Watching the media fuss over President Trump’s firing of Acting
Director of National Intelligence
Adm. Joseph Maguire, and his replacement with Ambassador Richard Grenell, I am
reminded of Henry Kissinger’s comment that “Even
a paranoid can have enemies” Trump is certainly paranoid, but just as
certainly he has real enemies among the government bureaucrats that comprise
the “deep state”. It is hardly
surprising that he would want to replace those trying to bring him down with
leaks, well-timed releasees of embarrassing information, and the like with people
more loyal, if not to him personally at least to the office of the President. I’m
sure any other president would do the same, and would be foolish not to.Trump's methods are a little bizarre sometimes, but his actions seem to me perfectly reasonable under the circumstances.
Now that we know much more about the dubious provenance of
the Steele document, the fabricated claims of Russian or Ukrainian support for
Trump in the last election, and the FBI’s less-than-honest presentation to the
secret FISA court to allow them to surveille a member of Trump’s campaign, it
is not surprising that he doesn’t trust the intelligence community or the FBI. Of
course the Russians are trying to meddle in our elections, just as we try to
meddle in theirs. They weren’t very effective in the last election, despite the
attempts of liberals to blame their embarrassing loss on Russian interference.
They probably won’t be very effective in this election either, at least compared
to the far more virulent and effective disinformation campaigns being waged on
social media by domestic activists and campaigns.
There is also a lot of hand-wringing in the media about the
exit of so many senior foreign policy and intelligence people. I don’t see it
as much of a loss to lose the foreign policy establishment that so mishandled
Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, or that got us into the endless
Middle East wars. I don’t see it as much of a loss to lose the intelligence establishment
that missed anticipating most of the important world events of the past few
decades, from the fall of the Soviet Union to the Arab Spring uprisings.
Institutions can get ossified and bound by groupthink, and need occasionally to
be cleaned out and given a fresh start.
Whether the people who replace those who have left will be any better is
an interesting question which only time will answer, but certainly a new start
was overdue.
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