They’re the civil servants of our Federal government sworn to uphold the Constitution. They recognize the Presidency and its powers as a position in constitutional terms as well as their obligations in relation to that. As such, their loyalty may be to the position but not the occupant who dares to challenge the boundaries and contours of power as set by the Framers.
James S. Oppenheim, editor of this blog, via sub-thread comment during PBS live coverage of the impeachment hearings on November 19, 2019.
Posted by PBS NewsHour to YouTube November 19, 2019.
Posted by C-Span to YouTube November 19, 2019.
Badgered to give up the name of the “whistle blower” during the open hearing, Lt. Col. Vindman refused to deliver the name or discuss any of the intelligence personnel charged with the keeping of each their portion of the nation’s secrets, which certainly seems sensible to this editor if not his Republican interrogator.
“She understood that corruption was the ‘Achilles heel,’ so to speak, of Ukraine,” a former State Department official who knows Yovanovitch told CNN Thursday prior to the release of the complaint. “And so Masha, by doubling down on corruption and making it kind of her leitmotif of her tenure as ambassador, was doing exactly what she should have been doing and what US policy has been in Ukraine for quite some time.”
Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch had been doing her job as prescribed by law, and yet President Trump chose to have her removed and out of his way.
Sworn in as ambassador to Kyiv in August 2016, Yovanovitch has been at the forefront of U.S. efforts to help stabilize Ukraine’s shaky economy and push reforms to root out endemic corruption.
She’s also been at the forefront of U.S. backing for Ukraine in its ongoing fight with Moscow over Russia-backed fighters battling Ukrainian government forces in eastern regions since 2014.
Yovanovitch drew attention in early March when, weeks before Ukraine’s March 31 presidential election, she called on Kyiv to fire the country’s special anti-corruption prosecutor. The speech was notable not only for its timing but also its bluntness.
Lutsenko alleged that she made a “do-not-prosecute” list and disseminated it in Ukraine, an accusation that she strenuously rejected and which Lutsenko himself retracted.
Lutsenko is himself deeply implicated in the Ukraine scandal and has been accused of colluding with Giuliani to launch investigations in Ukraine into Trump’s political enemies, specifically Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
The Washington Post has a December 2018 piece on those who have been fired or positioned to resign from their posts in relation to President Trump’s decision-making or handling. Causes cited range from attempts to damage the Mueller Investigation to dismissal for abuse of Department funds for personal security and travel. Be that as it may, disruptions involving America’s Justice and Security systems may be most disturbing, from the firing of James Comey at the FBI to the resignation of General Jim Mattis as Secretary of Defense.
Perhaps President Trump listens to his inner voices and no one else’s — and now he has few educated, experienced, and powerful others of the first rank to whom to listen.
Over time and with energies dispersed by curiosity and a great range of interests — the editor cannot “track” the whole world and every dimension of it 🙂 — BackChannels has kept folders for others now absent from the Trump Administration: John Bolton, Dan Coats, Nikki Haley, and Sue Gordon (“the highest-ranking career intelligence official in the country” according to CNN’s Samantha Vinograd in her analysis, “Sue Gordon’s departure is bad news for Trump and country” [CNN, August 12, 2019]). Conclusion: Trump has been either abandoned by or removed quite a few of America’s best and brightest in the assessment of threats domestic and foreign.
With the dismissal for Marie Yovanovitch, President Trump has notably removed a most dedicated, experienced, patriotic, and well prepared and talented diplomat of note and, above and beyond those attributes, one possessed of great integrity and spine.
Inspiration: an exchange about Putin’s tolerance of opposition kept powerless and underscored by the assassination of Boris Nemtsov.
What makes for tragedy is the difference between made up problems and difficult real ones. I believe Americans want to do with real problems through an authentic democracy, not made-up problems concocted by the immense power of a totalitarian and evil state. The challenge for Americans and others in the remaining democratic and liberal societies (of the west) involves apprehension of states of affairs as a function of education x time. So-called “Sheeple” may be led by an attractive political cant — line of rant — that echoes their own unexplored sentiments. That, I believe, happened in Germany — and it could happen here.
BackChannels hopes for “Radical Moderates” in the form of Representatives and Senators who a) comprehend President Putin’s absolute authoritarianism and feudal practices and the methods in play for producing an autocratic “populism” and “New Nationalism” in EU/NATO, and b) wish to assert and defend the ethics, ideals, principles, and values associated with advanced and classically liberal democracies.
Posted by RT for the Dedication of Moscow’s Grand Mosque – 2015.
Posted by CBS News to YouTube November 13, 2019.
Is “Winter” coming — or is it already here?
Listen to the high notes: Arms Deals, Trade Deals, Expanding Markets.
Mentioned: Turkey’s participation in the building of the F-35 air frame. While that mention may score points with the less informed public, Turkey’s participation in NATO defense manufacturing in relation to the American fighter jet program has created heat and a now discomfiting defense relationship. The following description of the depth of Turkey’s participation in the F-35 Program tells why:
Eight Turkish companies make parts for the fuselage, landing gear and cockpit displays of the aircraft, according to Lockheed Martin. Some of them have been producing F-35 parts since 2004. For example, Fokker Elmo manufactures 40 percent of the F-35’s electrical wiring and interconnection system.
These companies are set to do $12 billion in work on the F-35 program over the life of the jet, according to USNI News.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is preparing to transfer Turkey’s industrial participation in the F-35 to other countries unless Ankara reverses course on its plans to buy the Russian S-400 air defense system.
The move — which in early 2020 would end contracts with major Turkish defense contractors such as Turkish Aerospace Industries, Roketsan and Tusas Engine Industries, among many others — is just one of many steps the U.S. Defense Department intends to take to strip Turkey from the F-35 program, according to a June 6 letter from acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.
On the F-35 matter, the White House noted in July, ” Unfortunately, Turkey’s decision to purchase Russian S-400 air defense systems renders its continued involvement with the F-35 impossible. The F-35 cannot coexist with a Russian intelligence collection platform that will be used to learn about its advanced capabilities.”
Freedom House metrics involving civil liberties and political rights rates Erdogan’s Turkey as “Not Free”. On the matter of Freedom of Speech, a matter that President Trump has baldly attacked with the accusation “Fake News!” aimed at America’s responsible mainstream media, Erdogan’s state has made itself notorious for the inhibition and jailing of Turkey’s journalists. Wikipedia’s “Censorship in Turkey” tells that story.
Long overdue to give up fiction that Erdogan’s Turkey is an ally in practice. US should withdraw all nuclear weapons, reduce reliance on Turkey’s bases, and restrict intelligence sharing and arms sales. Should also articulate red lines in Syria. https://t.co/rWB0AhwRS3
Erdogan has a card to play against Europe, as he confirmed in a speech on October 10. That card is a refugee card, the threat of a flood. There are 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey. “Come to your senses,” he told the EU in that speech, given to his party in Ankara. “I will say this once again: If you try to label our current operation an occupation, our job becomes easier: We will open the gates and send the 3.6 million refugees to you.”
Despite this threat, several EU nations have responded to Operation Peace Spring, imposing arms embargoes on Turkey. These nations include Germany, France, Sweden, and Finland.
BackChannels has long maintained a quick reference list for copy-paste relay of Moscow’s post-Soviet play in the narrative around Islamic Terrorism. It begins with David Satter’s account of the “Moscow Apartment Bombings”, back-fills with Anna Politkovskaya’s observations on the Russian Army’s brutalizing of Chechen villages, moves through Ayman al-Zawahiri’s whistle-stop in Russia (published in Business Insider), and ends near the U.S. military observation of Russia’s supplying the Taliban (today) with arms and materiel. Here it is*:
Moscow’s persistent Orwellian (and paternally authoritarian) character may come through as it dawns on the reader that the state appears to manipulate its public with something like “KGB Theater” (again, read David Satter on the “Moscow Apartment Bombings”).
The production of “The Syrian Tragedy” well displays the form as Bashar “The Butcher” Assad chose to barrel bomb Syrian noncombatants while al-Qaeda types gathered in his space and eventually distilled into “ISIL” or, today “Islamic State” — see https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/ for related argument and the basis for it in references.
Basically, BackChannels believes Assad — as flanked by Putin and Khamanei — chose his enemy, i.e., an “enemy preferred” or a dumb foil he knew he would beat (with Russian assistance), and which victory would redound to his glorious (malign and narcissistic) appearance.
By choosing amity with President Erdogan, President Trump has stepped into the Great Neo-KGB Theater of History, but with one immense issue: a spirited American public and system in part armored against the dawning of totalitarian control and related debasements and indignities. In lieu of the Soviet Communist project that gave up the ghost on December 25, 1991, the (E)State Capitalism — the making and hoarding of money by any means no matter what the costs to humanity — associated with Vladimir Putin appears to be working — and Americans (and the North American and European presses) seem slow to catch on.
*Mixed formatting has to do with the editor’s interest, purpose, and time–for the blog: okey dokey; for a monograph some time in the future, Chicago rules.
Inspiration for the post: a tirade against the specter of Democratic Socialist America in the fashion of the Soviet Communist sphere of influence and the detritus of the irresponsible authoritarian mafia states left behind for western conscience and vision to address.
” . . . who despite enjoying the benefits and protections of a free society . . . ” (would vote the Democratic ticket).
Life has its hooks, ladders, and chutes, of course, and will never be perfect for everyone, but the numbers represent some systematic decimation of a modern — not 1950s white bread — culture. Are those of the middle class and of the privileged supposed to completely turn away from the social epidemiology swirling around the apparently Lost of America?
We should know who is in the mix — and why — and get that unholy street stew separated and channeled in some helpful way.
If Americans hadn’t “social conscience”, there would be no laws involving environment, health, labor, housing, or much else that has brought and held the nation together as a unified polity. Politicians on the Left / Far Left have walked down their own streets and asked about the same questions for the same reasons. Now it would seem up to radically responsible moderates to steal that flame to produce an overall healthier state, not an environment fit to elite, rapacious, and ruthless personalities.
Some Red-Green elements that have flowed down from the Soviet Era machinery have infected America’s Democratic Party with the familiar Far Left cocktail of anti-capitalist, radical, and anti-Semitic (anti-Zionist) cant that in effect poisons their own projects before they can progress. The social conscience of the Democratic Party as stamped by Presidents Roosevelt in the 1930s and Johnson in the 1960s appears well under attack by the vanguard of a bullying old White Right political culture that really doesn’t care to address the misery it has learned to overlook.
Far be it, however, for BackChannels to overlook Hollywood’s role in the glamorizing and promoting of the very scourges that have both enriched the world’s mafia and — with dollars cleaned and spiffy — spilled back into working communities — here: read about Vancouver’s pleasant (not really) influx of wealth — as to make economic retreat and the decoupling from evil virtually impossible.
Malcolm Nance interviewed by Touré at Politicon 2019 in Nashville, Tennessee, October 26, 2019.
Soviet / post-Soviet Russia continues to gas light the world with political theater. To get to how it does that, BackChannels cannot too highly recommend the following reading:
As with much else in the wild, the Islamist program has a weedy persistence in relation to its 7th Century roots, but to really load it up, i.e., get manpower into it, takes the kind of brutalization that gives the victims no choice about fighting back. Anna Politkovskaya has detailed how artificial a process Russia’s “war” with Islam has been.
Related for thought:
Posted to YouTube by RT September 23, 2015.
John Schindler’s 2014 investigative report goes over the opportunity Russia’s secret political police organization had to encourage or manipulate Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri to perhaps get the ball rolling on America’s big black 9/11 day. As the world has more recently seen how Phantom of the Soviet Putin’s Moscow does business (not only in Syria and Ukraine), the connection’s worth consideration. Review the timeline: 1989 – Russian Army’s retreat from Afghanistan; 1991 – Soviet Union collapses in bankruptcy to leave Russian national culture to a newly defined and transitional Russian Federation; and ten years on, Al Qaeda hijacks and launches American civilian jets against America’s most iconic symbols of power.
Hmm.
Here’s a third reference suggestive of the persisting totalitarian character of Putin’s regime and political theater —
Throughout the coming election season — or is it here already? — Americans will have to ask themselves whether they want to live in an authentic democracy or a Potemkin fake that merely resembles one. One version listens to the public’s voice with integrity; the other listens for advantage and herds people for service to other ambitions not in their interests.
Generally speaking, I believe that excessive and malignant narcissistic process takes off with damage early in life, and there’s a term for that: “Narcissistic Mortification”. The humiliation of the child, negative response to what is good, etc., will do it, and if it’s really bad, the personality will cover the damage (hiding the shame) and split an heroic image for self-concept that may be built with boasts, brags, lies, and the deep and tireless manipulation of others around himself.
Pause: narcissism is natural — most of us take pride in our internal motivations, our appearance, the things we do, and some of the things we acquire. Narcissism is not a bad thing but part of a healthy life. Moreover, not all narcissists are evil; many are reparative — we’re natural do-gooders, lovers, husbands, wives, shepherds, and stewards of what comes into our separate domains. We care, and goodness, integrity, and truth matter.
The malignant — the despotic — put on a show.
The fireman sets the fire, so he may show up to put it out and obtain admiration for his heroism.
Related look-up: “Moscow Apartment Bombings”.
“Gas lighting” goes with a malign narcissism as may “messianic delusions of grandeur” — also loss of those boundaries and limits that account for respectful privacy and natural and normal legal and social tendencies. The malignant lose a good part of their humanity on their way to “greatness” — and their greatness is in their heroic image.
After all these years, I don’t know who else has been mining this seam in relation to political psychology.
We may today know more about dictators — how they tick — than we do their followers, but some of the mechanics are known too, and much of the existence of each distills to force, leverage, and money that provides for measures of bribery, induction of dependency, intimidation, and patronage. The inner circles and close followers of dictators would seem generally in on the game with the greater public bought off, fooled, impressed, mollified, and patronized.
Most hated by the dictator: a free press that more accurately conveys his reflection and does so broadly, publicly, universally.
The inspiration for the following three paragraphs came from an assumptive accusation to the effect that ” No Justice in the Middle East and the US/EU support these dictators, like Egypt and Saudi.”
Response
EU/NATO has no encouragements — of which I’m aware — for dictatorships.
Unfortunately, our geopolitical world having become arranged as it is presents challenges to what we may distill as a common humanity with some universal ethical, psychological, and spiritual qualities. Here, the bludgeons of the medieval worldview and its political methods should be easily recognized against the modern alternative: checked and distributed power x popular participation, representation, and self-determination.
The axis formed by the Putin-Assad-Khamenei alliance remains practically, hopeless medieval and committed to kleptocracy by absolute authority under cover of vacuous brutality or convenient dogma. Well-served: the malign narcissism of so-called “great leaders” who measured by modern standards really are not so great as they may believe themselves to be.
BackChannels 