How The "West Point Mafia" Runs Washington

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 Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute (Class of ’75), a former US 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 US 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 US commanders to prepare plans to escalate combat against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, an order the mission’s senior leader there, Lt. Gen. 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.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/how-west-point-mafia-runs-washington

Well said Anon! and that ID is amazing!

H.R. McMaster: Power is 'going to shift' away from Putin during coronavirus pandemic

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s apparent mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic could allow “a potential new leader of Russia” to rival the Kremlin strongman, according to one of President Trump’s top former advisers. “I think power is certainly going to shift really away from him to others,” Retired Army Gen. H.R. McMaster said during a Hoover Institution event. McMaster, the president’s second White House national security adviser, oversaw the development of the 2017 National Security Strategy that highlighted Russia’s attempts “to weaken U.S. influence in the world and divide us from our allies and partners.” The coronavirus emerged at an inconvenient time for those efforts because it interrupted some of Putin’s plans to consolidate power at a time when he is already beset by falling oil prices and a struggling economy. “It has a very interesting historical parallel because the Soviet Union started to tremble — it had a lot of weakness — when oil prices collapsed,” a Baltic official told the Washington Examiner in response to McMaster’s comments. “So, from an historical perspective, it might be right.”

Putin began the year intending for these spring months to feature a sustained campaign to burnish his political image and eliminate impediments to his rule. He scheduled a referendum for Wednesday that was designed to ratify a plan to amend the constitution so that he could remain in power until 2036, a vote that was to have been followed by a high-profile annual celebration of victory in World War II. Instead, both events were delayed due to the coronavirus, and Putin disappeared from public view rather than fill the void left by their absence with new programming. “All of a sudden, all his efforts to solidify power were overshadowed by the COVID-19 outbreak,” Alisa Muzergues, a foreign policy analyst at GLOBSEC in the Slovak Republic, told the Washington Examiner. “The prices for oil, which is the backbone of the Russian already shattered economy, collapsed. And the myth of his strong image, which he and his entourage have been so carefully working on and projecting both inside and outside Russia, could be ruined.” His absence created the space, and the necessity, for local officials to act independently of the Kremlin.

“When Putin was away, hiding in his own dacha, local governors took a lot of control fighting pandemic, so people trust more than before local governments,” the Baltic official said. “In Russia, it's a big thing when you are starting your own initiatives without the czar.” Putin has gripped the top of the Kremlin’s greasy pole for more than 20 years, in part because his prospective rivals tend to find themselves marginalized or even murdered before they can mount a serious challenge. “Putin was very clever, he kind of either killed or bought all the potential competitors and political opponents,” the Baltic official continued. “The ones that he couldn't buy or couldn't subdue, he either killed or put in jail.” Yet Putin needs the regional governors and local officials to succeed in containing the outbreak, analysts agree, in order to avoid popular anger spreading alongside the contagion. “The ruble has crashed to four-year lows, the Russian Central Bank warned the economy could shrink by 6 percent this year,” Muzergues wrote in an email. “In reality, the situation can get much worse, and it will be especially felt in the regions, which might become the epicenters of the expression of discontent." "Putin managed to outlive crises before, but this combination of challenges and constantly growing discontent in Russian society might become fatal for his governance,". she added in an email.

The Baltic official was cautious not to forecast any major upheaval. “The Kremlin has a very solid grip on power — at least, that's what it seems from outside,” the official said. “In Russia, it's always very unpredictable. Like, nobody also expects the many revolutions that happened in Russia, but they happened.” Yet they all agreed that “the pressure on Putin is certainly going to mount,” as McMaster put it Thursday. And if power shifts away from a leader who has chosen to oppose U.S. interests in multiple disputes around the world, then, McMaster added, it might flow to “others who view Russia's future more as aligned with Europe and the West than with China's Communist Party.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/h-r-mcmaster-power-is-going-to-shift-away-from-putin-during-coronavirus-pandemic

>>8916120

Indeed, completely agree, another sleeper (who never really went away) in this instance reemerging.

Fed announces rule changes for personal bank accounts

The Federal Reserve announced it’s eliminating the six transactions per month limit on a person’s saving account. The new rule is effective immediately.

>>8916284

They already know whats next…wouldn't surprise me one bit if they did this with the idea to get moar deposits.. put longer holds on them..and then like a thief in the night..shut it all down. They have also tighten the mortgage market..even with rates as low as they are.. all an effort to minimize losses.

>>8916343

Concur..The truth will drop like a Stone!

>>8916434

With a Stone!