Obama's Duplicity

  

Obama’s Duplicity

Peter Schultz

 

                  “Obama campaigned on the idea that Bush had drained resources in Iraq that should have been used to fight al Qaeda. ‘They [Bush and McCain] took their eye off the people who were responsible for 9/11,…al Qaeda.’ The new president pledged to rearrange US priorities to Afghanistan….” [Dirty Wars, 237]

 

                  Clever. While apparently criticizing Bush and McCain, Obama is endorsing the war on terror. His is not even a criticism that cuts very deeply. They spent too much in Iraq, which doesn’t mean the war and occupation was a mistake. Obama allows people to think he is opposing Bush and McCain when, in fact, he is endorsing their war on terror and even, up to a point, their invasion and occupation of Iraq. His endorsement is hidden behind a very mild critique of Bush and McCain and their actions. So, Obama is actually colluding with Bush and McCain with regard to the war on terror, even with regard to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

 

                  Duplicity: the coin of the realm used to hide colluding political parties.

The Ambiguity of Moral Virtue

  

The Ambiguity of Moral Virtue

Peter Schultz

 

                  As noted in the book, Patriotic Betrayal, there was a time in the United States when “neutrality [was viewed] as ‘immoral and short-sighted.,’ by both liberal and conservative Cold Warriors.” [145]

 

                  Now, if we grant that neutrality is, actually, immoral or amoral, as thought by “both liberal and conservative Cold Warriors,” then these Cold Warriors were, in fact, moral human beings. But this means that these moral human beings accepted and embraced war, both cold and hot.

 

                  A question occurs to me: Isn’t this a good argument on behalf of immorality insofar as it is pacifistic, insofar as it points toward peace or peaceful coexistence, and not to war? Ironically, it would appear that immoral human beings are less warlike than moral human beings. Put differently, courageous human beings are more warlike than cowardly human beings. So, what’s so great about courage?

 

                  In other words, courage – and moral virtue generally – has ambiguous consequences, just as does cowardice and immorality generally. So, what’s needed? Intellectual virtue: that is, the capacity to discern when courage makes more sense than cowardice and when cowardice – e.g. “appeasement” – makes more sense than courage. The fact that neutrality was immoral was not necessarily an argument against it, at least not during the Cold War. And the fact that the Cold Warriors were moral need not lead to their endorsement or the endorsement of the Cold War itself. Ironically, at times, a little immorality goes a long way.

Patriotic Betrayal #2

  

Patriotic Betrayal #2

Peter Schultz

 

                  According to Leonard Bebchick, one of members of the National Student Association who knew of the CIA’s connections with that organization, he and his cohorts were realists.

 

                  “We were not starry-eyed idealists; we were all pretty hardened people, all political types who had a realistic assessment of what the world was about, and yet we felt we were doing God’s work.” [136]

 

                  Leaving aside the claim that it was or is realistic to think of yourselves as “doing God’s work,” Bebchick’s claim that he and his cohorts had “a realistic assessment of what the world was about” is open to challenge. In his reality, the world was experiencing a war against communism, a war that was divinely inspired, a war unlike other wars.

 

However, this was not so. The world was experiencing just another war that was, like all other wars, politics by other means. Just more politics not fundamentally different than politics as it had appeared throughout human history. And, so, while war had a role to play in this political drama, it would not be decisive in its resolution.

 

                  It would not be decisive because political conflicts can only be resolved politically, via compromises, negotiations, and diplomacy. Why? Because defeated nations are not vanquished nations. So, the defeated must be “dealt with.” As Aristotle indicated in his Politics, democratic factions, aristocratic factions, oligarchic factions, even despotic factions are permanent features of the human condition because humans are political animals. Hence, all political disputes must be resolved, insofar as they can be, politically. And all those resolutions will lack finality or permanence. “Regime change,” which Americans take to be uncommon, carefully constructed events, are intrinsic to political life, happening continually and even haphazardly. Regime changes make political life look like a madhouse.

 

                  American elites do not understand this and, so, they repeatedly fail because they do not know what they should be doing. They seek the impossible, vanquishment and the elimination of political conflicts. Given the political character of the human condition, institutions like the CIA are or become despotic. Despotism and despotic institutions are appealing because they claim to be able to eliminate political conflicts and, hence, the need for politics. But ironically, despotisms do not eliminate conflict, they feed them. So, as its history demonstrates, the CIA feeds conflict and it cannot resolve them. To rely on the CIA to achieve peace is madness. And insofar as the CIA is victorious, prevails, that victory contains the seeds of its own destruction.

Patriotic Betrayal

  

Patriotic Betrayal

Peter Schultz

 

                  A few remarks about some passages in Karen M. Paget’s book, Patriotic Betrayal, which is about the CIA’s covert attempt to control the NSA, the National Student Association during the Cold War.

 

                  Among the leaders of the NSA, there was a “naïve faith … that American know-how could replace politics.” This phenomenon is common among Americans because the real naivete is the American conviction that its embrace of know-how isn’t political.

 

                  As the “students” involved with the NSA sought to recruit students from other parts of the world, they concluded that Asian students, for example, were “prone to agitation.” They concluded that “Asian students needed to move beyond the ‘outmoded tactics’ used during independence movements, when their ‘major purpose was to create havoc and unrest for the Western powers….” They had to learn “to work with the Western powers.” [124]

 

                  So, American “students” were not prone to agitation.  Why not? Because Americans focus on acquiring expertise, achieving success, being ambitious, rather than being political. But this is a political choice or a choice with significant political implications. It may be said that it is as political as the choice to adopt tactics that are used to create havoc and unrest. It might best be called bourgeois politics.

 

                  The Asians adopted such tactics because their purpose was independence and, so, “their energy could be redirected” only by changing that purpose; for example, by giving up the pursuit for independence for the sake of “work[ing] with the West.” The Americans did not understand that working with the West was a substitute for, a replacement, a subversion of the drive for independence. So, their energies could only be successfully redirected if they gave up their drive for independence. Although the Americans did not understand this, those seeking independence did know it, which is why they distrusted Americans as much as they did. Working with the West is, obviously, a political agenda and not one the agitating students were prepared to embrace. They wanted their independence. In fact, advocating for American know-how, advocating against agitation are just covers for opposition to genuine independence. As such, they were bound to fail, at least absent despotic repression.

 

                  Beyond the students, even American elites are guilty of the same ignorance. LBJ, at one point in Vietnam war, offered to build a Vietnamese Great Society if they would end the war. What he did not know, at least not sufficiently, is that the Vietnamese did not want a Great Society. They wanted a unified, independent Vietnam. And they also knew, what LBJ did not, that an American sponsored Great Society would not accomplish those goals. Surprisingly, perhaps, the Vietnamese understood the situation better than LBJ did, which may help explain why they won the war. Ignorance is not always bliss.

Walter Karp and the Political

  

Walter Karp and the Political

Peter Schultz

 

                  It is interesting that both JFK and Nixon, and also LBJ, waged war in Vietnam in ways that were intended to guarantee their re-elections, JFK in 1964 and Nixon in 1972, A question is: What does this teach us about American politics and politics in general?

 

                  Walter Karp wrote several interesting books on American politics, one of them being Indispensable Enemies: The Politics of Misrule in America. In that book, he focuses on party politics and the established wisdom that the primary purpose of political parties is to win elections. Looking at the facts that throughout the United States there are many places where one party constantly wins while the other party constantly loses. Karp argues this phenomenon ultimately proves that political parties are not driven primarily by the desire to win elections. Rather, they are driven by the desire of their leading members to control the party and to do so even it requires losing elections.

 

                  “Insofar as a state party is controlled at all, the sole abiding purpose, the sole overriding interest of those who control it, is to maintain control. This, not election victory, is the fundamental, unswerving principle of party politics in America….” [19]

 

                  “The prevailing doctrine of the parties thus describes what party organizations are perpetually striving to avoid.” [19]

 

                  The parties and those who control them fear most of all loss of control over nominations and loss of political power. Loss of control over nominations means loss of political power. Insofar as the loss of political power is the goal, then controlling nominations is more important than winning elections. Winning elections with uncontrollable, that is, insurgent candidates is to be avoided at all costs, including losing elections. So, in 2024, the leading Democrats’ goal was not to defeat Trump but to continue in control of the party. Nominating a likely loser like Kamala Harris was the result.

 

                  This political phenomenon effects politics generally, that is, beyond elections. In the normal course of American politics these days, the leading Democrats’ actions are intended not to defeat Trump and his policies but to enable the party’s big wigs to retain control of the party. Because maintaining control of the party is the most important goal, more important than defeating Trump’s policies, the result is compromise and collusion between the Democrats and Trump and the Republicans, collusion which allows the leading Democrats to retain control of the party.

 

                  Now, return to examples this essay started with, how JFK and Richard Nixon waged war in Vietnam. JFK is reputed to have told people that his policies in Vietnam, particularly his desire to pull out of Vietnam were dictated by his goal of being re-elected in 1964, so he could retain control of the Democratic party, increase his chances of successfully disengaging from Vietnam, and protect himself and the party from an assault by rabid anti-communists. Nixon followed the same path in his first term, waging war in Vietnam in ways that would best guarantee his re-election in 1972. So, when Nixon went to China, he conveyed to the Chinese that he was would accept defeat in Vietnam provided it occurred after “a decent interval” after the United States pulled out. So, for the sake of re-election and party cohesion, Nixon “sold out” South Vietnam, after extending the war for almost four years in order to achieve a “peace with honor” he could have achieved earlier in his first term.

 

In these examples, winning elections in order to retain power personally as well as politically took precedence over ending the Vietnam war. So, winning elections, like losing elections, is done to enable party organizations “to maintain control, [which] is the fundamental and unswerving principle of party politics in America….” Thus, the deaths, both Vietnamese and American, that occurred during Nixon’s first term and those that occurred during JFK’s only term were in the service of that “fundamental and unswerving principle of American politics.”

 

So, both JFK and Nixon were not only principled but shared the same principle. Which might lead one to conclude that this principle is intrinsic not just to American politics but to politics generally. And to further conclude hat that principle and its consequent behaviors are, to use a now discarded language, “natural.”

 

 

Lost Crusader: William Colby, DCI

  

Lost Crusader: William Colby, DCI

Peter Schultz

 

                  The following are some reflections on passages from John Prados’s book on William Colby, Lost Crusader, in the context of Colby’s nomination as Director of the CIA.

 

                  “A related aspect of this … is the degree of comity that … existed at that time. In not exhibiting much interest in the CIA’s Family Jewels, [Senators] Stennis, Symington, [and Representative] Hebert followed norms long established: {Representative] Nedzi’s inspection was the exception. Intelligence oversight in 1973 was exercised with a light hand, if at all.” [264, emphasis added]

 

                  Now, “intelligence oversight” meant accountability. So, what does this tell us about government? That it functions best when there is little or no accountability. “Functions best” means acting freely; it does not mean achieving the desired results, because without accountability the results cannot be known or evaluated. Demanding  little or no accountability means that those “investigating,” say, the CIA, are not interested in knowing or evaluating the agency’s results. Whether the CIA achieved its goals are of no interest to the “investigators.” Perhaps that is because they know it is highly unlikely that the CIA did achieve its goals. Duplicity is essential to maintaining the illusion that government works.

 

                  “Nedzi also confronted Colby with the question [that was the] hardest of all: Why not make public the report? Colby argued that such an action might cripple the CIA, and Nedzi accepted the argument.” [263]

 

                  Take note that duplicity and/or secrecy is absolutely essential for the government, here the CIA, to function. Why is that? Because without duplicity and secrecy the illusion that the government works or that it reflects the popular will would be shattered. Governments must deal in delusions, meaning politics and politicians are and must be delusional. And insofar as politics is intrinsically delusional then it is fair to say that politics is the problem. That is, the political, meaning every particular form politics takes, is problematical. Affirming the political in order to solve political problems is delusional, it is madness. Politics is a madhouse and, very often, it becomes a mad slaughterhouse. Which explains why Plato Is reputed to have said: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

Party Politics

  

Party Politics

Peter Schultz

 

                  Both American political parties compete by acting as if and even believing that their differences are significant, when they are not. Why this duplicity?

 

                  Because without it, the political would be revealed as delusional and our politicians, our elites would be revealed as delusional. As political animals, humans cannot, will not accept such a revelation. That is, they cannot accept that politics, all politics is delusional, is madness and that the political arena is a madhouse. To make sense of their actions, to make their actions seem sensible, duplicity is absolutely essential. In the United States this means that people must believe and act as if there are two political parties with significant political differences and that each party offers solutions to our problems.

 

                  But there are no political solutions to our problems because, at the most basic level, the problem is politics. Hence, embracing or affirming the political in any imaginable way, capitalistically, communistically, socialistically, democratically, or oligarchically, is intrinsically flawed. The best that can be done is to minimize the flaws. So, the best regime is simply the least bad or unhealthy regime, the order or arrangement with the least flaws. As an old saying has it, democracy is preferable to the alternatives only because it is less bad.

 

                  Political parties blind us to what is actually going, viz., the constant and continuing pursuit of power, by presenting themselves and their politicians as being concerned with justice or the common good. Without such duplicitous behavior, it would be impossible for people, both in and out of government, to affirm the political, to take politics seriously. So, political behavior is intrinsically duplicitous, which helps explain why the most duplicitous humans thrive in the political arena. Seriously.