February 1, 2019
MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey
COLUMN ON THE DEEP STATE and President Trump Published by UNZ REVIEW and RUSSIA INSIDER
Friends,
A few days ago my installment in the MY CORNER series, “Venezuela, the Deep
State, and Subversion of the Trump Presidency,” got picked up, a bit edited, by
THE UNZ REVIEW, and then also by RUSSIA INSIDER. I have had forty-nine
essays published by UNZ, and most have been received fairly well by readers.
Indeed, many of the topics I considered were cultural issues, pieces on the
attacks on historic Confederate monuments, even some movie reviews and a
discussion of how the American Western reflects cinematically significant aspects
of our history and heritage.
However, this most recent essay unleashed a torrent of
vitriol and unrestrained commentary that divined all sorts of dark and sinister
motives and intent in what I scribbled. The fact that I wrote that I believed
President Nicolas Maduro was a socialist “tin-pot dictator wannabe,” and that I
hoped the citizens of Venezuela and elements of the army might persuade him to
leave—and that I supported diplomatic and economic sanctions—brought all sorts
of accusations: that I was secretly (or maybe not so secretly) an Establishment
Deep State “plant,” that I was working
on behalf of international Zionism, and that my not uncritical—I have been
critical—support for President Trump indicated that I was a “sell-out” to
globalism. Some of the commentary could have gotten me suspended had I uttered
it in my grammar school days—but that was years ago, and maybe the “F-bomb” and
other once-banned words in public now find favor and currency as a substitute for
thoughtful criticism?
I thought I was clear in the essay that I do not favor American intervention, that American
military involvement is the wrong course of action, just as it has been in
Syria and Iraq. Indeed, I think I have a long record of published writings
saying exactly that—that we should not be going around the world and attempting
to impose “democracy” and all the worst fruits of “Americanism” on every remote
desert oasis and faraway impenetrable jungle.
Despite the fact that I’ve been attacked in print by Morris
Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center and placed on a list, “40 to Watch,” largely
because of an exhaustive investigation I made of the SPLC back in 2003 that
hurt Dees’ organization, and labeled by his group as everything from a “radical
right” Neo-Confederate, a racist, a bigoted Catholic right winger, to even a
Holocaust denier—despite all that, it seems for a few readers that what I wrote
a few days ago revealed me as a wide-eyed Leftist. Odd, doesn’t it seem, to be
labeled on the one hand a “plant” of an international Zionist conspiracy, and
on the other, assaulted by Morris Dees as a veritable “anti-semite?”
Re-reading what I wrote, I do believe I could have stated
that paragraph about Maduro and American reaction a bit differently. I do
believe—and I did say so briefly in my column—that the US has been involved in
subverting the Maduro government, and, in principle, I oppose such actions,
just as I opposed strongly our role in overthrowing the Ukrainian government
and the governments of other countries around the world. But I could have been
clearer and sharper.
Nevertheless, in spite of the critical comments on my piece
at UNZ, the RUSSIA INSIDER Web site and blog picked up this column and ran it as well [
https://russia-insider.com/en/venezuela-deep-state-and-subversion-trump-presidency/ri26104?ct=t(Russia_Insider_Daily_Headlines11_21_2014)&mc_cid=eb769ba55d&mc_eid=4e31a191e0 ]. Fascinating. If somehow I
were writing on behalf of the Deep State which is ferociously anti-Russian, why
would RUSSIA INSIDER, which defends the policies
and government of Russia, pick up and run my essay?
I have no explanation—except I am still waiting for my
payments from both the Washington Elites as well as from my pal Vladimir
Putin….I just hope that they don’t find out I am working for both sides!
Here’s the essay, again:
THE UNZ REVIEW
Venezuela,
the Deep State, and Subversion of the Trump Presidency
There
he was, right there on the stage to the right side of Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo who was briefing the press on America’s position concerning the recent
coup in Venezuela. I rubbed my eyes—was I seeing what I thought I was seeing?
It
was Elliot Abrams. What was HE doing there? After all, back in February 2017,
after then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had pushed for his nomination as
Deputy Secretary of State, it was President Trump himself who had vetoed his
appointment.
Here
is how the anodyne account in Wikipedia describes it:
In February 2017, it was
reported that Abrams was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson‘s first pick for Deputy Secretary of State, but that Tillerson was
subsequently overruled by Trump. Trump aides were supportive of
Abrams, but Trump opposed him because of Abrams’ opposition during the
campaign. [emphasis mine]
Abrams
during the 2016 campaign had been a NeverTrumper who vigorously opposed Donald
Trump and who had strongly attacked the future president’s “Make America Great
Again,” America First foreign policy proposals.
Abrams,
a zealous Neoconservative and ardent globalist was—and is—one of those foreign
policy “experts” who has never seen a conflict in a faraway country, in a
desert or jungle, where he did not want to insert American troops, especially
if such an intervention would support Israeli policy. He was deeply enmeshed in
earlier American interventionist miscues and blunders in the Middle East, even
incurring charges of malfeasance.
Apparently,
President Trump either did not know that or perhaps did not remember Abrams’s
activities or stout opposition. In any case, back in 2017 it took an
intervention by a well-placed friend with Washington connections who provided
that information directly to Laura Ingraham who then, in turn, placed it on the
president’s desk And Abrams’ selection was effectively stopped, torpedoed by
Donald Trump.
But
here now was Abrams on stage with the Secretary of State.
What
was that all about?
Again,
I went to Wikipedia, and once again, I quote from that source: “On January 25, 2019, Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo appointed Abrams as the
United States’ Special Envoy to Venezuela.”
Despite
President Trump’s resolute veto back in February 2017, Abrams was back, this
time as a Special Envoy, right smack in the department that President Trump had
forbade him to serve in. Did the president know? Had he signed off on this
specially-created appointment? After all, the very title “Special Envoy on
Venezuela” seems something dreamed up bureaucratically by the policy wonks at
State, or maybe by Mike Pompeo.
Then
there was the widely reported news, accompanied by a convenient camera shot of
National Security Adviser John Bolton’s note pad (which may or may not have
been engineered by him), with the scribble: “5,000 troops to Colombia.”
What
gives here?
Last
week suddenly there was a coup d’etat in Venezuela, with the head of the
national assembly, Juan Guiado, proclaiming himself as the country’s new and
rightful president, and the theoretical deposition of then-current President
Nicolas Maduro. And we were told that this action was totally “spontaneous” and
an “act of the Venezuelan people for democracy,” and that the United States had
had nothing to do with it.
If
you believe that, I have an oil well in my backyard that I am quite willing to
sell to you for a few million, or maybe a bit less.
Of
course, the United States and our overseas intelligence services were involved.
Let
me clarify: like most observers who have kept up with the situation in oil-rich
Venezuela, I heartily dislike and find despicable the socialist government of
Maduro, just as I did Hugo Chavez when he was in power. I have some good
friends there, one of whom was a student of mine when I taught in Argentina
many years ago, and he and his family resolutely oppose Maduro. Those socialist
leaders in Caracas are tin-pot dictator wannabees who have wrecked the economy
of that once wealthy country; and they have ridden roughshod over the
constitutional rights of the citizens. My hope has been that the people of
Venezuela, perhaps supported by elements in the army, would take action to rid
the country of those tyrants.
And,
in effect, I wish for the success of Juan Guaido in his struggle with Maduro,
and I support American diplomatic and economic pressure on Maduro to
step down. After all, Venezuela is in our back yard with huge oil reserves.
But
potentially sending American troops—as many as 5,000—to fight in a country
which is made up largely of jungle and impassible mountains, appears just one
more instance, one more example, of the xenophobic internationalism of men like
Bolton and the now state department official, Abrams, who believe American
boots on the ground is the answer to every international situation. Experience
over the past four decades should indicate the obvious folly of such policies
for all but the historically blind and ideologically corrupt.
While
we complain that the Russians and Chinese have propped up the Maduro government
and invested deeply in Venezuela, a country within our “sphere of influence” in
the Western Hemisphere (per the “Monroe Doctrine”)—we have done the very same thing,
even more egregiously in regions like Ukraine that were integrally part of
historical Russia, and in Crimea, which was never really part of Ukraine (only
for about half a century) but historically and ethnically Russian. Did we not
solemnly pledge to Mikhail Gorbachev, under George H. W. Bush, that if the old
Soviet Union would dissolve and let its some fourteen socialist “republics” go
their own way, leave the Russian Federation, that we, in turn, would not
advance NATO up to the borders of Russia? And then we did the exact
opposite…almost immediately go back on our word and move our troops and
advisers right up to the borders of post-1991 Russia?
From
mid-2015 on I was a strong supporter of Donald Trump, and, in many ways, I
still am. In effect, he may be the only thing that stands in the way of a total
and complete recouping of power by the Deep State, the only slight glimmer of
light—that immovable force who stands up at times to the power-elites and who
has perhaps given us a few years of respite as the managerial class zealously
attempts to repair the breach he—and we—inflicted on it in 2016.
My
major complaint, what I have seen as a kind of Achilles’ Heel in the Trump
presidency, has always been in personnel, those whom the president has
surrounded himself with. And my criticism is measured and prudential, in the
sense that I also understand what happens—and what did happen—when a
billionaire businessman, a kind of bull-in-the-china shop (exactly what was
needed), comes to Washington and lacks experience with the utterly amoral and
oleaginous and obsequious political class that has dominated and continues to
dominate our government, both Democrats and, most certainly, Republicans.
The
wife of a very dear friend of thirty-five years served in a fairly high post
during the Reagan administration. Before her untimely death a few years ago,
she recounted to me in stark detail how the minions and acolytes of George H.
W. Bush managed to surround President Reagan and subvert large portions of the
stated Reagan Agenda. Reagan put his vice-president effectively in charge of
White House personnel: and, as they say, that was it, the Reagan Revolution was
essentially over.
In
2016 a number of friends and I created something called “Scholars for Trump.”
Composed mostly of academics, research professors, and accomplished
professionals, and headed by Dr. Walter Block, Professor of Economics at
Loyola-New Orleans, and Dr. Paul Gottfried, Raffensperger Professor of
Humanities at Elizabethtown College, in Pennsylvania, we attempted to gather
real professed believers in the stated Trump agenda. We received scant mention
(mostly negative) in the so-called “conservative” press, who proceeded to smear
us as “ultra-right wingers” and “paleo-conservatives.” And, suddenly, there
appeared another pro-Trump list, and that one composed largely of the same
kinds of professionals, but many if not most of whom had not supported
Donald Trump and his agenda during the primary campaigns.
What
was certain was that many of the amoral time-servers and power elitists had
decided that it was time for them to attach themselves to Trump, time for them
to insinuate themselves into positions of power once again, no matter their
distaste and scorn for that brash billionaire upstart from New York.
Remember
the (in)famous interview that the President-elect had with Mitt Romney who
desperately wanted to be Secretary of State? Recall the others also interviewed—some
of whom we remembered as Donald Trump’s opponents in the campaign—who came
hat-in-hand to Trump Tower looking for lucrative positions and the opportunity
once again to populate an administration and direct policy? And, yes, work from
within to counteract the stated Trump agenda?
It
would be too facile to blame the president completely: after all, the
professional policy wonks, the touted experts in those along-the-Potomac
institutes and foundations, were there already in place. And, indeed, there was
a need politically, as best as possible, to bring together the GOP if anything
were to get through Congress. (As we have seen, under Paul Ryan practically
none of the Trump Agenda was enacted, and Ryan at every moment pushed open
borders.)
Our
contacts did try; we did have a few associates close to the president. A
few—but only a few—of our real Trump Agenda supporters managed to climb aboard.
But in the long run we were no match for the machinations of the power elites
and GOP establishment. And we discovered that the president’s major
strength—not being a Washington Insider—was also his major weakness, and that
everything depended on his instincts, and that somehow if the discredited
globalists and power-hungry Neoconservatives (who did not give Trump the time
of day before his election) were to go too far, maybe, hopefully, he would
react.
And
he has, on occasion done just that, as perhaps in the case of Syria, and maybe
even in Afghanistan, and in a few other situations. But each time he has had to
pass the gauntlet of “advisers” whom he has allowed to be in place who
vigorously argue against (and undercut) the policies they are supposed to
implement.
Donald
Trump, for all that and for his various faults and miscues, is in reality the
only thing standing in the way of the end of the old republic. The fact that he
is so violently and unreservedly hated by the elites, by the media, by
academia, and by Hollywood must tell us something. In effect, however, it not
just the president they hate, not even his rough-edged personality—it is what
he represents, that in 2016 he opened a crack, albeit small, into a world of
Deep State putrefaction, a window into sheer Evil, and the resulting falling
away of the mask of those “body snatchers” who had for so long exuded
confidence that their subversion and control was inevitable and just round the
corner.
President
Trump will never be forgiven for that. And, so, as much as I become frustrated
with some of the self-inflicted wounds, some of the actions which appear at
times to go flagrantly against his agenda, as much as I become heartsick when I
see the faces of Elliot Abrams—and Mitt Romney—in positions where they can
continue their chipping away at that agenda, despite all that, I continue to
pray that his better instincts will reign and that he will look beyond such
men, and just maybe learn that what you see first in Washington is usually not
what you’ll get.
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