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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 9, 2017 at 1:42 am
On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered his powerful Wehrmacht to invade the Soviet Union.
Since September 1, 1939, his army had conquered Poland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France.
Now, he believed, it was time to “settle accounts” with the Soviet Union. Only there could Germany obtain the “living space” it “needed” for its expanding population.
And now seemed to be the perfect time to do it.
Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union, had decimated the Red Army with a series of purges in 1937-38. Its best officers had been shot as “enemies of the State.” Their replacements were untried in war—and fearful of showing initiative that might get them executed.
Adolf Hitler with his generals
At first, Hitler felt giddy with excitement. Turning to Alfred Jodl, his chief of operations of the Wehrmacht, he said: “We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”
But soon afterward–almost as if he had just looked into the future and seen that he had none–he told an aide: “At the beginning of each campaign, one pushes a door into a dark, unseen room. One can never know what is hiding inside.”
That certainly proved true for Hitler. Within four years, he was dead and the Red Army occupied Berlin.
Among the questions Hitler and his generals had refused to ask themselves—and answer:
- What if the Soviet Union didn’t collapse after “a few powerful blows”?
- What if the war lasted longer than the summer—while German troops were wearing summer uniforms?
- What if the war actually lasted into the winter?
- What if most of the roads in Russia were unpaved—and German tanks got bogged down in, first, autumn mud, and then winter snow?
- What if Stalin convinced ordinary Russians that they weren’t fighting to save his Communist dictatorship–but to save Holy Mother Russia itself?
By the end of the four-year conflict, all of these possibilities had become reality:
- The Soviet Union didn’t collapse—although, in October, 1941, it seemed about to do so.
- The war did last longer than the summer—and, when winter struck, countless German soldiers in summer uniforms froze to death in the below-zero cold.
- German tanks did become mired—first in mud, then in snow. Russian tanks, having wider tracks, easily outmaneuvered their German counterparts.
- Stalin did proclaim that this was a struggle to save Holy Mother Russia against a barbaric enemy. And widespread German atrocities convinced them this was true.
German soldiers marching through Russia
Now, fast forward from the Fuhrership of Adolf Hitler to the Presidency of Donald Trump.
During a July 19 meeting with his generals in the White House Situation Room, Trump said the United States was “losing” the war in Afghanistan. He blamed them for lacking a strategy to “win,” and suggested firing the top commander in the field, General John Nicholson.
Trump also asked the generals how the United States could take a portion of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth. He had previously said that the United States should have seized Iraq’s oil after America invaded in 2003.
Even more bizarrely, he repeatedly compared the war in Afghanistan to renovating the elite “21” Club in Manhattan.
Donald Trump
Trump claimed that after the restaurant had been closed for a year, a consultant suggested that a bigger kitchen be built in the establishment.
Trump told the generals that he would have been better served speaking to the waiters who worked there. And he added that he would do better speaking to veterans of Afghanistan rather than generals.
(Adolf Hitler displayed a similar obsession after the German Sixth Army was forced to surrender at Stalingrad on February 2, 1943. About 94,000 men fell into Russian hands.
(But what most infuriated Hitler was that Friedrich Paulus, the newly-promoted Field Marshal, had allowed himself to be taken prisoner. Hitler raged that Paulus should have committed suicide.
(Three times during his rant, Hitler spoke of a German woman who had killed herself after she found she could no longer go on. His point: If even a weak-willed woman could summon up the courage to take her own life, there was no excuse for a German soldier refusing to do so.)
Friedrich Paulus
Trump left the national security meeting without making a decision on a strategy. His advisers were stunned, administration officials and others briefed on the meeting said.
During the presidential campaign, Trump often boasted that he knew more than American military generals. This despite his having dodged the Vietnam war via five draft deferments.
American troops have been deployed in Afghanistan since October 7, 2001, when Operation Enduring Freedom was launched. The Taliban, which controlled the country, had refused to turn over Osama bin Ladin, the Al-Qaeda mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
About 8,400 members of the U.S. military are now currently serving in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. A total of 1,833 Americans have been killed in action there.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 10, 2017 at 12:30 am
Since the late 1940s, Republicans have hurled the charge of “appeasement” at every Democratic President
Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson found themselves accused of “selling out” to the Soviet Union. The motive for this was usually attributed to cowardice—if not outright treason. It didn’t matter to Republicans that:
- Truman began the policy of “containing” the Soviet Union within its World War II borders;
- Kennedy faced down the Russians during the Cuban Missile Crisis; and
- Johnson waged a bloody, budget-busting war against Soviet proxies in Vietnam.
Most recently, it became the turn of President Barack Obama.
On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 MH 17/MAS17 took off from Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
But as the flight–and its 283 passengers and 15 crew—cruised above Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists shot it down. A Buk surface-to-air missile slammed into the aircraft, almost instantly killing everyone on board.
President Barack Obama
“The President is afraid of provoking [Russian President] Vladimir Putin,” United States Senator John McCain told Reuters. “Vladimir Putin is on the move because he has paid no price for his aggression.”
And Texas United State Senator Ted Cruz said: “Putin fears no retribution. [Obama’s] policy has been to alienate and abandon our friends, and to coddle and appease our enemies.”
But now the United States has a Republican President who has cozied up to Putin since he entered the 2016 Presidential race.
In January, the CIA, FBI, NSA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that Russian Intelligence agents had meddled in the election via cyber-warfare to secure Donald Trump’s election.
Yet, at the G20 summit, Trump declared it was “an honor” to meet Putin.
After the meeting, Trump tweeted on July 9: “I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I’ve already given my opinion…..”
Trump’s opinion, as he famously gave it, was: “It could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”
Even more worrisome to American Intelligence officials was Trump’s accompanying tweet: “Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded.”
Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee reacted: “If that’s our best election defense, we might as well just mail our ballot boxes to Moscow.”
Even some Republicans likened the proposal to letting the fox guard the chicken coop. Florida United States Senator Marco Rubio tweeted: “While reality & pragmatism requires that we engage Vladimir Putin, he will never be a trusted ally or a reliable constructive partner.”
Yet America’s frustrations with Russia generally—and Putin in particular—long predate those of Barack Obama.
Nor were relations between the United States and post-Soviet Russia helped by the naivety of President George W. Bush.
In June, 2001, Bush and Putin met in Slovenia. During the meeting a truly startling exchange occurred.
President George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin
Putin, a former KGB Intelligence officer, had clearly done his homework on Bush. When he mentioned that one of the sports Bush had played was rugby, Bush was highly impressed.
“I did play rugby,” gushed Bush. “Very good briefing.”
But more was to come.
BUSH: Let me say something about what caught my attention, Mr. President, was that your mother gave you a cross which you had blessed in Israel, the Holy Land.
PUTIN: It’s true.
BUSH: That amazes me, that here you were a Communist, KGB operative, and yet you were willing to wear a cross. That speaks volumes to me, Mr. President. May I call you Vladimir?
Putin instantly sensed that Bush judged others–even world leaders–through the lens of his own fundamentalist Christian theology.
Falling back on his KGB training, Putin seized on this apparent point of commonality to build a bond. He told Bush that his dacha had once burned to the ground, and the only item that had been saved was that cross.
“Well, that’s the story of the cross as far as I’m concerned,” said Bush, clearly impressed. “Things are meant to be.”
Afterward, Bush and Putin gave an outdoor news conference.
“Is this a man that America can trust?” Associated Press correspondent Ron Foumier asked Bush.
“Yes,” said Bush. “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue.
“I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country. I wouldn’t have invited him to my ranch if I didn’t trust him.”
Of course, no one from the Right is now recalling such embarrassing words.
It’s far more politically profitable to pretend that all of America’s tensions with Russia began with the election of Barack Obama.
And to pretend that those tensions have vanished now that another Right-wing President occupies the White House.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 20, 2017 at 12:05 am
While the Nazi Party ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945, its influence over all aspects of Germans’ lives was suffocating.
“The persuasive influence of the Nazi regime reached into every corner of everyday life in Germany,” reads the back cover of Richard Grunberger’s classic 1971 book, The 12-Year Reich.
“Censorship prevailed, education was undermined, family life was idealized, but children were encouraged to turn in disloyal parents.
“‘Volk’ festivals, party rallies, awards, uniforms, pageantry all played a part in the massive effort to shape the mind of a nation.”
And yet, after the Reich surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on May 8, 1945, a strange thing happened: Virtually no one in Germany admitted to having been a Nazi—or having even known one.
American and British soldiers couldn’t find any German veterans willing to admit they had ever fought against Western, democratic nations. All the once-proud legionaries of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS swore they had been fighting “the real enemy”—the Russians—on the Eastern front.
And then there were all the stories of Germans who, at great risk to themselves, had hidden Jews in their attics. Which left unanswered the question: If so many “good Germans” had saved so many Jews, how had six million Jews died horrifically before the Reich fell?
In short: Adolf Hitler had lost the war he started—making him a loser nobody wanted to be identified with.
In the decades since, the “loser” tag has continued to stick with those who once served the Third Reich. Mel Brooks has repeatedly turned German soldiers—once the pride of the battlefield—into idiotic comic foils.
Even the fearsome Gestapo was spoofed for laughs on the long-running TV comedy, “Hogan’s Heroes.”
“Hogan’s Heroes”
“Americans love a winner,” George C. Scott as George S. Patton says at the outset of the classic 1970 movie. “And will not tolerate a loser.”
And that is why Republicans have stuck so closely with President Donald J. Trump.
A typical example of this occurred on June 8 after former FBI director James Comey testified before the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Comey revealed that, on February 14, Trump had ordered everyone but Comey to leave a crowded meeting in the Oval Office.
“I want to talk about Mike Flynn,” said Trump.
Flynn had resigned the previous day from his position as National Security Adviser. The FBI was investigating him for his previously undisclosed ties to Russia.
“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” said Trump. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
This was clearly an attempt by Trump to obstruct the FBI’s investigation.
Yet Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan rushed to excuse his clearly illegal behavior: “He’s new at government, so therefore I think he’s learning as he goes.”
Paul Ryan
David Brooks, the conservative New York Times columnist, offered a more accurate explanation of Trump’s motives. Speaking on The PBS Newshour, Brooks said:
“We are a nation of laws. Donald Trump lives in an entirely different cultural universe. He is more clannist, believing in clan, believing in family, believing in loyalty, not recognizing objective law, not recognizing the procedures that is really how modern government operates….
“It’s not only that he doesn’t know the rules, but at all along and throughout his presidency, he has sort of trampled on the rules almost as a matter of policy, as a matter of character, because he doesn’t believe in that kind of relationships. It’s all personal loyalty, not about laws and norms and standards.”
Republicans don’t fear that Trump will trash the institutions that Americans have cherished for more than 200 years. Institutions like an independent judiciary, a free press, and an incorruptible Justice Department.
He has already attacked all of these—and Republicans have either said nothing or rushed to his defense.
What Republicans truly fear about Donald Trump is that he will finally cross one line too many—like firing Special Counsel Robert Meuller. And that the national outrage following this will force them to launch impeachment proceedings against him.
But it isn’t even Trump they fear will be destroyed.
What they most fear losing is their own hold on nearly absolute power in Congress and the White House.
If Trump is impeached and possibly indicted, he will become a man no one any longer fears. He will be a figure held up to ridicule and condemnation.
Like Adolf Hitler. Like Richard Nixon.
And his Congressional supporters will be branded as losers along with him.
Republicans vividly remember what happened after Nixon was forced to resign on August 9, 1974: Democrats, riding a wave of reform fever, swept Republicans out of the House and Senate—and Jimmy Carter into the White House.
What Ronald Reagan once said about the leadership of the Soviet Union now literally applies to that of the Republican Party:
“They…have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat, in order to attain that.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 15, 2017 at 12:02 am
On December 21, 1949, Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili turned 70. And millions of Russians feverishly competed to out-do one another in singing his praises.
These celebrations weren’t prompted by love–but fear.
For the man being so honored was internationally known by a far different name: Stalin, which in Russian means: “Man of Steel.”
He had lived up to it: For almost 30 years, through purges and starvation caused by enforced collections of farmers’ crops, he had slaughtered 20 to 60 million people.
Joseph Stalin
The British historian, Robert Payne, described these rapturous events in his classic 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin:
“The guns blazed in salute, the processions marched across the Red Square, and huge balloons bearing the features of a younger Stalin climbed into the wintry sky.
“The official buildings were draped in red, the color of happiness. From all over the country came gifts of embroidered cloth, tapestries and carpets bearing his name or his features.
“Ornamental swords, cutlasses, tankards, cups, everything that might conceivably please him, were sent to the Kremlin, and then displayed in the State Museum of the Revolution….Poets extolled him in verses, He was the sun, the splendor, the lord of creation.
“The novelist Leonid Lenov…foretold the day when all the peoples of the earth would celebrate his birthday; the new calendar would begin with the birth of Stalin rather than with the birth of Christ.”
Lavrenti P. Beria, Stalin’s sinister and feared secret police chief, oozed: “Millions of fighters for peace and democracy in all countries of the world are closing their ranks still firmer around Comrade Stalin.”
Lavrenti P. Beria
“With a feeling of great gratitude, turning their eyes to Stalin,” gushed Central Committee Secretary Georgi Malenkov, “the peoples of the Soviet Union, and hundreds of millions of peoples in all countries of the world, and all progressive mankind, see in Comrade Stalin their beloved leader and teacher….”
“The mighty voice of the Great Stalin, defending the peace of the world, has penetrated into all corners of the globe,” enthused Defense Commissar Kliment Voroshilov.
“Without Comrade Stalin’s special care,” extolled Trade and Supply Minister Anastas Mikoyan, “we would have never have had a network of meat combines equipped with the latest machinery, canneries and sugar refineries, a fishing industry….”
Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov: “The gigantic Soviet army created during [World War II] was under the direct leadership of Comrade Stalin and built on the basis of the principles of Stalinist military science.”
So those Americans with a sense of history were alarmed and disgusted upon watching President Donald J. Trump–also 70–convene his first full Cabinet meeting since taking office on January 20.
Donald Trump
On June 12, polls showed that only 36% of Americans approved of his conduct. But from his Cabinet members, Trump got praise traditionally lavished on dictators like Stalin and North Korea’s Kim Jong On.
While the Cabinet members sat around a mahogany table in the West Wing of the White House, Trump instructed each one to say a few words about the good work his administration was doing.
“Start with Mike,” ordered Trump, referring to Vice President Mike Pence.
“It is the greatest privilege of my life to serve as the vice president to a president who is keeping his word to the American people,” Pence dutifully said.
Mike Pence
Then it was the turn of Attorney General Jeff Sessions: “It’s an honor to be able to serve you.”
“My hat’s off to you,” oozed Energy Secretary Rick Perry, referring to Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue: “I just got back from Mississippi. They love you there.”
“What an incredible honor it is to lead the Department of Health and Human Services at this pivotal time under your leadership,” gushed Tom Price. “I can’t thank you enough for the privilege that you’ve given me, and the leadership you’ve shown.”
Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta raved: “I’m deeply honored and I want to thank you for keeping your commitment to the American workers.”
“Thank you for coming over to the Department of Transportation,” eulogized Elaine Chao, its secretary. “I want to thank you for getting this country moving again, and also working again.”
“On behalf of the entire senior staff around you, Mr. President,” said Reince Prebus, Trump’s chief of staff, “we thank you for the opportunity and the blessing you’ve given us to serve your agenda and the American people, and we’re continuing to work very hard every day to accomplish those goals.”
Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget: “At your direction, we were able to also focus on the forgotten men and women who are paying taxes, so I appreciate your support on pulling that budget together.”
On June 8, former FBI Director James Comey had testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Among the charges he aimed at Trump: The President had demanded a pledge of personal loyalty in return for Comey’s keeping his job.
This would have made Comey his secret police chief.
Comey had refused to give this. And Trump had fired him.
Trump publicly denied this.
Then came the Cabinet meeting–and all the proof anyone needed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 8, 2017 at 1:11 pm
“We will have so much winning if I get elected [President] that you may get bored with winning.”
It was vintage Donald Trump, speaking at a September, 2015 Capitol Hill rally to protest President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
That was before Trump became President–and, since then, has been entangled in multiple investigations into contacts between Russian Intelligence agents and high-level officials of his 2016 Presidential campaign.
That was before he was forced to fire retired General Mike Flynn as his national security adviser. The reason: Flynn’s close ties to Russia and its dictator, Vladimir Putin, had recently come to light in the press.
That was before he fired James Comey, the FBI director who had refused to give him a pledge of personal loyalty.
That was before Comey testified before the United States Senate’s Intelligence Committee and publicly branded Trump a liar on nationwide television.
And that was before an anonymous White House source told CNN: “He now lives within himself, which is a dangerous place for Donald Trump to be. I see him emotionally withdrawing. He’s gained weight. He doesn’t have anybody whom he trusts.”
Donald Trump
Trump’s boast reflected he mindset–if not the words–of an earlier CEO whose ego carried him–and his country–to ruin: Adolf Hitler.
Literally thousands of books have been written on Hitler’s six-year stint as a self-appointed field commander. But for an overall view of Hitler’s generalship, an excellent choice is How Hitler Could have Won World War II by Bevin Alexander.
Among the fatal errors that led to the defeat of the defeat of the Third Reich:
- Wasting hundreds of Luftwaffe [air force] pilots, fighters and bombers in a halfhearted attempt to conquer England.
- Ignoring the pleas of generals like Erwin Rommel to conquer Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, thus giving Germany control of most of the world’s oil.
- Attacking his ally, the Soviet Union, while still at war with Great Britain.
- Turning millions of Russians into enemies rather than allies by his brutal and murderous policies.
- Needlessly declaring war on the United States after the Japanese attacked Pearl harbor. (Had he not done so, Americans would have focused all their attention on defeating Japan.)
- Refusing to negotiate a separate peace with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin–thus granting Germany a large portion of captured Russian territory in exchange for letting Stalin remain in power.
- Insisting on a “not-one-step-back” military “strategy” that led to the needless surrounding, capture and/or deaths of hundreds of thousands of German servicemen.
As the war turned increasingly against him, Hitler became ever more rigid in his thinking.
He demanded absolute control over the smallest details of his forces. This, in turn, led to astonishing and unnecessary losses among their ranks.
One such incident was immortalized in the 1962 movie, The Longest Day, about the Allied invasion of France known as D-Day.
On June 6, 1944, General Erwin Rommel ordered the panzer tanks to drive the Allies from the Normandy beaches. But these could not be released except on direct orders of the Fuehrer.
Panzer tank
As Hitler’s chief of staff, General Alfred Jodl, informed Rommel: The Fuehrer was asleep–and was not to be awakened. By the time Hitler awoke and issued the order, it was too late.
Nor could Hitler accept responsibility for the policies that were leading Germany to certain defeat. He blamed his generals, accused them of cowardice, and relieved many of the best ones from command.
Among those sacked was Heinz Guderian, creator of the German Panzer corps–and responsible for the blitzkreig victory against France in 1940.
Heinz Guderian
Another was Erich von Manstein, designer of the strategy that defeated France in six weeks–which Germany had failed to do during four years of World War 1.
Erich von Manstein
Finally, on April 29, 1945–with the Russians only blocks from his underground Berlin bunker–Hitler dictated his “Last Political Testament.”
Once again, he refused to accept responsibility for unleashing a war that would ultimately consume 50 million lives:
“It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted war in 1939. It was desired and instigated exclusively by those international statesmen who either were of Jewish origin or worked for Jewish interests.”
Hitler had launched the invasion of Poland–and World War II–with a lie: That Poland had attacked Germany. Fittingly, he closed the war–and his life–with a final lie.
Joachim C. Fest, author of Hitler (1973), writes of the surprise that awaited Allied soldiers occupying Nazi Germany in 1945: “Almost without exception, virtually from one moment to the next, Nazism vanished after the death of Hitler and the surrender.
“It was as if National Socialism had been nothing but the motion, the state of intoxication and the catastrophe it had caused….
“Once again it became plain that National Socialism, like Fascism in general, was dependent to the core on superior force, arrogance, triumph, and by its nature had no resources in the moment of defeat.”
The ancient Greeks believed that “a man’s character is his destiny.” For Adolf Hitler–and the nations he ravaged–that proved fatally true.
It remains to be seen whether the same will prove true for Donald Trump–and the United States.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on June 7, 2017 at 12:15 am
Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers.
Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich.
Among his friends–to his ultimate misfortune–was Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the former military hero now falsely condemned and executed as a traitor by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
In 1938, Zhilayev, too, became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) secret police sent to arrest him.
Dimitri Shostakovich
“He had a large picture of Tukhachevsky in his room, and after the announcement that Tukhachevsky had been shot as a traitor to the homeland, Zhilayev did not take the picture down.
“I don’t know if I can explain how heroic a deed that was….As soon as the next poor soul was declared an enemy of the people, everyone destroyed in a panic everything connected with that person.
“If the enemy of the people wrote books, they threw away his books. If they had letters from him, they burned the letters. The mind can’t grasp the number of letters and papers burned in that period…
“And naturally, photographs flew into the fire first, because if someone informed on you, reported that you had a picture of an enemy of the people, it meant certain death.
“Zhilayev wasn’t afraid. When they came for him, Tukhachevsky’s prominently hung portrait amazed even the executioners.”
“What, it’s still up?” one of the secret police asked.
“The time will come,” Zhilayev replied, “when they’ll erect a monument to him.”
As, in fact, has happened.
Mikhail Tukhachevsky appears on a 1963 Soviet Union postage stamp
Third hero–James Brien Comey (December 14, 1960)
Comey served as United States Attorney (federal prosecutor) for the Southern District of New York (2002-2003).
As United States Deputy Attorney General (2003-2005), he opposed the warrantless wiretapping program of the George W. Bush administration. He also argued against the use of water boarding as an interrogation method.
In 2005, he entered the private sector as General Counsel and Senior Vice President for Lockheed Martin, the biggest contractor for the Department of Defense.
On July 29, 2013, the United States Senate voted 93 -1 to confirm Comey as director of the FBI, the seventh in its history.
James B. Comey
He directed the FBI from his appointment in 2013 by President Barack Obama until his firing on May 9 by President Donald Trump.
In a move that Joseph Stalin would have admired, Trump gave no warning of his intentions. Instead, he sent Keith Schiller, his longtime bodyguard, to the FBI with a letter announcing Comey’s dismissal.
Trump had three reasons for firing Comey:
- Comey had refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump. Trump had made this “request” during a private dinner at the White House in January. After refusing to make that pledge, Comey told Trump that he would always be honest with him. But that didn’t satisfy Trump’s demand that the head of the FBI act as his personal secret police chief.
- Trump had tried to coerce him into dropping the FBI’s investigation into former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, for his secret ties to Russia and Turkey. Comey had similarly resisted that demand.
- Comey had recently asked the Justice Department to fund an expanded FBI investigation into contacts between Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
As a Presidential candidate and President, Trump has:
- Steadfastly denied those revelations;
- Repeatedly attacked the “fake news” media reporting these revelations. Chief among his targets: CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post; and
- Attacked the Intelligence agencies responsible for America’s security.
On May 10–the day after firing Comey–Trump met in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Kislyak is reportedly a top recruiter for Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency. He has been closely linked with Jeff Sessions, now Attorney General, and fired National Security Adviser Mike Flynn.
“I just fired the head of the F.B.I.,” Trump told the two dignitaries. “He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
During that meeting he gave the Russians sensitive Intelligence on ISIS that had been supplied by Israel.
Two days later, on May 12, Trump tweeted a threat to the fired FBI director: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press.”
But shortly afterward, it appeared Trump was the one who should worry: Reports surfaced that Comey had written memos to himself immediately after his private meetings with Trump.
He had also told close aides that Trump was trying to pressure him into dropping the investigation into close ties between Russian Intelligence agents and Trump campaign staffers.
The firing led directly to a result Trump did not anticipate: Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein yielded to demands from Democrats and appointed former FBI Director Robert Meuller III as a special prosecutor to investigate those ties.
And, on June 8, James Comey was scheduled to give his much-anticipated version of events before the United States Senate Intelligence Committee.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 6, 2017 at 12:02 am
…A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances. And if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him.
The conduct of weak men is very different. Made vain and intoxicated by good fortune, they attribute their success to merits which they do not possess. And this makes them odious and insupportable to all around them. And when they have afterwards to meet a reverse of fortune, they quickly fall into the other extreme, and become abject and vile.
–Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses
Three heroes, two villains.
Two of the heroes are Russian; the third is an American.
The villains: One Russian (actually, Georgian); one American.
First up–in order of disappearance: Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (pronounced too-ka-chev-sky)
Tukhachevsky (February 4, 1893 – June 12, 1937) was a leading Soviet military leader and theoretician from 1918 to 1937.
He commanded the Soviet Western Front during the Russian-Polish War (1920-21) and served as Chief of Staff of the Red Army (1925-1928).
He fought to modernize Soviet armament, as well as develop airborne, aviation and mechanized forces. Almost singlehandedly, he created the theory of deep operations for Soviet forces.
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
All of these innovations would reap huge dividends when the Soviet Union faced the lethal fury of Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht.
In 1936, Tukhachevsky warned Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that Nazi Germany might attack without warning–and ignite a long and murderous war.
Stalin–the son of a Georgian cobbler–resented Tukhachevsky’s coming from a noble family. A monumental egomaniac, he also hated that Tukhachevesky’s fame rivaled his own.
Warned of the approaching German danger, Stalin shouted: “What are you trying to do–frighten Soviet authority?”
Joseph Stalin
The attack that Tukhachevsky warned against came five years later on June 22, 1941, leaving at least 20 million Russians dead.
But Tukhachevsky wasn’t alive to command a defense.
The 1930s were a frightening and dangerous time to be alive in the Soviet Union. In 1934, Stalin, seeing imaginary enemies everywhere, ordered a series of purges that lasted right up to the German invasion.
In 1937-38, the Red Army fell prey to Stalin’s paranoia.
Its victims included:
- Three of five marshals (five-star generals);
- Thirteen of 15 army commanders (three- and four-star generals);
- Fifty of 57 army corps commanders; and
- One hundred fifty-four out of 186 division commanders.
And heading the list of those marked for death was Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
Arrested on May 22, 1937, he was interrogated and tortured. As a result, he “confessed” to being a German agent plotting to overthrow Stalin and seize power.
On his confession, which survives in the archives, his bloodstains can clearly be seen.
On June 11, the Soviet Supreme Court convened a special military tribunal to try Tukhachevsky and eight generals for treason.
It was a sham: The accused were denied defense attorneys, and could not appeal the verdict–which was foregone: Death.
In a Russian version of poetic justice, five of the eight generals who served as Tukhachevsky’s judges were themselves later condemned and executed as traitors.
Within hours of the verdict, Tukhachevsky was summoned from his cell and shot once in the back of the head.
From 1937 until 1956, Tukhachevsky was officially declared a traitor and fifth-columnist.
Then, on February 25, 1957, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered his bombshell “Secret Speech” to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In this, he denounced Stalin (who had died in 1953) as a ruthless tyrant responsible for the slaughter of millions of innocent men, women and children. He condemned Stalin for creating a “personality cult” around himself, and for so weakening the Red Army that Nazi Germany was able to easily overrun half of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1943.
On January 31, 1957, Tukhachevsky and his co-defendants were declared innocent of all charges and were “rehabilitated.”
Today, he is once again considered a Russian hero and military genius.
Next hero: Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev)
Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers. Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich.
Zhilayev, a member of the Russian Academy of Art-Sciences, taught at the Moscow Conservatory. Among his friends–to his ultimate misfortune–was Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
In 1938, he, too, became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) secret police sent to arrest him.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 5, 2017 at 12:01 am
Long before Donald Trump was accused of being sexually compromised by the Russians, Americans knew enough about him to decide: “You are unfit for the Oval Office.”
Almost immediately after entering the Presidential race on June 16, 2015, he began attacking one group of Americans after another:
- Mexicans: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” He’s also promised to “build a great, great wall on our southern border and I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”
- Blacks: Trump retweeted an image of a masked, dark-skinned man with a handgun and a series of alleged crime statistics, including: “Blacks killed by whites – 2%”; “Whites killed by blacks – 81%.” The image cites the “Crime Statistics Bureau – San Francisco”–an agency that doesn’t exist.
- POWs: Speaking of Arizona U.S. Senator and Vietnam veteran John McCain: He’s not a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
Donald Trump
The number of people, places and things Trump has insulted is so extensive The New York Times compiled a list of 273 of them.
- One of those persons was Tarla Makaeff, who spent more than $60,000 on Trump University classes. In 2010, she filed a fraud lawsuit against (now-defunct) Trump University.
- Trump retaliated by filing a defamation suit against her. The case was dismissed by a judge.
- But Trump continued to attack her during his Presidential candidacy. During a campaign rally he assailed her as a “horrible, horrible witness,” and then posted on Twitter that she was “Disgraceful!”
- Makaeff ultimately persuaded the judge presiding over the Trump University case to let her remove her name as a plaintiff.
As an authoritarian who demands the right to craft his own image. Trump furiously denies others the right to dissent from it via:
- Counter-suits, threats and personal insults against outsiders; and
- Stringent confidentiality agreements against employees, business partners, his former spouses and now his campaign staffers.
- In February, 2016, Trump said that he was “gonna open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.”
Two of Trump’s most vicious threats were aimed at Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
- The first occurred on October 9, 2016, during their second Presidential debate: “If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation–there has never been so many lies and so much deception.”
- The second occurred on October 10, three days after The Washington Post leaked a video of Donald Trump making sexually predatory comments about women (“I don’t even wait. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything”).
- Rather than accept responsibility for his actions, Trump blamed the Clintons–who had nothing to do with the release. Speaking before a rally in Pennsylvania on October 10, Trump threatened: “If they wanna release more tapes saying inappropriate things, we’ll continue to talk about Bill and Hillary Clinton doing inappropriate things. There are so many of them, folks.”
Hillary Clinton
Trump’s rampant egomania is literally stamped on his properties. Of the 515 entities he owns, 268 of them–52%–bear his last name. He often refers to his properties as “the swankiest,” “the most beautiful.”
Among the references he’s made to himself:
- “My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”
- “I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.”
- “My Twitter has become so powerful that I can actually make my enemies tell the truth.”
- “My IQ is one of the highest–and you all know it.”
Trump publicly admitted that his egomania would play a major role in his approach to consulting advisers:
- Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consults about foreign policy, he replied: “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
Trump has never been charged with incest, but he’s repeatedly made disturbing, sexually inappropriate comments about his daughter, Ivanka:
- When asked how he would react if Ivanka, a former teen model, poised for Playboy, Trump replied: “I don’t think Ivanka would do that, although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
On October 7, The Washington Post leaked a video of Donald Trump making sexually predatory comments about women (“You can grab them by the pussy”).
- Within a week, no fewer than 12 had come forward to accuse him of sexually inappropriate behavior.
- Although he threatened to sue the New York Times if it reported the women’s claims, he has so far refused to do so.
* * * * *
Those Americans who voted for Donald Trump knew the character of the man they were electing. They cannot claim ignorance of who he was and what he intended to do.
They enthusiastically supported him because he gave voice to their hatreds and prejudices. And because they believed he would humiliate and destroy those they wanted to see humiliated and destroyed.
They are as deserving of the contempt of their fellow Americans as Trump is.
The next four years will unveil how many of their wishes are fulfilled.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 2, 2017 at 12:39 am
“What did the President know and when did he know it?”
It was the famous question asked by Tennessee U.S. Senator Howard Baker during the 1973 Watergate hearings.
Howard Baker
The question cut to the core of President Richard Nixon’s litany of crimes. And the fact that it was posed by a Republican gave it added power.
More than a year later, Americans learned its answers:
- Nixon had learned that his own White House “Plumbers” had carried out a burglary of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel; and
- Only days afterward, he ordered a cover-up.
With those revelations, his Presidency was finished.
America has endured four months of the Donald J. Trump Presidency. And his poll ratings have steadily fallen since he took office. As of May 22-28, it stands at 41%.
And, once again, Howard Baker’s slightly altered question resonates with force: “What did the American people know, and when did they know it?”
And the subject of that question is not Richard Nixon but Donald Trump.
Since taking office, Trump has been besieged by reports that members of his 2016 campaign staff collaborated with Russian Intelligence agents to secure his election.
One of these was retired general Mike Flynn–Trump’s choice for National Security Adviser. He was forced to resign after only 23 days in office when news broke of his collusion.
And numerous members of his Cabinet–such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and even Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner–have close ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin or those who act in his name.
Trump has attacked these charges as “fake news”–while supplying no evidence to refute them.
But long before the election, Americans had more than enough knowledge about Trump to judge him unfit for the Oval Office.
- He unknowingly admitted to being a sexual predator of women: “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful–I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Donald Trump
- He refused to release his tax returns–unlike every other Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1980.
- He said he was prepared to withdraw from NATO, the American-European alliance that held the Soviet Union at bay for a half-century.
- He often and publicly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, the absolute dictator of a foreign power hostile to the United States.
- He publicly invited “Russia”–i.e., Putin–to interfere directly in an American Presidential election: “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Vladimir Putin
- He surrounded himself with men who have close ties to Putin. One of these was Paul Manafort, his former campaign manager. His longstanding ties to pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine lead directly to Putin.
- Another was Roger Stone, self-confessed political dirty trickster and former business partner of Paul Manafort. Stone had extensive contacts with hacker Guccifer 2.0, whom the CIA, NSA and FBI believe was actually a front for GRU, Russian military intelligence.
- Yet another Trump advisor, Roger Ailes, was a known sexual predator. Hired to prepare Trump for the fall debates with Clinton, he was fired in July as CEO of Fox News on multiple charges of sexual harassment.
- During the 2016 campaign, Trump received the enthusiastic support of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party.
Ku Klux Klan emblem
- Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates.
- After Bondi dropped the Trump University case against Trump, he wrote her a $25,000 check for her re-election campaign. The money came from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
- On November 18, Trump–rather than face trial–settled the case out of court for $25 million. “Today’s $25 million settlement agreement is a stunning reversal by Donald Trump,” said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, “and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.
- Throughout the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly used threats of violence to intimidate his Republican and Democratic opponents.
- On March 16, he warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.
- On August 9, Trump issued a veiled solicitation for the assassination of Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
- After slandering President Barack Obama for five years as “the President from Kenya,” he blatantly lied: “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 29, 2017 at 12:01 am
Future historians may one day write that it’s what didn’t happen that played at least as great a role in electing Donald Trump President as what actually did.
There were at least four instances where intervention by Federal law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2016 election.
Two of these dealt with purely domestic issues–the Trump University scandal and Trump’s repeated threats of violence against Republican and Democratic opponents.
The third and fourth ones dealt with events directly affecting the security of the United States.
It is unprecedented for an American Presidential candidate to repeatedly bestow fulsome praise on the leader of a foreign power hostile to the United States. And to receive equally fawning compliments in return from that leader.
Yet that is precisely what has happened between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
Thus Putin on Trump: “He is a bright personality, a talented person, no doubt about it. It is not up to us to appraise his positive sides, it is up to the U.S. voters. but, as we can see, he is an absolute leader in the presidential race.”
Vladimir Putin
And Trump on Putin: “It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond. He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country”–a clear attack on President Barack Obama.
Donald Trump
Case #3: The Justice Department did not invalidate the results of the 2016 election, despite overwhelming evidence that Russia intervened to elect Trump as Vladimir Putin’s chosen candidate.
- Admiral Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and US Cyber Command, said in mid-November that Russia made “a conscious effort” to sway the results of the Presidential election by the hacking of 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee.
- “There shouldn’t be any doubt in anybody’s mind,” said Rogers. “This was not something that was done casually. This was not something that was done by chance. This was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily. This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.”
- The Russians hacked the Democratic committee’s servers–but not those of the Republican National Committee.
- On December 16, FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. agreed with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the White House.
Trump, however, has steadfastly denied any such role by Russia: “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it. No, I don’t believe it at all.”
Case #4: The Justice Department did not prosecute Trump for treason, even though he solicited aid from Russia, a nation hostile to the United States. And no major official of the government–including President Obama–publicly condemned him as a traitor.
At a news conference in Doral, Florida, on July 27, 2016, Trump publicly exhorted “Russia”–i.e., Vladimir Putin–to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails: “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
This was essentially treason–calling on a hostile foreign power to interfere directly in an American Presidential election. And it was seen as such by both Democrats and even some Republicans.
- “This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent,” Hillary for America policy adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. “That’s not hyperbole, those are just the facts. This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue.”
- “I find those kinds of statements to be totally outrageous because you’ve got now a presidential candidate who is, in fact, asking the Russians to engage in American politics,” said former CIA Director Leon Panetta, a Clinton surrogate. “I just think that’s beyond the pale.”
- Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, said: “Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug. Putin should stay out of this election.”
- Trump’s Vice Presidential running mate, Mike Pence, said: “If it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences.”
FBI Director James Comey believed that Hillary Clinton’s emails on a private server were so dangerous to national security that he announced–11 days before the election–that he was re-opening an investigation he had closed.
That announcement erased widespread outrage over Trump’s unintended admissions of predatory behavior toward women–“Grab them by the pussy”–and reversed Clinton’s growing lead in the polls.
Yet the Bureau did not issue any such statements about the continuing reports of close ties between Trump and Putin, and Trump’s possible investments in Russia.
To their shame, the federal agencies charged with safeguarding America failed to take action against these abuses. And, to their shame, the news media, to date, has failed to indict them for their negligence.
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WHEN HUBRIS TAKES COMMAND
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 9, 2017 at 1:42 amOn June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered his powerful Wehrmacht to invade the Soviet Union.
Since September 1, 1939, his army had conquered Poland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France.
Now, he believed, it was time to “settle accounts” with the Soviet Union. Only there could Germany obtain the “living space” it “needed” for its expanding population.
And now seemed to be the perfect time to do it.
Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union, had decimated the Red Army with a series of purges in 1937-38. Its best officers had been shot as “enemies of the State.” Their replacements were untried in war—and fearful of showing initiative that might get them executed.
Adolf Hitler with his generals
At first, Hitler felt giddy with excitement. Turning to Alfred Jodl, his chief of operations of the Wehrmacht, he said: “We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”
But soon afterward–almost as if he had just looked into the future and seen that he had none–he told an aide: “At the beginning of each campaign, one pushes a door into a dark, unseen room. One can never know what is hiding inside.”
That certainly proved true for Hitler. Within four years, he was dead and the Red Army occupied Berlin.
Among the questions Hitler and his generals had refused to ask themselves—and answer:
By the end of the four-year conflict, all of these possibilities had become reality:
German soldiers marching through Russia
Now, fast forward from the Fuhrership of Adolf Hitler to the Presidency of Donald Trump.
During a July 19 meeting with his generals in the White House Situation Room, Trump said the United States was “losing” the war in Afghanistan. He blamed them for lacking a strategy to “win,” and suggested firing the top commander in the field, General John Nicholson.
Trump also asked the generals how the United States could take a portion of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth. He had previously said that the United States should have seized Iraq’s oil after America invaded in 2003.
Even more bizarrely, he repeatedly compared the war in Afghanistan to renovating the elite “21” Club in Manhattan.
Donald Trump
Trump claimed that after the restaurant had been closed for a year, a consultant suggested that a bigger kitchen be built in the establishment.
Trump told the generals that he would have been better served speaking to the waiters who worked there. And he added that he would do better speaking to veterans of Afghanistan rather than generals.
(Adolf Hitler displayed a similar obsession after the German Sixth Army was forced to surrender at Stalingrad on February 2, 1943. About 94,000 men fell into Russian hands.
(But what most infuriated Hitler was that Friedrich Paulus, the newly-promoted Field Marshal, had allowed himself to be taken prisoner. Hitler raged that Paulus should have committed suicide.
(Three times during his rant, Hitler spoke of a German woman who had killed herself after she found she could no longer go on. His point: If even a weak-willed woman could summon up the courage to take her own life, there was no excuse for a German soldier refusing to do so.)
Friedrich Paulus
Trump left the national security meeting without making a decision on a strategy. His advisers were stunned, administration officials and others briefed on the meeting said.
During the presidential campaign, Trump often boasted that he knew more than American military generals. This despite his having dodged the Vietnam war via five draft deferments.
American troops have been deployed in Afghanistan since October 7, 2001, when Operation Enduring Freedom was launched. The Taliban, which controlled the country, had refused to turn over Osama bin Ladin, the Al-Qaeda mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
About 8,400 members of the U.S. military are now currently serving in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. A total of 1,833 Americans have been killed in action there.
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