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Pro-war ‘Trump circus’: Veteran reporter quits NBC with biting critique of corporate newsroom

RT | January 3, 2019

NBC News has given endless war and ‘destructive’ intelligence agencies a free pass, all while fixating on around-the-clock Trump hysteria, a veteran national security reporter wrote in a biting farewell message to his colleagues.

William M. Arkin had a number of pointed words to share with his fellow reporters before his last day of work at NBC on Friday – 2,228, to be exact. In his farewell memo – which reads more like a manifesto than a goodbye –the veteran muckraker accused NBC of peddling “ho-hum reporting” that “essentially condones” endless American military presence in the Middle East and North Africa. He also took the network to task for not reporting “the failures of the generals and national security leaders,” essentially becoming “a defender of the government against Trump” and a “cheerleader for open and subtle threat mongering.”

Arkin expressed concern that NBC’s infatuation with the “Trump circus” has distracted journalists from pressing stories that need to be told.

“I’m more worried about how much we are missing. Hence my desire to take a step back and think why so little changes with regard to America’s wars,” he wrote.

He continued by questioning the media’s fanatical opposition to Trump’s desire to improve relations with Russia, denuclearize North Korea, and withdraw from Syria.

“I’m alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We shouldn’t get out Syria? We shouldn’t go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the Cold War? And don’t even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?” he quipped.

If anyone is qualified to critique NBC’s military and national security reporting, it would be Arkin. The veteran journalist has worked for the network intermittently for the last 30 years, and co-authored a seminal Washington Post investigation revealing the dangerous rise of America’s security state.

Arkin has also been a vocal critic of America’s wars in the Middle East, and distinguished himself as one of the few mainstream journalists to question the fictitious WMD rolled out to justify war with Iraq.

Many on social media expressed their gratitude to Arkin for shining a light on the media’s complacency – and complicity – as America’s military and national security apparatus operate with near impunity both at home and abroad.

“Very useful to have all our well known suspicions confirmed from inside. there’s a reason revolutions make a priority to take over the tv stations,” one Twitter user noted.

Arkin finished his farewell roast by detailing some of his writing projects currently in the works, including an “extended essay about national security and why we never seem to end our now perpetual state of war.”

“There is lots of media critique out there, tons of analysis of leadership and the Presidency. But on the state of our national security? Not so much. Hopefully I will find myself thinking beyond the current fire and fury and actually suggest a viable alternative. Wish me luck.”

January 3, 2019 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Trump Border Wall is ‘Symbolic’, Can’t Stop Undocumented Migrants – Analysts

Sputnik – 03.01.2019

WASHINGTON – The border wall President Donald Trump shut the US federal government down over is not part of any coordinated strategy to limit undocumented migration but is a potent emotional symbol for his political base, analysts told Sputnik.

The US federal government has been shut down for eleven days because Democrats have refused Trump’s demand to include $5.6 billion in funding in next year’s budget to build a wall on the southern border.

On Wednesday, talks between Trump and Democratic lawmakers at the White House collapsed on the eve of the new US Congress convening. After the meeting, House Democrats vowed to submit legislation on Thursday that includes only $1.3 billion in border security funding, far short of Trump’s target.

Symbolic Wall

Currently there is nearly 600 miles worth of barrier, primarily consisting of 16-foot high fencing, along the 1,900-mile US-Mexico border. Trump wants to erect steel and/or concrete walls over 30 feet tall on more than 200 miles of the border that would include new and replacement barriers.

“The problem is that this wall is not and never was part of a well thought organic border security plan aimed at preventing or at least containing illegal immigration,” Global Policy Institute President Professor Paolo von Schirach said on Wednesday. “For Trump and his core supporters, the Mexico border wall was and is a symbol of America First in action.”

Building the wall on a border symbolizes “getting tough” in a hostile world by protecting US core interests, he added.

Parts of a wall or physical barrier at the US land border with Mexico have already been built under other presidents, Schirach recalled.

“Trump is the first US leader who made the wall into a core issue, a symbol of his agenda,” he said.

The Democrats who now control the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Congress that controls funding also see the wall as a symbolic issue to be opposed at all costs, Schirach observed.

“Given the hyper partisan climate in Washington, it is no surprise that the Democrats look at the same wall ‘project’ not as a policy issue to be discussed with the goal of reaching some compromise on an issue,” Schirach said.

Instead, the Democrats matched Trump’s uncompromising all-or-nothing approach, Schirach noted.

“If Trump wants the wall, then it seems to be the duty of all good Democrats to oppose it,” he said.

Both sides were therefore now locked into a potentially risky confrontation, Schirach cautioned.

“Now it is basically all about brinkmanship. Who will blink first? Based on his own calculations, Trump decided that it is politically alright for him to cause a major national disruption. We are talking about posturing, rallying the base — on both sides,” he said.

US border security and the fashioning of a comprehensive immigration policy were serious and important matters, Schirach advised.

“A totally divided US leadership cannot even begin to have a constructive debate on realistic, workable policy options,” Schirach warned.

Bargaining Chip

Trump on Wednesday, despite talks collapsing, said in a twitter post that he was till ready and willing to reach a funding agreement with the Democrats and urged both parties to work together.

Former Brown University Assistant Economics Professor Barry Friedman told Sputnik he held out hope that Trump and the new Democratic majority in the House could still find room to maneuver, bargain and compromise over the wall and government funding and end the ongoing shutdown.

“The Congress can agree on policies that reduce illegal immigration, and more tightly screen refugees and impose limits on legal immigration — Mr. Trump could call this a victory of bargaining where the threat of the Wall is just an expensive bargaining chip that may not be needed,” he said.

A compromised agreement on limiting illegal immigration could still be achieved with a combination of preventive and enforcement measures, Friedman suggested.

“The preventive [aspects] will have to involve detention centers for people awaiting deportation. To enforce the compromise, there has to be substantial policing of people who overstay travel and work visas, who come across the border illegally,” he said.

Such detainees should lose their place in line to be heard for asylum and be deported to wait a turn, Friedman advised.

“On the subject of the Wall, what data shows how many illegal immigrants are stopped this way?” he asked.

Also, building the border wall “does not deal explicitly with policing and with reducing the number of refugee hearings and visa abuses and the total level of immigration,” Friedman pointed out.

Trump was acting as if unilateral action by a president can simply overcome existing US immigration laws, Friedman observed.

On the other side of the US political divide, Trump’s “opponents suck out the oxygen by also flooding the zone with congressional powers of investigation, especially now that lying to Congress has been successfully prosecuted,” he noted.

However, if the Congress failed to produce specific marketable new ideas on immigration, they would share the public disgust over the gridlock in the budget, Friedman warned.

January 3, 2019 Posted by | Economics | | Leave a comment

Modi-Trump bromance ends on sour note

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | January 3, 2019

The highly disparaging remarks by the US President Donald Trump on Wednesday regarding Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India’s role in Afghanistan come as a shocking revelation. Trump was talking to the press following his first cabinet meeting of 2019 at the White House in Washington. No Indian PM has been reduced to look silly like this by any American president in history.

Trump’s remarks came in the course of his rambling speech regarding the failure of the war in Afghanistan. He spoke every bit as an embittered man who realizes that the war has been lost. Part of the reason why he summarily put Modi on the mat could have been that Trump also realizes the great urgency of extracting Pakistan’s cooperation in the Afghan endgame. Trump’s thesis was that foreign leaders take America for a ride.

In this vein, Trump mocked Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan under Indian aid and bragging about it repeatedly in private conversations. (Trump apparently mistook for a library the Indian-built parliament building in Kabul, which Modi inaugurated in a grand ceremony on Christmas Day in 2015.) Anyway, Trump claimed that Modi was “constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan.” He then rubbished Modi’s vanity, saying, “You know what that is? That’s like five hours of what we spend (in Afghanistan.) And we’re supposed to say (to Modi), ‘Oh, thank you for the library’. I don’t know who’s using it in Afghanistan.”

This is the first time the US belittled the Indian assistance to Afghanistan, which is estimated to be close to 2 billion dollars. The American mantra has been that India was rendering invaluable help to Afghanistan. But now that the war is about to end, we are probably getting a candid version of what the Americans really thought of the quality of the Indian aid.

Elsewhere, Trump said that India had a free ride in Afghanistan – like Russia and the Gulf states – because the US was fighting their war against terrorist groups. Therefore, Trump said in a snide remark that it is for India and Russia to do the fighting in Afghanistan. But he recalled that the Russians once tried to fight extremist groups in Afghanistan and failed and the Soviet Union went bankrupt as a result. The outcome was that the USSR “shrunk” into the Russian Federation.

Trump asked with indignation: “Why isn’t Russia, India, Pakistan there?” Why should America be there, “which is 6000 miles away?” He bemoaned that the Pentagon “didn’t do a good job” in Afghanistan. Referring to the former Defence Secretary James Mattis, he noted, “I am not happy with what he did in Afghanistan.” Trump alleged that he provided for a generous budget for the Pentagon but the result in Afghanistan is “not too good.”

Interestingly, Trump hinted that Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is delivering in a big way to help the US end the war. Trump disclosed, “I look forward to meeting the folks from the new leadership in Pakistan. We will be doing that in not-too-distant future.”

Clearly, Trump has taken note of the sea change in the Pakistani stance lately on Afghanistan after Imran Khan came to power, especially Imran Khan’s changed position that in some form – maybe, in some reduced form – the US military presence should continue in Afghanistan for a conceivable future. Simply put, the US and Pakistan are re-bonding again as ‘natural allies’ over Afghanistan.

Trump feels gratified that Pakistan has delivered the Taliban, finally, to the negotiating table. No doubt, the revival of the US-Saudi Arabia-UAE-Pakistan caucus to finesse the Taliban’s role in the future Afghan political scenario meets with Washington’s requirement. For Trump, the priority is that the US must somehow end the 17-year old war in Afghanistan before his campaign gets under way for the presidential election in the US next year.

Arguably, Trump’s acerbic remarks about Modi contained a subtle warning against any Indian attempt to be a ‘spoiler’ in the emergent scenario. On the other hand, Imran Khan becomes an irreplaceable partner for Trump. We may expect a state visit – or at least an official visit – by Imran Khan to the US in the near future.

On the geopolitical plane, things are falling in place in a familiar pattern. The US seeks transactional relationships and in the immediate future in the South Asian region Pakistan is of greater use. Evidently, Indian analysts have been daydreaming about the “Quad” and what not.

Trump’s fascination for India has been all about Modi’s utility for the ‘America First’ project. But Trump probably sees Modi now as a brunt-out case. Indeed, the Western press increasingly casts doubts on Modi’s chances of returning to power in the 2019 poll. (See a commentary by the Voice of America titled India’s Modi Facing Tough 2019 Election Year)

January 3, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

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