{"id":6415,"date":"2020-02-04T18:42:09","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T22:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=6415"},"modified":"2020-02-04T18:42:44","modified_gmt":"2020-02-04T22:42:44","slug":"even-the-left-really-believes-that-pete-is-c-i-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=6415","title":{"rendered":"Even the Left<\/i> really believes that “Pete is C.I.A.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The spooks\u2019 choice: Coup plotters and CIA agents fill Pete Buttigieg\u2019s list of national security endorsers<\/h1>\n

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Why are so many intelligence veterans throwing their weight behind a young Indiana mayor with such a thin foreign policy resume?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

By Samuel D. Finkelstein<\/p>\n

These questions continue to loom large over the 2020 Democratic primary field: Who is Pete Buttigieg? And what is he doing here?<\/p>\n

Seemingly overnight, the once obscure mayor of Indiana\u2019s fourth-largest city was vaulted to national prominence, with his campaign coffers stuffed with big checks from billionaire benefactors.<\/p>\n

The publication of a list of\u00a0218 endorsements<\/a>\u00a0from \u201cforeign policy and national security professionals\u201d by Buttigieg\u2019s campaign deepened the mystery of the mayor\u2019s rise.<\/p>\n

Some observers<\/a>\u00a0have raised questions about\u00a0Pete Buttigieg\u2019s intimate relationship with the national security state<\/a>, after it was revealed that his campaign had paid nearly $600,000 for \u201csecurity\u201d to a Blackwater-style military contractor.<\/p>\n

Buttigieg\u2019s new roster of endorsements from former high-ranking CIA officials, regime-change architects, and global financiers should raise more questions about the real forces propelling his campaign.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/CANCEL_SAM\/status\/1203166533813444609?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1203166533813444609&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthegrayzone.com%2F2019%2F12%2F30%2Fcoup-plotters-cia-agents-mayor-pete-endorsers%2F<\/p>\n

Buttigieg has offered precious few details about his policy plans, and foreign policy is no exception. His campaign website dedicates just\u00a0five sentences<\/a>\u00a0to international affairs, none of which offers any substantive details.<\/p>\n

Beyond a seven-month deployment to Afghanistan as a Naval Reservist in 2010, the 37 year-old mayor has no first-hand foreign policy experience to speak of.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0The Grayzone\u2019s Max Blumenthal reported<\/a>, Buttigieg\u2019s enjoys a long relationship with the Truman National Security Project, a foreign policy think tank in Washington, DC that advocates for \u201cmuscular liberalism.\u201d He has also taken a short, strange trip to Somaliland with a Harvard buddy, Nathaniel Myers, who ultimately became a senior advisor to USAID\u2019s Office of Transitional Initiatives. Otherwise, Buttigieg\u2019s foreign policy credentials are nil.<\/p>\n

Buttigieg\u2019s lack of core principles are what might make him so attractive to military contractors and financial institutions, two of the status quo\u2019s biggest beneficiaries.<\/p>\n

Mayor Pete has effectively positioned himself as a Trojan Horse for the establishment, offering \u201cgenerational change\u201d that doesn\u2019t challenge existing power structures in any concrete way.<\/p>\n

\"Patriot<\/p>\n

Eye-popping payments to a Blackwater-style mercenary firm<\/h3>\n

A review of Pete for America\u2019s\u00a0FEC disclosures<\/a>\u00a0found that the campaign had paid $561,416.82 for \u201csecurity\u201d to a company called Patriot Group International (PGI), from June 4 to September 9, 2019.<\/p>\n

Buttigieg\u2019s August 29, 2019 payment of $179,617.04 to PGI represents the single largest security expenditure ever made by a presidential candidate, according to the FEC.<\/p>\n

While the exorbitant amount of money raises questions, it is PGI\u2019s status as a Blackwater-style mercenary firm that makes Buttigieg\u2019s contract so remarkable.<\/p>\n

PGI\u00a0bills itself<\/a>\u00a0as a \u201cglobal mission support provider with expeditionary capabilities, providing services to select clients within the intelligence, defense, and private sector.\u201d According to the company\u2019s\u00a0website<\/a>, it offers services like counter-terrorism, counter-weapons of mass destruction, and drone surveillance.<\/p>\n

PGI is currently under a\u00a0$26.5 million contract<\/a>\u00a0with the Department of Defense to provide \u201ccontractor-owned, contractor-operated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aerial detection and monitoring support \u2026 inside and outside the U.S.\u201d It is a far cry from securing campaign events held in New Hampshire community centers.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/CANCEL_SAM\/status\/1202981267656052738?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1202981267656052738&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthegrayzone.com%2F2019%2F12%2F30%2Fcoup-plotters-cia-agents-mayor-pete-endorsers%2F<\/p>\n

Besides contracting with Buttigieg, PGI\u2019s only other record of\u00a0political work<\/a>\u00a0was with Newt Gingrich\u2019s 2012 presidential campaign. In a 2016\u00a0Inc. Magazine profile<\/a>, PGI founder Greg Craddock said his company stopped doing political work altogether, following a 2012 incident in which a PGI employee on Gingrich\u2019s security detail allegedly assaulted an overzealous Ron Paul supporter.<\/p>\n

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Why the mercenary firm chose to re-enter politics for the mayor of South Bend, Indiana remains an open question. Whatever the reason, Buttigieg\u2019s willingness to line the pockets of military contractors as a candidate might offer further insight into why so many in the national security state are lining up behind him.<\/p>\n

The CIA hearts Mayor Pete<\/h3>\n

Buttigieg\u2019s lengthy roster of endorsements is loaded with former intelligence operatives, national security hardliners, regime-change specialists, and vulture capitalists.<\/p>\n

Among Buttigieg\u2019s most notable endorsers is\u00a0David S. Cohen<\/a>, the deputy director of the CIA from 2015 to 2017, and a former Treasury official under George W. Bush.<\/p>\n

Cohen is regarded as a \u201cchief architect<\/a>\u201d of the crippling sanctions that the Obama administration imposed on Iran, Russia, and North Korea \u2014 earning him the ignominious nickname the \u201csanctions guru.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

\"David
Pete Buttigieg backer and former
\nCIA Deputy Director David S. Cohen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since leaving government, Cohen has made various\u00a0think tank<\/a>\u00a0appearances to advocate for continued use of sanctions in the aforementioned countries, as well as\u00a0Venezuela<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The impact of sanctions imposed under Cohen\u2019s watch has been equated to \u201ccollective punishment<\/a>,\u201d resulting in economic crises, food and medicine shortages, and\u00a0tens of thousands of preventable deaths<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In his tenure at the Treasury Department, Cohen was also instrumental in\u00a0drafting<\/a>\u00a0the Patriot Act, which restricted civil liberties and vastly increased the government\u2019s surveillance powers in response to 9\/11.<\/p>\n

Cohen has yet to speak publicly as to why he endorsed Buttigieg.<\/p>\n

Buttigieg was likewise endorsed by\u00a0Charlie Gilbert<\/a>, former deputy director of the National Clandestine Service, a top-ten leadership position at the CIA. Gilbert\u2019s role was to \u201cconceive, plan, and execute complex intelligence operations\u201d against \u201chostile target [countries].\u201d<\/p>\n

Another Buttigieg endorser,\u00a0John Bair<\/a>, is the former chief of staff for the CIA\u2019s Middle East Task Force.<\/p>\n

Dennis Bowden<\/a>, a 26-year CIA veteran, with much of that time spent in unspecified \u201cexecutive leadership positions,\u201d is also backing Mayor Pete.<\/p>\n

The Buttigieg campaign has cited the support of former CIA senior analyst\u00a0Sue Terry<\/a>, who made a \u201crecord number of contributions to the President\u2019s Daily Brief,\u201d during her tenure from 2001 to 2008.<\/p>\n

Two more CIA endorsements came from former senior intelligence officer\u00a0Martijn Rasser<\/a>, and former senior analyst\u00a0Andrea Kendall-Taylor<\/a>, who was also an officer at the National Intelligence Council.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re thinking, \u201cWow, that\u2019s a lot of CIA endorsements for a relatively unknown, small-town mayor,\u201d you\u2019re right \u2013 and it\u2019s just the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n

More Buttigieg backers include\u00a0Ned Price<\/a>, the career CIA analyst who resigned publicly in a February 2017 protest against \u201cthe way [Trump]\u00a0has treated the intelligence community.\u201d (Price was also a major Clinton donor, but insisted his resignation was non-partisan).<\/p>\n

Another CIA Buttigieg endorser is\u00a0Jeffrey Edmunds<\/a>, who moonlighted as a National Security Council member under Presidents Obama and Trump.<\/p>\n

Buttigieg was also endorsed by\u00a0Chris Barton<\/a>, the CIA\u2019s assistant general counsel during the Clinton administration, and\u00a0Anthony Lake<\/a>, whom Clinton nominated unsuccessfully to serve as CIA director in 1996.<\/p>\n

Mayor Pete\u2019s list of spook supporters similarly includes non-CIA intelligence community professionals like\u00a0Robert Stasio<\/a>, the former chief of operations at the NSA Cyber Center, and\u00a0William Wechsler<\/a>, former deputy assistant secretary for Special Ops at the Department of Defense.<\/p>\n

Buttigieg also named\u00a0Robin Walker<\/a>, a former deputy intelligence officer for the Director of National Intelligence, as a supporter. Walker now works for corporate weapons contractor Lockheed Martin.<\/p>\n

Regime change hit-men and debt colonists jump on the bandwagon<\/h3>\n

Yet some of Mayor Pete\u2019s most troubling endorsements come from outside of the military-intelligence apparatus.<\/p>\n

Buttigieg, for example, lists\u00a0Fernando Cutz<\/a>\u00a0as an endorser. For the first 16 months of the Trump administration, Cutz was the national security council director for South America, where he led US policy on Venezuela and was credited with outlining regime-change plans for the president.<\/p>\n

Since leaving government, Cutz has\u00a0continued to support<\/a>\u00a0the Trump administration\u2019s regime-change efforts against\u00a0Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As Max Blumenthal reported for The Grayzone,\u00a0Cutz attended a secret meeting at the DC think tank<\/a> CSIS dedicated to exploring US military intervention in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

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Revealing comments from @fscutz<\/a>, one of the key architects of the US coup in Venezuela, declaring that the goal of intervention is to \u201crestore Venezuela\u2019s place as an upper middle class country\u201d https:\/\/t.co\/jZsNLu5rWB<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/2IX8d1n41P<\/a><\/p>\n

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) February 15, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n