National Security in the Trump Era: Business as Usual?
G. Murphy Donovan
Donald Trump has only been in office for a couple of months. Any performance evaluation to date is probably premature. Nonetheless, early on, there are some good and bad omens. The good news is domestic. President Trump seems to be focused on health care reform, the economy, employment, border security, and immigration/alien control.
In contrast, national security and foreign policy initiatives are off to a hoary start.
One national security advisor has already been sacked and President Trump has been horse-collared as a Moscow puppet or stooge. No matter the evidence, insinuations that Russians played a role in the 2016 election is a smear now morphing into a political zombie, a Beltway specter with tenure.
By throwing, General Mike Flynn, erstwhile national security advisor, under the bus, Trump has forfeited the first game of “gotcha” to hostile Democrats and a partisan media. Beyond hasty judgement, the Flynn affair also suggests that team Trump folds at first fright.
President Trump flinched again by allowing his new Attorney General to recuse himself from the Russophobia probe. Flynn and Sessions are just blood in the water now. Trump opponents are circling like sharks.
The Flynn/Sessions casualties confirm what critics already believe about a Putin/Trump “bromance.” The Putin proxy is now tar and feathers to be used by a neo-conservative/ liberal establishment who believe that globalist experiments like the EU, military alliances like NATO, and regime change stunts in Ukraine and elsewhere are beyond reproach or reform.
President Trump may have thus handcuffed himself to “business as usual” on the world stage. Just before the 2016 election, the Obama White House and DOD deployed NATO and American tanks to the Baltics and Poland. New anti-missile missile deployments to Eastern Europe are now part of that mix too.
Yes, German tanks are again in Poland and the Baltics. Clearly designed to annoy the Kremlin, these “symbolic” NATO encroachments are now Trump baggage.
We say symbolic because, NATO sabre rattling on Russian borders is more than a bit of a strategic mime. Putin says that he could be in Kiev in two weeks, should the need arise. The Russian president is probably correct.
Why would anyone believe West Europeans, who will not pay for NATO, would fight Russians today any more successfully than they fought the Wehrmacht in the last continental war?
Trump’s original campaign instincts were correct. NATO is an expensive Cold War artifact, not unlike the defunct Warsaw Pact. The need to defend defense budgets today is more important than any hedge against real Russian aggression. The long war against the Muslim jihad, still unresolved after 50 years, provides a similar rational for Intelligence spending.
The deep state has deep roots.
Appeasing Muslims, demonizing Israelis and Russians, and fiscal incontinence at home seem to be the three defaults, or inherited, legs of American national security policy and strategy.
NATO is next to useless when it comes to active shooters in a half dozen Muslim small wars. In fact, Schengen Zone vulnerabilities, and Berlin oblivion, are facilitating an ever expanding Islamist threat within Europe itself.
Take Angela Merkel’s “open borders” policy and subsequent Muslim migrant blitz. No head of state in Europe has done more for terror, fear, appeasement, jihad, Islamic religious fascism, and continental instability than the German chancellor. If Brexit is followed by a “Frexit,” Mrs. Merkel can take a bow.
If the EU is going the way of the Holy Roman Empire, no single individual is more culpable than “Angela.” Indeed, if common sense and culture is at risk in Europe, the angel of death again rides again on a Berlin broomstick.
Muslim admission to Europe now seems to come at the price of another Jewish exit. You would think a German chancellor who walks under the shadow of the Holocaust would know better.
In a real world, a stable and prosperous future for Europe is a function of American and Russian forbearance and cooperation. Unfortunately, posturing or histrionics in Brussels and Washington is now more about business and appeasement than a stable European future.
Besides automobiles, the only manufacturing of any consequence left in the West is the defense industry. If the business of national security is now business, it’s a booming business.
The Middle East and Africa are awash with weapons, war, and instability because NATO nations are willing to sponsor sedition and sell the wherewithal to friends and foes alike.
US military exports grew by 54 percent in the Obama era and are expected to rise faster under Trump. America now accounts for 36 percent of world arms exports compared to 12 percent for Russia.
Unfortunately, taking on the American military/industrial establishment at this point might be a bridge too far as it seems to be one of a few manufacturing games left in America. Whilst Defense and Intelligence industries experience explosive growth, the private sector languishes in the doldrums.
Throwing money at bombs and bullets is hardly new policy in Washington. America already spends more on its military than the next seven countries combined, including China and Russia. The Pentagon spends seven times ($680 billion versus $94 billion) more on defense than does the Kremlin.
Possible explanations for such disparities include waste, fraud, abuse, and incompetence. The truth is probably the Eisenhower prophesy actualized. The military/industrial complex seems to be more about profit than patriotism.
Alas, big spending never meant more capability. The profligate USAF F-35 fighter program alone is illustrative, possibly the biggest budget boondoggle ($1.5 trillion) in all of military history.
If America needs a next-generation fighter that is affordable and operational, the Pentagon might think about giving the next contract to the Kremlin. Russian rockets now shuttle American astronauts in and out of orbit, a dependency that doesn’t get much visibility in national security estimates.
Government debt in the US now stands at 24 trillion dollars, ten times larger than Russian debt. National sovereignty isn’t a virtue if the price is moral bankruptcy or national insolvency. .
President Trump Needs a Dog
Obama era national security acolytes, now serving under Trump, are not doing much to help with or clarify American foreign policy or national security futures.
The Ummah provides the best example.
Just days after the Trump inauguration, the newly minted CIA director, Michael Pompeo, flew off to Saudi Arabia to present Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, with a medal for “counterterrorism” efforts (sic). Saudi Arabia is America’s most generous arms customer, indeed the largest buyer worldwide.
CIA and the Crown Prince
The ties that bind America to Arabia are first pecuniary and then political.
Yes, the same Saudi Arabia that produced the 9/11 terrorists, the same House of Saud that finances and arms global Sunni jihad and terror in the Levant and North Africa, and the same Arabia that exports the worst kind of Islamic irredentist theology to the rest of the world gets another azimuth kiss from an American Intelligence nabob.
Irony here is beyond satire. The medal in question is named after George Tenet. Tenet is the CIA director who, with Colin Powell’s help, fabricated the fake intelligence that gave America the ongoing 30 year religious war in Iraq; a war we might add, that reversed the sectarian power poles in Iraq from Sunni to Shia.
A White House that claims that America is not at war with Isalm, now doubles down with Saudi Sunnis against Shia Yeminis in another proxy religious war in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia has long denied complicity with Islamism, Sunni terrorism, or wars motivated by a 1400 year old religious schism. Now Riyadh has a CIA medal provided by team Trump to prove it.
Meanwhile over at the National Security Council, newly christened director, H.R McMaster, is apparently laying down a companion party line about Islam with White House staff. General McMaster cautions that terms like “radical Islamic terror” are not helpful. According to the General, “terror is not Islamic.”
Like many millennial era flags, the new national security advisor seems to have succumbed to the Obama thought police. Surely not all Islamists are terrorists, but virtually all terrorists these days are Muslims, Mohammedans who kill in the name of their god, their prophet, and Islam - the “religion of peace.”
“Allah hu akbar” is what an Islamist chants at a beheading, bombing, and other sanguinary rituals. Links between terror and Islam are more real than any links between US Army generals and analytical theology.
Who is McMaster to pontificate on what is or is not Islamic? The national security advisor is not an imam, ayatollah, prophet, priest, or religious scholar. Based on recent sermons, he’s not much of a historian either.
Over at the Department of Defense, another scholarly warrior seems to be confused about real threats too. The new Secretary of Defense, like Obama era staff officers, shoots from the hip at the “Russian” chimera and personalizes the assessment with trash talk about Vladimir Putin.
At confirmation, General James Mattis rose to every leading question from John McCain, the Senate’s most notorious Kremlin baiter. Mattis swallowed McCain’s practiced political demagoguery hook, line, and sinker.
Mattis also failed to distinguish between a threat that actually kills Americans today and a threat that might. Worse still, General Mattis’ sweeping indictments of “Russians” fails to distinguish between a proud nation and a regime that doesn’t fit the globalist EU/imperial NATO business plan.
NATO began as an allied mutual security pact and the EU began as a modest economic condominium. Both institutions have strayed far from original designs and the world is not safer place because of it. Brussels is now populated by political autocrats and imperial janissaries. Hat tip to a Turk or Ottoman model.
If sweeping vile assessments of Muslims are unacceptable, why is sweeping slander about Israelis or Russians allowed? Is selective bigotry at the Pentagon now a military virtue?
Indeed, after leaving the military, Mattis claimed that Israeli “settlements” and “apartheid” made his job at CENTCOM more difficult. The general’s also says that there was “a price to be paid” for backing Israel, a sneer that is vintage David Petraeus.
General Mattis claims that “Russia needs to prove itself.” In contrast, apparently, no Islamic country, especially Arabian, need to prove anything to America, the world, or the new Secretary of Defense.
The sad truth of the European Union today is a tragic combination official Islamic tolerance and official indifference to parallel anti-Semitism. The western migration of fascist Islam comes again at the expense of European Jews.
Mattis also gave the Senate a truncated Russian history tutorial as a closer to his testimony. The self- described student of military history failed to mention the last world war where, without Russian sacrifice, the battle with secular fascism would not have been won. The United States lost less than half a million casualties in WWII. Russia lost more than 20 million souls.
Now that Europe and America are confronted with fascism again, this time religious, General Mattis and other Obama holdovers are still confused or mute about who is a genuine threat in the 21st century.
The best guarantors of civil and human rights are independent, democratic nation states with common cultural and civic values. Monoculture anywhere has always been the enemy of liberty and true diversity everywhere.
All globalist or utopian schemes, now including the EU, have been failures. General Mattis is wrong about NATO too. Sort of nuclear Armageddon, NATO provides little stability for the Mideast, Africa, or anyplace beyond Europe for that matter.
Mattis seems to have misread the Brexit and Frexit graffiti now defacing the walls of the European Union.
Candidate Trump ran on a tougher line with Islamists and a softer line with the Kremlin. Such policies are heresy for the establishment, right and left, in Washington. Any diminution of the Russian threat is a clear and present danger to the DOD budget and legions of Intelligence and defense industry federal contractors.
No big Russian threat, no big funding.
Obama era rear echelon warriors have yet to get the message from Trump or appreciate the angst of “deplorables” in the heartland. Maybe the new commander-in-chief needs to speak louder - or carry a bigger stick
President Trump has few friends in the media, few friends among Obama holdovers, and fewer friends or loyalists midst permanent or deep state government bureaucrats inside the Beltway. Washington D.C. and the surrounding suburbs voted for Hillary Clinton by a margin of nine to one. Those votes, like California, were votes for a deep state where change is “progressive” - or anathema.
And those who claim that establishment apparatchiks, including the Pentagon, are “non-partisan” are delusional. The only currency in the nation’s capital is politics. The most lucrative politics are found now in the defense and Intelligence bowels of the permanent state.
Obama era military relics are no exceptions to partisanship. Outsiders, critics, and reformers are not welcome in Washington. National security and Intelligence Community leaks now underwrite the anti-democratic, anti-Trump resistance on a daily basis.
Donald Trump is trying to reform or change a federal autocracy that is populated with Clinton and Obama loyalists. For a permanent political elite, weaned by a nanny state, reform is just a turd in the punchbowl.
Willingness to serve in government should never be confused with loyalty, especially inside the Beltway. Harry Truman said it best. If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.
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Comments
We now know after five weeks Trump will do anything - create a Constitutional crisis, attack our closest Allies - to defer questions about his ties to and with Russia.
Why is that...if in fact there is truly nothing there just simply release all the last 15 years of tax forms...allow all his advisors to answer publicly in Congress all questions and then move on...remove all family members from any government or WH positions...AND truly divest himself from his businesses which he has actually not done per the Office of Government Ethnics...
AND stop tweeting.....
UK protests after allegations White House that Obama asked British intelligence to spy on Trump
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-17/british-complain…
Tom Rogan
Verified account
Requested comment on Spicer comments today. GCHQ tells me Napolitano claims are "nonesense", "utterly ridiculous", and "should be ignored".
WHEN asked during the WH PC yesterday if Trump had contacted May...Spicer said no and would not give a reason why Trump had not reached out to May UNLESS he knew it was "a fake news story"....
It is interesting that yesterday the meeting between the Trump Treasury Cabinet head a former Goldman Sachs banker and the German Finance Minister is being carried in German press this morning...Trump's Goldman rep stiffly stated during that meeting an implicit threat against the German export industry and the strong Euro....
During the press conference he stated Trump had some problems with the strong German export presence in the US and the German rep stated..."we have some differences but we can talk about them"....
WHAT Trump and his Goldman rep both fail to realize that the current strong US trade deficit with Germany is led first of all by strong US flow of capital and capital services through the German banking center in Franfurt.
German media is indicating that if the US goes ahead with the Trump border tax of anywhere of 25-35% Germany and the EU will be required to place a capital flow tax on US financial service companies what would far exceed whatever border tax Trump thinks he is earning....
Secondly, German industry employs well over 750,000 Americans in well paying jobs and a supply chain of a further 300-400,000 American jobs...
The BMW CEO recently indicated that if this Trump border tax does come then BMW is well positioned to simply pull out of the US market with a heavy resulting US job loss factor....
Siemens CEO has also stated that for a recent 1800 open positions in a US high end manufacturing plant they were barely able to find 133 Americans even qualified to work in the factory...that will be pointed out as well to Trump.....
Not exactly sure if Trump fully understands the full consequences of an open global trade war....which will in the end hit the US harder than the rest of the world job wise...
Trump's very own spokesperson STILL is maintaining the accusation that the UK has spied on Trump for Obama......
GCHQ on Trump spying claim: "These allegations are complete and utter nonsense".
Never heard intelligence officials so angry.
Just got a msg from an old GCHQ friend. Said the same, just w/a lot of expletives. Had to look a couple of them up.
NOTE...it is truly unusual to have GCHQ comment on anything so we need to fully understand their anger over the constant Trump conspiracy myth statements....
Trump proposes to cut NHI by 19% and DoS by 37%.....
BUT WAIT......
Unfriendly reminder that @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS could save about US taxpayers $182,500,000 a year just by living in the same mansion.
REMEMBER the Trump WH has kept stating today that they are attempting to spend hard earned tax payer money wisely?????
REALLY.......
So move into the WH together and truly save the taxpayers money....
'Either they were criminally negligent -- or they weren't and they knew': Maddow calls BS on Mike Flynn excuses
http://ow.ly/PAQm309Zm4y
Deeper and deeper and deeper it goes and there were absolutely no Russian contacts....come on get real...
Flynn received payments from Russian cyber security firm Kaspersky and Russian air cargo firm Volga-Dnepr:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/mike-flynn-worked-for-other-russian-compan…
Kaspersky itself is a Russian security software company that has often stated it has no ties to the Russian intelligence services BUT two of it's employees (FSB officers) were recently arrested for spying for the CIA....
BUT Kaspersky sits inside Russia????
BUT WAIT...Flynn only recently registered as a foreign agent for his Turkish ties BUT forgot his Russian ties....
Volga Dnepr who paid Flynn also happens to be an arms speditioner to hard to reach locations.
Not only that but in 2016 Pentagon cancelled all prior cooperation with Volga Dnepr due to unlawful arms trading. Did Flynn lobby for it?
"Subcontractor activities Counter to US Interests, Support to anti-US Regimes, Weapons Proliferation" << Pentagon's assessment of Volga Dn.
and this company paid 12 k to @GenFlynn? There must be an innocent explanation.
Flynn received 11K from Kaspersky a Russian security software company AT the same time he held a TS/SCI clearance without notifying DoD...
So will now Trump finally admit he was lying and apologize to Obama....
Breitbart editor Pollak on @MSNBC on where he got the Trump wiretap story: "I was washing dishes & listening to Mark Levin."
Note to IC community - your daily briefings have been replaced by a guy washing dishes.
Washington (CNN)House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday that "no such wiretap existed," citing intelligence reports to House leaders after President Donald Trump accused then-President Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower last year.
"The intelligence committees, in their continuing, widening, ongoing investigations of all things Russia, got to the bottom -- at least so far with respect to our intelligence community -- that no such wiretap existed," Ryan said in response to a question from CNN at a news conference.
QUOTE
Ryan's comment comes as Trump and the White House have retreated from the President's stunning accusation in a tweet two weeks ago.
"When I say wiretapping, those words were in quotes. That really covers -- because wiretapping is pretty old-fashioned stuff -- but that really covers surveillance and many other things. And nobody ever talks about the fact that it was in quotes, but that's a very important thing," Trump told Fox News Wednesday.
The four lawmakers leading the House and Senate intelligence committees looking into Russia's interference in the US elections have all said they have not seen any evidence to back up Trump's claims. The House Intelligence Committee has requested any evidence of a wiretap from the Justice Department by Monday.
Millions of US employee records leaked
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39278637
On top of the 20M OMB Chinese hacked SF86s and fingerprints...
WOW...53M in total and yet the Trump WH is worried about a "Deep State"...
We have massive alledged Russian connections inside the Trump WH and with Trump himself..we have with Bannon a white nationalist/Leninist on the NSC.....we have massive Russian connections by other Trump campaign personnel past and present SO why not have Trump Deputy National Security Advisor Gorka be a member of a neo Nazi group.....
Somehow all fits together with left and right in one WH......
He hasn't denied it. EXCLUSIVE: Nazi-Allied Group Claims Top Trump Aide Sebastian Gorka As Sworn Member
http://forward.com/news/national/366181/exclusive-nazi-allied-group-cla…
There have been similar charges coming out of his time in Hungary where he was first a Hungarian citizen before marrying an American and getting then his citizenship....
Does anyone actually know if SoS Tillerson really works at the US DoS????
"Tillerson did not go to the U.S. embassy in Tokyo to meet staff Thursday morning, as is often customary, but instead stayed in his hotel."
So why does the US need overseas embassies...is this the Tillerson way of demonstrating that to save the 37% budget cuts he can do away with overseas US Embassies?????
Think about all of those saved jobs that could be given to middle class families who never travel outside the US anyway...think about it....a truly elegant job cutting program....
Especially since all FP is now being driven out of the WH....
“AlQaeda Is Starting to Swallow Syria's Opposition”
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/15/...-opposition/#…
Suspending the CIA support for Syrian rebels guarantees that al-Qaeda will continue to eliminate Syrian moderate groups http://www.realclearworld.com/articl..._112250.html#…
AND Trump and his merry WH band figures they can eradicate AQ from the Earth seriously need to rethink that statement as AQ in Syria is far more battle hardened and well supported now by moderate Syrians as the only group fighting to kick out Assad....certainly not the Russians...not the US and certainly not Turkey....AND definitely not IS who has worked with both Assad and the Russians in the past....
WHEN will Trump and his merry WH bank finally admit that at least in Syria the US is providing CAS and US SOF direct support to THREE US named terrorist groups...Hezbollah...Iraqi Hezbollah (KH) and the Kurdish Communist terror group PKK.....
NOT so sure this is what American taxpayers thought would be the fight against IS would look like.....
Kyle Orton
Verified account
@KyleWOrton
U.S. won't partner with Roj Pesh b/c "were not trained by Coalition forces"
Will partner with PKK, trained in combat against a NATO state.
BUT WAIT.....PKK is a US/EU named communist terror group out of the 70s and has been fighting Turkey for over 40 years....
"The manufacturing of a psychological atmosphere"
Long read on Russian propaganda tactics makes excellent points.
https://twitter.com/euvsdisinfo/status/838368015636901890
Well worth reading for an European perspective on propaganda/disinformation.
THEN read this article as a balance....
How Donald Trump is claiming credit for Barack Obama's successes
http://bit.ly/2n276ao
And that slow Trump march towards a US version of "smiling fascism" just keeps on "smiling"....
"US Citizens Now Being Forced To Provide Their Social Media Passwords Upon Return To US."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/3/13/1643059/-U-S-Citizens-Now-Being…
QUOTE
The travelers came from across the nation, and were both naturalized citizens and people born and raised on American soil. They traveled by plane and by car at different times through different states. Businessmen, couples, senior citizens, and families with young kids, questioned, searched, and detained for hours when they tried to enter or leave the U.S. None were on terror watchlists. One had a speeding ticket. Some were asked about their religion and their ethnic origins, and had the validity of their U.S. citizenship questioned.
IN FEB 2017 over 5000 cellphones were searched MORE than the entire 2015....
AND a majority were not Muslims.....
Even Trump's own WH cannot get it together for a single common FP message towards Russia....
U.S. envoy to UN: "We should never trust Russia"
https://www.unian.info/politics/1825772-us-envoy-to-un-we-should-never-…
Round Two and Trump still slams the judiciary the cornerstone to a democracy under the rule of law....
Trump travel ban: US federal judge blocks new executive order. Trump brands decision 'judicial over-reach'.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-
Somehow he cannot accept the simple fact that his declared Muslim Ban is largely a total legal failure and he still has not answered those core questions raised by the four different Federal District Courts....
BREAKING: Judge blocks new travel ban from beginning tonight, says the "illogic" of Trump administration's position "is palpable."
THAT my friends is a mild statement BUT says a lot...
Breitbart.com is already attacking the McCain-Montenegro story by intimating McCain is "senile." Expect a fake news onslaught about his health.
HOW is it that a proven white nationalist and sometimes white supremacist blogsite has so much influence inside the Trump WH???
BTW...they have also a journalist seat inside the WH Press Corp....
So again the core question..WHEN does Russian propaganda and Brietbart.com start/stop and vice versa....
SO again the core question...JUST how many US Congressmen and Senators have open hands and are getting Russian financial support via lobbyists and campaign donations and or donations to their own Institutes OR getting paid speaking engagements and or overseas press tours paid by Russia and are not reporting this.../
A rather growing number actually....all Republicans it seems...
Rand Paul is blocking the US Senate from ratifying Montenegro's ascension to NATO
WHY is that and in whose geopolitical sphere is this of high interest...Russia...who has mounted a massive propaganda attack against Montenegro to keep them out of NATO and EU.....
BUT WAIT....his father Ron Paul who created the Institute for Peace and Prosperity massively verbally supported the right for Russia to militarily annex Crimea WHO then became rather quiet when social media revealed how much money he had been receiving for his Institute out of Russia....
Notice how Rand Paul qualifies his NO...by stating the US budget which Montenegro would not contribute to....
http://www.businessinsider.de/john-mccain-slams-rand-paul-for-blocking-…
'The senator from Kentucky is now working for Putin': John McCain slams Rand Paul for blocking Montenegro from joining NATO
Natasha Bertrand, Business Insider
Republican Sen. John McCain slammed his GOP colleague, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, on Wednesday after Paul blocked the passage of a treaty that would allow Montenegro to move forward with joining NATO, Defense News' Joe Gould reported.
McCain warned before the vote that “If there’s objection, you are achieving the objectives of Vladimir Putin...and I do not say that lightly.”
Paul then entered the Senate chamber, voted against the accession protocol, and exited.
“The only conclusion you can draw when he walks away is he has no argument to be made,” McCain said after Paul walked out abruptly, according to The Washington Examiner. "The senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin."
Russian President Vladimir Putin is staunchly opposed to Montengro's accession to NATO, which he views as a threat to Russian sovereignty. Albania and Croatia joined the alliance 2009.
"Senator McCain believes that the person who benefits the most from Congress’s failure to ratify Montenegro’s ascension to NATO is Vladimir Putin, whose government has sought to destroy the NATO alliance, erode confidence in America’s commitments to its allies, overthrow the duly-elected government of Montenegro, and undermine democratic institutions throughout Europe," McCain's spokesperson, Julie Tarallo, told Business Insider on Wednesday.
"The overwhelming majority of senators who support this treaty, and certainly the people of Montenegro, deserved an explanation from Senator Paul on the Senate floor as to why he sought to prevent this small, brave country from joining in the defense of the free world," Tarallo added.
For Montenegro to move forward with the accession process, which was approved in May, the treaty has to be ratified by the US Senate by unanimous consent. Twenty-one of 28 NATO allies have already backed Montenegro's accession.
Asked about McCain's comment, Paul stood by his decision to block the treaty and said it would be "unwise to expand the monetary and military obligations of the United States given the burden of our $20 trillion debt."
"Currently, the United States has troops in dozens of countries and is actively fighting in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen (with the occasional drone strike in Pakistan)," Paul told Business Insider in a statement provided by his office. "In addition, the United States is pledged to defend 28 countries in NATO."
McCain promised Montenegro Prime Minister Dusko Markovic in January that the Senate would ratify the treaty soon, according to Radio Free Europe.
Markovic was the target of a coup plot, allegedly orchestrated by Russian intelligence agents, to overthrow Montenegro's pro-NATO government and replace it with a Russia-friendly regime, The New York Times reported. The plot was uncovered in November after the pro-Russian mercenary who helped organize it was arrested by Montenegrin police.
BLUF:......
AND the Trump WH NSC policy statement on this was what again?....None....
Anybody now stating Obama wiretapped Trump is:
1. Trump Troll
2. Kremlin Troll
3. Congenital liar
Allow 4 overlap
Welcome to 2017 ===> "This is the stuff of tin-pot dictatorships—not high-functioning democratic republics."
The US IC, several spy chiefs, close US allies, and even Trump's GOP backers admit he made it all up.
Now what?
AND that forthcoming Trump apology to Obama....NEVER to be seen nor heard...just as he never apologized for his constant stream of Obama birther comments....
Russian propaganda and disinformation works on the Russian 6 Ds Principle...
Deflect...Distort...Dismay...Dismiss ALL designed to create Distrust and Doubt
And then couple that to the TWO major cornerstones of Russian non linear warfare WHICH supports Russian political warfare.....
1. cyber warfare AND
2. information warfare....or the "weaponization of information":....
THEN read the following .......
BREAKING: The Trump Tower Wiretapping Hoax Has Imploded
Obama never wiretapped Donald Trump—that was Fake News
http://observer.com/2017/03/nsa-no-evidence-obama-donald-trump-tower-wi…
AND then reread every single Trump statement and or tweet and use the Russian propaganda 6 Ds Principle to judge if Trump is lying to you.....AND even more importantly WHY is he lying.
It all comes down to two words: trust & credibility. And if you cannot trust the president's word, you/we all have a major problem.
Where is the Missing In Action US leadership in the world..under this US President there is no apparent FP to even speak about nor a well thought through national security policy outside of a Muslim Ban and a Wall....
Will the United States speak out against Turkey’s spiral downward? - The Washington Post
http://ln.is/washingtonpost.com/NRX53
US national security has a deep internal component that many fail to fully understand...a superpower must have three things to be declared a superpower...economic strength...political will power and military power.
When we have a declared white nationalist as the critical Trump advisor who had declared himself a Leninist" who wants to destroy the "establishment" BUT then changes the word "destroy" to "deconstruction" at CPAC...we are in serious trouble...
Now go through the proposed Bannon budget and tell me the US will have a coherent internal economic power plan that unifies the public not "deconstructs" the public....
In some ways this harkens back to the 30s when a number of long term programs were instituted to relief the massive "destruction" caused by the Great Depression and since then a political party has attempted to roll back those programs.....
In 1970 here in Berlin I had the Berlin leader of the Young Communist Party group tell me and it is interesting when we see Trump and company hard at work...
QUOTE
"You Americans are so dumb...you have three basic fears and if you could fix them then you would be a superpower for decades"
Those three fears are still very valid today if one thinks about it...
1. fear of getting sick
2. fear of losing your job
3. fear of getting old...
We still as a nation have not truly addressed those fears thus populism which claims it can but in reality it uses those exact three fears to drive their own agenda..not the agenda of a true multi cultural nation state.
Bannon's Dismantling America Budget: Massive cuts to arts, science, poor…eliminates public broadcasting corp
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-presidential-bud…
GRAPHIC: Winners and losers in Trump budget
http://reut.rs/2muG8Ex
Related story:
http://reut.rs/2npIY2t
BLUF this proposed budget does exactly nothing to improve the military...the proposed 54B military spending just takes us back to the pre-sequester days...BUT will never close the Republican party driven "sequester".....AND many Trump voters forget exactly who drove "sequester" as a weapon against Obama....
Besides it is getting harder and harder to recruit military personnel...and oh that BIG Navy build up...they cannot even man the ships they now have for simple three month tours as was normal in the early 2000s....
Roger Stone contacted Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0 at least 16 times during 2016 election, per CBS News. https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2...paign/215681#…
BLUF with today's DoJ reveal: FSB "cybersecurity" is cover for a global online organized crime wave of unprecedented magnitude & severity.
AND yet Trump and his WH still believes there was no Russian hacking of the US....
Seriously JUST how many Trump WH and campaign personnel really do have contacts to Russia.....to include Trump and his family....
Monica Crowley registers as foreign agent for proRussian Ukrainian billionaire
http://hill.cm/998dgdV#
Reminder Monica Crowley, fmr Trump admin accused of plagiarism & now a foreign agent for pro-Putin oligarch, once wrote this 30 JUN 2016....
She tweeted.....
"I guess Putin is going to have to do it?...THEN she quotes a Russian propaganda outlet Russia Today....that stated the State Department was not going to release the Clinton emails....
So she was not hired for plagiarizing her Ph.D. thesis and two books THEN finds work as a lobbyist for a Russian oligarch who tweeted the above in JUN 2016....
So there is no Russian contacts and or connections....????
OK...so who is lying ..........Trump...or Breitbart.com or Infowars...or Bannon?
Trump is “extremely confident” DOJ will produce evidence to support his claim Trump Tower was surveilled by Obama admin., Spicer says
GOP House Intel Chair on Trump's claim: “We don’t have any evidence that took place … I don’t think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower”
Draining that "swamp thingly" is not going well for Trump and his immediate family.....
Chinese investors forgiving 4/5 of Kushner family debt at 666 Fifth Avenue.
250M USDs was forgiven and 50M USDs as a handout to the family....total value of 400M USDs....
Expect lots of smiles when Trump receives Xi this coming weekend
Trump has not just a "Russian connection" he has a "Chinese connection" he and his company are sidestepping providing any answers on.....
The buyer of a $15.8 million Trump penthouse? She has links to a Chinese intelligence front group.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/exclusive-trump-penthouse-b…
Is there any global intelligence service Trump does not have ties to these days OUTSIDE the US IC????
Trump as well as his WH still does not really believe Russia meddled and hacked the US elections......
BUT WAIT......
Indictment for yahoo hacks will reportedly point to two members of the FSB. Largest ever US hacking case
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/verizon-...ata-breaches/#
Yahoo hack was “done with the backing of a nation state,” DOJ to announce; officials say the nation involved is Russia
Part of a long trend, says @jimcramer on @CNBC. "The Russians aren't COMING. The Russians have BEEN here."
AND are still HERE!!
THIS is the most ridiculous statement by an American politician in years and it reflects a totally non understanding of the US federal police and security operations....AND goes to the heart of a Trump lacked internal national security policy..outside of a "Wall"....and outside of "words and or slogans"....
Republican congressman: Make Mexican drug cartels pay for the border wall
http://read.bi/2nndXwe
IF he had the classified DEA briefings as a Congressman that he is in theory able to get he would have known that for years...literally years NOW DEA has been one of the best and most outspoken agency earners of cash for the US government....US/foreign cash...gold..silver..cars...boats..houses and the list is endless YET this Congressman does not know that?.
They have constantly being taking cash and other assets off the drug cartels for years...amounting to over 1B USDs in some years....
APPEARS this Congressmen does not know this...WHY is that?????
SO exactly just where did all of this money end up????
Appears both the Trump WH and former Obama WH "forgot" these small facts concerning Syria..in Trump's drive to work with Assad...Putin and three US named terror groups....Hezbollah...Iraqi KH and Kurdish PKK...a communist terror group which has fought Turkey for over 40 long years...
6 years ago, MILLIONS of Syrians PEACEFULLY protest the Assad regime and demanded FREEDOM and DIGNITY.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMZHn8nBEf4#…
On the 6th anniversary of the war in Syria, Russia dropped a bunker buster on innocent civilians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7i65Lh8MRQ#…
6yrs on, who has been killing Syria’s civilians?
92.2% - Assad regime
2% - Russia
1.8% - Non-AQ opposition
1.6% - ISIS
A series of tweets by the journalist who broke the 2005 Trump IRS tax returns...WELL worth reading....as to exactly how a Trump family member wants to evidently change the narrative on how much he did pay and the debate has overlooked exactly what his tax rate is when compared to other American taxpayers....
David Cay Johnston
Verified account
@DavidCayJ 1h
1 hour ago
To be clear, folks, I don't intimidate. But calls to family are out of bounds, a disturbing sign of how Trump damages civil debate.
David Cay Johnston
Verified account
@DavidCayJ 1h
1 hour ago
I didn't say strongly, but a possibility Trying is source as he has long history of leaking news about himself, as NYC journalists know.
David Cay Johnston added,
April S. @speakout_april
This is who #TrumpTaxes we're sent to. He's worth a follow. He strongly believes Trump sent them! https://twitter.com/davidcayj/status/841867768987279362 …
David Cay Johnston
Verified account
@DavidCayJ 1h
1 hour ago
Our Trump tax report is back up @dcreportmedia. Please visit https://www.dcreport.org/2017/03/14/taxes/ …
David Cay Johnston
Verified account
@DavidCayJ 2h
2 hours ago
Trump WH confirms my report, but fakes numbers. Trump paid $36.5m income tax, not $38 & not $40m Don Jr. claims. False WH statements. Sad!
David Cay Johnston
Verified account
@DavidCayJ 2h
2 hours ago
But for AMT, which Trump wants to scrap, he'd have paid a lower tax rate than the poorest ½ of Americans -- under 3.5% on $152.7 million
David Cay Johnston
Verified account
@DavidCayJ 2h
2 hours ago
Trump fans call & harass my wife & 1 of my children after I break story White House confirmed. Sad! Let's have open debate, not threats.
David Cay Johnston
Verified account
@DavidCayJ 3h
3 hours ago
Amazing @nytimes gets the numbers wrong on Trump tax return. He paid 24% on $152.7 million.
David Cay Johnston
Verified account
@DavidCayJ 6h
6 hours ago
On @maddow I'll break a big story about Trump and his taxes - 9PM eastern via @DCReportMedia Ill be on @lawrence, too.
To have a successful external national security a President usually needs the DoS.....
But WAIT.....the budget is being cut by an estimated 37%...virtually all of the open political Ambassador positions remain unfilled nor are there any named representatives for those open positions....large number of critical DoS management positions remain unfilled deliberately some say ....virtually zero press conferences from DoS and a Tillerson who virtually gives no interviews AND then this...concerning freedom of the press to report on DoS activities....
Before this trip..DoS stated a number of times there would at least be a pool reporter...NOTICE the single conservative reporter has declined to even perform a pool reporter duty in exchange for being the only reporter "allowed to travel with Tillerson"....
The US taxpayer pays for Tillerson and the entire DoS...does the WH feel that the public is not entitled to some sort of information.
QUOTE
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is traveling to Asia this week accompanied by only one reporter, a White House correspondent from the Independent Journal Review (IJR), a digital news outlet founded in 2012 by former Republican political operatives.
The IJR said in a statement late Tuesday the State Department last week offered one of its reporters, Erin McPike, a place aboard the Secretary's aircraft on his trip this week to Asia.
State Department officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on why IJR and McPike were chosen to travel with Tillerson.
The State Department had previously told reporters covering Tillerson’s trip to South Korea, Japan, and China that he would not be taking reporters on his plane and that they would have to fly commercially, breaking with decades of precedent stretching back to Henry Kissinger.
Major news organizations complained, among them the BBC, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post and Reuters.
McPike is a White House correspondent for IJR, and previously reported for CNN, Real Clear Politics, NBC News, and National Journal, according to a statement on IJR’s website when she joined the site in February. She also briefly covered the 2016 election campaign for Reuters.
"We don't take this opportunity lightly and recognize the controversy surrounding press access for the trip," Alex Skatell, IJR's founder and chief executive, said in a statement on Tuesday.
"Last week, the State Department officially offered McPike an opportunity to cover the secretary's upcoming trip to Asia. An official explained that the delegation would be flying on a smaller plane than normal and that press access would be limited. After editorial consultation, McPike accepted the seat."
Thus far, McPike has not filed any "pool reports" that reporters traveling with a Secretary of State customarily file, to inform colleagues not with the secretary of statements or actions by the top U.S. Diplomat.
The State Department Correspondents Association, which represents reporters who cover U.S. diplomacy, said in a statement that it was "disappointed" Tillerson chose to travel to Asia without a full contingent of media "or even a pool reporter".
"After saying it was unable to accommodate press on the Secretary's plane to Asia due to space and budget constraints, the State Department offered a unilateral seat to one reporter," the statement said.
"Several of our members have traveled commercially to meet Secretary Tillerson on the ground in Asia. We expect that the diplomatic press corps will be afforded access to Secretary Tillerson equal to that given to the reporter on the plane."
A spokesman for IJR, Matt Manda, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether McPike would file pool reports to colleagues, or whether IJR had any comment on the SDCA’s statement.
For decades, secretaries of state have nearly always invited media to travel with them. In rare cases, particularly late in a secretary's tenure, some outlets have declined the invitations, such as for former Secretary John Kerry's December 2016 trip to Saudi Arabia.
Republican secretaries of state Alexander Haig, George Shultz, James Baker, and Condoleezza Rice routinely took 10 or more journalists on their overseas trips, even to conflict zones such as Lebanon and Central America.
Up through Tuesday, just hours before Tillerson was scheduled to leave, the State Department declined to confirm whether there would be any reporters on Tillerson’s plane.
Also In World News
Tillerson to press China on North Korea in tough first Asia trip
China begins new work on disputed South China Sea island
Acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a phone briefing with reporters on Tuesday that the agency was considering "having a seat available" on his plane.
"We've been very clear, frankly, that this is a smaller footprint all around, and this is the Secretary's decision, to travel with a smaller footprint," Toner said. "To some degree, it's a cost-saving measure."
News organizations that travel with U.S. officials pay the U.S. government for the cost of their air travel.
Before founding IJR, Skatell worked for the National Republican Senatorial Committee and for the Republican Governors Association, according to his LinkedIn profile. Another founder, Phil Musser, previously served as executive director of the Republican Governors Association and served in the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the George W. Bush administration.
The conservative-leaning outlet, which bills itself as a digitally savvy news source for millennials, has 35 million monthly readers and more than 50 reporters, according to its website. Skatell told the New York Times in 2014 that he wanted to start a site after observing a gap in reaching "a more mainstream center-right audience."
IJR reports on a wide range of political and national news, specializing in short items with punchy headlines. Trending Tuesday headlines on the site included "Planned Parenthood Executive Makes Bigtime Humiliating Mistake of Going on Tucker Carlson's Show" and "Dem. Congressman Warned Not Once, Not Twice, But Three Times — Then Officers Put Him in Handcuffs."
How's that Trump national security policy going these days....
Trump sides with Cotton and Cruz against Secretary Mattis. Denies him his pick for undersec of policy.
Well so much for Mattis being promised he could pick his personnel.....
Appears experience does not count at all in the Trump WH....
SecDef Mattis withdraws Anne Patterson, fmr ambassador to Egypt & Pakistan, as choice for undersecretary for policy
http://wapo.st/2nk4wxD?tid=ss_tw …
The Moscow Times: Former pro-Putin activist celebrates U.S. green card on Instagram
https://www.unian.info/world/1823246-the-moscow-times-former-pro-putin-…
Reference the ring wing conspiracy theory called "Deep State" being pushed constantly by Breitbart.com...Infowars and a number of other alt right blogsites, twitter and FB.....
.@StephensWSJ blasts apart the myth of the "Deep State" in America.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/deep-states-and-demagogues-1489446006
Remember when Trump asked Russia to find the Clinton emails....well the Trump WH is slowly learning the power of twitter to archive tweets...
This tweet sent by a Russian was right before the famous Trump request to find the Clinton emails directed to the Russians....also sent for some strange reason to the personal lawyer for Trump....who was also in the Steele dossier...
The @yuri_bezmenov tweet to @damscavino BEFORE Trump did this? http://archive.is/x8VnM
Pull up the tweet and check the date....6 JUL 2016.....
On a more serious note...JUST how many in the Trump WH and his Cabinet actually have direct ties to Russian contacts...businesses and Russian individuals.....
We were at seven...counting the DoS Tillerson makes eight and now this one....AND this does not count actual Trump family members...for another four.
Hey, Look, Another Russian Connection in Trump's Cabinet
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a53475/trump-cabinet…
Breitbart not only spread anti-Clinton/Dems disinformation, it set broader media agenda, @CJR
http://www.cjr.org/analysis/breitbart-media-trump-harvard-study.php
AND the Breitbart.com "deep state" conspiracy goes into high gear to support Trump claims.....
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/03/14/judge-napolitano-three-intel-…
Judge Napolitano: ‘Three Intel Sources’ Say Obama Looked to Brit Agency to Spy on Trump
1. first of all the good judge has never held a single USG issued security clearance
2. second of all if "three intel sources" talked to him...THEN they were leaking at least TS/SCI information AND as a good American he is required to inform the FBI who leaked.....OR he could be charged for espionage.....ESPECIALLY since Trump stated these leaks are damaging the US.....
3. thirdly the good judge does not understand FIVE EYES....and the cross boundary monitoring requirements/laws/regulations in place to avoid exactly what he is supposedly talking about.....
QUOTE
Fox News Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano claimed “three intelligence sources” say President Obama looked to British spy agency GCHQ to obtain transcripts of conversations involving President Donald Trump on “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday.
Napolitano said, “[T]hree intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn’t use the NSA. He didn’t use the CIA. He didn’t use the FBI, and he didn’t use Department of Justice. He used GCHQ. What the heck is GCHQ? That’s the initials for the British spying agency. They have 24/7 access to the NSA database. So by simply having two people go to them saying, ‘President Obama needs transcripts of conversations involving candidate Trump, conversations involving president-elect Trump,’ he’s able to get it, and there’s no American fingerprints on this.”
Reference the allegations now via the ultra right blogsites and coming out of the Trump WH as to Obama getting getting the UK to spy for him....
NOTE
FVEY/Second Party REL simply does not work that way. Anybody who says it does is a liar and/or Kremlin propagandist.
BUT WAIT...if on fact the UK was monitoring a specific individual thought to be a spy and or committing a criminal act... IT could be that US citizens talking with that targeted individual could have been monitored which is completely legal BTW...bot under US and UK monitoring laws...
SO just what does the Trump WH feels occurred ...was someone being viewed as a "spy and or criminal thus the actual reason for say UK monitoring" ??????
Seriously now even the entire Trump WH is simply out of control with their ever increasing conspiracy theories.....
First it was four tweets on Obama's alleged wiretapping triggered by a Breitbart.com right wing conspiracy concerning the so called "Deep State"...which BTW is really a Turkish "thing"....
THEN we had the WikiLeaks CIA data dump and brietbart.com.....Infowars and the Trump WH went into overdrive saying..."see we said there was a Deep State.....
THEN we had this crazy lunatic idea of "being spied on by a microwave oven capable of listening to each word you said and taking photos as well....
THEN...we had the walk back that well Trump did not really truly write the words in his tweet called..."wiretapping"....
NOW we have this latest conspiracy theory also going out of Breitbart.com and the ultra right blogsites today.....
QUOTE
Latest White House-sponsored lie: Obama got foreign intelligence (UK) to spy on his enemies.
Trumpian projection is now officially and utterly out of control
This is for those Trump voters who really do believe WikiLeaks and the Russian Intelligence Service and that Snowdon is this great patriot....AND it does not go to internal US national security concerns....?
RIS @JulianAssange conspired with @MashiRafael and @PutinRF to exfiltrate @Snowden BEFORE he stole America's secrets https://heatst.com/politics/assange-doc-suggests-russia-knew-in-advance… …
Letter between head of Ecuador spy service & Russian ambassador, flying FSB Cuba chief in for an "exfiltrate @Snowden" meeting, April 4 2013
REMEMBER the Trump WH is trying badly to get us to truly believe that a long time Russian Ambassador was "just meeting them" with no other intentions and he certainly was not a "spy" because Russian Ambassadors cannot be "spies".....
REMEMBER it was Heat Street that broke the first story of an existing FISA Warrant on Trump and company...which was proven to be accurate...