{"id":239524,"date":"2023-07-17T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2023-07-17T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=239524"},"modified":"2023-07-17T09:16:04","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T08:16:04","slug":"fear-and-loathing-on-air-force-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/07\/fear-and-loathing-on-air-force-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear and Loathing on Air Force One"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NATO summit and issuance ceremony of the Joint Declaration on Assistance to Ukraine. \u9996\u76f8\u5b98\u90b8\u30db\u30fc\u30e0\u30da\u30fc\u30b8 \/ Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

15 Jul 2023 – <\/em>Let\u2019s start with a silly fear but one that does signal the Democratic Party\u2019s growing sense of panic about the 2024 Presidential election. It was expressed to me by someone with excellent party credentials: that Trump could be the Republican nominee and will select Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his running mate. The strange duo will then sweep to a huge victory over a stumbling Joe Biden, and also take down many of the party\u2019s House and Senate candidates.<\/p>\n

As for real signs of acute Democratic anxiety: Joe Biden got what he needed before the NATO summit this week by somehow turning Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inside out and getting him to rebuff Vladimir Putin by announcing that he would support NATO membership for Sweden. The public story for Biden\u2019s face-saving coup was talk about agreeing to sell American F-16 fighter bombers to Turkey.<\/p>\n

I have been told a different, secret story about Erdogan\u2019s turnabout: Biden promised that a much-needed $11-13 billion line of credit would be extended to Turkey by the International Monetary Fund. \u201cBiden had to have a victory and Turkey is in acute financial stress,\u201d an official with direct knowledge of the transaction told me. Turkey lost 100,000 people in the earthquake last February, and has four million buildings to rebuild. \u201cWhat could be better than Erdogan\u201d\u2014under Biden\u2019s tutelage, the official asked, \u201cfinally having seen the light and realizing he is better off with NATO and Western Europe?\u201d Reporters were told, according to the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, that Biden called Erdogan while flying to Europe on Sunday. Biden\u2019s coup, the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0reported, would enable him to say that Putin got \u201cexactly what he did not want: an expanded, more direct NATO alliance.\u201d There was no mention of bribery.<\/p>\n

A June\u00a0analysis<\/a>\u00a0by Brad W. Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations, \u201cTurkey\u2019s Increasing Balance Sheet Risks,\u201d said it all in the first two sentences\u2014Erdogan won re-election and \u201cnow has to find a way to avoid what appears to be an imminent financial crisis.\u201d The critical fact, Setser writes, is that Turkey \u201cis on the edge of truly running out of usable foreign exchange reserves\u2014and facing a choice between selling its gold, an avoidable default, or swallowing the bitter pill of a complete policy reversal and possibly an IMF program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another key element of the complicated economic issues facing Turkey is that Turkey\u2019s banks have lent so much money to the nation\u2019s central bank that \u201cthey cannot honor their domestic dollar deposits, should Turks ever ask for the funds back.\u201d The irony for Russia, and a reason for much anger in the Kremlin, Setser notes, is the rumor that Putin has been providing Russian gas to Erdogan on credit, and not demanding that the state gas importer pay up. Putin\u2019s largesse has been flowing as Ergodan has been selling drones to Ukraine for use in its war against Russia. Turkey has also permitted Ukraine to ship its crops through the Black Sea.<\/p>\n

All of this European political and economic double dealing was done openly and in plain sight. Duplicity comes much differently in the United States.<\/p>\n

Careful readers of the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0<\/em>and the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0can sense that the current Ukraine counter-offensive is going badly because stories about its progress, or lack thereof, have mostly disappeared from their front pages in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

Last week Jake Sullivan, Biden\u2019s national security adviser, called in a few\u00a0journalists<\/a>\u00a0to insist that Putin\u2019s squabble with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner militia, was an armed mutiny that showed weakness in the Russian\u2019s leader command and control of his military. There\u2019s simply no evidence for such assertions. If anything, I was later told by those with access to current intelligence, that Putin emerged stronger than ever after the Prigozhin implosion, which led to the absorption of many of his mercenaries into the Russian army.<\/p>\n

Sullivan also took issue with the notion\u2014he apparently did not say where it originated\u2014that the Biden administration was paralyzed by the threat of a Russian nuclear attack and so would not fully support Ukraine. Such views were \u201cnonsense,\u201d he said, and cited Biden\u2019s recent controversial decision to provide cluster bombs to the Ukraine military. He suggested that the anti-personnel weapons\u2014each bomb can spread hundreds of bomblets\u2014could give Ukraine an edge in the war and prompt Putin to deploy nuclear weapons. \u201cIt is a real threat,\u201d Sullivan said, of a nuclear bomb. \u201cAnd it\u2019s one that does evolve with changing conditions on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only good news about such primitive and circular thinking, I have been told, is the impossibility at this point of any significant Ukraine success. \u201cBiden\u2019s principal issue in the war is that he\u2019s screwed,\u201d the informed official told me. \u201cWe didn\u2019t give Ukraine cluster bombs earlier in the war, but we\u2019re giving them cluster bombs now because that\u2019s all we got left in the cupboard. Aren\u2019t these the bombs that are banned all over the world because they kill kids? But the Ukrainians tell us they are not planning to drop them on civilians. And then the administration claims that the Russians have used them first in the war, which is just a lie.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn any case,\u201d the official said, \u201ccluster bombs have zero chance of changing the course of the war.\u201d He said the real worry will come later this summer, perhaps as early as August, when the Russians, having easily weathered the Ukraine assault, will counter-strike with a major offensive. \u201cWhat happens then? The US has painted itself in a corner by calling for NATO to do something. \u201cWill NATO respond by sending the brigades now training in Poland and Romania on an airborne assault?\u201d We knew more about the German army in Normandy in World War II than we know about the Russian army in Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

I have been told of other signs of internal stress inside the Biden administration. Undersecretary of State for Policy Victoria Nuland has been \u201cblocked\u201d \u2014a word used by one Democratic Party insider\u2014from being promoted to replace the much respected Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. Nuland\u2019s anti-Russian politics and rhetoric matches the tone and point of view of Biden and Secretary of State Tony Blinken. And a newcomer to the upper reaches of the American intelligence community\u2014CIA director Bill Burns\u2014trumpeted his love for Biden and his intense dislike of all things Russian, including Putin, in a speech on July 1 in England.<\/p>\n

Burns, a long-time diplomat who served as ambassador to Russia under George W. Bush as well as deputy secretary of state under Obama, had won the respect of a hard core of CIA officers and agents for his discrete handling of the nine-month planning and execution of the covert operation, approved by Biden, to destroy the\u00a0Nord Steam I and II pipelines<\/a>\u00a0running from Russia to Germany. He was the liaison between the intelligence team operating out of Norway and the Oval Office. When he asked how much he needed to know, he accepted the CIA\u2019s answer of \u201cvery little\u201d with aplomb.<\/p>\n

Burns was also known for his warning, published in a memoir after his retirement as ambassador, that continued expansion of NATO to the east\u2014NATO now is now on the verge of totally covering Russia\u2019s western border\u2014would inevitably lead to conflict.<\/p>\n

It was this nuance\u2014the notion that Putin could be pushed only so far\u2014that Burns recounted in the UK. \u201cOne thing I have learned,\u201d he said, \u201cis that it is always a mistake to underestimate Putin\u2019s fixation on controlling Ukraine and its choices, without which he believes it is impossible for Russia to be a major power or him to be a great Russian leader. \u2026 Putin\u2019s war already has been a strategic failure for Russia\u2014its military weaknesses laid bare; its economy badly damaged for years to come; its future as a junior partner and economic colony of China being shaped by Putin\u2019s mistakes; its revanchist ambitions blunted by a NATO which has only grown bigger and stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biden, who is not revered throughout the CIA, as many presidents have not been, was cited repeatedly during his speech. The highly respected intelligence official explained Burns\u2019s glowing words by telling me, cryptically, that all was in flux throughout the Biden national security bureaucracy. \u201cYes. Yes,\u201d he said in a message. \u201cBig shuffle. Big power struggle. Biden oblivious. All the ants fighting for the crumbs of a dying administration. Advised all the professionals inside to shelter in place. Wait and see the color of the smoke from the Vatican Chancellery. Explain Burns\u2019 Kool-Aid remarks in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was told that Burns\u2019s speech was essentially a job application in a future government, or perhaps in the one at hand, for secretary of state. \u201cHe was showing his competence and his experience,\u201d the official said,\u00a0\u201cHe realized that he was going down the grain, professionally, while\u00a0 at the Agency. He was awful\u201d\u2014that is, inexperienced\u2014\u201cbut he realized it was not going down well with the boys, and then he did right.\u201d The key issue for Burns, I was told, as some in the CIA saw it, was ambition. \u201cOnce you are a secretary of state, the world is your oyster.\u201d<\/p>\n

The official remarked that \u201crunning the CIA is not that much.\u201d He cited the example of Stansfield Turner, a retired Navy admiral who was appointed CIA director in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter. Turner and Carter had been midshipmen together at the US Naval Academy. After his retirement Turner ended up giving speeches on ocean cruises.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________<\/i><\/p>\n

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Seymour M. Hersh\u2019s investigative journalism and publishing awards include one Pulitzer Prize, five George Polk Awards, two National Magazine Awards, and more than a dozen other prizes for investigative reporting. Hersh won a National Magazine Award for Public Interest for his 2003 articles <\/em>\u201cLunch with the Chairman,\u201d \u201cSelective Intelligence,\u201d and<\/em> \u201cThe Stovepipe.\u201d In 2004 he exposed the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in a series of pieces; in 2005, he again received a National Magazine Award for Public Interest, an Overseas Press Club award, the National Press Foundation\u2019s Kiplinger Distinguished Contributions to Journalism award, and his fifth George Polk Award, making him that award\u2019s most honored laureate. He lives in Washington DC.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 popularresistance.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

15 Jul 2023 – A silly fear that signals the Democratic Party\u2019s panic about the 2024 Presidential election: Trump could be the Republican nominee and will select Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his running mate. The duo will then sweep to a huge victory over Joe Biden and take down many of the party\u2019s House and Senate candidates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":239525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[392,70],"class_list":["post-239524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","tag-elections","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239527,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239524\/revisions\/239527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}