US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is the perfect instrument of President Donald Trump. Not only is he as arrogant and self-righteous as the beleaguered American leader, but he is also a impolite, nasty Trump clone who possesses zero social grace. Pompeo, like Trump, feels like his role is to insult and beat down the rest of the world to “win” a ridiculous policy war. Or in other words, he has no business being in charge of our foreign policy. And for those who think I am wrong…
Just recently Secretary Pompeo warned the heads of companies working to complete the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany to “get out now or face the consequences.” For those unfamiliar, Germany wants Russian gas and Russia wants to sell the central European nation all they can use. For years, however, the US and other nations have sought to block Russia from profiting from her vast natural resources. The reasons and instances are many, but basically, the Anglo-European alliance wants to keep the Russians down.
Nord Stream, the Ukraine situation, the war in Syria, and conflicts other parts of the Arab world, all these geo-strategic hotspots are about suppressing Russia, China, Iran, or other people whose leaders are not in the country club Pompeo belongs to. Pompeo’s rhetoric amplifies the nastiness of Trump, and of that segment of American policymaking that thinks the United States should rule the world like an empire. Threatening with still more sanctions, the US Secretary of State went on to say:
“Companies aiding and abetting Russia’s malign-influence projects will not be tolerated.”
Pompeo looks and acts like one of those meat-bone munching bulldogs you’ve seen on Saturday morning cartoons. His business is all about throwing his and Trump’s weight around the world at the expense of America’s reputation on the world stage. Watching from the wings, I find it difficult to believe my country ever passed a law called the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, but seeing these new fascists using the law as a sword for business, it’s really sickening. Yes, we’ve allowed an actual law enabling the neoliberals to conduct an economic war on neighbors, in a world that is supposedly a global community.
On the Nord Stream 2 affair, Pompeo and his minions claim “voices” in Europe are concerned over “Russian aggression”, and that America wants to help those fearful Europeans send a message to Russia through sanctions. I am living in Europe for almost two decades now, and honestly, I have yet to hear anyone “voice” the opinion that Russia is about to invade Europe. Most people on the streets do not even know about the Ukraine coup, the Donbass, Crimea, or any of the under the table workings that brought about this new east-west conflagration. In Germany, where we lived for a decade, the people just want their winter gas prices to be lower, and their salaries to be higher. I am sure this is the case in the entire world.
You find Mike Pompeo’s rooster-like gesticulations all over the TV news, on Voice of America, in Foreign Policy Magazine, at the AFP, and anywhere news people regurgitate information to save money on real reporting. The “media bullhorn” blasts the red-faced, former CIA director’s tough talk all over the world. I won’t dive too deep into Pompeo’s past, but discovering he was propped up initially by his West Point pals and the Hoch brothers was an eye-opener for me. For those unfamiliar, Koch Industries maintains the most powerful public policy manipulation machine in America.
And the Koch family is anchored in the oil business. Imagine that, a US Secretary of State and former Director of the CIA barking like a rabid dog over a Russia-Germany deal for energy! I wonder why he’s so angry? Oh, he worries for the American people, I get it. By the way, for those among you who wonder why Donald Trump says climate change is a hoax, the Koch family has spent more to create a community of climate deniers than anybody. Greenpeace estimates Koch Family Foundations spent over $145 million directly financing 90 groups that have attacked climate change science and policy solutions, from 1997-2018.
Mike Pompeo and the US empire’s nefarious dealings for profit are no huge secret. The time of cloak and dagger spying and deep state secrecy passed the instant Donald Trump was inaugurated. The people don‘t care, not since Snowden revealed the American Dream is some Orwellian porn flick. Pompeo, Trump, Biden, crazy Nancy Pelosi, the three-ring circus that is Washington served the purpose – to maintain “the order” of things. And the order is corporate, owned at the end of the day by fabulously wealthy families. In case you didn’t know, Pompeo was put in the US House of Representatives by these families, to serve as a fetch boy for big energy. Pompeo was on just about every committee that had anything to do with oil and gas from 2011 until January 2017. To frame Pompeo politely would be to say he’s got his fingers in blood pies from northern Syria to Yemen and way beyond, and he supposedly represents the American people to the world? Unbelievably, we’re witnessing a disintegration of America, led by people like Trump and Pompeo, who both feign a kind of “holy war” against everything and everybody not populist right-wing.
Groomed at West Point as a member of “the club,” cultivated by the billionaires who own Koch Industries, Mike Pompeo’s rise to power is like that of most puppets of big business. If he were a computer geek or a Wall Street type, the legend of Pompeo would be like the Google founders, or Bezos, or even Bill Gates. He’s “influenced” in everything he does by the big money and power that’s run the western world since the turn of the 20th century. If you disagree, read what Pompeo said about The Heritage Foundation in 2018 after he helped ruin the Iran deal:
“First as a private citizen and then as a member of Congress, and even today, the Heritage Foundation has shaped my thinking on matters of the world and public policy issues.”
His thinking and actions have been “shaped” alright. The words coming out of this war hawk psychopath’s mouth are reminiscent of fascist Germany, or Italy, or something out of an Imperial Japanese “Bonsai” playbook. On nearly every issue, Pompeo takes the extreme far-right position. He supported the NSA’s surveillance practices, he caters to the Saudis and Israelis in dealing death in Syria and Yemen, he’s adamantly opposed to anything that saves the environment, he’s doing more to melt Arctic ice than any man alive except Donald Trump, and the disaster he represents as a public official goes on, and on, and on, and on. The man is the ultimate hypocrite, worse than Trump in tying Christian scripture in with his warped and cruel definition of our world. He once said:
“To worship our lord and celebrate our nation at the same place is not only our right, but it is also our duty… America had worshiped other Gods and called it multiculturalism. We’d endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle…This evil is all around us….(Politics is) a never-ending struggle … until the rapture. “politics is a never-ending struggle … until the Rapture.”
So, he perpetrates the struggle, and his job security, making it all bonafide because he’s playing out God’s plan until he returns. And I guess German Catholics and Orthodox Russians are considered pagans by the US Secretary of State, and unworthy to decide whose gas they consumer or sell. Yes, I’ve got you all caught up now, haven’t I?
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”