A President-Elect of the USA saying he wants no more intelligence briefings is like–like what? Hearing a priest about to be ordained saying he needs no more, not Bible readings, words from God?
Whatever this “intelligence” may be is it intelligent?
Information about the “capability, intention and circumstances” of foreign (CIA) and domestic (FBI) actors: nothing wrong about that. With a good balance between friendly and hostile intentions; 80-20? It sounds more like 1-99, though. Outer and inner worlds are scanned for threats of violence, not for opportunities of peace. The focus is on security, not building cooperation. That may be done by conventional diplomacy–where does Trump stand on that? The US “intelligence community”–19 big organizations–looms higher. To disregard threats damage a top politician more than to disregard opportunities.
The net result is institutionalized paranoia. Trump might have compared the “intelligence” about Russia with his own impressions, and found it gravely wanting. Of course, they may both be wrong. Or right.
The reader will find ahead a table that has appeared in this column before: 15 conflict cases, with peaceful and violent ways of handling them. In the comment the focus is on loving USA vs hatred. Trump’s goal is Making America Great; not Big like a Big power, but as a Great Power; not “again” in the old way, but as his foreign policy ideas communicate, in totally new ways.
To be a Great Power is not the same as being a Big Bully.
So these fifteen ideas are offered again, this time more humbly, not critically. Regrettably Russia is not even on this list. Syria is, whether Putin and Trump end up with something similar or not.
IS came later; by this column seen IS as spiritual rather than military, focused on Mecca. The advice has been meeting IS violence protectively with defensive defense and negotiation. A task for Trump?
CONSTRUCTIVE vs DESTRUCTIVE US FOREIGN POLICIES: 15 CASES
| CONFLICTS | CONSTRUCTIVE, POSITIVE | DESTRUCTIVE, NEGATIVE |
| FINANCIAL FREAL R
ECONOMY CRISIS |
Encourage local saving banksPublish M2 Check Fed Reserve
Tax speculation Drop bonuses Outlaw basic needs speculation Democratic control of central banks, state or private Mixed world currency |
More F than Real growthMore money than value
Serving loans not people Countries in debt bondage Globalization through privatized central banks US$ world reserve currency |
| TERRORISM | Identify their just goalsPublish Atta Who did 9/11? | Extra-judicial executionSOCO-Drones Covert war |
| US-ISRAEL vs ARAB-MUSLIMSTATES | Palestine recognized; andA two states solution; and
A Middle East Community MEC Israel and 5 Arab neighbors 1967 borders with revisions; and Org for Sec Coop West Asia |
Tail wagging dog:Israel wagging USA;
AIPAC wagging Congress Judeo-Christianity is anti-islam. Danger: Extreme US anti-semitism |
| LIBYA | Self-determination for parts, Federalism with democracy | Continued anarchyUnitary state illusion |
| SYRIA | Self-determination for parts,Federalism with democracy | Attack; SCO response?split Syria, rule parts |
| IRAQ | Self-determination for parts,(Con)federalism with democracy
Kurdish autonomous communities |
Withdrawal only:no rebuilding,
no compensation |
| IRAN | Conciliation for 1953,Middle East nuclear free zone
Cooperation on non-fossil energy |
Attack, SCO response?No Iran nuclear arms
Controlling Iran oil? |
| PAKISTAN | Pashtun autonomy, drop Durand Self-determination in KashmirIndian-Pakistan-Kashmiri parts | Building a Durand fenceExtrajudicial execution
SOCO-Drones Covert war |
| AFGHANISTAN | A Central Asian CommunityFederation Local autonomies
OIC-UNSC joint peacekeeping Nonaligned, no bases |
Withdrawal only;no rebuilding,
no compensation keeping troops, bases |
| KOREA | Peace Treaty with N KoreaNormalization USA-N Korea
Korea as nuclear free zone |
Marginalizing N KoreaUS-SK military exercises
Breaking agreements |
| CHINA | Open high level dialogueMutual learning in economics
Civil and economic rights |
Encircling, sub-satel-navy“Reform”=neo-liberalism
civil rights only |
| JAPAN | Japan in NE Asian CommunityGood relations to USA, APEC+
USA pulls out of Okinawa |
Impeding conciliationKeeping Japan as client
Subverting A9 |
| AFRICA | Welcome African UnityBuild with China E-W rail road | AFRICOMMilitary intervention |
| LATIN AMERICA | Welcome CELAC integrationEquity Latin Carib-Angloamerica
Normalization USA-Cuba |
Military interventionSupporting coups
CIA micro-management |
| WORLD | Allhuman rights conventions,across state borders
National self-determination Dialogue of civilizations Stronger UN, with parliament |
Civil-political only,within state borders
Unitary state models Western universalism US exceptionalism |
The right column is sadly familiar; new cases are queuing up.
The left column also carries sadness. Nothing radical, more like common sense translated into political practice, to the relief of the parties concerned, the USA, and US relations to the world. USA wants to be loved, but reaps hatred with right column politics. Turn left.
Trump has a good distance to go in his relations to Iran and Cuba as a key to Latin America-Caribbean. Did he nonetheless listen too much to CIA, on those two major issues? Direct encounters with Raúl Castro may bring to his quick mind a very different Cuba; so may direct talks with the spiritual and political leaders of Iran. Trump’s Russian contacts could be helpful in both cases: Iran has borders with the former USSR and Cuba significant relations with Russia since 1958.
However, the most important case for Trump may be the first in the table: US economic relations to the world. To the right are well known US policies, all of them now proven as failed or discredited; to the left some ideas that may or may not coincide with Trump Thought.
Crucial is the US “Federal Reserve” Bank, basically a club of about 70 of the largest banks in the USA. Self-controlled, not by the legislative, nor the executive, nor the judicial power of the USA.
It relates to central private banks abroad and directs US federal policy rather than vice versa. Thus, at some time in the 1990s US blacklisted seven countries with central state-owned banks: Iraq-Iran, Lebanon-Libya, Syria-Sudan-Somalia; fought in six, pressured Iran.
The private central banks then come together in Basel under Swiss auspices, in the Bank for International Settlements, BIS, a pivot the USA wants to use for global financial control.
Now, where does Trump land on this? If he had the courage and the wits to attack one sacred US cow, the CIA, he may do so to another that also has grown out of proportion, the Federal Reserve. What the Federal Reserve does, however, is also business–and may also fail. Being in charge of Executive power he might like to enhance that power and not be waged by a tail. That may also apply to Netanyahu’s Israel: buying senators etc. may no longer be in.
Well, this is future talk. But that future may only be one month away. History is accelerating and more under Trump than ever.
Johan Galtung
19 December 2016
