President-elect Donald Trump recently named veteran and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to be his director of national intelligence. Predictably, Washington's warmongers are apoplectic.
"Why not cut out the middlewoman and just name [Vladimir] Putin as director of national intelligence?" fumed David Frum, former speechwriter for George W. Bush who coined the phrase "Axis of Evil" used to push Americans into endorsing the Iraq War.
Tom Nichols, Frum's fellow Atlantic writer, churned out an essay labeling Gabbard a "national security threat" and shill for dictators like Putin and Bashar al-Assad, heavily implying she can't be trusted with sensitive information. It's useful to note Nichols is a retired professor who waged his battles in the marketplace of ideas, while Gabbard is a Lieutenant Colonel in the National Guard with over two decades' service, including in war zones.
Gabbard's been smeared as Putin's puppet for years; indeed, in 2019 Hillary Clinton baselessly hinted Russians were "grooming" her for a presidential run.
The charges against the ex-Congresswoman boil down to three points: cozying up to dictators, spreading conspiracy theories, and echoing Kremlin talking points. All three are easily refuted.
Gabbard's said to be friendly with dictators because she met with Assad twice. But Nancy Pelosi also met Assad, defying George W. Bush by traveling to Damascus for a 2007 tête-à-tête with the dictator.
You can make a hefty coffee table book composed solely of images of U.S. presidents chatting with tyrants across the globe. The Bushes' alliance with Saudi royals goes back decades. While she was Secretary of State, Clinton infamously declared Egyptian tyrant Hosni Mubarak and his wife were "friends of my family," even as her own State Department denounced Mubarak's human rights abuses.
D.C. is only concerned when the wrong people shake hands with despots. When Trump met with Saudi butchers, it was a travesty; when Joe Biden did the same thing, it was brushed off.
The second smear comes from Washington insiders like Congresswoman (and ex-CIA officer) Abigail Spanberger, who alleged Gabbard is unfit because she traffics in conspiracies. The most frequently cited example of this is Gabbard saying she was "skeptical" about Assad's use of chemical weapons.
If spreading conspiracies was an actual concern, half of Washington and the media would resign. Here's Spanberger on CNN pushing the lie about Russia placing bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. This lie played a central role in the Democrats' depiction of Trump as weak on foreign policy in the 2020 election. After Biden became president, his administration quietly admitted there's little evidence to the bounties story. Yet to this day, Spanberger's twitter continues peddling this tale.
In general, the notion that Gabbard is a fount of disinformation is a bit rich coming from individuals who spent years whipping the country into a panic by claiming Putin had a pee tape on Trump, or who sought to influence the 2020 election by falsely alleging Hunter Biden's laptop was a Russian disinfo operation.
As far as parroting Putin: To the hawks in think tanks and the media, any talk that doesn't involve escalating (or at the very least, maintaining) war is un-American. Gabbard's sin is criticizing Ukraine and calling for an end to the hostilities. Kyiv's recruitment has grown so abysmal that entire towns are empty of men who fear venturing outside, lest they be abducted by pressgangs; every day brings new videos of Ukrainian men desperately fighting to avoid being sent to die. Perhaps those Ukrainians are also Kremlin tools like Gabbard. More likely, she's just antiwar.
This helps explain why Gabbard elicits a seething hatred from people like Frum, Clinton, and Nichols. They're part of Washington's sprawling, nearly-always unelected foreign policy ecosystem that feeds and thrives off of war. This system, like all organisms, is above all else motivated by self-preservation. Tulsi Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel and combat veteran with 20-plus years of service, speaks out against war from experience. Clinton, Frum, and Nichols, like many hawks, haven't served a day in the armed forces. Their trench is the cocktail party; Gabbard's trenches are trenches. It's why the foreign policy establishment hates her.
Our elites often bemoan Trump damaging America by breaking established norms. Yet for every dangerous deviation by Trump, there's an equal, if not worse one, from the Resistance. The firestorm around Gabbard's nomination is a perfect example.
For a good 70 years, starting with the U.S. Army's infamous evisceration of Joe McCarthy and until about 2016, the notion of public figures baselessly accusing people of treason to the United States—which is what Gabbard's detractors are implying—was beyond the pale. Treason is the ultimate crime, the only one explicitly defined in the U.S. Constitution. If you were going to level the gravest charge imaginable, you'd better have evidence.
Trump's campaign changed that. In short order, the Resistance—the people who bill themselves as adults who don't mess around with national security and disinformation—was hurling treason charges with the ease of preschoolers trading "Yo Mama" disses.
Clinton's spokesperson, Senator John McCain, Never Trump neocon and Washington Post columnist Max Boot, even former National Security Council analyst Alexander Vindman (who himself faced despicable smears on his loyalty) have all channeled McCarthy's methods, accusing everyone from professors to senators of carrying water for Putin.
Gabbard is like a red cape to the modern McCarthyites. Last Thursday, Senator Elizabeth Warren stated Gabbard is "in Putin's pocket." Warren was neither asked nor volunteered proof to back up her despicable charge.
Not to be outdone, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz alleged, also with no evidence, Gabbard is "likely a Russian asset," and "would be a direct line to our enemies." Wasserman Schultz (who never served in the military) should be familiar with being a secret asset. In 2015, Gabbard accused Wasserman Schultz, who was head of the Democratic National Committee, of gaming the debate schedule to favor Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders. Several months later, Wasserman Schultz resigned as DNC head after internal emails proved she was putting her thumb on the scale for Clinton, just as Gabbard said.
Indeed, to understand our foreign policy establishment's hypocrisy at work, compare the outrage over Gabbard's nomination to 2018 confirmation hearings over Gina Haspel, whom Trump chose to run the CIA. Gabbard's detractors claim she doesn't have enough intelligence experience. Haspel didn't have that issue. The problem with Haspel is she played a crucial role in America's secret torture program during the War on Terror.
One would imagine placing someone who helped enshrine the terms "waterboarding" and "rectal hydration" in our national lexicon in charge of the CIA would be concerning to those clutching pearls over Gabbard. Yet somehow, Haspel was confirmed.
Running a torture program isn't disqualifying for D.C. elites; quite the opposite. Remember that as you hear their indignant shrieks this week.
Lev Golinkin writes on refugee and immigrant identity, as well as Ukraine, Russia and the far right. He is the author of the memoir "A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka."
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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