Truth: The Enemy Of The State

The political establishment has implicitly embraced the mindset of Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Dr. Joseph Goebbels:

The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State

can shield the people from the political, economic and/or

military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally

important for the State to use all of its powers to

repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the

lie, and thus by extension the truth becomes the greatest

enemy of the State.

This is why the state is so threatened by such modern technologies as the Internet, as well as by the “whistleblowers” who insist on exposing the state’s embarrassing truths to the general public.

Our institutionalized world is increasingly hostile to any utterances of truth that would be upsetting to the status quo. 

The mainstream media and most of academia long ago gave themselves over to propagandizing on behalf of defending and/or enhancing the coercive power structure of the state. When war policies are under discussion, retired Army generals or officials from “think-tanks” funded by the national defense industry, are trotted out to “debate” such non-issues as how many troops to send in, who to attack, etc., etc., all to maintain the pretense of having a “fully-informed” public. 

But when was the last time you saw a Robert Higgs, Noam Chomsky, Lew Rockwell, Amy Goodman, Justin Raimondo, Angela Keaton, Karen Kwiatkowski, Chris Hedges, or other critic of the war system allowed to raise the kinds of questions that are not supposed to be asked in this best of all possible worlds?  

[Butler Shaffer]

How Money Drives The ‘Cycle Of Tyranny’

In Order For The “Cycle Of Tyranny” To Exist, There Are 4 Key Institutions That Must Be Totally Co-Opted

By Jason Charles

This process can be termed the “Cycle of Tyranny” and is basically the method large institutions such as government, corporations, and banks participate in as a on going feed back loop that is totally driven by money and power.

This cycle is designed to centralize power, rob people of their liberties, wealth and ultimately dignity due to the very dehumanizing and egregious actions of the men who sell themselves to this system. In fact, this whole system thrives on the dehumanizing process and erosion of individual rights enshrined in the Constitution.

To achieve this effect in a society large amounts of money are infused at every layer of the targeted and co-opted institution to assure that typically good moral people are bribed and in continual defense of the corrupted institution. With out the money factor the internationalist system simply would not work because the incentive component with in the cycle would be removed. The ablity for banks to create money out of thin air is the driving force behind the “Cycle of Tyranny”. 

The Banks

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.  Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”  - Thomas Jefferson

The banking families of Europe have utilized a debt based system to centralize a vast empire of wealth and power over the course of hundreds of years. By lending governments and institutions money, it creates a state of perpetual dependence, the fear of losing the money source is how banks control and socially engineer these institutions to pliable agencies of the internationalists worldview. Money truly corrupts the hearts of man, as long as the money is flowing men will turn a blind eye to atrocities of all types. It is through the corrupting influence money has had on mankind we begin to see how money and it’s love is truly the engine in the “Cycle of Tyranny”.

Today’s America serves as a perfect model as to how the old banking families have been able to leverage their large financial capabilities into a free country in order to corrupt and take over all of the major institutions with in a society. America was founded on the Principles of Liberty which detested banking institutions to the point of war with England and the British monarchy.

The process begins with the establishment of a central bank, in America’s case the Federal Reserve in the year 1913. It is no coincidence that the American Industrial Revolution coincided with the founding of the Federal Reserve. What we termed the “Robber Barons” during the early 20th century like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, J.P. Morgan were really no more than agents of the Federal Reserve and the European financial elite. These agents were lent massive sums of money through the banking apparatuses backed by the newly formed Federal Reserve. They then took over their respective sectors of society. For example, Rockefeller took the Pharmacological/Medical/Education and also Oil sector, while Carnegie took over the Steel and Railroads, J.P. Morgan served as a financial agent etc. etc.

All of these men became exceedingly wealthy because they were financed agents who built the mega corporations of today. It is these corporations that had an unfair advantage because they were specially trained, and groomed by the international elite for the sole purpose of building up all of America, with the long term plan of turning it back over to the globalists at a later date.

The bankers utilize the “Boom and Bust Cycle” of the economy to first “Boom”, or build up large corporations through influxes of capital that then creates large, businesses, property, inventions, and institutions. The bankers can then “Bust” the economy by drying up the lending credit suddenly to these reliant businesses and institutions. This sudden collapse in capital is called a “Depression” it is an orchestrated event planned by the central bank to purposely collapse companies into bankruptcy. Once bankrupt the bank can then buy up the company assets pennies on the dollar funneling these new assets to the share holders of the banks.

This “Boom and Bust” cycle is the verbatim tactic that our founding fathers warned us time and time again having seen this happen in European nations. They hated the bankers and fought tooth and nail to keep a central bank out of our country knowing their money is the moral ruin to everything America stood for.

One hundred years later we have forgot history and the bankers have utilized this system to create, crash then buy up resources and the wealth of nation in every country on the planet. This financial boom and bust is the mechanism of control they have used to enslave countries world wide in debt and are now bringing about their international global system called the New World Order. A banking order controlled by organizations such as the IMF, UN, and World Bank.

The Corporations

“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” -Thomas Jefferson
 

The companies that have been built up by the lending power of the central banks are controlled and sustained through bank capital and the drive of the share holders whose only motive is profit. This creates an amoral environment where everybody from the CEO down to the mail-room clerk are chasing dollar signs at every turn. Their only concern is how they can make more profit.

They do this by a variety of ways, they will cheapen the quality of their product, they will identify populations with low standards of living and human rights to exploit for little to no wages, they will also lobby government to create laws and regulations that favor them and harm their competition.

Through this process, of receiving unfair financial lending advantage, reducing ethics with in the institution, and creating fascist partnerships with government, corporations that place money first almost always inevitable become so corrupt that they begin to create even more and more devious ways to assure the take over and monopolization of their host countries competition. They soon grow so large they begin to covet the resources and wealth of neighboring nations, which put’s them in a new strata of power called the multinational corporation.

It is much harder to employee these tactics on an international scale because without the protection of the target countries government, the unethical and dirty dealings almost always lead to war.

The people will never go to war for a corporation. The vast majority of people wish to live in peace and harmony with their neighbors, but corporations have insatiable need for control, power and money and have to find more and more dubious ways to push their corporation into other countries to keep the feeding cycle going.

This is where companies can then hire think tanks to devise devious, far reaching plans that allow them eventual access to the resources of other countries as well as their own when they come up against obstacles towards their agenda.

Think Tanks

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” – Samuel Adams
 

Think tanks are made up of individuals who have been long time agents of the system. They are usually made up of very smart people who have bounced back and forth between corporate and government structures gaining reputation, influence and command over the intricacies of corporate, banking and government institutions.

Whether it be military, intelligence, financial, social, political or international needs a corporation can hire a wide variety of think tanks to create plans that utilize the various sectors of societal institutions to further the agenda of their client. Both governments and corporations hire these companies for large sums of money for the sole purpose of creating facilitating plans to push their agenda forward.

Now that America is a fascist state, it is very, very difficult to determine where the corporate objectives end and the governmental objectives begin, often times they are one in the same. The think tanks are able to utilize assets of both institutions by pulling together military, intelligence and corporate teams to formulate plans to access resources and strategic objects that are beneficial for the corporation, the government and also the banks.

This partnership is very dangerous for the general public and society at large and is often wrought with corruption and shadowy dealings that must be hidden through the cloud of top secrecy and clandestine operations. Tactics of extortion, racketeering, money laundering, assassination and other criminal activity are almost always considered in the think tank atmosphere. There are expensive ways and moral ways to gain access to resources or their are covert ways often touted as much cheaper but are ethically bankrupt and criminal to gain the desired access.

The more covert means always need cooperation and cover by the government through national security and official channels. The think tank will then utilize their influence and lobby and produce policy that impacts political parties towards their “prescribed” resolutions.

Often times it is the government or corporation that comes to the think tank saying we want to invade here or secure our corporation here, the think tank provides both the plan to create a facilitating event which is carried out covertly through sabotage campaigns, or false flag attacks, or stage bombings and then when the crisis reaches a climax it will lend it’s credibility and solution towards dealing with the crisis they created. This is called “Problem, Reaction, Solution”. They simply create the problem, the reaction is the politicians and public demand action and then they turn around and offer the solution of sending in their corporations or military towards resolution. A resolution that just so happens to give them full access strategically, militarily, and politically to a targeted nation.

A successful mission will given them the desired result every-time, enriching multinational corporations, banks and governments alike as they split up the loot and resources of taking over countries and conquering. A program as old as time itself.

Government comes into play to provide PR and official cover for these programs. Obviously war and invading nations is nasty business and the government has to be on board, that is why you always see politicians defaulting to the think tanks who write the policies as specialists and advisers on such things.

Government

“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” – George Washington

The government is an institution charged with securing the liberties and security of their population. That is the sole reason for them to exist and is always formed through a unified agreement of the people towards this end.

The Declaration of the United States is a beautiful word picture of why governments are formed, who forms and empowers them which is the people, and when it is appropriate to disband them in favor of a new government body. The only proper way and time to disband a government is when it becomes so corrupt that it encroaches on the liberties, wealth and prosperity of the people. At that point the people have every right to nullify and succeed from corrupt government. Seeing it was them who formed the state they too can end the state.

Self-defense is a natural right of man, government is instituted to aid this natural right, but sometimes governments become so out of touch with the original charter they begin to infringe on the rights of the people to point of distress and ruin with in society. When this happens it no longer serves the interest of the people and must be opposed and resisted by force if necessary, why, because again self-defense of life and  the liberties of the people is a universal law that trumps all institutional agendas including government.

The people, if they through apathy allow government to get out of control, have a natural right to defend themselves against their own government that seeks their ruin. Nothing is more destructive than wicked government. Government, once taken over by politicians, corporate agents and banking controllers, history shows will act in the most dehumanizing, repulsive and tyrannical way possible. Instead of fulfilling their oath to the Constitution, they side with agents of the fascist system as it is taken over lock stock and barrel by the banking elite.

Why the government is such a powerful vehicle towards tyranny and oppression is because it has the power to tax the people to pay it’s debt to the banks i.e. IRS, it also is in control of standing armies which can be easily directed through manufactured crisis events either in the homeland or abroad wreaking havoc on society, and it also provides political and official cover for corporate and globalist agendas, agendas that are a determent to the people.

Tyrannical government has murdered, enslaved, imprisoned and bankrupted countless millions over the eons of human history. To allow it to get out of control is to invite destruction and destitution on a society.

Solutions

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams

The solution to these things is morality. Our founders were quite clear that without an ethical, knowledgeable moral, and well informed population these institutions would most certainly gain control.

If you as a philosophical libertarian equate freedom and liberty with living excessive lifestyles you are totally off base. These things have nothing to do with liberty, the moral resolve of our founders who many of them lost it all in the revolution is about understanding. They understood that defending life is paramount to anything we can do on this planet. Those who refuse to defend life, seeing that it is scared and worthy of protection have no concept of what it means to walk in the principles our forefathers bequeathed us. It is they who have sold themselves to these systems and jeopardize everything our country is founded on.

We have identified the “Cycle of Tyranny” it is driven by money, but equally so it is driven by those who have lost sight of the sacred principles enshrined in our Constitution, these men and women who put money and power over the moral, foundational Principles of Liberty are our enemies and must be treated and prosecuted as such.

AIPAC Launched Own Think Tank

By Grant Smith
Courtesy Of "Anti-War"

Many who have now seen creepy event video clips featuring Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) Research Director Patrick Clawson listing "crisis initiation" pretexts such as the Gulf of Tonkin phantom torpedo attacks, or false blame for the sinking of the USS Maine, felt it was a subtle call for false flag attacks that would drag a reluctant United States into war with Iran. The full video of the think tank’s event is well worth watching. Dennis Ross struggles mightily to answer reporter Barbara Slavin’s simple question into how WINEP will move beyond diplomatic "red lines" against Iran when polls reveal the majority of Americans have now grown tired of costly elective wars in the Middle East. At one point former American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyist Steven J. Rosen’s seemingly disembodied head eerily floats across the screen.

Those seeking background information about WINEP on its official website are informed that WINEP was founded in 1985 by a small group of visionary Americans committed to advancing U. S. interests in the Middle East. Like much of the website’s content, this information isn’t actually true. WINEP was actually incorporated during an espionage investigation crisis that enveloped AIPAC in 1984. The spin-off is eerily reminiscent of AIPAC’s own crisis-driven formation two decades earlier as the Senate struck back against the same types of false flag incitement now emanating from WINEP.

Between 1982 and 1985 English/Australian immigrant to America Martin Indyk busily served as deputy research director at AIPAC. Under Indyk’s reign, AIPAC pumped out a steady flow of lobbying booklets arguing for ever greater U.S. military support to Israel such as "The Strategic Value of Israel" (1982), "Israel and the U.S. Air Force" (1983), "Israel and the U.S. Navy" (1983), "Israeli Medical Support for U.S. Armed Forces" (1983) and "U.S. Procurement of Israeli Defense Goods and Services" (1984). Securing duty-free Israeli access to the entire U.S. economy was the AIPAC research division’s most important project in 1984. But trade negotiations were going badly at the beginning of 1984. Undercutting the arguments of today’s pundits who opine that U.S. industry is the eager driver of ever more dangerously entangling economic and military ties, the majority of U.S. companies providing formal inputdidn’t want any special trade preferences granted to Israel, an economy then dominated by state-run industries. Monsanto even suggested that if the U.S was even going to bother with trade negotiations to boost volumes through comparative advantage, it should do so with a worthwhile economic partner such as Taiwan, Hong Kong or Japan.

Help soon arrived in the form of Israeli Minister of Economics Dan Halpern. Halpern provided AIPAC a stolen copy (PDF) of a secret International Trade Commission report outlining the precise objections supported by arguments using internal industry and secret market data provided in confidence to the US government by American companies opposed to Israeli concessions. It was an indispensible resource for AIPAC’s counter-lobbying and public relations. Unfortunately, by August 3, 1984 theWashington Post broke the news that the FBI was investigating how AIPAC "obtained a copy of a classified document that spells out the American negotiating strategy in trade talks with Israel…" By November 1, 1984 the U.S. Bromine Alliance was in urgent talks with the International Trade Commission Chairwoman, publicly demanding to know how much of their industry’s secret trade and market data had been leaked to AIPAC and Israel’s state-run producer. Perhaps ominously for Indyk and other staffers, an August 13, 1984 FBI report stated "files contain an unsubstantiated allegation that a member of the Israeli Intelligence Service was a staff member of AIPAC…"

The very same month – on November 14, 1984 – the Washington Institute for Near East Policy was incorporated in Washington D.C. (PDF) WINEP was formed not by "prominent individuals" but Martin Indyk’s wife Jill along with Marilyn Edeson and Elizabeth Chotin according to original articles of incorporation obtained from the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. As the FBI’s espionage and theft-of-government-policy dragnet tightened around AIPAC during the "Year of the Spy" spurred by revelations of Jonathan Pollard’s espionage bonanza against the Defense Intelligence Agency, Martin Indyk jumped the burning AIPAC ship and quietly regrouped research production within WINEP. By 1986 WINEP was doing public relations work for the disastrous Lavi jet fighter program while providing a Washington perch for a visiting Shimon Peres to chastise Soviet immigration policy. Thwarted by Israeli diplomatic immunity claims, the FBI quietly shut down its investigation in 1987 after learning much about AIPAC and Israeli officials’ various roles in duplicating and handling classified economic documents – all to the detriment of democratic process in the US.

Although WINEP’s founding myth is that its "scholars" simply wanted to do serious research independent of AIPAC (while funded by AIPAC’s major donors), history indicates that survivability is a more compelling reason for its quiet launch in November of 1984. In a worse-case scenario, espionage or theft of government property indictments would have likely destroyed either AIPAC or WINEP – but not both. Splitting up was the same survivalist strategy that led to the spinoff of AIPAC just six weeks after its parent organization, the American Zionist Council, was ordered to register as an Israeli foreign agent in 1962 – which brings this latest Israel lobbying and covert action saga full-circle.

AIPAC’s parent was ordered to register as a foreign agent (destroying it, though it took a few years) as a result of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigation into the activities of foreign agents in the U.S. and abroad. The key reason given for the investigation was the Senate’s fear of foreign agents calling out for Israeli false flag attacks to goad the U.S. into action against the broader national interest. According to a declassified 1961 memo chartering the Senate investigation "In recent years there has been an increasing number of incidents involving attempts by foreign governments, or their agents, to influence the conduct of American foreign policy by techniques outside normal diplomatic channels…..there have been occasions when representatives of other governments have been privately accused of engaging in covert activities within the United States and elsewhere, for the purpose of influencing United States Policy (the Lavon Affair)." The "Lavon Affair", mentioned twice in the memo, refers to Israel’s "Operation Susannah" terror attacks on U.S. targets – not to goad America into attacking Iran – but to keep a U.S. presence in a neutral Suez Canal zone. No other country is mentioned as a false flag "crisis initiator" in the declassified memo.

WINEP’s sordid history and current calls for "crisis initiation" means it is once again time for Americans to be extra vigilant and ready for action against the movements and machinations of Israel’s most deceptive and dangerous foreign agent duo.

How Think Tanks Think

By Kelley B. Vlahos,
April 24, 2012
Courtesy Of "Anti-War"

When liberal Americans find themselves at a loss as to why Democrats appear to walk, talk and gurgle like Republicans on national security issues — especially during election season — they honestly need to look no further than the powerful think tank apparatus in Washington for the culprit.

First of all, it is important to understand that Washington is place that breeds and feeds only on power — power ordained on seemingly endless revenue sources, charitable, political and the kind you and I send to Uncle Sam in a thick white envelope every April 15. One’s power is determined by their placement in the pecking order and every four years elections determine who is in the big house parlor holding the purse, and who is stewing in the guestroom, plotting to take over when the other dies.

Everything else — the non-profits, lobbyists, unions, trade associations, and all the agencies that make up the massive federal bureaucracy, are the animals in the barnyard, fighting for slop and supremacy. Not surprisingly, the military rooster is usually bullying everyone around, including the thin skins in the house.

Therefore, federal elections that determine members of the House and Senate and who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue are not — contrary to what were taught in grade school — a near-religious American ritual that determines the kind of ideas and principles that will guide the Republic, but an extremely expensive, often cut-throat contest to see who gets to drive the car (further into the ditch).

Thus, after endless campaign slogans calling for “reform” and “change” and “getting the money out of Washington,” there’s never any real effort at doing any of those things when the time comes, because no one, once in Washington, wants to alter the stakes. Locked into this timeless struggle, Republicans and Democrats know that money is power and vice-versa. The man who once said “I hate a Roman named Status Quo!” never sat in the Roman Senate.

Which brings us to our vaunted think tanks. The most influential ones in Washington have the most money (tons of contributions from corporations, foundation grants, individuals and associations) and with few exception play the biggest role in advancing Republican and Democratic agendas, though for tax purposes most will call themselves “non partisan” or some such hooey. Those more obliquely partisan still fall along “liberal” or “conservative” lines (with Cato the only major libertarian vessel).

Think tank success requires fealty to certain principles that tether thinking and general policy-making to the establishment hive, or better yet, the barnyard mentality. For sure, the Washington think tank world at second blush is a rather bland cultural orthodoxy that while allowing for seemingly stark shifts in ideology and method, belies a clubby landscape in which the same chief actors set tone and prioritize issues, blessing those who prove themselves “of the body,” and quietly boxing out those who don’t.

Thus, they are as parochial as they are loyal to the duopoly that dominates the nation’s politics and its centers of power: Congress, the White House and the Pentagon establishment, otherwise known as the military industrial complex (MIC).

I’d like to concentrate on one such think tank because not only does it exhibit everything we’re discussing in spades, but because Antiwar.com and its audience is particularly interested in the MIC, and how war has become a corrupt and supremely political business that has made a lot of people inside the Beltway rich and many more outside of it, dead.

Last week, Josh Rogin of ForeignPolicy.com wrote what could only be described as a press release for the aptly named Truman National Security Project. Calling it “a major arm of the progressive foreign-policy establishment in Washington,” that “does not self-identify with either political party,” Rogin went on to report that the group had released its new “Truman Security Briefing Book,” a “comprehensive collection of suggested messaging, issue framing, and policy options for Democratic officials and candidates to use this summer and fall.”

Don’t choke on the chicken scratch yet. It gets worse. Rogin calls the group “left of center,” which it is decidedly not. To maintain this non-partisan fiction, the Truman people call themselves “progressives,” but while the rest of us in the 21st century are thinking this means liberal “reformers,” their “blueprint” for success suggests they are reliable foreign policy hegemons with a humanitarian interventionist philosophy harking further back from their namesake to Wilsonian progressivism itself. In their world, neoconservatives are much preferred over foreign policy “realists” or non-interventionists, which they casually refer to as pitiable isolationists anyway.

Whatever they are, with the number of Clinton era retreads, Democratic operatives, corporate suits, defense contractors and current or former congressional and administration staff attached to this outfit, no one should confuse the Truman Project with anything other than a re-election campaign that promises to keep the war machine humming no matter who is elected to office.

The People

One need to go no further to understand the dynamic at work here than the advisory board, on which sits former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who once infamously said while advocating the bombing of Bosnia, “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” She also said, when asked in a 1996 interview about the estimated half a million children dead due to Clinton’s Iraq sanctions, that “we think the price is worth it.” She now stewards her own lucrative “global strategy” consulting firm, The Albright Group LLC.

Then there’s Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which makes him a made man in the purest embodiment of the foreign policy establishment there is. Gelb confessed in 2009 that he supported the Iraq War because the hive made him do it. You may not have heard of Robert Abernethy, head of American Standard Development Co., but he sits on the board and serves as trustee at dozens of schools, associations, colleges and think tanks, including Brookings, the RAND Corporation, CFR, the Pacific Council and Johns Hopkins University. He’s also raised some $80,000 in campaign contributions for Democrats since the beginning of 2011 and tens of thousands more over the past decade. He also sits on the Truman board.

He joins old Clinton friend and former White house lawyer Greg Craig (who was canned for wanting to close Gitmo; he’s since represented Goldman Sachs on their Securities and Exchange Commission issues and former veep candidate John Edwards in court), former Clinton Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, who is now at the conservative Hoover Institution, former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, who now runs the very successful (and admittedly less hawkish) Center for American Progress, and Will Marshall, head of the Progressive Policy Institute, Clinton’s old centrist “idea mill.”

Also advising is Princeton professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, who recently served as director of policy planning in the State Department. She is widely known in foreign policy circles as a vocal proponent of R2P (responsibility to protect), which has replaced COIN as the new raison d’être for liberal interventions across the globe, hence her recent support for intervening in Libya and now in Syria. In a 2004 article for Foreign Affairs called “A Duty to Prevent,” she argued, “the international community has a duty to prevent security disasters as well as humanitarian ones—even at the price of violating sovereignty.”

The senior fellows list includes a who’s who of the foreign policy elite, mingled with active and ex-military, politicians, legislative staff and assorted beltway bandits, not to mention the necessary moneybags. There’s bland war supporter Michael O’Hanlonfrom Brookings, Peter Beinart, who wrote The Good Fight: Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again, and Larry Diamond, another conservative from Hoover. There is Janine Davidson, a former Brookings fellow and DoD policy official who was a major player in the now-failed COIN enterprise, and Mark Jacobson, who until 2011 served as a senior U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan. He’s also worked at the Pentagon and the Senate Armed Services Committee and is now a defense policy wonk at the German Marshall Fund.

The shop is run by President and CEO Rachel Kleinfeld, a super-educated thirty-something who seems to have spent most of her working years building her resume in the hive. She counts President Truman as her chief “political inspiration” and says things like “neoconservatives do care about people in other parts of the world, and they give real weight to ideas, ideologies, and civil society,” though they are not as righteous and sensitive as “progressives” in their intentions. Ideals aside, Kleinfeld spends these days shilling for Obama, writing tired op-eds that talk to voters as if they were middle school students.

To my mind, this crew is about as “progressive” as a hamster on a wheel — to nowhere.

The Hypocrisy

There are a couple genuine liberals tucked in for style, but the overall measure of the outfit is plain: the Truman Project mobilizes Democrats who serve the conventional interventionist agenda. Beyond that, they are part of a broader orbit of not so dissimilar foot soldiers on the other side of the aisle.

Of course these Democrats attempt to define theirs as an interventionism less concerned today with Big State diplomacy and more about people-centric, “bottom up” culturally sensitive development — and it’s never, ever messianic.

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., who addressed the Truman crowd for the briefing book’slaunch April 18, described the “moronic” Republican foreign policy as “speak incoherently and hit somebody with a stick.”

“We have to let the rest of the world know that we want to use our power and influence not only to protect and advance our interests, but also to protect theirs,” Smith said to his fellow Democrats progressives.

The Truman Project insists that “rights-supporting democracy cannot come at the barrel of a gun,” and that military force alone cannot make peace and dispose of threats, which of course, says Truman, include “terrorists, belligerent states, and the proliferation of weapons that can cause unimaginable, massive destruction.” Not to mention, “less obvious foes such as pandemic disease, weak and corrupt governments, and the spread of anti-Americanism.”

This of course is quite ironic since President Truman in 1945 was responsible for using weapons of “unimaginable, massive destruction” to kill upwards of 150,000 Japanese and other civilians instantly, and an estimated 430,000 more from post-bomb radiation and other injuries. He also invaded Korea in a badly executed war that left 128,000 of our own soldiers killed and wounded, and an estimated 2 million civilians dead, started the Cold War and set the stage for U.S. involvement in Indochina.

Nevertheless, the Truman Project promises that progressives will “use all the tools at our disposal: development aid and trade; our military and our allies’ forces; our reputation, diplomacy, and negotiation, to create a stronger, more stable, more just world.”

This could have been pulled right out of the Center for a New American Security’sbriefing book, which helped to get Obama elected four years ago. At that time, CNAS’s Big Idea was that a muscular national security position, coupled with the advancement of an “all of government” COIN strategy, would not only win the wars, but win us back our entitled position as leader of the free world.

None of that has happened by the way, though it has made CNAS the most lucrative and sought-after national security think tank in town (check out its donor list), and helped to funnel 14 of its top fellows and staff, including its co-founders, into senior positions in the Obama DoD and State Department. CNAS gives Obama cover on military issues, and clearly has an impact on overall policymaking in favor of the Pentagon establishment.

The rub is, these think tanks don’t quite know how to square their humanitarian pose with their overriding obligations of keeping the military and their donors happy.

The strongest indication of this is the sheer lack of interest in civilian casualties in our current wars. While early on, CNAS writers legitimately questioned the long-term value of drone warfare in a population-centric counterinsurgency, they’ve been all but silent on U.S. attacks in Pakistan and Yemen today.

As for the Truman Project, there is only one single reference to Obama’s heightened use of drones in its briefing book, with a throwaway line about drones in Pakistan leading to civilian deaths (after bragging that “the U.S. killed more extremists with drones in 2010 than in the previous six years”). But Truman says nothing more about attacks in Afghanistan and Yemen that have left scores of civilians dead, including a deadly cluster bomb attack that has prompted several human rights investigations and this recent Freedom of Information Act inquiry.

This not only suggests that Democratic candidates are being dissuaded from talking about Obama’s lethal legacy, but despite all their high rhetoric, the greatest humanitarian mission of all — keeping populations alive — appears cynically low on the priority list.

On Iran, they are even worse. The briefing book actually says “Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons capability and supports terrorists who attack Israel and our allies in the Middle East,” adding that “war with Iran to end these threats may appear tempting, but Iran’s retaliation could be disastrous for the U.S. and Israel. We must keep Iran isolated and deterred from using its weapons.” Therefore negotiating a “grand bargain” with Iran is “no solution” — “it has shown it will not negotiate in good faith,” and stiff sanctions “are the best option.”

Of course, no evidence of this weapons capability, and no explanation on how isolating Iran and imposing tougher international sanctions will help promote democracy in that country. How does starving people and putting them out of work fit in with “fostering societies?” And note, not a word about how bombing Iran might be a wee be disastrous for the Iranian people, not just U.S. and Israeli interests.

The entire document is fatuous in this way. When it is not garbling geopolitics and history with political bias, it triangulates or cops out on the military issues. Truman spends an entire section “teaching” candidates about the military, how members of the military are more educated than the rest of us, and have superior values. In this patronizing vein, they suggest how to “connect” with members of the various services.

Nothing about mission creep, the corruption of politicizing war, the waste and abuse involved in privatizing the war.

In fact, according to the briefing book, “the number of (military) contractors is increasing, but it is not all negative.” That’s easy to say when you have members of Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin on your senior fellows’ list.

On Afghanistan, as always, the neurons are really popping: “strike a balance between leaving too quickly and staying too long.” Truman suggests a “responsible transition” out of Afghanistan, more commitment to development, to training, more shopworn solutions that have already been discredited in practice.

“If this is ‘left leaning,’ it shows the near total corruption of the progressives on the question of war and interventionism,” said writer John Walsh who once counted himself a progressive. “In general it seems like a fairly bellicose text … mostly a rehash of what pours out of the mouth of Obama or Hillary or Mitt (Romney).”

No surprise here. While Truman holds “boot camps” to teach Democrats how to talk about national security, the Republican think tanks are no doubt doing it too. Unfortunately for the rest of us, they will all be mouthing the same tune.

“Progress” in the big house, as it were, will have to wait.

The Revolving Door: Think Tanks & The MIC

By Christopher A. Preble
December 29, 2010
Courtesy Of "The National Interest"

Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell addressincludes two memorable but vague references to conflicts of interest that, in the general-president’s estimation, endangered the balance between security and liberty. The first, and most famous, was of a military-industrial complex that might misdirect the nation’s assets to weapons and other projects and that did not measurably advance the nation’s security, but that did improve the material well-being of the interested few. The second warning pertained to the “steadily increasing share” of the nation’s research that “is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the federal government.”

Bryan Bender’s recent articles in the Boston Globe documenting the revolving door for retired three- and four-star officers addresses the first concern. Journalists and others should pay similar attention to the second.

Bender’s research expands upon earlier articles about the relationships between the Pentagon and retired officers in the New York Times and USA Today, the latter of which, especially, resulted in an overhaul of the Pentagon’s “senior mentors” program.

Some worry that such stories will have a chilling effect, discouraging the most qualified individuals from continuing to share their expertise with the government after they retire. The more conscientious will do so out of concerns about a conflict of interest. Others may refuse to serve on advisory panels due to the potential for increased scrutiny into their private life. Those who choose to serve in advisory roles after retirement, and often with some financial or personal stake in the decision, are presumably less concerned about the appearance of a conflict of interest. Still others might not have a stake, but might lack the expertise of the more high-profiled three- and four-stars who chose to restrict their post-retirement activities to golf or non-defense-related work.

Defenders of the current system that encourages retirees to remain active in national security planning, and even helps them to obtain employment with defense contractors, have a point. There is a legitimate argument that the most knowledgeable individuals are also the most experienced. It is possible that even modest reforms to limit the possibility of a conflict of interest would inhibit retired generals and admirals from contributing to discussions about, for example, which tanker the Air Force should buy, or which reforms to the military’s pay and benefits system make the most sense.

But I think that is a risk worth taking. Retired military officers, or any other persons invited to advise policy, should be required to make their potential conflicts of interest known before accepting a position on an advisory board, and should recuse themselves when the panel’s deliberations or decisions might affect them personally or professionally.

There is no shortage of expertise in this town; what we most often lack are objective assessments divorced from personal interest.

It is this latter aspect that touches on Eisenhower’s other warning. He was particularly worried that universities and other institutions of higher learning had become too dependent upon government funding, and that this would inhibit or condition their research. But a similar problem exists in the think tank world. The federally funded research institutions such as RAND, the Center for Naval Analysis, and the Institute for Defense Analysis often do fine work, but the suspicion that their work is geared to the preferences of their primary sponsor -- the Department of Defense -- is hard to shake. Meanwhile, officially non-governmental think tanks such as CNAS, CSIS, and Brookings, for example, also contribute to discussions about force structure and strategy. But they have sponsors, too. A few, including Cato, refuse to accept government money as a matter of principle.

Going beyond Bryan Bender’s research into the post-retirement activities of former three- and four-star officers, it is a simple matter for journalists to inquire whether research work outside of government is funded by interested parties. Given what is at stake, often hundreds of millions, and sometimes billions, of dollars, taxpayers should expect that companies will employ every legal avenue available to them to land a lucrative contract, or at least a piece of one. Of course Boeing or McDonnell Douglas or Lockheed Martin would want to hire recent retirees with friends and associates still in uniform. Of course they will fund research if they think it is likely to advance their cause. In the former case, it is the responsibility of procurement officials and Congress, with pressure from citizens, to ensure that the products and services delivered to our men and women in uniform are of the highest quality, and delivered at the lowest price to taxpayers. With respect to the latter, readers of reports or studies on force structure and strategy should consider whether and how financial support might have factored into a scholar’s conclusions.

Eisenhower hoped that “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” would constantly weigh the costs and benefits of national security policies, and that this would ensure that all of the elements of national power would be applied “so that security and liberty may prosper together.” Articles like Bender’s provide the knowledge; whether the public is alert to the potential for conflicts of interests, and empowered to do something about it, remains to be seen.

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CHRISTOPHER A. PREBLE