Tulsi Gabbard's DNI Nomination

Tulsi Gabbard at the first Democratic primary debate of the 2020 campaign season. Jim Watson / AFP / Getty

By Thomas Neuburger

“When it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk. When it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove.” —Tulsi Gabbard, 2016

The list of Donald Trump's picks for cabinet posts is filling up fast. Some are relentlessly awful, like Chris Wright, a fossil fuel CEO, for Department of Energy; Mike Huckabee, pretend Christian for Ambassador to Israel; Lee Zeldin, Trump loyalist for EPA; and the racist Stephen Miller for, well, anything.

But other nominations are more mixed. Many decry Matt Gaetz for “ethical issues,” though others, notably progressives, praise his antitrust advocacy, his opposition to corporate power — especially Big Tech — his support for Lina Khan, his opposition to congressional insider trading, his dislike of corporate stock buybacks and his stance against government surveillance.

Which brings me to Tulsi Gabbard, another mixed nomination.

Tulsi Gabbard

Much has been written about Trump's pick of Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence. This is perhaps the most powerful job in the National Security State — the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and NSA all report to the DNI. The President is certainly more powerful, and the CIA chief may be as well, given that so much of what the Agency does is hidden, known only perhaps to itself. But the DNI is clearly one of the major hubs around which security happens.

For this discussion, let's focus primarily on Jeremy Scahill's evaluation of Gabbard's nomination. He’s gathered as many of her pluses and minuses as anyone, and Gabbard, to my eyes, is certainly a mixed nomination.

Virtue and Vice

Scahill on what he (and I) consider her virtues (all emphasis mine):

If confirmed as the next Director of National Intelligence, Gabbard would represent one of the most unorthodox political figures to hold such a senior national security post in U.S. history. A veteran of the war in Iraq, Gabbard was elected to Congress in 2012 and emerged as a sharp critic of the U.S. forever wars launched in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. She denounced U.S. regime change wars, including the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and consistently opposed U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s scorched earth war against Yemen, which extended from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. On multiple occasions, she accused Trump of being “Saudi Arabia’s bitch,” taking orders from his Saudi “masters,” and of supporting Al Qaeda. She has called for pardoning whistleblowers Julian Assange and Edward Snowden and fought to change U.S. laws permitting domestic surveillance of Americans.

These are all points in the anti-imperialist ledger. Yet she also brings this to the role:

Gabbard is not an antigen infiltrating the U.S. intelligence system. Over the past four years she has fully embraced Trump’s America First posture in explaining her dissent from the elite foreign policy consensus. Gabbard also has a history of support for a slew of standard, bipartisan U.S. national security and defense policies. She has offered die-hard backing for Israel’s war against Gaza, opposed a ceasefire, and accused Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the chief facilitators of Israel’s genocidal war, of being soft on terrorism and anti-semitism. She has also argued that the U.S. and other Western nations should wage both a military and ideological war against what she calls “radical Islamist ideology.” She has described herself as a “hawk” when it comes to using military action against “terrorists” and has advocated using “surgical” drone strikes against terror groups, a system refined and expanded under the Obama and Trump administrations. She has praised Egyptian dictator Abdel Fatah al-Sisi for his “great courage and leadership” and, following a 2015 meeting with Sisi in Cairo, called on Obama to “take action to recognize President el-Sisi and his leadership.” In Congress, Gabbard voted to keep in place U.S. surveillance laws aimed at foreign nationals and nations and supported economic sanctions against Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

There’s also this: “Gabbard also has close ties to far right Hindu nationalists with an explicitly violent anti-Muslim agenda and an alliance with Israel and extremist Zionists.”

As I say, a very mixed bag.

Opposition to Gabbard

Opposition to this nomination comes in two flavors, covert and overt.

The overt flavor is some form of Hillary Clinton’s charge that Gabbard is a “Russian asset.” The context was the 2020 Democratic primary in which Gabbard appeared to be making some early gains. Clinton also said, “I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate.” A Clinton spokesperson later made clear the remarks were directed at Gabbard.

In the same interview Clinton called Jill Stein a “Russian asset. I mean, totally.” No evidence was ever offered for either charge, the one against Stein or Gabbard.

These accusations are improbable in the extreme. Gabbard is an Iraq War veteran, a former member of Congress and a serving Lt. Col. in the Army Reserve. Despite being labeled a traitor, she’d be up on charges for sure if even a scrap of evidence existed to back this up. But “Russia” is a good trigger word for much of America, though it’s losing effectiveness fast — witness “cultivated Russian asset” Donald Trump’s comfortable reelection.

But I think that’s the cover story, the bright red flag. The actual opposition comes from the bipartisan military state, the one that wants all its wars, all the money that goes with it, and no talking back.

By this analysis, Gabbard’s pro-militarist “virtues”…

• Support for the Gaza genocide

• Support for the Forever War against “radical Islam”

• Support for drone attacks against “terror cells”

…are not outweighed by her multiple heresies:

• Sees Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as security-based

• Thinks that NATO expansion is a destabilizing force (she shares this view with George Kennan — that George Kennan — and Thomas Friedman)

• Understands that domestic surveillance is a political threat, thanks to her own experience of being placed on the TSA’s Quiet Skies program. Gabbard: “Given this environment, it's impossible to feel free. No American deserves this. No American deserves to live in fear of our own government.”

In my view, the State wants a robot in office, and she’s not it.

Her Confirmation

Will she be confirmed? Krystal Ball has said in one of her Thursday segments that, this time around, Trump has everything gamed out. That’s possible; in my view his goal is now governing in the “I’m going to shake things up” sense. He wants his own retribution and intends to rule, unlike before when his goal was to bathe in glory and let others decide.

So he may be fully committed to her confirmation, despite the U.S. foreign policy establishment, which has committed itself for decades to a “long war” against Russia. We’ll have to see on that.

Preferring The Lesser Evil

Democrats and their supporters are well aware of the “lesser evil” principle. “Vote for not that” has been their rallying cry for quite a few years. Unless you buy into (in my view) the clear propaganda that Gabbard’s an actual spy — or unless you want real war with Russia — Gabbard’s the lesser evil compared to a blood-and-guts Blob representative, Blinken or Sullivan, say, or Trump’s NSA pick Mike Waltz, against whom she’ll contend.

I therefore recommend supporting her confirmation. If it fails, consider that a win for the warlike State — and prepare accordingly.

At some point our global violence will be sent back home. We’re too soft a target and too many non-Americans, most of them poor and brown, have had enough.

If they finally decide to get their own retribution, to show us what casual slaughter feels like up close, you won't want to be around when that occurs.