Who Is Michèle Flournoy, Biden's Rumored Pick for Pentagon Chief?

Michèle Flournoy and Joe Biden (source)

by Thomas Neuburger

Despite all the focus on domestic and economic matters in the current election, foreign policy, never really discussed, should bear at least equal scrutiny.

Will Biden's "defense policy" (quotes because America's defense policy is really a war policy) turn more hawkish than Obama's, thus reflecting the Hillary wing of that cabinet? Or will Biden continue the "no stupid wars" admonition that kept Obama from initiating bloodbaths in Syria and Iran?

Time will tell, of course, but one of the chief indicators will be his pick for Secretary of Defense, the person who will reflect, influence and implement his foreign policy. On that pick, there's almost near consensus — Michèle Flournoy. (See here, here, here and here.)

So who is Michèle Flournoy?

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies, no fans of America's forever war, have written a nice run-down of her history and policy positions, and it's not a pretty one — unless you're a fan of the forever war yourself, in which case you'll find it wonderful to behold. 

Some samples from their article:

 • As assistant secretary of defense for strategy under President Bill Clinton, Flournoy was the principal author of the May 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which laid the ideological foundation for the endless wars that followed. Under “Defense Strategy,” the QDR effectively announced that the United States would no longer be bound by the UN charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of military force. It declared that, “when the interests at stake are vital, …we should do whatever it takes to defend them, including, when necessary, the unilateral use of military power.”

The QDR defined U.S. vital interests to include “preventing the emergence of a hostile regional coalition” anywhere on Earth and “ensuring uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic resources.”

 • In June 2002, as Bush and his gang threatened aggression against Iraq, Flournoy told The Washington Post that the United States would “need to strike preemptively before a crisis erupts to destroy an adversary’s weapons stockpile” before it “could erect defenses to protect those weapons, or simply disperse them.” When Bush unveiled his official “doctrine of preemption” a few months later, Senator Edward Kennedy wisely condemned it as “unilateralism run amok” and “a call for 21st century American imperialism that no other country can or should accept.

 • Flournoy’s career has been marked by the unethical spinning of revolving doors between the Pentagon, consulting firms helping businesses procure Pentagon contracts, and military-industrial think tanks like the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), which she co-founded in 2007.

 • In 2009, she joined the Obama administration as under secretary of defense for policy, where she helped engineer political and humanitarian disasters in Libya and Syria and a new escalation of the endless war in Afghanistan before resigning in 2012.

 • As Obama’s under secretary of defense for policy, she was a hawkish voice for escalation in Afghanistan and war on Libya. She resigned in February 2012, leaving others to clean up the mess. In February 2013, when Obama brought in Chuck Hagel as a relatively dovish reformer to replace Leon Panetta as defense secretary, right-wing figures opposed to his planned reforms, including Paul Wolfowitz and William Kristol, backed Flournoy as a hawkish alternative.

 • From 2013-2016, she joined Boston Consulting, trading on her Pentagon connections to boost the firm’s military contracts from $1.6 million in 2013 to $32 million in 2016.

 • In 2016, Flournoy was tapped as Hillary Clinton’s choice for secretary of defense, and she co-authored a CNAS report titled “Expanding American Power” with a team of hawks that included former Dick Cheney aide Eric Edelman, PNAC co-founder Robert Kagan and Bush’s National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. 

The report was seen as a view of how Clinton’s foreign policy would differ from Obama’s, with calls for higher military spending, arms shipments to Ukraine, renewed military threats against Iran, more aggressive military action in Syria and Iraq, and further increases to domestic oil and gas production — all of which Trump has adopted.

 • In 2017, Flournoy and President Barack Obama’s Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken founded their own corporate consulting business, WestExec Advisors, where Flournoy continued to cash in on her contacts by helping companies successfully navigate the complex bureaucracy of winning enormous Pentagon contracts.

(Remember that name, Tony Blinken. He'll turn up again too.)

There's more in the article, but this should be enough. Michèle Flournoy, as Secretary of Defense, will be the hawk from hell that puts a gleam in every war contractor's eye. 

I keep warning that all this killing will come back to us — will blast our malls and movie palaces, our sports arenas and apartment complexes — but warnings like these go well unlistened-to, drowned by the voices of hubris and spread of empire that infuse what passes for minds in the DC world. 

I suspect (with no evidence yet) that on the domestic and economic front, the Biden administration will be a centrist-flavored disaster. But if Michèle Flournoy — or anyone like her — is picked for Secretary of Defense, his foreign policy will be even worse, a banquet of blood and a grave risk to us all.

_____ 

(For those who like my work, I'm launching a Substack site. You can get more information at neuburger.substack.com. If you decide to sign up — it's free — my thanks to you!)

   

A Country With Two Pro-War Parties Passes An Obscene War Budget-- Biggest Ever

Tuesday evening Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus was one of 43 Democrats with the guts to vote against the bloated $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act. She was one of the champions of the bicameral amendment that would have cut the budget by 10 percent-- reinvesting the $74 billion into communities across the country-- but the amendment, which garnered 93 votes, failed.

"We are simply spending far too much on the Pentagon," she told her Seattle constituents, "and have been for far too long-- while at the same time, cutting the budgets of the State Department, EPA, Department of Education and Department of Housing. This is completely upside down. Instead of investing in going to war all around the world, we should be investing in strengthening communities all around this country. We are in the midst of a global pandemic with more than 3.8 million Americans falling ill to COVID-19 and 141,000 losing their lives-- more American lives lost than during World War I or the Vietnam War, and in just a short five months. More than 48 million Americans have filed for unemployment. At least 27 million people have lost health care during the pandemic, joining the 87 million who were already uninsured or underinsured. And this is all happening as the Administration refuses to acknowledge the scale of the crisis, and continues to cut funding for education, housing, transportation, infrastructure and public health. We must redefine and reimagine what it means to be strong. Being strong is not funding a bloated Pentagon budget that is larger than the military budgets of the next 11 countries combined. Being strong means an end to endless wars. It means investing in diplomacy, international development and coalition building. It means guaranteeing health care for everyone in this country. It means investing in our communities-- putting more resources towards public health, affordable housing, universal child care, renewable energy, public transit, infrastructure, public education and giving educators a raise. I was proud to champion an effort to cut the Pentagon’s budget by 10 percent because there are so many ways we could invest that $74 billion, which is greater than the budgets of the CDC, EPA, Department of Housing, and National Parks Services combined. But what we should not do is give it away to corrupt defense contractors who relentlessly lobby for and profit off of our country’s excessive military budget. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what this legislation would do. I won’t support it."

The amendment failed in the House 93-324, all the Republicans and the Democratic Party's immensely dominant Military Industrial Complex wing-- led by Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer-- firmly behind the Pentagon waste and bloat... and the immense bribes that flow to members of Congress who back it. It was no surprise to see most of the members of the most disappointing freshmen class in history-- your Joe Cunninghams, Anthony Brindisis, Jared Goldens, Mikie Sherrills, David Trones, Max Roses, Kendra Horns, Harley Roudas, Cindy Axnes, Abigail Spanbergers, Gil Cisneroses-- join with the corrupt Democrats like Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ), Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL), Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN), Cedric Richmond (New Dem-LA), Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA), Raja Krishnamoorthi (Senate wannabe-IL), Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (New Dem-FL), Val Demings (New Dem-FL), Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL), Eliot Engel (New Dem-NY) and the GOP to vote down the amendment.

The only freshmen with the courage and conviction to back the amendment were AOC D-NY), Andy Levin (D-MI), Katie Porter (D-CA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Chuy García (D-IL), Jahana Hayes (D-CT), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Kweisi Mfume (D-MD), Lori Trahan (D-MA) and Joe Neguse (D-CO). And only one of them-- Katie Porter-- was among the freshmen dubbed a "majority maker" by the corrupted Pelosi-Hoyer-DCCC fraction of the Democratic Party. Many people were shocked to see establishment conservatives Richie Neal (MA), Lacy Clay (MO), Stephen Lynch (MA), and Emanuel Cleaver (MO) vote with progressives for the 10% reduction... but each has a primary coming up in the next few weeks, and it was a cheap ploy to make.

When it came to approving the Pentagon budget itself-- without the 10% reduction-- 43 Democrats, 81 Republicans and independent Justin Amash voted no. Watching which Dems who voted for the amendment then voted for the budget anyway, tells you a lot about those members and their motivations, among them... Richie Neal, Lacy Clay, Stephen Lynch and Emanuel Cleaver. Oh, that's a familiar little list!

Liam O'Mara, progressive Democrat running for a congressional seat held by Trump puppet Ken Calvert in Riverside County, wasn't surprised that Calvert voted against the 10% cut and for the bloated Pentagon budget. "As usual," he told me after the vote, "Crooked Ken Calvert is all too happy to put the needs of his donors in the defense industry above the needs of the American people. That anyone tolerates this level of corruption in a so-called 'Representative' is unfortunate. Calvert couldn't care less that people are losing their income, losing their homes, losing their healthcare, or even that we have veterans sleeping outdoors-- all he cares about is shoveling taxpayer dollars into Lockheed Martin's waiting cash-bag."

Arizona progressive Eva Putzova favored the amendment and told me that her opponent, Blue Dog "Tom O'Halleran tweeted about his vote to pass the NDAA, saying he did so to 'strengthen our national defense' and 'protect the A-10 Warthog & the KC-135.' Meanwhile,  he takes thousands from the top five profiteers of the War in Yemen-- Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and General Electric. He profits by protecting the military industrial complex, all while staying quiet on bold legislation to solve the many crises within our borders, including COVID-19. I will do what he chooses not to-- put people first. I will fight to end all wars of choice and cut the bloated Pentagon budget to reinvest in our communities.

The next day, the Senate took up the same amendment, which had been written by Bernie. It failed-- dismally, 77-23, every single Republican voting against it-- as well as Kamala Harris, probably to please the Biden VP search team, and all the conservative fake Dems like Joe Manchin (WV), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Mark Warner (VA), Michael Bennet (CO), Tom Carper (DE), Doug Jones (AL), Jackie Rosen (NV), Tammy Duckworth (IL)... all the usual suspects + Sherrod Brown (who, no doubt will eventually apologize to his progressive supporters).

Cutting The Pentagon Budget-- By 10%

I caught those above two minutes Wednesday night on MSNBC of Ali Velshi interviewing Bernie about his amendment to cut the Pentagon budget by 10% and repurpose the funds for America's most economically hard-pressed communities. What's a mere 10% you might ask and how can that help anyone? How about $74 billion with a "b?" The proposed Pentagon Budget is $740.5 billion and Bernie and his allies in this battle-- Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (R-OR), Ron Wyden (R-OR) and, believe it or not, normally reflexive war-monger Chuck Schumer who may be nervous about a prospective upcoming primary challenge from AOC, in the Senate and Barbara Lee (D-CA), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) in the House-- would like to see that money go towards healthcare, housing and childcare in communities with a poverty rate of over 25%.

The amendment is to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2021 by far right Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe-- and it's one of over 700 amendments offered in the Senate alone! That includes another one by Bernie-- along with Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mike Lee (R-UT)-- to force a Pentagon audit and one by Bernie, "Reduction in Amount Authorized to be Appropriated for Fiscal Year 2021 by this Act" that would amount to a 14% spending cut across all DoD agencies (excluding personnel, research and healthcare).

Most of the 700+ amendments will never be voted on. This one will. In a letter of support from dozens of organizations across the country other members were urged to sign on as cosponsors. "We urge you to co-sponsor Amendment 1788 introduced by Senators Sanders and Markey, and vote in support should it reach the Senate floor."

Our militarism budget is out of control. In 2019, the United States spent more money on our military than the next nine countries combined. The Department of Defense's budget eclipses that of federal courts, education, the State Department, local economic development, public health, and environmental protection combined, yet the Pentagon is incapable of passing a basic audit.

Multiple analyses have determined that U.S. and collective security would not suffer, and in fact would improve by, cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the runaway Pentagon budget through common-sense steps, like eliminating redundant and unusable weapons systems, ending wars, ceasing reliance on expensive contractors, and rejecting new nuclear weapons development. These overdue steps would instead allow us to properly focus our investments on our most urgent and pressing human needs. Polling demonstrates that this is a popular idea, and most American voters want to see money redirected from the Pentagon to invest in human security.

The jarring recent images of police with weapons of war in our streets is a stark reminder of how militarism and white supremacy drive misplaced spending priorities both at home and abroad. Meanwhile, all over the country, millions have lost their jobs and access to healthcare as the novel coronavirus pandemic rages on. The current moment should force us to confront the reality that, for too long, we have invested in the wrong priorities, the wrong tools, and the wrong solutions.

As a point of comparison: last year, the Centers for Disease Control budget was $7 billion, just 7 percent of the national policing budget, and less than 1 percent of the Pentagon budget. Those three figures alone tell a tragic story about what and who this country prioritizes and values.

We should no longer tolerate unchecked spending on systems that fuel violence and corporate greed at the expense of the basic needs of our people. This amendment is a crucial step toward a federal budget that actually aligns with our values. We strongly urge you to support it.

This amendment is going to be voted on in both houses of Congress by the end of the month. I'll remember to tell you who votes for it and who votes against it. Will you remember to not support Democrats who oppose it? I know Eva Putzova, Cathy Kunkel and Liam O'Mara are, in great part, motivated to run for Congress because of a genuine yearning for peace on earth. I asked each how they feel about the amendment. Eva told me that "It always comes down to the institutionalized, legalized corruption. Those who take money from corporate interests benefiting from the military-industrial complex like my opponent vote for expansion of the DoD budget every single time. Finally, we have a bill that can divert resources from wasteful and inhumane war economy to programs and services we desperately need. I doubt Congressman O'Halleran will have the political courage to do what's right but hope these will be among the last bills he would cast his votes for."

"My opponent, Congressman Mooney, recently cosponsored a bill to claw money back from the CARES Act-- money for low-income legal aid, public transit and the Peace Corps, among others," said West Virginia progressive Cathy Kunkel. "Rather than cutting programs with direct benefit to West Virginians (and millions of other Americans), the real question is what benefit are Americans really deriving from our oversized military budget, especially when the Department of Defense is incapable of passing an audit to even account for these expenditures? If I were in Congress today, I would be supporting efforts to redirect military spending towards basic economic needs, like healthcare and education."

Liam O'Mara, the progressive Democrat running for the last GOP hold in Riverside County, reminded me that "We were warned, repeatedly, and most famously in 1961 by Eisenhower, that the defence establishment gaining influence over Congress would be disastrous for our way of life and system of government. We ignored those warnings, and have sent people back to Congress again and again who are fully bought and paid for by the military-industrial complex. Ken Calvert is one such swamp-creature-- a so-called Representative who refuses to meet his constituents and is 98% funded by corporate interests, the largest share of which are defence contractors. Maybe if we stopped electing people who are there just to serve the stock price of big corporations, and whose loyalty is only to the almighty dollar, we wouldn't be spending such an obscene amount of money on tools of destruction, or using them to bomb eight countries. It's time to wake up, stop shovelling blood and treasure into that yawning void that is the stock market, and get this country working for ordinary people again. And the way to do that is to fire spineless lackeys like Calvert who'll spend any amount of our money to make his owners richer."

New must-watch video from Brave New Films:

U.S. and Chinese Industrial Policy, A Brief Comparison

An incomplete list of companies banned in China (source)

by Thomas Neuburger

This is your periodic reminder that the goal of U.S. industrial policy is to enrich the rich at the expense of the nation, while the goal of Chinese industrial policy is to enrich China at the expense of the world.

Consider the image at the top. Why are so many American and Western companies banned in China while only one Chinese company is banned in the U.S.? Is it because China has us by the manufacturing gonads?

Of course it is. But why is this the case?

The fact that China leads the world in manufacturing is not an accident, nor was inevitability of population or China's re-emergence on the world stage the cause. China's dominance is not some act of God. Handing the manufacturing world to Asian nations was (and still is) a decision made in the U.S. as a way to hand more wealth to U.S. billionaires. It was an act of policy.

As I put it here ("Two Ways of Looking at U.S. Industrial Policy"): 

Current U.S. industrial policy is to move our consumer manufacturing capability out of the country at the fastest possible rate and to hand the (untaxed) savings to billionaires, using corporations as a pass-through.

That is, the people who control U.S. government policy vis-à-vis the manufacture of consumer products make sure that the nation's manufacturing worker class is made poorer so that the savings in labor cost can go into the pockets of the corporate ownership and financier classes. They do this to the greatest extent possible, and at the fastest rate allowable under current conditions.

They do this by action — through treaties like NAFTA, for example, as well as numerous bilateral agreements — and by inaction, through tax policies that don't interrupt, or in many cases accelerate, the wealth drain out of the worker class (including white collar workers) into the pockets of the international wealthy.

In other words, the U.S. billionaire class, and each U.S. administration since Reagan, have decided to transfer U.S. manufacturing to China as a way to enrich said billionaire class — at the deliberate expense of the rest of the country.

Bottom line: The Chinese government serves China; the U.S. government serves the wealthy who own it. In doing so, the U.S. government serves the interests of China as well.

Thus we now face a situation in which China has almost all the power it needs to exercise coercive control of the world economy — almost, but not quite — while U.S. billionaires like Phil Knight (Nike co-founder; $38 billion at last count) and the rest, having made and pocketed their own money already, now have to turn to the Pentagon to keep the U.S. on top of a potential and looming upheaval:

As the Pentagon tries to prepare the U.S. military for the future, military planners are looking to China as the next potential large-scale threat to the United States. The Defense Department’s most recent assessment of China’s power raises concerns about China’s military modernization and contends Beijing could one day try to dominate Asia or challenge U.S. hegemony.

This is a classic example of reward first, consequences afterward. The reward in this case was the money pocketed by Phil Knight and the rest of his class.

The consequences — well, we're just getting round to those. Until the climate crisis makes the current century nobody's to own (see "There Will Be No Chinese Century"), it's going to be a bumpy ride.
   

U.S. Military Worries the U.S. Military Could Collapse Under Extreme Climate Change

Image: U.S. Army/John Hall

by Thomas Neuburger

A note about one more aspect of the pending climate collapse: The U.S. military is concerned that the military itself could collapse under the stress of extreme climate change.

This comes via a report in Vice Motherboard by the valuable Nafeez Ahmed. Under Trump's head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, the Pentagon has commissioned and released a report showing just that. Ahmed writes (emphasis mine):

The report, titled Implications of Climate Change for the U.S. Army, was launched by the U.S. Army War College in partnership with NASA in May at the Wilson Center in Washington DC. The report was commissioned by Gen. Milley during his previous role as the Army’s Chief of Staff. It was made publicly available in August via the Center for Climate and Security, but didn't get a lot of attention at the time.

The two most prominent scenarios in the report focus on the risk of a collapse of the power grid within “the next 20 years,” and the danger of disease epidemics. Both could be triggered by climate change in the near-term, it notes.

The report also warns that the US military should prepare for new foreign interventions in Syria-style conflicts, triggered due to climate-related impacts. Bangladesh in particular is highlighted as the most vulnerable country to climate collapse in the world.

“The permanent displacement of a large portion of the population of Bangladesh would be a regional catastrophe with the potential to increase global instability,” the report warns. “This is a potential result of climate change complications in just one country. Globally, over 600 million people live at sea level.”

Sea level rise, which could go higher than 2 meters by 2100 according to one recent study, “will displace tens (if not hundreds) of millions of people, creating massive, enduring instability,” the report adds.

The US should therefore be ready to act not only in Bangladesh, but in many other regions, like the rapidly melting Arctic—where the report recommends the US military should take advantage of its hydrocarbon resources and new transit routes to repel Russian encroachment.

But without urgent reforms, the report warns that the US military itself could end up effectively collapsing as it tries to respond to climate collapse. It could lose capacity to contain threats in the US and could wilt into “mission failure” abroad due to inadequate water supplies.

The report is here (pdf), and it's sobering reading. It's also rich in detail, very well done, and a great place to start if one is interested in where and how each of our physical, political and social systems — from sea level rise to water availability to power availability; from market challenges to mass migration — is vulnerable.

There's even a section on fixing "the environmentally oblivious culture of the Army." As I said, the report is very well done.

Here's a summary of its recommendations (again, emphasis mine):

Summary of Recommendations

In light of these findings, the military must consider changes in doctrine, organization, equipping, and training to anticipate changing environmental requirements. Greater inter-governmental and inter-organizational cooperation, mandated through formal framework agreements, will allow the DoD to anticipate those areas where future conflict is more likely to occur and to implement a campaign-plan-like approach to proactively prepare for likely conflict and mitigate the impacts of mass migration. Focused research and early funding of anticipated future equipment and requirements will spread the cost of adaptation across multiple budget cycles, diminish the “sticker shock” and impacts to overall spending.

Finally, the DoD must begin now to promulgate a culture of environmental stewardship across the force. Lagging behind public and political demands for energy efficiency and minimal environmental footprint will significantly hamstring the Department’s efforts to face national security challenges. The Department will struggle to maintain its positive public image and that will impact the military’s ability to receive the required funding to face the growing number of security challenges.

Forget Trump and his administration — I can't think of a single past Democratic administration that would mandate that the Pentagon "promulgate a culture of environmental stewardship across the force" in any but a cosmetic way.

Would a future Sanders administration do this? Yes. Would a Warren administration? According to her "green military proposal," perhaps.

Would any of the viable others in any meaningful way? I think not a chance in hell.
 

Trump Is Stealing Taxpayer Money For His Personal Priorities

Without consulting Congress, Trump started a disastrous trade war with China that has, for example, destroyed the American soy bean sector-- likely forever. The economies of rural counties across the country are already in recession. Dairy farms, corn farmers, wheat farmers... are all suffering from Trump's policies as well. Last month, the Nebraska Corn Board and the Nebraska Corn Growers Association sent out a scorching press release-- and it was Trump who got scorched. Trump did very well in Nebraska in 2016. He won 91 of Nebraska's 93 counties and beat Hillary 495,961 (58.75%) to 284,494 (33.70%). It was even better for Trump in the most rural counties. The massive 3rd congressional district takes up over three quarters of the state and is bigger than New York state.-- and it's 86% rural. Trump won NE-03 with 74.9% of the vote, one of his biggest wins anywhere in the country. Those corn farmers bought into the Times Square hustler hook line and sinker. "As harvest approaches after an extremely difficult year for agriculture," wrote the Nebraska Corn Board team, "many Nebraska corn farmers are outraged by the Trump administration’s lack of support for the American farmer. The Nebraska Corn Board and the Nebraska Corn Growers Association call upon the administration to fulfill its promises..." NE-03 isn't going to abandon Trump in 2020. He'll win that district and ridiculous closet case Adrian Smith (R) will be reelected to Congress. But NE-01 is probably lost to the GOP and NE-02 is teetering."

Trump's subsidies-- $16 billion-- will mostly make already wealthy farming operations even wealthier. Struggling family farms will get very little. And the geriatric and less-than-capable House leadership has done nothing about it but rubber-stamp Trump's outrageous behavior. House Democrats were frightened off my Kevin McCarthy's (and other Republicans') tweet storms.

Pelosi and Hoyer and their lame, incompetent team, are falling into the same trap with the Defense Budget. They funded billions of dollars in military projects, only to see the Pentagon illegally hand that money over to Trump's vanity wall project-- and then blame congressional Democrats for not funding "essential projects." Pelosi (79) and Hoyer (80) are too old and tired to fight back effectively. The military has wasted millions of dollars at luxurious Trump properties and the House Democrats do nothing about it but whine.

Yesterday, Aaron Gregg and Eric Werner of the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon is already screaming about dire outcomes if Congress doesn't fund the same projects that it already funded! "The Pentagon warned of dire outcomes unless Congress paid for urgently needed military construction projects nationwide-- the same projects that have now been canceled to fund President Trump’s border wall. The warnings are contained in Defense Department budget requests sent to lawmakers in recent years. They include potentially hazardous living conditions for troops and their families, as well as unsafe schools that would impede learning. In numerous cases, the Defense Department warned that lives would be put at risk if buildings don’t meet the military’s standards for fire safety or management of explosives."

Michael Franken is a progressive Democrat running for the Democratic nomination to take on reactionary Senator Joni Ernst in Iowa. She's just another Trump enabler. Franken is far from that. When I asked him how he plans to deal with this kind systemic GOP corruption, he shot back the need for Congress to "Vow and follow through with axing other projects dear to the prez and freeze EVERY political appointment... starve him of every luminary and personnel confirmation across all the exec branch. Then, never go in recess... and starve his party members from significant time at their respective home states."

Teresa Tomlinson, the former mayor of Macon and progressive Democratic running for the Democratic Senate nomination in Georgia is also eager to deal with this kind of a situation enabled by Trump rubber stamps like David Perdue, her opponent. "The money spent that lines Trump’s pocket can be identified through an equitable accounting by Congress and a Disgorgment process," she said. "Money shifted through budget adjustment has to be challenged in the courts or altered by legislative process."

Most Actual Democrats Are Progressives-- Though Not The Ones In Congress

According to a new poll from the University of Chicago's General Social Survey, 54% of Democrats describe themselves as liberals. In 1974, when GSS first asked that question, only 32% did, most of the rest describing themselves as moderates or conservatives. Harvard's Co-operative Congressional Election Study released this year, show that even Dems who identify as conservative, support progressive policies. In fact, more than 90% of Democratic voters-- if not careerist congressmembers, support Medicare-for-All, want to see the federal minimum wage increase to at least $12 per hour, and agree that the EPA should regulate carbon dioxide emissions. While Republican-controled legislatures around the country are passing very extreme and radical anti-Choice legislation, 80% of Democrats agree that governments should not restrict women’s access to abortion.

But even the grassroots of the party identifies as liberal and supports a progressive agenda, many, perhaps most, Democrats in the House are not liberal and do not support a progressive agenda. They are careerists and opportunists who support whatever it takes to advance their careers. Like most politicians, they follow; they do not lead. There are nearly two dozen men and women running for the Democratic presidential nomination. When it comes to policy, two-- Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren-- are leaders. The rest are, at best, followers or, at worst, reactionaries.

There are 235 Democrats serving in the House today. Only 108 are co-sponsors of Pramila Jayapal's new-and-improved Medicare-For-All bill (H.R. 1384). Only 91 are co-sponsors of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez's Green New Deal (H.R. 109). And, most shockingly of all, there is even resistance inside the Democratic caucus-- primarily led by the New Dems-- to Bobby Scott's $15 federal minimum wage legislation (H.R. 582). 205 Democrats have signed on as co-sponsors, although some are plotting behind the scenes to scupper it. And that still leaves 30 Democrats unwilling to co-sponsor a desperately needed livable minimum wage, primarily Blue Dogs, New Dems and cowards who are afraid of the wrong thing. (Cheri Bustos' new diktat about no primaries, helps make conservative DINO Democrats, like herself, feel less anxious about screwing their own base.

It's imperative that unaccountable Democrats in deep blue districts who never have to worry about facing a Republican opponent fear having to face a Democratic one. I've noticed that after Marie Newman almost defeated bigoted Blue Dog Dan Lipinski in 2018, he began voting slightly less frequently with the GOP. (Example, his Trump adhesion score for the 115th Congress was a ghastly 40.9%, one of the worst scores for a Democrat in Congress in terms of backing Trump. Newman is primarying him again and in the 116th Congress, his score is perfect-- zero... no Trump votes at all. ProgressivePunch still rates him an "F" but his lifetime crucial vote score is a 57.99, while this year his crucial vote score is 92.31, the same as progressives Chuy Garcia, Maxine Waters, Jerry Nadler, David Cicilline and Steve Cohen.)

The CPC-- Congressional Progressive Caucus-- has done well on the policy front but has been largely ineffective as a political vehicle. The new co-chair, Pramila Jayapal, is working hard to remedy that. Last week, the CPC actually stood up against party leadership when it tried to rush through a budget that drastically overspent on the military and woefully underspent on domestic progressive priorities. Pelosi and Hoyer were forced to withdraw their plans to call a vote on the budget, caught between the Democratic wing of the party (basically the CPC) and the Republican wing of the party (Blue Dogs and New Dems). Jayapal: "This is a big victory in that it became clear that without real, strong progressive inclusion into the process of a bill, we're not going to be able to get there. We have to make sure our priorities are taken into account."

The budget bill Pelosi and Hoyer tried to ram through caps Pentagon spending at $664 billion in 2020 and $680 billion in 2021, while capping domestic spending at $631 billion in 2020 and $646 billion in 2021. The CPC position is that there has to be equity between domestic spending and defense spending. A much better strategy would be to flat out stop increasing the Pentagon budget until after an audit is successfully completed.

Results of the inspection-- conducted by some 1,200 auditors and examining financial accounting on a wide range of spending including on weapons systems, military personnel and property-- were expected to be completed later in the day.

“We failed the audit, but we never expected to pass it,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan told reporters, adding that the findings showed the need for greater discipline in financial matters within the Pentagon.

“It was an audit on a $2.7 trillion dollar organization, so the fact that we did the audit is substantial,” Shanahan added... Shanahan said areas the Pentagon must improve upon based on the audit results include compliance with cybersecurity policies and improving inventory accuracy. In a briefing with reporters, he did not provide a figure detailing how much money was unaccounted for in the audit.

How Much Will The Trump-Putin Arms Race Cost American (And Russian) Taxpayers?

I've never been a fan of Hillary Clinton's-- never. At least her husband's neo-liberal agenda was couched in a pleasant personality. Each time I've met her was-- literally-- disgusting. I was stuck with a monster. Once her whole retinue-- one by one-- abandoned her backstage before a speech and I was the only left to deal with her and it was excruciating. Once at a White House state banquet she was like the big downer in the otherwise festive event, bad vibing everyone. That said, there was never one moment of one day that I harbored any doubts that she would make a better president than Donald Trump. She was never going to be my idea of a great president, but any least she would break through the political glass ceiling for far better women politicians to come and at least she would not be the kind of politically-destructive and ignorant animal that there could never have been any doubt Trump would be.

David Sanger broke the story in the NY Times yesterday that the nuclear arms race is on again, compliments of Trump and Putin. Is that what the American people want? Is that what even the idiots who voted for him wanted when they voted for him? Sanger reported that Trump and Pompeo are "suspending one of the last major nuclear arms control treaties with Russia after heated conversations between the two powers recently failed to resolve a long-running accusation that Moscow is violating the Reagan-era treaty." ... [W]hile the United States has insisted Russia’s actions sank the treaty, the Trump administration’s real aim is to broaden its prohibitions to include China."

Constrained by the treaty’s provisions, the United States has been prevented from deploying new weapons to counter China’s efforts to cement a dominant position in the Western Pacific and keep American aircraft carriers at bay. China was still a small and unsophisticated military power in the mid-1980s, and not a signatory to the treaty that was negotiated between the United States and a rapidly weakening Soviet Union.

By contrast, much of Beijing’s growing nuclear arsenal currently consists of missiles that fall into the distance ranges that are prohibited by the treaty that applies only to Russia and the United States.

“The issue now is whether the administration has a plan for what comes next,” said Pranay Vaddi, a fellow in the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former State Department official until 2017 who worked on nuclear arms control issues. “There is no question that the Russians committed a violation. But it is not militarily significant because it doesn’t change the balance of power in Europe.”

With the treaty on its last legs, the question is whether Mr. Pompeo’s announcement will result in a flurry of last-minute negotiations with Moscow-- which seems unlikely-- or whether it will accelerate the Cold War-like behavior among the United States, Russia and China.

Complicating that question is the American intelligence agencies’ warning this week that Russia and China are “more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s.”

The fate of the treaty has quickly become a test of the continuing struggle inside the Trump administration, and with its allies, over how to handle an increasingly aggressive Russia.

Mr. Trump campaigned on remaking Washington’s relationship with Moscow; the open investigation by the Justice Department’s special counsel is, at its core, about whether he and his campaign aides promised to relieve sanctions and other impediments to Russia in return for financial or electoral benefits from Mr. Putin’s government.

But Mr. Trump has surrounded himself in the White House with hawkish advisers, including John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, who has been a major critic of treaties that he believes impinge the United States’ ability to counter new or rising foreign threats.

The decision to leave the nuclear arms treaty took American allies by surprise when word of the decision first leaked out in October and was quickly confirmed by Mr. Trump.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the military alliance that was created to counter the Soviet threat 70 years ago, acknowledged that Russia had violated the I.N.F. treaty and called on Moscow in December “to return urgently to full and verifiable compliance.”

But the alliance stopped short of agreeing that the United States should withdraw, declaring then that the “allies are firmly committed to the preservation of effective international arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation.”

The announcement by Mr. Pompeo came just ahead of the expiration, on Saturday, of a 60-day deadline he gave Moscow to come into compliance with the treaty. He had no expectation that the Russians would heed his warning.

Mr. Pompeo’s formal announcement begins a six-month clock that Trump administration officials believe will end with a full American withdrawal from the treaty. Starting on Saturday, the United States would be free to begin to test or deploy its own weapons.

It is not clear whether that will happen; there are no weapons in the American arsenal that could be quickly deployed. That was the point of the treaty: It banned an entire category of weapons-- land-based missiles with a range of 300 to 3,400 miles-- that both the United States and the Soviet Union had deployed in the 1980s, and which at the time terrorized Europe.

For many years, the I.N.F. was considered a model arms control treaty. It allowed for on-site inspections and extensive exchanges of information-- exactly what the Trump administration now seeks from North Korea and other states.

But in 2014, the Obama administration accused Russia of turning out a missile that violated the treaty, and last fall, Dan Coats, the national intelligence director, published a detailed history of the Russian violations.

Experts cited Russian unhappiness with the treaty, going back at least 10 years, before Moscow focused on new generations of missiles that would extend its reach without costing it much money. Russian officials have charged that American missile defense interceptors in Eastern Europe could be easily refashioned into offensive weapons, and that the rise of armed drones, which had not been invented when the treaty was signed, now threaten to provide the United States with similar intermediate-range ability without violating the precise wording of the treaty.

Ahead of Friday’s announcement, Russia had aggressively used social media accounts to portray the United States as the treaty-breaker and the aggressor. That argument has won some sympathy in Europe, where many critics portray the treaty’s demise as an example of the Trump administration putting its own agenda before Europe’s.

But the real action is likely to be in Asia. The Pentagon has already been developing nuclear weapons to match, and counter, what the Chinese have deployed.

Completing that effort would take years. Until then, officials said the United States is preparing to modify existing weapons, including its non-nuclear Tomahawk missiles, and is likely to deploy them in Guam, where the military maintains a large base and they would face little political opposition.

Lewis Fry Richardson (1881-1953) was an English mathematician, physicist, meteorologist and psychologist, who pioneered the scientific analysis of conflict, applying modern mathematical techniques he developed for weather forecasting to systematically study the causes of wars and how to prevent them. In 2003 David Bigelow wrote a paper, An Analysis of the Richardson Arms Race Model, pointing out that according to Richardson "the likelihood of two nations engaging in conflict can be determined by a set of differential equations. Richardson conjectured that a nation’s probability of entering into an aggressive war is based upon its stockpiles of available weaponry, and tempered by the resistance of the citizenry. In the Richardson model, the likelihood of a small dispute erupting into a full war is based upon these variables, and the current conditions. The model has three basic cases: both nations tending towards disarmament, both nations tending towards a runaway arms race, and both nations tending towards a stable equilibrium point.

”X” represents the amount of weaponry that country one has at time t. ”Y” is the same for the second country. Each constant has a specific meaning, and vary from system to system.

The constants ”a” and ”b” are known alternatively as ”fear” or ”reaction” constants. They represent the desire of a country to increase arms at a rate proportional to the amount of arms that their opponent possesses. The con- stants ”m” and ”n” are known as either the ”restraint” or ”fatigue” factors. They represent the desire of a nation to reduce arms stockpiles at a rate di- rectly proportional to what they possess. Finally, ”r” and ”s” are the grievance constants, and represent the ”leftovers.” These constants can contain ambition, external pressure, a revenge motive, and other factors not directly related to arms stockpiles.

William Hartung made noticed that the revolving door between the Pentagon and the arms industry is spinning faster inside the Trump Regime than ever before, particularly since Patrick Shanahan was appointed acting Secretary of Defense. "No secretary of defense in recent memory," wrote Hartung, "has had such a long career in the arms industry and so little experience in government or the military. For most of that career, in fact, his main focus was winning defense contracts for Boeing, not crafting effective defense policies. While the Pentagon should be focused on protecting the country, the arms industry operates in the pursuit of profit, even when that means selling weapons systems to countries working against American national security interests... Shanahan’s new role raises questions about whether what is in the best interest of Boeing-- bigger defense budgets and giant contracts for unaffordable and ineffective weaponry or aircraft-- is what’s in the best interest of the public."

His former company is one of two finalists to build a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Critics of such weapons systems like Clinton administration Secretary of Defense William Perry point out that ICBMs are the most dangerous and unnecessary leg of the U.S. nuclear triad, since in a potential war they might need to be launched on only minutes’ notice, lest they be lost to incoming enemy nukes. Even some of their supporters have questioned the need for a brand-new ICBM when older ones could be upgraded. Nuclear hawks might eventually be persuaded to adopt such a position, too, since the cost of the Pentagon’s across-the-board $1.5 trillion “modernization” of the U.S. nuclear arsenal (including the production of new nuclear bombers, missiles, and warheads) will otherwise begin to impinge on department priorities elsewhere. But how likely is Shanahan to seriously entertain even such modest critiques when they threaten to eliminate a huge potential payday for Boeing?

Former Florida Congressman Alan Grayson mentioned to me this morning that "The Trump Administration has budgeted $494 billion on nuclear weapon 'modernization,' which is $100 million per nuke. Those nukes are burning a hole in Trump’s pocket; let’s hope they don’t explode... Trump should have tried to enforce the deal, not suspend it. If you breached a contract with me, my reaction wouldn’t be, 'well, then, I’ll just tear it up.'"

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI)-- who serves on both the Armed Services Committee and on the subcommittee for National Security of the House Financial Services Committee-- took a minute out of her presidential campaign to tell us that she feels the "heightened tensions with Russia and China are sending us into a new Cold War. We need to be stepping up nuclear nonproliferation agreements, not rolling them back. Trump's actions threaten our national security and the future of our planet."

Early this morning, the BBC reported, exactly what everyone expected: Putin said Russia would start developing new missiles. Another gift from Trump. "Our American partners announced that they are suspending their participation in the treaty, and we are suspending it too," Mr Putin said on Saturday. Meanwhile, the worldwide merchants of death and popping champagne bottles everywhere. The half dozen American companies that have spent the most in bribing members of Congress last year and their stocks' performance on Friday:

• Boeing- $4,011,579- (up 0.5%)
• Northrop Grumman- $3,943,199 (down 0.9%)
• Lockhead Martin- $3,422,998- (up 0.38%)
• General Dynamics- $2,279,136- (down 1.25%)
• Raytheon- $2,217,783- (up 0.73%)
• United Technologies- $1,182,114 (up 0.77%)

And who got the biggest slices of the pie from the weapons manufacturers? These are the half dozen worst who are still in Congress (just from the last cycle-- and keep in mind not one of them had a serious reelection race, although McSally ran for the Senate in a very heavily contested race-- and lost):

• Mac Thornberry (R-TX)- $339,250
• Kay Granger (R-TX)- $322,840
• Tim Kaine (D-VA)- $290,742
• Adam Smith (D-WA)- $276,550
• Rob Wittman (R-VA)- $274,500
• Martha McSally (R-AZ)- $266,241

History Will Curse Anyone Who Works For Trump-- Just The Way History Curses Hitler's Enablers

Generals Kelly and Mattis have left the room

Happy New Year! No one wants to work for Señor Trumpanzee-- and certainly not running the Defense Department. No one in that world respects Trump in the slightest or even considers him remotely human. On the other hand, they respect Jim Mattis a lot. Yesterday, writing for Politico, Blake Hounshell and Daniel Lippman reported on Trump's desperate search for a new Secretary of Defense by noting that "The chatter among people familiar with the selection… is that few outside the administration want the job of replacing Jim Mattis as defense secretary, given the president’s decision to yank American troops out of Syria and other recent moves." The other day retired 4-star General Stanley McChristal explained why he wouldn't work for Trump. It just took Cadet Bonespurs a matter of hours-- and a few snorts of chopped-up Adderall-- to lash back like a rabid dog:

We may be stuck with another actor playing the part for a while, crooked Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan. Far right Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Generals David Petraeus and Jack Keane turned down the job. Petraeus told the BBC that his views don’t align with President Trump’s on foreign affairs. "I think there does have to be policy alignment and I’m not sure that exists, I’m afraid." I'm sure this tweet from the asshole-in-chief went over especially well with the generals yesterday:

So if Trump can't get Shanahan confirmed, he could turn to Dan Coats or... does Jared have time in his busy schedule? You know what would be hilarious? If Trump winds up appointing the first closet case to run the Pentagon, Lindsey Graham-- even though the two of them don't see eye to eye on much to do with defense or foreign policy. Señor T spent New Year's Eve day bathing in self-pity and tweeting his unhinged and bathetic bullshit. He's got to be removed and any member of Congress who doesn't help needs to be defeated ASAP.

War with Syria — What Is It Good For? We May Soon Find Out

Yemen civilian deaths amid Saudi Arabia-led war rise as U.S. Senate approves arms deal with Saudis (source). The Houthis are predominately Shia-led. Saudi Arabia, Sunni-led, with major U.S. support, is killing them.

by Gaius Publius

Two data points to keep in mind as you contemplate the next Middle East escalation — or rather, as you contemplate the effects of the escalation while others contemplate the escalation itself. You and your preferences are not a factor in their contemplation; they will wage war when and as they choose.

First this, from Pentagon chief James Mattis at the end of February 2018 via Newsweek (h/t Twitter friend Boris Dirnbach):

Now Mattis Admits There Was No Evidence Assad Used Poison Gas on His People

Lost in the hyper-politicized hullabaloo surrounding the Nunes Memorandum and the Steele Dossier was the striking statement by Secretary of Defense James Mattis that the U.S. has “no evidence” that the Syrian government used the banned nerve agent Sarin against its own people.

This assertion flies in the face of the White House (NSC) Memorandum which was rapidly produced and declassified to justify an American Tomahawk missile strike against the Shayrat airbase in Syria.

Mattis offered no temporal qualifications, which means that both the 2017 event in Khan Sheikhoun and the 2013 tragedy in Ghouta are unsolved cases in the eyes of the Defense Department and Defense Intelligence Agency.

Regular readers of our reports were alerted to this deception as early as last April. Among the many pieces presenting contrary evidence was this one.

Next this, from NJ Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine on Trump's recent about-face on war with Syria (via email from Kevin Fathi):

Trump's getting awful advice from the foreign-policy swamp

On Sunday I got a call from Mike Doherty. The current state senator and former U.S. Army officer was livid about President Trump's about-face on Syria.

"In the 2016 campaign, his major promise was ending these stupid foreign wars," said the Warren County Republican. "If he breaks that promise with his base, I think he's finished."

As of early last week, Trump sounded like he was sticking to his promise to pull U.S troops out of Syria. On Tuesday, he met with his generals in what was supposed to be a private meeting on the issue.

On Wednesday, leaks from that meeting were widely reported in the press. The reports said his call for a rapid withdrawal of troops from Syria "faced unanimous opposition from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon, the State Department and the intelligence community."

There are two points made above. One, Trump's about-face reportedly occurred as a result of "unanimous opposition from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon, the State Department and the intelligence community."

And two, note the other point made by Mike Doherty, the New Jersey state senator quoted above: "In the 2016 campaign, his major promise was ending these stupid foreign wars," said the Warren County Republican. "If he breaks that promise with his base, I think he's finished."

In other words, in one Republican's opinion (a man who, by the way, was "the first prominent politician in New Jersey to back Trump" according to the same article), Trump breaking his stop-stupid-wars campaign pledge will hurt him with his base. (I'm less certain of that than Doherty is, but we'll see. There are certainly other such rumblings on the right.)

Finally, the proposed escalation in Syria could put us in direct, armed conflict with the Russians. From former Green Beret Pat Lang as quoted in the article:

I got an assessment of just how dangerous when I talked with another former Army officer with whom I like to discuss current events.

"This time it could easily get out of hand," said Pat Lang, a former Vietnam Green Beret who later spent a couple decades in the Mideast. (See this debunking of the co-called "white helmets" on his site.)

Back in 2013 the war was mainly between the Syrian government and the rebels. Now Russia is a major supporter of the Syrian government.

"The Russians have made it very clear that if we attack Syria again that they're going to fight our attack," Lang said. "There will be a war between the United States and Russia over Syria."

From the linked report, here's that Russian statement:

Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said on Monday that Moscow has warned the United States of "grave repercussions" if it carries out an attack against Syrian government forces over reports of a deadly chemical weapons attack.

If no one backs down, U.S. and Russian troops and pilots could start killing each other in Syria. 

About the Self-Styled, PR-Created White Helmets...

The nicely named "white helmets" (could they hope for a better brand?) are suspected of lying-with-an-agenda by many of those not in favor of this war. This means, of course, they're praised on corporate-owned cable news.

More critically, Rick Sterling writes this, from a longer piece at Robert Parry's Consortium News (emphasis added):

Not only do they only operate in rebel-controlled areas but they are a source of propaganda about the war, indeed their very existence is an element in the larger propaganda campaign to rally international support for a “regime change” war in Syria. The “White Helmets” brand was conceived and directed by a New York-based marketing company named “The Syria Campaign,” which itself was “incubated” by a larger politically oriented marketing company called Purpose.

Along with managing the online and social media promotion of the White Helmets, the Syria Campaign has parallel efforts in support of “regime change” in Syria. One of these efforts has been to criticize United Nations and humanitarian relief organizations that supply aid to displaced persons living in areas protected by the Syrian government.

If that's true, it's damning, both for them and those who, for their own reasons and interests, promote them. Which means they're praised on corporate-owned cable news.

Conclusions

From all this we can conclude:

• Defense Secretary James Mattis, knowing the evidence for the Trump's 2017 Tomahawk missile strike was ginned up, still wants war with Syria.

• The entire foreign policy and military establishment also wants war — the Joint Chiefs, the State Department and the nation's security services, presumably the CIA, DIA and FBI among them.

• We will indeed end up fighting Russians if Trump keeps his word and the Russians keep theirs.

• That fact seems to stop no one on our side.

In other words:

• The world just got less safe.
• The bipartisan DC establishment pretty much wants it that way.

Questions

Will Democrats — or enough of them — join with Trump to make the war "bipartisan"? Remember, Clinton was the hawk in the Obama administration. Reports she wanted a wider Syria war are not hard to find.

At what point will our widening war come home, a war against Shia Islam, fought, among other reasons, to fulfill the desires of Israel and Saudi Arabia? In other words, when will Americans, us and our elites, reap what we sow?

And finally, will Rachel Maddow weep tears of joy at the thought of a shooting conflict with Russia, or will she suddenly fly above the fray, waving careful flags of high-minded caution, after lighting the fires that caused it? ("That is not it at all," I hear her say, "that is not what I meant, at all.")

Stay tuned. The American people may not favor this war — though I can't see the unwashed (those of us with non-political lives) being much opposed. Yet should it come home, they'll surely pay most of the price — and no doubt be thanked for their service after their deaths by those in the safe seats at corporate-owned cable news.

GP
 

​Wilkerson on Impeachment, Pence, Destabilizing the State, and War with Iran

by Gaius Publius

We've written recently about the destabilization of the State under the pressure of the current situation (see "A Nation in Crisis, Again"). Lawrence Wilkerson, retired U.S. Army colonel, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, and frequent commenter on U.S. foreign policy, adds more. In the wake of Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, Wilkerson gave a fascinating interview to Paul Jay at The Real News Network (click the video above to listen).

I want to present a few comments and send you to the video, or over to the transcript, for the rest. (I've edited the transcript slightly. All emphasis mine.)

On chaos, the American elites, the "permanent state," and Mike Pence. The first comments are from the interviewer.

PAUL JAY: ... I think we have far more to fear from a functional Trump administration than one in disarray, but with the firing of FBI head James Comey, the craziness has crossed a line. ...

The firing threatens the system of power in Washington where the permanent state, the deep state as some like to call it, can directly assert systemic power, and no president can defy it. The permanent state represents the basic interests of the billionaire class as a whole, and it's their job to maintain the empire. ... Even a president cannot be above it. He has to work within it. ...

If Trump continues this path, this chaos and megalomania will burn down his presidency, and rising from the ashes will be a phoenix. The face of this dangerous creature will be Mike Pence. Whether it's by impeachment, resignation, or simply de facto, Pence will be the real power in the White House. ...

The dysfunction, the clowniness, [has] within it the seeds, I think, of a lot of danger. What do you think?

LARRY WILKERSON: I think one of the things you just said in your lead-in, most of which I agree with — that the elite want or don't want a government that is unlimited in its power — is a little bit off. I think what they [the elite] want is a government that doesn't operate — either through chaos or design, and it's looking more like chaos — against their interests.

What we have here, of course, I think, is a display, repeatedly a display, of the potential, if not the actual already, [for] actions against that interest [of the elites].

You're right in the sense that this group is probably going to be the most formidable foe ultimately that Trump is going to face, and that it [the elite] might in some of its parts be more comfortable with a Pence than a Trump [presidency], and that that might be even more dangerous [to us] than the chaos we're seeing from Trump, is a worrisome point. The Comey debacle, as it were, sort of illustrates how profound that can be, even to the point of perpetrating a constitutional crisis, out of which one wonders what would come. ...

[T]he lunacy of the Trump administration, and the uncertainty and unpredictability which it emanates, is inimical to their interests any way you look at it. If you don't know what your clown, your puppet, is going to do in day-to-day operations, with the enormous power at his fingertips, then it becomes of grave concern [to them].

On the "systemic decay" of the American republic, which for Wilkerson, preceded Trump but is greatly exacerbated by his administration:

You have institutional decay, and that's systemic. You have the decay of diplomacy in the State Department. You have the decay of the government and its meritocracy, if you will, in general. You have the decay of the very republic that we supposedly represent, and ultimately the decay of democracy and liberty.

That's all happening at the same time we have this clown, this lunacy, in the White House, and as you pointed out, the prospect of something even more nefarious perhaps standing in the shadows behind it [a Pence reference].

No matter who I was as a billionaire, no matter if I were Charles and David Koch, or I were Robert Mercer, or anyone else interested in the goose continuing to lay my golden eggs, I would have some grievous concern over this bunch.

On the role of the Republican and Democratic parties in what's going on:

...you have two political parties, both in, I would argue, complete disarray. You have the Republicans in possession of the White House and both houses of the legislature, and just excited as hell about that, salivating over it, and yet beginning to realize they're not going to get anything done because of the lunatic in the White House and what they've done to themselves in dividing up into this suicidal arrangement of parties within a party.

[And] you have the Democrats who are still stunned by their electoral loss and can't seem to get their act together, and could never be as ruthless and as strategic as the Republicans are. This is a disaster taking place in front of our eyes. And you have 300+ million Americans who are not aware of this disaster in any real way that they could do anything about.

You have the recipe here for a real problem in governance, a real problem in the continuation of this republic in any sort of significant and meaningful way.

The reaction of foreign leaders to what's happening now in the U.S.:

What you have big time right now, is leaders all around the world, including those of our allies, who are thinking hard about the United States in the way of it being distrustful [I think he means "untrustworthy"], mistrustful, even no longer reliable, questioning their [America's] commitments to things they've been committed to since World War II, thinking about what they [foreign leaders] might do to join forces [with each other] and balance the hegemon [U.S.] gone amok.

And increasingly, you're going to see signs of that actually happening. You're not going to just see Prime Minister Abe in Japan trying to grow Japan up as fast as it can to be its own security element. You're going to see other leaders all across the globe, both friendly and opposed, who are going to be doing things that are inimical to our interests and increasingly going to be doing them together.

On the military in Trump's cabinet:

The war power has devolved almost entirely to the executive branch. The cowardice of the Congress, the incompetence of the Congress, the fundamental interests of the Congress in fueling those who contribute to their campaigns from Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Grumman, Boeing, you name it, that is very conducive to what you just suggested.

And the one power that the president has that is unlimited in that regard is the war power. That this president would use that to ultimately try to resurrect what is increasingly a failed administration is something to be worried about, something to be concerned about, and that the military, from H.R. McMaster to Jim Mattis, within his Cabinet would be supportive of that, if he picked the right place — and believe me they'll help him pick the right place — is also worrisome.

It could put us on a trajectory of even more war after 17 years and $2-3 trillion and so forth which could be empire-ending.

On Iran as the ultimate target:

Iran is the ultimate target [of our increased presence in the Middle East]. I have to think that. I have to feel that, because I know that's the strategic viewpoint of the military.

And if Iran is the ultimate target and we're talking about doing something, precipitating something, making something happen that either shows Iran as the culprit in violating the current nuclear agreement or that sort of approximates that in a way that they can excuse themselves as we did in 2003 when we invaded Iraq and start something. And that's very worrisome.

Of all the things that are out there right now from the South China Sea, Taiwan and China, to Russia, Ukraine, and elsewhere, to North Korea and so forth, the Iran business concerns me the most, because it offers probably the most satisfying and most immediate and most in-your-face sort of area for them to do this. And that's concerning.

On the Pentagon's search for new money and a "first-class war":

When you're on the money train [referring to the Pentagon], when you've got to have the money, and you need justification for that money, the tendency to search for a little conflict to make that money flow a little more abundantly is strong, very strong.

It's been some time since major troops were committed in Iraq, and we really don't have 8,900, 9,000, whatever the figure is now, that much committed in Afghanistan. We're going to beef it up a little bit. We've got some 24-30,000 contractors there. As I've said before, I think we're in Afghanistan to stay, but still, that is not a real satisfying commitment schedule, if you will, for lots of more dollars.

When I say lots of more dollars, I mean many more dollars, not the 54 or 60 billion or so plus up. I mean 100 or 200 billion dollar plus up. If you're going to get that, you're going to have to have a war. It's going to have to be a first-class war.

The role of Israel in the current push for war:

This affection for war with Iran is all about Israel. It's all about this strategic approach that Netanyahu and Lieberman and others like him have developed, and that Schumer and others have bought into. And that is that destabilizing all of Israel's enemies — and mind you, this includes ultimately Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt — destabilizing them and keeping them destabilized, and even maybe breaking them up into statelets or less, is a good strategy for Israel's security.

This has been bought into by much of the American sycophantic approach in the Congress and elsewhere to Israel's security, and it's certainly been bought into and even designed ... [the] principal architect of it is Netanyahu.

Their best guesses on what's coming:

PAUL JAY: This is the danger of people in "the resistance" against Trump, that if you let people like Schumer and Clinton into the resistance, then wait till this thing with Iran comes! Because these people are going to be for the war. ... Then where is the resistance going to be? ...

WILKERSON: Maybe you get the impeachment proceedings after the midterms in 2018, and you get the [big] war and you get Pence in the middle of all that. Let's just worry about where we go from there.

Huh.

GP