thenation--2020-12-09--Trump’s Last Gasp Is a Scheme to Disenfranchise 20,756,421 American Voters—and He’s Getting Help

President Trump took his desperate bid to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential race to its most bizarre , and troublesome , stage Wednesday , when he embraced an effort by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to block electors from Wisconsin , Pennsylvania , Michigan , and Georgia from confirming the election of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States .
Paxton , a scandal-plagued Republican who in 2015 was indicted on multiple counts of securities fraud and who faces a federal investigation for criminal wrongdoing in his current position , is asking the US Supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from registering their combined 62 votes for Biden when the Electoral College convenes on December 14 .
That would drop Biden down to 244 electoral votes , well short of the 270 required to be elected .
The strategy is then to have Republican-controlled state legislatures assign the electoral votes to Trump , giving the president 294 votes and a win .
Trump ’ s gone all in for the strategy , tweeting : “ We will be INTERVENING in the Texas ( plus many other states ) case .
This is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ victory !
” and “ There is massive evidence of widespread fraud in the four states ( plus ) mentioned in the Texas suit .
Just look at all of the tapes and affidavits !
” Were the lawsuit to succeed , 20,756,421 American voters in four swing states—backers of Biden and , it should be noted , backers of Libertarian Jo Jorgensen—would be disenfranchised .
Crooked David Perdue Is Afraid to Debate His Record of Self-Dealing Do Not Hire This Man Paxton ’ s legal stunt is , as veteran litigator and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ the most insane thing yet.
” “ The notion that the Supreme Court is going to have a litigation where states are attacking each others ’ rules for choosing electors is insane , and they are not going to do that at any point in time , ” argues Conway , who is almost certainly right .
Dozens of lawsuits filed by lawyers for the Trump campaign and its allies have been rejected by state and federal courts ( including the United States Supreme Court ) —as jurists have rejected claims of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ousted head of cybersecurity for the United States , has called the most secure election in the nation ’ s history .
But that does not mean that people who are serious about democracy should neglect the dark machinations to which the president has now lent his name and whatever prestige may still be associated with his office .
On Wednesday , Republican attorneys general from states that—like Texas—backed Trump filed paperwork with the high court supporting Paxton ’ s lawsuit .
The 154-page complaint filed by the Texas attorney general pulls together @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them were rejected by Rudy Giuliani and other members of the Trump campaign ’ s beclowned legal team—including a claim that the probability of a Democrat legitimately winning the popular vote in the four targeted states is “ less than one in a quadrillion.
” ( Tell that to Franklin Roosevelt , who easily won them all in 1932 and 1936 . )
It also suggests that there was something nefarious about the counting of ballots in Wisconsin and other states through election night and into the next morning .
The suit claims @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a quadrillion to the fourth power ” chance that Biden could end up as the winner based on the vote totals in Wisconsin and the other states as of 3 am on November 4 .
In fact , there is a long history of slow counts that have forced winners to delay their victory speeches until the dawn of the next day—or even later .
Both Harry Truman and John Kennedy had to wait to claim their wins—with Truman delighting in noting that the Chicago Tribune jumped the gun with its “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is easy to laugh at the notion of buffoonish characters like Paxton and Trump calculating quadrillions .
“ I feel sorry for Texans that their tax dollars are being wasted on such a genuinely embarrassing lawsuit , ” says Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul .
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel observes , “ Mr .
Paxton ’ s actions are beneath the dignity of the office of Attorney General and the people of the great state of Texas.
” Yet Kaul , Nessel , and their colleagues in Pennsylvania and Georgia will mount @ @ @ @ @ @ @ states .
That is the right thing to do , as what Trump proposes is the ultimate voter suppression .
The fact that Trump is embracing Paxton ’ s project and amplifying it as a credible response to an election he lost is a serious matter because it highlights one of the crudest voter suppression strategies of the president and his Republican allies .
Paxton ’ s suit claims : “ Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a justification , government officials in the defendant states of Georgia , Michigan , and Wisconsin , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ‘ Defendant States ’ ) , usurped their legislatures ’ authority and unconstitutionally revised their state ’ s election statutes .
They accomplished these statutory revisions through executive fiat or friendly lawsuits , thereby weakening ballot integrity.
” Making it easier to vote in the face of a pandemic does not weaken ballot integrity .
Nor does it , as Paxton suggests , “ dilute ” the influence of votes cast in states that fail make it remove barriers to voting .
Trump , Paxton , and other Republicans are seeking to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ promoting the lie that making it easier to vote encourages fraudulent behavior , and that states that encourage higher turnout are somehow harming states that fail to do so .
In fact , the opposite is true .
States that adapt voting rules and regulations in order to promote high turnout—as Wisconsin , Minnesota , and a handful of others historically have—do not see higher levels of fraud .
In fact , there ’ s an an ugly history of election fraud being identified in states with restrictive voting laws , including Texas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ premises of democracy , the United States should establish baseline standards for fair and honest elections that apply to all states .
From there , states should , as laboratories of democracy , be encouraged to improve upon those standards .
Ultimately , however , the deeper concern that extends from Paxton ’ s lawsuit , and its embrace by Trump , is the message it sends about how to respond to an election defeat .
This suit suggests that an appropriate response to an overwhelming loss at the ballot box is an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to disqualify and disenfranchise voters in another state .
Paxton ’ s suit seeks to place an official imprint on the winner-take-all thuggery of the reckless partisans who would abuse logic and the law in order to achieve results they were unable to secure on Election Day .

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President Trump took his desperate bid to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential race to its most bizarre, and troublesome, stage Wednesday, when he embraced an effort by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to block electors from Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia from confirming the election of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States.
Paxton, a scandal-plagued Republican who in 2015 was indicted on multiple counts of securities fraud and who faces a federal investigation for criminal wrongdoing in his current position, is asking the US Supreme Court to effectively bar the named states from registering their combined 62 votes for Biden when the Electoral College convenes on December 14. That would drop Biden down to 244 electoral votes, well short of the 270 required to be elected. The strategy is then to have Republican-controlled state legislatures assign the electoral votes to Trump, giving the president 294 votes and a win. Looking for holiday gifts with a conscience? Check out The Nation Shop and help support The Nation’s journalism while you complete your gift list.
Trump’s gone all in for the strategy, tweeting: “We will be INTERVENING in the Texas (plus many other states) case. This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!” and “There is massive evidence of widespread fraud in the four states (plus) mentioned in the Texas suit. Just look at all of the tapes and affidavits!”
Were the lawsuit to succeed, 20,756,421 American voters in four swing states—backers of Biden and, it should be noted, backers of Libertarian Jo Jorgensen—would be disenfranchised. More From John Nichols A GOP Debate Without Trump Is the Definition of Pointlessness August 11, 2023 A Win for Abortion Rights, a Win for Democracy: Ohio Voters Reject Issue 1 August 9, 2023 The Biggest Threat to Donald Trump Could Be the Constitution Itself August 4, 2023
Paxton’s legal stunt is, as veteran litigator and ardent Trump critic George Conway says, “the most insane thing yet.”
“The notion that the Supreme Court is going to have a litigation where states are attacking each others’ rules for choosing electors is insane, and they are not going to do that at any point in time,” argues Conway, who is almost certainly right.
Dozens of lawsuits filed by lawyers for the Trump campaign and its allies have been rejected by state and federal courts (including the United States Supreme Court)—as jurists have dismissed claims of fraud targeting what Christopher Krebs, the ousted head of cybersecurity for the United States, has called the most secure election in the nation’s history.
But that does not mean that people who are serious about democracy should neglect the dark machinations to which the president has now lent his name and whatever prestige may still be associated with his office. On Wednesday, Republican attorneys general from states that—like Texas—backed Trump filed paperwork with the high court supporting Paxton’s lawsuit. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung
The 154-page complaint filed by the Texas attorney general pulls together conspiracy theories so outlandish that some of them were rejected by Rudy Giuliani and other members of the Trump campaign’s beclowned legal team—including a claim that the probability of a Democrat legitimately winning the popular vote in the four targeted states is “less than one in a quadrillion.” (Tell that to Franklin Roosevelt, who easily won them all in 1932 and 1936.) It also suggests that there was something nefarious about the counting of ballots in Wisconsin and other states through election night and into the next morning.
The suit claims that there was “less than one in a quadrillion to the fourth power” chance that Biden could end up as the winner based on the vote totals in Wisconsin and the other states as of 3 am on November 4. In fact, there is a long history of slow counts that have forced winners to delay their victory speeches until the dawn of the next day—or even later. Both Harry Truman and John Kennedy had to wait to claim their wins—with Truman delighting in noting that the Chicago Tribune jumped the gun with its “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline. Current Issue View our current issue
It is easy to laugh at the notion of buffoonish characters like Paxton and Trump calculating quadrillions. “I feel sorry for Texans that their tax dollars are being wasted on such a genuinely embarrassing lawsuit,” says Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel observes, “Mr. Paxton’s actions are beneath the dignity of the office of Attorney General and the people of the great state of Texas.” Yet Kaul, Nessel, and their colleagues in Pennsylvania and Georgia will mount necessary defenses of the results from their states.
That is the right thing to do, as what Trump proposes is the ultimate voter suppression.
The fact that Trump is embracing Paxton’s project and amplifying it as a credible response to an election he lost is a serious matter because it highlights one of the crudest voter suppression strategies of the president and his Republican allies. Paxton’s suit claims: “Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a justification, government officials in the defendant states of Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (collectively, ‘Defendant States’), usurped their legislatures’ authority and unconstitutionally revised their state’s election statutes. They accomplished these statutory revisions through executive fiat or friendly lawsuits, thereby weakening ballot integrity.”
Making it easier to vote in the face of a pandemic does not weaken ballot integrity. Nor does it, as Paxton suggests, “dilute” the influence of votes cast in states that fail make it remove barriers to voting.
Trump, Paxton, and other Republicans are seeking to overturn the results of an election by promoting the lie that making it easier to vote encourages fraudulent behavior, and that states that encourage higher turnout are somehow harming states that fail to do so. In fact, the opposite is true. States that adapt voting rules and regulations in order to promote high turnout—as Wisconsin, Minnesota, and a handful of others historically have—do not see higher levels of fraud. In fact, there’s an an ugly history of election fraud being identified in states with restrictive voting laws, including Texas. Out of respect for the basic premises of democracy, the United States should establish baseline standards for fair and honest elections that apply to all states. From there, states should, as laboratories of democracy, be encouraged to improve upon those standards.
Ultimately, however, the deeper concern that extends from Paxton’s lawsuit, and its embrace by Trump, is the message it sends about how to respond to an election defeat. This suit suggests that an appropriate response to an overwhelming loss at the ballot box is an attempt by partisan officials in one state to disqualify and disenfranchise voters in another state. Paxton’s suit seeks to place an official imprint on the winner-take-all thuggery of the reckless partisans who would abuse logic and the law in order to achieve results they were unable to secure on Election Day.


thenation--2020-12-09--English Soccer Players Take a Knee

English Soccer Players Take a Knee

As more athletes have chosen to take a knee during the National Anthem in protest of racism and police violence , some worry that the gesture may be losing its impact .
When kneeling is approved by sports leagues and is practiced in an empty stadium , with no fear of a fan backlash , it can feel empty like an empty attempt at branding rather than the radical dissent it once was .
As author Howard Bryant wrote , “ Just call it for what it is : kneeling is a safe gesture now .
No risk , no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , very few people took it.
” Or , as former NFL player Martellus Bennett put it , “ Kneeling in 2020 don ’ t hit the same.
” The Olympic Machine Meets With Protest in Tokyo Yet the power of kneeling returned with a vengeance this week in England .
This roller coaster of a story starts last Saturday , when Millwall played Derby .
The players from Millwall took a knee before the game , as has been their custom .
But this was the first time they had done so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2,000 were allowed into the stadium because of the country ’ s lifting of some Covid protocols .
Finally face to face with the kneeling players , a section of fans booed lustily .
In response to this bald-faced display , Millwall sheepishly backed down .
The team announced that for their Tuesday game against the Queen ’ s Park Rangers , they would instead hold up a banner calling for “ equality.
” Players would also stand arm-in-arm in a “ show of solidarity for football ’ s fight against discrimination.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ BLM struggle—already watered down by team-sanctioned kneeling—and further dilute its message .
Like the NFL , they would be taking a clarion call to end police violence and turn it into something Hallmark could have created .
This move by Millwall was immediately criticized as a “ sedate ” capitulation to the worst of their fan base .
The racists had won .
Not even empty gestures would be tolerated by the Millwall supporters , and the most hardcore among their ranks felt the thrill of political victory .
In the words of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s fans have a reputation for being England ’ s most racist following , which is quite the distinction to earn.
” The Millwall supporters club defended the booing afterward in a statement where they claimed that they weren ’ t racist but instead just opposed the politics of those behind the Black Lives Matter movement .
( Sound familiar ? )
Millwall management issued a rather toothless statement in response saying , “ Millwall ’ s stance , as always , is that anybody found guilty of racial abuse is banned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ action against either their supporters or anyone booing the kneeling gesture .
Yet then something truly remarkable happened during their game Tuesday against the Queen ’ s Park Rangers .
After 23-year-old QPR midfielder and Moroccan national Ilias Chair scored a goal , he and his Nigerian teammate Bright Osayi-Samuel kneeled and raised their fists right in front of Millwall ’ s main supporters ’ section .
It was an act of defiance , not sanctioned by any management team .
This action definitely “ hit the same ” as it did before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ faux-wokeness .
The Politics of Maradona ’ s Iconic ‘ Hand of God ’ Goal Many in the soccer community , especially those disgusted by the Millwall club ’ s capitulation to its most racist fans , welcomed the gesture .
As soccer writer Elliot Ross tweeted , “ QPR players celebrating their goal by taking the knee in front of the Millwall fans ?
?
?
Inject it !
!
!
” What this entire imbroglio shows is that kneeling still has its incendiary , catalytic power when it is directed politically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kinds of conversation about police violence or racial inequity .
When it is done at the behest of management trying to cynically appeal to young fans it becomes just another chapter in the long history of the commodification of dissent .
But when it is done in the face of either fans , police , or other people in power , its message is utterly unmistakable .
I think what we have seen here is a preview of what is to come in the months ahead as fans are allowed into pro stadiums @ @ @ @ @ @ @ players still choose to kneel , they may find that they need a degree of fortitude they did not have access to in an empty stadium .
It ’ s the difference between marketing and rebellion .

As more athletes have chosen to take a knee during the National Anthem in protest of racism and police violence, some worry that the gesture may be losing its impact. When kneeling is approved by sports leagues and is practiced in an empty stadium, with no fear of a fan backlash, it can feel empty like an empty attempt at branding rather than the radical dissent it once was. As author Howard Bryant wrote, “Just call it for what it is: kneeling is a safe gesture now. No risk, no sanction. When it was a risk, very few people took it.” Or, as former NFL player Martellus Bennett put it, “Kneeling in 2020 don’t hit the same.” sports and politics The Olympic Machine Meets With Protest in Tokyo Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff
Yet the power of kneeling returned with a vengeance this week in England. This roller coaster of a story starts last Saturday, when Millwall played Derby. The players from Millwall took a knee before the game, as has been their custom. But this was the first time they had done so in front of their fans. About 2,000 were allowed into the stadium because of the country’s lifting of some Covid protocols. Finally face to face with the kneeling players, a section of fans booed lustily.
In response to this bald-faced display, Millwall sheepishly backed down. The team announced that for their Tuesday game against the Queen’s Park Rangers, they would instead hold up a banner calling for “equality.” Players would also stand arm-in-arm in a “show of solidarity for football’s fight against discrimination.” They would take the aims of the BLM struggle—already watered down by team-sanctioned kneeling—and further dilute its message. Like the NFL, they would be taking a clarion call to end police violence and turn it into something Hallmark could have created.
This move by Millwall was immediately criticized as a “sedate” capitulation to the worst of their fan base. The racists had won. Not even empty gestures would be tolerated by the Millwall supporters, and the most hardcore among their ranks felt the thrill of political victory. In the words of soccer writer Leander Schaerlaeckens, “Millwall’s fans have a reputation for being England’s most racist following, which is quite the distinction to earn.” The Millwall supporters club defended the booing afterward in a statement where they claimed that they weren’t racist but instead just opposed the politics of those behind the Black Lives Matter movement. (Sound familiar?) Millwall management issued a rather toothless statement in response saying, “Millwall’s stance, as always, is that anybody found guilty of racial abuse is banned for life,” but took no action against either their supporters or anyone booing the kneeling gesture.
Yet then something truly remarkable happened during their game Tuesday against the Queen’s Park Rangers. After 23-year-old QPR midfielder and Moroccan national Ilias Chair scored a goal, he and his Nigerian teammate Bright Osayi-Samuel kneeled and raised their fists right in front of Millwall’s main supporters’ section. It was an act of defiance, not sanctioned by any management team. This action definitely “hit the same” as it did before kneeling became any kind of expression of faux-wokeness. More From Dave Zirin “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash August 15, 2023 Why the Right Wanted the USWNT to Lose August 10, 2023 Carli Lloyd’s Attacks on the USWNT Are Personal—and Political August 1, 2023
Many in the soccer community, especially those disgusted by the Millwall club’s capitulation to its most racist fans, welcomed the gesture. As soccer writer Elliot Ross tweeted, “QPR players celebrating their goal by taking the knee in front of the Millwall fans??? Inject it!!!”
What this entire imbroglio shows is that kneeling still has its incendiary, catalytic power when it is directed politically at those trying to shut down any kinds of conversation about police violence or racial inequity. When it is done at the behest of management trying to cynically appeal to young fans it becomes just another chapter in the long history of the commodification of dissent. But when it is done in the face of either fans, police, or other people in power, its message is utterly unmistakable.
I think what we have seen here is a preview of what is to come in the months ahead as fans are allowed into pro stadiums in the United States. If US players still choose to kneel, they may find that they need a degree of fortitude they did not have access to in an empty stadium. It’s the difference between marketing and rebellion.


thenation--2020-12-09--Progressives Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Fighting Biden’s Nominees

Speaking on Monday at The Wall Street Journal ’ s CEO Council Summit , Representative Cedric Richmond , recently recruited by the Biden transition team to become a top White House adviser as director of the Office of Public Engagement , assured the business elite that they would always enjoy the ear of the new administration .
Asked how CEOs can get the White House to listen to them , Richmond said , “ I hope to be that conduit straight into the White House.
” He promised an “ open-door policy.
” Richmond took shots at those in his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government .
“ For me , nobody ’ s going to persuade me that—somehow , someway—that CEOs in this country are bad people , ’ ’ Mr. Richmond said .
“ CEOs in this country are creating jobs , they are supporting families , and they are doing all those things .
And they deserve a seat at the table , and they will have a seat at the table.
” Joe Biden ran as a restorationist candidate , someone who would undo the damage of the Trump era and return America to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of governance , a goal encapsulated in the awkward slogan “ Build Back Better.
” But Biden in his presidential run also acknowledged that the old order had made mistakes and the Democratic Party needed to listen to progressives more ( perhaps the “ better ” part of the slogan ) .
The Biden transition has been a battleground between two contradictory goals : to return to business as usual ( as with Richmond ’ s remarks ) and to move the party in a more progressive direction .
So far , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been some outstanding progressive nominations , particularly in the realm of economic policy .
Notable examples include Jared Bernstein and Cecilia Rouse as economic advisers .
Covid-19 Is Feeding the GOP Addiction to Conspiracy Theories Will Biden Condemn the Assassination of an Iranian Scientist ?
But there ’ s much work still be done .
Speaking on MSNBC on Monday , Senator Bernie Sanders said the progressive movement deserves representation in the cabinet .
“ And if your question is have I seen that yet , no I have not , ” Sanders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some good appointments , people that I like , people who are really , really smart , experienced , but I have not seen people from the progressive movement per se in that cabinet.
” As Biden ’ s list of nominees and appointments starts filling up , some very contentious names are starting to emerge .
Neera Tanden , who runs the Center for American Progress ( CAP ) , has been named to helm the Office of Management and Budget at the White House .
As The Washington Post reports , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ donors who made their fortunes on Wall Street , in Silicon Valley and in other powerful sectors of corporate America.
” The newspaper also notes that “ the fiercest criticism of CAP ’ s fundraising has targeted its acceptance of between $ 1.5 million and $ 3 million from the United Arab Emirates in recent years.
” Another controversial nominee is retired Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III , tapped to be Biden ’ s secretary of defense .
Many national security experts have expressed concern about this nomination , on grounds of both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ retired only four years ago and would require a waiver from Congress ) and over his work on the board of the large weapons manufacture Raytheon ( which has also employed the current secretary of defense , Mark T. Esper ) .
One complicating factor is that nominees like Tanden and Austin are preferable to some of the alternative names being floated for their positions .
Bruce Reed , also considered for the Office of Management and Budget , is much more inclined to austerity than Tanden .
Michèle A. Flournoy , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gives evidence of being more hawkish than Austin .
The question for progressives is how much of a fight they want to have over the transition .
Do they want to challenge Biden ’ s many corporate-friendly nominees and appointments , even at the risk of burning bridges with Biden world ?
Is it better for progressives to remain team players ?
As The New York Times reported on December 1 , Jeffrey D. Zients , the cochair of Biden ’ s transition team , On December 5 , The Washington Post published @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arguing that their standards were too stringent .
Post editors lamented that “ there ’ s a push on the left wing of the Democratic Party to exclude some potential nominees because they have spent too much of their careers in for-profit businesses.
” This complaint was echoed by an anonymous Democratic Party operative speaking to Politico who went after Jeff Hauser of the Revolving Door Project .
“ While Democrats spent the past four years organizing to beat Donald Trump , Jeff was instead out there doing opposition research on potential Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the operative said .
“ Reporters should work harder to determine whether he ’ s representing a movement or just representing himself.
” Simply on factual grounds , this criticism is not just wrong but fatuous .
The Revolving Door Project has done tremendous work over the past four years documenting the Trump administration ’ s corruption and has often pushed the Democratic Party to take Trumpian corruption more seriously .
Further , for anti-corruption organizations to give Democrats a pass would be an undermining of their mission and credibility .
I corresponded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of whether the pushback he ’ s receiving from parts of the Biden team is a cause for worry .
“ Biden World is heterogeneous on many fronts , including viewing progressives as significant partners within a diverse political party , ” Hauser told me .
“ Some people think complete deference to the self-perpetuating clans that have run the party for nearly 30 years is warranted .
Others—I believe notably more numerous—get that things are different .
So speaking only for myself , I shrug off the criticism aimed at Revolving Door @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right people are annoyed .
But I believe other swathes of Biden World are mature enough to be okay with how progressive involvement in Transitions has evolved since 1992 and 2008.
” Hauser rightly frames the work watchdog groups do as a necessary part of fighting Trump , still a threat since he won ’ t acknowledge defeat and might run again in 2024 .
Other Republicans could easily follow Trump ’ s footsteps and tar Democrats as part of the swamp , puppets of Wall Street .
Unless Democrats clean up their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ again the same anti-establishment anger that helped elect Trump .
A Democratic Party that keeps an open-door policy to Wall Street risks reaping , in Hauser ’ s words , “ an ugly political whirlwind led by Tucker Carlson , John Cornyn , and Josh Hawley .
”

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Speaking on Monday at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit, Representative Cedric Richmond, recently recruited by the Biden transition team to become a top White House adviser as director of the Office of Public Engagement, assured the business elite that they would always enjoy the ear of the new administration. Asked how CEOs can get the White House to listen to them, Richmond said, “I hope to be that conduit straight into the White House.” He promised an “open-door policy.”
Richmond took shots at those in his own party who are critical of business-dominated government. “For me, nobody’s going to persuade me that—somehow, someway—that CEOs in this country are bad people,’’ Mr. Richmond said. “CEOs in this country are creating jobs, they are supporting families, and they are doing all those things. And they deserve a seat at the table, and they will have a seat at the table.”
Joe Biden ran as a restorationist candidate, someone who would undo the damage of the Trump era and return America to an improved version of an earlier style of governance, a goal encapsulated in the awkward slogan “Build Back Better.” But Biden in his presidential run also acknowledged that the old order had made mistakes and the Democratic Party needed to listen to progressives more (perhaps the “better” part of the slogan).
The Biden transition has been a battleground between two contradictory goals: to return to business as usual (as with Richmond’s remarks) and to move the party in a more progressive direction. So far, the record has been mixed. There have been some outstanding progressive nominations, particularly in the realm of economic policy. Notable examples include Jared Bernstein and Cecilia Rouse as economic advisers. More From Jeet Heer The Indigenous Roots of Robbie Robertson’s Rock and Roll Revolution August 14, 2023 Why Does This Racist Keep Getting Silicon Valley Money? August 11, 2023 When Phallocrats Go Limp August 4, 2023
But there’s much work still be done. Speaking on MSNBC on Monday, Senator Bernie Sanders said the progressive movement deserves representation in the cabinet. “And if your question is have I seen that yet, no I have not,” Sanders said. “I’ve seen some good appointments, people that I like, people who are really, really smart, experienced, but I have not seen people from the progressive movement per se in that cabinet.”
As Biden’s list of nominees and appointments starts filling up, some very contentious names are starting to emerge. Neera Tanden, who runs the Center for American Progress (CAP), has been named to helm the Office of Management and Budget at the White House. As The Washington Post reports, CAP has relied heavily “on deep-pocketed donors who made their fortunes on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley and in other powerful sectors of corporate America.” The newspaper also notes that “the fiercest criticism of CAP’s fundraising has targeted its acceptance of between $1.5 million and $3 million from the United Arab Emirates in recent years.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung
Another controversial nominee is retired Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, tapped to be Biden’s secretary of defense. Many national security experts have expressed concern about this nomination, on grounds of both the already frayed military/civilian relationship (Austin retired only four years ago and would require a waiver from Congress) and over his work on the board of the large weapons manufacture Raytheon (which has also employed the current secretary of defense, Mark T. Esper). Current Issue View our current issue
One complicating factor is that nominees like Tanden and Austin are preferable to some of the alternative names being floated for their positions. Bruce Reed, also considered for the Office of Management and Budget, is much more inclined to austerity than Tanden. Michèle A. Flournoy, a plausible contender for secretary of defense, gives evidence of being more hawkish than Austin.
The question for progressives is how much of a fight they want to have over the transition. Do they want to challenge Biden’s many corporate-friendly nominees and appointments, even at the risk of burning bridges with Biden world? Is it better for progressives to remain team players?
As The New York Times reported on December 1, Jeffrey D. Zients, the cochair of Biden’s transition team,
is being watched warily by members of the Democratic Party’s left wing. Progressive advocacy groups such as the Revolving Door Project and Justice Democrats, concerned that he would defend corporate America if given a top economic policy job in the Biden administration, pushed to keep him out of such a role. They view his recent work running an investment fund—Cranemere—and sitting on the board of Facebook as a detriment.
On December 5, The Washington Post published an editorial attacking progressive watchdog groups, arguing that their standards were too stringent. Post editors lamented that “there’s a push on the left wing of the Democratic Party to exclude some potential nominees because they have spent too much of their careers in for-profit businesses.” This complaint was echoed by an anonymous Democratic Party operative speaking to Politico who went after Jeff Hauser of the Revolving Door Project. “While Democrats spent the past four years organizing to beat Donald Trump, Jeff was instead out there doing opposition research on potential Democratic appointees for a then-fictitious administration,” the operative said. “Reporters should work harder to determine whether he’s representing a movement or just representing himself.”
Simply on factual grounds, this criticism is not just wrong but fatuous. The Revolving Door Project has done tremendous work over the past four years documenting the Trump administration’s corruption and has often pushed the Democratic Party to take Trumpian corruption more seriously. Further, for anti-corruption organizations to give Democrats a pass would be an undermining of their mission and credibility.
I corresponded with Jeff Hauser to get a sense of whether the pushback he’s receiving from parts of the Biden team is a cause for worry. “Biden World is heterogeneous on many fronts, including viewing progressives as significant partners within a diverse political party,” Hauser told me. “Some people think complete deference to the self-perpetuating clans that have run the party for nearly 30 years is warranted. Others—I believe notably more numerous—get that things are different. So speaking only for myself, I shrug off the criticism aimed at Revolving Door Project work as an indication that the right people are annoyed. But I believe other swathes of Biden World are mature enough to be okay with how progressive involvement in Transitions has evolved since 1992 and 2008.”
Hauser rightly frames the work watchdog groups do as a necessary part of fighting Trump, still a threat since he won’t acknowledge defeat and might run again in 2024. Other Republicans could easily follow Trump’s footsteps and tar Democrats as part of the swamp, puppets of Wall Street. Unless Democrats clean up their own house, they risk fueling once again the same anti-establishment anger that helped elect Trump. A Democratic Party that keeps an open-door policy to Wall Street risks reaping, in Hauser’s words, “an ugly political whirlwind led by Tucker Carlson, John Cornyn, and Josh Hawley.”


thenation--2020-12-09--Fighting and Writing Against America’s Forever Wars

If you have a moment , how about joining two retired officers , Bill Astore and me , Danny Sjursen , as we think about this country ’ s catastrophic forever wars that , regardless of their deadly costs and lack of progress , never seem quite to end ?
Recently , in a podcast chat about our very different but somehow twin journeys through those wars , he and I got to thinking about what might have happened if our paths had crossed so much earlier .
Both of us , after all , have been writing for TomDispatch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to me , thinking about his post-military writing career , “ You know , Danny , in my small way I was trying—and failing—to stop the wars you were heading into.
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Now that ’ s an interesting , if disturbing , thought .
But Bill , what would you have said to Lieutenant Danny ( that was me once upon a time ! )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Who could know now , of course ?
Still , here ’ s our retrospective attempt to sort that out in joint correspondence in which we track about 15 years ’ worth of this country ’ s unending wars .
The Frankenstein and Star Trek Years of American War ill : When you were graduating from West Point in 2005 and shining your lieutenant ’ s bars , Danny , I was putting my uniform away after 20 years in the Air Force and driving to Pennsylvania for a new career as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ d teach and maybe write a book or two .
I never pictured myself as a dissenter , and I ’ d never spoken out publicly against the wars we were in .
The one time I was interviewed about them , in 2005 when I was still the military dean of students at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey , I remember saying that I preferred our troops use words rather than rifle butts to communicate with the Afghans and Iraqis .
Of course , we had so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or Dari that we leaned on our rifles instead , which meant lots of dead and alienated people in both countries .
In the summer of 2007 , I was increasingly disgusted by the way the administration of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney was hiding behind the bemedaled chest of Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus .
Our civilian commander in chief , George W. , was avoiding responsibility for the disastrous Iraq War by sending Petraeus , then known as the “ surge ” general , before Congress to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still possible , even as he hedged his talk of progress with words like “ fragile ” and “ reversible.
” So I got off my butt and wrote an article that argued we needed to end the Iraq War and our folly of “ spilling blood and treasure with such reckless abandon.
” I submitted it to newspapers like The New York Times with no success .
Fortunately , a friend told me about TomDispatch , where Tom Engelhardt had been publishing critical articles by retired colonel Andrew Bacevich .
Luckily for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ published it as “ Saving the Military from Itself ” in October of that same year .
That article put me on the path of dissent from America ’ s forever wars , even if I wasn ’ t so much anti-war as anti–dumb war then .
As I asked at the time , how do you win someone else ’ s civil war ?
Being a Star Trek fan , I referred to the Kobayashi Maru , a “ no-win ” scenario introduced in the second Star Trek movie .
I saw @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Iraq , being stuck in a no-win situation and I was already convinced that , no matter how much Petraeus talked about “ metrics ” and “ progress , ” it wasn ’ t going to happen , that “ winning ” really meant leaving , and we haven ’ t won yet since , God help us , we ’ re still there .
Of course , the so-called surge in Iraq back then did what it was actually meant to do .
It provided an illusion of progress and stability @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reversible as the weasely Petraeus said it would be .
Worse yet , the myth of that Iraqi surge would lead disastrously to the Afghan version of the same under Barack Obama and—yet again—Petraeus who would prove to be a general for all presidents .
Lucky you !
You were on the ground in both surges , weren ’ t you ?
anny : I sure was !
Believe it or not , a colonel once told me I was lucky to have done “ line duty ” in both of them—platoon and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Baghdad and Kandahar .
To be honest , Bill , I knew something was fishy even before you retired or I graduated from West Point and headed for those wars .
In fact , it ’ s funny that you should mention Bacevich .
I was first introduced to his work in the winter of 2004 as a West Point senior by then–Lt .
Col. Ty Seidule .
Back then , for a guy like me , Bacevich had what could only be called bracing anti-war views ( a wink-nod to your Bracing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ classroom of burgeoning neocons just about certain to head for Iraq .
Frankly , most of us couldn ’ t wait to go .
And we wouldn ’ t have that long to wait either .
The first of our classmates to die , Emily Perez , was killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb in September 2006 within 18 months of graduation ( and five more were to die in the years to come ) .
I took a scout platoon to southeast Baghdad a month later and we didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ months .
My partly Bacevich-bred sneaking suspicions about America ’ s no-longer-distant wars were , of course , all confirmed .
It turned out that policing an ethno-religious-sectarian conflict , mostly of our own country ’ s making , while dodging counter-counterinsurgent attacks aimed at expelling us occupiers from that country , was as tough as stateside invasion opponents had predicted .
On lonely outpost mornings , I had a nasty daily habit of reading the names of our announced dead .
Midway through my tour , one of those countless attacks killed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I saw that name , I realized instantly that he must be the son of the man whose book I had read two years earlier , the man who is now our colleague .
The moment remains painfully crystal clear in my memory .
By the way , Bill , your Iraq War take was dead on .
During my own tour there , I came to the same realization .
Embarrassingly enough , though , it took me seven years to say the same things publicly in my first book , fittingly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ By then , of course , ISIS—the Frankenstein ’ s monster of America ’ s misadventure—was already streaming across Syria ’ s synthetic borders and conquering swaths of northern and western Iraq , which made an anti–Iraq War screed seem quaint indeed , at least in establishment circles .
But Bill , do go on .
ill : It was also back in 2007 when something John McCain said on PBS really ticked me off .
In essence , he warned that if the US military lost in Iraq , it wouldn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ No , it would be ours , those of us who had questioned the war and its conduct and so had broken faith with that very military .
In response , I wrote a piece at TomDispatch with the sarcastic title , “ If We Lose Iraq , You ’ re to Blame , ” because I already found such “ stab in the back ” lies pernicious beyond words .
As Andy Bacevich noted recently when it came to such lies about an earlier American military disaster : We didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Saigon fell ; we lost it in 1965 when President Johnson committed American troops to winning a civil war that South Vietnam had already lost .
Something similar is true for the Iraq and Afghan wars today .
We won ’ t lose those conflicts when we finally pull all US troops out and the situation goes south ( as it most likely will ) .
No , we lost the Afghan War in 2002 when we decided to turn a strike against the Taliban and Al Qaeda into an occupation of that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ War the moment we invaded in 2003 and found none of the weapons of mass destruction that Bush and his top officials had sworn were there .
Those were wars of choice , not of necessity , and we could only “ win ” them by finally choosing to end them .
We lose them—and maybe our democracy as well—by choosing to keep on waging them in the false cause of “ stability ” or “ counterterrorism , ” or you-name-it .
Early in 2009 , I had an epiphany of sorts while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ constant deployments to Iraq , Afghanistan , and dozens of other countries globally , the US military , I thought , was becoming a foreign legion , almost like the quintessential French version of the same , increasingly separated from the people , and increasingly recruited from “ foreign ” elements , including recent immigrants to this country looking for a fast-track to citizenship .
anny : Bill , one of my own soldiers fit the mold you just mentioned .
PFC Gustavo Rios-Ordonez , a married father of two and a Colombian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he was the last trooper to join my command just before we shipped out and the first killed when , on June 20 , 2011 , he stepped on an improvised explosive device within sight of the Afghan outpost I then commanded .
Typing this now , I stare at a framed dusty unit guidon , the pennant that once flew over that isolated sandbagged base of ours and was gifted to me by my soldiers .
ill : So I wrote an article that asked if our military was morphing into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ put it then : “ Foreign as in being constantly deployed overseas on imperial errands ; foreign as in being ever more reliant on private military contractors ; foreign as in being increasingly segregated from the elites that profit most from its actions , yet serve the least in its ranks.
” And I added , “ Now would be a good time to ask exactly why , and for whom , our troops are currently fighting and dying in the urban jungles of Iraq and the hostile hills of Afghanistan.
” A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
They thought I was saying that the troops themselves were somehow foreign , that I was attacking the rank-and-file , but my intent was to attack those who were misusing the military for their own purposes and agendas and all the other Americans who were acquiescing in the misuse of our troops .
It ’ s a strange dynamic in this country , the way we ’ re cajoled into supporting our troops without ourselves having to serve or even pay attention to what they ’ re doing .
Indeed , under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discouraged from commemorating the honored dead , denied seeing footage of returning flag-draped caskets .
We were to celebrate our troops , while they ( especially the dead and wounded ) were kept out of sight—literally behind curtains , by Bush administration order—and so mostly out of mind .
I was against the Afghan surge , Danny , because I knew it would be both futile and unsustainable .
In arguing that case , I reached back to the writings of two outspoken opponents of the Vietnam War , Norman Mailer and Mary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether to surge or not , I suggested that he should confer with broad-minded critics outside the government , tough-minded freethinkers cut from the cloth of Mailer and McCarthy .
Mailer , for example , had argued that the Vietnamese were “ faceless ” to Americans ( just as the Iraqis and Afghans have been all these years ) , that we knew little about them as a people and cared even less .
He saw American intervention in “ heart of darkness ” terms .
McCarthy was even blunter , condemning as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ technocentric and hegemonic form of warfare with its “ absolute indifference to the cost in human lives.
” Predictably , Obama listened to conventional wisdom and surged again , first under Gen. Stanley McChrystal and then , of course , under Petraeus .
anny : Well , Bill , paltry as it may now sound , I truly thank you for your post-service service to sensibility and decency—even if those efforts didn ’ t quite spare me the displeasure of a second stint in a second theater with Petraeus as my supreme commander @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way , I ran into King David ( as he came to be known ) last year in a long line for the urinals at Newark airport .
Like you , I ’ ve been tearing the guy ’ s philosophy and policies up for years .
Still , I decided decorum mattered , so I introduced myself and mentioned that we ’ d met once at a Baghdad base in 2007 .
But before I could even kid him about how his staff had insisted that we stock ample kiwi slices because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suddenly walked off without even making it to the stall !
I found it confusing behavior until I glimpsed myself in the mirror and remembered that I was wearing an “ Iraq Veterans Against the War ” T-shirt .
Okay , here ’ s a more instructive anecdote : Have I ever mentioned to you that my Afghan outpost , “ Pashmul South ” as it was then known , featured prominently in the late journalist Michael Hasting ’ s classic book , The Operators ( which inspired the Netflix original movie War @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hastings describes how Petraeus ’ s predecessor in Afghanistan , Stanley McChrystal , visited an isolated base full of war-weary and war-exasperated infantrymen .
In one of the resident platoons , all but seven of its 25 original members had “ been killed , wounded , or lost their minds.
” And yes , that was the “ palace ” I took over a couple of years later , an outpost the Taliban was then attacking almost daily .
By the time I took up the cause of “ Enduring Freedom ” ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the Pentagon ) , I had already resigned myself to being one of those foreign legionnaires you ’ ve talked about , if not an outright mercenary .
During the Afghan surge , I fought for pay , health care , a future West Point faculty slot , and lack of a better alternative ( or alternate identity ) .
My principles then were simple enough : patrol as little as possible , kill as few locals as you can , and make sure that one day you ’ ll walk ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) out of that valley called Arghandab .
I was in a dark headspace then .
I didn ’ t believe a damn thing my own side said , held out not an ounce of hope for victory , and couldn ’ t even be bothered to hate my “ enemy.
” On the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks , staff officers at brigade headquarters sent a Reuters reporter deep into the boonies to profile the only commander around from the New York City area and I told him just what I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case .
Suffice it to say that my colonels were less than pleased when Captain Sjursen was quoted as saying that “ the war was anything but personal ” and that he never “ thought about 9/11 at all ” or when he described the Taliban this way : “ It ’ s farm boys picking up guns .
How do you hate that ?
” Rereading that article now , I feel a certain sadness for that long-gone self of mine , so lost in fatalism , hopelessness , and near-nihilism .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Imagine how the Afghans felt , especially since they didn ’ t have a distant home to scurry off to sooner or later .
Anyway , I never forgot that it was Obama—from whom I ’ d sought Iraq War salvation—who ordered my troops on that even more absurd Afghan surge to nowhere ( and I ’ m not sure I ’ ve forgiven him either ) .
Still , if there was a silver lining in all that senselessness , perhaps it was that such a bipartisan betrayal widened both the breadth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ill : Speaking of surges , Danny , even the word is a military misnomer .
It ’ s dishonest .
Real generals advance and retreat .
They reinforce .
They win ( or lose ) .
They occupy the battlefield .
Lines move on maps .
Foes are beaten and surrender .
None of this happens with a “ surge.
” Our generals just added more troops to exert temporary control over an area in what was nothing more than a fallacious face-saving gesture .
A mask .
A conceit .
All @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cause and reinforce failure .
Consider them a fundamental mistake of military strategy , like throwing good money after bad or doubling down on a losing hand .
Why didn ’ t they listen to me ?
Why didn ’ t they stop the Iraq and Afghan surges and end those wars ?
And now that , with other retired military types , we ’ re both in the Eisenhower Media Network ( EMN ) you organized , continuing to speak out against the 21st century American way of making war , why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
I fear that the answer ’ s simple enough : They have a trillion reasons not to .
After all , roughly a trillion-plus dollars is spent each year on the Pentagon , on so-called homeland security , on nuclear weapons , on intelligence and surveillance , on buying weaponry and then more of the same after that .
Why won ’ t they listen to us ?
We threaten their bottom line , their profits .
And why should we get invites to CNN and MSNBC and other mainstream media sites @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their staffs and retired senior officers who spout the party line , as journalist David Barstow revealed in his Pulitzer Prize–winning series ?
We aren ’ t really in EMN , Danny , we ’ re in the IMF , the impossible missions force .
I remember reading old newspapers from the 1930s that were quite blunt about how to end war : Get the profit motive out of it .
That was when the standing US military was fairly small and Americans were skeptical of weapons makers , the “ merchants of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ called back then .
Almost a century later , we ’ re the leading merchant of death , the country that arms the world .
Domestically , we ’ re awash in weaponry , with a gun for every American and a mini-tank for every police force .
I ’ ve attacked this creeping militarism , this degradation of our democracy , but with little success .
So welcome to the IMF from the classic TV show Mission Impossible .
Unless we smarten up and end these perpetual wars , this democracy will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are long , but it ’ s a mission we just have to accept .
anny : I couldn ’ t agree more , Bill .
The militarism problem is cyclical and systemic with a backstory that ’ s sure to ping our shared historian ’ s radar .
I hinted at this two months ago in remarks I made at legendary anti-war vet Smedley Butler ’ s graveside ( the former major general I wrote about at TomDispatch in February ) .
Highlighting his prophetic aspect , I noted that the two-time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ components of the military-industrial complex a quarter of a century before our new organization ’ s namesake , President Dwight D. Eisenhower , coined the term in his Cassandra-like 1961 farewell address .
If that isn ’ t proof our forever-war problems are systemic rather than discrete , I don ’ t know what is .
That short speech of mine was occasioned by the 19th anniversary of our absurd Afghan War , the conflict you couldn ’ t single-handedly stop in time to save me from a second surge excursion .
Anyway @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about that , Bill .
Like you said , the war-state beast is humongous and our buddy Bacevich has been beating this drum since you were still wearing Air Force blue .
Under the circumstances and in these pandemic times , what could be more appropriate than a buck-up from that ever-cheery French novelist of plagues and philosopher Albert Camus : “ The struggle itself…is enough to fill a man ’ s heart.
” And you won ’ t believe this , but I had to stop there a moment to field a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turned Army lieutenant who ’ s now straddling those spheres of doubt and dissent that you and I know all too well .
You may recall that I penned a piece last year for our mutual friend Tom Engelhardt on “ Watching My Students Turn Into Soldiers of Empire.
” Damned if that wasn ’ t a hard pill to swallow .
Come to think of it , that must be precisely the feeling of failure you ’ ve described in our recent correspondence .
Well , at least the military dissent gestation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commissioned exactly 20 years after you .
The last crop of cadets from the freshman history class I taught at West Point after I returned from those wars were just 15 years behind me and some of them are now in doubt deep .
The thing is , I fear you ’ re a better man than I am , my friend .
I can see the script that ’ s coming down the dusty and well-trodden trail , but I ’ m not sure I could stomach writing a co-column with one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their funerals .
I guess we old hands had better get to work .
In the battle against endless war , our motto has to be : no retreat , no surrender .

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If you have a moment, how about joining two retired officers, Bill Astore and me, Danny Sjursen, as we think about this country’s catastrophic forever wars that, regardless of their deadly costs and lack of progress, never seem quite to end?
Recently, in a podcast chat about our very different but somehow twin journeys through those wars, he and I got to thinking about what might have happened if our paths had crossed so much earlier. Both of us, after all, have been writing for TomDispatch for years. As Bill once said to me, thinking about his post-military writing career, “You know, Danny, in my small way I was trying—and failing—to stop the wars you were heading into.” Looking for holiday gifts with a conscience? Check out The Nation Shop and help support The Nation’s journalism while you complete your gift list.
Now that’s an interesting, if disturbing, thought. But Bill, what would you have said to Lieutenant Danny (that was me once upon a time!) and how might he have responded then?
Who could know now, of course? Still, here’s our retrospective attempt to sort that out in joint correspondence in which we track about 15 years’ worth of this country’s unending wars.
The Frankenstein and Star Trek Years of American War
B ill: When you were graduating from West Point in 2005 and shining your lieutenant’s bars, Danny, I was putting my uniform away after 20 years in the Air Force and driving to Pennsylvania for a new career as a history professor. I thought I’d teach and maybe write a book or two. I never pictured myself as a dissenter, and I’d never spoken out publicly against the wars we were in. The one time I was interviewed about them, in 2005 when I was still the military dean of students at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey, I remember saying that I preferred our troops use words rather than rifle butts to communicate with the Afghans and Iraqis. Of course, we had so few troops who spoke Arabic or Pashto or Dari that we leaned on our rifles instead, which meant lots of dead and alienated people in both countries.
In the summer of 2007, I was increasingly disgusted by the way the administration of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney was hiding behind the bemedaled chest of Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus. Our civilian commander in chief, George W., was avoiding responsibility for the disastrous Iraq War by sending Petraeus, then known as the “surge” general, before Congress to testify that some sort of victory was still possible, even as he hedged his talk of progress with words like “fragile” and “reversible.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. My Homeland Is Being Ruled by Terror. The World Must Pay Attention. Manny Maung
So I got off my butt and wrote an article that argued we needed to end the Iraq War and our folly of “spilling blood and treasure with such reckless abandon.” I submitted it to newspapers like The New York Times with no success. Fortunately, a friend told me about TomDispatch, where Tom Engelhardt had been publishing critical articles by retired colonel Andrew Bacevich. Luckily for me, Tom liked my piece and published it as “Saving the Military from Itself” in October of that same year. Current Issue View our current issue
That article put me on the path of dissent from America’s forever wars, even if I wasn’t so much anti-war as anti–dumb war then. As I asked at the time, how do you win someone else’s civil war? Being a Star Trek fan, I referred to the Kobayashi Maru, a “no-win” scenario introduced in the second Star Trek movie. I saw our troops, young lieutenants like yourself in Iraq, being stuck in a no-win situation and I was already convinced that, no matter how much Petraeus talked about “metrics” and “progress,” it wasn’t going to happen, that “winning” really meant leaving, and we haven’t won yet since, God help us, we’re still there.
Of course, the so-called surge in Iraq back then did what it was actually meant to do. It provided an illusion of progress and stability even while proving just as fragile and reversible as the weasely Petraeus said it would be. Worse yet, the myth of that Iraqi surge would lead disastrously to the Afghan version of the same under Barack Obama and—yet again—Petraeus who would prove to be a general for all presidents.
Lucky you! You were on the ground in both surges, weren’t you?
D anny: I sure was! Believe it or not, a colonel once told me I was lucky to have done “line duty” in both of them—platoon and company command, Iraq and Afghanistan, Baghdad and Kandahar. To be honest, Bill, I knew something was fishy even before you retired or I graduated from West Point and headed for those wars.
In fact, it’s funny that you should mention Bacevich. I was first introduced to his work in the winter of 2004 as a West Point senior by then–Lt. Col. Ty Seidule. Back then, for a guy like me, Bacevich had what could only be called bracing anti-war views (a wink-nod to your Bracing Views blog, Bill) for a classroom of burgeoning neocons just about certain to head for Iraq. Frankly, most of us couldn’t wait to go.
And we wouldn’t have that long to wait either. The first of our classmates to die, Emily Perez, was killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb in September 2006 within 18 months of graduation (and five more were to die in the years to come). I took a scout platoon to southeast Baghdad a month later and we didn’t leave—most of us, that is—for 15 months.
My partly Bacevich-bred sneaking suspicions about America’s no-longer-distant wars were, of course, all confirmed. It turned out that policing an ethno-religious-sectarian conflict, mostly of our own country’s making, while dodging counter-counterinsurgent attacks aimed at expelling us occupiers from that country, was as tough as stateside invasion opponents had predicted.
On lonely outpost mornings, I had a nasty daily habit of reading the names of our announced dead. Midway through my tour, one of those countless attacks killed 1st Lt. Andrew J. Bacevich. When I saw that name, I realized instantly that he must be the son of the man whose book I had read two years earlier, the man who is now our colleague. The moment remains painfully crystal clear in my memory.
By the way, Bill, your Iraq War take was dead on. During my own tour there, I came to the same realization. Embarrassingly enough, though, it took me seven years to say the same things publicly in my first book, fittingly subtitled The Myth of the Surge. By then, of course, ISIS—the Frankenstein’s monster of America’s misadventure—was already streaming across Syria’s synthetic borders and conquering swaths of northern and western Iraq, which made an anti–Iraq War screed seem quaint indeed, at least in establishment circles.
But Bill, do go on.
B ill: It was also back in 2007 when something John McCain said on PBS really ticked me off. In essence, he warned that if the US military lost in Iraq, it wouldn’t be the generals’ fault. No, it would be ours, those of us who had questioned the war and its conduct and so had broken faith with that very military. In response, I wrote a piece at TomDispatch with the sarcastic title, “If We Lose Iraq, You’re to Blame,” because I already found such “stab in the back” lies pernicious beyond words. As Andy Bacevich noted recently when it came to such lies about an earlier American military disaster: We didn’t lose the Vietnam War in 1975 when Saigon fell; we lost it in 1965 when President Johnson committed American troops to winning a civil war that South Vietnam had already lost.
Something similar is true for the Iraq and Afghan wars today. We won’t lose those conflicts when we finally pull all US troops out and the situation goes south (as it most likely will). No, we lost the Afghan War in 2002 when we decided to turn a strike against the Taliban and Al Qaeda into an occupation of that country; and we lost the Iraq War the moment we invaded in 2003 and found none of the weapons of mass destruction that Bush and his top officials had sworn were there. Those were wars of choice, not of necessity, and we could only “win” them by finally choosing to end them. We lose them—and maybe our democracy as well—by choosing to keep on waging them in the false cause of “stability” or “counterterrorism,” or you-name-it.
Early in 2009, I had an epiphany of sorts while walking around a cemetery. With those constant deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and dozens of other countries globally, the US military, I thought, was becoming a foreign legion, almost like the quintessential French version of the same, increasingly separated from the people, and increasingly recruited from “foreign” elements, including recent immigrants to this country looking for a fast-track to citizenship.
D anny: Bill, one of my own soldiers fit the mold you just mentioned. PFC Gustavo Rios-Ordonez, a married father of two and a Colombian national. Partly seeking citizenship through service, he was the last trooper to join my command just before we shipped out and the first killed when, on June 20, 2011, he stepped on an improvised explosive device within sight of the Afghan outpost I then commanded. Typing this now, I stare at a framed dusty unit guidon, the pennant that once flew over that isolated sandbagged base of ours and was gifted to me by my soldiers.
Sorry, Bill, last interruption… scout’s honor!
Surges to Nowhere
B ill: So I wrote an article that asked if our military was morphing into an imperial police force. As I put it then: “Foreign as in being constantly deployed overseas on imperial errands; foreign as in being ever more reliant on private military contractors; foreign as in being increasingly segregated from the elites that profit most from its actions, yet serve the least in its ranks.” And I added, “Now would be a good time to ask exactly why, and for whom, our troops are currently fighting and dying in the urban jungles of Iraq and the hostile hills of Afghanistan.”
A few people torched me for writing that. They thought I was saying that the troops themselves were somehow foreign, that I was attacking the rank-and-file, but my intent was to attack those who were misusing the military for their own purposes and agendas and all the other Americans who were acquiescing in the misuse of our troops. It’s a strange dynamic in this country, the way we’re cajoled into supporting our troops without ourselves having to serve or even pay attention to what they’re doing.
Indeed, under George W. Bush, we were even discouraged from commemorating the honored dead, denied seeing footage of returning flag-draped caskets. We were to celebrate our troops, while they (especially the dead and wounded) were kept out of sight—literally behind curtains, by Bush administration order—and so mostly out of mind.
I was against the Afghan surge, Danny, because I knew it would be both futile and unsustainable. In arguing that case, I reached back to the writings of two outspoken opponents of the Vietnam War, Norman Mailer and Mary McCarthy. As President Obama deliberated on whether to surge or not, I suggested that he should confer with broad-minded critics outside the government, tough-minded freethinkers cut from the cloth of Mailer and McCarthy.
Mailer, for example, had argued that the Vietnamese were “faceless” to Americans (just as the Iraqis and Afghans have been all these years), that we knew little about them as a people and cared even less. He saw American intervention in “heart of darkness” terms. McCarthy was even blunter, condemning as “wicked” the government’s technocentric and hegemonic form of warfare with its “absolute indifference to the cost in human lives.” Predictably, Obama listened to conventional wisdom and surged again, first under Gen. Stanley McChrystal and then, of course, under Petraeus.
D anny: Well, Bill, paltry as it may now sound, I truly thank you for your post-service service to sensibility and decency—even if those efforts didn’t quite spare me the displeasure of a second stint in a second theater with Petraeus as my supreme commander for a second time.
By the way, I ran into King David (as he came to be known) last year in a long line for the urinals at Newark airport. Like you, I’ve been tearing the guy’s philosophy and policies up for years. Still, I decided decorum mattered, so I introduced myself and mentioned that we’d met once at a Baghdad base in 2007. But before I could even kid him about how his staff had insisted that we stock ample kiwi slices because he loved to devour them, Petraeus suddenly walked off without even making it to the stall! I found it confusing behavior until I glimpsed myself in the mirror and remembered that I was wearing an “Iraq Veterans Against the War” T-shirt.
Okay, here’s a more instructive anecdote: Have I ever mentioned to you that my Afghan outpost, “Pashmul South” as it was then known, featured prominently in the late journalist Michael Hasting’s classic book, The Operators (which inspired the Netflix original movie War Machine)? At one point, Hastings describes how Petraeus’s predecessor in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, visited an isolated base full of war-weary and war-exasperated infantrymen. In one of the resident platoons, all but seven of its 25 original members had “been killed, wounded, or lost their minds.” And yes, that was the “palace” I took over a couple of years later, an outpost the Taliban was then attacking almost daily.
By the time I took up the cause of “Enduring Freedom” (as the Afghan operation had been dubbed by the Pentagon), I had already resigned myself to being one of those foreign legionnaires you’ve talked about, if not an outright mercenary. During the Afghan surge, I fought for pay, health care, a future West Point faculty slot, and lack of a better alternative (or alternate identity). My principles then were simple enough: patrol as little as possible, kill as few locals as you can, and make sure that one day you’ll walk (as many of my scouts literally did) out of that valley called Arghandab.
I was in a dark headspace then. I didn’t believe a damn thing my own side said, held out not an ounce of hope for victory, and couldn’t even be bothered to hate my “enemy.” On the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, staff officers at brigade headquarters sent a Reuters reporter deep into the boonies to profile the only commander around from the New York City area and I told him just what I thought, or close enough in any case. Suffice it to say that my colonels were less than pleased when Captain Sjursen was quoted as saying that “the war was anything but personal” and that he never “thought about 9/11 at all” or when he described the Taliban this way: “It’s farm boys picking up guns. How do you hate that?”
Rereading that article now, I feel a certain sadness for that long-gone self of mine, so lost in fatalism, hopelessness, and near-nihilism. Then I catch myself and think: Imagine how the Afghans felt, especially since they didn’t have a distant home to scurry off to sooner or later.
Anyway, I never forgot that it was Obama—from whom I’d sought Iraq War salvation—who ordered my troops on that even more absurd Afghan surge to nowhere (and I’m not sure I’ve forgiven him either). Still, if there was a silver lining in all that senselessness, perhaps it was that such a bipartisan betrayal widened both the breadth and depth of my future dissent.
The Struggle Itself
B ill: Speaking of surges, Danny, even the word is a military misnomer. It’s dishonest. Real generals advance and retreat. They reinforce. They win (or lose). They occupy the battlefield. Lines move on maps. Foes are beaten and surrender. None of this happens with a “surge.” Our generals just added more troops to exert temporary control over an area in what was nothing more than a fallacious face-saving gesture. A mask. A conceit. All those surges did was sustain a losing cause and reinforce failure. Consider them a fundamental mistake of military strategy, like throwing good money after bad or doubling down on a losing hand.
Why didn’t they listen to me? Why didn’t they stop the Iraq and Afghan surges and end those wars? And now that, with other retired military types, we’re both in the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN) you organized, continuing to speak out against the 21st century American way of making war, why do they still not listen to us? I fear that the answer’s simple enough: They have a trillion reasons not to. After all, roughly a trillion-plus dollars is spent each year on the Pentagon, on so-called homeland security, on nuclear weapons, on intelligence and surveillance, on buying weaponry and then more of the same after that. Why won’t they listen to us? We threaten their bottom line, their profits. And why should we get invites to CNN and MSNBC and other mainstream media sites when they already have Pentagon cheerleaders on their staffs and retired senior officers who spout the party line, as journalist David Barstow revealed in his Pulitzer Prize–winning series? We aren’t really in EMN, Danny, we’re in the IMF, the impossible missions force.
I remember reading old newspapers from the 1930s that were quite blunt about how to end war: Get the profit motive out of it. That was when the standing US military was fairly small and Americans were skeptical of weapons makers, the “merchants of death” as they were so rightly called back then. Almost a century later, we’re the leading merchant of death, the country that arms the world. Domestically, we’re awash in weaponry, with a gun for every American and a mini-tank for every police force. I’ve attacked this creeping militarism, this degradation of our democracy, but with little success. So welcome to the IMF from the classic TV show Mission Impossible. Unless we smarten up and end these perpetual wars, this democracy will self-destruct in five seconds. The odds are long, but it’s a mission we just have to accept.
D anny: I couldn’t agree more, Bill. The militarism problem is cyclical and systemic with a backstory that’s sure to ping our shared historian’s radar. I hinted at this two months ago in remarks I made at legendary anti-war vet Smedley Butler’s graveside (the former major general I wrote about at TomDispatch in February). Highlighting his prophetic aspect, I noted that the two-time Medal of Honor recipient had diagnosed core components of the military-industrial complex a quarter of a century before our new organization’s namesake, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, coined the term in his Cassandra-like 1961 farewell address. If that isn’t proof our forever-war problems are systemic rather than discrete, I don’t know what is.
That short speech of mine was occasioned by the 19th anniversary of our absurd Afghan War, the conflict you couldn’t single-handedly stop in time to save me from a second surge excursion. Anyway, don’t beat yourself up about that, Bill. Like you said, the war-state beast is humongous and our buddy Bacevich has been beating this drum since you were still wearing Air Force blue. Under the circumstances and in these pandemic times, what could be more appropriate than a buck-up from that ever-cheery French novelist of plagues and philosopher Albert Camus: “The struggle itself…is enough to fill a man’s heart.”
And you won’t believe this, but I had to stop there a moment to field a tortured text from an ex-student of mine turned Army lieutenant who’s now straddling those spheres of doubt and dissent that you and I know all too well. You may recall that I penned a piece last year for our mutual friend Tom Engelhardt on “Watching My Students Turn Into Soldiers of Empire.” Damned if that wasn’t a hard pill to swallow. Come to think of it, that must be precisely the feeling of failure you’ve described in our recent correspondence.
Well, at least the military dissent gestation period seems to be shortening. I commissioned exactly 20 years after you. The last crop of cadets from the freshman history class I taught at West Point after I returned from those wars were just 15 years behind me and some of them are now in doubt deep.
The thing is, I fear you’re a better man than I am, my friend. I can see the script that’s coming down the dusty and well-trodden trail, but I’m not sure I could stomach writing a co-column with one of those kids—let alone attending one of their funerals.
I guess we old hands had better get to work. In the battle against endless war, our motto has to be: no retreat, no surrender.