The national security state

[innonimatu]

All empires end up with one. I was reading a piece of news about a TV commentator who resigned, and thing that might be a good departure for asking: can the people of an empire, its democratic institutions, an empire rein in its "national security" establishment? Or will the people only get out from under that collective thumb after the empire ends?

This is now relevant for the US, the most influential present-day empire.

To me there is also a larger problem: though they produce nothing that resembles actual safety and security, the national security leaders and generals we have are allowed to do their thing unmolested. Despite being at “war,” no great wartime leaders or visionaries are emerging. There is not a soul in Washington who can say that they have won or stopped any conflict. And though there might be the beloved perfumed princes in the form of the Petraeus’ and Wes Clarks’, or the so-called warrior monks like Mattis and McMaster, we’ve had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently done little of consequence. And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as “analysts”. We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one country in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. Indeed the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous.
[...]
Seeking refuge in its political horse race roots, NBC (and others) meanwhile report the story of war as one of Rumsfeld vs. the Generals, as Wolfowitz vs. Shinseki, as the CIA vs. Cheney, as the bad torturers vs. the more refined, about numbers of troops and number of deaths, and even then Obama vs. the Congress, poor Obama who couldn’t close Guantanamo or reduce nuclear weapons or stand up to Putin because it was just so difficult.
[...]
I’d argue that under Trump, the national security establishment not only hasn’t missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism.
[...]
For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump’s various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I’m alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We shouldn’t get out Syria? We shouldn’t go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really earn for the Cold War? And don’t even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?

Is this tend of the national security establishment amassing more political power in the US, which seems to have been getting progressively worse, irreversible until the empire suffers serious defeats and the costs of foreign adventures can no longer be hid?

 

[Lexicus]

This is a two-and-a-half hour video with Tony Benn and some other more forgettable people (former CIA and MI6 agents, to be clear) talking about the same thing, Ajidica showed it to me a while ago and you might find it interesting:

@innonimatu

I’d argue that under Trump, the national security establishment not only hasn’t missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism.

This point is basically why I've been saying you're wrong to think Trump represents a better alternative to the likes of Clinton/Obama. John Bolton may get us into a war with Iran largely because Trump is such a moron.

 

[Ajidica]

I'm glad you remember that video lexi!
If anyone is interested, that same series had another one about the security services, this time focused on the domestic side of things.

None of the speakers were as interesting as Tony Benn or Miles Copeland, but you do get some interesting segments about the British Security Co-Ordination operations in the US in the lead up to WW2, some bizarre rambling from Robert Harbinson about Lord Mountbatten and the spy Anthony Blunt, and the whole debacle that was Northern Ireland and MI5.
EDIT: One of the people on this episode, Robin Ramsay, is still running the newsletter mentioned in the show some 30 years later. Often interesting and still worth a read when he is writing about UK politics and "conspiracy theories".
https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/

To answer inno's question, I would say not necessarily. After Watergate/Vietnam we had the Church Committee and the House Select Committee on Assassinations which lead to Congress passing many laws to reform the various security services that worked for a while. If it wasn't for Reagan and his merry band of cryptofascist Cold Warriors the reforms probably would have held.

 

[Berzerker]

gotta have perpetual war...good thread, I'll have to spend a few hours on those videos

 

[Kaitzilla]

Every US president gets to start 1 fresh war.

Only George W Bush was eager to start two.

 

[Zkribbler]

Every US president gets to start 1 fresh war.

Only George W Bush was eager to start two.

I wouldn't categorize retaliating for having thousands of your civilians murdered in a sneak attack as :starting a war."

 

[Lexicus]

I wouldn't categorize retaliating for having thousands of your civilians murdered in a sneak attack as :starting a war."

9/11 was itself a retaliation for the US's military actions in the Middle East over the previous decade, among them the intentional starvation of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children by the Clinton Administration.

The people of Afghanistan also had essentially diddly-squat to do with the attack, but they have sure paid the price.

 

[Berzerker]

and it all started with Bush #41 leaving the army in Saudi Arabia to enforce sanctions on Saddam

well, it started when Bush #41 gave Saddam a wishy washy response to the dispute between Iraq and Kuwait before Saddam invaded.

meh, we dont want to get involved became Saddam is Hitler Revisited and then Bush signed a truce with him after telling Iraqis to rebel.

My God the Bush family has been disastrous

Unless of course our goal all along was to get troops and bases in the Middle East around that oil

 

[innonimatu]

To answer inno's question, I would say not necessarily. After Watergate/Vietnam we had the Church Committee and the House Select Committee on Assassinations which lead to Congress passing many laws to reform the various security services that worked for a while. If it wasn't for Reagan and his merry band of cryptofascist Cold Warriors the reforms probably would have held.

The Church Commission did roll back some of those abuses of power. But the spy agencies and the number of people involved has now multiplied. I don't think any one commission could even figure out what is going on!