If you strike the king but do not kill him, by definition your position is weak.
Guest post by Robert Gore at Straight Line Logic
There has never have been a deeper deep state than the Soviet Union’s. It controlled everything: the military, intelligence, the judicial system, the rest of the government, the press, and the economy. It operated in shadows and darkness; there was no loyal opposition or media to shine the occasional light. Yet at 7:32 p.m., December 26, 1991, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin and replaced with the Russian flag. The Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union’s declaration number 142-H recognized the independence of the Soviet republics. Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned, handing power to Boris Yeltsin. The Soviet Union and its deep state were no more.
There are still lessons to be generally recognized from the fall of the Soviet Union. First and foremost: command and control doesn’t work. That’s a lesson US commanders and controllers and their media and academic fellow travelers ignore at their peril. They cling to their cherished vision of American life directed from above, with the infamous Deep State at the apex of the power pyramid, the ultimate string pullers. Recent maneuvers, however, suggest a Deep State so tangled in its own strings that any attempt to free itself will only make the situation worse.
A deep state operates submerged from public view. The US deep state had to emerge in its effort to topple Trump, an emergence that screams weakness (see “Plot Holes”). The ineptitude of the effort made the weakness that much more apparent. A claim that Russia had hacked the Democratic Nation Committee (DNC) last summer and then used Wikileaks to disseminate what it had hacked, all in collusion with Donald Trump’s campaign, was the cornerstone of this maladroit coup. It should have raised more eyebrows than it did that the DNC refused to turn over its servers to the FBI for analysis, and that the only confirmation of the hacking claim came from a contractor, Crowdstrike, which had numerous conflicts of interest, including that it was paid by the DNC.
No objective, scientific analysis of the evidence was performed until that of the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). That group forensically analyzed the metadata associated with the alleged hack. The speed with which the material was downloaded precluded an Internet based hack. The only way it could have been downloaded so quickly was onto an external storage device. That’s a leak, not a remote hack. It had to have been done by someone with direct access to the DNC’s computer system, which suggests a DNC insider, perhaps Seth Rich.
Alternative news site consortiumnews.com published the VIPS’ analysis and conclusions . Mainstream “confirmation” followed at the left-leaning thenation.com. With its cornerstone gone, the Russian collusion story collapsed. For form’s sake Special Prosecutor Mueller will fan the embers for the next few months, perhaps uncovering a technical violation or two of this or that inconsequential law, perhaps releasing some sort of face saving report, but even the most rabid anti-Trumpers appear to recognize that the Russian hack dog won’t hunt.
If this is the best the supposed all-powerful deep state could come up with, then the deep state isn’t nearly as powerful as supposed. The way this affair was handled buttresses that conclusion, because it opens deep staters to serious legal liability.
Before the election they thought they would be shielded by a Clinton administration, but now they’re wide open to prosecution for a number of possible crimes. There is the FBI’s dereliction of duty, not performing its own analysis of DNC servers and accepting Crowdstrike’s conclusions without further scrutiny. (It was apparently in bed with the Clinton camp from the get-go.) There are the multiple leaks to friendly news outlets of classified information. There are the intelligence reports with their damning and much-reported, but evidence free, best assessments and probable conclusions. Potentially the most legally troublesome: a cabal of deep state insiders concocted their story to unseat a duly elected United States president. That makes out a prima facie case of treason.
If you strike the king but do not kill him, by definition your position is weak. He can exact ultimate retribution and your head is in a basket, or he can let you twist in the wind. The best guess is that Trump will do both, depending on the specifics of each conspirator’s situation and which course will be most useful to him.
When California Senator Diane Feinstein says conciliatory things about Trump, infuriating her base, you know things have changed. As ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, she has also joined chairman Charles Grassley requesting interviews with two high-ranking FBI officials concerning the discredited Trump dossier. She’s one of the shrewdest power players in Washington, a deep state stalwart. Her effort with Grassley and her conciliation aren’t magnanimous gestures from the bottom of her black heart. Rather she’s bending the knee; Trump has won the game of thrones.
When the major mainstream media outlets in unison condemn Antifa’s violent tactics, you know things have changed. George Soros, meet Donald Trump and the new order. The condemnations toss the latest kerfuffle about what Trump said after Charlottesville down the memory hole, and give Trump cover to do something about fringe violence in the future. The extremists are by no means finished; that wouldn’t serve anyone’s purposes. They’ll make handy scapegoats; you never know when there’s going to be a fire at the Reichstag.
There has been a tiresome litany of articles about Trump’s capture by the deep state, characterizing him as a puppet for the military and Goldman Sachs. Whatever idealism motivated his run for president is gone and he’s now supposedly just an errand boy. The commentators who bemoaned the firing of Michael Flynn dusted off their articles, changed and rearranged a few things, and bemoaned the departure of Steve Bannon. Poor Donald’s all by himself in big, bad Washington. Except he’s mowing down his enemies one by one (it looks like James Comey may be next), and he’s got the deep state cornered. As for his associates, if there’s one clear lesson from Trump’s life it’s that everyone—wives, employees, Goldman Sachs flunkies, generals, you name it—is expendable. Some of those he’s terminated in the past probably thought they had the upper hand.
Many of the same Trump-as-puppet commentators dusted off their articles bemoaning Trump’s bombing of the Syrian air base, changed and rearranged a few things, and bemoaned Trump’s Afghanistan escalation. Few of those latter articles mentioned that the Syrian government, with the aid of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, has turned the corner on quashing the rebellion, ISIS is on the run, and Syrian refugees are returning home. All of which sets the stage for the US to eventually leave Syria. Look for something similar to eventually play out in Afghanistan, and to go similarly unremarked upon.
Donald Trump didn’t risk all for the Iron Throne to let Goldman Sachs and the military run the show. He has allied with those power centers, but he’s calling the shots. Trump has allied with another power center: state and local police departments. He has given them fulsome, vocal support, encouragement to be more brutal, rescission of President Obama’s civil asset forfeiture rollback, and promises of more military gear. This is what one would expect of a ruler bent on consolidating his power—secure the praetorians. The Bill of Rights won’t stand in the way of sealing that alliance.
Trump’s supporters can’t believe their man’s primary motivation is acquiring power. Trump’s enemies, other than Senator Feinstein, can’t believe how good he is at it. Neither side will recognize the real danger until it’s too late. Legions of worrywarts fret that an erratic, captured Trump will go off half-cocked and press a nuclear button or do something else almost as stupidly devastating. What should worry them are the precise calculations and bloodless strategies of the most ruthlessly Machiavellian president since Franklin D. Roosevelt as he further consolidates and extends his power. Given present jurisprudence, nothing in the Constitution stands in his way.
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Good points.
Here’s what I learned in the Cold War.
We were the front line troops for any Soviet breakthrough in Eastern Europe (The Fulda Gap) and all that we trained for during most of my military service was the overwhelming threat of 60 Divisions of Soviet armor that was supposedly going to wipe us out entirely in 18 hours- long enough for replacement units to arrive on scene. We were told that ours would be a holding action that would result in the annihilation of the entire 82nd Airborne, but if we could just keep them busy for those precious 18 hours, they’d be able to utilize whatever it was they had to counteract the offensive. All of this was based on our intelligence agencies and the coordinated efforts of the big-wigs in the Pentagon.
Until it fell and we found out that none of it was true.
They didn’t have 6 armored divisions, never mind 60. It was all a complete failure on our part to observe reality objectively or it was a boondoggle to keep the cash taps wide open.
There are no other options.
Our government is either completely corrupt and fraudulent or it is thoroughly and irredeemably incompetent. Or both.
And now we’re here.
What’s changed? If anything they’ve only become more incompetent in their ground level operations and better at their corruption and thievery in the upper offices, but the one thing I do not believe at all is that they have any way of backing up their bluster if it ever comes down to brass tacks.
There’s no there, there.
or it was a boondoggle to keep the cash taps wide open.
or it is thoroughly and irredeemably incompetent. Or both.
Yes.
Enormous drain by the private business interests who make and service weapons systems. Who hire military generals to syphon off their influence on other military generals, all of whom know or care absolutely NOTHING about being stewards of the public trust. Those in charge of the money grab are completely and irredeemably incompetent.
I was never there, but I believe this too. The entire cold war was a fraud and a lie, designed to keep the war profits up. The Soviet Union was decimated during WW2. Their economy was never an engine for growth anyway. They spent most of the cold war simply rebuilding and were in no position to invade anyone. The Afghans kicked their ass and they were right next door.
I met a former DIA strategist who told me the strategy was to allow the Soviets get their head. Once they rushed deep, we were to annhilate their follow-on columns and let the armored divisions wither on the vine. He was a very interesting cat. He was fired for being too strongly in favor of nuking the Vietnamese.
That being said, I went over there in the 90s’ and met Russians who were proud of their service defending Europe from us. They were also curious why we were so determined to kill them and told me they never hated America at all. It was an interesting experience.
The collapse of the USSR, in my opinion, was not because the Deep State was outmaneuvered. I don’t know if you could call what they had a Deep State, because there were no alternative centers of power and no attempt to actually inform the people about anything. There was nothing to hide. The state was the Party. The military was the Party. The intelligence and security apparatus was the Party. And everyone was a slave to the Party.
Rather, I believe the USSR folded because they lost the will power to remain a player. 70 years of authoritarianism and bloodshed and corruption finally drained off their vigor and they hollowed themselves out. You can see the weakness already in the 1950s and 1960s when Kruschev had the disastrous Virgin Lands program and had fake missiles paraded through Red Square to terrify the US about Russian nuclear acheivements. And the disasters of their construction projects, which promptly fell apart upon completion.
You can see it clearly in the 1970s with Brezhnev, who was literally a mannequin. Ever hear about the speech he read to the Supreme Soviet in which someone printed 2x copies of the speech and forgot to separate them, so he read page 1 twice, then page 2 twice, then page 3 twice and never noticed? I met a Russian once who detailed how Brezhnev’s yacht had a dead engine they couldn’t seem to repair, so when he came to dine on board, the crew fooled him by running from one side of the deck to the other, rocking the hull and giving him the impression of movement.
By the time Gorbachev arrived, the rot was so deep, he was too late to make any meaningful change. History seems to show that by the time the state realizes it needs to reform, it’s too late. The Russian Empire also tried to reform and was too late. The fascinating thing about Gorby is how he sowed the seeds of his own destruction when he elevated Yeltsin from Siberia, humilitated him almost literally to death, and then rehabilitated him, only to see him seize the popular imagination during Glasnost and stab the USSR in the heart.
To me, the US is just like the USSR, only on a different timeline. I believe we are just as corrupt as the USSR was, just as hollow as they were, and losing our vigor in the same manner. Trump may be our Gorbachev, attempting to right the ship of state before it piles up on the rocks of reality. And the collapse of the USA will be, as Putin said about the USSR,”the greatest geostrategic catastrophe of the century.” Please read Dmitry Orlov’s 5 stages of collapse article. http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2008/02/five-stages-of-collapse.html
BTW- you can see our own Soviet-style failure in things like that Minnessota bridge that collapsed a few years ago without warning, or the deadly DC metro, which has constant fires and accidents, or the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships, which have never been entirely operational and have suffered from major failures from day 1. The Independence, for example, was laid up for months because she was built without proper attention to one of the most basic issues of naval construction, Galvanic Corrosion caused by mixing different metals with seawater. I heard from a sailor this summer they brought one of the LCSs into Gitmo for repairs because they didn’t want the public to see it in dock again. Or look at our disastrous F35 fighter, which was intended to be a multi-billion dollar flying Swiss Army Knife for all the services, but sucks at everything. I’m sure there are a lot more examples, but you get my point. While we fight over which bathrooms we get to use, or which dead guys we can have statues to, the country is gradually falling apart.
Gilbert
All you write is spot on.
Let me add one more reason Soviet Union collapsed. Atheism.
The Russians are deeply spiritual people. Go to Russia-insider or the other such sites and search their article archive for “church”. A tremendous amount of new construction. The old churches gaining worshippers, especially from the young folk.
The commie Joo bastards. — yeah that’s right — tried to kill God. It worked in East Germany, still to this day, but they underestimated the spiritual strength of Russians. I’m glad for that.
That Minnesota bridge was found to have a design flaw. It didn’t fall from lack of maintenance. You’re repeating a liberal shibboleth
“All of which sets the stage for the US to eventually leave Syria.”
– the 6 airbases in N. Syria are just temporary; I have a
bridge in NY to sell; really cheap. Just leave and forget
about Iran, Russia, and being Israel’s bitch. Yeah, right!
“rescission of President Obama’s civil asset forfeiture rollback”
– this is about the dumbest decision Trump has made; it
really pisses me off and many others who voted for him.
Trump has never given one iota of encouragement to anyone who thinks he’s a civil libertarian.
Like Hardscrabble above, I found the military and govt in general so incompetent they can’t tie their shoes. My wife wonders how many govt lists we’re on and l’d say a lot but do I worry? Hardly, the assholes are feckless incompetents.
Robert ,I hope you are right .It will take a strong man to build a wall ,to get our troops out of the middle East.It will take a Hitler type of personality to restore our Republic ,to restore a sound Monetary system and to abolish the Federal Reserve and their Wall Street Banks.If not I guess we all end up in a Third world Banana republic.
The Soviet Union was a fantastic country. I have been there many times and felt very well. So I ask Robert Gore: Have You ever been there? Just as a normal citizen? Living in Soviet flats as a guest of normal Russians? Using normal trains to cross the country? (It took more than a week from the West to the East.)
There wasn`t a KGB microphone in any train compartment and there wasn`t any political correctness. You could speak free with any fellow traveller about any subject. The first totalitarian country I ever experienced is Merkel´s Germany.
If this is true
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=36457
it is the same situation in the USA.
I never visited the old Soviet Union, and I’ve never been to Russia. What’s your point? My only point about the USSR was that it, and its deep state, collapsed.
Ich danke Ihnen für die Antwort.
Fuck the Merkelreich. Merkel, go to hell. Merkel muß weg, und komm nicht zurück!
Collapsed, or pivoted?
I’ll bet if we were to track the profits and careers of those involved in their Deep State prior to the collapse it wouldn’t look all that devastating for them.
[img]http://www.listal.com/viewimage/8173201[/img]
Do You know Erich Honnecker? He was the only great leader we in Germany ever had. No wars. Not one war. The German Demokratic Republic was called “Kleine-Leute-Paradies” (something as “paradise of the lower middle class”)
Befor he became our leader, he was for ten years in a nazi prison.
I`m not sure if you can see his picture. My computer technology is (in parts) from the time of Erich Honnecker. May be it doesn´t work. But I copy the link to his picture once more:
http://www.listal.com/viewimage/8173201
Just a little comment on the collapse of the
USSR…my Mom, inveterate traveler, went to
Russia many times. She and her buddy, A Jewish
immigrant from Russia, visited people, did sight
seeing, and searched for amber.
The women were set to go back, when Pops said
no. The people, and state of affairs in Russia were
in absolute turmoil. There was open violence in
the streets, and the youth especially, went wild.
Older folks just wanted the “past’ back/they knew
where they stood then. It took a decade plus to
get the train back on track. And the country was
broke. I fear we will see a similar collapse in the
USA. We may have to let “a few states go” as we
won’t be able to afford them.
Thanks for another fine essay.
suzanna
@Suzanne-
It WILL take about 10 years for the people of the US to regain a balanced life again. But the rest of the world, who mostly loves what the American “dream” once was, is helping by not enabling our corrupt system anymore. Watch how Russia, China, Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia, Bolivia, Venezuela and, of course, North Korea are standing up to the bullies of the US system. If they left Kim alone without incessant drills on his borders, he’d be peaceful. But the provocateur’s role is not succeeding. The world is tired of paying our bills. Game over. Watch how they move past our dollar and all the US financial platforms. Watch how inflation follows deflation in the US. The world doesn’t want our heroin, cocaine, money, GMO food, bad vaccines or military solutions. They woke up. And, they are using superior war tech to EMP the ships and terrify the Pentagon, who cannot face a true foe. The USA of the WW II days is long over. Americans are just now waking up, some of them. We’re lucky to have Trump in, as Hillary would destroy the planet.
Thanks for the good post on Trump.
Johnie App, I hate to admit it but I completely agree with your assessment of our military prowess. The most recent old “friends” promoted to Command Level positions such as Eisenhower or McCarthur held include some names I shudder to think of as being “in charge.” I am so glad to be away from the Military Industrial Complex.
I suggest that you all go back and review the star wars saga. But as you watch it ask yourself this. Are we the plucky resistance or the empire?
I say empire. They didn’t ask me about anything and I am betting they didn’t ask you either.
Oh and Stucky, I want to know more about the horse sex thing. Must have missed it.
Here ya go
Mr Gore
Interesting tactic you employ here
You admit Trump’s Syrian folly, and Afghanistan …. Then say he is not beholden to the military
You admit to the Goldman Sachs connection … Then say he is not beholden to that group.
This is all part of Trump’s plan?
Did I say interesting? Confusing is more like it.
Stucky
I didn’t call it Trump’s Syrian folly. I said it was good tactics. He bombed the airfields to neocon applause. As I said at the time (“Calling a Bluff?” https://straightlinelogic.com/2017/04/08/calling-a-bluff-by-robert-gore/), that gave him latitutde to negotiate the cease-fire with Russia, and also to stop sending arms to Syrian rebels, who were in ISIS and al Qaeda’s hip pockets. Now conditions are slowly improving in Syria and refugees are returning. That sets the stage for a US exit somewhere down the line. As for Goldman Sachs and the generals, I’ll just reiterate what I said in my article. He’s allied with them; they are power centers. But he didn’t go to all this trouble to win the presidency to let them run the show. They serve at his sufferance and he’s calling the shots. That many of the shots he calls please them is an expected feature of the alliance and allows Trump to further consolidate his power. Confusion is an essential element of Trump’s strategy, but if you approach the problem keeping in mind that everything Trump does is designed to further his power, much of the confusion clears.
Thanks for the reply.
I simply no longer believe Trump is calling the shots. Maybe on the lesser issues, such as all his EOs …. but, not the biggies, such as WAR. His Generals and MIC control him almost completely, imho.
We shall see. I don’t have a Crystal Ball either.
Mr. Gore – To address your point regarding Trumps’ possible overreaching ambitions, may I offer a counterpoint. Every rally and formal speech I’ve witnessed of his, I’ve always been struck by his sincerity when he refers to God. As if there might be other matters in the world besides Trump seeking dominion over it. I’ll refer you to his Inauguation Address as an example. So my estimation is he’s doing God’s work, and using anyone from Goldman’s or military who wants to further his goals. That may be naive, but it does put a positive spin on his possible ambitions.
My general belief is that the righteous stay as far away from politics as possible. I think Trump’s inaugural address, and his earlier performance at the Al Smith dinner, highlight his antipathy towards many of the powers that be. I think that animates a fair amount of what he does. I don’t know how much his belief in God motivates him, if at all. Your belief is not naive; neither one of us can know for certain. I hope you’re right and I’m wrong, for I suspect darker designs.
Winning or surrounded?
Has Trump won, or has he submitted to his “handlers”?
There is more than enough info on this available, so I’ll just leave the question for you to consider.
Time will confirm or deny, but as I see the evidence and as I detailed in my article, he’s won.
From my heart, I hope your right!
What Trump has on his side is plain to see:
he is not being blackmailed by the NSA or other facets of the deep state.
all the rest of the MSM/DC swamp monsters are totally compromised, and you can see this from their recent actions.
Why do you think Obama was so pro Trans?
These folks in power are much like Caligula, any hole will do.