As usual, Caroline Glick has a way to get to the heart of a matter really fast. Her article, “Trump and Israel: Enemies of the System” (05/19/2017) runs through the media maze right to the center of the puzzle. Her summation of the situation provides some important insights that not only pertain to Israel’s relationship with the U.S. but also identifies who the culprits are that have been giving Trump such a hard time, making learning his new role an impossible task.
No doubt this past week has been one of the most turbulent in American presidential politics in recent memory (and perhaps for the past 45 years, going all the way back to Watergate). President Trump suffers from enemies on all sides, Democrats, Republicans, the Media, and even the staff in his administration. A lesser man would have called it quits several weeks ago. As it is, the week closed with talk of impeachment crowding out other political information entirely. But is the clamor for Trump’s head on a platter premature?
Glick brushes away this cluttered field of antagonists and asks who the real people are that seek to unseat the President not even 120 days into his administration. Says Glick, “This week we learned that the powers at play are deeply familiar. Trump’s nameless opponents are some of Israel’s greatest antagonists in the US security establishment.” What seemingly brought the worms out of the woodwork, was the visit of Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, to the White House. The disclosure by the Washington Post that Trump purportedly let slip a classified piece of information illustrates either that insiders are leaking faster than a sieve, or that the Washington Post pays no attention to the facts anymore before it publishes. Under Jeff Bezos management, it appears to now be majoring in manufacturing fake news. What’s ridiculous, however, as Glick points out, is that using laptops to blow up commercial airplanes isn’t even classified. This notion has been public information for at least two months. Supposedly, Trump disclosed “sources and methods” to the Russians in a not-so-confidential exchange with Lavrov. But the Post wasn’t the only media mainstay to charge Trump with carelessness and incompetence. The motion was seconded by the NY Times when it reported that these sources and methods were Israeli.
Glick notes that we should overlook a rather pertinent fact that the laptop information was already public. And we should apparently ignore that National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster was fresh from the meeting when he talked to the press and he said plainly, “It didn’t happen. I was there.” And he also pointed out what, in calmer political waters, would have killed the kerfuffle. Said McMaster: Trump couldn’t have uncovered the Israeli connection because Trump didn’t know where the information originated.
So, to be more specific, who are the leakers? Citing the Washington Post, “the leaders are members of the US intelligence community and former members” of the same. The old timers were undoubtedly “political appointees in senior intelligence positions during the Obama administration who resigned when Trump came into office.” Glick indicates that they were individuals who possessed exceedingly high-security clearances. “And all of them willingly committed felony offenses when they shared top secret information with reporters.” Glick describes why the best and brightest intelligence personnel left the agency under Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, after he announced he was appointing special counsel to investigate claims that the CIA tortured terrorists during interrogation. Not that we should encourage US intelligence to practice torture mind you. But the point is that the Obama administration didn’t have the back of those in the clandestine services who that they were serving the country, and had already been assured by their internal counsel that they were working within the limits of guidelines approved by the Whitehouse. From that point, it only got worse as the CIA and other intelligence organizations became politicized.
Glick concludes the article by suggesting that the newly appointed special counsel, Robert Mueller, will likely investigate until the cows come home – or at least until Trump can no longer govern. While hardly perfect (and clearly someone with too much ego and too little decorum), Trump might be the person to turn things around in Washington. And from Glick’s perspective, be just the person that Israel needs to get the Israeli-American alliance back on track.
If you aren’t familiar with Caroline Glick, I encourage you to sign up for her weekly newsletter at carolineglick.com. She certainly makes more sense than the mainstream media – and she does better fact checking too.
http://carolineglick.com/trump-and-israel-enemies-of-the-system/
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