Let’s
Call “Trump’s Generals” What They Are: A
Military Junta
Trump is fond of boasting about “his” generals.
But over the short course of his presidency’s
first months, the possession and control have
reversed themselves. Mattis, McMaster, and Kelly
have banished all opposition and now pour the
neo-con agenda straight into Trump’s ear.
By Whitney Webb
August
27, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- WASHINGTON –
The U.S.,
long known for its meddling in the affairs of
other nations, also has a long and sordid
history of supporting military juntas abroad,
many of which it forced into power through
bloody coups or behind-the-scenes power grabs.
From
Greece
in the 1960s to
Argentina
in the 1980s to the current al-Sisi-led junta in
Egypt,
Washington has actively and repeatedly supported
such undemocratic regimes despite casting itself
as the world’s greatest promoter of “democracy.”
Finally in
2017, karma appears to have come back to roost,
as the current presidential administration has
now effectively morphed into what is,
by definition,
a military junta. Though the military-industrial
complex has long directed U.S. foreign policy,
in the administration of President Donald Trump
a group of military officers has gathered
unprecedented power and, for all intents and
purposes, rules the country.
Three generals at the center of power
In a
recent article in
The Washington
Post,
titled “Military Leaders Consolidate Power In
Trump Administration,”
Post
reporters Robert Costa and Philip Rucker noted
that “At the core of Trump’s circle is a
seasoned trio of generals with experience as
battlefield commanders: White House Chief of
Staff John F. Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim
Mattis and national security adviser H.R.
McMaster. The three men have carefully
cultivated personal relationships with the
president and gained his trust.”
“This is
the only time in modern presidential history
when we’ve had a small number of people from the
uniformed world hold this much influence over
the chief executive,” John E. McLaughlin, a
former acting director of the CIA who served in
seven administrations,
told the
Post.
“They are right now playing an extraordinary
role.”
This role, however, appears to reach beyond
“extraordinary”. Although Trump is fond of
calling them “my generals,” they now, Costa and
Rucker report, “manage Trump’s hour-by-hour
interactions and whisper in his ear – and those
whispers, as with the decision this week to
expand U.S. military operations in Afghanistan,
often become policy.” Another
Washington Post
article, published last Tuesday,
led with the
headline
“The Generals Have Trump Surrounded.”
Also
notable is the fact that this trio of generals
has overseen the firing of more independent,
“outsider” voices, notably
Derek Harvey
and Steve Bannon. Bannon, in particular, was
a thorn in the
side
of the generals, in light primarily of his
staunch opposition to the American “empire
project” and new wars abroad.
Bannon had
opposed
Trump’s strike against Syria, troop surges in
Iraq, and the dropped hint of a ”military
option” to deal with the crisis in Venezuela.
The New York
Times
referred to McMaster as Bannon’s “nemesis in the
West Wing,” precisely due to McMaster’s
commitment to American empire building.
With
Bannon’s relatively recent departure, the tone
of the Trump administration – now unequivocally
ruled by “the generals” – has changed
significantly — as illustrated by Trump’s
decision to send thousands more troops to
Afghanistan, a measure both
Bannon
and Trump himself once opposed.
In
addition, last Thursday,
Politico
published
a report detailing the control exercised by
Kelly over the president, as he personally vets
“everything” that comes across Trump’s desk.
Politico
referenced two memos that laid out a system
“designed to ensure that the president won’t see
any external policy documents, internal policy
memos, agency reports and even news articles
that haven’t been vetted.”
The Hill
further noted
that Kelly is also “keeping a tight leash” on
who gets to meet directly with the President in
the Oval Office, which is now strictly
appointment-only and also dependent upon Kelly’s
approval.
Kelly,
however, is a recent arrival. H.R. McMaster, who
took control of the National Security Council
(NSC) following Flynn’s ouster in February, has
been — at least since April — personally
controlling the flow of national security
information that makes it to the president.
McMaster also took control of the Homeland
Security Council and had Steve Bannon, known for
his strident nationalism and
anti-interventionism, removed from the NSC.
“McMaster
is trying to put them [NSC staffers] under his
control and either removing or downgrading
people who had independent linkages to the White
House so that advice will flow through him,”
Mark Cancian, a national security expert and
former White House official,
told
The Washington Post
in April.
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McMaster
has drawn more ire than any other of “Trump’s
generals” from
disillusioned
members
of Trump’s base, many of whom have pejoratively
referred to the NSC adviser as “President
McMaster.” McMaster has also overridden many of
the Trump’s policies, such as asking South Korea
to pay for the THAAD missile system, and has
actively pushed for a ground war in Syria and a
massive 50,000-troop surge in Afghanistan.
The first
of the trio of generals to be appointed to a
high-ranking position in the Trump
administration was Secretary of Defense James
Mattis. Neo-cons like Bill Kristol and Elliot
Abrams, along with “an anonymous group of
conservative billionaires,” had called for
Mattis to be drafted into running as a third
party candidate in the 2016 election. Though his
candidacy did not materialize as such, formal
election appears to have been unnecessary.
Mattis
began to take power in March. At the time,
Defense One
noted
that Trump’s generals, including Mattis,
“increasingly sound like they’re working for a
different president altogether.” Trump’s failure
to take the general’s advice was soon met with
threats of resignation, shortly after which
Trump’s tone changed and he
gave Mattis
“a freer hand to launch time-sensitive
missions.”
The new
model of command that arose involved
“pre-delegating authority to Mattis; …that
authority could be pushed much further down the
chain of command – all the way down to the
three-star general who runs JSOC.” Essentially,
the White House, though still informed of
military operations, relinquished commanding
authority over the U.S. military to Mattis.
Since the great “war
power giveaway,”
Mattis has overseen the expansion of every
theater of war Trump inherited from his
predecessor.
President
Wolfowitz? The neo-cons back in the saddle and
unchallenged
Not
surprisingly, the path now being followed by the
Trump administration, at the behest of the
generals, is a familiar one. This likely owes to
both Mattis’ and McMaster’s allegiance to
notorious neo-cons and war hawks — such as
Paul Wolfowitz,
architect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and
creator of the Wolfowitz doctrine, and
David Petraeus,
disgraced general and former director of the
CIA. Wolfowitz, in an April interview with
Politico,
revealed
that he was in private email correspondence with
both Mattis and McMaster, “in hopes they will
pursue a U.S. strategy of stepped-up engagement
in the Middle East” and elsewhere.
Though the
generals are in control and their junta
established, they are not the ones calling the
shots — as Wolfowitz’s revelation suggests. The
military-industrial complex and the ever-hawkish
neoconservatives have taken over, refusing to
let the anti-interventionism the American people
voted for make itself heard. As Henry Kissinger
— the man who installed military juntas
throughout the world —
once said
of the Chilean people, while planning a coup
against their democracy: “I don’t see why we
need to stand by and watch a country go
communist because of the irresponsibility of its
own people.”
Over 60
years later, the theater of engagement has come
home and the warning against foreign “communism”
has been replaced by one against our own
“anti-interventionism.” However, the
powers-that-be have once again revealed that
they will not allow the “irresponsibility” of
any group, including American voters, to get in
the way of their trillion dollar war racket and
their expansion of the U.S. military empire.
This article was first published by
Mint Press
-
(@Cernovich)
(@JulianAssange)