In this mystifying moment, the post-electoral sentiments of most Americans can be summed up either as “Ding dong! The witch is dead!” or “We got robbed!” Both are problematic, not because the two candidates were intellectually indistinguishable or ethically equivalent, but because each jingle is laden with a dubious assumption: that President Donald Trump’s demise would provide either decisive deliverance or prove an utter disaster.
While there were indeed areas where his ability to cause disastrous harm lent truth to such a belief — race relations, climate change, and the courts come to mind — in others, it was distinctly (to use a dangerous phrase) overkill. Nowhere was that more true than with America’s expeditionary version of militarism, its forever wars of this century, and the venal system that continues to feed it.
For nearly two years, We the People were coached to believe that the 2020 election would mean everything, that November 3rd would be democracy’s ultimate judgment day. What if, however, when it comes to issues of war, peace, and empire, “Decision 2020” proves barely meaningful? After all, in the election campaign just past, Donald Trump’s sweeping war-peace rhetoric and Joe Biden’s hedging aside, neither nuclear-code aspirant bothered to broach the most uncomfortable questions about America’s uniquely intrusive global role. Neither dared dissent from normative notions about America’s posture and policy “over there,” nor challenge the essence of the war-state, a sacred cow if ever there was one.
That blessed bovine has enshrined permanent policies that seem beyond challenge: Uncle Sam’s right and duty to forward deploy troops just about anywhere on the planet; garrison the globe; carry out aerial assassinations; and unilaterally implement starvation sanctions. Likewise the systemic structures that implement and incentivize such rogue-state behavior are never questioned, especially the existence of a sprawling military-industrial complex that has infiltrated every aspect of public life, while stealing money that might have improved America’s infrastructure or wellbeing. It has engorged itself at the taxpayer’s expense, while peddling American blood money — and blood — on absurd foreign adventures and autocratic allies, even as it corrupted nearly every prominent public paymaster and policymaker.
This election season, neither Democrats nor Republicans challenged the cultural components justifying the great game, which is evidence of one thing: empires come home, folks, even if the troops never seem to.
The Company He Keeps
As the election neared, it became impolite to play the canary in American militarism’s coal mine or risk raising Biden’s record — or probable prospects — on minor matters like war and peace. After all, his opponent was a monster, so noting the holes in Biden’s block of Swiss cheese presumably amounted to useful idiocy — if not sinister collusion — when it came to Trump’s reelection. Doing so was a surefire way to jettison professional opportunities and find yourself permanently uninvited to the coolest Beltway cocktail parties or interviews on cable TV.
George Orwell warned of the dangers of such “intellectual cowardice” more than 70 years ago in a proposed preface to his classic novel Animal Farm. “At any given moment,” he wrote, “there is an orthodoxy… that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness.”
And that’s precisely what progressive paragon Cornel West warned against seven months ago after his man, Senator Bernie Sanders — briefly, the Democratic frontrunner — suddenly proved a dead candidate walking. “Vote for Biden, but don’t lie about who he really is,” the stalwart scholar suggested. It seems just enough Americans did the former (phew!), but mainstream media makers and consumers mostly forgot about the salient second part of his sentiment.
With the electoral outcome now apparent — if not yet accepted in Trump World — perhaps such politeness (and the policing that goes with it) will fade away, ushering in a renaissance of fourth estate oppositional truth-telling. In that way — in my dreams at least — persistently energized progressives might send President Joe Biden down dovish alternative avenues, perhaps even landing some appointments in an executive branch that now drives foreign policy (though, if I’m honest, I’m hardly hopeful on either count).
One look at Uncle Joe’s inbound nieces and nephews brings to mind Aesop’s fabled moral: “You are judged by the company you keep.”
Think-Tank Imperialists
One thing is already far too clear: Biden’s shadow national security team will be a distinctly status-quo squad. To know where future policymakers might head, it always helps to know where they came from. And when it comes to Biden’s foreign policy crew, including a striking number of women and a fair number of Obama administration and Clinton 2016 campaign retreads — they were mostly in Trump-era holding patterns in the connected worlds of strategic consulting and hawkish think tanking.
In fact, the national security bio of the archetypal Biden bro (or sis) would go something like this: she (he) sprang from an Ivy League school, became a congressional staffer, got appointed to a mid-tier role on Barack Obama’s national security council, consulted for WestExec Advisors (an Obama alumni-founded outfit linking tech firms and the Department of Defense), was a fellow at the Center for New American Security (CNAS), had some defense contractor ties, and married someone who’s also in the game.
It helps as well to follow the money. In other words, how did the Biden bunch make it and who pays the outfits that have been paying them in the Trump years? None of this is a secret: their two most common think-tank homes — CNAS and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) — are the second- and sixth-highest recipients, respectively, of U.S. government and defense-contractor funding. The top donors to CNAS are Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and the Department of Defense. Most CSIS largesse comes from Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon.
How the inevitable conflicts of interest play out is hardly better concealed. To take just one example, in 2016, Michèle Flournoy, CNAS co-founder, ex-Pentagon official, and “odds-on favorite” to become Biden’s secretary of defense, exchanged emails with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ambassador in Washington. She pitched a project whereby CNAS analysts would, well, analyze whether Washington should maintain drone-sales restrictions in a non-binding multilateral “missile technology control“ agreement. The UAE’s autocratic government then paid CNAS $250,000 to draft a report that (you won’t be surprised to learn) argued for amending the agreement to allow that country to purchase American-manufactured drones.
Which is just what Flournoy and company’s supposed nemeses in the Trump administration then did this very July past. Again, no surprise. American drones seem to have a way of ending up in the hands of Gulf theocracies — states with abhorrent human rights records that use such planes to surveil and brutally bomb Yemeni civilians.
If it’s too much to claim that a future defense secretary Flournoy would be the UAE’s (wo)man in Washington, you at least have to wonder. Worse still, with those think-tank, security-consulting, and defense-industry ties of hers, she’s anything but alone among Biden’s top prospects. Just consider a few other abridged resumes:
- Tony Blinken, frontrunner for national security adviser: CSIS; WestExec (which he co-founded with Flournoy); and CNN analyst.
- Jake Sullivan, a shoo-in for a “senior post in a potential administration”: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (“peace,” in this case, being fundedby 10 military agencies and defense contractors) and Macro Advisory Partners, a strategic consultancy run by former British spy chiefs.
- Avril Haines, a top contenderfor CIA director or director of national intelligence: CNAS-the Brookings Institution; WestExec; and Palantir Technologies, a controversial, CIA-seeded, NSA-linked data-mining firm.
- Kathleen Hicks, probable deputy secretary of defense: CSIS and the Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded research and development center that lobbieson defense issues.
An extra note about Hicks: she’s the head of Biden’s Department of Defense transition team and also a senior vice president at CSIS. There, she hosts that think tank’s “Defense 2020” podcast. In case anyone’s still wondering where CSIS’s bread is buttered, here’s how Hicks opens each episode:
“This podcast is made possible by contributions from BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and the Thales Group.”
In other words, given what we already know about Joe Biden’s previous gut-driven policies that pass for “middle of the road” in this anything but middling country of ours, the experiences and affiliations of his “A-Team” don’t bode well for systemic-change seekers. Remember, this is a president-elect who assured rich donors that “nothing would fundamentally change” if he were elected. Should he indeed stock his national security team with such a conflicts-of-interest-ridden crowd, consider America’s sacred cows of foreign policy all but saved.
Biden’s outfit is headed for office, it seems, to right the Titanic, not rock the boat.
Off The Table: A Paradigm Shift
In this context, join me in thinking about what won’t be on the next presidential menu when it comes to the militarization of American foreign policy.
Don’t expect major changes when it comes to:
- One-sided support for Israel that enables permanent Palestinian oppression and foments undying ire across the Greater Middle East. Tony Blinken put itthis way: as president, Joe Biden “would not tie military assistance to Israel to things like annexation [of all or large portions of the occupied West Bank] or other decisions by the Israeli government with which we might disagree.”
- Unapologetic support for various Gulf State autocracies and theocracies that, as they cynically colludewith Israel, will only continue to heighten tensions with Iran and facilitateyet more grim war crimes in Yemen. Beyond Michèle Flournoy’s professional connections with the UAE, Gulf kingdoms generously fund the very think tanks that so many Biden prospects have populated. Saudi Arabia, for example, offers annual donations to Brookings and the Rand Corporation; the UAE, $1 million for a new CSIS office building; and Qatar, $14.8 million to Brookings.
- America’s historically unprecedented and provocative expeditionary military posture globally, including at least 800 bases in 80 countries, seems likely to be altered only in marginal ways. As Jake Sullivan put it in a June CSIS interview: “I’m not arguing for getting out of every base in the Middle East. There is a military posture dimension to this as a reduced footprint.”
Above all, it’s obvious that the Biden bunch has no desire to slow down, no less halt, the “revolving door” that connects national security work in the government and jobs or security consulting positions in the defense industry. The same goes for the think tanks that the arms producers amply fund to justify the whole circus.
In such a context, count on this: the militarization of American society and the “thank-you-for-your-service” fetishization of American soldiers will continue to thrive, exhibit A being the way Biden now closes almost any speech with “May God protect our troops.”
All of this makes for a rather discouraging portrait of an old man’s coming administration. Still, consider it a version of truth in advertising. Joe and company are likely to continue to be who they’ve always been and who they continue to say they are. After all, transformational presidencies and unexpected pivots are historically rare phenomena. Expecting the moon from a man mostly offering MoonPies almost guarantees disappointment.
Obama Encore or Worse?
Don’t misunderstand me: a Biden presidency will certainly leave some maneuvering room at the margins of national security strategy. Think nuclear treaties with the Russians (which the Trump administration had been systematically tearing up) and the possible thawing of at least some of the tensions with Tehran.
Nor should even the most cynical among us underestimate the significance of having a president who actually accepts the reality of climate change and the need to switch to alternative energy sources as quickly as possible. Noam Chomsky’s bold assertion that the human species couldn’t endure a second Trump term, thanks to the environmental catastrophe, nuclear brinksmanship, and pandemic negligence he represents, was anything but hyperbole. Yet recall that he was also crystal clear about the need “for an organized public” to demand change and “impose pressures” on the new administration the moment the new president is inaugurated.
Yet, in the coming Biden years, there is also a danger that empowered Democrats in an imperial presidency (when it comes to foreign policy) will actually escalate a two-front New Cold War with China and Russia. And there’s always the worry that the ascension of a more genteel emperor could co-opt — or at least quiet — a growing movement of anti-Trumpers, including the vets of this country’s forever wars who are increasingly dressing in antiwar clothing.
What seems certain is that, as ever, salvation won’t spring from the top. Don’t count on Status-quo Joe to slaughter Washington’s sacred cows of foreign policy or on his national security team to topple the golden calves of American empire. In fact, the defense industry seems bullish on Biden. As Raytheon CEO Gregory Hayes recently put it, “Obviously, there is a concern that defense spending will go way down if there is a Biden administration, but frankly I think that’s ridiculous.” Or consider retired Marine Corps major general turned defense consultant Arnold Punaro who recently said of Biden’s coming tenure, “I think the industry will have, when it comes to national security, a very positive view.”
Given the evidence that business-as-usual will continue in the Biden years, perhaps it’s time to take that advice from Cornel West, absorb the truth about Biden’s future national security squad, and act accordingly. There’s no top-down salvation on the agenda — not from Joe or his crew of consummate insiders. Pressure and change will flow from the grassroots or it won’t come at all.
Danny Sjursen, a TomDispatch regular, retired U.S. Army major, contributing editor at antiwar.com, and senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, directs the Eisenhower Media Network and cohosts the “Fortress on a Hill” podcast. A former history instructor at West Point, he served in Iraq and Afghanistan. His two books are Ghost Riders of Baghdad, and Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer’s new dystopian novel (the second in the Splinterlands series) Frostlands, Beverly Gologorsky’s novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt’s A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power and John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II.
Originally published in TomDispatch.com
Copyright 2020 Danny Sjursen
We were all taught in grade school of the story of the ‘ Trojan Horse’ . In it’s war with Troy the Greeks built a gift of a giant horse. They informed the Trojans that , after 10 years of war, they had had enough. Once inside of Troy, the Greek horse, filled with armed men, attacked the unknowing Trojans.
As with most of our modern day presidential elections, the empire chooses candidates from the Two Party/One Party system. These two, regardless of how different they may appear, both are sure to serve their Military Industrial Empire handlers. Obviously, after the ‘ Horses’s…. ‘ won the White House, his megalomania and total indifference to suffering led him right off the reservation. This was NOT exactly what the empire wanted. Yes, they used Trump to make sure they, the true Swamp, got the corporate and personal tax relief they wanted. Factor in Trump’s use of executive power to allow them to run ram shod over age old regulations, and our environment has rapidly gone down the drain. These assurances they orchestrated, but even THEY, the true owners of our country, saw the handwriting on the wall. Trump was TOO terrible! He had to go.
Enter the empire’s Trojan Horse, Sleepy Joe Biden. Good ole dependable Joe always gave the illusion of being for us working stiffs. Wasn’t he even christened ‘ Lunchbox Joe’? Yet, we on the real Left in Amerikan politics knew what Biden has always been about. As the Senator from both DuPont and the corporate tax haven of Delaware, Biden was more a traditional Republican than a Democrat. Check out his record folks, on so many issues. The empire loved him for decades. He supported the illegal and immoral war on Iraq, always voting to give more and more of our tax dollars to the Bush/Cheney Cabal. He was the chief Democrat to push for the 2005 Bankruptcy bill that made it extremely difficult for consumers to file for bankruptcy, and not lose it all. At the time, Senators like Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, Diane Feinstein and Chuck Schumer all voted against that bill. He was the 2nd biggest recipient in Congress of donations from MBNA , the Delaware based credit card company ( later purchased by Bank of America). Spanning his Senate career Biden was high up in the list for campaign donations from the Securities and Investment industries, all part of ‘ Wall Street’ . Now he is ‘ President Elect’, so what can we really expect?
Having said all of the above, this writer had NO choice but to vote for Sleepy Joe and all the Democrats on the ballot on November 3rd. Why? Well, the other choice, another example of this ‘ Lesser of Two Evils’ system we live under, has moved so far to the right that they are actually OFF THE RADAR COMPLETELY! Neo Fascism is now upon us folks. Trump, being the poster boy for this mindset, had to be stopped, along with the sick and demented corporate scum he speaks for. No matter how bad the ‘ Trojan Horse ‘ will become, the empire, or the authentic ‘ Deep State’ , knows they have to hand out some band-aids for Biden and co. to use. It will be up to us, the ( hopefully) awakened public, to get out there and demand progressive changes… and quick! My mantra had recently been for the adoption of a viable Universal Basic Income of anywhere from $ 1200 to $ 2000 per month per citizen, with children ( up to 2 per family ) receiving half. Without the UBI our economy can never be truly stimulated enough. With it, small businesses will not only survive, but prosper and grow. Imagine the results of such a plan. Yes, there are a slew of ideas needed, like true ‘ Medicare AND Dental Care for All ‘, a Green New Deal, taxing the Mega Millionaires, closing corporate tax loopholes, cutting drastically our obscene military spending and 1000+ bases worldwide, Public Banking ( especially community owned and run mortgage banks), Community control of our police, free public education and student loan debt relief, and community owned and run rental property ( for residents and small businesses )… to name just a few.
A former talk show host ( sadly, a right winger) had the best ending for his show: ” Your influence counts… Use it!’
Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, Countercurrents.org, and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 400 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘ It’s the Empire… Stupid ‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net
Just as it takes grit and perseverance to break the mighty mountains, standing up to the oppressor demands conviction, solidarity and sustained agitations. Dhinkia, a small village in the costal district Jagatsinghpur of the Odisha state is a living testimony to this. Famous for its sweetest paan (betel vines), the village (also a Gram Panchayat) for decades has seen the bitterest days of state repression in the name of development. Be it with the domestic conglomerates like Tata, and Jindal, or the international players like South Korea’s POSCO and American AES Company, the various joint industrial ventures by the state and central government have left no stone unturned, in forcefully acquiring common lands, jeopardizing ecology and violating livelihood and human rights of the tribals and villagers in this natural resource rich region.
Paradip- Hyderabad Pipeline Project
Right now, Dhinkia is erupting in protest against the Indian Oil Corporation Liminted’s (IOCL) Paradip- Hyderabad Pipeline Project. The 1212 km pipeline intends to cover 329kms in Odisha, 723kms in Andhra Pradesh and 160kms in Telangana. At a project cost of Rs 3338, it envisages pumping stations at Paradip & Berhampur (in Odisha); Vizag, Rajahmundry & Vijayawada (in Andhra Pradesh); delivery facilities at Berhampur (in Odisha), Vizag, Achutapuram, & Vijayawada (in Andhra Pradesh) and Hyderabad (in Telangana) for transporting 4.5 MMTPA of petrol, diesel, and aviation fuel. The initial pipeline length of 91.4 km from Paradip will be laid in existing Right of Way of Paradip-Raipur-Ranchi Pipeline in the districts of Jagatsinghpur, Cuttack, Khurda and Puri.
The proposed pipeline route
IOCL has initiated the project by digging up around 11 acres of land in the Dhinkia Gram Panchayat. However, this isn’t any private land, but the common grazing land of the village (gochar land), where thousands of cattle are reared for sustaining a population of over 4000 people. This is posing serious livelihood challenges to not only Dhinkia but all the 11 villages in the Panchayat. The people who swear by the paan, meen and dhaan ( betal, fish and grains) for their life, alleges that the new pipeline construction is polluting their air and drying up water sources. Though IOCL provides water tankers, they say it is inadequate to meet the daily needs.
Ecological Damages
The PHPL also possess grave dangers in terms of ecological damages as it passes through the forest divisions like Rajnagar, Cuttack, Puri, City Forest, Khurda, Nayagarh, Ghumsur North, Ghumsur South and Berhampur. Already Paradip is one of the most polluted regions in the state owing to the port and refineries. Vast swathe of forests, farmland and water bodies are already exploited and polluted, thanks to a plethora of industrial projects. Now in case of any slightest possibility of pipeline leakage or accidental fire, the region may have to bear the brunt of unprecedented environmental and livelihood consequences.
Pipelines laid across the grazing land
People’s Demands
In the following letter (placed in public domain) to the District Collector Jagatsingpur , people of Dhinkia Panchayat have put forwarded their demands:
“We the people of Dhinkia Gram Panchayat have been facing unprecedented repression in the last 20 years for demanding rights from the Govt. and companies like POSCO, Indian Oil and others. We have been deprived from all facilities and are somehow managing to eke out a living. In this situation Indian Oil is trying to construct its pipeline on Dhinkia’s community grazing land without following any rules and without our consent. This is a condemnable and undemocratic act. The District Administration and Indian Oil must meet our following demands else we the people of Dhinkia will protest against the project –
- We consider the act of constructing pipelines on our community land without our permission while our cows are grazing there to be a grave offense. We demand an inquiry into the matter and action to be taken against the guilty. The grazing land must be restored to its original state immediately.
- Twenty years ago Indian Oil snatched our farming lands for its refinery and made false promises of providing us with employment. We are yet to get any employment in the refinery and having lost our farm land we lead a very difficult life. Moreover outsiders are being given jobs but not people from our Panchayat. Indian Oil must fulfill its promise.
- Indian Oil had declared it would ‘adopt’ Dhinkia Panchayat but till date we have not seen a single development activity initiated by Indian Oil. The company has made no contribution in the development of health, education, agriculture, livelihood, transports, etc. We demand the following provisions from Indian Oil i)Drinking water facilities in the village ii)Construction and maintenance of village roads iii. Lighting of village roads iv) Repair and maintenance of Primary Health Centre, appointment of Doctors and supporting staff
- For hundreds of years we have protected and lived off the forestland. Apart from our betel vineyards, we grow cashew, coconut, moringa, mango, jackfruit, areca nut, pineapple, etc and raise our cattle and poultry in this forestland. This forestland should not be handed over to anyone else and rather the ownership of this land should be give to the landless villagers.
- During the democratic movement to stop the land grab for the POSCO project many of the villagers were framed under several false cases. We continue to live with fear and insecurity that these cases will be used to victimize us. We demand that all these cases should be immediately withdrawn.
- Due to the close proximity of the Indian Oil refinery we demand for a consultation meeting with the district administration, Indian Oil authorities, and the people of the Panchayat to address the several issues arising from its presence.
It is our heartfelt request to take up this matter with urgency so that the people of the Panchayat can be relieved from this two decade old mental, physical, emotional and economic trauma.”
Rights Violations
The fact that IOCL has not taken any prior permission officially from the Panchayat is in violation of the Odisha Gram Panchayat Act. The village also alleges that IOCL has also violated the Odisha Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act of 2006, as there are already 143 families dispossessed and remaining without any compensation since the anti POSCO days. While corresponding to this writer, Debendra Swain, Samiti member of Dhinkia Panchayat has alleged of police highhandedness and public threatening against the protest. Considering the history of filing false cases and atrocities on the indigenous villagers during the anti POSCO and anti JSW movements, this isn’t a new norm.
Continuing the Protests
People of Dhinkia protesting agsinst the pipeline
According to Prasant Paikray, spokeperson POSCO PRATIRODH SAGRAM SAMITI (PPSS) & Co-ordinator Orissa State Co-ordination Committee for Campaign against Displacement & SEZ, the district administration on the 17th of November 2020, has convened a meeting for talks with the villagers, where they’ve asked for the latter’s cooperation and offered to implement the development activities in a gradual manner. However, in a meeting of the Panchayat on 20th November, the villagers have decided to adopt a two strand strategy of not cooperating with IOCL unless their demands are met, and to continue their fight legally.
Thus, for the people of Dhinkia, this agitation isn’t just a matter of their livelihoods, but also about asserting their basic right to live with dignity and freedom enshrined in the law. Or in reminding the state what Amartya Sen says in “Development as Freedom”: that “Development consists of the removal of various types of unfreedoms that leave people with little choice and little opportunity of exercising their reasoned agency.”
Lekshmi Sujatha– Primarily a concerned citizen, who loves to read, write and acquire knowledge in the field of law, politics and human rights. As a student of governance- who has finished a PG Diploma in Facilitating Governance Reforms from TISS & Barefoot Academy of Governance, Chennai- and an aspiring law student, I’m keen on responding to issues concerning gender, minorities and DBA, and their rights violation. I also contribute articles and opinion pieces, and have experience as a freelance/ online content writer. Email: leks333@gmail.com
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