Image result for michael flynn photo


Photo: Slate.com

A Win for the Deep State

This isn’t about Mike Flynn. It isn’t even about Trump. It’s about the future of our republic. Will we allow rogue national security officials to run rampant and utilize police state methods to advance their policy goals? If the answer is yes, then we’re doomed.   

By   AntiWar  February 15, 2017

The ousting of Mike Flynn takes us down the road to a police state.

Let’s be clear about how and why former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn was ousted from his post: a cabal of current and former members of the “intelligence community,” fanatically opposed to Donald Trump’s stated desire to “get along with the Russians,” leaked the top secret transcript of Flynn’s conversation with Russian ambassador Sergay Kislyak. Although we don’t yet know exactly what transpired – as of this writing, BuzzFeed hasn’t gotten their hot little hands on the transcript – there was apparently some discussion of lifting sanctions on Russia, which is something the cabal and its collaborators in Congress and the media are determined to prevent at all costs.

Flynn was in the crosshairs of the War Party because he’s the most prominent of those around Trump who advocated for détente with Russia. Also, his somewhat loopy belief that Islam, per se, is a pernicious political ideology rather than a religion, made him a natural enemy of the pro-Saudi faction within the intelligence community, which had long worked with Riyadh to, among other things, overthrow the government of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad.

Flynn’s alleged “crime” – supposedly lying to Vice President Pence about the content of the call – wasn’t a crime at all: James Clapper, Obama’s director of national intelligence, blatantly lied under oath to Congress and yet kept his position. What this non-scandal is all about is an attempt to criminalize the view that we have no real quarrel with Russia, that our common interests override any bumps along the road to détente. If you don’t go along with a new cold war with Russia then, ipso facto, you’re a “Russian agent” who needs to be investigated. This is what the neocon-liberal alliance is now pushing, and the first victim of this hate campaign is Flynn. He won’t be the last.

Democrats are now calling for an investigation into Flynn’s “Russia links,” in typical McCarthyite fashion, but what’s really called for is an investigation into the media’s links to the “intelligence community” – which leaked the transcript of Trump’s conversations with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Mexican President Enrique Nieto as well as the transcript of Flynn’s conversation with the Russian ambassador. As Trump tweeted this [Tuesday] morning:

“The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington? Will these leaks be happening as I deal on N. Korea etc.?”

These leaks are clearly illegal: plenty of civilians have been prosecuted and jailed for much less. But legality is not something that worries the CIA and the national security bureaucracy, because they’re above the law. And you don’t bother with legality when you’re engaged in an attempted coup.

The Flynn resignation is just the beginning. As one Politico writer put it, it won’t stop there. They’ll move on to new targets, and they won’t rest until they’ve bagged their real target: the President of the United States

Hillary Clinton’s main campaign theme – that Trump is essentially a Russian agent, a kind of Manchurian candidate – is being given new life by this latest non-scandal. The anti-Trumpers in the GOP are now uniting with the Democrats in calling for an “investigation,” i.e. a fishing expedition, into Flynn’s “links” to the Kremlin. All that’s missing from this scenario is Sen. Joe McCarthy demanding to know “Are you or have you ever been …?”

While our deranged “liberals” are screaming that we mustn’t “normalize” Trump, the real danger is that we’re normalizing the illegal and unethical methods of his most determined – and powerful – opponents. Until and unless the Trump administration acts quickly and decisively to rid the nation of out-of-control intelligence agencies that are aggressively intervening in our domestic politics, we will soon resemble one of those Third World nations where coups are routine.

It looks to me like the White House is wired and that the nation’s law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, are treating administration officials as if they were ISIS jihadis. It’s an outrage, and what’s even more outrageous is that ostensible “liberals” are cheering the political police.

And so it is left to the unlikeliest people, such as Rep. Devin Nunes (R-California), who chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to lead the pushback:

“I expect for the FBI to tell me what is going on, and they better have a good answer. The big problem I see here is that you have an American citizen who had his phone calls recorded.”

He added: “Where are all the privacy groups screaming now?”

Where, indeed.

Eli Lake, a journalist I rarely agree with, put it well:

“Normally intercepts of U.S. officials and citizens are some of the most tightly held government secrets. This is for good reason. Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what police states do.”

If this keeps up, that’s just where we’re headed.

Since when does law enforcement reveal the content of intercepts to the media? These are some of the most jealously guarded secrets held by intelligence officials, and yet now they’re being spread far and wide in the interests of a Deep State clique that has a political agenda of its own.

By sacrificing Flynn on the altar of political expediency, and caving in to our out-of-control spooks, Donald Trump has just answered the question posed above with a resounding yes.

What he’ll discover, however, is that this kind of expediency is bound to backfire. His enemies, instead of being appeased, will be emboldened. As Lake writes:

“In the end, it was Trump’s decision to cut Flynn loose. In doing this he caved in to his political and bureaucratic opposition. Nunes told me Monday night that this will not end well. ‘First it’s Flynn, next it will be Kellyanne Conway, then it will be Steve Bannon, then it will be Reince Priebus,’ he said. Put another way, Flynn is only the appetizer. Trump is the entree.”

This isn’t about Mike Flynn. It isn’t even about Trump. It’s about the future of our republic. Will we allow rogue national security officials to run rampant and utilize police state methods to advance their policy goals? If the answer is yes, then we’re doomed.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN
You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.
I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).
You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.

To learn more about Rise Up Times and support
Media for the People! with a donation 
click here.


Which Washington Crimes Matter Most?

By David Swanson  Let’s Try Democracy  February 15, 2017

Michael Flynn participated in mass murder and destruction in Afghanistan and Iraq, advocated for torture, and manufactured false cases for war against Iran. He and anyone who appointed him to office and kept him there should be removed from and disqualified for public service. (Though I still appreciate his blurting out the obvious regarding the counterproductive results of drone murders.)

Many would say that prosecuting Al Capone for tax fraud was a good move if he couldn’t be prosecuted for murder. But what if Al Capone had been funding an orphanage on the side, and the state had prosecuted him for that? Or what if the state hadn’t prosecuted him, but a rival gang had taken him out? Are all take-downs of major criminals good ones? Do they all deter the right activities by up-and-coming criminals?

Michael Flynn was not removed by public demand, by representative action in Congress, by public impeachment proceedings, or by criminal prosecution (though that may follow). He was removed by an unaccountable gang of spies and killers, and for the offense of seeking friendlier relations with the world’s other major nuclear-armed government.

Now, in a certain sense, he was taken down for other related offenses, just as Bill Clinton was not technically impeached for sex. Flynn lied. He may have committed perjury. He may have obstructed justice. He supposedly made himself susceptible to blackmail, although the logic of Russia wishing to reveal its own secret and punish those who help it seems weak. Flynn also dealt with a foreign government on behalf of an election campaign.

Some of these are very serious charges. If you removed all liars from the U.S. government, you’d suddenly have room in their empty offices to house all the homeless, but even the selective punishment of lying has a certain merit. And electoral campaign dealings with foreign governments has a nasty history including Nixon’s sabotaging of peace in Vietnam, Reagan’s sabotaging of the release of U.S. hostages in Iran, etc.

But what did Flynn supposedly talk about with the Russian ambassador, before or after the election? Nobody accuses him of trying to keep a war going or people locked up. He’s accused of talking about removing sanctions, possibly including sanctions used to punish Russia for things it did not do. The notion that Russia was the aggressor in Ukraine or invaded Ukraine and conquered Crimea on the model of the U.S. invasion of Baghdad is simply false. The idea that Russia hacked Democratic Party emails and gave them to WikiLeaks is a claim for which we have not been shown credible, non-ludicrous evidence. Despite somebody leaking it every time Donald Trump blows his nose, nobody has yet leaked actual evidence of this supposed Russian crime.

Then there’s what members of the U.S. public tell you that it’s obvious Flynn simply must also have talked about. Supposedly he must have arranged for Russia to steal the U.S. election for Trump, either by informing the U.S. public of the crimes and abuses of the Democratic Party in its members own words, which supposedly swayed huge numbers of voters — though there’s no evidence Russia did this or that it had this impact, and a better informed electorate is a stronger democracy, not one that has been “attacked” — or by somehow directly altering vote counts or manipulating our minds or something. If anything along these lines were proven it would be serious indeed, although it would be one of a great many fatal flaws in the U.S. electoral system alongside legalized bribery, corporate media, the electoral college, gerrymandering, unverifiable counting, open intimidation, purging of rolls, etc.

And then, finally, there’s what journalists and members of the public will tell you Flynn’s offense consists of, once it’s been established that Russia is evil. He was friendly with Russia. His colleagues in the White House love Russia. They’ve visited Russia. They’ve met with other U.S. business tycoons in Russia. They’re planning business deals with Russians. And so on. Now, I’m opposed to corrupt business deals, if they are corrupt, anywhere. And if Russian fossil fuels, like Canadian and U.S. fossil fuels, don’t stay in the ground, we’re all going to die. But the U.S. media treats U.S. business deals in other countries as ordinary respectable plundering. Any association with anything Russian has become a sign of high treason.

Coincidentally or not, that is exactly what weapons profiteers say they want. Is what they want good for us? Is there a legitimate reason to be taking their route toward punishing people in power, when other routes stand wide open with plush red carpets unrolled from massive golden doorways?

RELATED

Trump, Flynn and the Kremlin  B

The Swamp strikes back: Trump’s ex-NSA Michael Flynn meets his match  By Robert Bridge  RT  February 17, 2017

Did the Deep State Facilitate Flynn’s Resignation?

The Real News Network  February 16, 2016

Former FBI agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley says there’s a difference between leaking and whistleblowing, and it’s likely that the former took place in the ongoing power struggle between the deep state and the executive branch of government – Two – Part Interview  


No Peace! No Justice!  Please share this post.

Loading

3 Comments

  1. […] RAIMONDO AND SWANSON | TWO INDEPENDENT MEDIA VIEWS ABOUT THE FIRING OF MIKE FLYNN  Rise Up Times  February 16, 2017 […]

  2. steve mckeown February 17, 2017 at 10:03 PM

    I read the trashy Raimondo article on FB, which i is part of the fifth column in the peace movement that wants us to be concerned about Trump being victimized by God only knows of the Deep State . Never mind that the republicans have voted in the worst Cabinet by the victim one can remember. Never mind that the victim didn’t know what he signed for installing Bannon. Never mind that he didn’t even know what the Start Treaty is. Never mind that the victim is considering having 100,000 guardsman go after immigrants as if the border patrol isn’t bad enough. Never mind that the victim is warning us how dangerous nuclear war is….implicating who ? I could go on ad nauseum What needs to be pointed out is that part of the Deep State put the victim in there so why is Raimondo so concerned about the victim’s protection ? To not go after all of his appointments and Trump himself is to let the Deep State truly win

  3. A Green Road Project February 17, 2017 at 7:21 AM

Comments are closed.

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

Subscribe via email
Enter your email address to follow Rise Up Times and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 3,899 other followers

Loading

VIDEO: Militarism, Climate Chaos, and the Environment

END COLONIALISM

BLACK LIVES MATTER

BLACK LIVES MATTER

Archive

Categories