WAR-The Mindset-The Risks

 

Nine Minutes Past Mid Night

brutality rising

    Human kind may be passing into a savage age. Markers are apparent; life upended by a virus, patterns of vicious and freak weather, social disorder, decline of civility, political degradation and now Russia's mad war of aggression in Europe. Any one is threatening, all of them could drag us out of the peaceful world our generations have enjoyed since the end of the second World War.

        We have lived in a rare interval of peace and well being in the span of a human history full of misery, suffering, darkness and brutality. 

        Within hours of Russia's invasion of Ukraine I sat in a briefing with six of the world's preeminent intelligence and security officers for a hard nosed assessment of where the new war finds us and what risks are ahead.

        The recent historic antecedent is Sudetenland in the late 30's. This is not about Ukraine and NATO, it is a manifestation of the Putin doctrine. It is an historic breaking of international law and rules, driven by man with a messianic complex who strives to change history to his shaping, remaking the map of Russia.

        The analysis from men who led Britain's MI 6, CIA, Canada's Security Intelligence Service, the British Foreign Office, and Homeland Security says Western response has been strong and united, but it will be tested by challenges, primarily economic costs. Western leadership is compromised by internal political division in the US, new leadership in Germany, Johnson's weak credibility in Britain, impatient domestic response and certitude. Taiwan looms over how this is resolved and they say it is likely to be a long process. 

        The invasion is a game changer, a disregard for law and is a piece of the rising authoritarian mindset that tramples, and seeks to destroy democratic structures and the rule of law and civil order. 

        There is a sense Putin is in an isolated state of mind as he demonstrates a messiah complex. He is in a dangerous state. He reads the West as being in a state of decay. The security veterans agree Putin must pay a heavy cost.

        The former senior CIA officer said we need to buckle up for a long ride, saying Putin's goals are beyond Ukraine, wanting to build the "Great Russia." Putin thinks "he can out suffer us, out last us and divide us."

        One of the men said we need to learn to deal with assertive and regressive leaders, that Putin is not alone. 

        They say this is an historic fight that can shape how succeeding generations will live, the degree to which law has value and meaning. Citizens should be informed of what is at risk and the cost. The costs will not be equally distributed. Gas and food costs will feed inflation in the US and elsewhere. 

        They warn of a possible spill over affect, perhaps by something as simple as a mistake. If any NATO nation is violated by cyber or military action, they say NATO must hit back with severity. 

fog in the valley, stars and moon 

        Repeatedly China was discussed. China will measure how resolved and lasting is the western response. Xi Jinping too thinks the West, especially the US is in decline and decay. He will calculate how we might respond to moves on Taiwan.

      They were quick to note the Russia-China alliance is not like the old Axis alliance of WWII. They say while China watches closely and shares a brutal resolve with Russia, it doesn't know how to be an ally. They will not make sacrifices for Russia. China will respect Putin as long as he does not get in the way or affect their agendas. 

        The China Belts and Roads initiative runs through the area of the conflict and neighboring nations. 

    

        Moments like this remind us of the interconnectedness of human endeavor and thought. In these closing paragraphs I seek to interpret the stark and hard-nosed assessment of men with years of real world knowledge, unknown to the majorities of the world.

        America has lost its way and is no longer the power that emerged from the end of WWII.

        How might this moment exist if Trump had not been subservient and a sycophant to Putin, taking Putin's word over the wisdom of his own national security apparatus?

        How might this moment look if Republicans had spotted in Trump the same authoritarian and reckless disregard for law and protocol as we see in Putin?

        How might this moment look if the Republican party stood up against the January 6th insurrection and all of the Trump effort to undermine an election and then attempt to overthrow the results? That was an invasion of our own sovereignty and dignity. And it followed the invasion of Putin's doctrine in our culture and politics.

        It is no wonder Putin and Xi look at us as in decay, and weak.

        The behavior of some elected office holders has been in my thinking traitorous. If I had my way they would be tried and if convicted they should be shot.

        I put in that number Trump, Kevin McCarthy, Elise Stefanik, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Lauren Boebert, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Ron Johnson, Josh Hawley, John Kennedy.  I will not dignify what they have said but they have worked to undermine the US and the Western response to Putin's violation of international law. They are a pack of jackals in alliance with a Pariah.

       One of the British intelligence officers and a former Senior CIA officer said emphatically the Russian people must be made to pay, despite the pleas not to hurt the people because of Putin. The veteran's logic is, as long as their leader behaves as an international outlaw and Pariah, they too are culpable. They suggested yanking all Russian tourism visas, expelling Russians from international associations and sporting competitions, hitting them financially until they as a nation depose Putin or prevail at insisting the nation stop its illegal aggression.

    Until the US destroys the Republican Fifth Column we will indeed be weakened and it will encourage tyrants and assertive leaders such as Putin. Fox News personalities are amongst the anti American lobby and they have poisoned the minds of millions.

    Sad to say it, but those millions who think Trump won an election, or who elect fools like those named above, are also traitors to this nation and have contributed to the emboldening of a dictator. 

    Most of us have not lived through an event that is so precipitous. The best way forward is to adhere to principles of Westphalian Sovereignty, to listen to wisdom and experience, to remain true to our constitutional principles, think of the well being of all, reject emotion, propaganda and lies

and to be resolute and willing to pay the costs. To turn Putin on his own words, we must "out suffer, out last" him and not allow him to divide us any further.  It may take us into a brutal world, but we cannot relinquish our humanity or intelligence nor our will to prevail. 

   Stay strong.

   See you down the trail. 

The Virus in the Shadows

          Stability at home and strength of US leadership in the world is threatened by more than the virus we know. Another wasting disease casts shadows on the future. 

        Detailed here, from briefings, interviews, and conversations, are assessments and judgement of men and women who have advised and informed the policies of Presidents, Prime Ministers and their governments. I've participated in these sessions in recent months. These are the assessments of realists.                                                                                            

        Topics have included China, Russia, Iran, the Middle East region, terrorism, cyber warfare, counter intelligence, weapons systems, technology, defense procurement, the changing nature of spying, alliances, hot spots, nuclear weapons and threats to America's democratic republic. 

        This post examines the present danger and damage of  deliberate deception, and the anti democracy fascism that fogs our constitutional principles and aspirations.

        "For 70 years foreign policy was not a partisan issue in Washington, but now it is," says John Sawer, who was Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service in Britain, MI6.

        "So, friends and hostile nations will have trouble in thinking in terms of American strategy in periods of decades, because it might change every four years."

From The Radio Historian

        MI6 was founded in 1909. It is the senior intelligence service in the world and helped nurture the birth of the US CIA,  assisting the OSS (Office of Strategic Service) during World War II. They are an ally who knows us well.

        Sawer says both the UK and US have been through political upheaval, a kind of residual reaction to the crash of 08. 

        "The best plan forward is to put our own homes and systems in order. In the UK that is absorb the cost of Brexit. In the US it is to somehow not just relaunch the economy and get control of COVID, but to find a way to develop a polity, a consistency and a durability to America's role in the world, or American will be in decline. The decline is certain if it just swings back and forth every four years."

        The Biden administration declared "America is back," and he has begun to shore up alliances, and return a respectability to our foreign policy, but our standing in the world is damaged. We are no longer seen as the strong force, the leader of the free world, a beacon of democracy.

        "There is some concern about whether the US word and commitment will be reliable, especially since Trump is in the background as a force in US politics," says John Brennan former director of the CIA. He worked for 6 US Presidents.

        "Trump as laid waste to our credibility and reliability. It will take time to restore confidence that commitments will outlive changes in the White House. This is something to confront, because in the last 4 years, many years of trust in the US word and commitment is challenged."

        The malignancy of Trump was apparent in the view of Homeland Security, Cyber Security and Infrastructure officers and veterans when we discussed the US election campaign, social media influence, and the cascading affect of the big lie.

        Belief in and the credibility our system has been and is being eroded by intentional deception, and behavior that condones it. 

    

        A former CIA chief of station, with over 30 years of distinguished service including in the former Soviet Union, Europe and war zones in the Middle East and South Asia offers a harsh truth. Donald Trump enabled Russia in it's efforts to undermine and disparage our democratic process.

      "That is the first thing they're focused on, trying to portray our process as inherently unstable and in conflict with our supposed democratic values. It doesn't matter that they're an autocracy. They don't want their people to see us as an inspiration to those Russians striving for democracy."

        I withhold his name because he is still active. But he is emphatic in his assessment of how Trump was used for anti American purposes.

       "Putin is very active in public propaganda and information warfare. Through his propaganda arm he does not want the US to be a beacon of hope. He needs to continue to emphasize the US is unstable."

        Trump's prolonged attack on US media, the undermining of the election and judicial process were powerful weapons. Russia's interests were seen early. 

        "That Trump Tower meeting was meant to be discovered. Don Jr. took the cheese from Putin's mousetrap," he said, citing it as one of many public relations victories and instances where Trump was outplayed by a wily intelligence officer, Putin.

            The path to an improved image and renewed strength of leadership is challenged by the Republican party's turn to fascism and authoritarianism. Unless his mounting legal woes disable him, Trump wields power. Republicans running for office can either bend to the boss and his world of lies and deception or be run out by the mob of racists, zealots and lunatics who are taking over state parties, driven by Trump's nationalistic fantasies. 

           The Republican party is at war with itself and betting is on the fascist wing and those disconnected from reality, fed by the far right media. 

         Analysts say Republicans have become the party of deception, at the federal and state level. It is there tactic in a winner all view of the world. Recent examples being cited is the McConnell flip flop flip on Trump, Texas Governor Abbott's deceit about the role of wind power in the recent power grid crash, McCarthy on the Covid bail out package, Cruz, Jordan, Hawley and Johnson on the Capitol insurrection. And it goes on. 

       A common theme of the briefings was domestic terrorism and the rise of armed militias. The Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Boogaloo and others were part of the Capitol invasion. Local, state and federal authorities are warned to be vigilant and prepared for other acts;  attempted kidnapping of a officials, State House invasions, bombings, and shootings. There is  concern over security of the State of the Union address when most of the government is assembled in the Capitol.

        The danger is underscored by what investigators are learning about inside influence in planning the attempted coup. 

       Of concern at home it sends signals to the world. As long as members of the Senate and House continue to placate Trump, perpetuate his lies, and enable the fascist and thug control of the Republican party, they play into division, deception, enable our adversaries and enemies, and undercut the nation's authority.

 

        The breeding of instability at home, weakens us, makes us less secure and contributes to a dangerous change in the balance of power abroad.                                                                                                                                        

         While this post examines the legacy of the inner turmoil on ourselves and our position in the world, a linked topic is the rise of China.

          General David Petraeus and Christian Brose spoke to China's influence as we have been weakened in the eyes of the world.

        "For 25 years China has tried to disrupt our military development and research. They are very competitive and they play by different objectives." Petraeus

        "We need to rethink what we are strategizing in that region. What does national security look like in the absence of our dominance?" Brose

        Petraeus is former Director of the CIA and is a retired US Army General with 37 years in uniform.

        Christian Brose was staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee, a senior policy adviser to Senator John McCain and adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

        While rogues and fascism destroy the party Brose served, US is weakened. It happens as China is on a trajectory to become the dominant military force in the world. 

        "This requires changes in systems, postures and at home. I am concerned at damage done to alliances and strategic partnership, especially at a time when we need to rely on them more."  Brose

        In decades of reporting I've worked with intelligence officers, analysts and national security people. They are skilled at getting to the point. They are capable, thoughtful and engaged in facts, finding them and analyzing them. They deal with complexity, distant horizons, multiplicity of patterns, input, motivations, intent and they make sense of it.  They can be the very opposite of the public officials and politicians who task or review them and who use their product. 

        

      China benefits as we continue to handicap ourselves. But it is the former KGB officer in the gilded offices in the Kremlin who looks to America, sees what the last four years did to his adversary, and watches as one of America's parties devolves to a gang and mob, and he smiles. One of his intelligence services in the meantime has invaded American cyber systems, manipulated elections, driven social media deception, and he smiles even more.

     Biden's priority has been to attack Covid and its impact on people and the nation as a whole. 

     He has also signaled the America First nationalism of Trump has been trashed. Trump still breaths however, given life by a Republican party that has become a threat to the nation by enforcing the power of the mad mob boss from Mar a Lago. 

    As long as Trump lurks as a shadow influence, he remains a petulant virus in American culture and politics. Variants of Trump are already jockeying for position, and his state party apparatus have begun efforts to suppress and limit voting. 

     Le Carre', Clancy, Ludlum, Forysth, Greene, and Fleming could not have written such a plot.

        What do the realists conclude? We are in trouble and there is thrashing and winnowing to do, to save our future. Truth, an adherence and devotion to it, is a good start. As children we were taught it is wrong to lie. This nation needs to live into that.

        From time to time subsequently, I'll offer more from my notes as we continue our briefings and decipher the times. 

        Stay well.

        See you down the trail.

        

        

JOURNALISM AND THE STRANGE CASE OF JULIAN

    There's a rumble in the media.

     Journalists, diplomats, legal analysts, security and intelligence officials, jurists and prosecutors are having a go with the topic "Journalism and Wikileaks." 

   You've read the diverse and emphatic views of whether Julian Assange is a journalist or if Wikileaks is journalism. Good arguments abound.

    During a life in journalism I came to the view that most of government and the business done in the name and employ of the taxpayer, ought to be as transparent and fully disclosed as possible. The public has a right to know and it is an almost unlimited right, almost!

    Investigative reporters rely on sources, some of them confidential. In my experience there were a few times we reasoned a court order to disclose a source could be down the line. I was certain I would not divulge a source and therefore would have to pay the piper for contempt of a court order. I was spared that. 
    Some things need to be undisclosed if trust is to be kept and sources are to be protected. Journalists also look for cover.

    Our sources in the intelligence, security and law enforcement sector have their own sources of information and knowledge. Knowing something is both the commodity and the modus operandi.   

    I knew of investigations, operations, penetrations and understood that disclosure of information would likely cause harm. That is reality. 

   I sat in an intelligence oversight committee room in the Capitol dome as an admired and respected Congressman and committee chair told me "some things that need to be done to protect the US and to give the President and Congress options, do not look so good in the light of day."  That was the standard, and I understood it. But I worked to verify as much as I could. 

    I published and broadcast information and details from files, records, reports, and evaluations that someone did not want released. Often the motive was to protect, conceal or obfuscate something that was illegal, damaging, dangerous, deceitful, wasteful or questionable. In most cases the leaked information was a piece of confirmation, a detail of reality, a fact. 
     When I learned an agency had an asset inside a suspected terrorist cell, when I knew a raid was scheduled at kick off time on Super Bowl Sunday, or when the Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST) investigated a report of a planted nuclear device near a national sports event, I sat on the info. Though I am a devotee to full disclosure, open access, and transparency, I understand there are limits and for good cause.
      Before I add a voice to the fray, I thought it important to provide a context.

julian assange is not a journalist

      Assange is a hacker, a leaker and he answers to no standard other than his own. He is a self imposed arbiter of right and purpose. He alone divines, subject to himself, only. 

    Still, I think some Wikileaks disclosures are valuable to a public knowledge of policy, though some of the information carries a high price.

     Sensitive information was revealed. Most of the disclosed information had previously been supervised and/or given oversight by appropriate congressional or judicial sources. 

     Some of the information comprised sources and assets and revealed programs that then lost their advantage. State Department officials reasoned with Assange to moderate his leak. He refused.

     Assange is a rogue player operating by whim, zeal, and pride. He has no allegiance to principle but himself. 

     When journalists get information from an Assange, a Snowden or other sources they seek to filter information that might cause harm. They impose standards. 

     There is a history of news organizations negotiating with government agencies or the military about what can and can't be revealed.

     In a democratic republic the last action in the negotiating process is the journalistic decision to publish or not, knowing and weighing the consequence.

      This is a deliberate and intelligent process and while events like the Pentagon Papers, or Boston Globe Spotlight investigation of Catholic sexual abuse or our own revelation of an attempted KGB penetration prior to a summit may leave wakes of turbulence and debate, there are standards applied and levied by multiple voices in a process.  Not for Assange, he shows no such respect for deliberation or reason. 

     

   Wikileaks is not a journalistic organization. Like its master, it is a leaker of information and subjective about who, what, when, where, and why. 

    In a long view, what they do may be informative, helpful even, but there is no canon, no code, no rules of engagement. At the core there is just Assange and his petulant insistence that we should trust him to know what is best and what should be known.

    That too is not journalism. Our technologies may have eclipsed our sense of judgment. A sense of reason seems endangered in our cyber world.

                                    

spring blessings

   The lupine is an especially joyful messenger of our California spring.

    See you down the trail.

     

    

    

DANGEROUS CURRENTS

Gloaming at the shore

Cambria CA

twilight of reason

     Holding the current escalation in mind, remember these words from one year ago. 

        "We are convinced that in the Oval Office, he would be the most reckless President in American history." 

        Last August some 50 Republican national security, foreign policy, intelligence and diplomatic experts who worked for Republican Presidents from Nixon to George W. Bush issued a position paper stating why they would not vote for the Republican nominee Trump.

         Here are some of their thoughts.

         "From a foreign policy perspective, Donald Trump is not qualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief. Indeed, we are convinced that he would be a dangerous President and would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.

        "Most fundamentally, Mr. Trump lacks the character, values, and experience to be President."

            "Mr. Trump lacks the temperament to be President."

            "He lacks self-control and acts impetuously."

           "All of these are dangerous qualities in an individual who aspires to be President and Commander- in-Chief, with command of the U.S. nuclear arsenal."

       These men were "the real deal." They are experienced in the real world. They are deep and thoughtful. Republicans too. Astounding that members of the House, Senate did not or have not paid them a bit of attention.

        You can read the entire statement and see credential of the signatories here. I urge you to do so, especially if you were/are a trump supporter.

a gathering fog

    In this dry, tinder like season we love to see the marine fog bank beginning to line up.

     The heavy bank whispers in and shrouds the central coast over night, providing a welcomed dampening cool.

        

        Political foggery is less welcome.

the pence aperient

      I first met Mike Pence when he was a small town radio talk jock and failed congressional candidate. Someplace in his evolution from Irish Democrat to right wing evangelical he decided he wanted to be President. Mike is running now, despite what he says publicly. Just as he seems programed to be piously smug, he is programmed to run.

      He and his people have been making the rounds of heavy contributors and GOP apparatchiks. Before he was sacked Anthony Scaramucci let it slip that's what was up, especially with recent staff changes. 

      Pence is a curious fixture on the scene. After a tour as a member of congress he went back to Indiana to run for governor to bolster his presidential ambitions. He followed the skilled Mitch Daniels and should have just followed in the wake, instead he mucked it up so badly his own party was considering dumping him in the re-election campaign, but that's when the sig rune Schutstaffel lighting bolt named trump struck.

      A bit of advice Mike, stay as far away from Trump and Trumpista thought as you can. If you want to prove your testicles are still in place cut out the "fake news"  and "America first" garbage.  And by all means quit fawning over and paying homage to a serial adulterer, sexual predator, habitual liar, narcissistic, real estate hustler. 

      Even as far out of the mainstream that some of your ideas are, your temperament at least would be a change for the better. Watch yourself, you just may get your dream.

google goobering

    I read James Damore's Google's Ideological Echo Chamber-that's the memo that got him fired.You can read it for yourself, here. It's the latest wrinkle in a trouble of our time.

    Close to the core of the matter is the issue of freedom of speech and thought. We are having trouble with that now.

     In the Atlantic cover story and his new book How America Went Haywire, Kurt Anderson lays much of the blame on the free speech and free thought movement of the 1960's. To simplify Anderson's interesting thoughts, the trump movement and other far right elements, have appropriated the 1960's arguments, tactics and "approval" of things alternative-"you do your thing, I'll do mine," "everything's cool." 

     As Anderson and others including this blogger have noted,  Daniel Patrick Moynihan said it well

     "You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts."  He said that a long time ago and fearfully we live at a time when people claim their own facts.

       I'm not convinced the root of that was the unhinging of things in the 1960's, but it no doubt contributed and the echoes continue to resound. "Fake News" is only a symptom. Ditto Damore's Google memo.

      Damore professes to be open, believing in diversity, and agrees that sexism exists. He tries to ride through the eye of a needle and question what he sees as cultural and intellectual deficits at Google. He perceived a bias. For that he is accused of sexism, and he gets fired. 

      After reading Damore's memo several times I think he was trying to generate discussion in a knee jerk hyper sensitive culture that permits such alleged "indiscretions" where words are ruled to make people "uncomfortable" or "feel assaulted." It is the age of "micro aggressions!"

      Damore, or anyone who tries to raise these topics such as bias, discrimination, revisionism or any of the isms or to seek an examination of values is likely to get his or her head handed to them. I come away thinking he was indeed trying to provoke thought and discussion in a corporate culture.

      But at the same time he asserted ideas and "facts" about sexual and gender differences that in my opinion were too broad, overly arching and beyond his expertise. Had I been his editor, I would have challenged him. But we just don't have many editors anymore, anywhere. That is especially true in trying to divine the line between what we think or believe and what is reality. I understand how some of Damore's "certainty" about women was offensive or could be construed to be that way. 

      I grew up in a newsroom-profane and profound-loud and argumentative, collaborative and demanding,verification and confirmation were foundational. Nothing was sacred, nothing was off limits and even as "tough" as that culture was it allowed for true intellectual wrestling and it revered facts. "Truth" was an ideal and the only way to approximate it was to allow everyone to say their piece, take their shots, do their research, state the facts and if something was still left standing, then maybe someone would say, let's go with that. 

       It might be time to leave feelings (and guns) at the door and make sure we don't call opinion, theory, or belief a fact or a reality and then we could re engage this nation in conversation and debate. Of course having an open mind would be helpful.  Know where you can find any?

      See you down the trail