“Would you lie for your country?”
“I would speak the truth for my country! I’m not sure I understand the question?”
“It’s a simple question: If the safety of your country depended on you telling a lie in public, would you tell it? Yes or no?!”
It’s a hypothetical conversation, and yet it plays out over and over. The state must keep its citizens in place, and infinitely more so for the staff who serves their country.
No essay without an inciting incident, and in my case it was the confirmation hearing of Tulsi Gabbard. History will determine what role she will play on the question of non-political objectivity. The entire hearing however turned out to illustrate with formidable force how pervasive consensus building can become in a closed group.
What Tulsi was subjected to amounted to pressure to provide an oath of allegiance of a very different nature than the one you and I think of.
She had to swear on specific articles of faith and renounce her former ways publicly. If she wanted the job, she was under pressure to agree to the DNI culture’s belief system.
- Edward Snowden - the traitor
- Assad - the chemical murderer
- Russia - the unprovoked invader
- FISA 702 - policing the state benefits all
The shock was the true and utter vehemence and thrust with which Tulsi was cross examined. It revealed much more about the inquisitors than about her.
How the oath ought to be
“that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic;”
“that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;”
I opened with the proposal that allegiance means acceptance of articles of faith. Does it?
The question is rhetorical if you think mental states are irrelevant to investigation of truth. Conversely, if you believe that our private convictions shapes the fortunes of your country, you may very well be convinced that you need to believe the right thing and toe the line.
Can you support the enemy by telling the truth? Russian politicians constantly comment how deals and treaties with Americans aren’t worth the paper they are written on. Now, where could that impression of dishonesty come from?
It would be quite hilarious if Tulsi Gabbard was hired to bring truth to a department that the top dog no longer trusts, and before even beginning, she is pressured to dogmatically accept a blanket conclusion that reeks of political agenda - with or without factual basis.
Consensus - inside and out
Proposing that governments shouldn’t spy on their citizens is typically met with the need to protect self same citizens. But it assumes that the electorate do indeed trust their politicians. It just so happens that irrespective of which party controls the US, about half the population will not trust the sitting government.
Perhaps that is what drives the Senate Intelligence Committee to function coherently with a moderately shared consensus.
Tulsi stood as an outsider and was cross examined as a prospective member of the club. These members already breathes the political air of Washington where there is no doubt about who is the common enemy. Senators constantly bicker on who is the current Putin puppet in office. But never that Russia is a dangerous foe. That tendency is multiplied many factors in this committee.
Tulsi Gabbard has functioned practically as outside a party, making statements that were decidedly anti-partisan. Twitter statements that you can only hear from political dissidents (and ordinary citizens who are oblivious to the necessity of evil).
Russia and China must be feared as foes. They never have reasons for what they do, so Tulsi’s remarks on Russia’s fear of NATO are most unwelcome.
On February 23, 2022, at the very moment that Russian tanks were rolling across the peaceful border of Ukraine for the first time, you tweeted at 11.30 p.m., your time, “This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden administration/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO.”
Did you say that, yes or no?
I believe you’re reading my tweet, Senator.
Did she really say something as sensible as that? The simple observation that some wars can be stopped, and sometimes easily.
In 2025 the world will have to recognise Russia’s security concerns, legitimate or not. Are they legitimate? Clearly not. NATO is neutral and on the side of freedom and peace.
Of course, if only US had dampened the feisty mood inside Ukraine in 2021, the cogs of war would not have been set in motion. The Russian executive would have had to tackle their security concerns in a different way, because Donbas(s) would not have been the trigger that allowed greater things to kick into motion. The Duma would not have sent a request to recognise the breakaway regions in Ukraine, because Russians would not have had to see animosity towards their compatriots as they constantly refer to the Russian speaking population in Ukraine.
Political legitimacy and a bit of opportunity. That’s all it takes to start a war (or to end it for that matter). As it happens, ordinary Russians do seem to fear NATO, but that could probably be overcome. But their emotions boil when they see how Russians are treated elsewhere. Instruct Ukraine to solve their internal problems with corruption (as is constantly mentioned in the Rada) instead of venting on Russia, then the political legitimacy for interfering with Donbas(s) would have evaporated. No invasion, no special military operation.
It would even have been easy to do, and frankly, Ukraine was itself on the right track. Putin should have seen that the election of Zelensky expressed a popular mandate to cool the Poroshenko bloc and implement peace. Culturally, the two countries drifted apart centuries ago. It is nothing to lament, and the scholarly world can easily cope with two modern cultures that both claim descendancy from Kievan Rus. The rest are just hotheads blabbing their mouthes.
The invasion transformed the situation into something else for every Ukrainian. All the lukewarm pro-peace voters instantly swayed around.
Of course, the minority bloc was in a position to obstruct implementation of the Minsk accords and dialogue plus lending a shrill voice to the internal political climate, which is what Russia notices and fears. Our attitudes are visible from space when they become loud enough. But the political will existed in the population to resolve the matter.
The only problem was that there was nothing Russia could do. Once shrouded in our suspicions, no Russian politician could ever weigh in on these matters again. A tempering US or EU that approached Ukraine with an attitude that Russians are not Satanic Stalinists, but ordinary people who feel strongly about other Russians could have provided the impetus to reign in European Solidarity and other advocates for war. Those people surely needed that war to dispel with all the temperance, all the pro-peace talk, all the compromising behaviour.
Are you aware that your comments about proxy wars and Russia’s legitimate security concerns, to quote your own words, are in alignment with what the Russians have said to justify their invasion of Ukraine? Yes or no?
Senator, I don’t pay attention to Russian propaganda. My goal is to speak the truth, regardless of whether you like it or not.
That’s fine. You said you are used to speaking truth to power.
I’m shocked to hear you now say that, you know, you are agreeing – I’m not shocked because I know you said it – you are agreeing that you basically said that Putin was justified in rolling over the peaceful border of Ukraine the first time since World War II
That this senator opted to call the border “peaceful” when neither Ukrainians nor Russians for a second would care to entertain the thought that the war started in 2022, not 2014, is as far removed from objective observation as can be.
The war was already eight years old when it erupted into a big operation. Ask Ukraine. Ask Russia.
The weight of the iron clad irony is overwhelming here. Any DNI chief who relays a notion that not even Ukraine considers correct is insane. And yet, they pressure to shape reality according to a policy they do not have the mandate to set.
God forbid that the intelligence community should provide the president who has infinitely much closer contact with the people who voted him into office with enough information that he could make informed decisions in line with the popular mandate. What a briefing that must have been!
“Mr. President. Somewhere on the planet a band of insane crooks have embarked on a rape and murder spree completely out of the blue. Our military and economy also urgently need for us to participate in this war. Can we, please please please? Mr. President, I strongly believe this is one of those cases where you have to listen to what we have to tell you, not what the average person in America wants.”
Objectivity - it can be anything
Were you aware Postel relied on a chemistry student with a record of defending the Assad regime?
At that time I was not. I have been made aware since.
Do you consider this person or these two individuals now, do you consider them a better source for the chemistry of sarin gas than the US intelligence community?
I assess that at the time the information, I don’t know the second person you’re referring to, but MIT Professor Ted Postel and the inspectors of the OPCW provided some credible questions that deserved examination.
Okay, thank you. Did you attempt to weigh Postel’s claims against the significant evidence and assessments already conducted by the IC?
Which conclusion ought she support? Luckily the world is rife with objective conclusions, so it becomes a matter of picking the proper one from the shelf.
You can tell a lot about a person by his or her choice of objective truth.
Let us wrap up by finishing the hypothetical conversation as it should sound.
“Would you lie for your country?”
“I would do anything within my power to expunge the lies and publicly humiliate those responsible for spreading it. I would report on any and all potential danger we can discover which could provide grounds for military action while simultaneously report on any and all foreign conversation that could provide grounds for diplomatic solutions.”
/PARADISE LOST