Eisenhower called it the ‘military-industrial complex.’ It’s vastly bigger now.

JUNE 26, 2019

    WASHINGTON POST 

Daniel Wirls

https://outline.com/DGG3zD

When two giant Pentagon contractors — Raytheon and United Technologies — proposed to merge into Raytheon Technologies, it hit the headlines. President Trump said he was “a little bit concerned” that the merger would dampen competition in the defense industry. Coincidentally, Congress was at the same time debating the administration’s request for substantial increases in military spending — particularly in weapons procurement and research and development.

We used to call the nexus of private interests and national defense the “military-industrial complex.” But that Cold War term no longer fits. “Industrial” does not capture the breadth of the activities involved. And “military” fails to describe the range of government policies and interests implicated. Over the past two decades, we’ve seen transformations that include new government reliance on private security firms, revolutions in digital technology, a post-9/11 surge in the number of veterans, and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). What we have now could be called a “National Security Corporate Complex.”

Here are four things you need to know about this transformation.

1. President Dwight Eisenhower coined the term, and it stuck

In the heyday of the Cold War, with corporate giants bending metal for the Pentagon in its titanic competition with the Soviet Union, President Dwight Eisenhower coined the phrase as part of a famous warning about the unprecedented “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry.”

Eisenhower was concerned about the potential influence of industry over government policy and budgets. Since then, analysts and pundits have used the term to suggest that arms manufacturers unduly influence lawmakers in voting on the size and nature of military spending, including decisions about war and peace.

2. 9/11 changed the business of national security

Before September 11, 2001, and the resulting military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, the Department of Energy (DOE) was the only executive branch department other than the Pentagon with major military contracts. DOE was involved because it built and dismantled nuclear warheads.

We can see how, post-9/11, more agencies got involved in national security contracts. I used federal contracting data to measure the changes from 1981 to 2018.

As you can see, much of the jump in post-9/11 spending comes from the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in late 2002 and early 2003. Before DHS was created, some of that contracting was already being done by the agencies brought together to form the new department, particularly the Coast Guard. But the scope and amount of DHS contracting increased dramatically — averaging nearly $14 billion a year from 2005 onward.

But two other departments also expanded their contracting substantially after 9/11. In the 1990s, the State Department had an average of under $700 million in contracts per year in national security-related matters. From 2009 onward, that average jumped to $8.4 billion a year.

But the most stunning increases in both overall budgets and contracting came from VA. Few Americans would guess that from 2001 to 2011, VA budget grew faster than the Pentagon’s — 271 percent compared to 240 percent — even if the Pentagon includes its extra spending for the wars. Part of VA’s growth came in contracting. In the 1990s, VA had contracted out under $2.4 billion in work per year in the 1990s. From 2009 onward, VA contracted out nearly $20 billion of work each year.

3. Defense contracting extends far beyond the purchase of weapons

As national security contracting has ramped up across government agencies, we’ve also seen a change in the focus of these contracts. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a great deal of media attention focused on contracts with private security firms like Blackwater and logistics firms like Halliburton. Such “privatization” of military force continues, but it is only part of the story.

The government also expanded its outsourcing of military and veterans’ health care. Three of the top 15 Pentagon contractors were health care corporations, including two that were in the top five for VA.

National security departments further expanded their contracting in information technology, for tasks ranging from the prosaic, like bookkeeping, to the exotic, including cyberwarfare and artificial intelligence. That work went both to traditional arms-making giants such as Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, and also enterprises such as Booz Allen Hamilton and SAIC that specialize in such work.

4. A web of bigger contractors with broader reach

As a result of the government’s expanded spending on national security, many corporations now have sizable contracts with more than one federal agency. Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics — and perhaps the new Raytheon Technologies — have become diversified “Walmarts of war,” as some researchers call them, delivering a wide range of goods and services to various parts of the federal government. The Pentagon’s top contractor, Lockheed Martin has been a major contractor for VA and DHS. General Dynamics was fourth among Pentagon contractors, second for DHS, and third for the Department of State.

Large IT specialists also contract across departments. Booz Allen Hamilton, for example, was the government’s 14th largest contractor in 2018, ranking 19th for the Pentagon, 7th for VA, and 32nd for DHS. Engineering giant Fluor Corporation was in the top 15 for Defense, DOE, and DHS. Other examples include CACI, Jacobs Engineering, and Leidos Holdings. And of course, several health care companies do business with VA and Pentagon.

 What does all this mean?

Some observers argue that the general decline in overall military spending and weapons procurement after the peak of the recent wars — before the Trump administration increased that spending — meant the U.S. no longer had to worry about the influence of a military-industrial complex.

But focusing narrowly on weapons procurement misses the bigger picture. Since 9/11, an increasingly diverse array of firms have a significant stake in federal national security spending. Those funds now flow from a large portion of the federal government and into many sectors of the U.S. economy. If anything, Eisenhower’s complex has become more complex and potentially influential.

Daniel Wirls is a professor of politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and author of several books, including “Irrational Security: The Politics of Defense from Reagan to Obama” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010).

Tulsi Gabbard Wrecks Dems With Powerful Anti-War Debate Answers

Gabbard has made ending American intervention abroad the defining issue of her campaign.

CHRISTIAN BRITSCHGI | 6.26.2019 

https://reason.com/2019/06/26/tulsi-gabbard-wrecks-dems-with-powerful-anti-war/

While the rest of the candidates at the first Democratic debate, tonight have been doing their best to out-socialist each other, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has been trying to keep the country out of the war.

When asked whether she would rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear deal—first negotiated by the Obama administration and withdrawn from by President Donald Trump—Gabbard gave an unequivocal yes, while warning about the dire consequences of war.

"War with Iran would be worse than war with Iraq," said Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran. "Donald Trump and his chickenhawk cabinet—Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and others—are creating a situation where a spark would light a war with Iran. Trump needs to get back into the Iran deal, swallow his pride, and put America first."

Gabbard's position contrasts with the positions of other Democratic candidates on stage. Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.) was the lone debate participant to say that he would not automatically re-enter the Iran deal worked out by President Obama, suggesting a better deal could be had.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.) said that, while she favored reentering the deal, she would like to push for stricter terms. Klobuchar also stressed that if a war with Iran was to occur, it would require congressional authorization.

Gabbard has kept the focus on the U.S.'s aggressive foreign policy the entire night. When asked about what she would do about the gender pay gap, the Hawaii representative declined to answer the moderators' lady question, instead choosing to denounce our current interventionist foreign policy.

Later in the debate, when Rep. Tim Ryan (D–Ohio) referenced the recent deaths of two U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan as a reason to continue our war in the country, Gabbard was having none of it.

"Will you tell the parents of those two soldiers that were killed in Afghanistan that we have to be engaged? That is unacceptable. We have lost so many lives, we have spent so much money," said Gabbard.

Drawing critical attention to America's interminable overseas wars has been the explicit purpose of Gabbard's longshot campaign from the beginning.

"There is one main issue that is central to the rest and that is the issue of war and peace," said Gabbard, when announcing her intention to run to CNN's Van Jones.

This single-minded focus is unlikely to win her many votes, given the predominance of domestic policy in tonight's debate, and the Democratic primary as a whole.

That Gabbard was willing to duck a softball, red meat question about raising wages for women to focus on America's war-making abroad was nonetheless a refreshing moment amidst the otherwise dreary, shockingly left-wing rhetoric from the rest of the Democratic field on stage tonight.

IRÁN Y SUS ENEMIGOS

Después de 40 años de enfrentar sanciones económicas, guerras (contra Irak por 8 años), asesinatos de líderes políticos y científicos; terrorismo y el acorralamiento político-diplomático por parte de sus enemigos en Oriente Medio y Occidente, el régimen de Teherán sabe que esta vez está más cerca que nunca de una guerra abierta contra todos ellos.

Como se ha planteado numerosas veces en este blog, el principal instigador de dicha guerra, que llevaría la intención, no sólo de destruir al gobierno y la teocracia iraníes, sino de convertir a Irán en un campo permanente de batalla entre distintas facciones, con el objetivo de destruir su viabilidad como país y como potencia en la región, ha sido el gobierno de Benjamín Netanyahu, quien controla la política exterior de Estados Unidos (Pompeo), la de seguridad nacional (Bolton); y tiene una influencia decisiva en el complejo-militar-industrial, que siempre está dispuesto a obtener más ganancias con nuevos conflictos alrededor del mundo.

De la misma forma, los principales medios de comunicación de Estados Unidos están alineados con la agenda neoconservadora que sigue las directrices israelíes, cuyo objetivo es el caos y la destrucción en el Medio Oriente; mediante los cuales, los países y grupos (como Hamas y Hezbolah) que Tel Aviv considera sus enemigos, puedan quedar devastados con conflictos internos o guerras entre ellos, que permitan a Israel mantener su enorme ventaja militar, continuar su sistemática destrucción del pueblo palestino (para apropiarse de sus tierras y recursos naturales y eventualmente expulsarlos definitivamente de dichos territorios), y mantener como vasallas a las petromonarquías del golfo (Saudi Arabia, Emiratos Árabes Unidos, Bahréin, Kuwait y Omán), que desde hace unos años se han sumado a la coalición anti iraní y pro israelí (con la intención de afianzar sus autoritarios gobiernos y seguir explotando la riqueza petrolera en favor de una minoría rapaz).

Con un gobierno estadounidense completamente bajo la influencia de los neoconservadores, aliados de Netanyahu, éste pretende que Estados Unidos nuevamente asuma el costo de iniciar y sostener una guerra en Medio Oriente que destruya a un país competidor de Israel, como lo es Irán (ya lo hizo con Irak y Libia y pretendieron hacerlo con Siria), sin gastar un solo shekel o la vida de un solo soldado israelí.

Ante este escenario, el gobierno de Teherán se plantea estas posibilidades:

1.   Asumir las exigencias estadounidenses de rendición total, como las hechas por Pompeo, abandonando a sus aliados en la región (Hezbolah, Hamas, el gobierno de Bashar el Assad, el gobierno de Líbano, el gobierno de Irak; en menor medida los Houthis), permitiendo un dominio completo de las potencias occidentales sobre el desarrollo de armas (defensivas u ofensivas en su país), la energía nuclear, etc. La desaparición de las guardias revolucionarias y la apertura de su sistema político a la supervisión y aprobación de Occidente. Es decir, el suicidio político. Esto por supuesto para Teherán está descartado.

2.   Aguantar, como lo ha hecho durante 40 años, las sanciones económicas, el aislamiento político y las provocaciones militares de Occidente, Israel y las monarquías y gobiernos sunnitas de la región, esperando que su sistema político y económico no colapse; y eventualmente todas estas presiones comiencen a menguar por sí solas. La facción del presidente Rouhani y del canciller Javad Zarif estaría en favor de esta opción. Sin embargo, el cierre de la posibilidad de la venta de petróleo iraní, a diferencia de sanciones anteriores, sí está afectando el funcionamiento general de la economía, por lo que esta opción no puede considerarse de larga duración, pues la población no la soportaría por demasiado tiempo (hasta ahora es la que prevalece).

3.   La opción de las guardias revolucionarias y de una parte de la dirigencia religiosa iraní es enfrentar, ojo por ojo, y diente por diente a Occidente, Israel y los países sunnitas enemigos de Irán, para demostrar que no se va a doblar al país; por el contrario, va a responder proporcionalmente a cada agresión que reciba. Comienza a ganar adherentes esta opción (el derribo del dron estadounidense lo prueba), pero un escalamiento sólo jugará en favor de los promotores de la guerra en Estados Unidos e Israel, que es justamente lo que quieren, para así llevar a los estadounidenses (y a los europeos y países sunnitas de la región que caigan en el garlito) a una nueva, interminable y sangrienta guerra, para destruir a Irán, que es el objetivo real de Netanyahu y los neoconservadores. Podría acabar prevaleciendo Irán, si como Siria lograra después de muchos años mantener su gobierno y expulsar a los invasores o derrotar a los grupos extremistas, como lo hizo Assad. Pero la victoria sería pírrica, pues la destrucción del país podría ser mayúscula.

¿Cuál será el camino que finalmente siga la dirigencia iraní? Ninguna de las opciones es buena, pero si puede convencer a Rusia y China de que apoyen a Irán económicamente por un lado y diplomáticamente por el otro, la opción dos podría alargarse. Así también, si Teherán consigue que más países en Medio Oriente y en otros continentes se sumen a iniciativas en favor del diálogo y la distensión (Turquía, Japón, Alemania, Francia, etc.), ello podría ir bajando el escalamiento del conflicto.

Lo que es un hecho es que los promotores de la guerra y la destrucción de Irán insistirán en estas semanas en más sanciones, más provocaciones (como los ataques de “falsa bandera” en el Estrecho de Ormuz) y más propaganda pro guerra, para evitar que Irán se escabulla una vez más, del destino de destrucción que le han querido imponer desde hace 40 años, los gobiernos israelíes en turno y los neoconservadores estadounidenses.

Migración, el tema inesperado para AMLO

Jorge Santibáñez*

https://www.jornada.com.mx/2019/06/26/opinion/017a2pol

Ganar elecciones y go­bernar son cosas di­ferentes. Al llegar a la tarea de gobernar, el presidente apostó a dos o tres temas. El combate a la corrupción por supuesto como eje de sus acciones de gobierno, tema rentable que controla o puede controlar totalmente. Sobre todo aquella vinculada a los funcionarios de alto nivel y a las frivolidades de ellos y sus familias: aviones, casas, chefs, guardaespaldas...

Todos los hemos visto y aunque algunos formalmente no son corrupción, molestan al ciudadano común, por eso, todavía tiene un importante apoyo popular. Sin embargo, gobernar no es tan fácil, ni siquiera sobre la corrupción y si lo duda pregunte a los funcionarios del sector salud que con el estandarte de acabar con la corrupción los está dejando sin medicinas para los enfermos, o a los funcionarios del servicio exterior quienes con el pretexto de no financiar frivolidades con recursos públicos, no pueden desarrollar sus funciones más elementales.

Sin embargo, hay temas que no estaban en el guion original. Al presidente se le aparecieron asuntos ante los cuales no tenía –y no tiene aún– estrategia ni asesores mínimamente informados. Un tema central es el de la migración. Tanto la que está en Estados Unidos (EU) –aunque hoy no parezca problemática– como la de centroamericanos que usan México como país de tránsito hacia el país del norte.

Si analizamos el tiempo que el presidente y su equipo han dedicado a este tema en las últimas semanas, concluiríamos que es el más importante de su gobierno y es un problema que nosotros creamos. Esa importancia y dedicación contrasta con las muy escasas probabilidades de éxito y lo poco que obtendrá. La torpeza de su equipo lo puso en una posición muy delicada. Claro, lo que recibió fue muy malo, ya que si hay un te­ma en que los gobiernos anteriores fueron omisos es justamente el migratorio.

La migración centroamericana de tránsito. Por más que se quiera presentar como algo novedoso, este flujo existía desde hace por lo menos 15 años. Quizá en volúmenes menores. El Colegio de la Frontera Norte muestra que cientos de miles de centroamericanos entraban por año a México con intención de llegar a EU. En algunos años casi un millón. Las tragedias de los migrantes en tránsito están ampliamente documentadas.

Seguramente mal asesorado, rodeado de quienes se vendieron como especialistas y que él compró como tales, consideró que era buen discurso decir que la migración se detendría cuando hubiera empleo y oportunidades en los países de salida y que él crearía esas oportunidades, convencería a EU de invertir en la región y se acabarían los abusos sobre los migrantes. El resultado fue fatal.

Muchos centroamericanos que esperaban la oportunidad de reunirse con sus familiares en EU y por miedo no lo hacían, escucharon en ese discurso una invitación a migrar en condiciones más seguras. El presidente y sus asesores no entendieron algo muy simple, que esto tensaría la relación con Washington y daría a Donald Trump la oportunidad que estaba esperando para arrodillar a México con propósitos electorales.

La migración al norte. La de los mexicanos en EU. AMLO es aún más ignorante en esto y no tiene asesores que lo aconsejen correctamente, vaya ni en lo más elemental. Varias veces mencionó que en EU había 24 millones de mexicanos (en realidad son 37 millones si se incluye a los de ascendencia mexicana, o son 11.7 millones si sólo se engloba a quienes son nacidos en México, pero no 24 millones); que los consulados se dedicarían a proteger a los migrantes, labor que ya hacían, y nada dijo de cómo ayudar a que la comunidad mexicana en EU mejore sus condiciones de vida.

No hay en su gobierno un posicionamiento ante esa comunidad. Ni siquiera en lo que llamaron acuerdo migratorio, cuando se dan cuenta de que nadie habla en favor de México, de que esa comunidad podría ser la primera línea de defensa de los intereses de México y que no tenemos (más bien desperdiciamos) quién hable en EU por nosotros. Esa comunidad está destinada a serlo, si los dejamos, y por si fuera poco, enfrentarán un golpeteo constante en la ya muy cercana campaña presidencial de Trump. Incluso posibles deportaciones que separarán familias. ¿Seguirá apostando al silencio, a no engancharse? ¿A someter en votaciones a mano alzada si se reacciona? No será suficiente.

Hoy el gobierno mexicano está en una ecuación sin solución. Ahí nos metimos solos. Acceder al control migratorio que Trump necesita para su campaña, seguir subordinando nuestra soberanía a evaluaciones unilaterales a discreción de nuestras acciones, cediendo todo al vecino y presentarlo como excelente negociación, hacernos cargo de sus solicitantes de asilo deteriorando la vida en las localidades fronterizas y perjudicando a esos mismos solicitantes, no reaccionar ante los ataques a la comunidad mexicana en EU y una inminente campaña de denostación y deportación, decir que los migrantes centroamericanos son bienvenidos y serán protegidos, usar la Guardia Nacional para detenerlos y deportarlos, regalar dinero a Centroamérica para que se desarrolle y termine la migración. Todo eso al mismo tiempo y en el mismo paquete es imposible. Gobernar es más difícil.

*Presidente de Mexa Institute // www.mexainstitute.org // TW @mexainstitute

Trump: War President or Anti-Interventionist?

by Patrick J. Buchanan Posted on June 25, 2019

https://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2019/06/24/trump-war-president-or-anti-interventionist/

Visualizing 150 Iranian dead from a missile strike that he had ordered, President Donald Trump recoiled and canceled the strike, a brave decision and defining moment for his presidency.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence had signed off on the strike on Iran as the right response to Tehran’s shootdown of a U.S. Global Hawk spy plane over the Gulf of Oman.

The U.S. claims the drone was over international waters. Tehran says it was in Iranian territory. But while the loss of a $100 million drone is no small matter, no American pilot was lost, and retaliating by killing 150 Iranians would appear to be a disproportionate response.

Good for Trump. Yet, all weekend, he was berated for chickening out and imitating President Barack Obama. U.S. credibility, it was said, has taken a big hit and must be restored with military action.

By canceling the strike, the president also sent a message to Iran: We’re ready to negotiate. Yet, given the irreconcilable character of our clashing demands, it is hard to see how the U.S. and Iran get off this road, we are on, at the end of which a military collision seems almost certain.

Consider the respective demands.

Monday, the president tweeted: "The U.S. request for Iran is very simple – No Nuclear Weapons and No Further Sponsoring of Terror!"

But Iran has no nuclear weapons, has never had nuclear weapons, and has never even produced bomb-grade uranium.

According to our own intelligence agencies in 2007 and 2011, Tehran did not even have a nuclear weapons program.

Under the 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA, the only way Iran could have a nuclear weapons program would be in secret, outside its known nuclear facilities, all of which are under constant U.N. inspection.

Where is the evidence that any such secret program exists?

And if it does, why does America not tell the world where Iran’s secret nuclear facilities are located and demand immediate inspections?

"No further sponsoring of terror," Trump says.

But what does that mean?

As the major Shiite power in the Middle East divided between Sunni and Shiite, Iran backs the Houthi rebels in Yemen’s civil war, Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon, Alawite Bashar Assad in Syria, and the Shiite militias in Iraq who helped us stop ISIS’s drive to Baghdad.

In his 12 demands, Pompeo virtually insisted that Iran abandons these allies and capitulates to their Sunni adversaries and rivals.

Not going to happen. Yet, if these demands are nonnegotiable, to be backed up by sanctions severe enough to choke Iran’s economy to death, we will be headed for war.

No more than North Korea is Iran going to yield to the U.S. demands that it abandon what Iran sees as vital national interests.

As for the U.S. charge that Iran is "destabilizing" the Middle East, it was not Iran that invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, overthrew the Gadhafi regime in Libya, armed rebels to overthrow Assad in Syria, or aided and abetted the Saudis’ intervention in Yemen’s civil war.

Iran, pushed to the wall, its economy shrinking as inflation and unemployment are rising, is approaching the limits of its tolerance.

And as Iran suffers pain, it is saying, other nations in the Gulf will endure similar pain, as will the USA. At some point, collisions will produce casualties and we will be on the up escalator to war.

Yet, what vital interest of ours does Iran today threaten?

Trump, with his order to stand down on the missile strike on Iran signaled that he wanted a pause in the confrontation.

Still, it needs to be said: The president himself authorized the steps that have brought us to this peril point.

Trump pulled out of and trashed Obama’s nuclear deal. He imposed the sanctions that are now inflicting something close to unacceptable if not intolerable pain on Iran. He had the Islamic Revolutionary Guard declared a terrorist organization. He sent the Abraham Lincoln carrier task force and B-52s to the Gulf region.

If war is to be avoided, either Iran is going to have to capitulate, or the U.S. is going to have to walk back its maximalist position.

And who would Trump name to negotiate with Tehran for the United States?

The longer the sanctions remain in place and the deeper they bite, the greater the likelihood Iran will respond to our economic warfare with its own asymmetric warfare. Has the president decided to take that risk?

We appear to be at a turning point in the Trump presidency.

Does he want to run in 2020 as the president who led us into war with Iran, or as the anti-interventionist president who began to bring U.S. troops home from that region that has produced so many wars?

Perhaps Congress, the branch of government designated by the Constitution to decide on war, should instruct President Trump as to the conditions under which he is authorized to take us to war with Iran.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War”: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

Giving Trump Credit (But Not Too Much) on Iran

by Maj. Danny Sjursen, USA (Ret.) Posted on June 24, 2019

https://original.antiwar.com/Danny_Sjursen/2019/06/23/giving-trump-credit-but-not-too-much-on-iran/

The Donald made the right call. Now that’s a rare statement. Calling off – or at least delaying – a military strike on Iran was prudent. Nevertheless, there was something deeply unsettling about the whole thing. The system is broken, perhaps irreparably.

The president never even considered seeking congressional approval before playing emperor and unleashing death and destruction on a sovereign nation. Why would he? Essentially every president, since Truman, has done the same thing one time or another. Unilateral executive action has been the American norm pretty much since World War II wrapped up. Seen in this context, Trump isn’t so anomalous as many would like to believe. Korea kicked off the trend. But the Vietnam advisory mission, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Bosnia, Libya, and Syria – to name the highlights – were all undertaken without the constitutionally mandated consent of the legislature.

In that sense, a dozen or so more palatable and polite emperors, I mean presidents, paved the way for the coarser and more buffoonish reality TV star currently calling the shots in the White House. Americans’ collective sin of ignoring foreign policy and ceding unilateral power to the executive branch has truly, and definitively, come home to roost. That’s partly why I find the protestations from Democratic lawmakers to be more about partisanship than principles. Genuine legislators – that spent more time following international policy instead of obsessively raising money – would all revolt and restrain the president regardless of their political party. We’re unlikely to see that.

None of this should be seen as a defense or normalization of Trump. The manis are scary. His threats, vagueness, and propensity to turn on a policy dime are genuinely disturbing. So is his blatant affinity for autocrats the world over. The point is that I shouldn’t have to give "credit" to Trump when he acts prudently and demonstrates restraint. I, we, should not have to hang on the words and pronouncements of any one man. The populace, the media, the Congress should not be relegated to spectators held hostage by the whims of any one man.

It doesn’t necessarily matter whether that person is Donald Trump or Barack Obama, per se. The system, as designed in the Constitution judiciously places the supreme power of warfare squarely on Capitol Hill, on the collective judgment of the peoples’ elected representatives. Discussion, debate, deliberation – these ought to be the hallmarks of any rather profound decision to kill and maim other humans. Instead, in 21st century America, we "elect" – not necessarily by the popular vote count – an emperor and then watch and see what he does with our military and, heck, our nuclear arsenal for that matter.

Which places this author, and all Americans really, in the awkward, and pathetic, position of having to praise the lunatic-in-chief for not doing the unthinkable. All of us feast on the decisional scraps of one Donald Trump. It’s been normalized to such an extent that hardly anyone notices any longer. All Americans are essentially too trapped in the Matrix of imperial war to recognize the crumbling of national institutions. It easy (and somewhat accurate) to blame congress, or the media, or various presidents themselves, but the rot runs much deeper. Average Americans have forgotten how to be true citizens, forgotten how to mobilize in the streets and demand change. Too busy eking out a living after forty years of working wage stagnation, and no longer required to serve in America’s imperial wars, the people have opted out. We’re all guilty, all complicit, in the hijacking of the Constitution. So it was that I personally endured combat in two ill-advised, immoral wars in the Greater Middle East.

See, there are consequences for executive overreach and popular apathy. We can count the costs to the tune of $5.9 trillion spent, some 7,000 American soldiers killed, and about 480,000 dead foreigners. All of this occurred with either a congressional rubber stamp or, often, no stamp at all. While congressmen and senators were busy dialing-for-dollars, my soldiers were in the field killing and dying in rather real wars. I’m sure thankful that I’m out of the business of death-dealing, but also remain deeply unsettled by the knowledge that any war in Iran will affect, and forever damage, a new generation of officers and soldiers. Americans will then vacuously thank, and hollowly adulate, the troops involved. Almost no one will ask why those servicemen were sent to war in the first place, or question the process by which they were sent. All the while, the last remnants of the American republic will continue to crumble.

So here we are, hostages to one – rather disconcerting – man, Mr. Donald Trump. We’ll collectively wait for his decision on whether to call off, delay, or launch a new Mideast war, this time with Iran. It’s absurd and need not be this way. Citizens, real citizens I mean, could hit the streets, flood their congressmen’s’ offices, and shut down the whole damn country until the president adheres to the Constitution. It’s genuinely possible, but, of course, will not happen.

Instead, we’ll all remain glued to our TVs and phones, wondering what the emperor will do next. And when that supreme leader decides, occasionally, to show restraint, I’ll be in the awkward and insane position of giving Donald Trump "credit" when he doesn’t embark on another illegal war in our name. And more’s the pity.

Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer and a regular contributor to Antiwar.com. His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Truthdig, Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet.

Furious at Trump, Mexicans Ask How to Break Dependence on the U.S.

The country is questioning its decades-old dependence on the U.S. market—and starting to look elsewhere.

By 

Nacha Cattan

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-19/with-trust-broken-mexico-s-elite-asks-what-to-do-about-trump?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=190622&utm_campaign=bop

Mexico City’s Zocalo has been the focus of national protests and celebrations since the Spanish conquest. The mood on the capital’s central square now is one of anger at the U.S. under Donald Trump.

After Trump forced a renegotiation of the Nafta trade agreement, only to threaten tariffs unless Mexico did more to clamp down on migration across its borders, a temporary deal was struck that defused the immediate crisis. But it left Mexicans furious, and starting to question their decades-old dependence on the U.S. market.

As U.S. president, Trump “should serve as an example, but he does just the opposite,” said Jose Luis Solorzano, a 58-year-old street cleaner who works on the Zocalo. He cited social and economic impacts of Trump’s policy, with many Mexicans finding it harder to visit family in the U.S. “This is hurting us, and the relationship between U.S. and Mexico,” he said.

Mexico is just one target of Trump’s combative foreign policy, with the threat of tariffs to press American interests used as a cudgel against traditional allies and foes alike. Mexicans initially brushed off Trump’s message as political rhetoric. But with 2020 presidential election ensuring that Trump’s gaze will again look beyond the border, Mexico’s government is rethinking the nature of its U.S. relations.

U.S. badgering is a particular dilemma for Mexico, experiencing its second major crisis with its northern neighbor since Trump threatened to end free trade in 2017. Mexico has pledged to clamp down on immigrants to avoid tariffs and President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador insists he wants to remain friends with Trump. But that stance risks being out of tune with many ordinary Mexicans who form Lopez Obrador’s political base and it does little to assuage feelings approaching panic among some in the business community.

Mexico already had the worst perception of Trump among those surveyed by Pew Research Center in October; only 6% said he’s a capable leader. And the percentage of Mexicans who think relations with the U.S. is poorly quadrupled in the past four years. Giant Mexican flags are a feature in many public squares in a country where nationalism runs deep and where anti-American sentiment only faded in recent decades. Not for long.

“Latent anti-Americanism that was dormant over the past 30 years has a great possibility of resurfacing,” said Andres Rozental, a deputy foreign minister under Mexican President Carlos Salinas, who negotiated Nafta with the U.S. and Canada. “Everything that was built over the past 30 years is being destroyed by the U.S. president because he’s taking political advantage of this strategy to accuse Mexico of the evils taking place in the U.S.”

The question in Mexico as elsewhere is what the government is prepared to do about it. The answer increasingly suggests that Trump’s approach is causing not just short-term anger, but risks long-term damage to U.S. relations worldwide. One example: Germany, France, and the U.K. back a special purpose vehicle meant to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Iran, while the European Union is pursuing efforts to bolster the euro and reduce dependence on the dollar.

In Mexico’s case, it exported some $28 billion in farm products to the U.S. last year, mainly beer, avocado, tomatoes, tequila, and berries. It imported $19 billion in U.S. agricultural products, including corn, soy, and beef.

At an exclusive business club in Mexico City last week, where Lopez Obrador hailed the temporary deal as breaking the impasse with Trump, privately the talk was of diversification to ensure Mexico’s economic future. Some even questioned whether Mexico and the U.S. are allies at all.

“What’s become very clear to the Mexican business sector is we need to turn our eyes to other markets and not depend so disproportionately on trade with the U.S.,” said Jose Manuel Lopez Campos, president of Mexico’s services and tourism chamber. He referred to Mexico channeling the vast majority of its exports to the North American market over past decades as “a public policy mistake.”

Mexico has been trying to boost its relationship with China—Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard plans to visit after the Group of 20 summits in Japan this month. Lopez Campos said it’s part of a general push into Asia, though the U.S. has taken note. Alfonso Romo, the president’s chief of staff, said he was asked in April by U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross not to allow China to invest in strategic projects in Mexico.

Bosco de la Vega, president of the National Agricultural Council, said that Mexico will sign free-trade agreements with Brazil, Argentina and Ecuador shortly, while the agricultural sector is pushing for a deal with South Korea. Mexico and China have recently approved a banana trade protocol and sorghum are next.

Mexico’s high concentration of exports to the U.S. “has become a weakness and we are seeking a strategy of diversification,” he said in an interview. Not much was done after Trump’s first threats in 2017, but now “we’re being disciplined about it. It’s our strategy. We’re serious about this.” Deputy Finance Minister Arturo Herrera said Tuesday that finding trade partners other than the U.S. will help diversify risk.

Despite the fair warning about Trump’s intentions as far back as 2015, Mexico remains as reliant as ever on the U.S. Recent efforts to diversify haven’t reduced exports from the 80% mark where it’s been for the past century, said Rozental, the former deputy foreign minister.

While it’s too soon to say whether the latest Trump salvo will prompt real policy shifts, it’s triggered a nationalistic resurgence throughout Mexico. The country has a sense of itself as a haven for dissidents, including refugees from Spain under dictator General Franco, that puts it at odds with Trump’s stance, even if polls suggest Mexican attitudes to migration are hardening.

Opinion surveys suggest voters want Lopez Obrador to stand up to Trump, and even diplomats like Rozental say that Mexico should have called Trump’s bluff on tariffs. Porfirio Munoz Ledo, the speaker of the lower house from the president’s own party slammed the negotiation of a deal he said places Mexico in a “semi-colonial” position.

Back on the Zocalo, Uriel Lopez Onofre, a 24-year-old masters student, stood in the shadow of the giant Mexican flag that dominates the square to shelter from the midday sun and “contemplate his country.” He said that Lopez Obrador was smart not to confront Trump over migrants from Central America, but he “could use a bit more push-back.” The Mexican president seems to be saying “hit me but I won’t hit you back.”