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Tag: national secuirty
Secret Service Intercepts Bombs Sent To Obamas, Clintons

Secret Service Intercepts Bombs Sent To Obamas, Clintons

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

Explosive devices have been found in mail sent to the offices of former President Barack Obama and 2016 presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to the U.S. Secret Service.

The devices, law enforcement said, were similar to a device found on Monday, October 22 at the home of billionaire investor George Soros.

The U.S. Secret Service has issued a formal statement, saying that “late on October 23, 2018,” it “recovered a single package addressed to Former First Lady Hillary Clinton in Westchester County, New York. Early this morning, October 24, 2018, a second package addressed to Former President Barack Obama was intercepted by Secret Service Personnel in Washington, DC.”

The Secret Service, in its official statement, went on to say that “the packages were immediately identified during routine mail screening procedures as potential explosive devices and were appropriately handled as such. The protectees did not receive the packages; nor were they at risk of receiving them.”

The Secret Service added that it “has initiated a full scope criminal investigation that will leverage all available federal, state and local resources to determine the source of the packages and identify those responsible.”

Alex Henderson is a news writer at AlterNet and veteran political journalist. His work has also appeared in Salon, Raw Story, Truthdig, National Memo, Philadelphia Weekly, Democratic Underground, L.A. Weekly, MintPress News and many other publications. Follow him on Twitter @alexvhenderson.

Bannon And Trump Have Quietly Installed An Alt-National Security Council Operating Inside The White House

Bannon And Trump Have Quietly Installed An Alt-National Security Council Operating Inside The White House

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Less than a month after much-admired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster took over from Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as national security adviser, Trump’s alter-ego Steve Bannon appears to be more in control of U.S. foreign policy than ever.

There is little sign McMaster will be able to restore traditional U.S. foreign policy commitments to NATO and the European Union, and every indication that Bannon’s shadowy Strategic Initiatives Group, denounced by two national security experts as “dangerous hypocrisy,” is driving U.S. policy.

McMaster, a lieutenant general with a reputation as an intellectual, was perhaps the last-gasp hope of Washington’s foreign policy professionals against the radical ambitions of the Trump administration. He was seen as a man who could speak unpopular truths to Trump and block Bannon’s improvisations while restoring a degree of continuity to U.S. foreign policy under Obama and Bush.

Losing Ground

No sooner had Flynn been fired over undisclosed meetings with a Russian diplomat, it was reported that McMaster would impose order on Flynn’s chaotic NSC, purging ideologues and removing Bannon from the National Security Council as urged by Admiral Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“Given the gravity of the issues the NSC deals with, it is vital that that body not be politicized, and Bannon’s presence as a member of that body politicizes it instantly,” Mullen said.

McMaster urged Trump not to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism,” arguing, along with virtually every other U.S. military leader, that the phrase only alienates friendly Muslims and increases the risk to U.S. personnel stationed in Islamic countries without providing any military or political advantages.

McMaster’s influence has been fading ever since. There would be no “purge” at NSC, an unnamed senior White House official told Foreign Policy. “Key NSC officials focused on the Middle East and other vital areas will keep their positions in the near term,” the official said. Bannon remains on the NSC’s Principals Committee, while the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is only a part-time participant.

Trump pointedly ignored McMaster’s advice and denounced “radical Islamic terrorism” in his address to the Congress, much to the satisfaction of deputy national security adviser Sebastian Gorka. A lightly credentialed acolyte of Bannon, Gorka seems to have more influence with Trump than McMaster, a decorated lieutenant general.

While Colin Kahl, former national security adviser to Vice-President Joe Biden, recently expressed hope that an “axis of adults” can take control of Trump’s foreign policy, all indications are that the “axis of ideologues,” led by Bannon and Gorka, are ascendant.

What SIG does

The Strategic Initiatives Group is emerging as Bannon’s conduit for aiding the populist right in Europe. Described as a “White House think tank,” SIG is run by Chris Liddell, formerly chief financial officer at a Hollywood talent agency. The group’s mission is described as supporting Trump administration collaboration with “private forums.”

In practice, that seems to mean Liddell will assist in marketing the message of the chauvinist European right.

Last week, Gorka signaled the ascendant ideology by endorsing a white nationalist opus by Georgetown University professor Joshua Mitchell in the debut issue of a policy journal called American Affairs.

For globalists, Mitchell writes, “political justice involved material growth made possible by global management and the identity debt-points that global elites dispensed to this or that oppressed ‘identity’ group as a consequence of past infractions or of the irredeemable fault of others—typically (the imaginary category of) White People.”

“The dark Protestant machinations about human freedom and pride that drove President Bush and President Obama, respectively, make no appearance in the thinking of Trump,” Mitchell writes. “He will ask of foreign nations, simply, are they going to be allies or not; and will America be able to win with or without them?” In other words, Europeans who favor economic integration, ethnic pluralism and military deterrence of Russia are no longer regarded as U.S. allies.

“Trump has made clear that he’s at best indifferent, if not openly hostile to the modern European project, and Bannon has indicated that anti-E.U. populists have a friend in the White House,” writes American conservative James Kirchick in the German daily, FAZ.

Bannon approved of the visit of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen to Trump Tower in January. He published Dutch anti-immigration leader Geert Wilders in Breitbart News. And now he seems to be targeting Angela Merkel, the pro-immigration German prime minister who has emerged as the de facto leader of Europe, if not the free world. Merkel, who faces elections this fall, certainly sees Bannon’s media strategy as a threat.

“We shouldn’t underestimate what’s happening on the internet,” Merkel said in a speech to the German parliament last week. “Opinions today are formed differently than 25 years ago. Fake pages, bots, and trolls can distort views.”

Not coincidentally, Breitbart.com is said to be opening a Berlin bureau later this year.

While Bannon often talks in apocalyptic terms about war between the Christian West and Islam, his initial moves in the National Security Council are more political than militaristic. Through SIG, Bannon seeks to midwife a more nationalist and Christian Europe, as a prelude to escalating a “clash of civilizations” war against Islam.

In this geopolitical gambit, Bannon and company are setting the course, while McMaster and the “adults” of the Washington policy elite look increasingly irrelevant.

This article was made possible by the readers and supporters of AlterNet.

As Voters Fret Over National Security, GOP Candidates Seek Right Message

As Voters Fret Over National Security, GOP Candidates Seek Right Message

By Lisa Mascaro, Tribune Washington Bureau (TNS)

WASHINGTON — With the rise of Islamic State extremists and growing instability overseas, national security is taking on greater prominence in the 2016 presidential race, theoretically giving Republicans an edge on an issue they have traditionally dominated.

But as GOP presidential hopefuls try to appeal to their conservative base with familiar calls for a muscular military posture and increased Pentagon spending, the party is struggling to articulate a coherent message that strikes a contrast to President Barack Obama’s without alienating a war-weary populace or widening internal GOP divisions.

Even more problematic, Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton presents an unusually formidable challenger for the ever-expanding list of Republicans: Most of them have thin resumes on national security compared with a former secretary of state already viewed by many in her own party as somewhat hawkish.

The increasingly aggressive national security stance of Republican candidates was on full display this week, for example in former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s misstep over questions about whether he would have invaded Iraq in 2003, and in Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s policy speech Wednesday, which was long on promises but short on specific policies.

In many ways, Republicans should welcome a discussion on national security, particularly because they are the party that voters frequently have depended upon to confront America’s enemies. At the same time, the U.S. economy, as a campaign issue, has slipped as a top concern among many voters amid an improving job market.

Polls show that for Republican voters, national security ranks higher than pocketbook issues.

“There’s no doubt national security has risen on the most-important-issues list,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist who has worked with Rubio’s campaign. “It’s very clear that America wants a more muscular foreign policy than it has seen in the Obama years, and that’s particularly true of Republican voters.”

But as Jeb Bush discovered, the issue is not as straightforward as it once was. President George W. Bush’s prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan heavily tarnished Republicans’ reputation on national security and foreign affairs.

Despite lingering disapproval over the Iraq war, Jeb Bush said this week that even with the benefit of hindsight, he would have launched the 2003 invasion.

Predictably, Democrats pounced, but so did many conservatives.

“There has to be something wrong with you. You can’t think going into Iraq…as a sane human being, was the right thing to do,” conservative radio host Laura Ingraham said. “It’s a sneak peek as to what Jeb is going to face come the general election should he win the nomination.”

Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor who, like Bush, has yet to officially announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination, piled on. “I don’t think you can honestly say that if we knew then that there were no (weapons of mass destruction), that the country should have gone to war,” he told CNN.

A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, Mo Elleithee, simply said, “He’s joking, right?”

When asked his position, Rubio said, “Not only would I not have been in favor of it, but President Bush would not have been in favor of it.”

Jeb Bush tried to walk back his remarks, saying he had misunderstood the question. But when offered another chance to answer the question, he seemed to make matters worse, saying he wasn’t sure what he would have done in such a “hypothetical.” On Wednesday in Nevada, he suggested that even asking such a question was a “disservice” to those killed in the conflict.

Bush isn’t the only presidential hopeful struggling on national security. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), has been trying to downplay his previous image as an isolationist, which had put him at odds with an increasing number of Republican voters as well as the hawkish wing of his party.

The divide was on display last month in Congress when Rubio and Paul squared off over defense spending in the annual budget. Rubio led efforts to increase Pentagon spending, but Paul and another presidential contender, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), voted against the bill, saying the military funding should have been offset by cuts elsewhere.

Defense hawks won that battle against deficit hawks, perhaps a reflection of rising voter interest in a beefed-up national security stance.

Hoping to burnish his military credentials, Paul staged a recent foreign policy address in front of the aircraft carrier Yorktown in South Carolina.

Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker, meanwhile, has tried to increase his international experience with trips to Britain and Israel.

Rubio, who claims to have more foreign policy experience than other candidates as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, displayed familiar Republican tough talk during his national security speech.

“American strength is a means of preventing war, not promoting it,” he said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Rubio portrayed himself as influenced by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan to “set forth a doctrine for the exercise of American influence in the world,” including protecting U.S. economic interests in a globally connected marketplace.

“I will use American power to oppose any violations of international waters, airspace, cyberspace, or outer space,” he said.

“This includes the economic disruption caused when one country invades another, as well as the chaos caused by disruptions in choke points,” Rubio said, adding that any nation “that attempts to block global commerce will know to expect a response from my administration.”

Rubio called Clinton “a leader from yesterday whose tenure as secretary of state was ineffective at best and dangerously negligent at worst.”

But attacks against Democrats as too soft may not be enough, analysts say. To convince voters, Republican candidates will need to offer viable alternatives. Although public opinion of Obama’s handling of national security hit a low point last year, polls show most Americans agree with his reluctance to commit U.S. military forces abroad and his willingness to engage in diplomacy, such as talks to rein in Iran’s nuclear program.

“Even though Americans have heightened national security concerns, I’m not sure they’re ready to go back to this George W. Bush approach,” said Brian Katulis, a national security analyst at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

“A lot of Americans think: Been there, done that,” he said. “There is this deep chagrin and regret over all that was lost and squandered, especially after the Iraq war — even among those centrist, pragmatic Republicans, no matter what the polling says.”

Photo: The Daily Beast via Twitter