Three of the most prominent figures in the Republican Party national-security establishment have endorsed the Democratic candidate for Congress in the 8th District of Michigan, Elissa Slotkin. The reason is simple: Slotkin was a valued accomplice of all three in the crimes perpetrated by the US government in Iraq and around the world.

Slotkin has used her three tours of duty in Baghdad as a CIA agent as her main credential for election to the House of Representatives. She is challenging two-term incumbent Republican Representative Mike Bishop, in a race now considered a toss-up. Her first television commercial highlighted her role in the CIA and her connection to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Three top civilian Republican national security officials and a former general all endorsed Slotkin this week. The four include John Negroponte, former ambassador to Iraq and the first Director of National Intelligence; Stephen Hadley, national security advisor to President George W. Bush; former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, who was secretary of defense in the Obama administration; and retired General Douglas Lute, deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan under Bush and for Afghanistan and Pakistan under Obama.

Slotkin, born and raised in Michigan, spent 15 years with the CIA and in subsequent national security positions at the White House and Pentagon, before moving back to run for Congress last year. She has both the backing of a wealthy family—her grandfather founded Hygrade Foods—and the support of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which was seeking a candidate with her right-wing credentials for the 8th District. She now has the stamp of approval of the military-intelligence apparatus.

The plaudits for Slotkin from men steeped to their elbows in innocent blood should be read as a criminal indictment of this Democratic candidate, one of nearly three dozen Democrats with extensive military-intelligence backgrounds running in competitive congressional districts in the November 6 election.

Stephen Hadley was one of the principal architects of the Iraq war, serving as the principal deputy to Condoleezza Rice when she was Bush’s national security advisor, then succeeding her in 2005 when Rice became secretary of state. He said that Slotkin joined his staff after her first two tours with the CIA in Iraq and regularly briefed Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top officials. He called Slotkin “one of the finest public servants with whom I have had the privilege to serve.”

“Elissa has real knowledge and expertise to offer the country, but equally as important, she is willing to work across party politics to get things done for America,” Hadley’s statement reads.

“So even though I am a Republican, and even though Elissa is running as a Democrat, I support her—because she can work in a bipartisan way for the good of the country, and that’s exactly what the country needs.”

General Douglas Lute, who held top positions on the National Security Council from 2007 to 2013, said he first met Slotkin when she was delivering a briefing to Bush on the security situation in Iraq during the period of the “surge” in 2007, after Bush had dispatched another 30,000 US troops to suppress mounting uprisings among both Sunni and Shi’ite populations.

“She had tough points to deliver—and she did so well, directly to the commander-in chief, on some very difficult topics. She clearly understands how to ‘speak truth to power,’ clear and candid but with civility and respect,” Lute said in a statement. “I offered her a job on the spot and, over the next two years, under both President Bush and then President Obama, I saw her intense level of dedication to our mission in Iraq and to our country.”

After working at the NSC for several years, Slotkin was appointed a deputy assistant secretary of defense, where according to her campaign website, her responsibilities included drone warfare, “homeland defense” and cyber warfare. Chuck Hagel was defense secretary from 2013 to 2014, during the period that Obama threatened a massive bombing of Syria and then backed down, and during the US-backed coup by fascist elements in Ukraine. He also oversaw the continuing US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Hagel wrote of Slotkin, “Her entire career has been about protecting America. Making sure that our security is strong and deep. That’s who she is. That’s what she believes. That’s what she’s done as she’s served in the Middle East in some of the worst zones we have seen and some of the most difficult assignments over the last 30 years… We need that experience. We need that leadership for the security of this country. And Elissa Slotkin will bring it.”

The final testimonial for Slotkin is the most damning, both because it comes from John Negroponte, one of the most vicious and bloodstained figures in the US national security establishment, and because of how close his ties to Slotkin were.

Negroponte was a leading figure in American war crimes over more than 40 years, going back to the Vietnam War, when he served at the US embassy in Saigon and then on the National Security Council in the Nixon White House. He was US ambassador to Honduras during the years of the Contra terrorist war against neighboring Nicaragua, when the US embassy in Tegucigalpa hosted the largest CIA station in the world.

He went on to a post on Reagan’s National Security Council, then was appointed US ambassador to the United Nations by George W. Bush. One year after the US conquest of Iraq, Negroponte became the US ambassador in Baghdad, effectively the ruler of the country, where he met Slotkin, who briefed him every morning on the security situation in the country. Subsequently, Bush named Negroponte the first Director of National Intelligence, after that position was created based on the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. He chose Slotkin as his senior assistant.

If US war criminals were tried at a Nuremberg-style tribunal, Negroponte would occupy one of the front rows. His recommendation to the voters of the 8th Congressional District of Michigan was unequivocal. “I have seen Elissa lead under extreme pressure, working on some of the toughest security challenges our nation faces,” he said in a statement. “I am supporting Elissa in her run for Congress, because I believe at this time, we need more elected leaders like her—mission focused, results oriented, who put the security of our country before politics.”

These endorsements raise the question: Is the candidacy of Elissa Slotkin itself part of a CIA or national-security operation? Is it, as NBC News suggested last week in the first significant report on the CIA Democrats in the corporate media, “their new mission” for an entire group of former intelligence officials now running as Democratic candidates?

In the remaining eight weeks of the election campaign, this is a question that should be raised whenever and wherever Elissa Slotkin makes an appearance in the Eighth Congressional District of Michigan. Voters of Lansing, Brighton, Lake Orion and surrounding areas should be warned!

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