If you have not yet read the recent post by Charles Hugh Smith
at LRC, I encourage you to do so (and found in its
entirety here). I agree with it virtually
entirely, and Smith does a thorough job on a topic that I have written about
for several years – but instead of my writing it again, I will cite
Smith. The title of his post offers a big clue: “Could the Deep State Be
Sabotaging Hillary?”
…I suspect it’s overly simplistic. I suspect major power centers in
the Deep State are actively sabotaging Hillary because they’ve concluded she is
a poisoned chalice who would severely damage the interests of
the Deep State and the U.S.A. (Emphasis in original)
While I grant that there are powerful interests who back Hillary
(including most of the visible, and therefore less important, of the elite),
there are important elements of the elite that do not want to see Clinton as
president. Smith lists several reasons in his post – all accurate, in my
view. The most important one in my mind has been and remains – well, I
will again cite Smith:
…Hillary as president would be an unmitigated disaster for the
elements of the Deep State that have concluded the U.S. must move beyond the
neo-con strategic failures to secure the nation’s core interests.
I will summarize my reasons as to why I have felt this way for
the last several years.
First and foremost, the elite fear nuclear war as much as you
and I do. Ever since Clinton I (another reason they don’t want Clinton
II), the US has pushed further and further toward antagonizing the one great
power that can annihilate not only the US but the world; add to this the
antagonism toward nuclear-capable China (I recall Hillary threatening to act
against China regarding the South China Sea on more than one occasion – the
South China Sea being adjacent to…China).
Was there antagonism and risk of nuclear annihilation during the
Cold War? Certainly. But there were also buffer zones between the
reach of the United States and Soviet (and now Russian) borders; there was a
mechanism to avert and diffuse tension. Today there are none – even
former Soviet Republics are now within NATO.
Second: why did Hillary lose in 2008? The election was a
clear path for a Democrat, after the disaster of the Bush-Cheney years.
Why was an almost unknown, completely inexperienced senator chosen in place of
her? Even McCain would seemingly have been an acceptable candidate if the
simple narrative of “the elite” is accepted.
Was it spontaneous combustion that turned Obama into the media
favorite almost overnight?
I have long felt that Obama was chosen because he was the
relative dove in the bunch. Despite the continuation and expansion of wars
throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, I remain of the view
that the destruction would have been worse under Clinton: Iran, Ukraine, Syria
(even worse than now, with Assad destroyed) – all leading to a confrontation
with Russia.
Third: significant individuals have written against the US
policies of war, expansion, and antagonism toward Russia. Here is my write-up based on commentary
from Leslie Gelb, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations (the
post begins with a lamentation of Rand Paul’s switch to neocon – a few years
ago I felt Rand was the selected vessel for this alternative-elite path, except
that he couldn’t read the tea leaves at all). A small sample, from Gelb:
Russians, Americans, Europeans, and Ukrainians plunge on toward
the all-time foreign policy record for venality, lying, hypocrisy and
self-destructive maneuvers. They show no shame and scant regard for
consequences.
Last but not least are our very own American heroes. Hillary
Clinton, of course, hit the jackpot with her comparison of Putin to Hitler
(never mind her clarification the next day).
How about John J. Mearsheimer from the University of
Chicago, writing in Foreign Affairs,
the publication of the Council on Foreign Relations? Again, a small
sample:
According to the prevailing wisdom in the West, the Ukraine
crisis can be blamed almost entirely on Russian aggression…But this account is
wrong: the United States and its European allies share most of the
responsibility for the crisis.
For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically
elected and pro-Russian president — which he rightly labeled a “coup” — was the
final straw.
Elites in the United States and Europe have been blindsided by
events only because they subscribe to a flawed view of international politics.
Not a big enough name for you? What about Henry Kissinger, listing one after another the
failings of US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War?
Libya is in civil war, fundamentalist armies are building a
self-declared caliphate across Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan’s young democracy
is on the verge of paralysis.
To these troubles are added a resurgence of tensions with Russia
and a relationship with China divided between pledges of cooperation and public
recrimination.
Kissinger has written and spoken often of his disappointment
with the direction US foreign policy has taken with respect to Russia and China
over the last decades.
Conclusion
Hillary, like many tools, is a wind-up doll: playing the game
she was trained to play and unable to consider other issues. Unfortunately,
there are many like her. This is the risk to those who have created the
monster (the US government) that they may not be able now to control.
It seems to me the “deep-state” prefers the Kissinger / Nixon
model – enough tension to keep fear in the population but behind the scenes
(and sometimes in public view) a working relationship that involves
communication and cooperation in order to minimize the risks.
Clinton offers no hope in this regard; Trump says “Let’s make a
deal.”
There is a meaningful subset of the Anglo-elite that prefers
“Let’s make a deal.”
