChrystal perhaps in a more intense form under Petraeus.

Admittedly, General Petraeus had success in Iraq within a reasonable time span—but Afghanistan is a far cry from Iraq.

Typically, comprehensive counterinsurgency campaigns in failed states entail not only military and police action but also the building or rebuilding of political, civic, and economic institutions; this requires many years of hard and expensive efforts to have a chance to succeed. In short, this comes down to nation-building.

President Obama has not retreated from his promise begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in the middle of 2011. If he sticks with his Afghanistan strategy, he will have to change his time line for withdrawal drastically and budget many more $billions for this war.

By giving the command in Afghanistan to Petraeus, there seems no chance for Vice President Joe Biden to get another hearing for his 2009 recommendation of a limited objective in the region: Deploy a small number of Special Forces to attack and defeat the remnants of Al Qaeda in the mountainous Afghan-Pakistani border region as well as the Taliban leadership and hard-core followers.

On the other hand, the McChrystal scandal has drawn attention to the almost forgotten war and perhaps will now bolster the opposition to the Afghanistan strategy in the congress and the public.

General McChrystal: His Own Exit Strategy?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

If General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, does not resign before visiting the White House tomorrow, President Obama must fire him right then and there—or even before that. A commanding general who criticizes the president and his top military and civilian national security aides publicly in the midst of a war, can no longer be trusted to carry out the president’s war strategy that, ironically, was mostly designed by McChrystal himself. That’s precisely what McChrystal and his closest aides did as reported in Rolling Stone magazine. 

After they expressed contempt for literally everyone directly involved in national security matters as these relate to the conflict in Afghanistan in the presence of a Rolling Stone reporter, they did not try to retract or soften their remarks during the fact checking process.  Perhaps this indicates that McChrystal and Company have lost their sense of reality in the confines of their military in-circle or, more likely, that the general went rogue because his counterinsurgency strategy and tactics have not worked well at all since he took charge last year.

In an alarming part of the Rolling Stone revelations, McChrystal attacks the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, a retired three-star general and fellow West Pointer, by remarking, "Here's one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, 'I told you so.' "

So, the general who wrote the script for succeeding in Afghanistan at last, ponders who will be blamed and who not “if we fail.” Does this point to McChrystal’s doubts about the outcome of the war? One wonders how the insurgents, most of all the Taliban, and the Afghan population react to this sort of talk—not to mention the impact of the revelation that deep divisions exist within America’s top military and civilian leadership.

Knowing full well the content of the article (headline “Runaway General”), McChrystal must have known its explosive impact. Which leads to my guess that going rogue was his exit strategy and a pass to blame others for the problems he leaves behind.

Whatever his motives, just as insubordination cost General Douglas MacArthur his job in 1951, when he was fired by President Truman, it must send McChrystal into retirement.

When the certified war hero MacArthur returned from the Far East, he received an enthusiastic homecoming with parades and other celebrations. However a retired McChrystal will be received in some quarters, he isn’t and will not be a MacArthur.