NATO

Friday evening the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Russian military intelligence secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces, including American troops, in Afghanistan. According to both stories, President Trump and the National Security Council were briefed on the intelligence in late March and the NSC developed a list of possible responses including a diplomatic protest and escalating sanctions. The President has yet to order any of thoseactions.

The history of the tense relationship between Russia and the U.S. is a long one. The two countries had been allies in World War II but relations deteriorated rapidly afterward. Soviet Russia established communist states under its influence in Eastern Europe and, in 1948, attempted to block American access to the U.S. occupation zone in West Berlin. Perceiving Russian expansion to be a threat to western Europe’s democracies, representatives of the United States, Canada and ten European countries in April of 1949 agreed to a military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in which an attack against one member would be considered an attack against all. The Cold War between Soviet Russia and the U.S. would continue for another 42 years, but after the establishment of NATO no other European nation would fall under Russian domination.

The Cold War ended in 1991 with the collapse of communist rule in Russia. In 1999, Vladimir Putin, a former Soviet intelligence officer, was elected as Russian president. Since that time he has pursued the goal of restoring to Russia the prestige it had when it was one of the world’s two superpowers. Over the last decade he has seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, sent troops and equipment to aid separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, deployed military forces to Syria to oppose U.S.-backed fighters and interfered in the domestic politics of European countries and the U.S.

It is an understatement to say that Putin’s Russia has done nothing to lower concerns about its aggressive behavior in Europe and elsewhere. Still, on June 5, the Trump administration abruptly and without explanation announced that the U.S. would cut its NATO troop presence in Germany by 25%. The move drew criticism from members of both parties in Congress. Twenty-two Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee sent a letter to the President saying that “We believe that such steps would significantly damage U.S. national security as well as strengthen the position of Russia to our detriment.”

The 9,500 or so troops to be withdrawn will likely include forces that would provide mobility and air power crucial for NATO’s ability to respond to a crises in member states on Russia’s border. Poland and the Baltic states will be more vulnerable as will the American personnel who remain. A withdrawal would also be a clear signal that Trump is not serious about defending Europe and further undermine European confidence that America is reliable.

After democracy in western Europe was snuffed out by Adolph Hitler, the United States was inevitably drawn in to a world war at great cost in American blood and treasure. Preserving the independence of our allies in NATO is a vital American interest.

The withdrawal of American troops from Germany will be be a step toward weakening NATO as an obstacle to Russian aggression. If the reports concerning Russian bounties on the lives of American soldiers are accurate, then the decision is more than an outrageous disregard of American security interests, it is an act of profound disloyalty.

Vladimir Putin is no friend of democracy. Since coming to power he has transformed Russia into an autocracy and interfered in elections in Europe and the United States Yet it is he who is the chief beneficiary of Trump’s decision. It is an astonishing coup for the leader of a declining power with a shrinking population, a GDP the size of Italy’s and an economy that’s overwhelmingly dependent on revenues from raw materials.

© 2020 Ron Koehler

“Pitchfork Ben” Tillman

Last Friday the Clemson University Board of Trustees voted to request permission of the South Carolina legislature to change the name of Tillman Hall to “Old Main.” One of the original buildings on the Clemson campus, the hall is named for a former governor and senator, Benjamin Tillman (1847-1918).

Known as “Pitchfork Ben” for his appeal to poor white farmers, Tillman was the most prominent of a new breed of Southern Democrats who sought to channel white hatred and resentment toward blacks rather than the wealthy planters who dominated southern politics after Reconstruction. Appealing not to economic interests but to racial prejudice, these politicians worked to discourage impoverished whites from perceiving common interests with poor blacks. A major strategy for keeping the two groups apart was strict social segregation enforced through the Jim Crow laws.

In 1895 Governor Tillman called a state constitutional convention where he announced that “our sole cause of being here” was to deny African Americans the right to vote. The new constitution did this through a poll tax, educational and property qualifications and a subjective test that allowed officials to pass whites and fail blacks.

While the Constitution of 1895 became Tillman’s most enduring legacy, he is also remembered as a particularly notorious proponent of racial terrorism. In a 1900 speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate he defended the murder of several black South Carolinians by noting that the state once had 135,00 African American voters and 95,000 white voters. He said “Now, I want to ask you, with a free vote and a fair count, how are you going to beat 135,000 by 95,000?” (This rationale resonates perversely with President Trump’s April 8 tweet that making voting easier through mail-in ballots “doesn’t work out well for Republicans.”)

Tillman concluded his speech by saying: “We of the South have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be equal to the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him.”

As protests against police killings of unarmed African Americans continue to roll across the nation, the attempt to remove the name of an advocate of racial violence from a public building seems altogether appropriate. The outcome of the matter is uncertain. A 2000 South Carolina law called the Heritage Act requires a 2/3 vote of the state legislature to remove memorials to historical figures from public property. It is up to the lawmakers of South Carolina to decide whether to continue to honor the heritage of Pitchfork Ben Tillman.

© 2020 Ron Koehler

Inspectors General

In the beginning, George Washington’s administration had less than fifty employees. As the country expanded this number increased and by 1826 there were 10,415 federal workers. From the late nineteenth century onward, new agencies were created to meet additional needs stemming from industrialization and economic growth. The size of the executive branch expanded to an all time high in 1933 as the federal the government responded to the Great Depression.

Today’s executive branch has over 2.6 million employees. Such a large bureaucracy carrying out a wide range of complex programs and operations presents great challenges for Congress in performing its vital oversight responsibilities. The executive branch has more people doing more things than the various Congressional committees can adequately monitor.

In 1974 the Watergate scandal laid bare illegal acts at the highest level and led to the resignation of a president. Four years later, Congress passed the Inspectors General Act of 1978. This law created a system of inspectors general (IGs), who would hold those in the executive branch accountable by investigating corruption and wrongdoing. To shield their work from improper influence, the law required that IGs, unlike traditional political appointees, be nonpartisan and independent.

In recent times three separate inspectors general responsible for overseeing the billions of American taxpayer dollars spent for rebuilding in Afghanistan. Iraq and Syria uncovered corruption that proved embarrassing for the George W. Bush and Barak Obama administrations. Certain that Congress would strongly resist any effort to disrupt the work of the IGs, both presidents refrained from interfering with the independence of these officials.

In the weeks following his Senate impeachment trial on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, President Trump began purging executive branch officials he deemed to be disloyal. He started with those in the executive branch who had cooperated with the House of Representatives investigation. Then, on the evening of April 3, he removed Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community. It was Atkinson who had informed Congress of the anonymous whistleblower complaint that ultimately led to the House investigation and Trump’s impeachment.

In the following weeks, as public attention was fixed on the coronavirus pandemic, the president went on to remove four more inspectors general. All were fired abruptly and with little explanation beyond the claim that the president had “lost confidence” in them. In every case there is reason to suspect that Mr. Trump had political motives for the removals.

On April 6 the president fired Glenn Fine, acting IG for the Department of Defense. Fine was set to become chair of the accountability committee established by Congress to police spending under the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill.

Christi Grimm, Department of Heath and Human Services IG, issued a report in April revealing that hundreds of medical centers were struggling with testing and supply shortages. Trump was embarrassed by the report at a time when he was already under fire for not acting quickly enough to ramp up testing and provide protective equipment to health workers. Grimm was fired on May 1.

Two weeks later the Transportation Department’s acting IG, Mitch Behm, was removed from his post. Behm was undertaking a review of whether Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has given preferential treatment to Kentucky in awarding contracts. Chao’s husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, an important Trump ally, is seeking reelection in that state.

On May 17, at the request of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the president fired Steve Linick, IG for the State Department. Linick seems to have been looking into into allegations that Pompeo was illegally using a political appointee at the department to run personal errands for him and his wife, Susan. The IG was also reported to be probing the administration’s $4 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia which sidestepped Congress.

There is no evidence that this unprecedented number of inspectors general have been removed for any reason other than the fact that they were doing the work that the law requires of them. The firings are a brazen attack on the rule of law and can serve only to cloak the pursuit of activities that are counter to the public interest.

Congress has the power to act decisively against the subversion of its oversight authority. But Congress has shown little inclination to do so. There remains but one check on an outlaw president who exploits the power of his office in ways that are counter to the public interest. That check is in the hands of the voters on November 3.

© 2020 Ron Koehler

Tiananmen

Today is the thirty-first anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the 1989 suppression of peaceful protests in Beijing by China’s Communist leaders. It took place at a hopeful time for democracy as the Cold War was ending and Communist rule was crumbling in Eastern Europe. Since April 15 massive student-led demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square had been demanding political reforms––freedom of speech and association, an end to corruption.

The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party associated democracy with chaos and saw the demonstrations as a challenge to their power. On June 4 they sent the military in to clear the square. The brutal assault killed thousands.

Tiananmen showed that China’s autocratic leaders are willing to suppress any challenge they view as a political threat. In 2020 we see that fact being demonstrated in Hong Kong.

People in the western democracies were appalled by Tiananmen and the United States government imposed sanctions on China.

But not everyone in the West denounced the killings. A man who would one day become President of the United States, and who on Monday had peaceful protestors tear gassed and forcefully dispersed so that he could walk across the street for a photo-op, was interviewed by Playboy magazine in 1990. In that interview he said the following:

“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength.”

He was wrong, The use of force against those who are peacefully exercising their right of dissent is not a show of strength. It is rather a show of fear in the face of a people who would be free.

© 2020 Ron Koehler

I Have Seen It All Before

I have seen it all before. An incident involving a black man and white police officers escalated to violence. It was August 11, 1965 in Watts, a predominately African American district of Los Angeles.

At about 7 P.M. a white highway patrolman arrested an African American man for speeding near the corner of Avalon Boulevard and 116th Street. As a crowd gathered, the officer called for assistance. One of the responding officers hit an innocent black observer with his billy club and another dragged a young African American woman into the street. After the police departed, the crowd threw rocks at passing automobiles. The next day city officials rebuffed requests by community spokesmen to mediate between the police and residents. In less than two days crowds began looting, firebombing and otherwise destroying property. Police and National Guardsmen retaliated with their firearms. When the riot ended six days later 34 African Americans were dead.

Over the next three years acts of police brutality would ignite riots in dozens of cities. The most deadly took place in Detroit in 1967. Forty-three people were killed, nearly all of them African American.

A high school student at the time, I was shocked. President Lyndon B. Johnson had signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 less than a week before Watts exploded. Like many whites, I viewed America’s move from the ending of slavery to the civil rights legislation of the 1960s as progress toward freedom and equality. There was something I was missing.

In 1967 Johnson appointed a bipartisan commission, headed by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, to investigate the disorders. In its report, the commission concluded that the United States was “moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.” It blamed the riots on institutional racism that kept African Americans in inferior schools, restricted them to ghettos, barred them from fair employment, held them to double standards in the courts and harmed the health of their children.

To remedy this situation, the Kerner Commission recommended a massive governmental assault on unemployment, poor housing, and poverty. These recommendations generally went unheeded. Neither Johnson, who by then was entering his final year in office, nor the growing conservative opposition was interested in waging such a difficult and costly struggle. Rather than embracing sweeping social programs, conservatives proposed harsher penalties for perpetrators of violence.

Today the wealth gap between white and black Americas has grown wider. Under-resourced schools limit opportunities for African American youth. Racial discrimination in reality and financial services restrict equal access to housing. A biased justice system disproportionately incarcerates black men. Inadequate health care creates disparities in the occurrence of underlying conditions that has resulted in an African American COVID-19 death rate that is three times that for whites.

And with dreadful regularity we read about or watch on our screens another unarmed African American being killed by police as they drive in their car, sleep in their apartment or jog through their neighborhood.

As in Watts in 1965, the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis a week ago released pent up outrage as thousands of protesters took to the streets in the midst of a pandemic. This time the peaceful protestors have outnumbered the vandals, at least so far.

The protestors have been white as well as black as if there is a growing understanding that our collective fate as a nation depends on accepting that black lives matter.

Because I have seen it all before I remain wary as it is promised that “this time is different.” As police who have killed unarmed African Americans escape the consequences. As pledges of changes in police hiring and training and in community policing policies are made but then forgotten. As the larger patterns of institutional racism are allowed to persist.

In 1968 James Baldwin said “The reason that Black people are in the streets has to do with the lives they are forced to lead in this country. And they are forced to lead these lives by the indifference and the apathy and a certain kind of ignorance, a very willful ignorance, on the part of their co-citizens.”

I have seen it all before.

But what I have not yet seen is justice.

© 2020 Ron Koehler