russia-insider--2020-04-30--How the 'West Point Mafia' Runs Washington, Ensuring America Is Permanently at War

I ’ m sure you still remember them .
The president regularly called them “ my generals.
” They were , he claimed , from “ central casting ” and there were three of them : retired Marine Corps General John Kelly , who was first appointed secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and then White House chief of staff ; Army Lieutenant General H.R .
McMaster , who became the president ’ s national security advisor ; and last ( but hardly least ) retired Marine Corps General James Mattis , whom Trump particularly adored for his nickname @ @ @ @ @ @ @ secretary of defense .
Of him , the president said , “ If I ’ m doing a movie , I pick you , General Mattis , who ’ s doing really well.
” They were referred to in Washington and in the media more generally as “ the adults in the room , ” indicating what most observers ( as well as insiders ) seemed to think about the president -- that he was , in effect , the impulsive , unpredictable , self-obsessed toddler in that same room .
All of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conflicts that Donald Trump had labeled “ ridiculous Endless Wars ” and were distinctly hawkish and uncritical of those same wars ( like the rest of the U.S. high command ) .
It was even rumored that , as “ adults , ” Kelly and Mattis had made a private pact not to be out of the country at the same time for fear of what might happen in their absence .
By the end of 2018 , of course , all three were gone .
“ My generals ” were no more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ TomDispatch regular , West Point graduate ( class of 2005 ) , and retired Army Major Danny Sjursen explains in remarkable detail today , while the president finally tossed “ his ” generals in the nearest trash can , the “ adults ” ( and you do have to keep that word in quotation marks ) didn ’ t , in fact , leave the toddler alone in the Oval Office .
They simply militarized and de-militarized at the same time .
In fact , one class from West Point , that of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Defense Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo graduated , is essentially everywhere in a distinctly militarized ( if still officially civilian ) and wildly hawkish Washington in the Trumpian moment .
Tom “ Courage Never Quits ” ?
The Price of Power and West Point ’ s Class of 1986 Every West Point class votes on an official motto .
Most are then inscribed on their class rings .
Hence , the pejorative West Point label `` ring knocker . ''
( As legend has it , at military meetings a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ large ring on the table and all Pointers present are obliged to rally to his point of view.
” ) Last August , the class of 2023 announced theirs : “ Freedom Is Not Free.
” Mine from the class of 2005 was “ Keeping Freedom Alive.
” Each class takes pride in its motto and , at least theoretically , aspires to live according to its sentiments , while championing the accomplishments of fellow graduates .
But some cohorts do stand out .
Take the class of 1986 ( `` Courage Never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , both Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are members of that very class , as are a surprisingly wide range of influential leaders in Congress , corporate America , the Pentagon , the defense industry , lobbying firms , Big Pharma , high-end financial services , and even security-consulting firms .
Still , given their striking hawkishness on the subject of American war-making , Esper and Pompeo rise above the rest .
Even in a pandemic , they are as good as their class motto .
When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wars , neither of them ever quits .
Once upon a time , retired Lieutenant General Douglas Lute ( Class of '75 ) , a former U.S .
Ambassador to NATO and a senior commander in Iraq and Afghanistan , taught both Esper and Pompeo in his West Point social sciences class .
However , it was Pompeo , the class of '86 valedictorian , whom Lute singled out for praise , remembering him as “ a very strong student -- fastidious , deliberate.
” Of course , as the Afghanistan Papers , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year , so starkly revealed , Lute told an interviewer that , like so many U.S. officials , he “ didn ’ t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking in Afghanistan.
” Though at one point he was President George W. Bush ’ s “ Afghan war czar , ” the general never expressed such doubts publicly and his record of dissent is hardly an impressive one .
Still , on one point at least , Lute was on target : Esper and Pompeo are smart and that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ phrase “ too smart for their own good ” ) .
Esper , a former Raytheon lobbyist , had particularly hawkish views on Russia and China before he ever took over at the Pentagon and he was n't alone when it came to the urge to continue America ’ s wars .
Pompeo , then a congressman , exhibited a striking pre-Trump-era foreign policy pugnacity , particularly vis-à-vis the Islamic world .
It has since solidified into a veritable obsession with toppling the Iranian regime .
Their militarized obsessions have recently taken striking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of defense instructed U.S. commanders to prepare plans to escalate combat against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq , an order the mission ’ s senior leader there , Lieutenant General Robert “ Pat ” White , reportedly resisted ; meanwhile , the secretary of state evidently is eager to convince President Trump to use the Covid-19 pandemic , now devastating Iran , to bomb that country and further strangle it with sanctions .
Worse yet , Pompeo might be just cunning enough to convince his ill-informed , insecure boss ( so open to clever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The militarism of both men matters greatly , but they hardly pilot the ship of state alone , any more than Trump does ( whatever he thinks ) .
Would that it were the case .
Sadly , even if voters threw them all out , the disease runs much deeper than them .
Enter the rest of the illustrative class of '86 .
As it happens , Pompeo ’ s and Esper ’ s classmates permeate the deeper structure of imperial America .
And let ’ s admit it , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ impressive crew .
As another '86 alumnus , Congressman Mark Green ( R-TN ) , bragged on the House floor in 2019 , “ My class [ has ] produced 18 general officers ... 22-plus presidents and CEOs of major corporations ... two state legislators ... [ and ] three judges , ” as well as “ at least four deans and chancellors of universities.
” He closed his remarks by exclaiming , “ Courage never quits , '86 !
” However , for all his gushing , Green ’ s list conceals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nor the motives of his illustrious classmates ; that is , what they ’ re actually doing and why .
Many are key players in a corporate-military machine bent on , and reliant on , endless war for profit and professional advancement .
A brief look at key ‘ 86ers offers insight into President Dwight D. Eisenhower ’ s military-industrial complex in 2020 -- and it should take your breath away .
The core group of '86 grads cheekily refer to themselves as “ the West Point mafia.
” And for some , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Take Joe DePinto , CEO of 7-Eleven .
He says that he ’ s “ someone who sleeps better at night knowing that those guys are in the positions they ’ re in.
” Of course , he ’ s an '86 grad , too .
Back when I called the academy home , we branded such self-important cadets “ toolbags.
” More than a decade later , when I taught there , I found my students still using the term .
Face facts , however : those “ toolbags , ” thick @ @ @ @ @ @ @ show in Washington ( and despite their busy schedules , they still find time to socialize as a group ) .
Given Donald Trump ’ s shady past -- one does n't build an Atlantic City casino-and-hotel empire without `` mobbing-it-up '' -- that mafia moniker is actually fitting .
So perhaps it ’ s worth thinking of Mike Pompeo as the president ’ s latest consigliere .
And since gangsters rarely countenance a challenge without striking back , Lieutenant General White should watch his back after his prudent attempt to stop the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Iraq and Iran in the midst of a deadly global pandemic .
Worse yet for him , he ’ s not a West Pointer ( though he did , oddly enough , earn his Army commission on the very day that class of ’ 86 graduated ) .
White ’ s once promising career is unlikely to be long for this world .
In addition to Esper and Pompeo , other Class of '86 alums serve in key executive branch roles .
They include the vice chief of staff of the Army @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Army National Guard , the commander of NATO ’ s Allied Land Command , the deputy commanding general of Army Forces Command , and the deputy commanding general of Army Cyber Command .
Civilian-side classmates in the Pentagon serve as : deputy assistant secretary of the Army for installations , energy , and environment ; a civilian aide to the secretary of the Army ; and the director of stabilization and peace operations policy for the secretary of defense .
These Pentagon career civil servants aren ’ t , strictly speaking , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but two Pompeo loyalists are indeed charter members .
Pompeo brought Ulrich Brechbuhl and Brian Butalao , two of his closest cadet friends , in from the corporate world .
The three of them had , at one point , served as CEO , CFO , and COO of Thayer Aerospace , named for the `` father '' of West Point , Colonel Sylvanus Thayer , and started with Koch Industries seed money .
Among other things , that corporation sold the Pentagon military aircraft components .
Brechbuhl and Butalao were given @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was its director .
Currently , Brechbuhl is the State Department ’ s counselor ( and reportedly Pompeo ’ s de facto chief of staff ) , while Butalao serves as under secretary for management .
According to his official bio , Butalao is responsible “ for managing the State Department on a day-to-day basis and [ serving as its ] Chief Operating Officer.
” Funny , that was his exact position under Pompeo at that aerospace company .
Still , this mafia trio can ’ t run the show by themselves .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ are so much longer than that .
They reach all the way to K Street and Capitol Hill .
From Congress to K Street : The Enablers Before Trump tapped Pompeo to head the CIA and then the State Department , he represented Wichita , Kansas , home to Koch Industries , in the House of Representatives .
In fact , Pompeo rode his ample funding from the political action committee of the billionaire Koch brothers straight to the Hill .
So linked was he to those fraternal right-wing energy tycoons and so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dubbed “ the congressman from Koch.
” The relationship was mutually beneficial .
Pompeo ’ s selection as secretary of state solidified the previously strained relationship of the brothers with President Trump .
The '86 mafia ’ s current congressional heavyweight , however , is Mark Green .
An early Trump supporter , he regularly tried to shield the president from impeachment as a minority member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee .
The Tennessee congressman nearly became Trump ’ s secretary of the Army , but ultimately withdrew his nomination because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and commenting that “ transgender is a disease.
” Legislators like Green , in turn , take their foreign-policy marching orders from the military ’ s corporate suppliers .
Among those , Esper , of course , represents the gold standard when it comes to `` revolving-door '' defense lobbying .
Just before ascending the Pentagon summit , pressed by Senator Elizabeth Warren during his confirmation hearings , he patently refused to “ recuse himself from all matters related to ” Raytheon , his former employer and the nation ’ s third-largest defense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before its recent merger with United Technologies Corporation , which once employed another Esper classmate as a senior vice president . )
Incidentally , one of Raytheon ’ s “ biggest franchises ” is the Patriot missile defense system , the very weapon being rushed to Iraq as I write , ostensibly as a check on Pompeo ’ s favored villain , Iran .
Less well known is the handiwork of another '86 grad , longtime lobbyist and CNN paid contributor David Urban , who first met the president in 2012 and still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The consummate Washington insider , he backed Trump “ when nobody else thought he stood a chance ” and in 2016 was his senior campaign adviser in the pivotal swing state of Pennsylvania .
Esper and Urban have been close for more than 30 years .
As cadets , they served in the same unit during the Persian Gulf War .
It was Urban who introduced Esper to his wife .
Both later graced the Hill ’ s list of Washington ’ s top lobbyists .
Since 2002 , Urban has been a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consulting giant , the American Continental Group .
Among its clients : Raytheon and 7-Eleven .
It ’ s hard to overstate Urban ’ s role .
He seems to have landed Pompeo and Esper their jobs in the Trump administration and was a key go-between in marrying class of '86 backbenchers and moneymen to that bridegroom of our moment , The Donald .
Another '86er also passed through that famed military-industrial revolving door .
Retired Colonel Dan Sauter left his position as chief of staff of the 32nd Army Air and Missile @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maker Lockheed Martin as business developer for the very systems his old unit employed .
Since May 2019 , he ’ s directed Lockheed ’ s $ 1.5 billion Terminal High Altitude Area Defense ( THAAD ) program in Saudi Arabia .
Lockheed ’ s THAAD systems have streamed into that country to protect the Kingdom , even as Pompeo continually threatens Iran .
If such corporate figures are doing the selling , it ’ s the Pentagon , naturally , that ’ s doing the buying .
Luckily , there are '86 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end as well , including a retired brigadier general who now serves as the Pentagon ’ s principal adviser to the under secretary for acquisition , technology , and logistics .
Finally , there are other key consultants linked to the military-industrial complex who are also graduates of the class of '86 .
They include a senior vice president of Hillwood -- a massive domestic and international real estate development company , chaired by Ross Perot , Jr. -- formerly a consultant to the government of the United Arab Emirates .
The Emiratis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pompeo ’ s Iranian nemesis and , in 2019 , awarded Raytheon a $ 1.5 billion contract to supply key components for its air force missile launchers .
Another classmate is a managing partner for Patriot Strategies , which consults for corporations and the government but also separately lands hefty defense contracts itself .
His previous `` ventures '' included “ work in telecommunications in the Middle East ... and technical security upgrades at U.S. embassies worldwide.
” Yet another grad , Rick Minicozzi , is the founder and CEO of Thayer Leader @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prides itself on “ building ” corporate leaders .
TLDG clients include : 7-Eleven , Cardinal Glass , EMCOR , and Mercedes-Benz .
All either have or had '86ers at the helm .
The company ’ s CEO also owns the Thayer Hotel located right on West Point ’ s grounds , which hosts many of the company ’ s lectures and other events .
Then there ’ s the retired colonel who , like me , taught on the West Point history faculty .
He ’ s now the CEO of Battlefield @ @ @ @ @ @ @ learn from the past ” in order to “ prepare for an ever-changing business landscape.
” Don ’ t for a moment think these are all “ bad ” people .
That ’ s not faintly my point .
One prominent '86 grad , for instance , is Lieutenant General Eric Wesley , the deputy of Army Futures Command .
He was my brigade commander at Fort Riley , Kansas , in 2009 and I found him competent , exceptionally empathetic , and a decidedly decent man , which is probably true of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exactly is my point here ?
I ’ m not for a second charging conspiracy or even criminal corruption .
The lion ’ s share of what all these figures do is perfectly legal .
In reality , the way the class of '86 has permeated the power structure only reflects the nature of the carefully crafted , distinctly undemocratic systems through which the military-industrial complex and our political world operate by design .
Most of what they do couldn ’ t , in fact , be more legal in a world of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that eternally go through the roof .
After all , if any of these figures had acted in anything but a perfectly legal fashion , they might have run into a classmate of theirs who recently led the FBI ’ s corruption unit in New Jersey -- before , that is , he retired and became CEO of a global security consulting firm .
( Sound familiar ? )
And that ’ s my point , really .
We have a system in Washington that couldn ’ t be more lawful and yet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of '86 represents one giant conflict of interest ( and they do n't stand alone ) .
Alums from that year are now ensconced in every level of the national security state : from the White House to the Pentagon to Congress to K Street to corporate boardrooms .
And they have both power and a deep stake , financial or otherwise , in maintaining or expanding the ( forever ) warfare state .
They benefit from America ’ s permanent military mobilization , its never-ending economic war-footing , and all that comes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inevitably include the blood of future West Point graduates , doomed to serve in their hopeless crusades .
Think of it all as a macabre inversion of their class motto in which it ’ s not their courage but that of younger graduates sent off to this country ’ s hopeless wars that they will never allow to “ quit.
” Speaking of true courage , lately the only exemplar we ’ ve had of it in those wars is General “ Pat ” White .
It seems that he , at least @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of those mafia men of '86 .
But of course , he ’ s not part of their `` family , '' is he ?

I’m sure you still remember them. The president regularly called them “my generals.” They were, he claimed, from “central casting” and there were three of them: retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, who was first appointed secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and then White House chief of staff; Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, who became the president’s national security advisor; and last (but hardly least) retired Marine Corps General James Mattis, whom Trump particularly adored for his nickname “Mad Dog” and appointed as secretary of defense. Of him, the president said, “If I’m doing a movie, I pick you, General Mattis, who’s doing really well.”
They were referred to in Washington and in the media more generally as “the adults in the room,” indicating what most observers (as well as insiders) seemed to think about the president -- that he was, in effect, the impulsive, unpredictable, self-obsessed toddler in that same room. All of them had been commanders in the very conflicts that Donald Trump had labeled “ridiculous Endless Wars” and were distinctly hawkish and uncritical of those same wars (like the rest of the U.S. high command). It was even rumored that, as “adults,” Kelly and Mattis had made a private pact not to be out of the country at the same time for fear of what might happen in their absence. By the end of 2018, of course, all three were gone. “My generals” were no more, but the toddler remained.
As TomDispatch regular, West Point graduate (class of 2005), and retired Army Major Danny Sjursen explains in remarkable detail today, while the president finally tossed “his” generals in the nearest trash can, the “adults” (and you do have to keep that word in quotation marks) didn’t, in fact, leave the toddler alone in the Oval Office. They simply militarized and de-militarized at the same time. In fact, one class from West Point, that of 1986, from which both Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo graduated, is essentially everywhere in a distinctly militarized (if still officially civilian) and wildly hawkish Washington in the Trumpian moment. Tom
“Courage Never Quits”?
The Price of Power and West Point’s Class of 1986
Counterpunch.org, April 13
By Danny Sjursen
Every West Point class votes on an official motto. Most are then inscribed on their class rings. Hence, the pejorative West Point label "ring knocker." (As legend has it, at military meetings a West Pointer “need only knock his large ring on the table and all Pointers present are obliged to rally to his point of view.”) Last August, the class of 2023 announced theirs: “Freedom Is Not Free.” Mine from the class of 2005 was “Keeping Freedom Alive.” Each class takes pride in its motto and, at least theoretically, aspires to live according to its sentiments, while championing the accomplishments of fellow graduates.
But some cohorts do stand out. Take the class of 1986 ("Courage Never Quits"). As it happens, both Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are members of that very class, as are a surprisingly wide range of influential leaders in Congress, corporate America, the Pentagon, the defense industry, lobbying firms, Big Pharma, high-end financial services, and even security-consulting firms. Still, given their striking hawkishness on the subject of American war-making, Esper and Pompeo rise above the rest. Even in a pandemic, they are as good as their class motto. When it comes to this country’s wars, neither of them ever quits.
Once upon a time, retired Lieutenant General Douglas Lute (Class of '75), a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO and a senior commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, taught both Esper and Pompeo in his West Point social sciences class. However, it was Pompeo, the class of '86 valedictorian, whom Lute singled out for praise, remembering him as “a very strong student -- fastidious, deliberate.” Of course, as the Afghanistan Papers, released by the Washington Post late last year, so starkly revealed, Lute told an interviewer that, like so many U.S. officials, he “didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking in Afghanistan.” Though at one point he was President George W. Bush’s “Afghan war czar,” the general never expressed such doubts publicly and his record of dissent is hardly an impressive one. Still, on one point at least, Lute was on target: Esper and Pompeo are smart and that’s what worries me (as in the phrase “too smart for their own good”).
Esper, a former Raytheon lobbyist, had particularly hawkish views on Russia and China before he ever took over at the Pentagon and he wasn't alone when it came to the urge to continue America’s wars. Pompeo, then a congressman, exhibited a striking pre-Trump-era foreign policy pugnacity, particularly vis-à-vis the Islamic world. It has since solidified into a veritable obsession with toppling the Iranian regime.
Their militarized obsessions have recently taken striking form in two ways: the secretary of defense instructed U.S. commanders to prepare plans to escalate combat against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, an order the mission’s senior leader there, Lieutenant General Robert “Pat” White, reportedly resisted; meanwhile, the secretary of state evidently is eager to convince President Trump to use the Covid-19 pandemic, now devastating Iran, to bomb that country and further strangle it with sanctions. Worse yet, Pompeo might be just cunning enough to convince his ill-informed, insecure boss (so open to clever flattery) that war is the answer.
The militarism of both men matters greatly, but they hardly pilot the ship of state alone, any more than Trump does (whatever he thinks). Would that it were the case. Sadly, even if voters threw them all out, the disease runs much deeper than them. Enter the rest of the illustrative class of '86.
As it happens, Pompeo’s and Esper’s classmates permeate the deeper structure of imperial America. And let’s admit it, they are, by the numbers, an impressive crew. As another '86 alumnus, Congressman Mark Green (R-TN), bragged on the House floor in 2019, “My class [has] produced 18 general officers... 22-plus presidents and CEOs of major corporations... two state legislators... [and] three judges,” as well as “at least four deans and chancellors of universities.” He closed his remarks by exclaiming, “Courage never quits, '86!”
However, for all his gushing, Green’s list conceals much. It illuminates neither the mechanics nor the motives of his illustrious classmates; that is, what they’re actually doing and why. Many are key players in a corporate-military machine bent on, and reliant on, endless war for profit and professional advancement. A brief look at key ‘86ers offers insight into President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex in 2020 -- and it should take your breath away.
The West Point Mafia
The core group of '86 grads cheekily refer to themselves as “the West Point mafia.” And for some, that’s an uplifting thought. Take Joe DePinto, CEO of 7-Eleven. He says that he’s “someone who sleeps better at night knowing that those guys are in the positions they’re in.” Of course, he’s an '86 grad, too.
Back when I called the academy home, we branded such self-important cadets “toolbags.” More than a decade later, when I taught there, I found my students still using the term. Face facts, however: those “toolbags,” thick as thieves today, now run the show in Washington (and despite their busy schedules, they still find time to socialize as a group).
Given Donald Trump’s shady past -- one doesn't build an Atlantic City casino-and-hotel empire without "mobbing-it-up" -- that mafia moniker is actually fitting. So perhaps it’s worth thinking of Mike Pompeo as the president’s latest consigliere. And since gangsters rarely countenance a challenge without striking back, Lieutenant General White should watch his back after his prudent attempt to stop the further escalation of America’s wars in Iraq and Iran in the midst of a deadly global pandemic. Worse yet for him, he’s not a West Pointer (though he did, oddly enough, earn his Army commission on the very day that class of ’86 graduated). White’s once promising career is unlikely to be long for this world.
In addition to Esper and Pompeo, other Class of '86 alums serve in key executive branch roles. They include the vice chief of staff of the Army General Joseph Martin, the director of the Army National Guard, the commander of NATO’s Allied Land Command, the deputy commanding general of Army Forces Command, and the deputy commanding general of Army Cyber Command. Civilian-side classmates in the Pentagon serve as: deputy assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy, and environment; a civilian aide to the secretary of the Army; and the director of stabilization and peace operations policy for the secretary of defense. These Pentagon career civil servants aren’t, strictly speaking, part of the “mafia” itself, but two Pompeo loyalists are indeed charter members.
Pompeo brought Ulrich Brechbuhl and Brian Butalao, two of his closest cadet friends, in from the corporate world. The three of them had, at one point, served as CEO, CFO, and COO of Thayer Aerospace, named for the "father" of West Point, Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, and started with Koch Industries seed money. Among other things, that corporation sold the Pentagon military aircraft components.
Brechbuhl and Butalao were given senior positions at the CIA when Pompeo was its director. Currently, Brechbuhl is the State Department’s counselor (and reportedly Pompeo’s de facto chief of staff), while Butalao serves as under secretary for management. According to his official bio, Butalao is responsible “for managing the State Department on a day-to-day basis and [serving as its] Chief Operating Officer.” Funny, that was his exact position under Pompeo at that aerospace company.
Still, this mafia trio can’t run the show by themselves. The national security structure’s tentacles are so much longer than that. They reach all the way to K Street and Capitol Hill.
From Congress to K Street: The Enablers
Before Trump tapped Pompeo to head the CIA and then the State Department, he represented Wichita, Kansas, home to Koch Industries, in the House of Representatives. In fact, Pompeo rode his ample funding from the political action committee of the billionaire Koch brothers straight to the Hill. So linked was he to those fraternal right-wing energy tycoons and so protective of their interests that he was dubbed “the congressman from Koch.” The relationship was mutually beneficial. Pompeo’s selection as secretary of state solidified the previously strained relationship of the brothers with President Trump.
The '86 mafia’s current congressional heavyweight, however, is Mark Green. An early Trump supporter, he regularly tried to shield the president from impeachment as a minority member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee. The Tennessee congressman nearly became Trump’s secretary of the Army, but ultimately withdrew his nomination because of controversies that included sponsoring gender-discriminatory bills and commenting that “transgender is a disease.”
Legislators like Green, in turn, take their foreign-policy marching orders from the military’s corporate suppliers. Among those, Esper, of course, represents the gold standard when it comes to "revolving-door" defense lobbying. Just before ascending the Pentagon summit, pressed by Senator Elizabeth Warren during his confirmation hearings, he patently refused to “recuse himself from all matters related to” Raytheon, his former employer and the nation’s third-largest defense contractor. (And that was even before its recent merger with United Technologies Corporation, which once employed another Esper classmate as a senior vice president.) Incidentally, one of Raytheon’s “biggest franchises” is the Patriot missile defense system, the very weapon being rushed to Iraq as I write, ostensibly as a check on Pompeo’s favored villain, Iran.
Less well known is the handiwork of another '86 grad, longtime lobbyist and CNN paid contributor David Urban, who first met the president in 2012 and still recalls how “we clicked immediately.” The consummate Washington insider, he backed Trump “when nobody else thought he stood a chance” and in 2016 was his senior campaign adviser in the pivotal swing state of Pennsylvania.
Esper and Urban have been close for more than 30 years. As cadets, they served in the same unit during the Persian Gulf War. It was Urban who introduced Esper to his wife. Both later graced the Hill’s list of Washington’s top lobbyists. Since 2002, Urban has been a partner and is now president of a consulting giant, the American Continental Group. Among its clients: Raytheon and 7-Eleven.
It’s hard to overstate Urban’s role. He seems to have landed Pompeo and Esper their jobs in the Trump administration and was a key go-between in marrying class of '86 backbenchers and moneymen to that bridegroom of our moment, The Donald.
Greasing the Machine: The Moneymen
Another '86er also passed through that famed military-industrial revolving door. Retired Colonel Dan Sauter left his position as chief of staff of the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command for one at giant weapons maker Lockheed Martin as business developer for the very systems his old unit employed. Since May 2019, he’s directed Lockheed’s $1.5 billion Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program in Saudi Arabia. Lockheed’s THAAD systems have streamed into that country to protect the Kingdom, even as Pompeo continually threatens Iran.
If such corporate figures are doing the selling, it’s the Pentagon, naturally, that’s doing the buying. Luckily, there are '86 alumni in key positions on the purchasing end as well, including a retired brigadier general who now serves as the Pentagon’s principal adviser to the under secretary for acquisition, technology, and logistics.
Finally, there are other key consultants linked to the military-industrial complex who are also graduates of the class of '86. They include a senior vice president of Hillwood -- a massive domestic and international real estate development company, chaired by Ross Perot, Jr. -- formerly a consultant to the government of the United Arab Emirates. The Emiratis are U.S. allies in the fight against Pompeo’s Iranian nemesis and, in 2019, awarded Raytheon a $1.5 billion contract to supply key components for its air force missile launchers.
Another classmate is a managing partner for Patriot Strategies, which consults for corporations and the government but also separately lands hefty defense contracts itself. His previous "ventures" included “work in telecommunications in the Middle East... and technical security upgrades at U.S. embassies worldwide.”
Yet another grad, Rick Minicozzi, is the founder and CEO of Thayer Leader Development Group (TLDG), which prides itself on “building” corporate leaders. TLDG clients include: 7-Eleven, Cardinal Glass, EMCOR, and Mercedes-Benz. All either have or had '86ers at the helm. The company’s CEO also owns the Thayer Hotel located right on West Point’s grounds, which hosts many of the company’s lectures and other events. Then there’s the retired colonel who, like me, taught on the West Point history faculty. He’s now the CEO of Battlefield Leadership, which helps corporate leaders “learn from the past” in order to “prepare for an ever-changing business landscape.”
A Class-wide Conflict of Interest
Don’t for a moment think these are all “bad” people. That’s not faintly my point. One prominent '86 grad, for instance, is Lieutenant General Eric Wesley, the deputy of Army Futures Command. He was my brigade commander at Fort Riley, Kansas, in 2009 and I found him competent, exceptionally empathetic, and a decidedly decent man, which is probably true of plenty of ‘86ers.
So what exactly is my point here? I’m not for a second charging conspiracy or even criminal corruption. The lion’s share of what all these figures do is perfectly legal. In reality, the way the class of '86 has permeated the power structure only reflects the nature of the carefully crafted, distinctly undemocratic systems through which the military-industrial complex and our political world operate by design. Most of what they do couldn’t, in fact, be more legal in a world of never-ending American wars and national security budgets that eternally go through the roof. After all, if any of these figures had acted in anything but a perfectly legal fashion, they might have run into a classmate of theirs who recently led the FBI’s corruption unit in New Jersey -- before, that is, he retired and became CEO of a global security consulting firm. (Sound familiar?)
And that’s my point, really. We have a system in Washington that couldn’t be more lawful and yet, by any definition, the class of '86 represents one giant conflict of interest (and they don't stand alone). Alums from that year are now ensconced in every level of the national security state: from the White House to the Pentagon to Congress to K Street to corporate boardrooms. And they have both power and a deep stake, financial or otherwise, in maintaining or expanding the (forever) warfare state.
They benefit from America’s permanent military mobilization, its never-ending economic war-footing, and all that comes with it. Ironically, this will inevitably include the blood of future West Point graduates, doomed to serve in their hopeless crusades. Think of it all as a macabre inversion of their class motto in which it’s not their courage but that of younger graduates sent off to this country’s hopeless wars that they will never allow to “quit.”
Speaking of true courage, lately the only exemplar we’ve had of it in those wars is General “Pat” White. It seems that he, at least, refused to kiss the proverbial rings of those mafia men of '86.
But of course, he’s not part of their "family," is he?


russia-insider--2020-04-30--Turkey's Economic Troubles Give Putin Another Chance To Squeeze Erdogan

The wannabe Sultan of Turkey has told the Central Bank of the Republic to keep the value of the Turkish Lira below the 7 Lira per U.S. Dollar level .
The central bank was also told to not raise its interest rate .
The economy must keep growing !
That left only one thing that the bank could do .
It had to spend its foreign currency reserves to buy up Lira in the open market to keep it from falling further .
Unfortunately those reserves are limited : The pace of the CBRT 's reserve burn has accelerated in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ TD Securities estimate that the CBRT will completely exhaust Net International Reserves this week .
“ Given the current trend , we estimate that total reserves will be depleted at the latest by the 3rd week of September , at the earliest by the 3rd week of July.
” “ Before all buffers are depleted , we think the CBRT will hike rates dramatically and likely introduce tight capital controls .
Turkey may also seek multilateral support if this scenario materializes.
” Under Erdogan 's rule the Turkish industry has taken up a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. dollar .
It has to be paid back in a foreign currency .
A sinking Lira will make foreign denominated loans much harder to pay back .
Higher interest rates will make local consumer debt more expensive and will reduce local demand .
The debt fueled boom Erdogan had engineered over the last years will now be followed by a severe crash .
That is likely to dampen Erdogan 's appetite for further adventures in Syria and Libya .
Qatar , his partner in those crimes , has its own trouble due @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The last time the Turkish Lira was under pressure Erdogan received a large loan from Qatar .
But now Qatar itself has to borrow billions to stay afloat .
That leaves the International Monetary Fund as the only place where Erdogan can receive fresh money .
IMF loans come with conditions over which the U.S. has a large say .
We can be sure that the Trump administrations will have 'conditions ' that Erdogan will not like - at all .
The situation creates another opening for Russia .
Putin might offer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few billion dollars in loans from Russia 's plentiful reserves , to finally bring him under control .
Altogether we are in for some interesting developments .

The wannabe Sultan of Turkey has told the Central Bank of the Republic to keep the value of the Turkish Lira below the 7 Lira per U.S. Dollar level.
The central bank was also told to not raise its interest rate. The economy must keep growing!
That left only one thing that the bank could do. It had to spend its foreign currency reserves to buy up Lira in the open market to keep it from falling further.
Source: Can Oker
Unfortunately those reserves are limited:
The pace of the CBRT's reserve burn has accelerated in response to TRY weakness. Economists at TD Securities estimate that the CBRT will completely exhaust Net International Reserves this week. “Given the current trend, we estimate that total reserves will be depleted at the latest by the 3rd week of September, at the earliest by the 3rd week of July.” “Before all buffers are depleted, we think the CBRT will hike rates dramatically and likely introduce tight capital controls. Turkey may also seek multilateral support if this scenario materializes.”
Under Erdogan's rule the Turkish industry has taken up a lot of debt that was denominated in U.S. dollar. It has to be paid back in a foreign currency. A sinking Lira will make foreign denominated loans much harder to pay back. Higher interest rates will make local consumer debt more expensive and will reduce local demand. The debt fueled boom Erdogan had engineered over the last years will now be followed by a severe crash.
That is likely to dampen Erdogan's appetite for further adventures in Syria and Libya. Qatar, his partner in those crimes, has its own trouble due to the deep drop in oil prices. The last time the Turkish Lira was under pressure Erdogan received a large loan from Qatar. But now Qatar itself has to borrow billions to stay afloat.
That leaves the International Monetary Fund as the only place where Erdogan can receive fresh money. IMF loans come with conditions over which the U.S. has a large say. We can be sure that the Trump administrations will have 'conditions' that Erdogan will not like - at all.
The situation creates another opening for Russia. Putin might offer Erdogan a helping hand, and a few billion dollars in loans from Russia's plentiful reserves, to finally bring him under control.
Altogether we are in for some interesting developments.


russia-insider--2020-04-30--My Personal Impressions of Hitler - He Was a Great, Brilliant Man - Don't Believe the Lies, by Leon

My Personal Impressions of Hitler - He Was a Great, Brilliant Man - Don't Believe the Lies, by Leon Degrelle

`` Hitler -- You knew him -- what was he like ? ''
I have been asked that question a thousand times since 1945 , and nothing is more difficult to answer .
Approximately two hundred thousand books have dealt with the Second World War and with its central figure , Adolf Hitler .
But has the real Hitler been discovered by any of them ?
`` The enigma of Hitler is beyond all human comprehension , '' the left-wing German weekly Die Zeit once put it .
Salvador Dali , art 's unique genius , sought to penetrate the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dramatic paintings .
Towering mountain landscapes all but fill the canvas , leaving ony a few luminous meters of seashore dotted with delicately miniaturized human figures : the last witness to a dying peace .
A huge telephone receiver dripping tears of blood hangs from the branch of a dead tree ; and here and there hang umbrellas and bats whose portent is visibly the same .
As Dali tells it , `` Chamberlain 's umbrella appeared in this painting in a sinister light , made evident by the bat , and it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a thing of enormous anguish . ''
He then confided : `` I felt this painting to be deeply prophetic .
But I confess that I have n't yet figured out the Hitler enigma either .
He attracted me only as an object of my mad imaginings and because I saw him as a man uniquely capable of turning things completely upside down . ''
What a lesson in humility for the braying critics who have rushed into print since 1945 with their thousands of `` definitive '' books , most of them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ troubled the introspective Dali that forty years later he still felt anguished and uncertain in the presence of his own hallucinatory painting .
Apart from Dali , who else has ever tried to present an objective portrayal of this extraordinary man , who Dali labeled the most explosive figure in human history ?
The mountains of Hitler books based on blind hatred and ignorance do little to describe or explain the most powerful man the world has ever seen .
How , I ponder , do these thousands of disparate portraits of Hitler @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knew ?
The Hitler seated beside me , standing up , talking , listening .
It has become impossible to explain to people fed fantastic tales for decades that what they have read or heard on television just does not correspond to the truth .
People have come to accept fiction , repeated a thousand times over , as reality .
Yet they have never seen Hitler , never spoken to him , never heard a word from his mouth .
The very name of Hitler immediately conjures up a grimacing devil , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ negative emotions .
Like Pavlov 's bell , the mention of Hitler is meant to dispense with substance and reality .
In time , however , history will demand more than these summary judgments .
Hitler is always present before my eyes : as a man of peace in 1936 , as a man of war in 1944 .
It is not possible to have been a personal witness to the life of such an extraordinary man without being marked by it forever .
Not a day goes by , but Hitler rises @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a man long dead , but as a real being who paces his office floor , seats himself in his chair , pokes the burning logs in the fireplace .
The first thing anyone noticed when he came into view was his small mustache .
Countless times he had been advised to shave it off , but he always refused : people were used to him the way he was .
He was not tall -- no more than was Napoleon or Alexander the Great .
Hitler had deep blue eyes that many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ find them so .
Nor did I detect the electric current his hands were said to give off .
I gripped them quite a few times and was never struck by his lightning .
His face showed emotion or indifference according to the passion or apathy of the moment .
At times he was as though benumbed , saying not a word , while his jaws moved in the meanwhile as if they were grinding an obstacle to smithereens in the void .
Then he would come suddenly alive and launch into a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ though he were addressing a crowd of hundreds of thousands at Berlin 's Tempelhof airfield .
Then he became as if transfigured .
Even his complexion , otherwise dull , lit up as he spoke .
And at such times , to be sure , Hitler was strangely attractive and as if possessed of magic powers .
Anything that might have seemed too solemn in his remarks , he quickly tempered with a touch of humour .
The picturesque world , the biting phrase were at his command .
In a flash he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ smile , or come up with an unexpected and disarming comparison .
He could be harsh and even implacable in his judgments , and yet almost at the same time be surprisingly conciliatory , sensitive and warm .
After 1945 Hitler was accused of every cruelty , but it was not in his nature to be cruel .
He loved children .
It was an entirely natural thing for him to stop his car and share his food with young cyclists along the road .
Once he gave his raincoat to a derelict @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he would interrupt his work and prepare the food for his dog Blondi .
He could not bear to eat meat , because it meant the death of a living creature .
He refused to have so much as a rabbit or a trout sacrificed to provide his food .
He would allow only eggs on his table , because egg-laying meant that the hen had been spared rather than killed .
Hitler 's eating habits were a constant source of amazement to me .
How could someone on such a rigorous schedule @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of thousands of exhausting mass meetings from which he emerged bathed with sweat , often losing two to four pounds in the process ; who slept only three to four hours a night ; and who , from 1940 to 1945 , carried the whole world on his shoulders while ruling over 380 million Europeans : how , I wondered , could he physically survive on just a boiled egg , a few tomatoes , two or three pancakes , and a plate of noodles ?
But he actually gained weight !
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ smoke , and would not tolerate smoking in his presence .
At one or two o'clock in the morning he would still be talking , untroubled , close to his fireplace , lively , often amusing .
He never showed any sign of weariness .
Dead tired his audience might be , but not Hitler .
He was depicted as a tired old man .
Nothing was further from the truth .
In September 1944 , when he was reported to be fairly doddering , I spent a week with him .
His @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The attempt made on his life on July 20th had , if anything , recharged him .
He took tea in his quarters as tranquilly as if we had been in his small private apartment at the chancellery before the war , or enjoying the view of snow and bright blue sky through his great bay window at Berchtesgaden .
At the very end of his life , to be sure , his back had become bent , but his mind remained as clear as a flash of lightning .
The testament @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eve of his death , at three in the morning of April 29 , 1945 , provides us a lasting testimony .
Napoleon at Fontainebleau was not without his moments of panic before his abdication .
Hitler simply shook hands with his associates in silence , breakfasted as on any other day , then went to his death as if he were going on a stroll .
When has history ever witnessed so enormous a tragedy brought to its end with such iron self control ?
Hitler 's most notable characteristic was ever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problems resolved itself in his mind into a few basic principles .
His actions were geared to ideas and decisions that could be understood by anyone .
The laborer from Essen , the isolated farmer , the Ruhr industrialist , and the university professor could all easily follow his line of thought .
The very clarity of his reasoning made everything obvious .
His behaviour and his life style never changed even when he became the ruler of Germany .
He dressed and lived frugally .
During his early days in Munich , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ per day for food .
At no stage in his life did he spend anything on himself .
Throughout his 13 years in the chancellery he never carried a wallet or ever had money of his own .
Hitler was self-taught and he made no attempt to hide the fact .
The smug conceit of intellectuals , their shiny ideas packaged like so many flashlight batteries , irritated him at times .
His own knowledge he had acquired through selective and unremitting study , and he knew far more than thousands of diploma-decorated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever read as much as he did .
He normally read one book every day , always first reading the conclusion and the index in order to gauge the work 's interest for him .
He had the power to extract the essence of each book and then store it in his computer-like mind .
I have heard him talk about complicated scientific books with faultless precision , even at the height of the war .
His intellectual curiosity was limitless .
He was readily familiar with the writings of the most diverse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for his comprehension .
He had a deep knowledge and understanding of Buddha , Confucius and Jesus Christ , as well as Luther , Calvin , and Savonarola ; of literary giants such as Dante , Schiller , Shakespeare and Goethe ; and analytical writers such as Renan and Gobineau , Chamberlain and Sorel .
He had trained himself in philosophy by studying Aristotle and Plato .
He could quote entire paragraphs of Schopenhauer from memory , and for a long time carried a pocket edition of Schopenhauer with him .
Nietzsche taught @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for knowledge was unquenchable .
He spend hundreds of hours studying the works of Tacitus and Mommsen , military strategists such as Clausewitz , and empire builders such as Bismarck .
Nothing escaped him : world history or the history of civilizations , the study of the Bible and the Talmud , Thomistic philosophy and all the masterpieces of Homer , Sophocles , Horace , Ovid , Titus Livius and Cicero .
He knew Julian the Apostate as if he had been his contemporary .
His knowledge also extended to mechanics .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ballistics of various weapons ; and he astonished the best medical scientists with his knowledge of medicine and biology .
The universality of Hitler 's knowledge may surprise or displease those unaware of it , but it is nonetheless a historical fact : Hitler was one of the most cultivated men of this century .
Many times more so than Churchill , an intellectual mediocrity ; or than Pierre Laval , who had a merely cursory knowledge of history ; or than Roosevelt ; or Eisenhower , who never got beyond detective @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Hitler 's life , the date April 20 , 1889 , meant nothing to anyone .
He was born on that day in Braunau , a small town in the Inn valley .
During his exile in Vienna , he often thought of his modest home , and particularly of his mother .
When she fell ill , he returned home from Vienna to look after her .
For weeks he nursed her , did all the household chores , and supported her as the most loving of sons .
When she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his pain was immense .
Wracked with grief , he buried his mother in the little country cemetery .
`` I have never seen anyone so prostrate with grief , '' said his mother 's doctor , who happened to be Jewish .
In his room , Hitler always displayed an old photograph of his mother .
The memory of the mother he loved was with him until the day he died .
Before leaving this earth , on April 30 , 1945 , he placed his mother 's photograph in front of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his and a similar face .
Her maternal intuition told her that her son was different from other children .
She acted almost as if she knew her son 's destiny .
When she died , she felt anguished by the immense mystery surrounding her son .
Even during his earliest years , Hitler was different than other children .
He had an inner strength and was guided by his spirit and his instincts .
He could draw skillfully when he was only eleven years old .
His sketches made at that age @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He first paintings and watercolors , created at age 15 , are full of poetry and sensitivity .
One of his most striking early works , `` Fortress Utopia , '' also shows him to have been an artist of rare imagination .
His artistic orientation took many forms .
He wrote poetry from the time he was a lad .
He dictated a complete play to his sister Paula who was amazed at his presumption .
At the age of 16 , in Vienna , he launched into the creation of an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ settings , as well as all the costumes ; and , of course , the characters were Wagnerian heroes .
More than just an artist , Hitler was above all an architect .
Hundreds of his works were notable as much for the architecture as for the painting .
From memory alone he could reproduce in every detail the onion dome of a church or the intricate curves of wrought iron .
Indeed , it was to fulfill his dream of becoming an architect that Hitler went to Vienna at the beginning of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hundreds of paintings , sketches and drawings he created at the time , which reveal his mastery of three dimensional figures , it is astounding that his examiners at the Fine Arts Academy failed him in two successive examinations .
German historian Werner Maser , no friend of Hitler , castigated these examiners : `` All of his works revealed extraordinary architectural gifts and knowledge .
The builder of the Third Reich gives the former Fine Arts Academy of Vienna cause for shame . ''
Impressed by the beauty of the church in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the choir and served as an altar boy , Hitler dreamt fleetingly of becoming a Benedictine monk .
And it was at that time , too , interestingly enough , that whenever he attended mass , he always had to pass beneath the first swastika he had ever seen : it was graven in the stone escutcheon of the abbey portal .
Hitler 's father , a customs officer , hoped the boy would follow in his footsteps and become a civil servant .
His tutor encouraged him to become a monk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or rather fled , to Vienna .
And there , thwarted in his artistic aspirations by the bureaucratic mediocrities of academia , he turned to isolation and meditation .
Lost in the great capital of Austria-Hungary , he searched for his destiny .
Throughout the years of his youth , Hitler lived the life of a virtual recluse .
He greatest wish was to withdraw from the world .
At heart a loner , he wandered about , ate meager meals , but devoured the books of three public libraries .
He abstained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It is almost impossible to imagine another such destiny where a man started with so little and reached such heights .
Alexander the great was the son of a king .
Napoleon , from a well-to-do family , was a general at 24 .
Fifteen years after Vienna , Hitler would still be an unknown corporal .
Thousands of others had a thousand times more opportunity to leave their mark on the world .
Hitler had not yet focused on politics , but without his rightly knowing , that was the career to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Politics would ultimately blend with his passion for art .
People , the masses , would be the clay the sculptor shapes into an immortal form .
The human clay would become for him a beautiful work of art like one of Myron 's marble sculptures , a Hans Makart painting , or Wagner 's Ring Trilogy .
His love of music , art and architecture had not removed him from the political life and social concerns of Vienna .
In order to survive , he worked as a common laborer side by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a silent spectator , but nothing escaped him : not the vanity and egoism of the bourgeoisie , not the moral and material misery of the people , nor yet the hundreds of thousands of workers who surged down the wide avenues of Vienna with anger in their hearts .
He had also been taken aback by the growing presence in Vienna of bearded Jews wearing caftans , a sight unknown in Linz .
`` How can they be Germans ? ''
he asked himself .
He read the statistics : in 1860 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; 40 years later there were 200,000 .
They were everywhere .
He observed their invasion of the universities and the legal and medical professions , and their takeover of the newspapers .
Hitler was exposed to the passionate reactions of the workers to this influx , but the workers were not alone in their unhappiness .
There were many prominent persons in Austria and Hungary who did not hide their resentment at what they believed was an alien invasion of their country .
The mayor of Vienna , a Christian-Democrat and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Hitler .
Hitler was also concerned with the fate of the eight million Austrian Germans kept apart from Germany , and thus deprived of their rightful German nationhood .
He saw Emperor Franz Josef as a bitter and petty old man unable to cope with the problems of the day and the aspirations of the future .
Hitler was not much concerned with his private life .
In Vienna he had lived in shabby , cramped lodgings .
But for all that he rented a piano that took up half his room @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He lived on bread , milk , and vegetable soup .
His poverty was real .
He did not even own an over-coat .
He shoveled streets on snowy days .
He carried luggage at the railway station .
He spent many weeks in shelters for the homeless .
But he never stopped painting or reading .
Despite his dire poverty , Hitler somehow managed to maintain a clean appearance .
Landlords and landladies in Vienna and Munich all remembered him for his civility and pleasant disposition .
His behaviour was impeccable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his meager belongings meticulously arranged , and his clothes neatly hung or folded .
He washed and ironed his own clothes , something which in those days few men did .
He needed almost nothing to survive , and money from the sale of a few paintings was sufficient to provide for all his needs .
Quietly , the young Hitler was summing things up in his mind .
First : Austrians were part of Germany , the common fatherland .
Second : The Jews were aliens within the German community .
Third @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was shared by all classes .
The common people with whom Hitler had shared grief and humiliation were just as much a part of the fatherland as the millionaires of high society .
Fourth : Class war would sooner or later condemn both workers and bosses to ruin in any country .
No country could survive class war ; only cooperation between workers and bosses can benefit the country .
Workers must be respected and live with decency and honor .
Creativity must never be stifled .
When Hitler later said that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Vienna , he told the truth .
Ten years later his observations made in Vienna would become the order of the day .
Thus Hitler was to live for several years in the crowded city of Vienna as a virtual outcast , yet quietly observing everything around him .
His strength came from within .
He did not rely on anyone to do his thinking for him .
Exceptional human beings always feel lonely amid the vast human throng .
Hitler saw his solitude as a wonderful opportunity to meditate and not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In order not to be lost in the wastes of a sterile desert , a strong soul seeks refuge within himself .
Hitler was such a soul .
The First World War was a turning point in his life .
He regarded it as the hand of destiny .
The lightning in Hitler 's life would come from the word .
All his artistic talent would be channeled into his mastery of communication and eloquence .
Hitler would never conceive of popular conquests without the power of the word .
He would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He would find total fulfillment when the magic of his words inspired the hearts and minds of the masses with whom he communed .
He would feel reborn each time he conveyed with mystical beauty the knowledge he had acquired in his lifetime .
Hitler 's incantory eloquence will remain , for a very long time , a vast field of study for the psychoanalyst .
The power of Hitler 's word is the key .
Without it , there would never have been a Hitler era .
Did Hitler believe in God @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He called God the Almighty , master of all that is known and unknown .
Propagandists portrayed Hitler as an atheist .
He was not .
He had contempt for hypocritical and materialistic clerics , but he was not alone in that .
He believed in the necessity of standards and theological dogmas , without which , he repeatedly said , the great institution of the Christian church would collapse .
These dogmas clashed with his intelligence , but he also recognized that it was hard for the human mind to encompass all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scope and breathtaking beauty .
He acknowledged that every human being has spiritual needs .
The song of the nightingale , the pattern and color of a flower , continually brought him back to the great problems of creation .
No one in the world has spoken to me so eloquently about the existence of God .
He held this view not because he was brought up as a Christian , but because his analytical mind bound him to the concept of God .
Hitler 's faith transcended formulas and contingencies .
God @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the ordainer of all things , of his Destiny and that of all others .

Leon Degrelle with Hitler, 1944
"Hitler -- You knew him -- what was he like?" I have been asked that question a thousand times since 1945, and nothing is more difficult to answer.
Approximately two hundred thousand books have dealt with the Second World War and with its central figure, Adolf Hitler. But has the real Hitler been discovered by any of them? "The enigma of Hitler is beyond all human comprehension," the left-wing German weekly Die Zeit once put it.
Salvador Dali, art's unique genius, sought to penetrate the mystery in one of his most intensely dramatic paintings. Towering mountain landscapes all but fill the canvas, leaving ony a few luminous meters of seashore dotted with delicately miniaturized human figures: the last witness to a dying peace. A huge telephone receiver dripping tears of blood hangs from the branch of a dead tree; and here and there hang umbrellas and bats whose portent is visibly the same. As Dali tells it, "Chamberlain's umbrella appeared in this painting in a sinister light, made evident by the bat, and it struck me when I painted it as a thing of enormous anguish."
He then confided: "I felt this painting to be deeply prophetic. But I confess that I haven't yet figured out the Hitler enigma either. He attracted me only as an object of my mad imaginings and because I saw him as a man uniquely capable of turning things completely upside down."
What a lesson in humility for the braying critics who have rushed into print since 1945 with their thousands of "definitive" books, most of them scornful, about this man who so troubled the introspective Dali that forty years later he still felt anguished and uncertain in the presence of his own hallucinatory painting. Apart from Dali, who else has ever tried to present an objective portrayal of this extraordinary man, who Dali labeled the most explosive figure in human history?
* * *
The mountains of Hitler books based on blind hatred and ignorance do little to describe or explain the most powerful man the world has ever seen. How, I ponder, do these thousands of disparate portraits of Hitler in any way resemble the man I knew? The Hitler seated beside me, standing up, talking, listening. It has become impossible to explain to people fed fantastic tales for decades that what they have read or heard on television just does not correspond to the truth.
People have come to accept fiction, repeated a thousand times over, as reality. Yet they have never seen Hitler, never spoken to him, never heard a word from his mouth. The very name of Hitler immediately conjures up a grimacing devil, the fount of all of one's negative emotions. Like Pavlov's bell, the mention of Hitler is meant to dispense with substance and reality. In time, however, history will demand more than these summary judgments.
* * *
Hitler is always present before my eyes: as a man of peace in 1936, as a man of war in 1944. It is not possible to have been a personal witness to the life of such an extraordinary man without being marked by it forever. Not a day goes by, but Hitler rises again in my memory, not as a man long dead, but as a real being who paces his office floor, seats himself in his chair, pokes the burning logs in the fireplace.
The first thing anyone noticed when he came into view was his small mustache. Countless times he had been advised to shave it off, but he always refused: people were used to him the way he was.
He was not tall -- no more than was Napoleon or Alexander the Great.
Hitler had deep blue eyes that many found bewitching, although I did not find them so. Nor did I detect the electric current his hands were said to give off. I gripped them quite a few times and was never struck by his lightning.
His face showed emotion or indifference according to the passion or apathy of the moment. At times he was as though benumbed, saying not a word, while his jaws moved in the meanwhile as if they were grinding an obstacle to smithereens in the void. Then he would come suddenly alive and launch into a speech directed at you alone, as though he were addressing a crowd of hundreds of thousands at Berlin's Tempelhof airfield. Then he became as if transfigured. Even his complexion, otherwise dull, lit up as he spoke. And at such times, to be sure, Hitler was strangely attractive and as if possessed of magic powers.
* * *
Anything that might have seemed too solemn in his remarks, he quickly tempered with a touch of humour. The picturesque world, the biting phrase were at his command. In a flash he would paint a word-picture that brought a smile, or come up with an unexpected and disarming comparison. He could be harsh and even implacable in his judgments, and yet almost at the same time be surprisingly conciliatory, sensitive and warm.
After 1945 Hitler was accused of every cruelty, but it was not in his nature to be cruel. He loved children. It was an entirely natural thing for him to stop his car and share his food with young cyclists along the road. Once he gave his raincoat to a derelict plodding in the rain. At midnight he would interrupt his work and prepare the food for his dog Blondi.
He could not bear to eat meat, because it meant the death of a living creature. He refused to have so much as a rabbit or a trout sacrificed to provide his food. He would allow only eggs on his table, because egg-laying meant that the hen had been spared rather than killed.
Hitler's eating habits were a constant source of amazement to me. How could someone on such a rigorous schedule, who had taken part in tens of thousands of exhausting mass meetings from which he emerged bathed with sweat, often losing two to four pounds in the process; who slept only three to four hours a night; and who, from 1940 to 1945, carried the whole world on his shoulders while ruling over 380 million Europeans: how, I wondered, could he physically survive on just a boiled egg, a few tomatoes, two or three pancakes, and a plate of noodles? But he actually gained weight!
He drank only water. He did not smoke, and would not tolerate smoking in his presence. At one or two o'clock in the morning he would still be talking, untroubled, close to his fireplace, lively, often amusing. He never showed any sign of weariness. Dead tired his audience might be, but not Hitler.
He was depicted as a tired old man. Nothing was further from the truth. In September 1944, when he was reported to be fairly doddering, I spent a week with him. His mental and physical vigor were still exceptional. The attempt made on his life on July 20th had, if anything, recharged him. He took tea in his quarters as tranquilly as if we had been in his small private apartment at the chancellery before the war, or enjoying the view of snow and bright blue sky through his great bay window at Berchtesgaden.
* * *
At the very end of his life, to be sure, his back had become bent, but his mind remained as clear as a flash of lightning. The testament he dictated with extraordinary composure on the eve of his death, at three in the morning of April 29, 1945, provides us a lasting testimony. Napoleon at Fontainebleau was not without his moments of panic before his abdication. Hitler simply shook hands with his associates in silence, breakfasted as on any other day, then went to his death as if he were going on a stroll. When has history ever witnessed so enormous a tragedy brought to its end with such iron self control?
Hitler's most notable characteristic was ever his simplicity. The most complex of problems resolved itself in his mind into a few basic principles. His actions were geared to ideas and decisions that could be understood by anyone. The laborer from Essen, the isolated farmer, the Ruhr industrialist, and the university professor could all easily follow his line of thought. The very clarity of his reasoning made everything obvious.
His behaviour and his life style never changed even when he became the ruler of Germany. He dressed and lived frugally. During his early days in Munich, he spent no more than a mark per day for food. At no stage in his life did he spend anything on himself. Throughout his 13 years in the chancellery he never carried a wallet or ever had money of his own.
* * *
Hitler was self-taught and he made no attempt to hide the fact. The smug conceit of intellectuals, their shiny ideas packaged like so many flashlight batteries, irritated him at times. His own knowledge he had acquired through selective and unremitting study, and he knew far more than thousands of diploma-decorated academics.
I don't think anyone ever read as much as he did. He normally read one book every day, always first reading the conclusion and the index in order to gauge the work's interest for him. He had the power to extract the essence of each book and then store it in his computer-like mind. I have heard him talk about complicated scientific books with faultless precision, even at the height of the war.
His intellectual curiosity was limitless. He was readily familiar with the writings of the most diverse authors, and nothing was too complex for his comprehension. He had a deep knowledge and understanding of Buddha, Confucius and Jesus Christ, as well as Luther, Calvin, and Savonarola; of literary giants such as Dante, Schiller, Shakespeare and Goethe; and analytical writers such as Renan and Gobineau, Chamberlain and Sorel.
* * *
He had trained himself in philosophy by studying Aristotle and Plato. He could quote entire paragraphs of Schopenhauer from memory, and for a long time carried a pocket edition of Schopenhauer with him. Nietzsche taught him much about willpower.
His thirst for knowledge was unquenchable. He spend hundreds of hours studying the works of Tacitus and Mommsen, military strategists such as Clausewitz, and empire builders such as Bismarck. Nothing escaped him: world history or the history of civilizations, the study of the Bible and the Talmud, Thomistic philosophy and all the masterpieces of Homer, Sophocles, Horace, Ovid, Titus Livius and Cicero. He knew Julian the Apostate as if he had been his contemporary.
His knowledge also extended to mechanics. He knew how engines worked; he understood the ballistics of various weapons; and he astonished the best medical scientists with his knowledge of medicine and biology.
The universality of Hitler's knowledge may surprise or displease those unaware of it, but it is nonetheless a historical fact: Hitler was one of the most cultivated men of this century. Many times more so than Churchill, an intellectual mediocrity; or than Pierre Laval, who had a merely cursory knowledge of history; or than Roosevelt; or Eisenhower, who never got beyond detective novels.
* * *
During the first 30 years of Hitler's life, the date April 20, 1889, meant nothing to anyone. He was born on that day in Braunau, a small town in the Inn valley. During his exile in Vienna, he often thought of his modest home, and particularly of his mother. When she fell ill, he returned home from Vienna to look after her. For weeks he nursed her, did all the household chores, and supported her as the most loving of sons. When she finally died, on Christmas eve, his pain was immense. Wracked with grief, he buried his mother in the little country cemetery. "I have never seen anyone so prostrate with grief," said his mother's doctor, who happened to be Jewish.
In his room, Hitler always displayed an old photograph of his mother. The memory of the mother he loved was with him until the day he died. Before leaving this earth, on April 30, 1945, he placed his mother's photograph in front of him. She had blue eyes like his and a similar face. Her maternal intuition told her that her son was different from other children. She acted almost as if she knew her son's destiny. When she died, she felt anguished by the immense mystery surrounding her son.
* * *
Even during his earliest years, Hitler was different than other children. He had an inner strength and was guided by his spirit and his instincts.
Hitler’s 'Fortress Utopia'
He could draw skillfully when he was only eleven years old. His sketches made at that age show a remarkable firmness and liveliness. He first paintings and watercolors, created at age 15, are full of poetry and sensitivity. One of his most striking early works, "Fortress Utopia," also shows him to have been an artist of rare imagination. His artistic orientation took many forms. He wrote poetry from the time he was a lad. He dictated a complete play to his sister Paula who was amazed at his presumption. At the age of 16, in Vienna, he launched into the creation of an opera. He even designed the stage settings, as well as all the costumes; and, of course, the characters were Wagnerian heroes.
More than just an artist, Hitler was above all an architect. Hundreds of his works were notable as much for the architecture as for the painting. From memory alone he could reproduce in every detail the onion dome of a church or the intricate curves of wrought iron. Indeed, it was to fulfill his dream of becoming an architect that Hitler went to Vienna at the beginning of the century.
When one sees the hundreds of paintings, sketches and drawings he created at the time, which reveal his mastery of three dimensional figures, it is astounding that his examiners at the Fine Arts Academy failed him in two successive examinations. German historian Werner Maser, no friend of Hitler, castigated these examiners: "All of his works revealed extraordinary architectural gifts and knowledge. The builder of the Third Reich gives the former Fine Arts Academy of Vienna cause for shame."
Impressed by the beauty of the church in a Benedictine monastery where he was part of the choir and served as an altar boy, Hitler dreamt fleetingly of becoming a Benedictine monk. And it was at that time, too, interestingly enough, that whenever he attended mass, he always had to pass beneath the first swastika he had ever seen: it was graven in the stone escutcheon of the abbey portal.
Hitler's father, a customs officer, hoped the boy would follow in his footsteps and become a civil servant. His tutor encouraged him to become a monk. Instead the young Hitler went, or rather fled, to Vienna. And there, thwarted in his artistic aspirations by the bureaucratic mediocrities of academia, he turned to isolation and meditation. Lost in the great capital of Austria-Hungary, he searched for his destiny.
* * *
Throughout the years of his youth, Hitler lived the life of a virtual recluse. He greatest wish was to withdraw from the world. At heart a loner, he wandered about, ate meager meals, but devoured the books of three public libraries. He abstained from conversations and had few friends.
It is almost impossible to imagine another such destiny where a man started with so little and reached such heights. Alexander the great was the son of a king. Napoleon, from a well-to-do family, was a general at 24. Fifteen years after Vienna, Hitler would still be an unknown corporal. Thousands of others had a thousand times more opportunity to leave their mark on the world.
Hitler had not yet focused on politics, but without his rightly knowing, that was the career to which he was most strongly called. Politics would ultimately blend with his passion for art. People, the masses, would be the clay the sculptor shapes into an immortal form. The human clay would become for him a beautiful work of art like one of Myron's marble sculptures, a Hans Makart painting, or Wagner's Ring Trilogy.
His love of music, art and architecture had not removed him from the political life and social concerns of Vienna. In order to survive, he worked as a common laborer side by side with other workers. He was a silent spectator, but nothing escaped him: not the vanity and egoism of the bourgeoisie, not the moral and material misery of the people, nor yet the hundreds of thousands of workers who surged down the wide avenues of Vienna with anger in their hearts.
He had also been taken aback by the growing presence in Vienna of bearded Jews wearing caftans, a sight unknown in Linz. "How can they be Germans?" he asked himself. He read the statistics: in 1860 there were 69 Jewish families in Vienna; 40 years later there were 200,000. They were everywhere. He observed their invasion of the universities and the legal and medical professions, and their takeover of the newspapers.
Hitler was exposed to the passionate reactions of the workers to this influx, but the workers were not alone in their unhappiness. There were many prominent persons in Austria and Hungary who did not hide their resentment at what they believed was an alien invasion of their country. The mayor of Vienna, a Christian-Democrat and a powerful orator, was eagerly listened to by Hitler.
Hitler was also concerned with the fate of the eight million Austrian Germans kept apart from Germany, and thus deprived of their rightful German nationhood. He saw Emperor Franz Josef as a bitter and petty old man unable to cope with the problems of the day and the aspirations of the future.
Hitler was not much concerned with his private life. In Vienna he had lived in shabby, cramped lodgings. But for all that he rented a piano that took up half his room, and concentrated on composing his opera. He lived on bread, milk, and vegetable soup. His poverty was real. He did not even own an over-coat. He shoveled streets on snowy days. He carried luggage at the railway station. He spent many weeks in shelters for the homeless. But he never stopped painting or reading.
Despite his dire poverty, Hitler somehow managed to maintain a clean appearance. Landlords and landladies in Vienna and Munich all remembered him for his civility and pleasant disposition. His behaviour was impeccable. His room was always spotless, his meager belongings meticulously arranged, and his clothes neatly hung or folded. He washed and ironed his own clothes, something which in those days few men did. He needed almost nothing to survive, and money from the sale of a few paintings was sufficient to provide for all his needs.
* * *
Quietly, the young Hitler was summing things up in his mind.
First: Austrians were part of Germany, the common fatherland.
Second: The Jews were aliens within the German community.
Third: Patriotism was only valid if it was shared by all classes. The common people with whom Hitler had shared grief and humiliation were just as much a part of the fatherland as the millionaires of high society.
Fourth: Class war would sooner or later condemn both workers and bosses to ruin in any country. No country could survive class war; only cooperation between workers and bosses can benefit the country. Workers must be respected and live with decency and honor. Creativity must never be stifled.
When Hitler later said that he had formed his social and political doctrine in Vienna, he told the truth. Ten years later his observations made in Vienna would become the order of the day.
* * *
Thus Hitler was to live for several years in the crowded city of Vienna as a virtual outcast, yet quietly observing everything around him. His strength came from within. He did not rely on anyone to do his thinking for him. Exceptional human beings always feel lonely amid the vast human throng. Hitler saw his solitude as a wonderful opportunity to meditate and not to be submerged in a mindless sea. In order not to be lost in the wastes of a sterile desert, a strong soul seeks refuge within himself. Hitler was such a soul.
The First World War was a turning point in his life. He regarded it as the hand of destiny.
* * *
The lightning in Hitler's life would come from the word.
All his artistic talent would be channeled into his mastery of communication and eloquence. Hitler would never conceive of popular conquests without the power of the word. He would enchant and be enchanted by it. He would find total fulfillment when the magic of his words inspired the hearts and minds of the masses with whom he communed.
He would feel reborn each time he conveyed with mystical beauty the knowledge he had acquired in his lifetime.
Hitler's incantory eloquence will remain, for a very long time, a vast field of study for the psychoanalyst. The power of Hitler's word is the key. Without it, there would never have been a Hitler era.
* * *
Did Hitler believe in God? He believed deeply in God. He called God the Almighty, master of all that is known and unknown.
Propagandists portrayed Hitler as an atheist. He was not. He had contempt for hypocritical and materialistic clerics, but he was not alone in that. He believed in the necessity of standards and theological dogmas, without which, he repeatedly said, the great institution of the Christian church would collapse. These dogmas clashed with his intelligence, but he also recognized that it was hard for the human mind to encompass all the problems of creation, its limitless scope and breathtaking beauty. He acknowledged that every human being has spiritual needs.
The song of the nightingale, the pattern and color of a flower, continually brought him back to the great problems of creation. No one in the world has spoken to me so eloquently about the existence of God. He held this view not because he was brought up as a Christian, but because his analytical mind bound him to the concept of God.
Hitler's faith transcended formulas and contingencies. God was for him the basis of everything, the ordainer of all things, of his Destiny and that of all others.