Don’t Think There’s A Deep State? Think Again
The term “deep state” did not, as some believe, originate with the “resistance” to the Inaguration of President-elect Donald Trump. The term was first used to refer, surprisingly, to the government of Turkey in the 1990’s. In fact the term is a translation of the Turkish term “derin devlet”. DEEP STATE.
Nor is the “deep state” concept the province only of lunatics and “conspiracy nuts”. It has been analyzed and discussed by numerous (and sane) commentators and scholars, including: David W. Brown, a writer for the Atlantic. Mark Ambinder, journalist in residence at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. Peter Dale Scott, of the University of California, Berkeley, among others.
The term “deep state” is meant to connote a “government with in a government” that is comprised, predominantly, of unelected career bureaucrats and administrators in many branches of government. In the United States these would include the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, NSA, DOJ, the military and others. Because many of the individuals involved in the “deep state” are career employees, they don’t answer directly to the electorate or even indirectly to the politicians chosen by the electorate. They often have their own agendas both political and non political (some of which involve, not surprisingly, self preservation and personal enrichment). Some of these individuals can wield great power, however, and, it is feared, they may take actions and institute and pursue policies that reflect their own agendas rather that the will of the governed.
Applying this term retrospectively, one could use it to describe the actions of the CIA (with Lyndon Johnson as a co-conspirator) in the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. Many believe that the assassination was carried out by the CIA in response to President Kennedy’s firing of CIA Director Allen Dulles and Kennedy’s publicly stated intention to break up the CIA into “a thousand pieces”. Although this narrative is, of course, not the “official story” (as told in that famous work of fiction, The Report of the Warren Commission), a close look at many facts surrounding the assassination leads most thinking people (86% of American adults in one survey) to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald was part of a conspiracy to kill the President. Additional “conspiracy theorists” include authors of approximately ONE THOUSAND books written on the subject, as well as the House Select Committee On Assassinations (HSCA), which concluded, in 1978, that there WAS a conspiracy. In fact the HSCA concluded that two gunmen fired on the present and the assassination was the result of a conspiracy. The Committee was not able to identify the conspirators, but said that they did not have convincing evidence (of course) that government agencies were involved. The Committee did NOT rule out the possibility, however, that rogue elements in our government (DEEP STATE), or, possibly, individuals in organized crime were involved. Looking at this in retrospect, the possibility that the assassination of JFK was nothing less that the “deep state” defending ITSELF comes readily to mind. DEEP STATE.
Now the reason I’ve discussed the “deep state” concept at some length, is because it is pertinent to the battle being waged against President Trump today. We are all aware that President Trump has fended off arrows from numerous directions: from the CIA via John Brennan, the FBI via Peter Stzroc, Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, James Comey, the DOJ via Rod Rosenstein, Janet Lynch and Robert Mueller, the DNI via James Clapper and the NSA via Susan Rice. Add in numerous Circuit Court Judges and political operatives in the Democratic Party, and I think you can see what President Trump is up against. In other words, he’s up against nothing less than the DEEP STATE.
And, on top of all this, are deep state “helpers” such as America’s dysfunctional and extremely partisan media, as well as political fund raisers and agitators such as George Soros and many celebrities. All of which help the DEEP STATE.
Now recognizing the existence of the many faceted beast I’ve described above does not require that there be some “central command” that formulates a plan and coordinates its execution. Although it is likely that some high level strategizing takes place (last March, as I was checking out of Washington, DC’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel, I was quite surprised to learn that the upper echelon of the Democratic Party together with high level donors were CHECKING IN for a pow wow about how to fight President Trump), it’s more likely that much deep state activity is carried out autonomously with many operatives and participants working independently for similar goals and objectives. DEEP STATE.
Now, if the reader still has doubts about whether or not a “deep state” exists in America, I would invite the skeptical to consider a very important phenomenon involving the very young Trump Presidency. It’s a phenomenon that we all witnessed, and which, when considered will, I think, convince even the doubting Thomases.
Think back to February, March and April of 2017. What was the single most remarkable thing (aside from the hysterical protests that died down in early 2017) about those early months of the Trump Presidency?….It was something that played out almost daily in our major media, in print, on the radio and on TV. It was a shocking phenomenon that should have demanded an outcry from the media and public. Yet no outcry was heard. It was a phenomenon that should have been quite frightening to the American populace. Yet it was roundly ignored. It was a phenomenon that, at the very least, should have been recognized as pernicious. Yet it wasn’t. It was a phenomenon that was never, in fact, noticed for what it really was… Think back… Think again….
The phenomenon I’m referring to…. was ALL THE LEAKS. Nearly EVERY day we learned of leaked intelligence from numerous government agencies regarding President Trump and his cabinet. All of this material WAS CLASSIFIED! All of it should have been available to only a select group of highly placed individuals that, BY LAW, were required to keep it secret. But the leaks kept coming. How bad did it get? Well, I will never forget that one morning we learned of the content of President Trump’s conversation on the previous evening WITH THE PRESIDENT OF MEXICO, Enrique Nieto. That conversation involved several “sensitive” matters (such as NAFTA and the border wall) that were best kept confidential. Had either President known that their remarks would be splashed across the world’s media, the conversation WOULD NOT HAVE OCCURRED. The same thing happened again around the same time with Mr. Trump’s conversation with the Prime Minister of Australia, Malcom Turnbull. That contentious conversation involved the US accepting a large number Syrian “refugees” that somehow ended up in Australia. This was supposedly promised to Australia by Obama. For the content of both of the these highly confidential conversations to be leaked to the press, there had to be people IN THE WHITE HOUSE that were doing the leaking. Had to be. DEEP STATE.
One of the many clever actions that Barack Obama carried out AGAINST the United States Of America during his second term in office was to convert many government appointee positions into career positions. This may not sound like a big deal, but its not so subtle goal was to make it more difficult for future Chief Executive to remove these people (many of whom were hand selected by Obama) from office. By this crafty move, Obama effectively expanded the DEEP STATE.
Let’s hope, for the sake of our country, that President Trump continues to dismantle the Obama era DEEP STATE, and that the DEEP STATE, in 2018, is under more scrutiny and, consequently, is more restrained than it was in 1963.