On Wednesday, more than 80 former spies, CIA station chiefs, diplomats and other officials of the US national security state, including former leaders of the Department of Homeland Security, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Defense, issued a statement endorsing former Vice President Joseph Biden for President.
The authors are endorsing Biden because they know he will continue US wars, illegal spying and drone assassinations. The signatories have in fact been instrumental in the crafting, implementation and execution of dozens of clandestine programs that facilitated the illegal and unconstitutional spying, torture and murder of millions of people around the globe for decades.
They are confident that all of that will continue under a Biden administration, given his long political record as a representative of American imperialism, including eight years as Barack Obama’s vice president. Many of these individuals endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 for the same reason: they regarded her, rather than Donald Trump, as the more reliable and effective steward of US foreign policy.
In the letter announcing their endorsement of Biden the authors detailed their objections to the Trump presidency: “Our nation’s foreign affairs are in disarray; our alliances frayed, and our national prestige declining. Our approach to both friends and enemies abroad has been chaotic and unprincipled. Our credibility as a nation has been lessened. And, perhaps most importantly, our place in the world as a source of moral leadership has nearly been lost.”
It is worth examining exactly what type of “moral leadership” these signatories represent.
The letter, which was posted publicly on www.thesteadystate.org, includes ambassadors, spies and policy makers dating back to the administration of President John F. Kennedy. The undersigned are responsible for innumerable imperialist war crimes across multiple administrations.
The signers include retired General James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence under President Obama. Clapper fought for US imperialism in Vietnam and Laos and served in various US administrations before he went on to infamously perjure himself in front of Congress in a March 2013 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. When asked by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper knowingly lied when he responded, “No, sir, not wittingly.” Clapper has never been charged for committing perjury and subsequently defended his answer as “the least dishonest response.”
After resigning in November 2016, Clapper went on to be a paid political commentator on CNN. In this capacity Clapper continued to function as propagandist for intelligence agencies and has vehemently promoted the “Russiagate” canard, according to which Trump was the benefactor of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. As a commentator Clapper also publicly backed known torturer and current CIA Director Gina Haspel to succeed current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
In addition to Clapper, a who’s who of former spies, including Nick Shapiro, deputy chief of staff to the CIA director under Obama, Larry Pfeiffer, former chief of staff to CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, and Margaret Helen Henoch, a member of the Senior Intelligence Service and chief of station for decades, lent their blood soaked signatures to the document.
A notable signature is also that of Paul Rosenzweig, former deputy assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security. Rosenzweig has worked as a lawyer in all three branches of federal government and lectures at George Washington University. He was the former senior counsel to Kenneth Starr during the Whitewater investigation of President Bill Clinton which eventually led to his impeachment.
Rosenzweig was a former visiting fellow at the right-wing Heritage Foundation from 2009–2017 before joining the R Street Institute. In both capacities he penned reports on behalf of the security agencies justifying all measures of “cybersecurity” to subvert constitutional protections, providing legal arguments for the state. Rosenzweig, like Clapper, has also appeared on CNN to lend credibility to former FBI director Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference during the 2016 election.
This motley crew of criminals is an example of the “moral leadership” that Biden and the Democrats seek to install in the White House, should Biden win the presidential election.
It is within this context that one must examine the announcement that Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii was ending her presidential campaign and endorsing Biden.
In her video endorsement of Biden posted to her Twitter account Gabbard heaped praise on Biden stating, “I know that he has a good heart and he’s motivated by his love for our country and the American people… So today I’m suspending my presidential campaign, and offering my full support to Vice President Joe Biden in his quest to bring our country together.”
Biden promptly thanked Gabbard for her endorsement, writing on Twitter, “I’m grateful to have her support and look forward to working with her to restore honor and decency to the White House.”
Gabbard tried to position herself as the “antiwar” candidate compared to the rest of the field, centering her campaign on foreign policy and the need to “end America’s endless wars.”
In a December campaign video titled “Nuclear War: Greatest Existential Threat,” Gabbard drew attention to the increasing threat of a nuclear war between the US, Russia and China. This, along with public criticism by Hillary Clinton that Gabbard was a “Russian asset,” and Gabbard’s pledge to free Julian Assange should she become president, insured that the Democratic National Committee would make every effort to prevent her making any further appearances on the debate stage.
She also earned the ire of the party establishment for opposing the Russiagate campaign and voting “present” rather than to impeach President Trump on charges of failing to deliver military aid to Ukraine.
While Gabbard had polled at about the level of Senator Amy Klobuchar at one stage in the fall, her numbers plummeted in the face of the party blackout, and she ended up winning only two delegates, from American Samoa (her father’s birthplace).
Now the supposed opponent of wars in Syria, Yemen, Libya and other countries—based at least in part on her own role leading a military medical unit in Iraq—has joined forces with the intelligence agency veterans who helped organize those wars and countless other imperialist crimes, in the camp of Vice President Biden, the most right-wing of all the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination.
This only demonstrates, like the impending capitulation of Bernie Sanders, that it is impossible to wage any struggle against American imperialism within the Democratic Party, which is unshakably committed to defense of the American financial aristocracy and its worldwide interests.
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