Have You Ever Tried to Cross the Street with Your Eyes Closed?
The Trump administration and DOGE are preparing to fire 1,200 spies from the CIA.
Maybe the planned firing of more than a thousand spies is a gift to Vladimir Putin for the 80th anniversary of V-E Day, which Russia calls Victory over German Fascism Day. Or maybe the tireless effort to undo U.S. covert and influence operations around the globe is just another part of the gift that keeps giving.
Since January 20th, Donald Trump has openly bent over backward in his efforts to impede our nation’s ability to deter our enemies both at home and abroad. In times past, such acts by anyone would make professional spies wary. The light would shine on this person to uncover why he was working to benefit our nation’s enemies by recklessly undermining our ability to protect the nation. Thousands of spies worldwide awaken daily in the morning with one single task: Find ways to weaken the United States. Spies everywhere popped bottles of champagne when Trump was elected. Many took their families on vacation because they knew their jobs had suddenly become much easier.
When you think of the amount of resources poured into not just trying to weaken our defenses but also into efforts meant to plant computer bugs into the nation’s infrastructure — banks, water treatment systems, railroads, aviation systems, etc. — every politically-motivated cut by Trump’s fascist regime through reinforces those efforts by our experienced, well-financed enemies.
United States President Donald Trump’s administration is planning significant personnel cuts at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other major US spy units, according to The Washington Post, in a move seen as part of his bid to downsize key government agencies.
The CIA plans to cut 1,200 positions, along with thousands more from other parts of the US intelligence community, the newspaper reported on Friday (Trump Plans to Cut 1,200 Jobs from CIA).
If someone in the Trump administration sincerely believes that threats against the U.S. have waned and that the world has become kinder and gentler, then I would love to hear why they think so. Maybe they are right, and I live in a never-ending loop of Homeland. I am open to hearing that things aren’t as dangerous as they are. The thing is, part of me would agree that things aren’t so dangerous, all else being equal.
When the government is running relatively efficiently and doing the things it should be doing, like protecting the country, keeping an eye on inimical threats, and softening the influence of lying regimes like Russia, Iran, China, and others by running programs out of USAID, then the world isn’t so dangerous because a massive, unseen force across many countries works together to find and root out those threats before they become deeds. Most countries use the same resources to find these threats and threaten their enemies, resulting in a “mutually assured” prevention system.
What the Trump administration is doing unilaterally — gutting U.S. propaganda efforts by going after Voice of America, destroying USAID, propping up Russia’s failing army at the expense of Ukraine, weaponizing the Justice Department, and now gutting the CIA — creates favorable imbalances for our enemies. They don’t know where to begin. Not only are we enabling their efforts, but we are completely removing our defenses, which permits them to increase their pressure in ways never imagined for fear of opening themselves up to the constant drip-drip-drip of U.S. efforts.
In ways we cannot know now, each cut back on national security, which also includes the appointment of the historically most incompetent team of national security advisors and defense leaders, the steps forward our enemies take go unseen today because they are planting themselves deeper and deeper into our infrastructure. In December 2020, when Trump’s insanity was triggered and all he ranted about was the “voter fraud,” Russia launched the most significant cyber attack, Solar Winds, ever against our nation. The government was barely functioning because of the dysfunction of Trump, and so Russia took advantage of one of our weakest moments — transitions between administrations, made worse by Trump’s sickness.
Trump and his fascist takeover of our government will eventually be beaten back. But the damage is being done, and no one with the power to stop it is doing anything. Republicans, if they loved our nation and not their tribe, would stop Trump. Many of them in the Senate, and a handful in the House, are smart enough to know that what Trump is doing is decimating our national security.
I just can’t understand why they won’t act to save our country. When Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea join forces and poison our water systems or shut down the nation’s air controllers in a massive attack, we can be assured of two things: Republicans and Trump will not take responsibility for anything, and they will blame Joe Biden or Barack Obama.
Just think of it this way: The rest of the world will be immeasurably safer. If a burglar sees one home with high fencing, bars on the windows, security lighting and cameras everywhere, while the next home has none of these, which one will likely be hit? Trump just made France, Germany, Britain, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Poland, India, Argentina - I could go on - relatively less attractive targets. What a sacrifice by the US to save the rest of the world!