Appointment of “Warrior-Scholar” McMaster signals intensification of anti-Russia confrontation
22 February 2017
The appointment Monday of Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, an active duty military commander, as national security advisor has been welcomed by both Democratic and Republican critics of the foreign policy being pursued by the Trump White House.
He has been hailed by virtually all sections of the corporate media as a “warrior-scholar” or “soldier-intellectual,” whose record supposedly stands in stark contrast to that of his recently ousted predecessor, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.), the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, a partisan Trump supporter whose worldview encompassed a global war against Islam.
Flynn’s forced resignation last week was the product of a bitter internecine struggle within the American ruling elite and its state centered on Washington’s conflicting strategies involving relations with Russia and US preparations for global war.
Trump’s suggestion that Washington should shift from a policy of direct confrontation with Moscow to one of first preparing war against Iran and a showdown with China aroused intense opposition from within a military and intelligence apparatus that has devoted enormous resources to the buildup against Russia.
Officials from within the US intelligence agencies leaked wiretapped conversations held in the run-up to the Trump inauguration between Flynn and the Russian ambassador to the US that included discussion of anti-Russian sanctions that had been imposed by the Obama administration.
The claim that Flynn lied to Vice President Mike Pence about the content of these discussions and further leaks that the Trump administration had known about them for weeks provoked a firestorm of criticism, replete with…