WASHINGTON, DC – Trump and Kelly. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Axios’ Friday report noted: “Instead of being able to march into the Oval Office and hand Trump the latest Breitbart headline or printouts of tweets showing how badly his amnesty drive is playing with his fiercest nationalist supporters, aides opposing the decision would now have to go through the Kelly process, which would involve submitting an official, documented, request to meet with the president.”
White House staff secretary Rob Porter, who used to work for Trump critic Sen. Mike Lee, manages Trump’s news clips and briefing materials, according to the Axios report.
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President Donald Trump’s embrace of amnesty is in part due to White House chief of staff John Kelly blocking negative coverage from the president, according to a Friday report from Axios.
Trump has reversed his stance from the campaign trail and asked Congress last week to “legalize” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) amnesty program that protects roughly 800,000 illegal immigrants. The reaction has been negative from conservative commentators and news outlets.
Trump has paid attention to outlets like Breitbart and The Daily Caller in office, which have been highlighting Trump’s flip-flop, two sources who speak with the president told The Daily Caller. However, a recent report from The New York Times said that Kelly has started to take TheDC and Breitbart stories out of Trump’s pile of media reports.
This is part of Kelly’s new regime in which there is more control over the flow of information to Trump. Axios’ Friday report noted: “Instead of being able to march into the Oval Office and hand Trump the latest Breitbart headline or printouts of tweets showing how badly his amnesty drive is playing with his fiercest nationalist supporters, aides opposing the decision would now have to go through the Kelly process, which would involve submitting an official, documented, request to meet with the president.”
White House staff secretary Rob Porter, who used to work for Trump critic Sen. Mike Lee, manages Trump’s news clips and briefing materials, according to the Axios report.
And not only that: “When reflexively anti-American, anti-military outlets like Mother Jones, Slate and the Washington Post offer fawning praise for a Republican military commander, the reasons underlying those plaudits deserve further investigation. When anti-American, anti-military, George Soros-funded, extreme leftist smear operations like Media Matters go to war to defend a Trump political appointee, it casts a shadow on everything about the man. When the anti-American, terrorism-supporting, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated CAIR defends an American general, the alarm bells drown out all other sound.”
Indeed.
It’s probably useless to call upon Trump to fire McMaster at this point. McMaster and the swamp have triumphed over those who came to drain it. But maybe someday Trump will remember the principles and promises that got him elected, and the ringing declarations of his Inaugural Address of giving the government back to the people, and on that day, McMaster will finally be packing.
“BOMBTHROWERS EXCLUSIVE: National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster: A legend or a lie?,” by James Simpson, Bombthrowers, August 29, 2017 (thanks to John):
Fresh on the heels of a successful offensive in Mosul, Iraq, the Iraqi military is now poised to retake Tal Afar, long a hotbed of ISIS and other insurgent activity. Before we pulled out of Iraq, Tal Afar, like Fallujah, had been the focal point of multiple large-scale, costly offensives to eject entrenched insurgents. In 2005, then-Colonel H.R. McMaster led the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (3rd ACR) in the largest of these offensives, Operation Restoring Rights. His reputation as a brilliant military strategist rests largely on the results of that one battle. Given the widespread support for McMaster in the media and Washington establishment, it is ironic that current reporting largely fails to mention this battle or McMaster’s central role in it.
McMaster’s widely-hyped strategic acumen has been called into question by high-level military sources with personal knowledge of his conduct in the field. These sources spoke with me on condition of anonymity.
McMaster rests his laurels on the counter-insurgency strategy he claims won the Battle of Tal Afar, Iraq. But sources say McMaster ignored counter-insurgency experts and that his reckless leadership killed hundreds of Americans and almost lost the battle. The battle, the sources say, was won only through a valiant rescue mission that also suffered high casualties.
Until today this information has been suppressed.
Today, National Security Advisor McMaster is facing sustained criticism for his seemingly relentless opposition to Trump policies, his purging of many competent, conservative Trump loyalists from the National Security Council staff, and “protecting and coddling” 40 Obama holdovers — almost one-sixth of the NSC staff — who are plainly out to sabotage the Trump agenda.
Yet he continues to enjoy President Trump’s support. Is President Trump reluctant to fire McMaster for fear of criticism? Has he decided that McMaster’s reputed military genius is worth the cost? Or has he been thoroughly misinformed about McMaster’s character and competence? Who is H.R. McMaster really?
Lieutenant General (three-star) Herbert Raymond McMaster is a career Army officer still on active duty. He came to the Trump administration as a quick replacement for Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.), who resigned over controversies regarding his contacts with Russian officials. Whatever Flynn may have done wrong, his true sin was bucking the D.C. establishment, including many military leaders. And as frequently happens in Washington, when a strong conservative political appointee faces widespread (often manufactured) controversy, the knee-jerk reaction is to find a replacement the establishment likes. McMaster fits the bill.
On the surface, he appears to have the right resume. He has been awarded the Silver Star, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit and other medals, although John Kerry and many others have proved there are ways to get these medals without earning them. Most of this acclaim comes out of his service at the Battle of 73 Easting(1991), where in 23 minutes, McMaster’s nine M1A1 Abrams tanks and 12 Bradley Fighting Vehicles destroyed 30 Iraqi tanks and 14 armored vehicles. McMaster has been given credit for quick thinking and aggressive action, but his unit faced off against obsolete Iraqi T-55 and T-72 tanks operated by troops with inferior training. His unit was part of a larger operation that experienced similar success, ultimately destroying 85 tanks, 40 personnel carriers, and over 30 other vehicles. As George Dvorsky observes: “the [Republican Guard] didn’t have a chance.”
As the author of the 1997 book, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam, McMaster enjoys a reputation as something of a maverick, a fact which perhaps found favor in the unorthodox Trump administration. The book has been described as “the seminal work on military’s responsibility during Vietnam to confront their civilian bosses when strategy was not working.”
But McMaster’s reputation rests largely on the counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy applied at Tal Afar. It was later hailed by President George W. Bush, who said it, “gives me confidence in our strategy because in this city we see the outlines of the Iraq that we and the Iraqi people have been fighting for…” For once, the media agreed with Bush, published glowing reports on McMaster’s feats. Mother Jones and the Washington Postcalled him the “Hero of Tal Afar.” The left-leaning Slate.comcalls him“the Army’s smartest officer.”
Now leftists are coming out of the woodwork to defend McMaster against his conservative critics. Newsweek accuses the “alt-right” of attempting to smear McMaster, while genuine slime merchants like Media Matters for America are smearing his critics.
He is even being defended by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the propaganda arm of the Palestinian terrorist group HAMAS.
Okay, wait a minute.
When reflexively anti-American, anti-military outlets like Mother Jones, Slate and the Washington Post offer fawning praise for a Republican military commander, the reasons underlying those plaudits deserve further investigation. When anti-American, anti-military, George Soros-funded, extreme leftist smear operations like Media Matters go to war to defend a Trump political appointee, it casts a shadow on everything about the man. When the anti-American, terrorism-supporting, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated CAIR defends an American general, the alarm bells drown out all other sound. And officers who have witnessed his “leadership” in the unforgiving crucible of combat are now sounding the alarm.
National Security Council head McMasters (R) with U.S. President Trump (NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)
National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster is moving aggressively—and successfully—to maximize his power in the Trump Administration. President Trump is standing by his side as anti-Islamist writers and think-tanks like the Center for Security Policy call for his termination or reassignment.
McMaster’s ascent is a sudden change in the balance of power in the White House. President Trump was widely reported to be so disappointed with McMaster that Trump met with former U.N. ambassador John Bolton to discuss replacing him. Trump and Bolton concluded it was not the right move.
Then, Secretary of Homeland Security General John Kelly became the new chief of staff. He told McMaster that he wanted him to stay. McMaster’s chief rivals, Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and Deputy Assistant Dr. Sebastian Gorka, were then pressured into resigning.
The criticisms of McMaster are well-warranted and are not the fruits of overactive imaginations among bigoted “alt-right” smear-merchants, like Senator McCain characterizes them.
Here are 25 reasons that President Trump should fire National Security Adviser McMaster or, if he’s willing to, reassign him to a military position where he can excel on the battlefield as he did before.
1.He is not on board with Trump’s vision of waging an ideological war against radical Islam (or whatever terminology you prefer).
You simply cannot have a national security adviser who is at odds with the fundamental pillar of your national security strategy.
In that speech, he rejected the notion that jihadists are motivated by a religion-based ideology. Instead, he claimed they are motivated by “fear,” a “sense of honor” and their “interests,” which he described as the roots of human conflict for thousands of years. He recommended that the U.S. must begin “understanding those human dimensions.”
In May, McMaster stated in an interview that the jihadists “are not religious people.”
A source close to National Security Council (NSC) personnel revealed that McMaster opposed President Trump’s summit in Riyadh, one of the high points of his presidency thus far. McMaster felt it was “too ambitious.”
In Trump’s speech announcing his strategy for Afghanistan, words like “radical Islamic terrorism” were missing. This is clearly the influence of McMaster. In his resignation letter to Trump, Dr. Gorka referencedthese omissions and said it “proves that a crucial element of your presidential campaign has been lost.”
Here’s the Clarion take:
2.Endorsed a book favorable towards “non-militant” Islamists
In 2010, McMaster endorsed a book that states, as one of its central arguments, “It is the Militant Islamists who are our adversary…They must not be confused with Islamists.”
The book contends that our policy should not be aimed at Islamism overall but only Islamist terrorist groups. That is the mindset of those who advocate working with the “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood and the “moderate” Taliban.
McMaster describes the book as “excellent” and “deserv[ing] a wide readership.” Raymond Ibrahim reviewed the book and found serious errors, ones that now have dangerous consequences with McMaster as national security adviser.
3.Opposes designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization
Based on the above two issues, it should be no surprise that McMaster reportedly opposes designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
4.Opposes a tough stance on Qatar’s support of terrorism and extremism
McMaster opposed President Trump’s tough stance on Qatar when our Arab allies confronted the tiny country, despite the sea of proof that our so-called “ally” is a major sponsor of Islamist terrorism and extremism, including the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Al-Qaeda.
McMaster, like Secretary of Defense Mattis, was concerned about the U.S. base in Qatar.
This means that McMaster essentially supports allowing the Qatari government to use our own base—which protects them—to decide U.S.policies.
The UAE has recommended that we move the base. There are no indications that McMaster is advocating that we do that so we can exert more pressure Qatar in the future.
5.The book endorsed by McMaster legitimizes Hamas
Aaron Klein, a senior Middle East reporter, read the book that McMaster endorsed as “excellent” and, shockingly, found that the author never characterizes Hamas as a terrorist group. Instead, the author refers to Hamas as an “Islamist political group” that is among Islamists “who do not fit into a neat category.”
“The question for Americans is whether Hamas is an Islamist or Militant Islamist group,” the author, Youssef H. Aboul-Enein, writes.
He’s as wrong as someone can possibly be wrong. Beside the fact that Hamas has been designated by the U.S. as a Foreign Terrorist Organization for 10 years, there is no question that Hamas is a terrorist group. In fact, there isn’t much of a substantive difference between Hamas and ISIS.
Aboul-Enein’s argument is that the U.S. should only target “Militant Islamists” and not more generic Islamists. By questioning whether Hamas qualifies as Militant Islamist, Aboul-Enein is questioning whether the U.S. should target Hamas.
The book also moves the reader away from understanding that Islamists’ preaching of armed jihad rests upon a strong theological foundation. Based on Klein’s description, the author makes it sound as if Islamists are motivated by reasonable grievances against policies and then sit down and conjure up a convoluted way to describe their violent response as “jihad.”
If we don’t acknowledge the deep theological basis of the Islamists’ worldview, we will not be able to effectively respond to the ideology and its related narratives.
There is an important side note as well: Klein points out that the author of the book is the chair of Islamic Studies at National Defense University (which is funded by the Department of Defense) and a senior adviser and analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism. This means that these views are being taught to very important students.
6.McMaster believes terrorism is caused by disenfranchisement and lack of education
In his endorsement of the book, McMaster said, “Terrorist organizations use a narrow and irreligious ideology to recruit undereducated and disenfranchised people to their cause.”
Remember when the Obama Administration’s State Department spokeswoman was mocked by the left and the right for suggesting that ISIS needs to be countered by reducing unemployment and poverty?
That same view is held by our current national security adviser.
7.Preserving the Iran deal
McMaster is in favor of keeping the nuclear deal with Iran. His position resulted in the U.S. certifying that Iran is in compliance with the terms of the agreement. By claiming that Iran has been obedient, it bolsters the regime’s credibility and makes America look worse if we leave the deal later.
Former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz was on a conference call with McMaster before it was certified and explained to McMaster how Iran is violating the deal. When Fleitz asked why the administration would certify Iranian compliance despite evidence of non-compliance, McMaster failed to give a direct answer.
8.Failure to understand the Israeli-Palestinian theater of the war with Islamism
The ideological war against Islamism requires us to debunk Islamist propaganda against our allies.
It is now known that McMaster declined to defend our best ally in the Middle East when questioned about Israel’s conduct in its 2014 war with Hamas.
Israel’s extraordinary efforts to limit civilian casualties in the war have been well-documented. When McMaster was asked whether he would agree that the Israeli military fought ethically, he gave an incoherent answer and then admitted, “that’s kind of a non-answer, sorry, to your first question.”
McMaster tried to stop Trump from visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem and, when he realized he couldn’t win that argument, pressured Trump not to go with any Israeli official. McMaster twice refused to answer whether the Western Wall is part of Israel, saying, “That’s a policy decision.”
The Conservative Reviewreported that McMaster refers to Israel as an “illegitimate,” “occupying power,” according to three current and former officials from Trump’s inner circle.
Senior Middle East Annalyst Caroline Glick substantiates the accounts with her own sources who describe McMaster as “deeply hostile” to Israel.
According to these reports, McMaster has characterized Israeli security measures as “excuses” to oppress Palestinians and Israeli-Arabs. These sources also claim that he is not supportive of U.S. support for Israeli counter-terrorism efforts and shut down a joint initiative aimed at Hezbollah.
The initiative was led by Derek Harvey, who McMaster fired (more on that later).
McMaster is a big reason why there are increasing danger signs for Israel from parts of the Trump Administration. This has been recognized by the Zionist Organization of America, which is asking for McMaster’s reassignment.
9.Appointing Kris Bauman as top National Security Council adviser on Israel.
Kris Bauman was chosen in May as the top adviser on Israel for the National Security Council. Journalist Daniel Greenfield reviewed Bauman’s 2009 dissertation and found highly disturbing content.
As Clarion reported earlier this month, Bauman blamed Israel and the West for failing to see “Hamas’s signals of willingness to moderate” and turning Gaza “into an open-air prison.” He advocated a policy that includes “Hamas in a solution,” dismissing Hamas’ oft-stated pledge to destroy Israel and kill Jews until the end of time.
In his dissertation, Bauman cites The Israel Lobby, a book that purports to disclose how Israel secretly manipulates the U.S. institutions of power from behind-the-scenes. He says the “Israel Lobby” “is a force that must be reckoned with, but it is a force that can be reckoned with.”
Bauman clearly depicts Israel as the aggressor in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and, as Greenfield points out, equates Jewish settlers in the West Bank with Palestinian terrorists.
“It is true that one could make an analogous argument regarding Palestinian terrorism, but there is one major difference between the two. Israeli government control over settlement expansion is far greater than Palestinian Authority control over terrorism,” Bauman writes.
As to the failure of the “peace process,” he blames Israel as well as the West for its “overwhelmingly favored Israeli interests.” Prime Minister Netanyahu is blamed for “inciting Palestinian violence” and deliberately undermining the prospects for peace.
A consistent theme appears in Bauman’s thesis: Israel is the instigator of terrorism. To defeat terrorism, stop Israel. And now he is in a strong position in the National Security Council to try to make that happen.
10.Insubordination and constant drama
McMaster goes beyond honestly expressing himself to the president and crosses into insubordination, undermining the president’s agenda and contributing to dysfunction.
A strong example of McMaster’s well-known temper and ego was published in May by a prominent author who recalled how McMaster “went a bit batshit” because of an article he wrote where 95% of the content celebrated McMaster’s remarkable success in Iraq.
The other five percent focused on his forces’ initial mistakes and “mediocre” performance before adapting to the situation. And that set McMaster off. The author even quoted an expert who said McMaster’s success would become a “case study in classic counterinsurgency, the way it is supposed to be done.”
Even major supporters of McMaster who know him personally admit “he can be very intense.” The left-leaning Politico, which is more inclined to favor McMaster than his rivals, reports that his “temper is legendary” and he “frequently blows his top in high-level meetings.”
Politico described McMaster as an “increasingly volatile presence in the West Wing.” Three administration officials told the Daily Caller the same thing, with one describing the National Security Council as having a “poisonous environment.”
In addition to targeting Bannon and Gorka and anyone he sees as being in their camp, McMaster reportedly couldn’t even get along with Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who should be on his team. (The relationship is said to have improved, though.)
He also clashes with Secretary of Defense Mattis over military matters and Afghanistan. Mattis gave a dismissive response to these charges, however.
At his very first National Security Council meeting, McMaster immediately told those under him that President Trump is wrong to use the term “radical Islam” because the terrorists are “un-Islamic.”
Right away, he got to work building a coalition to wage internal battles.
When it came time for Trump’s Joint Address to Congress, McMaster fought tooth and nail to stop him from using the “radical Islam” terminology. He wrote and widely distributed throughout the government a memo criticizing the president.
Trump was very open that this would be his view. If McMaster couldn’t stand it, then he shouldn’t have accepted the appointment.
When President Trump and Chief Strategist Bannon asked McMaster for a list of holdovers from the Obama Administration that may be leaking inappropriate information to the press, he refused to cooperate and to fire them. He said hiring and firing was his prerogative and that most would be leaving anyway.
When President Trump said South Korea would have to help cover the cost of a missile defense system to defend them from North Korea, McMaster immediately told the South Koreans that Trump’s words weren’t actual policy. Trump was furious and screamed at him on the phone.
Trump is said to have confronted McMaster about the “general undermining of my policy.”
McMaster has worked hard to expand his fan club in the Trump Administration at the expense of those he disagrees with, particularly those closest to the president’s views.
The Washington Free Beaconreported earlier this month, “A White House official said McMaster appears to be trying to clear out anyone from the NSC staff who is outspokenly pro-Trump and has been slow-rolling the president’s directives that he disagrees with.”
In his resignation letter, Dr. Gorka wrote to Trump, “Regrettably, outside of yourself, the individuals who most embodied and represented the policies that will ‘Make America Great Again,’ have been internally countered, systematically removed, or undermined in recent months.”
As these internal battles have been waged, a steady stream of derogatory leaks have appeared in the media. Bannon has been blamed for anti-McMaster coverage at Breitbart, but McMaster somehow isn’t blamed for the leaks favorable to his side that appeared in the mainstream media. The pro-McMaster leaks substantiate why top generals saw him as a “publicity hound” in the military who advanced because of his closeness to General Petraeus.
11.Pushing out Chief Strategist Steve Bannon
On issues related to Islamism, Bannon was an important voice to have in the White House. He was a main proponent of designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and of waging an ideological war on Islamism.
Bannon understood the need to promote Muslim reform versus McMaster’s promotion of “non-Militant” Islamists. Shortly before his resignation on August 18, Bannon met with Dr. Daniel Pipes and Gregg Roman of the Middle East Forum, one of the most effective anti-Islamist organizations and promoters of Muslim modernist reformers.
Bannon was McMaster’s top target. McMaster had forced out many officials that he felt were too close to Bannon, personally and politically, apparently attempting to monopolize power as much as possible. After resigning, Bannon said, “No administration in history has been so divided.”
Bannon disagreed with McMaster on the April 6 airstrike on a Syrian airbase and the new strategy for Afghanistan. Although there are serious merits to the airstrikes and the new strategy for Afghanistan, it is absolutely essential to have the views Bannon represents be a part of the decision-making process. A good teammate can disagree with a decision but still improve the option that is ultimately chosen.
12.Pressuring Dr. Sebastian Gorka to resign
Dr. Sebastian Gorka, the deputy assistant to the president and author of Defeating Jihad, resignedreportedly due to pressure from McMaster and Chief of Staff Kelly.
Gorka and Bannon were the main proponents of designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Gorka is best known as the man who flattens the media like a human bulldozer. These viral TV segments earned the adoration of President Trump, who personally intervened to stop plans by his senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to move Gorka out of the White House and to a federal agency.
Trump’s satisfaction with Gorka and his success in handling the media should be considered important assets for an administration that struggles with messaging and perception. His book shows he is focused on a long-term plan for victory over Islamism.
Unfortunately for him, Chief of Staff Kelly disagreed with Trump and was reportedly “displeased” with Gorka’s popular television segments and McMaster saw him as part of the Team Bannon that he sought to conquer.
Gorka was also probably seen as too much of a political liability, as he had become the victim of one of the most vicious and meritless smear campaigns in recent memory.
However, Gorka’s media appearances, input and the ridiculousness of his enemies made him a political asset.
13.Sidelining K.T. McFarland
Shortly after McMaster took his post, Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland was transferred out. McMaster had the leading role in making it happen.
She became the ambassador to Singapore; not exactly a position where her national security experience is being used to its full potential. Among her viewpoints is supporting designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
14.Firing Ezra Cohen-Watnick
McMaster wanted to fire Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence programs at the National Security Council, right from the start. Watnick was initially saved by Bannon and Kushner.
Before joining the government, Cohen-Watnick organized an “Islamo-Fascism Awareness” event on his campus. He understands the issue of Islamist extremism and is passionate about it.
Watnick joined the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2010, became an intelligence officer and left in January 2017 for his senior National Security Council spot. He is believed to have entered the Defense Clandestine Service in 2012 and went to the CIA’s training facility known as “The Farm” in Virginia. He obviously had a strong background.
He was brought into the NSC by former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and, therefore, was seen as an ally of the Bannon-Gorka team inside the administration.
We don’t know much about what Watnick advocated while in the National Security Council aside from expanding U.S. operations against Iranian-backed militias in Syria.
Watnick was accused of improperly sharing intelligence with Rep. Devin Nunes, but there is disagreementover whether he did anything wrong. However, we know McMaster wanted to get rid of him right from the beginning, so this was probably just a good opportunity for a power play.
15.Trying to Hire Linda Weissgold
McMaster had already begun interviewing CIA official Linda Weissgold as Watnick’s replacement before Bannon and Kushner initially stopped him.
Under the Obama Administration, Weissgold was the director of the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis. That means she was responsible for the false talking points about the terrorist attack in Benghazi in September 2012.
16.Firing Retired Col. Derek Harvey
Last month, McMaster fired President Trump’s top Middle East adviser from the National Security Council. The reason, as explained by one senior White House official, is that McMaster “wants his own guy.”
Harvey had an exemplary record and was thought to have a good relationship with McMaster, going back to when they served together under General Petraeus. He was described as one of Petraeus’ “most trusted intelligence advisors in Iraq” during the remarkably successful surge that turned the situation around.
Harvey was fired because of policy differences and McMaster’s desire to win the internal power struggle and cement his group over the National Security Council. McMaster and Harvey disagreed on “nearly every” area, particularly when it came to radical Islam and Iran. Harvey advocated working more closely with Israel, Egyptian President Sisi and Saudi Arabia.
Harvey had also put together a proposal for how the Trump Administration could scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. McMaster “blasted” his performance on Iran policy but according to a senior official who spoke to the left-wing Daily Beast, Harvey “was stuck in a Catch-22 situation” because lower-level staff dragged their feet in helping him.
According to the Weekly Standard—a publication that is certainly not in the Bannon/Trump camp—McMaster fired him because he didn’t like how close Harvey was to Bannon. Another detailed account said McMaster was also irked by his closeness to Kushner.
The most complete story says that McMaster directly told Harvey not to get too close to Bannon and Kushner. Shortly before he was fired, McMaster saw him leaving Bannon’s office. The sources say Harvey actually didn’t talk to Bannon too much, but McMaster had asked for information about Trump’s foreign policy priorities and that necessitated a meeting with Bannon.
McMaster saw Harvey at Bannon’s office on a Friday. When Monday came around, McMaster’s executive officer, Ylli Bajraktari (a Pentagon official from the Obama Administration) reminded Harvey it is not a “good idea” to talk to Bannon. He was fired four days later.
One other report states that Defense Secretary Mattis complained to McMaster about Harvey. The more exhaustive account based on sources close to Harvey dispute elements of that account.
17.Replacing Harvey with Michael Bell
McMaster replaced Harvey with Michael Bell, who was the National Security Council’s director for Persian Gulf affairs.
Not surprisingly, Bell is on record for harshly criticizing then-Deputy Assistant Dr. Sebastian Gorka to the Washington Post. Bell claimed that Gorka was too biased on Islam-related issues, stopping just a few steps shy of hitting him with the “Islamophobe” label.
Clearly, McMaster was picking a team to go to war with the White House. There’s no other way to interpret this decision.
18.Ousting Adam Lovinger and Robin Townley
In May, National Security Counil analyst Adam Lovinger had his security clearance revoked for unclear reasons that Lovinger described as “puzzling and baseless.” He was then fired.
Lovinger was at the council on loan from the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, where he had served as a strategic affairs analyst for 12 years. He was a known Trump supporter and was brought into the council by Flynn. Therefore, he would have been seen by McMaster as a Bannon ally.
Caroline Glick described Lovinger as a “seasoned strategic analyst” who clashed with McMaster because he favored India over Pakistan. He also opposed the nuclear deal with Iran and supported the use of terminology like “radical Islam.”
Lovinger confirmed that his conservative views on foreign policy had irked bureaucrats, and he believes his clearance was taken away for political reasons.
The Washington Free Beaconreported on May 1 that “security clearances granting access to state secrets have become increasingly politicized in a bid by opponents to block senior advisers to President Trump.”
Another example of this happening is Robin Townley, who held a top secret clearance and was picked by former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn as the council’s senior director for Africa. The CIA declined to grant him the necessary security clearance for Sensitive Compartmented Information. A source close to Townley said it was a politically-motivated “hit job.
19.Ousting Tera Dahl
Tera Dahl, the National Security Council’s deputy chief of staff, transferred out of the council in June. She will likely be working at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Dahl was a writer for Breitbart and therefore seen as belonging to Bannon’s camp. She also co-founded a foreign policy think tank with Katharine Gorka, wife of now-former Deputy Assistant Sebastian Gorka (Katharine Gorka is currently an official adviser to the Department of Homeland Security’s policy office.)
Dahl was especially interested in Egypt. She is supportive of Egyptian President el-Sisi, arguing that his actions are helping to transition the country towards democracy and stability. She visited Egypt and believes he is getting unfair treatment by some Western media outlets and think-tanks who want to demonize him and exonerate his Muslim Brotherhood enemies.
The left-wing Buzzfeed described the change as a result of warring factions inside the White House over foreign policy. It explained, “The move frees up National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster to install another staffer of his choosing in his drive to reshape the NSC to his liking.”
Dahl is said to have expressed interest in transferring because she was close to National Security Council Chief of Staff Keith Kellogg, whose tensions with McMaster have “created an uncomfortable working environment at the NSC.”
The council’s spokesperson Michael Anton claims “it was always her intent to move into a policy role once this task [at NSC] was completed.”
20.Firing Rich Higgins
McMaster and/or his deputy, Ricky Waddell, fired the NSC’s director of strategic planning, Rich Higgins, on July 21.
Higgins has an extensive background of national security service and has a deep understanding of the Islamist ideology, its associated doctrines and how it interacts with political movements that Islamists find common cause with.
Higgins had a deep understanding of the Muslim Brotherhood and how Islamists got political access and impacted policy under the Bush and Obama Administrations. He studied how political correctness had resulted in cleansing counter-terrorism training and national security policy documents from references to the ideological basis of the threat.
Higgins was pushing for the declassification of documents related to radical Islam and Iran and, more specifically, Presidential Study Directive 11. He had good reason to do so.
There were reports that the previous administration was not disclosing important documents, including ones from Bin Laden’s compounds that contradicted its narratives about the nature of the Al-Qaeda threat and the group’s relationship with Iran.
Presidential Study Directive 11 is reportedly an assessment of Islamist movements in 2010-2011 by the Obama Administration that resulted in a secret recommendation to align with “moderate” Islamists in handling the Arab Spring.
If this is indeed what happened, the directive’s declassification is of the utmost importance for understanding the Islamist threat, the fruits of this strategy and the dynamics of the region, not to mention historical documentation.
Alarmingly, according to a Gulf News report, the Presidential Study Directive 11 documents were obtained by the Al-Hewar Center in Washington, D.C. and show that the U.S. decided to back the “political Islamists” including the Muslim Brotherhood.
McMaster reportedly “detonated” after coming across a seven-page memo that Higgins wrote which warned about a campaign by Islamists, Marxists, “bankers,” establishment Republicans and “globalists” to destroy the Trump presidency. The memo was given to Donald Trump Jr. and the president himself, who is said to have “gushed over it.”
Such a political memo would be inappropriate for the National Security Council. Its tone gives the impression of an author who sees all opposition to the Trump Administration as part of a seditious conspiracy. Its first reference is an interview between a member of the conspiratorial John Birch Society and a Soviet defector about “Jewish Marxist ideology.”
However, the memo was not intended for the NSC. It was a personal political analysis of how parties with various interests are trying to undermine the administration’s agenda.
According to Breitbart, Higgins used his personal computer to write the memo and did not use NSC time. He didn’t even use his NSC email to send it to anyone but himself. (He sent it from his personal email to his work email to print out.)
Another comprehensive Breitbart account says Higgins was fired on July 21 with several holdovers from the Obama Administration present and a Muslim woman with a hijab who worked as an equal employment officer. McMaster’s deputy, Ricky Waddell, told him it was his last day because “we’ve lost confidence in you.”
According to this account, McMaster was not responsible for the firing and hadn’t even read the memo. It was entirely the responsibility of Waddell. After the termination, parts of the memo were leaked to media outlets that would be most hostile to Higgins.
Regardless of whether Higgins’ firing was due to McMaster or Waddell, it was still done under McMaster’s leadership and was part of a broader push against perceived competitors.
President Trump was said to be “furious” at Higgins’ firing.
21.CAIR Comes to McMaster’s Defense
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a deceptive Islamist bulldog that tears into any opponent by falsely branding them as an Islamophobic bigot. The Justice Department identified the organization as a Muslim Brotherhood “entity” set up to support Hamas and designated it as an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism-financing trial.
CAIR slaps the “Islamophobe” label on practically everyone, obviously including almost every member of the Trump Administration. It has done so to Muslim adversaries, President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Democratic supporters of gun control measures to stop terrorists from obtaining firearms and White House Chief of Staff Kelly whose name was referenced in a letter thanking CAIR’s Florida branch.
But not McMaster.
When McMaster came under heavy criticism for his stances on Islamism-related issues, CAIR came to his defense. It branded his opponents as “Islamophobes” and “white supremacists.”
22.Reports of a possible CAIR official on his staff
Ayaan Hirsi Ali from presenting a paper on Islamist extremism to the National Security Council. There are unconfirmedreports that it was one of McMaster’s appointees who blocked Hirsi Ali. One account of the incident says she was also blocked from seeing President Trump.
Hirsi Ali is one of the most prominent women’s rights activists and anti-Islamist voices in the world. She is executive producer of the Clarion Project’s Honor Diaries documentary about the oppression of women in the Muslim world. She is a strong advocate for secular-democratic Muslim reformers.
The person who is said to have blocked her is Mustafa Javed Ali, who protested that she is an “Islamophobe.” According to one of the reports, a source said that Mustafa said “that the only way she could present the paper would be to have someone from CAIR come in to refute her work.”
Mustafa Javed Ali is reportedly a former “diversity outreach coordinator” for CAIR. However, there is no public confirmation to confirm this as his name does not appear on CAIR’s website.
23.Holdovers
An analysis by the Daily Caller found that about 40 of the 250 National Security Council officials are holdovers from the Obama Administration. Presumably, these officials would be very hostile to the Trump Administration’s agenda. They should be the first suspects in the ongoing stream of leaks from the NSC.
National security expert Jed Babbin identified four NSC officials who previously reported directly to Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, the Obama Administration official who boasted of creating an “echo chamber” in the media to promote the nuclear deal with Iran using “compadres” in the media to influence reporters who “literally know nothing.”
In July, McMaster told NSC staffers, “There’s no such thing as a holdover.” He was professing confidence that those who worked in the Obama Administration would loyally serve President Trump. Likewise, NSC spokesperson Michael Anton defended the holdovers as “stalwarts.”
As mentioned before, when Trump and Bannon asked McMaster for a list of holdovers that may be leaking to the press, he refused to cooperate and to fire them. He said hiring and firing was his prerogative and that most would be leaving anyway.
One former NSC staffer told the Daily Caller that McMaster has “protected and coddled them.”
Iran expert and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Ken Timmerman wrote a book titled Shadow Warriors in 2007 about how the Bush Administration was undermined by opponents within the governmental bureaucracies.
Timmerman’s observation should serve as a contemporary warning:
“George W. Bush never got the first rule of Washington: People are policy. He allowed his political enemies to run roughshod over his administration through a vast underground he never dismantled and never dominated.”
24.McMaster was an 11-Year Member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies
Breitbartdiscovered that McMaster was a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies from September 2006 until February 2017 when he became national security adviser. IISS was part of a campaign to promote the nuclear deal with Iran and gets funding from Islamist allies.
Its website shows that one of its top donors is the Open Society Foundation, formerly named the Open Society Institute, whose founder and chairman is left-wing partisan activist George Soros. The foundation donated between 100,000 and 500,000 euros (roughly $120,000-$600,000) to the IISS.
The Open Society Foundation is motivated by hyper-partisanship and works hard to defend American Islamists and slander opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood as bigots.
For example, it financed the Fear Inc. reports about the “Islamophobia Network” that is a powerful weapon in the Islamists’ and Regressive Left’s arsenal for character assassination and protecting groups like CAIR.
IISS also has Ploughshares Fund as a major donor, giving between 25,000 and 100,000 euros (about $30,000-$119,000). The Plougshares Fund is also funded by Soros and his entities like Open Society.
When Ben Rhodes boasted about orchestrating the “echo chamber” to promote the nuclear deal with Iran, he specifically mentioned Ploughshares as his example of an outside group he utilized.
The president of Ploughshares, Joseph Cirincione, is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Plougshares specifically listed IISS, the group that McMaster belonged to, as the recipient of a grant for work on Iran issues in 2016.
Soros’ Open Society Foundation/Institute donated about $70,000 overall to selling the Iran deal, but other entities funded by Soros gave more. Ploughshares donated at least $800,000.
Ploughshares also donated over $400,000 to the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), which has long been accused of being a lobby for the Iranian regime. Ploughshares also awarded $70,000 to Princeton University to sponsor the work of former Iranian regime official Seyed Hossein Mousavian. The Heritage Foundation’s James Phillips writes, “This essentially amounted to subsidizing Iran’s propaganda efforts inside the United States.”
As Breitbart’s Aaron Klein shows, IISS was a loyal contributor to the Rhodes-Plougshares “echochamber.” It supported the deal and defended Iran against accusations of violations. It cast doubt on concerns that Iran and North Korea work on WMD together. And it criticized Trump’s attitude towards Iran.
IISS also receives funding from many companies that profited from the Iran deal like ExxonMobil. Its list of donors includes many governments, both allies and adversaries of the U.S.
Governmental donors of concern include Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Brunei, Kuwait, Russia and China.
25.President Trump is frequently unhappy with McMaster’s performance.
As mentioned before, President Trump has confronted McMaster about his “general undermining of my policy” and was furious at him for telling South Korea to basically ignore Trump’s words.
Trump complains that McMaster talks too much at meetings and has described him as a “pain.” There have been multiple articles indicating that Trump might be on the cusp of firing McMaster.
“I am at a pain to find an issue that H.R. actually aligns with the president, except for the desire to actually win and beat ISIS. That’s the only one,” said one administration official.
A former senior NSC official said, “I know that the president isn’t a big fan of what McMaster’s doing. I don’t understand why he’s allowing a guy who is subverting his foreign policy at every turn to remain in place.”
Trump has reportedly said in private that he regrets choosing McMaster as national security adviser and went so far as to meet with former U.N. ambassador John Bolton to float the possibility of him replacing McMaster. Bolton and Trump agreed that it was not the right move.
At the time, McMaster blasted the media for its downplaying of Iran’s role in murdering U.S. troops.
This led to many people’s (including this author’s) initial enthusiasm for him as national security adviser despite his statement in 2014 that the “Islamic State is not Islamic.”
Thinking it unfathomable that Trump would choose someone who is so fundamentally at odds with his national security vision, many chalked up the statement to a clumsy articulation of the U.S. position that ISIS shouldn’t be treated as the representative of the Muslim world.
But what was once unfathomable has become reality.
McMaster performed well as a military commander fighting an insurgency. If he is to continue serving the Trump Administration, then he should be reassigned to focus on taking his success in Iraq and repeating it in Afghanistan.
According to the Daily Caller, about 40 of the 250 officials on the National Security Council (NSC) are Obama administration holdovers. Their boss, H.R. McMaster, has instructed that these folks not be called “holdovers.” This might make sense from a team-building perspective. But since I’m not part of the team, they will be referred to as holdovers in this post.
The Daily Caller’s Richard Pollock and Ethan Barton profile some of them. They report that Allison Hooker remains NSC director for Korea, no backwater job given current circumstances. According to Pollock and Barton, Hooker is “an architect of former President Barack Obama’s Korean policy.” This may be a reach because they also say she joined the NSC in 2014, by which time Obama administration Korea policy was in place.
Nonetheless, President Trump has denounced Obama’s Korea policy — “strategic patientce” — in harsh terms. Thus it’s surprising to find his administration’s NSC adviser on Korea still in place more than half a year into the Trump administration.
Pollock and Barton report that McMaster’s director for South America is Fernando Cutz. He received his master’s degree in international relations from the Clinton School of Public Service in or around 2010.
The Clinton School operates on the grounds of the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock.
According to Pollock and Barton, Cutz, who previously reported to former deputy NSC advisor Ben Rhodes, enthusiastically endorsed Obama’s Cuba policy throughout his tenure as an NSC staffer. He helped plan and organize Obama’s trip to Cuba.
Andrea Hall is another holdover who reported to Ben Rhodes. She serves as NSC’s senior director for weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and threat reduction.
Pollock and Barton cite a paper she published in December 2002, while earning her doctorate, in which she criticized the West for not doing enough for Vladimir Putin. She wrote that “Russia has received few tangible benefits from its cooperation with the United States,” and claimed that Washington was “ignoring Russian concerns.” She added:
Given that Putin has received significant criticism for his foreign policy concessions and that he has valid concerns about the Russian economy, Washington would be wise to help Russia achieve some of its goals as well in order to cement this partnership.
In fairness to Hall, this thinking does not seem inconsistent with Trump’s. Coincidentally (or maybe not), it mirrors the “blame America first” attitude of McMaster’s Israel-Palestine guy, Kris Bauman. He blamed Israel and the Bush administration for undermining the peace process by failing to recognize Hamas’ moderation.
Rear Adm. David Kriete, another Obama holdover, is NSC’s director for strategic capabilities policy and responsible for policy on nuclear weapons-related issues. According to Pollock and Barton, he was a representative to the interagency panel that wrote Obama’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, which reflected the former chief executive’s vision of a “nuclear-free world.”
That document received considerable criticism from conservatives. According to Pollock and Barton, “National Review” found that it “undermines the basis of the deterrent policy that has helped maintain the peace for more than 60 years.”
Pollock and Barton discuss several other holdovers. However, the four discussed above strike me as the most problematic.
Michael Anton, an NSC spokesman and author of the famous “Flight 93 Election” article, told the Daily Caller that all of the holdovers (I assume he didn’t use that word) are “stalwarts” who faithfully follow the president’s foreign and military policies. I have no reason to believe that any holdover is insubordinate.
However, the NSC can help shape a president’s foreign and military policies. That’s particularly true where, as here, (1) the president lacks experience with, or apparent in-depth knowledge of, foreign policy issues and (2) the national security adviser is extremely aggressive.
Thus, the cliche “personnel is policy” seems particularly apt in the context of this NSC staff. That’s why it’s reasonable to be concerned about some of the Obama holdovers and about McMaster’s purge of some pro-Trump staffers.
(Once again, McMaster has to go. Not just soon; now.– DM)
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster listens as President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after a security briefing at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., Thursday, Aug. 10, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
When CAIR labels someone an Islamophobe, or outs an organization as fueling Islamophobia, one has to wonder: Is this really Islamaphobia? Or is this rather the pro-Muslim-at-all-costs CAIR trying to silence any and all critics and criticisms of Islam?
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H.R. McMaster, President Trump’s choice of national security adviser, has what some say is a shady record of defense of Israel — and what others outright label as subversive to America’s interests.
CAIR isn’t exactly down the middle on Palestinian-Israel affairs — or kind to those who dare to criticize Islam and point to the religion’s oh-so-frequent tie-in with acts of terror and terrorists.
But worse, CAIR couldn’t just defend McMaster on his record. The group had to outright name-call and blast those who see McMaster as a poor national security adviser choice — and as everybody knows, the left’s most pulled weapon, when logic fails, is the verbal attack.
This is what CAIRtweeted: “#CAIR Islamophobia Watch: Islamophobes, white supremacists launch campaign to oust H.R. McMaster after he fired …” And the sentence is completed in a link to the article CAIR included: “… a number of their allies from the National Security Council.”
Suddenly, a story that’s stayed largely beneath the surface of a media world — one that’s been occupied by Russia collusion investigations, North Korea aggressions and Trump rhetoric — is front and center. The reason?
When CAIR labels someone an Islamophobe, or outs an organization as fueling Islamophobia, one has to wonder: Is this really Islamaphobia? Or is this rather the pro-Muslim-at-all-costs CAIR trying to silence any and all critics and criticisms of Islam?
The Center for Security Policy just this week called for the firing of McMaster for “disloyal and subversive behavior,” accusing the adviser of undermining Trump on “virtually every important and foreign and defense policy issue.”
A few days before that, a columnist with the Jerusalem Post wrote of her worry with McMaster’s penchant for “constantly refer[ring] to Israel as the occupying power and insist[ing] falsely and constantly that a country named Palestine existed where Israel is located until 1948 when it was destroyed by the Jews.”
And in between, the Zionist Organization of America — one of the few Jewish groups to stand strong in the pro-Trump camp — claimed McMaster was undermining the White House on Middle East policy, particularly relations between the United States and Israel. ZOA also accuses McMaster of intentionally firing pro-Israeli voices on the National Security Council and replacing them with individuals with more hostile takes on the Jewish nation.
In a report, ZOA called for Trump to “remove General McMaster from his current position and reassign him to another position where he can do no further harm on these critical national security issues.”
Trump, meanwhile, has doubled down on support for McMaster, saying he still has confidence in his adviser. At the same time, there was this, just in from The Week: “Trump is reportedly ‘furious’ that McMasterfired an NSC staffer behind a Trump-under-attack memo.”
That staffer’s name? Rich Higgins, now-fired director of strategic planning and the author of a seven-page memo, “POTUS & Political Warfare,” a reported roadmap of sorts to topple Trump that was being circulated among likeminded members of Trump’s administration.
That was all part and parcel of McMaster’s housecleaning of Mike Flynn holdovers — a determination of friend versus foe and subsequent purge.
But the whispers about McMaster’s anti-Israel bent are growing louder. And now that chatter’s been ratcheted with the entrance of CAIR.
One fact about CAIR: In 2009, a federal judge ruled the government had “ample evidence” linking CAIR to Hamas.
The fact this group has now risen to defend McMaster and slam his critics as white supremacists and Islamophobes is only further fuel — for the fiery calls for Trump to oust him.
Higgins was fired by the national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, July 21 after the memo came to McMaster’s attention as part of an internal search for leaks from the staff.
A White House official said McMaster appears to be trying to clear out anyone from the NSC staff who is outspokenly pro-Trump and has been slow-rolling the president’s directives that he disagrees with.
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A White House National Security Council official has charged that leftist opponents of President Trump are engaged in political warfare operations designed to subvert his presidency and drive him from office.
Rich Higgins, until recently director of strategic planning at the NSC, revealed the program in a seven-page memorandum produced in May that warns of a concerted information warfare campaign by the Marxist left, Islamists, and political leaders and government officials opposed to the populist president.
“The Trump administration is suffering under withering information campaigns designed to first undermine, then delegitimize and ultimately remove the president,” Higgins states.
“This is not politics as usual but rather political warfare at an unprecedented level that is openly engaged in the direct targeting of a seated president through manipulation of the news cycle,” he said.
Higgins, an Army veteran and former Pentagon official who specialized in irregular warfare and who was dismissed last month for writing the memo, said the attacks should not be confused with normal partisan political attacks or adversarial media attention.
The former aide criticized the White House for failing to counter the activities and said the political warfare attacks threaten the Trump presidency.
“The White House response to these campaigns reflects a political advocacy mindset that it is intensely reactive, severely under-inclusive and dangerously inadequate to the threat,” he said. “If action is not taken to re-scope and respond to these hostile campaigns very soon, the administration risks implosion and subsequent early departure from the White House.”
Higgins was fired by the national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, July 21 after the memo came to McMaster’s attention as part of an internal search for leaks from the staff.
Higgins’s firing, along with that of two other NSC conservatives, Derek Harvey and Ezra Cohen-Watnick, has set off political infighting and charges from conservatives that National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster is opposing Trump’s populist policies in favor of maintaining the policies of the former Obama administration.
Harvey, a retired Army colonel, recently complained to McMaster about the large number of officials who were kept on at the NSC from the Obama administration. He was told by McMaster that he has a “leadership problem,” according to people close to the matter.
Cohen-Watnick was senior director for intelligence programs at the NSC and ran afoul of McMaster because of his conservative views.
A White House official said McMaster appears to be trying to clear out anyone from the NSC staff who is outspokenly pro-Trump and has been slow-rolling the president’s directives that he disagrees with.
According to White House sources, Trump is said to be unhappy with McMaster and has considered dispatching him to Afghanistan.
A possible replacement is said to be CIA director Mike Pompeo, who is regarded as more of a Trump loyalist.
An NSC spokesman declined to comment.
Foreign Policy first published the memo on Thursday and quoted sources as saying Trump read it and “gushed over it.”
Higgins urged in the memo that immediate action be taken to counter what he described as a campaign of subversion reflecting “cultural Marxist” narratives used by political leftists who are aligned with Islamist groups.
“In candidate Trump, the opposition saw a threat to the ‘politically correct’ enforcement narratives they’ve meticulously laid in over the past few decades,” Higgins said. “In President Trump, they see a latent threat to continue that effort to ruinous effect and their retaliatory response reflects this fear.”
During the presidential campaign, Trump was able to break through the leftist narratives and as a result the political left regards him as “an existential threat to cultural Marxist memes that dominate the prevailing cultural narrative.”
“For this cabal, Trump must be destroyed,” he said. “Far from politics as usual, this is a political warfare effort that seeks the destruction of a sitting president. Since Trump took office, the situation has intensified to crisis level proportions.”
The opponents also include officials within the permanent government apparatus, also called the Deep State.
Other opponents are supporting the Marxist subversion, including those within government, along with “globalists, bankers, Islamists, and establishment Republicans.”
“Globalists and lslamists recognize that for their visions to succeed, America, both as an ideal and as a national and political identity, must be destroyed,” Higgins said.
The political warfare campaign seeks to exploit differences in society based on sexism, racism and xenophobia narratives. The program is implemented by mainstream media, and the academic community is the main driver promoting the imposition of cultural Marxism and derivatives of it.
Islamists, supporters of political Islam in the United States, also are working with leftists who they regard as having the best chance of reducing Western civilization to the benefit of Islamic supremacists. The Islamists are seeking to divide American society against itself as a way of undermining stability.
“This is the intended outcome of hostile information cum political warfare campaigns and today we see their effects on American society,” he said.
Higgins also said a complicating factor in the political warfare program is that “many close to the president have pushed him off his message when he was candidate Trump thus alienating him from his base thereby isolating him in the process.”
The political warfare follows the insurgency methods used by Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong. “In Maoist insurgencies, the formation of a counter-state is essential to seizing state power,” he said. “Political warfare operates as one of the activities of the ‘counter-state’ and is primarily focused on the resourcing and mobilization of the counter state or the exhaustion and demobilization of the targeted political movement.”
In the Marxist strategy and tactics, political correctness is being used to foster intolerance of political movements of the right and toleration of leftist movements.
The attack narratives being used are pervasive and can be seen in social media, television, and the 24-hour news cycle in all media, as well as within the foreign policy establishment. “They inform the entertainment industry from late night monologues, to situation comedies, to television series memes, to movie themes,” Higgins said. “The effort required to direct this capacity at President Trump is little more than a programming decision to do so. The cultural Marxist narrative is fully deployed, pervasive, full spectrum and ongoing.”
Information attacks against the president are carried out through overt publicity and covert propaganda and infiltration and subversion means.
The current campaign against Trump is seeking to delegitimize the president, his administration, and the vision of America he promoted as a candidate.
Key major opposition themes are that Trump is illegitimate, corrupt, and dishonest. Secondary political attacks include the notion that Russia hacked the election, Trump obstructed justice and is hiding Russian collusion, and that he is a “puppet” of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“Adversaries utilize these interlocking narratives as a defensive political and information warfare screen that silences critics and smears supporters of President Trump,” Higgins said.
“When people in the media question the behavior, actions and decisions of the Trump administration’s opponents, they are immediately said to be ‘working for the Russians’ or ‘supporting Russian propaganda.'”
Additionally Americans who support the president are deemed “deplorable” and “racist.”
“Attacks on President Trump are not just about destroying him, but also about destroying the vision of America that lead [sic] to his election,” Higgins said.
Higgins concluded the memo by noting that defending the president is a defense of the United States. “In the same way President Lincoln was surrounded by political opposition both inside and outside of his wire, in both overt and covert forms, so too is President Trump.
“Had Lincoln failed, so too would have the Republic. The administration has been maneuvered into a constant backpedal by relentless political warfare attacks structured to force him to assume a reactive posture that assures inadequate responses. The president can either drive or be driven by events; it’s time for him to drive them.”
(We elected Trump to be our President. But who is running the Trump administration? — DM)
But Mattis and McMaster have forced out Derek Harvey. And it’s up to President Trump to act. Or to let the McMaster-Mattis swamp control his foreign policy. And make sure it’s Jeb Bush’s foreign policy.
Derek Harvey was the key figure when it came to the Middle East. He was against the Iran Deal and the funding of Palestinian Authority terror. He called out Islamic Jihad. He tried to force out the Obama holdovers running our foreign policy.
And now he’s gone.
McMaster’s purge at the NSC continues. Flynn’s people get forced out and replaced with establishment zombies. The Obama holdovers continue to run foreign policy. The swamp is now in full control of the NSC.
This one is a really big win for McMaster. And a great loss for America. It will set back our ability to fight Islamic terrorism. Iran, Al Qaeda and the Palestinian Authority are celebrating today.
But Mattis and McMaster have forced out Derek Harvey. And it’s up to President Trump to act. Or to let the McMaster-Mattis swamp control his foreign policy. And make sure it’s Jeb Bush’s foreign policy.
Derek Harvey, a top Middle East adviser to President Donald Trump, has been fired from his position at the National Security Council, effective today…
Two sources tell TWS that Harvey’s departure is not a direct result of the internecine staff fighting, but he was viewed by some top Trump aides as too close to Steve Bannon
Harvey has experience as an intelligence officer, as an analyst at military commands, American embassies, and in the Defense Intelligence Agency. He’s viewed as an out-of-the-box thinker who has shown a keen knack for identifying threats before they’ve matured.
Here’s how Bob Woodward described Harvey in his 2008 book The War Within:
“In the late 1980s, Harvey traveled throughout Iraq by taxicab—500 miles, village to village—interviewing locals, sleeping on mud floors with a shower curtain for a door. He [was] full of questions, intensely curious and entirely nonthreatening. After the 1991 Gulf War, when the CIA was predicting the inevitable fall of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Harvey, then a major, insisted that Hussein would survive because members of the Sunni community knew their fortunes were tied to his. He was right. Months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Harvey wrote an intelligence paper declaring that al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan posed a strategic threat to the United States.”
Harvey hasn’t been afraid to call out Islamic terrorism as a threat. And he was the point man for trying to force out the Obama holdovers.
That dispute was followed by a bigger one. Bannon and Trump, according to White House officials, pressed McMaster to fire a list of Obama holdovers at the National Security Council who were suspected of leaking to the press. The list of names was compiled by Derek Harvey, a former Defense Intelligence Agency colonel who was initially hired by Flynn. McMaster balked. He refused to fire anyone on the list and asserted that he had the authority to fire and hire National Security Council staff. He also argued that many of these appointees would be ending their rotation at the White House soon enough.
Instead the holdovers forced him out. McMaster and Mattis and Obama won. Again.
Harvey has been a firm opponent of the Iran Deal. He’s not perfect on Islam, but he has emphasized the theological connection to Islamic terrorism. And he tried to halt the funding of Palestinian Authority terrorism.
Haaretz has learned that Harvey – whose appointment was reported Thursday in The Wall Street Journal – was one of the officials who earlier this week instructed the U.S. State Department to issue a statement saying it was reexamining the outgoing administration’s decision to transfer $221 million to the Palestinian Authority during President Barack Obama’s last hours in office.
A government source described Harvey as “the new Rob Malley,” referring to the former Obama administration official who was in charge of Middle East affairs at the outgoing NSC.
But while Malley’s background was mostly academic and diplomatic, Harvey spent most of his adult life either in uniform or working for the intelligence community.
Harvey has also published articles and analyses, many of them critical of the Obama administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East.
Harvey called to strengthen the U.S. relationship with Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. “Why won’t President Obama talk to Egyptian President Sisi [sic]? Sisi has taken on the threat of violent, intolerant Islamic jihadism at great personal risk. Obama will reconcile with the Castro brothers and Iranian Mullahs but won’t talk to a friend like President Sisi,” Harvey wrote.
“They’re ignoring the intelligence — and I think Secretary Kerry, I hate to say it, must be smoking dope,” Harvey was quoted as saying on “Newsmax Prime.” “He is not paying attention to the intelligence and he does not understand the enemy with his statements.”
The left hated Derek Harvey for his views.
Harvey shares Trump’s belief that in order for the United States to prevail in its fight against the self-declared Islamic State, al-Qaida, their various offshoots and a variety of other groups, American officials need to declare that the country is at war with “radical Islamic extremism” or the “radical jihadist agenda” or “militant Islam” — all of which he uses interchangeably. On his blog, which has been shut down since he joined the Trump administration, Harvey argued that Obama’s failure to do so hampered the effort against such groups.
It really is past time to drain the foreign policy swamp.
House Judiciary Committee member Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) said that the House Intelligence Committee has already brought in some “big names” — “more than the press knows” — to answer questions about leaks of classified information to reporters.
When asked by Hugh Hewitt on MSNBC Saturday morning whether the committee was planning to call up Obama’s former “foreign policy guru,” Ben Rhodes, DeSantis said that he’s spoken to the committee’s chairman, Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, about Rhodes but that he would defer to Gowdy to identify people of interest in the leak investigation.
DeSantis, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon last week that President Trump needs to purge Obama holdovers still working in the federal government.
DeSantis told the Beacon that “the holdovers and their allies outside the White House are responsible for an unprecedented series of national security leaks aimed at damaging the Trump administration’s national security apparatus.”
He singled out Obama’s chief propagandist, Ben Rhodes, as the person responsible for most of the leaks and called on Congress to press Attorney General Jeff Sessions and others to make sure they are looking into the situation.
DeSantis told Hewitt that he has drafted a letter to send to Sessions, asking that he investigate the leaks.
So I’ve prepared a letter. We’re going to be sending that next week, I imagine I’ll have a number of my colleagues joining it, asking the Justice Department to look into all these things, but then report back to us whether they are doing it or not, because, Hugh, you know, you’re very knowledgeable in national security.
We have certain intelligence authorities that are coming up for review this year. And if you don’t have anyone, say, being prosecuted for the Michael Flynn leaks, that was FISA material, then you’re not going to be able to do things like reauthorize 702 of the FISA statute, which is due by the end of the year. So I think if there’s no action being taken, I think it actually has a big effect on what we’re able to do in Congress.
And I’m somebody, I want to empower our intelligence agencies. I think it’s very important. But it’s very difficult to make that case to the American people if that information is then being used for domestic political warfare.
Asked if he would call Rhodes in to testify, DeSantis replied:
I’ve talked to Chairman Gowdy about it, and remember, they are doing things on the Intelligence Committee, and they’re doing a lot more than what the press knows in terms of some of the people that they have brought in. And they’ve brought in some pretty big names that I’m not authorized to say. So I want to defer to his judgment about whether that would be more appropriate in terms of the leak investigation that they’re doing on the Intelligence Committee. But I would like to bring him in to talk to him about it, because I want to figure out how all this information was getting out from the FISA intercept on…
DeSantis differentiated between the leaks that are coming from Obama holdovers in the Trump administration and standard “whistleblower” leaks. These leaks, he argued, are an attack on the president.
“It’s not just people are leaking because they think something was wrong with the government and they want some sunlight,” DeSantis explained. “But this is concerted leaks designed to attack the sitting president. So I think the character of the leaks are different, and I think Comey’s leaks are part of that bushel.”
He cited as an example how conversations Trump has had with a foreign leaders have gone through the National Security Council and somehow ended up on the front page of the newspaper.
“And so we’ve gotten lot of information saying look, there’s only so many places that would come from,” the congressman said. “And the Obama holdover working with Rhodes, that’s a place we’ve been encouraged to look. So I want to look at that, because I think that it’s distorted the president’s ability to simply conduct foreign relations if there’s going to be selective leaking of his conversations with foreign leaders in ways that are damaging to him or at least purporting to damage him. That’s not the way we want our government to function.”
To answer his final question, Hewitt called on DeSantis to use his “prosecutorial chops”:
“If you had to guess who was going to get indicted, if anyone – Donald Trump Jr., James Comey or Ben Rhodes — what would your guess be?” he asked.
DeSantis answered: “I want to know what are in those Comey memos and see whether there’s classified information. I mean, I don’t think Donald Trump Jr. is going to get indicted. I think he had a meeting. I don’t think a criminal offense was committed. In terms of the political judgment, I think that’s fair to criticize. But I don’t think that there was a crime committed there.”
Steve Bannon, Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor to U.S. President Donald Trump attends the swearing in ceremony for Nikki Haley as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in Washington, DC. (Rex Features via AP Images)
President Donald Trump reportedly removed his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, from the National Security Council on Wednesday as part of a broader reorganization of the NSC.
Trump has reorganized his principal forum to consider national security matters by removing his top strategist and downgrading Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert, according to Bloomberg, which obtained a presidential memorandum on the NSC shakeup.
Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, was given authority to set the agenda of the NSC.
The changes also allow the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, to again be regular attendees of the NSC’s principals committee.
Bannon was appointed to the NSC earlier this year as part of a reorganization that drew intense opposition from members of Congress and foreign policy experts.
One White House official told Bloomberg that Bannon was initially elevated to the NSC to keep an eye on former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, but never attended a meeting. Now with Flynn gone, Bannon is no longer needed, the official said.
In totalitarian systems where the media does nothing but churn out propaganda, people learn to read between the lines. You understand what is really going on by inferring what they don’t want you to know from what they do what you to know.
The interesting thing about the current political conflict is which key anti-terrorist Trump figures are being targeted. Flynn was a major target. Then Gorka. The case of Gorka made the targeting obvious. You can tell the targeting when if the first attack fails, they come back with a second one.
Now there’s Ezra Watnick-Cohen. He showed up in the news recently when McMaster attempted to replace him with an establishment infiltrator.
President Donald Trump has overruled a decision by his national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, to sideline a key intelligence operative who fell out of favor with some at the Central Intelligence Agency, two sources told POLITICO.
On Friday, McMaster told the National Security Council’s senior director for intelligence programs, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, that he would be moved to another position in the organization.
The conversation followed weeks of pressure from career officials at the CIA who had expressed reservations about the 30-year-old intelligence operative and pushed for his ouster.
But Cohen-Watnick appealed McMaster’s decision to two influential allies with whom he had forged a relationship while working on Trump’s transition team — White House advisers Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner. They brought the matter to Trump on Sunday, and the president agreed that Cohen-Watnick should remain as the NSC’s intelligence director, according to two people with knowledge of the episode.
Cohen-Watnick was brought onto Trump’s transition team and then the NSC by a leading critic of the CIA: retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who was Cohen-Watnick’s boss at the Defense Intelligence Agency and preceded McMaster as national security adviser.
Cohen-Watnick and Flynn “saw eye to eye about the failings of the CIA human intelligence operations,” said a Washington consultant who travels in intelligence circles. “The CIA saw him as a threat, so they tried to unseat him and replace him with an agency loyalist,” the operative said.
Two sources within the White House tell me that last week McMaster had interviewed a potential replacement for Cohen-Watnick: longtime CIA official Linda Weissgold. Weissgold apparently had a good interview with McMaster, as she was overheard saying as she left the White House she would next have to “talk to Pompeo”—as in Mike Pompeo, the director of the CIA. But Weissgold was never offered the job; days later, Trump himself overruled the effort to move Cohen-Watnick out of his senior director role.
During the Obama administration Weissgold served as director of the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis. She was among those who briefed Congress following the Benghazi terrorist attack in 2012, a team of intelligence and military experts who reportedly earned the nickname “the dream team” within the administration.
In her position at OTA, she was also involved directly in drafting the now infamous Benghazi talking points, which government officials revised heavily to include factually incorrect assessments that stated the attackers were prompted by protests. According to the House Select Committee on Benghazi’s report, Weissgold testified she had changed one such talking point to say that extremists in Benghazi with ties to al Qaeda had been involved in “protests” in the Libyan city, despite the fact that no such protests had occurred there on the day of the attack.
McMaster’s interview of Weissgold last week raised eyebrows beyond the White House, with members of the congressional oversight committees expressing concerns about Weissgold to top officials in the White House and the intelligence community.
A Jewish security official has been named as the confidential source of House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) following claims that US President Donald Trump and his aides were swept up in surveillance by US intelligence agencies, The New York Times revealed Thursday.
Citing unnamed US officials, the Times identified the White House official as “Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council.”
Why would you not believe “unnamed officials”?
But what we are seeing very obviously is some of the shape and texture of the war based on who is being targeted and why. While those doing the targeting are “unnamed”, their targets are named. And that tells us also about those doing the targeting. Any enemy action reveals something about the enemy, his motives, his nature and his goals. That is how wars of this kind must be understood.
WASHINGTON, DC – Trump and Kelly. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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