Tag: NSC

National Security Is In The Hands Of Idiots

To “Make America Great Again” requires stable leadership on national security…..so far we have nothing even resembling stability on the NSC.

There are two factions within the Oval Office…..the stability faction and the wannabes….chief among the waanabes is Bannon while he does not have a security clearance any more he does have something better….the ear of Trump.

All fingers are pointing to Bannon when the subject of White House dysfunction is mentioned….

New White House chief of staff John Kelly certainly has his fair share of challenges ahead of him—and one of them might be mitigating a coordinated alt-right attack against President Trump’s national security adviser. The Wall Street Journal editorial board weighs in on what appears to be a faceoff between HR McMaster, a well-regarded Army general who took over for Michael Flynn, and Trump aide Steve Bannon, whose policy preferences are in stark contrast to McMaster’s. The national security adviser wants a more fleshed-out strategy in Afghanistan (including with more troops), is wary of any overtures from Russian President Vladimir Putin, and advises caution on haphazardly turning away from the Iran nuclear deal.

All of which has apparently incited the ire of Bannon’s allies outside of the White House, including those in the ultra-conservative media such as Breitbart, which Bannon used to oversee. The Journal acknowledges that Trump has publicly stood by McMaster, but adds that McMaster maybe isn’t the one the president should be turning a critical eye toward. Bannon “has been a White House survivor, but his warring habits have also been responsible for much of the White House dysfunction,” the editors write. They note that Trump may fear the repercussions of getting rid of Bannon, “but if his minions continue to vilify [Bannon’s] colleagues inside the White House, how can anyone tell the difference?” Editorial appears here.

The question now is can the generals…McMasters, Kelly and  Mattis save us from a nat sec meltdown?

There was a palpable sigh of relief when General John Kelly was selected as White House chief of staff and when National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster finally began purging the nationalist Pepe-fanboy Bannonites from the NSC. Combined with the presence of SECDEF Jim Mattis, Nikki Haley’s star turn at the UN, and a more assertive Rex Tillerson, there was almost a sense that the Axis of Adults would help mitigate the crazy.  When news broke that North Korea was close to mounting a miniaturized warhead on an ICBM capable of reaching U.S. territory, there was a hope that the experienced military team around Trump would turn this crisis into a foreign policy win.

Then came “fire and fury.”

Source: Kelly, Mattis, McMaster: Please Save Us from President Strangelove

Never thought I would put my confidence in generals over career diplomats.

Then there is a “deputy assistant secretary” and most of us foreign policy geeks still cannot figure on what this person does beyond an offensive mouth.  But the Rolling Stone tried…..

The Breitbart News headline, back in November 2014, rang like a five-alarm fire bell: MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD OVERRUNS NATIONAL CATHEDRAL IN DC. Its author, Breitbart’s national-security editor, was Dr. Sebastian L. v. Gorka, who currently occupies a top White House post as “deputy assistant” to President Donald Trump. And like just about anything Gorka has said or written, the Breitbart headline was wrong in every way. It wasn’t the Muslim Brotherhood at all, and no one overran anything. Despite his characteristic hyperventilation, the event in question was a dignified, interfaith prayer service organized jointly by the leaders of Washington National Cathedral and five mainstream Muslim organizations seeking to unite “voices of moderation.”

Source: Sebastian Gorka, the West Wing’s Phony Foreign-Policy Guru – Rolling Stone

Like I said…in the hands of idiots.

Closing Thought–03Aug17

Don’t Let The Door Hit You In The Ass On The Way Out!

Yes, I know that I am a foreign policy geek!

Iran has come into the conversation from the Trump people……they have been threatened with violence even though it is obvious that they are complying with the word of the Nuke deal they signed with the US….

So I was truly surprised when McMasters fired a Iran hawk from the NSC…..

The White House has announced today that National Security Council member and top Trump adviser on Iran Derek Harvey has been fired “effective immediately.” Harvey was seen as extremely hawkish on Iran, and his firing comes amid major cabinet disagreements on Iran policy.

Harvey was said to be among the proponents for unilaterally withdrawing the US from the P%+1 nuclear deal, a position which ultimately lost out in recent weeks, as Secretary of State and Defense, Tillerson and Mattis, managed to convince Trump to take a more measured approach.

Some reports cited officials as denying that Harvey’s position on Iran was the reason for his dismissal, saying rather that he was viewed by other cabinet members as too close to Stephen Bannon. Harvey was initially hired for the council by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who has also been sacked, and may not have been favored by H.R. McMaster.

(antiwar.com)

This is interesting…..was he fired because he was a hawk?  Is the NSC taking a more liberal tact on Iran?  Is the Trump White House softening its stand on Iran?

McMasters seems to be making a clean sweep in the NSC….he has fired yet another member…

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has sacked yet another member of the National Security Council today, with the White House announcing that the senior director for intelligence programs Ezra Cohen-Watnick has been removed from his position, with the requisite praising of his past service.

McMaster has had problems with Cohen-Watnick for awhile, trying to fire him back in March amid mounting complaints from CIA officials who didn’t like working with him. Cohen-Watnick was close with Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner, and Trump overruled McMaster on that last firing attempt.

Questions…I have questions.

At least the amateurs are being shown the door….may be a more coherent national security policy can be found.  Can anyone now spell SANITY?

That is it for my day of posting….time to kick back and enjoy some quiet contemplation……

Have a good day my friends…..Don’t forget to check out my other blog…..Gulf South Free Press……https://gulfsouthfreepress.wordpress.com/……chuq

Behind the “Deep State Coup”

A guilty pleasure is some of the conspiracy theories out there in La La Land….since I refuse to go to sites like Infowars or WND I have to find them where I can.

There is one that says that there is a deep struggle between the “Deep State” and the president and his cronies…..and that the Flynn scandal was just the exercise of the hidden power they have……

Below is a look at the “conspiracy”………

The internal struggle between Trump and the “intelligence community” is not evidence of a coup but the sign of a much-welcome split within the ruling classes, a disunity which reveals their weaknesses and reflects the growing strength of the popular anti-Trump movement.

According to the “coup” conspiracy theory, the intelligence community wants to put the US and Russia on a collision course leading to WWIII, but thankfully world peace will be saved by collaboration between Trump and Putin, the heroes of this fable. This imaginary scenario was obviously concocted by experienced Russian propaganda services under the orders of former KGB operative Putin, and it is being propagated by Western Leftists nostalgic for Stalin’s Soviet Union. Their justifiable hatred of  ‘our own’ U.S. imperialism turns them into ‘one-way anti-imperialists,’ victims of the Cold War fallacy that “the enemies of our enemies are friends.”

Source: Behind the “Deep State Coup” – LA Progressive

Interesting theory……but is there are truth behind the accusations?

Flynn Gone, McMaster Cometh

In Like Flynn is no longer with us in the capacity of NSC head……and the search went on….Patraeus said NO…..Odierno said NO…..someone even said the idiot of the Right John Bolton was being considered….but hew was passed over….(a fine decision by the president)….and finally a name came up that was agreeable to most…..

President Trump has picked his new national security adviser: Army Lt. Gen. HR McMaster. He is “a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience,” Trump said in announcing his decision Monday in Florida, per Politico. McMaster replaces Michael Flynn, who was asked to resign over his conversations with the Russian ambassador about sanctions before taking office. The Los Angeles Times calls McMaster “one of the military’s most prominent intellectuals.” Some related coverage:

  • A blogger at Foreign Policy who knows McMaster calls him “smart, energetic, and tough,” and he maintains that McMaster has written one of the best books on the Vietnam War: Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam.
  • McMaster talks about life in the military in this 2014 interview with the Ledger-Enquirer of Columbus, Ga. Among the quotes: “Some people think, hey, you’re in the military and everything is super-hierarchical and you’re in an environment that is intolerable of criticism and people don’t want frank assessments. I think the opposite is the case. In the Army, because the stakes are so high—right?—you can’t just be a yes-man and say, ‘Great idea, boss!’ if you don’t believe it—right?—because lives are at stake.” Read it in full here.
  • The New York Times says McMaster’s thinking on counterterrorism served as the basis for Gen. David Petraeus’ strategy that shifted momentum toward the US against insurgents in Iraq.
  • Last year, McMaster warned that the Army needed to stop shrinking, notes Heavy.com in its five-things-to-know feature on the general.
  • McMaster participated in the Battle of 73 Eastern during Desert Storm in which US troops were outnumbered but still prevailed because Iraqi soldiers were using outdated equipment. He wrote about the battle and its lessons at the Strategy Bridge.

This man is an intellect to be dealt with….yes he is a hawk but a hawk with a brain and sound rational thought.  His cheerleaders are many……

  • Politico describes McMaster, author of a 1997 book on America’s mishandling of the Vietnam war, as “one of the military’s leading warrior-scholars” and predicts that he will help Trump build bridges with GOP defense hawks like John McCain, who praised McMaster on Monday as “a man of genuine intellect, character, and ability.”
  • Retired Lt. Gen. David Barno tells the Washington Post that he knows McMaster well and he believes the general will excel at coordinating policy. “I don’t see HR as director of an orchestra; I see him as someone who is getting all the instruments to play together,” Barno says.
  • Cosmopolitan rounds up eight things to know about McMaster, including the fact that he “is known for standing up for his beliefs” and was chosen as one of Time’s “100 Most Influential People” in 2014.
  • National Review reports that Charles Krauthammer, one of Trump’s fiercest conservative critics, described the choice as encouraging, noting that McMaster’s willingness to go against prevailing opinion of the time when planning the Iraq troop surge shows “this is a guy who will say what he thinks and promote what he wants.”
  • At Business Insider, Paul Szoldra praises McMaster as a “fantastic choice,” not least for the great deal of respect he commands from the troops
  • The AP notes that McMaster has a “reputation for being willing to speak truth to power”—and he “appears to hold a much dimmer view than Trump of Moscow’s military and political objectives in Europe.”

The MSM seems to think it is a wise choice……

Below is his opinion on the US approach to war……this is from a speech he gave in 2015……

Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who spends his days trying to figure out the future of conflict and has gained wide respect for speaking his mind, told an audience at the University of South Florida on Wednesday that the United States needs to do a better job of learning lessons and adapting because of its “narcissistic approach to war.”

And, echoing outgoing President Dwight David Eisenhower’s farewell to the nation in 1961, McMaster urged renewed caution about the military-industrial complex and its influence on how America wages war.

Source: General dissects U.S. approach to war in speech at USF | TBO.com

My personal observation—-I was very impressed in his book on the Vietnam War, Dereliction Of Duty, he was very critical of the leadership during the war and hew was spot on in his analysis…..he is outspoken and has a great intellect….that will make for a good NSC chair if he does not compromise for a cushy posting…..