{"id":574,"date":"2020-12-01T08:59:12","date_gmt":"2020-12-01T08:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=129841"},"modified":"2020-12-01T08:59:12","modified_gmt":"2020-12-01T08:59:12","slug":"some-liberals-and-arms-control-experts-are-cheering-for-war-profiteers-to-be-in-bidens-cabinet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/01\/some-liberals-and-arms-control-experts-are-cheering-for-war-profiteers-to-be-in-bidens-cabinet\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Liberals and Arms-Control Experts are Cheering for War Profiteers to Be in Biden\u2019s Cabinet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Photograph Source: Official U.S. Navy Page \u2013 CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

No matter who ends up winning Senate confirmation for top positions on President Biden\u2019s \u201cnational security\u201d team, an ominous dynamic is already underway. Some foreign-policy specialists with progressive reputations are voicing support and evasive praise for prospective Cabinet members \u2014 as though spinning through revolving doors to broker lucrative Pentagon contracts is not a conflict of interest, and as though advocating for an aggressive U.S. military posture is fine.<\/p>\n

Rationalizations are plentiful, but the results are dangerous. It\u2019s an insidious process \u2014 helping to set low standards for the incoming administration. Enablers now extol potential Cabinet picks who\u2019ve combined pushing for continuous war and hugely expensive new weapons systems with getting rich as dealmakers for the military-industrial complex.<\/p>\n

As journalists have brought to light<\/a>, Antony Blinken and Mich\u00e8le Flournoy shamelessly teamed up to cash in while rotating through high positions at the State Department and Pentagon. At the same time, Blinken (the Biden nominee to be Secretary of State) and Flournoy (in the running for Secretary of Defense) have backed nonstop U.S. warfare.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Flournoy is grimly notable for urging potentially catastrophic military brinkmanship with China. Like her unabashed pursuit of wealth from the weapons industry, her dangerously aggressive approach<\/a> toward China is anything but a secret. Yet, in her current quest to run the Pentagon, she has received unequivocal support from numerous individuals who are respected in progressive circles, including those with avowed dedication to beating swords into plowshares.<\/p>\n

From the top of the influential and well-heeled Ploughshares Fund, Joe Cirincione and Tom Collina have jumped onto the Flournoy bandwagon. Days ago, Cirincione proudly tweeted<\/a> news coverage<\/a> of the \u201cOpen Letter on Our Support for Mich\u00e8le Flournoy to Be the Next Secretary of Defense,\u201d which he had signed along with Collina and 27 other \u201cnuclear experts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other signatories of the open letter<\/a> included Rachel Bronson, the president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists<\/em>, as well as the Arms Control Association\u2019s board chair Tom Countryman and executive director Daryl Kimball. Former Defense Secretary William Perry also signed.<\/p>\n

Cirincione\u2019s tweet, touting the pro-Flournoy open letter, ran into pushback from longtime peace activist Marcy Winograd, who tweeted back: \u201cJoe, pls read her essay, \u2018How to Prevent a War in Asia,\u2019 which should be retitled \u2018How to Start a War in Asia.\u2019 Did you know she wants to continue to send \u2018defensive\u2019 weapons to Saudi Arabia while we \u2018pivot\u2019 to SCS [South China Sea] & more war games next to 2 nuclear powers?\u201d<\/p>\n

The reply from Cirincione offered little more than wishful thinking about Flournoy. \u201cI disagree with many of the positions she has taken in the past,\u201d he wrote. \u201cShe is, however, the best qualified candidate for the position; the one most likely to implement serious changes should President Biden order them. Dems have also moved away from the Clinton policies she favored.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Flournoy has awaited word on whether she\u2019ll get the nod from Biden for the Pentagon job, Tony Blinken \u2014 the man with whom she co-founded the influence-peddling outfit WestExec Advisors<\/a> \u2014 is already the nominee for Secretary of State. Oddly, two of Blinken\u2019s most high-profile progressive boosters for the job have worked in key roles for Bernie Sanders, a leader second to none in challenging corporate greed.<\/p>\n

Faiz Shakir, the campaign manager for Sanders\u2019 latest presidential campaign, tweeted<\/a> that the selection of Blinken was a \u201csolid choice.\u201d And the top Sanders foreign-policy adviser in the Senate, Matt Duss, declared<\/a>: \u201cThis is a good choice. Tony has the strong confidence of the president-elect and the knowledge and experience for the important work of rebuilding U.S. diplomacy. It will also be a new and great thing to have a top diplomat who has regularly engaged with progressive grassroots.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a common rationale for supporting potential Cabinet members, despite the fact that their records and policy prescriptions are contrary to progressive principles. In effect, we\u2019re supposed to be grateful \u2014 and mollified \u2014 that at least they talk with us.<\/p>\n

At the Council for a Livable World \u2014 which says that it \u201cpromotes policies to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons and to minimize the risk of war\u201d \u2014 the executive director, former Congressman John Tierney, told the group\u2019s members that Blinken is a real good guy: \u201cI, and our organization, have worked with him over the years, and I trust that he can restore and rebuild a State Department badly damaged by the Trump administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does all this praising and access-drooling amount to?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a cogent assessment from Winograd, a tireless antiwar activist: \u201cProgressives may be tempted to trade truth for access to the powerful and privileged, thinking they can influence the course of events if they bite their tongue when Flournoy talks of fighting and prevailing in a war with China. But this sort of thinking is misguided. The power progressives hold must be wielded now before it\u2019s too late, before Flournoy is crowned and the U.S. slips further into decline, mired in a high-stakes high-tech arms race \u2014 or worse, another endless war, this one with a nuclear-armed nation of over 1.3 billion people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Disturbing information about Flournoy and Blinken has long been available. And just this weekend, the New York Times<\/em> published a devastating in-depth news article<\/a> that shed more light on their direct financial involvements that amount to classic conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n

Many progressive activists and organizations have mobilized since the election to offer well-documented opposition to highly dubious potential members of the Biden Cabinet, and that includes contenders for \u201cnational security\u201d posts. Outside the Beltway bubble, grassroots groups are organizing to put up a fight<\/a>against nominees who have repeatedly pledged and shown their allegiance to the warfare state.<\/p>\n

Joe Biden\u2019s historic value was to defeat Donald Trump, and progressives played a vital role in that defeat \u2014 while often being candid about the many awful parts of the Biden record. Now, progressives should emphatically challenge every odious aspect of the Biden administration, every step of the way.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photograph Source: Official U.S. Navy Page \u2013 CC BY 2.0 No matter who ends up winning Senate confirmation for top positions on President Biden\u2019s \u201cnational security\u201d team, an\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,266,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":575,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions\/575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}