How The Military Defeated Trump's Insurgency

Via Moon of Alabama blog,

Trump was seen as a presidential candidate who would possibly move towards a less interventionist foreign policy.

That hope is gone. The insurgency that brought Trump to the top was defeated by a counter-insurgency campaign waged by the U.S. military. (Historically its first successful one).

The military has taken control of the White House process and it is now taking control of its policies.

It is schooling Trump on globalism and its "indispensable" role in it. Trump was insufficiently supportive of their desires and thus had to undergo reeducation:

When briefed on the diplomatic, military and intelligence posts, the new president would often cast doubt on the need for all the resources.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson organized the July 20 session to lay out the case for maintaining far-flung outposts — and to present it, using charts and maps, in a way the businessman-turned-politician would appreciate.

Trump was hauled into a Pentagon basement "tank" and indoctrinated by the glittering four-star generals he admired since he was a kid:

The session was, in effect, American Power 101 and the student was the man working the levers. It was part of the ongoing education of a president who arrived at the White House with no experience in the military or government and brought with him advisers deeply skeptical of what they labeled the “globalist” worldview.

In coordinated efforts and quiet conversations, some of Trump’s aides have worked for months to counter that view, hoping the president can be persuaded to maintain — if not expand — the American footprint and influence abroad.

Trump was sold the establishment policies he originally despised. No alternative view was presented to him.

It is indisputable that the generals are now ruling in Washington DC. They came to power over decades by shaping culture through their sponsorship of Hollywood, by manipulating the media through "embedded" reporting and by forming and maintaining the countries infrastructure through the Army Corps of Engineers. The military, through the NSA as well as through its purchasing power, controls the information flow on the internet. Until recently the military establishment only ruled from behind the scene. The other parts of the power triangle, the corporation executives and the political establishment, were more visible and significant. But during the 2016 election the military bet on Trump and is now, after he unexpectedly won, collecting its price.

Trump"s success as the "Not-Hillary" candidate was based on an anti-establishment insurgency. Representatives of that insurgency, Flynn, Bannon and the MAGA voters, drove him through his first months in office. An intense media campaign was launched to counter them and the military took control of the White House. The anti-establishment insurgents were fired. Trump is now reduced to public figure head of a stratocracy - a military junta which nominally follows the rule of law.

Stephen Kinzer describes this as America’s slow-motion military coup:

Ultimate power to shape American foreign and security policy has fallen into the hands of three military men [...]

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Being ruled by generals seems preferable to the alternative. It isn’t.

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[It] leads toward a distorted set of national priorities, with military “needs” always rated more important than domestic ones.

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It is no great surprise that Trump has been drawn into the foreign policy mainstream; the same happened to President Obama early in his presidency. More ominous is that Trump has turned much of his power over to generals. Worst of all, many Americans find this reassuring. They are so disgusted by the corruption and shortsightedness of our political class that they turn to soldiers as an alternative. It is a dangerous temptation.

The country has fallen to that temptation even on social-economic issues:

In the wake of the deadly racial violence in Charlottesville this month, five of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were hailed as moral authorities for condemning hate in less equivocal terms than the commander in chief did.

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On social policy, military leaders have been voices for moderation.

The junta is bigger than its three well known leaders:

Kelly, Mattis and McMaster are not the only military figures serving at high levels in the Trump administration. CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke each served in various branches of the military, and Trump recently tapped former Army general Mark S. Inch to lead the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

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the National Security Council [..] counts two other generals on the senior staff.

This is no longer a Coup Waiting to Happen The coup has happened with few noticing it and ever fewer concerned about it. Everything of importance now passes through the Junta"s hands:

[Chief of staff John] Kelly initiated a new policymaking process in which just he and one other aide [...] will review all documents that cross the Resolute desk.

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The new system [..] is designed to ensure that the president won’t see any external policy documents, internal policy memos, agency reports and even news articles that haven’t been vetted.

To control Trump the junta filters his information input and eliminates any potentially alternative view:

Staff who oppose [policy xyz] no longer have unfettered access to Trump, and nor do allies on the outside [.. .] Kelly now has real control over the most important input: the flow of human and paper advice into the Oval Office. For a man as obsessed about his self image as Trump, a new flow of inputs can make the world of difference.

The Trump insurgency against the establishment was marked by a mostly informal information and decision process. That has been destroyed and replaced:

Worried that Trump would end existing US spending/policies (largely, still geared to cold war priorities), the senior military staff running the Trump administration launched a counter-insurgency against the insurgency.

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General Kelly, Trump"s Chief of Staff, has put Trump on a establishment-only media diet.

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In short, by controlling Trump"s information flow with social media/networks, the generals smashed the insurgency"s OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act). Deprived of this connection, Trump is now weathervaning to cater to the needs of the establishment ...

The Junta members dictate their policies to Trump by only proposing to him certain alternatives. The one that is most preferable to them will be presented as the only desirable one. "There are no alternatives," Trump will be told again and again.

Thus we get a continuation of a failed Afghanistan policy and will soon get a militarily aggressive policy towards Iran.

Other countries noticed how the game has changed. The real decisions are made by the generals, Trump is ignored as a mere figurehead:

Asked whether he was predicting war [with North Korea], [former defence minister of Japan, Satoshi] Morimoto said: "I think Washington has not decided ... The final decision-maker is [US Defence Secretary] Mr Mattis ... Not the president."

Climate change, its local catastrophes and the infrastructure problems it creates within the U.S. will further extend the military role in shaping domestic U.S. policy.

Nationalistic indoctrination, already at abnormal heights in the U.S. society, will further increase. Military control will creep into ever extending fields of once staunchly civilian areas of policy. (Witness the increasing militarization of the police.)

It is only way to sustain the empire.

It is doubtful that Trump will be able to resist the policies imposed on him. Any flicker of resistance will be smashed. The outside insurgency which enabled his election is left without a figurehead, It will likely disperse. The system won.

How The Feds Blocked Effective Flood Insurance

As the floodwaters brought by Hurricane Harvey last week recede and new hurricane Irma moves slowly toward the Eastern U.S., it might be edifying to review how millions of Americans, despite federal anti-flood efforts, came to live and work in hazardous to dangerous flood-prone areas.

The foundation of the current disaster traces back at least to the late 1920s under Republican interventionist Herbert Hoover. In 1927, a very destructive flood occurred along the Mississippi River. Secretary of Commerce Hoover’s relief campaign greatly increased the power of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to implement supposed flood protection. 

No doubt, the Flood Control Act of 1928 helped construct what was considered one of the most impressive systems of levees in the world along the Mississippi River. However, the one thing it did not do was control flooding. While the new levee system prevented flooding in some areas, it quickened the natural current of the river which helped produce flooding in other areas. Other unforeseen consequences were the reductions in natural soil deposits and natural flow of water into the river"s flood plains.

Less than a decade later, another damaging flood in New England helped drive the passage of the National Flood Control Act of 1936. This Act was a real turning point in terms of centralization. Besides doubling the size of the federal flood-control program, it signaled that Congress would no longer merely provide occasional flood relief and regard floods as principally a local matter. It effectively enlisted the federal government and Army Corps of Engineers in the battle against floods.

For the rest of the 1930s and 1940s, private insurance markets were undermined because the Army Corps of Engineers built hundred-year flood walls which reduced risk just enough for homeowners to make private flood insurance too costly. On the other hand, private insurers saw these walls as insufficient protection which did not reduce risk enough. Regardless, an impasse was created for private markets that was both figuratively and literally cemented in place by the Army Corps.

Enter the New Deal central planners of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1953. TVA began monitoring flood-prone areas in and around one hundred and fifty towns and cities in its jurisdiction. At first, TVA used a worst-case standard from the Army Corps, regardless of whether such a flood had ever actually occurred.

This stringent standard was quickly abandoned when it was realized that it would eliminate huge areas of potential development that not only local private and public planners wanted, but TVA as well since part of its conflicted mission was spurring development. Thus TVA adopted a new standard skewed in favor of development that was based on past floods that occurred inside a 60- or 100-mile zone from proposed development.

Outside TVA’s jurisdiction, the U.S. Geological Survey and Army Corps of Engineers mapped flood plains with roughly the same backward-looking standard. By the end of the 1960s, all three agencies had laid the groundwork for a national map of floodplains. A very bad standard had been created.

Of course no tapestry of disastrous policies would be complete without a contribution by Lyndon Baines Johnson, thus the Southeast Hurricane Disaster Relief Act of 1965. This Act authorized $500 million in spending to assist in repairing damage created by Hurricane Betsy.

Next came the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968, which created the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which covered up to $250,000 in damage to single-family houses and buildings in cities and towns meeting the flawed federal flood-plain criteria.

The absolute death knell for any semblance of economic and actuarial soundness in the NFIP came in 1973, when Congress allowed coverage to be extended to property owners who should have enrolled in the program and paid for insurance but did not.

While none of this is to say that had more rigorous private standards prevailed and the Army Corps and TVA never been created, that no one"s residence or workplace would ever have flooded.

However, there"s no doubt that the federal government"s perverse subsidization of residential and commercial development in flood-prone areas as well as artificially cheap flood insurance completely detached from risk assessment have contributed to not only the untold loss of billions of dollars of property, but lives as well.

Waters at Risk? EPA Will Revoke the Clean Waters Act of 1972

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under the direction of the Trump administration, will revoke a rule that gives the agency broad authority over regulating the pollution of tributaries and wetlands that flow into the country’s largest rivers. [1]

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt told Congress on June 27, 2017, that the agency would “provide clarity” by “withdrawing” the rule, and follow standards set in 2008. Pruitt had previously said he would recuse himself from working on litigation to the rule.

Said Pruitt:

“We are taking significant action to return power to the states and provide regulatory certainty to our nation’s farmers and businesses.”

During his testimony, Pruitt told senators that the Obama-era rule:

“… created a situation where farmers and ranchers, landowners across the country did not know whether their stream or dry creek bed, in some instances, was actually subject … to EPA jurisdiction and EPA authority.”

He added that:

“… they were facing fines that were substantial as they engaged in earth work to build subdivisions – I mean, it was something that created a substantial amount of uncertainty and confusion.” [2]

The Clean Waters Act was last updated in 2015 to define waterways – including streams, rivers, and other bodies – the federal government can regulate, thus expanding protection for 2 million miles of streams and 20 acres of wetlands, and drawing the ire of the agriculture and energy industries.

Read: Uh-Oh: House Passes Bill Nicknamed “Poison Our Waters Act”

That year, the rule was delayed by a federal appeals court, after 13 states filed a lawsuit against the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers. It remains on hold while the case works its way through the courts.

In February 2017, President Trump said during the signing of an executive order calling for a review of the Clean Waters Act that it should apply only to navigable waters that impact interstate commerce. The decision would put at risk the drinking water sources of 1 in 3 Americans. [2] [3]

Environmental groups say rolling back the rule will put the Midwestern Great Lakes region at risk, and lead to pollution in some of the nation’s most sensitive wetland areas.

Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, said:

“This foolish rollback of clean water standards rejects years of work building stakeholder input and scientific data support, and it imperils the progress for safe clean drinking water in the Midwest.” [2]

Read: Trump Freezes EPA Grants, Orders Media Blackout

Kierán Suckling, executive director at the Center for Biological Diversity, added:

“Revoking the clean water rule will open the door to the pollution and bulldozing of some of America’s most important wetlands.”

So far, the Trump administration has received an astounding 500,000 comments, including numerous requests to preserve the existing regulation.

Following the public comment period, and after reaching a final decision, the EPA will have to author its own proposed rule for designing which waters should be federally protected under the 1972 law.

Environmental and conservation groups have vowed to fight the repeal.

Michael Brune, executive director of Sierra Club, said in a statement:

“It goes without saying that the Trump administration doesn’t care about the environment, public health, or its duty to protect our most precious natural resources — and that is why it’s up to us, the American people, to hold them accountable. We will fight this and every other attempt by polluters and the Trump administration to destroy our water resources.” [3]

Sources:

[1] The Washington Post

[2] Reuters

[3] Think Progress

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About Julie Fidler:
	Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.