by Anthony Shaffer and Peter O'Brien
What is it about those who once held
positions of authority? Do they simply want
power again? Will they say anything to
curry favor with those who might restore that lost
power?
Consider the 4 star admiral who
recently wrote an editorial announcing that he‘d
be voting for Vice President Biden for
President. Like many in the foreign policy arena,
he makes a point of talking about how
things are so dire after more than 3 years of
President Trump and that America’s
reputation around the world is about to go forever
into the basement if Trump is re-elected.
Perhaps that’s so. But it’s worth
noting that the “good ole days” to which the
Admiral wishes to return weren’t
exactly everything they’re now being cracked up to be.
After all, it was the leadership of the
last 30 years (and particularly of the previous
administration), that:
- Put China in the driver’s seat in
East Asia and potentially the world
- Funded China’s economic growth with
American economic atrophy
- Was going to let Iran build nuclear
weapons and missiles
- Had done nothing at all to stop North
Korean missile tests
- Had done nothing but subsidize
Palestinian violence for 3 decades
- Was quite content to let the “forever
war” go on in Afghanistan without asking the
- Pentagon "What the Heck?”
- Continued to let Western Europe pay
1% of their GDP for national security and let the
- US carry the rest
- Said that a nation without borders is
fine
- Let millions of jobs flow out of the US
Or what about the former “leaders” of
the Intelligence Community that banded
together and announced that they
suspected the hard drive in the news this past week was
part of a Russian disinformation
effort? They note that they have no evidence, but they
still “suspect” that it is.
Hmmm… Why would they say that,
particularly given the fraudulent nature of
the previous accusations of Russian meddling?
This is one of those situations where
it’s either A, or not A. Remember the Knight,
in Alice in Wonderland, telling Alice
that he’d written a song and that:
“Either it brings tears to your eyes or else,”
“Or else what,” asked Alice.
“Or it doesn’t.”
Just so. Either the hard drive is part
of a Russian Disinformation Campaign, or it
isn’t. But to the uninitiated the “suspicions”
of senior intelligence officers lend credibility
where there is none, as if they
actually have inside information. Yet, they state they don’t.
And if they don’t actually know that
the hard-drive is a Russian disinformation
effort, and are simply talking through
their hats, spewing “suspicions” so as to sow
confusion, then what we have here is a
gaggle of squawking former intelligence officers
who are willing to say anything to pay
court to the possible next administration.
But aren’t intelligence officers
supposed to speak the truth, no matter what? So,
aren’t they really demonstrating that
they’ll say anything to curry favor and gain power?
Haven’t they actually shown that none
of them is fit for any position of responsibility in
any administration?
And returning to the Admiral.
The Admiral made an interesting
statement; he commented that he was “pro-life”
but was going to vote for Vice President Biden anyway.
Now, the reason anyone makes a series
of statements like that is to make a
rhetorical point. “I strongly oppose A.
This man, Mr. X, is for A. But things are so bad
that I will support Mr. X, despite his
support for A, because we need Mr. X.” One fact is
placed in juxtaposition to the second to show just how important is this action.
But, to make that sort of statement
work you need to demonstrate that things are
so bad that the thing you oppose is worth suffering through.
In this case the Admiral makes the
point that he is pro-life. Mr. Biden and Miss
Harris are both strongly pro-abortion.
To make that particular unbalanced justification a
valid statement the Admiral would need
to show that the tradeoff is worth it, that the
strengthened US support to abortion
would provide an overall increase in moral good
around the world and a strategic
benefit to the US, one that outweighs the lives lost (he is
Pro Life, you see) by the election of this Pro-Abortion administration.
The Admiral also notes that Black lives
matter, yet he wants to return to policies
of the past - which left Black
unemployment at roughly twice the national average. Does
he want those policies as well?
Not only does the Admiral not make any
case for these actions, but by espousing
support for a return to policies that
for 8 years turned a blind eye to the strikingly
immoral behavior of Beijing and “Emperor”
Xi, the Admiral engages in a truly outlandish
degree of moral equivocation.
In fact, he’s about as far out on the
limb of moral equivocation as you can get.
Someone who can make that sort of moral
calculus “work” is in the same league as the
former leaders of the Intelligence
Community. One imagines that, if prodded, he and they
could justify just about anything.
Hurrah for equal rights - except for Chinese minorities.
Hurrah for freedom of religion - unless it conflicts with academic elites.
Hurrah for free speech - unless it offends Tehran or Beijing.
Hurrah for free enterprise - unless it
challenges the tech and data monopolies of
Silicon Valley.
For the last several years there’s been
a constant drumbeat among the foreign
policy “elites” that, as the US changes
direction away from the policies (listed above) that
have weakened the US, away from polices
that weakened several of our key allies, and
strengthened China, and away from
policies that left us mired down in forever wars, that
the US needs to come back to that old
course, and “show leadership.” In the last few
months this has even been expanded to
include warnings that the world now sees the US
electoral system and our Constitution as dangerous and weak and needing change.
Over the past few years the nation
finally started to recoil from the web that the
Washington DC elites, and the doyens of
academia, had sought to wrap around the nation.
Yet, the Admiral and the Intelligence
Community leaders to want to turn back the clock,
and more
firmly wrap themselves up in that old web. We can only wonder why