The Populist War Against Intelligence

Aug 22, 2018 Kent Harrington

It would be a mistake to interpret US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan as only his latest vendetta for lèse-majesté. More ominously for the health of the democracies of the West, other populists are following Trump’s example.

ATLANTA – Despite his seemingly limitless capacity for vindictiveness, it would be a mistake to interpret US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan as only his latest vendetta for lèse-majesté. True, Brennan has all but labeled Trump and his behavior, including his Russian connections, a national security threat. But Trump’s move is more than personal payback. As the most recent blow in his two-year-long attack on the intelligence community, his slap at Brennan is a harbinger of more to come as he tries to bring his espionage agencies to heel.

More ominously for the health of the democracies of the West, other populists are following Trump’s example. In Europe, a variety of right-wing parties, having now found themselves in power, are taking on former government antagonists, who have monitored and policed their extremism for decades.

In Austria, the country’s populist leaders have been intimidating, muzzling, and purging the country’s intelligence services. In February, on orders from the populist interior minister, Austrian police raided the country’s main intelligence agency – the very organization charged with monitoring right-wing extremism. (It should be recalled that the Freedom Party, the coalition partner in Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s government, was founded by ex-SS officers).

We hope you're enjoying Project Syndicate.

To continue reading, subscribe now.

Get unlimited access to PS premium content, including in-depth commentaries, book reviews, exclusive interviews, On Point, the Big Picture, the PS Archive, and our annual year-ahead magazine.

Already have an account or want to create one? Log in

new comment has been posted. new comments have been posted.

0 Comments on this paragraph, 15 in all 15 Comments on this article

Tim Steinkamp Aug 27, 2018

Kent, It is hard to know if you are serious or spreading propaganda. The President or the citizens of this country didn't wake up one morning and decide we needed to shut down the CIA. I think we have been really patient for your agency to clean it self up and run straight, follow your mandate to defend the Constitution and protect the American people with your intelligence gathering. We even allowed you to keep secrets but it is out of control.

You don't seem to work for me. You seem to have another master. I can't understand what an American is anymore. It sure isn't what I thought this great experiment at a Nation was about. If I didn't speak out against your agency I couldn't look at myself in the mirror or look at my children. I would have failed them. Many so-called men keep their mouth shut. We have too many ideas of what the Constitution means or even if we have one. Call for a Constitutional Convention if you want to change it. Don't just change it with the lower standard of 50% plus 1. A People cannot run their country if we don't know what is happening. It has come to the point where everything is redacted, everything is becoming a national security threat. The final point is this, If the government knows everything about me than I have the right to know everything about the government so as far as I'm concerned it is time for you to go. I am not fearful of losing your intelligence. I don't see how our safety is helped by your agency. I think I have a better chance of survival with the CIA gone. At least I would be happier not having to listen to my government constantly bickering and wasting our hard earned tax money on your nonsense.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Derryl Hermanutz Aug 27, 2018

Before he was shot, JFK vowed to “smash the CIA into 1000 pieces” for lying to the Commander in Chief, in order to circumvent lawful processes to advance its own agenda (remember the Bay of Pigs?). And wasn’t it the CIA who was illegally selling drugs to get money to fund its illegal Contra war in Nicaragua in the 1980s? Wasn’t it the CIA who engineered illegal coups in Guatemala, Iran, and numerous others since the 1950s, to replace democratically elected governments with unlawfully installed regimes more favorable to US transnational corporate interests? 55 years after JFK, the CIA - and other “intelligence” agencies whose agents practice lying and deception as a profession, and who operate in secret so that most of the elected government has no idea what they are actually doing and cannot possibly provide effective political oversight of the agencies’ extra-legal activities - are manufacturing evidence of “Russian hacking” in an effort to stage a not-so-soft coup against a duly elected US President who campaigned on a promise to extricate the US from financially and humanly ruinous military activities in other people’s countries. Which is a direct threat to the trillion dollar budget of the military-security-industrial complex who invent foreign enemies to justify their existence and cost. Trump wants to thaw relations with Russia - do business, not make war. That serves US interests. But it directly attacks the interests of the “intelligence community”. If “populism” means the elected government serves the legitimate constitutional interests of the people and the country, instead of serving the illegal interests of self-serving interest groups like the military-intelligence industry, doesn’t that make anti-populism pro-tyranny?
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
B Wilds Aug 25, 2018

Painting populist an ugly color is a bit unfair. Populism has been on a tear the last several years altering how events are being framed. In truth, the subject of globalization is made up of many threads interwoven in a complex way. The discussion often extends into several issues and is not limited to free trade. Other social concerns also feed into the mix, things like immigration, human rights, global warming, nationalism, inequality, even population growth. The political impact on all these issues, in the end, affect how countries view the world and their foreign policy. More on this subject in the article below.

http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-stop-globalization-or-populist.html
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Emanuel Müller Aug 24, 2018

The picture used is spot on, Putin as Dr. Frankenstein and Trump as Igor, sewing the world together around China.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
vivek iyer Aug 23, 2018

This article makes no sense. The Austrian raid occurred in February, six months before Trump's petty action against Brennan.

Carter did attack the C.I.A- Admiral Turner's infamous 'Halloween massacre'- but that suited the National mood.

It is ludicrous to suggest that secretive Intelligence agencies, which may have their own agendas, should be above the law or that they are part of constitutional checks and balances. A J.Edgar Hoover has no business keeping files on politicians or blackmailing them.

Why describe Chancellor Kurz, whose mainstream conservative party runs the Justice Ministry (which approved the raid) as 'populist'? Furthermore, Trump was the official candidate of the Republican party. It remains to be seen whether his party will keep him or sacrifice him if his legal troubles worsen.
- Tom W Aug 25, 2018
  
  What is your objection to citing the Austrian incident, simply because it was six months ago. The author is clearly attempting to paint a picture about an emerging patter. Six months is a very short amount of time in the evolution of geopolitics.
  
  You then present a straw man regarding intelligence agencies being subject to the law. Trump is trying to intimidate both current and former officials to protect himself. He's not applying the rule of law, he's acting as a strong man who cares not for it.
  
  Nice try.
  - vivek iyer Aug 25, 2018
    
    I object to being lied to. You should to. People who lie to you feel contempt for your intelligence. Sooner or later, they will try to work some mischief against you.
    
    Thus, it is a sound policy to call people on their lies. They will pretend to have been merely stupid. Still, you have deterred them from some greater mischief.
    
    In this case, the author is pretending to be so stupid as not to understand that Austria could not have followed Trump down a particular road because Austria acted first.
    However this pretence of stupidity allows him to slip in an outrageous and patently absurd lie. This ex 'Intelligence' agent says 'And what was the pretext for the raid and subsequent demotion of senior Austrian intelligence officials? That the agency was running an operation aimed at harming North Korea.'
    
    How naive does this man think we are? Why on earth would the Austrians say they wanted to avoid harm to North Korea of all countries? Does this 'Intelligence' operative not know that we now have the internet? We can look things up in 30 seconds. The VOA itself says that the Austrians said they were working with the South Koreans to catch rogue operatives forging North Korean passports. One can easily understand why the South Koreans would want to prevent these being sold on the black market. This explanation is plausible. There are bad apples in every intelligence service looking to make extra cash. However, the President of Austria severely criticized the raid believing it was politically motivated. The Germans express fears about information beak leaked to the Russians.
    
    Curbing the influence of secretive agencies is a good thing. A Demagogue with a loyal Secret Service is likely to turn himself into a Dictator. But it is equally dangerous to bring down an elected leader with a 'populist' economic program by using 'dirty tricks' orchestrated by spooks. This alienates the public and may cause a bigger backlash later on.
    
    I'm afraid you either do not understand what a 'straw man' is, or else have used the phrase in a careless manner. I hold no brief for Trump. It may be that a two term president with great political skills can ultimately subvert the Intelligence Services in America, however Trump has no such capacity.
    A new reply to this comment has been posted.
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Robert Wolff Aug 23, 2018

Compared to historical norms, US is entering an Era that is totally antithetical to American values of the last 300 years (political rule by the petite bourgeoise), but totally commensurate with the feudal system of the Dark Ages in which an Upper Class ruled its Lower Classes by appeasing their needs, but required allegiance (military support) to fight off encroachment by other more financially successful nations that threatened to overtake over their economies and their political systems by developing a military caste (well paid by the elites to defend them against internal revolution and invasion by foreign states). This Era the US is entering is very similar to the stability of the Middle Kingdom in China, the Islamic Empire across the Middle East and Southern Europe, and the Middle Ages across Europe.
The antithetical movement that caused the disruption of all these three "stable systems" worldwide was the eruption of the Middle Class in Europe as a political power, and the expansion of European Nations under the banner of Classic "Free Market" economics, in which European corporations were free to spread Capitalism with the military support of their Kings and Princes, who drew their funds by taxing colonialists who worked for their nations' capitalist enterprises within their militarily controlled colonies.
But today, Western Kings can no longer demand taxes from their nations' overseas corporations, largely due to political agreements among the corporations themselves and the foreign nations in which they do business.
The nations formerly defending their overseas capitalist institutions with military support are no longer needed, and even no longer wanted by their homegrown enterprises, which no longer need military support due to political agreements among New World Order nations.

Point: This is a "Brand" New World.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
j. von Hettlingen Aug 22, 2018

Kent Harrington says Trump’s attacks on the intelligence community and its former top officials, like the eyebrow-raising withdrawal of John Brennan’s security clearance, reminds of what happened to Austria’s main intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz und Terrorismusbekämpfung (BVT). The raid – conducted on phoney grounds – was widely seen as Austria’s right-wing populist government’s vendetta against the agency. It is now the subject of legal action, with a court and a parliamentary inquiry to decide whether the operation was legal and proportionate.
On February 28, a police squad in Vienna, normally assigned to prosecuting street criminals and burglars, raided the BVT headquarters, and homes of some of its staff specialising in extremism. The police acted on the orders of anti-corruption prosecutors, and carried off some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets in open crates and plastic bags. Interior minister, Herbert Kickl, a leading member of the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), which is now in the coalition government, suspended the head of the agency and three staff members, who had collected some 19 gigabytes of electronic data on right-wing groups and affiliates close to the FPÖ led by Heinz Strache - now vice chancellor alongside Sebastian Kurz of the conservative People's Party, the ÖVP. Russian influence, notably attempts at election interference, was also monitored.
The raid sparked outrage as it became clear that far-right parties, “having now found themselves in power, are taking on former government antagonists, who have monitored and policed their extremism for decades.” In the wake of the raid, other Western intelligence agencies are said to have already stopped sharing information with Austria. A former head of the German foreign intelligence service, the BND, warned against sharing sensitive material with Austria, amid growing fears over the FPÖ’s formal cooperation agreement with Putin’s United Russia party. The close tie was clear: Austria was a notable holdout when EU members joined forces in March to expel Russian diplomats to protest the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal in Britain. Top Austrian officials, however spoke out against Russian sanctions.
The author points out the parallel between Vienna and Washington. “By stripping Austria’s spies of their files, the raid has essentially put the intelligence service out of operation and raised doubts among allied intelligence services about the Austrians’ reliability.” By the same token, revoking security clearances of former top intelligence officials, like John Brennan, who has operational knowledge of a lot of ongoing and highly sensitive national security issues that had been dealt with in his 25 years at the CIA, is counterproductive. It is not uncommon that someone like the newly appointed CIA Director Gina Haspel would want to hear Brennan’s views and rely on him for his insights into many of those ongoing operations.
Both the raid in Austria and Trump’s vindictive desire to “halt the investigation of him led by Robert Mueller and bring to heel all of the US intelligence agencies” are disturbing. Autocrats resort to intimidation, muzzling and purge to quash intelligence work and rein in undesirable activities that run counter to their interests. It would be “naive not to consider their impact, not only on the current intelligence leadership but also on the rank-and-file officers that do the difficult and often dangerous work of intelligence gathering and analysis. That is why it is so important to adhere to the laws that empower (and constrain) intelligence agencies and that underpin the political independence and integrity of their officers.”
Given intelligence agencies’ clandestine activities, there are calls for government transparency and accountability in a democratic process. The author says, intelligence agencies, while sticking to the law, need to “protect their sources and methods.” They clash with politicians , who “violate rather than respect the rules that govern their intelligence services’ integrity.” Very often they are vilified by leaders, who “put their own interests above those of the country and corrupt the political system they are sworn to defend.”
- Robert Wolff Aug 23, 2018
  
  Wouldn't compare the current World with the international conflicts prior to WWII. The New World Order (NWO) has advanced to far to turn back to international intelligence conflicts among nations without destroying the foundation of the NWO which is agreed upon political reconciliation among member nations of economic and military and socio-religious conflicts by NWO style solutions through international alliances (UN, WTO, SEATO, EU, African Union, EEU).
  Those individuals who are doing well under the NWO style solutions want to continue the current status quo, but those who are doing poorly (Middle Class in England and US) have chosen to opt out of the NWO, consider it an anathema to their existence, and have already won two major political battles in England and the US - i.e. Brexit in England and the election of Trump in America.
  
  The Losers in the NWO takeover (including those denigrated by the use of Money by regimes in power using fiat NWO money systems to buy Middle Class assets in Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt and other nations where there used to be broad-based ownership of property and cultural territorialism but today nothing but warfare and political discension) have already declared war on NWO regimes, and the US under Trump is simply the latest of those Middle Class revolutionary nations.
  Don't expect the current intranational and international wars cause by the greed of NWO regimes exploiting the current IMF fiat money system to end soon.
  Furthermore, I do not expect the regimes taking power worldwide using the IMF system to take control of their previously "Free Peoples" to last very long.
  The next US deep recession will flip Americans, like it did in Egypt, Lybia, Syria, Tunisia and other Middle Eastern nations a decade or so ago.
  The conclusion is that regimes' use of fiat money to take control of their nations' cultures and peoples will eventually fail, worldwide,
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Mirek Fatyga Aug 22, 2018

it is important that we stop using the word "populists". These are fascist movements. Fascism is a political methodology of controlling society through deliberate incitement of emotions, rather than rational argument. As such, fascism needs complete control of the narrative. The greatest threat to a fascist government or a fascist movement is anyone with a recognized authority who could publicly contradict the narrative. This is why controlling media is always a priority for the fascists and harshest repression is directed against those who attempt to contradict the narrative or even could conceivably contradict the narrative in the future. Intelligence Services of the democratic state are an obvious target for the same reasons. No more euphemisms, as events are taking an increasingly serious turn.
- Tom W Aug 25, 2018
  
  A fascist movement can very well be a populist movement. And there have been populist movements that are not fascist. Bernie Sanders fits most people's definition of a populist. He's no fascist - he's a proclaimed socialist and closer to a closet Marxist at heart.
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
- Petey Bee Aug 23, 2018
  
  "populist" indeed a term that means different and nearly opposite things to different audiences.
  
  It can mean "anti-elitist", or it can mean "demagogue". There is a great deal of truth to both those meanings.
  
  There is left-populist, right-populist, plainly-corrupt-kleptocrat-yet-improves-life-of-the-poor populist, racist-populist...
  
  Populist can be very much democratic, or it can be just a stepping stone to authoriarianism that soon dismantles what we consider essential democratic protections to ensure the well being of minorities.
  
  The term should be qualified.
  
  Lastly, one can have authoritarians who are not populist, and are in fact considered "responsible yet unpopular". This actually happens a lot.
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
- Robert Wolff Aug 23, 2018
  
  Re: "It is important that we stop using the word populists" I totally disagree. The term means different things in different Nations. In Iran under Khomeini it meant the rejection of the general population of Iranians of Western control and influence.
  In Brexit and Trump Territory it means the rise of the losing Middle Class to the moneyed elites and the political establishments that succor them.
  In China "populists" are the supporters of the Xi regime.
  If I was not a Populist in America or England I would seriously be thinking about what I am doing wrong, and why I will likely be overthrown in power by "Popular Demand".
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Petey Bee Aug 22, 2018

The Trump administration's vivid conflict with the US national security institutions is the most interesting thing.

On the one side, you have organizations whose current public face is a gallery of some of the most dynamic (ahem) individuals of the Bush era -- associated with the most regrettably destructive policies of that time period, including torture, well-meaning (ahem) support for wars in Iraq and elsewhere in the middle east. Their legacy has devastated the middle east directly, and Europe indirectly. The diplomatic and financial side effects are incalculable. Policies harmful to individual freedoms barely even show up on the radar.

But it is the reputational cost of the Bush-era intelligence institutions' actions that is most significant here. It is this reputational cost that is taken advantage of by the Trump administration, abused by his demagoguery. Many of Trump's top policy makers are neoconservatives aspiring to a dynamism (ahem) equal to their Bush-era predecessors.

So to have these two groups in conflict is a bit hard to understand. It is a little bit scary that we allow this group to assume the role of "defenders of our democracy". The whole lot of them, on an institutional level (i'm sure they're individually good kind people) would be subject to discipline if not prosecution. But we don't live in that world.
The best we can hope for is that our political process is taken over by the IC, which becomes a kind of 4th branch of government with veto power. Then, when we find out this group is just as compromised by external influence (cough-defense-industry-cough), it's out-of-the-frying-pan and into the fire of an even more militarist furure. Which, oh by the way, isn't particularly good for any peaceful line of business.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.

http://prosyn.org/gfwPJuZ;

The Populist War Against Intelligence

To continue reading, subscribe now.

New Comment

Email this piece to a friend

Contact us

Handpicked to read next

Can Mike Pompeo Save US Foreign Policy?

The Resilience of the Arab World’s Pouvoir

A Greek Canary in a Global Goldmine

It’s Cheaper to Talk than to Cut Emissions

PS OnPoint

The Roots of European Division

Investing in Africans’ Health

Can Donald Tusk Go Home Again?

Is America Tired of Losing Yet?

The Rising Tide of Sustainable Seafood

Cookies and Privacy

Log in/Register