Category Archives: Russia

The CIA Has Become A Policy-Making Arm Of Government, Warned Harry Truman

Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Government, Intelligence, Middle East, Russia

“President Trump has decided to end the CIA’s covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of Bashar al-Assad,” declared the Washington Post. The paper quickly went on to qualify that this was “a move long sought by Russia” [and, for this reason, suspect] Its source? The usual anon “U.S. officials.”

Limiting the role of the CIA was also something Harry Truman sought (hat tip to Myron Pauli) and expressed in the same newspaper now condemning Trump for scaling back the CIA’s covert operations in Syria:

The Washington Post
December 22, 1963 – page A11

Harry Truman Writes:
Limit CIA Role
To Intelligence

By Harry S Truman
Copyright, 1963, by Harry S Truman

INDEPENDENCE, MO., Dec. 21 — I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency—CIA. At least, I would like to submit here the original reason why I thought it necessary to organize this Agency during my Administration, what I expected it to do and how it was to operate as an arm of the President.
I think it is fairly obvious that by and large a President’s performance in office is as effective as the information he has and the information he gets. That is to say, that assuming the President himself possesses a knowledge of our history, a sensitive understanding of our institutions, and an insight into the needs and aspirations of the people, he needs to have available to him the most accurate and up-to-the-minute information on what is going on everywhere in the world, and particularly of the trends and developments in all the danger spots in the contest between East and West. This is an immense task and requires a special kind of an intelligence facility.
Of course, every President has available to him all the information gathered by the many intelligence agencies already in existence. The Departments of State, Defense, Commerce, Interior and others are constantly engaged in extensive information gathering and have done excellent work.
But their collective information reached the President all too frequently in conflicting conclusions. At times, the intelligence reports tended to be slanted to conform to established positions of a given department. This becomes confusing and what’s worse, such intelligence is of little use to a President in reaching the right decisions.
Therefore, I decided to set up a special organization charged with the collection of all intelligence reports from every available source, and to have those reports reach me as President without department “treatment” or interpretations.
I wanted and needed the information in its “natural raw” state and in as comprehensive a volume as it was practical for me to make full use of it. But the most important thing about this move was to guard against the chance of intelligence being used to influence or to lead the President into unwise decisions—and I thought it was necessary that the President do his own thinking and evaluating.
Since the responsibility for decision making was his—then he had to be sure that no information is kept from him for whatever reason at the discretion of any one department or agency, or that unpleasant facts be kept from him. There are always those who would want to shield a President from bad news or misjudgments to spare him from being “upset.”
For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas.
Some of the complications and embarrassment I think we have experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue—and a subject for cold war enemy propaganda.
With all the nonsense put out by Communist propaganda about “Yankee imperialism,” “exploitive capitalism,” “war-mongering,” “monopolists,” in their name-calling assault on the West, the last thing we needed was for the CIA to be seized upon as something akin to a subverting influence in the affairs of other people.
I well knew the first temporary director of the CIA, Adm. Souers, and the later permanent directors of the CIA, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg and Allen Dulles. These were men of the highest character, patriotism and integrity—and I assume this is true of all those who continue in charge.
But there are now some searching questions that need to be answered. I, therefore, would like to see the CIA be restored to its original assignment as the intelligence arm of the President, and that whatever else it can properly perform in that special field—and that its operational duties be terminated or properly used elsewhere.
We have grown up as a nation, respected for our free institutions and for our ability to maintain a free and open society. There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.

No wonder The Swamp hates POTUS. Trump wants to downsize National Security Council & CIA & seek peace in Syria.

Bravo! Delivering on a campaign promise, #POTUSTrump ‘ends covert CIA program to arm anti-Assad rebels in Syria.’

The ‘Russians Did It! Canard Continued

Donald Trump, IMMIGRATION, Republicans, Russia

By Dr. Boyd D. Cathey

The “Russians Did It!” canard is alive and well, with each day bringing one more “leak,” dressed up in Deep State “drag” to resemble “a threat to the republic,” “collusion,” or, maybe—they hope—“treason.” The latest “event,” splattered all over MSNBC and CNN and The New York Times, is that during a formal banquet for the members of the G-20 and their wives in Hamburg, Germany, President Trump walked over to join his wife (who had been seated next to Vladimir Putin at the dinner table) for a few minutes, and chatted for a few minutes with “the new Hitler”!

Heaven help us and our national security!! Another “meeting,” another previously-unrevealed conversation between Trump and his puppet-master! Where are James Bond and John Le Carre when we need them? Of course, the fact that this brief encounter happened in the presence and earshot of the other presidents, notables, and their wives, in public, makes absolutely no difference to the Mainstream Media [MSM]. Or, to quote a couple of unhinged Democratic congressmen: “Any meeting with a Russian is a meeting with an agent and spy for the Russian government!”

And, so now, I must also confess my guilt. You see when I was a doctoral grad student in the University of Navarra in Spain, I had a good friend (he was a roommate for one semester) who was a Russian. His name was Yevgeny [Russian for “Eugene”], and I seem to remember that his family—I believe his last name was Sheremetev—had been exiles since the 1920s. But, alas, now I know—since he was a Russian and he was desirous of being my friend, obviously he was plying me for intel and information! And, yes, I admit it, I discussed all sorts of things with him, and I probably revealed all sorts of very important details and privileged secrets: how many students were in my graduating class at Garner High School, my father’s military history during World War II, my involvement as a student in politics, and my girlfriends. Alas, I am certain that, according to those Democrat congressmen and Deep State masters, I engaged in “collusion”! And, now, I am worried that black, blinded SUVs, with Washington DC license plates, will be stationed outside my humble house …. Will I be called before Congress to testify? Do any of you know a good attorney who might defend me pro bono?

VOTER FRAUD
The president’s commission on potential voter fraud is running into stiff opposition. Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach was named by the president to head a bipartisan Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity to investigate thoroughly and prepare a report on any voting irregularities or fraud, including possible voting by illegal aliens. Remember that the media and Democrats ridiculed the president’s claim that possibly several million illegal votes may have been cast this past November. They assured us: It didn’t happen, there is no evidence. Okay, said the president, I’ll name a commission to investigate the question, which is exactly what he did. So, now, as the Kobach Commission requests information on voter rolls [which is, in fact, public information] from the states, the commission has met with push-back and refusals, and the MSM is screaming bloody-murder. And, just yesterday the Congressional Black Caucus demanded [it’s always a “demand” with those folks!] that Kobach be fired.

But, why? If there is no illegal voting, no election fraud, why would they be so unhinged and frenzied in attacking the work of the commission? Aha, you see, their response is that the commission’s activities signal an attempt at “voter suppression” of minorities, immigrants, poor folks—in other words, the Democratic dependent blocs. Thus, the real reason emerges from the political rhetorical muck: “Those illegal voters, those non-citizens, those illegal aliens, those thousands of dead people in Cook County, Chicago and elsewhere, all those folks are OUR folks!How dare you question THEIR ‘right’ to vote!”

And the implication here goes to the very heart of their playbook: The United States has become, for them, a “universal nation” for which there are NO borders and which is open to ANY refugee or illegal immigrant, as long as, that is, that person will become a part of the bloated congerie and motley crew of dependent Democratic minority and pressure groups. That’s the real reason … and, again, most of the GOP is AWOL.

*****

~ Dr. Boyd D. Cathey is an Unz Review columnist, as well as a Barely a Blog contributor, whose work is easily located on this site under the “BAB’s A List” search category. Dr. Cathey earned an MA in history at the University of Virginia (as a Thomas Jefferson Fellow), and as a Richard M Weaver Fellow earned his doctorate in history and political philosophy at the University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain. After additional studies in theology and philosophy in Switzerland, he taught in Argentina and Connecticut before returning to North Carolina. He was State Registrar of the North Carolina State Archives before retiring in 2011. In addition to writing for The Unz Review, Cathey writes for The Abbeville Institute, Confederate Veteran magazine, The Remnant, and other publications in the United States and Europe on a variety of topics, including politics, social and religious questions, film, and music.

UPDATED: Political Tribes & The Donald Trump Jr. Contretemps

Conservatism, Democrats, Donald Trump, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Republicans, Russia

I checked out social media before dipping the proverbial toe in the water, this morning. The Right—libertarian, conservative, Republican—is behind Trump, no matter. The Left is against him, no matter what. Tribalists all.

The reaction to Donald Trump Jr. contretemps epitomizes tribalism, if you ask me; but if you’re a tribalist, you won’t ask me.

The silver lining? Maybe we’ll finally be rid of Jared Kushner. Wife Ivanka follows him back to New York, in short order.

Fin.

AND FAT CHANCE.

The Story is Here. If you’re a member of Tribe I, you think it’s a non-story. If you’re a member of Tribe II; you’re into it. It’s your smoking gun.

UPDATE: But there is a truth here, beyond the two tribes’ positions. And the “What about when the Democrats did this or that” won’t cut it as an argument.

UPDATED (7/10): Solzhenitsyn On The West’s ‘Persisting Blindness Of Superiority’ (American Exceptionalism)

Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Literature, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Russia, The West

“But the persisting blindness of superiority continues to hold the belief that all the vast regions of our planet should develop and mature to the level of contemporary Western systems, the best in theory and the most attractive in practice; that all those other worlds are but temporarily prevented (by wicked leaders or by severe crises or by their own barbarity and incomprehension) from pursuing Western pluralistic democracy and adopting the Western way of life. Countries are judged on the merit of their progress in that direction. But in fact such a conception is a fruit of Western incomprehension of the essence of other worlds, a result of mistakenly measuring them all with a Western yardstick. The real picture of our planet’s development bears little resemblance to all this.”

In other words, American Exceptionalism. The West Doesn’t understand ‘other worlds.’

“A World Split Apart — Commencement Address Delivered At Harvard University, June 8, 1978.”

Disillusioned with the West, Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia, “leaving behind [what he perceived as a] dying civilization fatefully wedded to a democratic ideology.” In time, neocons and liberals rejected the great man, going on to adopt, instead, regime-changing, neocon, Russian dissidents.

… The West’s freedom, Solzhenitsyn declared … had degenerated into license, its media filled minds and souls with gossip and nonsense, its popular culture served only to coarsen and degrade, its people exhibited an unthinking sympathy for socialism and an inability to recognize evil.
… Overnight, those who had lionized Solzhenitsyn cast him into the outer darkness and adopted in his place the nuclear physicist and Western-oriented dissident Andrei Sakharov. A good and courageous man, Sakharov was a secularist and self-proclaimed socialist who had mastered the language—“democracy” and “human rights”—of Western liberalism. …
…Solzhenitsyn was [accused of being] a Russian nationalist and imperialist. In fact the great writer was a patriot who loved his country and expected others to love theirs; he explicitly repudiated nationalism and imperialism. More important, Mahoney recognizes that ‘a burning love for one’s motherland [is] compatible with humility before God and deference to a universal moral order.’

MORE. “Solzhenitsyn Wasn’t Western.”

UPDATE (7/10): FACEBOOK DEBATE IS HERE.

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