Tag: steven bannon
Outspoken General McMaster Named As Trump’s Security Adviser

Outspoken General McMaster Named As Trump’s Security Adviser

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Monday named Lieutenant General Herbert Raymond McMaster as his new national security adviser, choosing a military officer known for speaking his mind and challenging his superiors.

McMaster is a highly regarded military tactician and strategic thinker, but his selection surprised some observers who wondered how the officer, whose Army career stalled at times for his questioning of authority, would deal with a White House that has not welcomed criticism.

“He is highly respected by everybody in the military and we’re very honored to have him,” Trump told reporters in West Palm Beach where he spent the weekend. “He’s a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience.”

One subject on which Trump and McMaster could soon differ is Russia. McMaster shares the consensus view among the U.S. national security establishment that Russia is a threat and an antagonist to the United States, while the man whom McMaster is replacing, retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, appeared to view it more as a potential geopolitical partner.

Trump in the past has expressed a willingness to engage with Russia more than his predecessor, Barack Obama.

Flynn was fired as national security adviser on Feb. 13 after reports emerged that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about speaking to Russia’s ambassador to the United States about U.S. sanctions before Trump’s inauguration.

The ouster, coming so early in Trump’s administration, was another upset for a White House that has been hit by miscues, including the controversial rollout of a travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries, since the Republican president took office on Jan. 20.

The national security adviser is an independent aide to the president and does not require confirmation by the U.S. Senate. He has broad influence over foreign policy and attends National Security Council meetings along with the heads of the State Department, the Department of Defense and key security agencies.

Republican Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a frequent Trump critic, praised McMaster as an “outstanding” choice.

“I give President Trump great credit for this decision,” McCain said in a statement.

A former U.S. ambassador to Russia under Obama, Michael McFaul, a Democrat, praised McMaster on Twitter as “terrific” and said McMaster “will not be afraid to question his boss.”

McMaster, who flew back to the Washington area from Florida with Trump on Air Force One, will remain on active military duty, the White House said.

Trump also said Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. Army general who has been serving as the acting national security adviser, as chief of staff to the National Security Council. John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, would be asked to serve the administration in another capacity, Trump said.

“He has a good number of ideas that I must tell you I agree very much with,” Trump said of Bolton, who served in Republican President George W. Bush’s administration.

Kellogg and Bolton were among those in contention as Trump spent the long Presidents Day weekend considering his options for replacing Flynn. His first choice, retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward, turned down the job last week.

McMaster, 54, is a West Point graduate known as “H.R.,” with a Ph.D. in U.S. history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was listed as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2014, partly because of his willingness to buck the system.

A combat veteran, he gained renown in the first Gulf War – and was awarded a Silver Star – after he commanded a small troop of the U.S. 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment that destroyed a much larger Iraqi Republican Guard force in 1991 in a place called 73 Easting, for its map coordinates, in what many consider the biggest tank battle since World War Two.

As one fellow officer put it, referring to Trump’s inner circle of aides and speaking on condition of anonymity, the Trump White House “has its own Republican Guard, which may be harder for him to deal with than the Iraqis were.” The Iraqi Republican Guard was the elite military force of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

Trump relies on a tight, insular group of advisers, who at times appear to have competing political agendas. Senior adviser Steve Bannon has asserted his influence by taking a seat on the National Security Council.

McMaster’s fame grew after his 1997 book Dereliction of Duty criticized the country’s military and political leadership for poor leadership during the Vietnam War.

Trump’s pick was praised by one of the president’s strongest backers in the U.S. Congress, Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who called McMaster “one of the finest combat leaders of our generation and also a great strategic mind.”

In a July 14, 2014, interview with the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer in Columbus, Georgia, where Fort Benning is located, McMaster, then the base commander, said: “Some people have a misunderstanding about the Army.

“Some people think, hey, you’re in the military and everything is super-hierarchical and you’re in an environment that is intolerable of criticism and people don’t want frank assessments.

“I think the opposite is the case. … And the commanders that I’ve worked for, they want frank assessments, they want criticism and feedback.”

That attitude was not always shared by his superiors, and it led to his being passed over for promotion to brigadier general twice, in 2006 and 2007.

On McMaster’s third and last try, General David Petraeus – who at one point was also on Trump’s candidate list for national security adviser – returned from Iraq to head the promotion board that finally gave McMaster his first general’s star.

Then a colonel, McMaster was commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment that in the spring of 2005 captured, held and began to stabilize Tal Afar on the Iraqi-Syrian border.

The city was held by Sunni extremists, a crossing point between Syria and Iraq for jihadists who started as al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and morphed into Islamic State after he was killed.

McMaster’s preparation of the regiment is legendary: He trained his soldiers in Iraqi culture, the differences among Sunnis, Shi’ites and Turkomen, and had them read books on the history of the region and counterinsurgency strategy.

It was a sharp change from the “kill and capture” tactics the United States had used in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003, and to which the Obama administration returned in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

The strategy was largely a success, although McMaster’s use of it and especially his willingness to acknowledge that Iraqis had some legitimate grievances against one another and the occupying coalition forces, did not endear him to his superiors and helped delay his promotion to brigadier general.

The strategy did not survive the departure of McMaster’s troops, with Tal Afar falling into the hands of Sunni militants. Along with the west part of Mosul, it is now a key objective in the battle to rid Iraq of Islamic State.

(Additional reporting by John Walcott and Sarah Lynch in Washington; Writing by Frances Kerry and James Oliphant; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)

IMAGE: Newly named National Security Adviser Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster listens as President Donald Trump makes the announcement at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida U.S. February 20, 2017.  REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

 

Is Time Running Out On Our Democracy?

Is Time Running Out On Our Democracy?

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

Timothy Snyder, a Yale scholar and an authority on European political history, has spent decades studying the rise of fascist movements. With the ascension of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, Snyder sees echoes from history, and warns that the time to save America from autocracy is in short supply.

“I think things have tightened up very fast; we have at most a year to defend the republic, perhaps less,” Snyder stated in an interview with German outlet Süddeutsche Zeitung. “What happens in the next few weeks is very important.”

Snyder, whose multiple books include On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, points out that Americans must dispense with wishful thinking about institutions helping to curb Trump’s power. In fact, that misguided notion is precisely what landed us in this situation.

“The story that Americans have told themselves from the moment he declared his candidacy for president, was that one institution or another would defeat him or at least change his behavior—he won’t get the nomination; if he gets the nomination, he will be a normal Republican; he will get defeated in the general election; if he wins, the presidency will mature him (that was what Obama said),” Snyder recounts. “I never thought any of that was true. He doesn’t seem to care about the institutions and the laws except insofar as they appear as barriers to the goal of permanent kleptocratic authoritarianism and immediate personal gratification. It is all about him all of time, it is not about the citizens and our political traditions.”

In the days after the election, Snyder penned a must-read Slate article that recalled historical markers from Hitler’s rise to reveal the similar path of Trump’s advance. The historian had hoped to cajole Americans out of complacency, to urge them to “find their bearings,” to remind them none of this is normal and that democracy is in the crosshairs.

“The temptation in a new situation is to imagine that nothing has changed,” Snyder says. “That is a choice that has political consequences: self-delusion leads to half-conscious anticipatory obedience and then to regime change… Most Americans are exceptionalists; we think we live outside of history. Americans tend to think: ‘We have freedom because we love freedom, we love freedom because we are free.’ It is a bit circular and doesn’t acknowledge the historical structures that can favor or weaken democratic republics. We don’t realize how similar our predicaments are to those of other people.”

“I wanted to remind my fellow Americans that intelligent people, not so different from ourselves, have experienced the collapse of a republic before. It is one example among many. Republics, like other forms of government, exist in history and can rise and fall.”

Snyder points to the desperate need to shake off historical amnesia as the Trump administration looks to authoritarian regimes as models. “[O]ne reason why we cannot forget the 1930s is that the presidential administration is clearly thinking about them, but in a positive sense,” Snyder stated. “They seem to be after a kind of redo of the 1930s with Roosevelt where the Americans take a different course—where we don’t build a welfare state and don’t intervene in Europe to stop fascism. Lindbergh instead of FDR. That is their notion. Something went wrong with Roosevelt and now they want to go back and reverse it.”

“During the campaign [Trump] used the slogan ‘America First’ and then was informed that this was the name of a movement that tried to prevent the United States from fighting Nazi Germany and was associated with nativists and white supremacists. He claimed then not to have known that. But in the inaugural address he made ‘America First’ his central theme, and now he can’t say that he doesn’t know what it means. And of course Bannon knows what it means. America First is precisely the conjuration of this alternative America of the 1930s where Charles Lindbergh is the hero. This inaugural address reeked of the 1930s.”

Snyder urges immediate resistance to the administration’s targeting of Muslims, immigrants, blacks, and LGBT people, because if it can “slice off one group, it can do the same to others.” He says protest and pushback should continue with regularity.

“The Constitution is worth saving, the rule of law is worth saving, democracy is worth saving, but these things can and will be lost if everyone waits around for someone else.”

He also notes that the speed with which the Trump team has worked to hammer home its agenda is a strategy designed to cause fatigue and depression. The key is not to be grow tired or become resigned. In particular, he cautions against succumbing to Trump’s attempts to paint all those who reject his agenda as un-American.

“The idea is to marginalize the people who actually represent the core values of the republic,” says Snyder. “The point is to bring down the republic. You can disagree with [protesters], but once you say they have no right to protest or start lying about them, you are in effect saying: ‘We want a regime where this is not possible anymore.’ When the president says that, it means that the executive branch is engaged in regime change towards an authoritarian regime without the rule of law. You are getting people used to this transition, you are inviting them into the process by asking them to have contempt for their fellow citizens who are defending the republic. You are also seducing people into a world of permanent internet lying and away from their own experiences with other people. Getting out to protest, this is something real and I would say something patriotic. Part of the new authoritarianism is to get people to prefer fiction and inaction to reality and action. People sit in their chairs, read the tweet and repeat the clichés: ‘Yes, they are thugs’ instead of ‘It is normal to get out in the streets for what you believe.’ [Trump] is trying to teach people a new behavior: ‘You just sit right where you are, read what I say and nod your head.’ That is the psychology of regime change.”

The only way to stop is to not obey, Snyder reiterates.

For more of Snyder’s insights on history’s lessons and how to apply them to Trump, check out his 20-point guide on forms of resistance.

Kali Holloway is a senior writer and the associate editor of media and culture at AlterNet.

IMAGE: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump gestures as he takes the stage at a “Thank You USA” tour rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S. December 9, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar

19 Things Trump Would Rather Do Than Attend Intelligence Briefings

19 Things Trump Would Rather Do Than Attend Intelligence Briefings

Nineteen things President-elect Donald Trump would rather do than attend the daily top-secret intelligence briefings:

1. Chat with Sean Hannity. Or Joe Scarborough, or Matt Lauer, or even Wolf Blitzer. Anybody who’ll put me on the air.

2. Hang out with my good friend Kanye West at Trump Tower. Get a photo taken with him in our spectacular lobby. Tell him how honored I am that he dyed his hair blonde, just like mine.

3. Sneak into Barron’s room while he’s at school and watch “Saturday Night Live,” which I secretly Tivo every week, even the reruns.

4. Go on Twitter and rant about how much I can’t stand “Saturday Night Live,” how incredibly NOT funny it is, especially the sketches where Alec Baldwin is supposedly playing me.

5. Call up my good friend Vladimir Putin to innocently inquire if he is aware of any wayward emails belonging to one “A. Baldwin” of midtown Manhattan. Also extremely important: Remember to thank the Vladster for recommending Rex Tillerson of Exxon Mobil to be my secretary of State.

6. Take Mitt Romney to dinner at another fancy restaurant, just to watch him grovel. Promise him he’s still in the running for a key post in my Cabinet.

7. Just for fun, go on Twitter and say how much I respect and admire Romney, and would be proud to have him on my team.

8. Call up Schwarzenegger to tell him he’s doing an amazing job on the new “Celebrity Apprentice.” Ask him if any of the contestants want to be in my Cabinet. Tell them they’ve got a better shot than Romney.

9. Jack up the rents in Trump Tower before the Secret Service signs its lease. Throw in a free gym membership for the agents assigned to protect me. Pence’s guys can use the Gold’s down the street.

10. Work on my official Enemies List. So far I’ve got Alec Baldwin, that loudmouth Carrier union guy from Indiana, some smart-ass college chick (no more than an 8!) who implied I didn’t respect women, and the 2.8 million people (most of them illegals, I bet!) who made me lose the popular vote to Hillary.

11. Continue my sincere outreach to worried minorities by asking Sofia Vergara or possibly Selena Gomez to drop by Trump Tower for a photo-op in our spectacular lobby. And if they want to do the blonde thing, like Kanye, that would be so amazing.

12. Attend my regular morning briefing about the occupancy rate at the new Trump hotel in Washington, D.C. Investigate why it’s not already booked solid for the next four years. Also extremely important: Leave a standing order that if Megyn Kelly ever checks in, put her in the noisiest room, the one next to the freight elevator and the ice machines.

13. Call up random foreign leaders and tell them how terrific they are. Remind Ivanka to help me with the pronunciations. Also, a map of the world might be useful.

14. Go on Twitter to rant about Boeing spending too much money on the new Air Force One 747s, since the damn things won’t even be finished in time for me to fly in them.

15. Pay Steve Bannon the five bucks I owe him after Boeing’s stock dropped like a rock. Ask him to make a list of other companies I should trash on Twitter late at night, when I can’t get to sleep.

16. Conduct regular staff meetings about my final Cabinet appointments. Ask if there are any remaining jobs I can pretend to discuss with Mitt Romney, just to jerk him around some more. See if we can get him to dye his hair blonde.

17. Continue talks with Donald Jr. and Eric about independently running my far-flung business empire while I’m president, to make sure there won’t be any conflicts of interest. Ha! Who am I kidding? I’m fond of those boys, but they’re not going to buy a box of paper clips without consulting me first.

18. Research the measurements of the Oval Office, to see if my tanning bed will fit.

19. Finish the guest list for my “Drain-the-Swamp Inaugural Ball.” Rent an 18-wheeler to deliver all those invitations to Goldman Sachs.

Also extremely important: Don’t seat those hicks from “Duck Dynasty” at the same table with Tom and Giselle Brady! Melania would cut me off for, like, ever.

IMAGE: Donald Trump greets supporters during his election night rally in Manhattan. REUTERS/Mike Segar