NEW CABINET & AGENCY PICKS: FROM ONE DISASTER TO ANOTHER FOR OUR NATION AND THE WORLD

By Harry C. Blaney III

As readers of our blog, you know we have been following Donald Trump’s pick for top jobs in his administration, primarily those related to foreign and national security issues. To date we have noted that they represent individuals by and large unsuited for the responsibilities they may assume if they are passed by a compliant Senate that has no courage to do its job of truly vetting these individuals with a critical eye.

SECRETARY OF STATE

The key outstanding position remains that of Secretary of State which people thought would be selected this last week but it seems Trump in his kingly procession wants to milk these acts for all they are worth in headlines and attention from the chattering classes. No appointment has a higher profile than at State and Trump has played like a ring-master in the circus…..dribbling out each nomination and keeping the world guessing as long as he can to deepen the suspense.

While several candidates seem to have dropped from the “A List” for State, those that remain are not even in that category from the viewpoint of our “best and brightest” and most experienced. The only person who now seems to be considered for Deputy Secretary is John Bolton, who while experienced in foreign affairs is a far right war hawk and an individual who his former colleagues at State and the UN found impossible to deal with and a rather unpleasant personally. He shares with Trump a distaste for international organizations trying to enhance global prosperity and security.  He would be allied with the new National Security advisor retired Lt. General Flynn, who is seen more as a crazed and irrational individual to hold such a vital position.

But the key figure to emerge now is Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, who it seems has a direct and friendly connection with President Putin who gained a contact for energy exploration in the Arctic area of Russia for Exxon which was sidetracked by the sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine. Putin gave Tillerson Russia’s highest order for a foreigner. He has no experience in government and diplomacy and carries with him huge conflicts of interest.

Trump has been considering a host of possibilities for secretary of state, widely seen as the most prominent cabinet position. Giuliani’s dropped out thankfully, and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who is still perhaps under consideration, but opposed by the most Alt-Right types in the Trump camp. Others who have interviewed include retired Adm. James Stavridis, Sen. Bob Corker and former Ford CEO Alan Mulally. None are what can be described as competent for this demanding job.

ADMINISTRATOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

One of the most important “international” appointments was just announced and it may surprise some people, but the work of the EPA is critical to the wellness, peace, health and viability of our globe. The consequences of what this agency does in dealing with the impact on climate change will either save our environment for future generations or destroy its true livability. The bottom line is that Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has been named to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.  Pruitt shares in spades all the president-elect’s catastrophic views on a safe environment and climate change against all sound science. Both have made their political life based on lies and deceit and in support of these industries that are bringing cataclysmic end to a truly livable planet.  They both have made this quite clear by their actions.

This choice was made just after Donald Trump met with Al Gore and it seems made some kind of more moderate noises that indicted Gore might come back for a further chat and might have an open mind. This now seems a calculated charade and an effort to mislead the public and the press to his real intentions. Trump has said all along that he did not believe in human impact on climate change and supported the coal and carbon-based energy industries during his campaign and in his policy statements.

In reality Pruitt is about to be the worst person ever to head the EPA.  It seems from this pick Trump truly means to give a mandate to destroy the very purpose of this agency and the goals of that agency under its legislation which goes back to the Nixon administration and The Environmental Protection Act. That responsibility is  to “protect ” our environment, but it is clear from Pruitt’s positions and stated goals it is to dismantle that agency and do the bidding of the oil, mining, coal, and gas industries which he has supported most of his professional life.

This pick just abut firmly eliminates any notion that Trump would maintain an “open mind” on climate change or do anything to protect our environment.  President-elect Donald Trump has chosen a strong climate denier, a darling of the oil and gas industry and opponent of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in all that it does to protect our citizens ands especially children from the health and environmental impact of pollution, toxic chemicals, air and water, and climate change.

It is just not doing simply anything at all but turning back the whole effort of protecting our environment and safety of our people and turning over to the polluters the running of this key agency and undermining efforts keeping our globe habitable.

Pruitt has supported fossil fuel industry with extraordinary tenacity. He tweeted that if Climate “Skeptics” Can Be Prosecuted for Fraud, So Can “Alarmists.” He has led the Republican Attorneys General Association, which has acted together in opposition to the legal investigation into Exxon’s climate denial, and they have, in general, been collaborating with corporations and lobbyists in filed lawsuits and challenged federal regulations on everything from fracking to air pollution.

But that is the least of Puitt’s many attacks on the EPA.  Pruitt was caught in 2014 in a conspiratorial alliance with oil and gas industry leaders aimed at tearing down environmental protections. Emails obtained by the New York Times show Pruitt and other Republican attorneys acting to protect industry, not their citizens.

According to reports one fossil fuel insider was Harold Hamm. Hamm was Trump’s top energy adviser and a CEO of the country’s largest fracking company. Hamm ended up chairing Pruitt’s 2013 re-election campaign. He was reported to be as one of the biggest proponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline and his company’s fracked oil would have flowed through the pipeline if completed. Not least, it is reported that Pruitt has received $318,496 in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry since 2002. Not a good sign for a man whose job is to protect our environment!

What is interesting as a side factor, the head of EXXON as noted above has been mentioned as a possible cabinet pick as Secretary of State and that position plays a key roll in the negotiation of climate change agreements and policy on a global scale….the same company that has for decades denied climate change science with some minor revisions just recently.

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PUSHING WAR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES: JOHN BOLTON AND THE RIDICULOUS

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif

By: Harry C. Blaney III

March 26th I opened my New York Times as usual and low and behold there was an op-ed by former Ambassador John R. Bolton of Iraqi war renown with the title “To stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran”, and its sub-headline “Tehran can’t be trusted on a nuclear deal. Force is the only option.” Besides being very wrong on a host of other issues like his view of the United Nations in the past, which having been sent there by a right-wing  Republican president, he straightaway aimed to undermine its authority, cut it resources, and tried in every which way to eviscerate. Now it seems he wants us to go to into a senseless and costly war again with his other neo-con crazy co-conspirators.

At the moment the fate of the nuclear negotiations are still not fully known, and least of all what will follow in the event of an agreement or a failure at this effort. But one thing is certain, and that is that preemptive war is mad and disastrous for all sides.

The only conclusion one can reach from this Bolton essay in fantasy is how crazy we have all become when we fall again into the “war hawks” dead end traps. These traps will bring such destruction to not only Iran and its many anti-regime and pro-American citizens, but to exacerbate more conflicts in the whole region and any hope for a peaceful and diplomatic region wide accommodation that has any hope to batten down the upheavals that have created the current chaos in the first place.

Bolton’s proscriptions, contrary to his flawed conclusions on the behavior of nations in the region, would create those dangerous things which he says bombing would avoid sooner and with more force. Further, most strategic experts including most of the analysis by our own government finds that such a military attack would create such horrific added conflict to an already unstable region and still not a long-term stop to a possible Iranian weapons program.

Bolton says it would do so for 3 to 5 years, but an agreement would stop Iran from just such an effort for at least 10 years and it just might mitigate the existing corrosive Shia-Sunni warfare that it at the real bottom of the existing instability.

Besides poor, almost non-existent analysis of outcomes of war actions, Bolton’s assumption is that Iran will not negotiate away its “nuclear program.”  I am not sure exactly what he means by “nuclear program.” They certainly will not be dissuaded from a civilian nuclear power and research effort that they have invested billions of dollars into, but the reality is that a nuclear weapons effort should be seen by the Iranian leadership as the worst possible outcome for their own security.  It is a course of societal and governmental suicide in the end. That does not mean that the Iranian leaders are fully rational and are acting fully in the interest of the well-being of their people, since if they were they would not be in the current situation.

Yet the likely reason for the present negotiations, contrary to Bolton’s assertion, is that they have decided that sanctions hurt, that having the bomb may be more dangerous to their security than not having it, and that they need to rebuild their failing economy and society. What they want however is clearly a best deal to keep their options open and not be seen as “giving in” to the West.

The key flaw of Bolton’s article is he did not mention the real cost and consequences of his war proposal. The reason is simply it would totally undermine his whole argument and expose its wrong assumptions about the dynamics of the actions he proposes…

Bolton and his Republican neo-con affiliates have argued in the past for (unnecessary and costly) war – in Iraq.  But he still seems to think that indeed war is the answer to anything, but does not want or can’t honestly think through his myopic ideological lenses and truly evaluate the cost of such action, deaths, and risks on all sides of the consequences of his policies.

Secretary John Kerry has been right to test diplomacy and indeed the agreed temporary accord already has inhibited any further push towards a weapon. Nothing in diplomacy in this messy world is easy. The time has come for an end of costly and unnecessary war making which ends mostly in disasters for all. Let’s all hope that in time there will be a “good” agreement since that would be a “win-win” for all sides, for the region, and the world.

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