Considering this week's news, it is time to replay this TAT piece from last Nov.
"The Speaker of the House and his MAGA minions = a severe, National Security Threat"
TAT readers, this repost is actually the first of two TAT pieces today. It was inspired by a MAGA led, House of Representatives that follows the treasonous, orange menace, like the proverbial lemmings… right off of the cliff. The problem is, they are taking US and Western Liberal Democracy with them, intentionally.
Yesterday, Trump demanded that Congress reject all deals regarding two priorities to US national security: funding our freedom loving Ukrainian allies against Putin, Ukraine, and border legislation. This path only benefits Putin, China, Trump, MAGA and the global far-right movement of dictators, authoritarians, and the oligarchs that support them. Democracy and freedom are the most impacted victims.
More on this in the coming year, as the US and our fellow democracies wage combat with the forces that would oppress us all.
Onward
The Speaker of the House and his MAGA minions = a severe, National Security Threat
NOV 13, 2023
Well TAT readers, I will begin this week with a stark, bare-knuckled assessment of the MAGA controlled GOP, in relation to managing Ukraine, Israel and the US government. This assessment will offend many but is offered as a clear-eyed perspective, from a professional truth-teller with decades of experience. My constantly required disclaimer is, that I abhor big-money political parties, and the threat they impose on our constitutional republic, especially the Republican Party at this phase of American history.
Most of today’s piece revolves around the contradictory positions taken by the GOP in regard to Israel, Gaza and the array of global aggressors like China, Russia and Iran who are midstream in creating a global bloc of authoritarian dominance. All of this is a bit deep, but I will make today’s critical insights, as plain-spoken as possible. I don’t do this because I think my readers unsophisticated, but because so much of the national security community of the US and our allies, speak a unique language, unintelligible to the voters who bear the burden and risk of the decisions made by these entities.
If you are still reading after my comments about the US right, I applaud your willingness to better understand the risks.
Onward
Aiding and abetting the Enemy
The most recent and severe example of GOP congressman and senators, selling out our national security to Putin, Iran, and the barbaric terrorists, Hamas and Hezbollah, comes in the form of their disgraceful attempts to split Ukraine funding from the White House’s determination to fully fund both Ukraine… and Israel’s fight for survival. In our current, GOP created budget debacle, new Speaker of the House, another run-of-the-mill MAGA sycophant, Mike Johnson is attempting to not only defund Ukraine but also exacerbate our national debt by cutting the IRS, who largely funds the US government.
Since Trump’s now infamous escalator ride to announce his candidacy, the GOP has sold out US national security and that of our allies, both directly and obliquely. Russia has been the primary recipient of such behavior in situations like, Syria, the Kurds, undermining NATO, praising and rewarding Putin, etc. Now, when it comes to supporting Israel and Ukraine, Speaker Johnson and every single Republican in the House, are attempting to allow him to ignore funding Ukraine, while concurrently supporting the Jewish State. I explicitly condemn every House Republican, because every single one of them voted for Johnson. This includes my own congressman here in TX, #23, Tony Gonzalez. Like most GOP reps these days, Tony plays a so-called “nice guy” on TV but votes with MAGA.
This not only directly supports Putin, but tangentially, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. In simple terms, they wish to fund Israel, but also their Russian and Iranian overlords. This risks the lives of millions of Israelis, Palestinians, Iranians, Russians, Ukrainians, and far more. This not only is a direct threat to US physical security but to our potential to provide leadership and/ or contribute to our responsibilities globally, among friends and allies.
To illustrate some of the most prominent risks to allowing this national threat to continue are here below:
Defunding Ukraine is to defund our own national security community. We already have massive focus within the DoD and IC budgets, to combat the type of threats represented by Russia, China, Iran, terrorism and global stability. Our investment in Ukraine is in the long run, a dramatic cost savings to our national security. We have already achieved enormous ROI/ return on investment as can be seen in these bullet points below:
Ukrainians fighting and dying for their actual survival, have already exposed Putin’s military as a grotesquely overestimated and feckless component of his power.
The war in Ukraine, has drained Putin’s resources and credibility as a superpower, so significantly, that as a unilateral threat, his rating has gone from roughly 95% to approximately 30%. Without a nuclear arsenal, it would be a rating more in line with Tunisia.
Even to Xi in China, Putin’s value as an ally has taken a severe beating and leaves him begging for help rather than demanding it.
This begging for help not only lowered Putin’s global status dramatically, but that begging has also begat several other conflicts in areas that Putin has influence in. Most of these areas are in regions where we already have significant national security challenges, like, Armenia/ Azerbaijan, Niger, Western Africa, the Balkans and Central Africa. The most prominent of course is in Gaza. I detailed the Gaza connection in my first assessment of Hamas’ barbarism, on Oct 7th.
As you can see in the chart above, there is a new “axis of evil” and defunding one type of serious threat to any of those threats, empowers them to continue provoking distractions from Ukraine while concurrently empowering all of the evil. Like Pavlov’s dog, by omitting Ukrainian support, Russia is empowered, Iran is empowered and tangentially, barbaric terrorists, like Hamas and Hezbollah, are duly empowered.
Even if Speaker Johnson and his sycophants fund Israel, they are obliquely empowering the rest of the players in this axis of evil.
We spend an enormous amount yearly to mitigate these threats and having the Speaker of the House and his party cost us significantly by defunding Ukraine, increases to costs everywhere else.
Chairman Michael McCaul of Texas (R), a long-time foreign affairs committee member, says one thing Sunday from Tel Aviv and then reverses his opinions in front of MAGA voters and GOP colleagues. Sunday, he said on Face the Nation, that we must NOT split funding to Israel and Ukraine but is already backing the Speaker’s traitorous stance, at home. McCaul’s hyper partisan and utterly dishonest report on the Afghanistan withdrawal was pure hogwash and disgracefully dishonest. That should tell you all that you need to know.
The most dangerous threat to our current national security is that, not only are the GOP members of Congress selling out our national security, but they continually demonstrate an absence of backbone to ever stand up to Trump and the MAGA extremists.
Shoring up support for Putin, also directly supports Xi. What the war in Gaza illustrates pretty clearly is that there is, indeed, a hierarchy to the new axis of evil and Xi is as his narrative of ascension requires, at the very pinnacle.
Finally in this short list of primary threats, our economy, which is firing on all cylinders outside of the falsely labeled phenomena of “inflation” is part of US credibility everywhere. Most alleged inflation these days is actually price-gouging by major corporations, especially oil and gas. There is only one rating entity that still keeps the US credit rating above water. The others directly blame the Newt Gingrich inspired tactic of budget shutdowns, as a prime reason for our declining credit rating.
Summary:
I have only attempted to make the case against the MAGA controlled GOP via a few items related to the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. The bottom line here is that this conspiracy theory underpinned, formerly respectable party called the GOP, has lost its heart, soul and patriotism. What they are doing, is to intentionally degrade US national security and at a time where ours and our allies’ influence is already at historic lows. There are many reasons for this, including my profession, where gross incompetence, overt negligence and fruitless nepotism are the standard, not the rule.
If voters continue to vote for these MAGA anti-patriots, our past 8 years of governance by conspiracy theories will be just the beginning of exponentially more rapid decline as a nation. This puts America and our allies in a position impossible to recover from.
I want to be brutally clear in this ultimate point. I am NOT screaming “go blue” or vote Democrat but… pragmatically speaking, they are the only game in town that does not lead to our national demise as a constitutional republic, within a couple of generations.
Save our nation first and sort the politics later. This is what we have come down to.
My very best for your week,
Paul
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