COMMENTARY: By Donna Miles

Of everything that I have read and watched about the unfolding events in Israel and Gaza, a tweet and a short video have stood out the most.

The tweet came from Dov Waxman, a professor of Israel studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. It read:

“To the people celebrating the mass murder of Israeli citizens, you have lost your humanity. To the people enthusiastically calling for Israel to decimate Gaza, densely populated with 2 million Palestinian citizens, you have lost your humanity. Israelis and Palestinians are real people, just like you and me.”

The video, posted on X, is a short clip of an interview with the distressed father of the young Israeli woman whose video of being taken hostage on a motorbike went viral on social media.

The father speaks in Hebrew with a voice full of pain. A written translation reads:

”Also Gaza has casualties… mothers who cry… let’s use this emotion, we are two nations from one father, let’s make peace, a real peace.”

The heroic words of this Israeli father and his belief in peace, despite his incredible suffering, reduced me to tears.

• READ MORE: Israel-Hamas war: Israel kills 500 in hospital attack – ministry
• Al Jazeera live news feed
• John Minto: A shameful NZ response to genocide of Palestinians in Gaza
• Other War Against Gaza reports

To the people celebrating the mass murder of Israeli civilians, you have lost your humanity. To the people enthusiastically calling for Israel to decimate Gaza, densely populated with 2 million Palestinian civilians, you have lost your humanity. Israelis and Palestinians are real…

— Dov Waxman (@DovWaxman) October 9, 2023

We, the international community, bear a big responsibility for the bloodbath of the past few days and the hell that is to come by failing to bring “a real peace” for Palestinians and Israelis.

A Gazan schoolgirl looks into the BBC camera and says: “I wish I could be a normal child, living with no war”.

We, the international community, have failed this child and one million other Gazan children who are about to pay “a huge price” for the crimes that they’ve had no parts in.

For more than 40 years, hundreds of UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, including one co-sponsored by New Zealand, have stated that “Israel’s annexation of occupied territory is unlawful, its construction of hundreds of Jewish settlements are illegal, and its denial of Palestinian self-determination breaches international law”, but there has been no accountability for Israeli occupation and its apartheid practices.

But now that we have this horror unfolding before our eyes, we are, at last, prepared to pay attention and listen to Palestinians as they are finally invited to the likes of CNN and BBC to tell us that what we have seen in the past few days, they have been experiencing for the past 75 years.

Husam Zomlot, the head of Palestinian Mission to the UK, described Gaza as the biggest open air prison, where 2 million people have been taken hostage by Israel for the last 17 years.

As I type this, Israel has ordered a total siege of the densely-populated Gaza, cutting off fuel, food and electricity to an already deprived population while conducting massive retaliatory airstrikes.

Half of Gaza is children
Half of Gaza’s 2.2 million population are children. These children have no Iron Dome to stop the rockets, and no sophisticated army to protect them as their houses are flattened and their bodies are charred and mangled.

An airstrike has already wiped out 19 members of the same Palestinian family who were sheltering in their house in a jam-packed refugee camp in Gaza.

A shell-shocked survivor of the strike said he didn’t understand why Israel struck his house. “There were no militants in his building, he insisted, and his family was not warned”.

Many Gazans have already lost family members, including children and infants, in previous wars.

The 2-year-old son and wife of Israel’s most wanted man, the leader of Hamas’ military arm, Mohammed Deif, were killed as Israel tried and failed to kill him during the 2014 Israeli offensive on Gaza which, shockingly, killed over 500 Palestinian children.

Targeting schools, hospitals, mosques and marketplaces, as Israel is doing now and has done in the past, in a densely populated area where people have nowhere to flee, can only reflect Israel’s total disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians.

If we expect occupied people not to target civilians then surely we must demand the same from their powerful occupier.

It’s rare to find a full body with all its parts the deeper we went into the hospital the more shocking and terrifying the scene became in gaza in result of the israeli air strike that hit the #baptisthospital #Gaza pic.twitter.com/tR9KC5sRvb

— PALESTINE ONLINE (@OnlinePalEng) October 17, 2023

Staggering failure
There has been much talk about the staggering failure of Israeli intelligence on multiple fronts. But Israel’s biggest intelligence failure is the ongoing assumption that occupation can ever co-exist with peace — it cannot.

I have no doubt that Netanyahu will do as he has promised and will exact “a huge price” for Hamas’ murderous attacks.

But we have been here before, and, time and time again, have learnt that collective punishment of Palestinians will only strengthen their resolve to fight for their freedom.

In his first message after the attacks, Netanyahu quoted from the poet Hayim Nahman Bialik: “Vengeance… for the blood of a small child, / Satan has not yet created.”

Netanyahu left out the preceding line: “Cursed be he who cries out: Revenge!”.

Killing more Palestinians will not solve Israeli’s security problems. The only path to peace is by ending the illegal settlements, annexations and dispossession of Palestinians.

Donna Miles is an Iranian-Kiwi columnist and writer based in Christchurch. This article was first published in The Press last Friday and is published here with the permission of the author.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

This week the Five Eyes alliance — an intelligence alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and the United States — announced its investigation into a China-backed threat targeting US infrastructure.

Using stealth techniques, the attacker — referred to as “Volt Typhoon” — exploited existing resources in compromised networks in a technique called “living off the land”.

Microsoft made a concurrent announcement, stating the attackers’ targeting of Guam was telling of China’s plans to potentially disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the US and Asia region in the future.

• READ MORE: Deterring China isn’t all about submarines. Australia’s ‘cyber offence’ might be its most potent weapon

This comes hot on the heels of news in April of a North Korean supply chain attack on Asia-Pacific telecommunications provider 3CX. In this case, hackers gained access to an employee’s computer using a compromised desktop app for Windows and a compromised signed software installation package.

The Volt Typhoon announcement has led to a rare admission by the US National Security Agency that Australia and other Five Eyes partners are engaged in a targeted search and detection scheme to uncover China’s clandestine cyber operations.

Such public admissions from the Five Eyes alliance are few and far between. Behind the curtain, however, this network is persistently engaged in trying to take down foreign adversaries. And it’s no easy feat.

Let’s take a look at the events leading up to Volt Typhoon — and more broadly at how this secretive transnational alliance operates.

Uncovering Volt Typhoon
Volt Typhoon is an “advanced persistent threat group” that has been active since at least mid-2021. It’s believed to be sponsored by the Chinese government and is targeting critical infrastructure organisations in the US.

The group has focused much of its efforts on Guam. Located in the Western Pacific, this US island territory is home to a significant and growing US military presence, including the air force, a contingent of the marines, and the US navy’s nuclear-capable submarines.

It’s likely the Volt Typhoon attackers intended to gain access to networks connected to US critical infrastructure to disrupt communications, command and control systems, and maintain a persistent presence on the networks.

Volt Typhoon is the name Microsoft and the Five Eyes intelligence agencies have given a Chinese state sponsored hacking group, which they say installed a mysterious code in Guam’s telecommunications systems. https://t.co/xEwith7ZmM

— RN Breakfast (@RNBreakfast) May 25, 2023

The latter tactic would allow China to influence operations during a potential conflict in the South China Sea.

Australia wasn’t directly impacted by Volt Typhoon, according to official statements. Nevertheless, it would be a primary target for similar operations in the event of conflict.

As for how Volt Typhoon was caught, this hasn’t been disclosed. But Microsoft documents highlight previous observations of the threat actor attempting to dump credentials and stolen data from the victim organisation. It’s likely this led to the discovery of compromised networks and devices.

Living-off-the-land
The hackers initially gained access to networks through internet-facing Fortinet FortiGuard devices, such as routers. Once inside, they employed a technique called “living-off-the-land”.

This is when attackers rely on using the resources already contained within the exploited system, rather than bringing in external tools. For example, they will typically use applications such as PowerShell (a Microsoft management programme) and Windows Management Instrumentation to access data and network functions.

By using internal resources, attackers can bypass safeguards that alert organisations to unauthorised access to their networks. Since no malicious software is used, they appear as a legitimate user.

As such, living-off-the-land allows for lateral movement within the network, and provides opportunity for a persistent, long-term attack.

The simultaneous announcements from the Five Eyes partners points to the seriousness of the Volt Typhoon compromise. It will likely serve as a warning to other nations in the Asia-Pacific region.

Who are the Five Eyes?
Formed in 1955, the Five Eyes alliance is an intelligence-sharing partnership comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US.

The alliance was formed after World War II to counter the potential influence of the Soviet Union. It has a specific focus on signals intelligence. This involves intercepting and analysing signals such as radio, satellite and internet communications.

The members share information and access to their respective signals intelligence agencies, and collaborate to collect and analyse vast amounts of global communications data. A Five Eyes operation might also include intelligence provided by non-member nations and the private sector.

Recently, the member countries expressed concern about China’s de facto military control over the South China Sea, its suppression of democracy in Hong Kong, and threatening moves towards Taiwan.

The latest public announcement of China’s cyber operations no doubt serves as a warning that Western nations are paying strict attention to their critical infrastructure — and can respond to China’s digital aggression.

In 2019, Australia was targeted by Chinese state-backed threat actors gaining unauthorised access to Parliament House’s computer network. Indeed, there is evidence that China is engaged in a concerted effort to target Australia’s public and private networks.

The Five Eyes alliance may well be one of the only deterrents we have against long-term, persistent attacks against our critical infrastructure.

Dennis B. Desmond is a lecturer, Cyberintelligence and Cybercrime Investigations, University of the Sunshine Coast. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

A year on from the fall of Kabul, Australian reporter Lynne O’Donnell returned to Afghanistan — and now says she’ll never go back.

O’Donnell returned for three days last month, only to be detained, forced to retract articles, and coerced into making a public apology for accusing the Taliban of sex slavery.

During this harrowing time, she was in close contact with Massoud Hossain, a Kabul-born photojournalist.

• READ MORE: Lynne O’Donnell: Taliban detained, abused and threatened me
• Afghanistan, the Taliban and the liberation narrative: Why it is so vital to be telling our own stories — Pacific Journalism Review
• LISTEN TO RNZ SATURDAY MORNINGS: Lynne O’Donnell and Massoud Hossain describe their ordeal
• See a gallery of Massoud Hossain’s images

The pair have worked together in Afghanistan for years, and both are on a Taliban death list.

Hossain is currently based in New Zealand, where he has been given asylum.

O’Donnell is a Foreign Policy columnist and was Afghanistan bureau chief for Agence France-Presse (AFP) and the Associated Press (AP) between 2009-2017.

Hossaini is a Pulitzer prize-winning photojournalist who joined AFP in 2007. In 2021 he won the William Randolph Hearst Award for Excellence in Professional Journalism.

They talk to RNZ broadcaster Kim Hill on their experiences and how they see the future for Afghanistan.

O’Donnell’s introduction to her Foreign Policy report on July 20:

“I returned to Afghanistan this week, almost one year after the withdrawal of the US military cleared the way for the Taliban’s victory. I wanted to see for myself what had become of the country since I flew out of Kabul on August 15, 2021, hours before the Islamists began what many residents now refer to as a ‘reign of terror’…

“I left Afghanistan today after three days of cat-and-mouse with Taliban intelligence agents, who detained, abused, and threatened me and forced me to issue a barely literate retraction of reports they said had broken their laws and offended Afghan culture. If I did not, they said, they’d send me to jail.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

Armed violence has escalated in Puncak Regency in the “land of Papua” – known internationally as West Papua – following President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s order to crack down on the rebels seeking independence, reports the Papuan newspaper Jubi.

Widodo ordered the capture of all members of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) while the Peoples Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker in Jakarta, Bambang Soesatyo, demanded that the government “talk about human rights later” after totally “exterminating” the TPNPB.

“I demand that the government deploy the security forces at full force to exterminate the armed criminal groups (KKP) in Papua which has taken lives. Just eradicate them. Let’s talk about human rights later,” Soesatyo told CNN Indonesia on Monday.

Soesatyo, who last year proposed that 9mm pistols be made legally available to certified gun owners for “self-defence”, also asked the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) to declare the group a terrorist organisation.

The human rights watchdog Setara Institute deemed the politician’s statement would only trigger a spiral of violence and add to the complexity of the Papua conflict, resulting in more casualties.

“Numerous cases of fatal shootings, which have claimed the lives of people, mostly civilians, has shown that the security approach is not the answer to the problem in Papua,” Setara Institute deputy Bonar Tigor Naipospos said in a statement.

Naipospos criticised Soesatyo’s suggestion to brush human rights aside, saying such rights as stipulated in Article 28i of the Constitution, could not be reduced by anyone, in including in war and emergencies.

Stop branding rebels ‘terrorist’
Secretary of Papua Pegunungan Tengah Student Association (AMPTPI) Ikem Wetipo asked the government to stop calling the TPNPB a “terrorist” group or calling for their “killing”, as in Soesatyo’s comment, which justified human rights violations in West Papua.

“Stop making reckless statements, [such as from] the MPR speaker and the President about capturing, eradicating the TPNPB. It means that the state justifies casualties in the process of pursuing the group,” Wetipo said.

Armed conflict has been escalating in Puncak Regency since April 8, 2021, when the TPNPB shot dead Oktavianus Rayo, a teacher in Beoga District suspected by the group as an Indonesian spy.

Since then, five people have died including the intelligence chief in Papua, Major General Anumerta IGP Danny NK, who was killed in crossfire last Sunday. The TPNPB was also accused of burning schools in Beoga.

A Jubi source was told that the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the National Police were seen pursuing the TPNPB troops in North Ilaga District since Tuesday at 9 am local time.

“We saw the security forces in three helicopters, [flying over] in Misimaga, Efesus, and Tegelobak Village. The helicopter landed at the Mayuberi creek, [then flew and] has not returned. Whether [the helicopter] has gone to Sinak or Beoga, we don’t know,” he said.

At 5 pm, firefights broke out between the TPNPB led by Lekagak Telenggen and the TNI and police in Makki, Misimaga, Efesus, and Tegelobak Village. The security forces also reportedly bombarded the villages, prompting villagers to evacuate to churches, forests, and nearby villages such as Tanah Merah and Gome.

No civilian casualties
There were no reports of civilian casualties reported by yesterday.

However, two Mobile Brigade (Brimob) personnel were wounded and one died in the crossfire, Papua Police spokesperson Senior Commander Ahmad Musthofa Kamal confirmed.

The wounded policemen are Second Insp. Anton Tonapa who was reportedly shot in the back and Chief Brigadier M Syaifudin, shot in the stomach. Meanwhile, Second Agent Komang died of a gunshot wound.

All wounded military personnel have been evacuated to Mimika General Hospital.

Meanwhile, TPNPB commander Egianus Kogeya claimed his party had shot dead three TNI members in Nduga Regency on Monday, who Kogeya accused of burning five houses in Alguru District.

TPNPB spokesperson Sebby Sambom, responded to Jokowi’s order and Soesatyo’s statement, saying the group would never back down in the face of the Indonesian government’s military operations.

“TPNPB is ready,” Sambom told Jubi.

“We are standing on our own land. Indonesia with the TNI and police are the thieves coming to steal our natural resources while killing us,” he said.

Sambom urged the Indonesian government to act in a “democratic” way and send a negotiator, instead of security forces, to meet with the TPNPB.

“We warn President Jokowi not to sacrifice any more [Indonesian] soldiers. President Jokowi must be open to negotiations with TPNPB’s negotiators,” he said.

Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

Armed violence has escalated in Puncak Regency in the “land of Papua” – known internationally as West Papua – following President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s order to crack down on the rebels seeking independence, reports the Papuan newspaper Jubi.

Widodo ordered the capture of all members of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) while the Peoples Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker in Jakarta, Bambang Soesatyo, demanded that the government “talk about human rights later” after totally “exterminating” the TPNPB.

“I demand that the government deploy the security forces at full force to exterminate the armed criminal groups (KKP) in Papua which has taken lives. Just eradicate them. Let’s talk about human rights later,” Soesatyo told CNN Indonesia on Monday.

• READ MORE: Indonesian intelligence chief in Papua killed in crossfire
• Papuan leader Benny Wenda responds to Jokowi’s crackdown order

Soesatyo, who last year proposed that 9mm pistols be made legally available to certified gun owners for “self-defence”, also asked the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) to declare the group a terrorist organisation.

The human rights watchdog Setara Institute deemed the politician’s statement would only trigger a spiral of violence and add to the complexity of the Papua conflict, resulting in more casualties.

“Numerous cases of fatal shootings, which have claimed the lives of people, mostly civilians, has shown that the security approach is not the answer to the problem in Papua,” Setara Institute deputy Bonar Tigor Naipospos said in a statement.

Naipospos criticised Soesatyo’s suggestion to brush human rights aside, saying such rights as stipulated in Article 28i of the Constitution, could not be reduced by anyone, in including in war and emergencies.

Stop branding rebels ‘terrorist’
Secretary of Papua Pegunungan Tengah Student Association (AMPTPI) Ikem Wetipo asked the government to stop calling the TPNPB a “terrorist” group or calling for their “killing”, as in Soesatyo’s comment, which justified human rights violations in West Papua.

“Stop making reckless statements, [such as from] the MPR speaker and the President about capturing, eradicating the TPNPB. It means that the state justifies casualties in the process of pursuing the group,” Wetipo said.

Armed conflict has been escalating in Puncak Regency since April 8, 2021, when the TPNPB shot dead Oktavianus Rayo, a teacher in Beoga District suspected by the group as an Indonesian spy.

Since then, five people have died including the intelligence chief in Papua, Major General Anumerta IGP Danny NK, who was killed in crossfire last Sunday. The TPNPB was also accused of burning schools in Beoga.

A Jubi source was told that the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the National Police were seen pursuing the TPNPB troops in North Ilaga District since Tuesday at 9 am local time.

“We saw the security forces in three helicopters, [flying over] in Misimaga, Efesus, and Tegelobak Village. The helicopter landed at the Mayuberi creek, [then flew and] has not returned. Whether [the helicopter] has gone to Sinak or Beoga, we don’t know,” he said.

At 5 pm, firefights broke out between the TPNPB led by Lekagak Telenggen and the TNI and police in Makki, Misimaga, Efesus, and Tegelobak Village. The security forces also reportedly bombarded the villages, prompting villagers to evacuate to churches, forests, and nearby villages such as Tanah Merah and Gome.

No civilian casualties
There were no reports of civilian casualties reported by yesterday.

However, two Mobile Brigade (Brimob) personnel were wounded and one died in the crossfire, Papua Police spokesperson Senior Commander Ahmad Musthofa Kamal confirmed.

The wounded policemen are Second Insp. Anton Tonapa who was reportedly shot in the back and Chief Brigadier M Syaifudin, shot in the stomach. Meanwhile, Second Agent Komang died of a gunshot wound.

All wounded military personnel have been evacuated to Mimika General Hospital.

Meanwhile, TPNPB commander Egianus Kogeya claimed his party had shot dead three TNI members in Nduga Regency on Monday, who Kogeya accused of burning five houses in Alguru District.

TPNPB spokesperson Sebby Sambom, responded to Jokowi’s order and Soesatyo’s statement, saying the group would never back down in the face of the Indonesian government’s military operations.

“TPNPB is ready,” Sambom told Jubi.

“We are standing on our own land. Indonesia with the TNI and police are the thieves coming to steal our natural resources while killing us,” he said.

Sambom urged the Indonesian government to act in a “democratic” way and send a negotiator, instead of security forces, to meet with the TPNPB.

“We warn President Jokowi not to sacrifice any more [Indonesian] soldiers. President Jokowi must be open to negotiations with TPNPB’s negotiators,” he said.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

On the other hand, maybe this is exactly the moment to think about the so-called deep state, if by that we mean the little-noticed machinery of governance that keeps dependably churning on in that same snow globe’s pedestal, whatever mayhem may be swirling around above it. Maybe this is even the moment to be grateful for those parts of the government whose inertia keeps the ship of state moving in the same general direction, regardless of who’s on the bridge at any given time.

However, that sometimes benign inertia is not what the people who coined that term meant by deep state.

What Is a “Deep State”?

The expression is actually a translation of the Turkish phrase derin devlet. As historian Ryan Gingeras has explained, it arose as a way of describing “a kind of shadow or parallel system of government in which unofficial or publicly unacknowledged individuals play important roles in defining and implementing state policy.” In the Turkish case, those “unacknowledged persons” were, in fact, agents of organized criminal enterprises working within the government.

Gingeras, an expert on organized crime in Turkey, has described how alliances between generals, government officials, and “narcotic traffickers, paramilitaries, terrorists, and other criminals” allowed the creation and execution of “policies that directly contravene the letter and spirit of the law.” In the Turkish case, the history of such alliances can be traced to struggles for power in the first decades of the previous century, following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The interpenetration of the drug cartels and government in Mexico is another example of a deep state at work. The presence of cartel collaborators in official positions and in the police hierarchy at all levels makes it almost impossible for any president, even the upright Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to defeat them.

The term “deep state” has also been used to characterize the role of the military in Egypt. As Sarah Chayes has written in Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security, Egypt’s military has long been a state-within-a-state with its own banking and business operations that constitute 25%-40% of the Egyptian economy. It’s the country’s largest landowner and the ultimate maker and breaker of Egyptian presidents. In 2011, at the height of the Arab Spring, a popular uprising forced President Hosni Mubarak, who had run the country for 30 years, to resign. The military certainly had something to do with that resignation, since he handed over power to Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

When, however, a nascent democracy brought their longtime opponent, the Muslim Brotherhood, to power with the election of Mohamed Morsi, that was too much for the generals. It helped that Morsi made his own missteps, including the repression of peaceful protesters. So there wasn’t much objection when, in 2012, his own minister of defense, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, led a military coup against Morsi. Sisi and the Egyptian military have run the country directly ever since, making the state and the deep state one and the same.

Donald Trump and the “Deep State”

From his earliest days in the White House, Donald Trump and his officials have inveighed against what the president has regularly labeled the “deep state.” What he’s meant by the term, though, is something different from its more traditional use. Rather than referring to a “shadow or parallel system of government” operating outside official channels, for Trump the deep state is the government — or at least those parts of it that frustrate him in any way.

When, for example, the judicial system throws up barriers to government by fiat, that’s the deep state at work as far as he’s concerned. Want to proclaim “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” but the courts put a hold on your executive order? Blame the deep state.

Did anonymous government officials tell the press that your National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, lied about his contacts with Russian officials? Blame the deep state for the leaks.

As early as March 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer acknowledged that the administration did indeed believe in the existence of a deep state, a shadow operation that had infiltrated many of the offices and activities of the federal government. A reporter asked him, “Does the government believe that there is such a thing as a ‘deep state’ that is actively working to undermine the president?”

Spicer replied:

“I think that there’s no question when you have eight years of one party in office that there are people who stay in government — affiliated with, joined — and continue to espouse the agenda of the previous administration, so I don’t think it should come to any surprise that there are people that burrowed into government during the eight years of the last administration and may have believed in that agenda and want to continue to seek it.”

In other words, for the Trump administration and its supporters, the deep state is any part of the apparatus of government itself that doesn’t do their absolute bidding.

The Huffington Post has assembled a convenient list of some of Trump’s tweets invoking the “deep state.” Here’s a summary:

• In November 2017, he blamed unnamed “deep state authorities” for a failure to continue investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails, calling those authorities “Rigged and corrupt.”

• That same month, he tweeted that the FBI and the Justice Department were withholding information about “surveillance of associates of Donald Trump.” This was, he said, “Big stuff. Deep State,” and he demanded that someone “Give this information NOW!”

• In January 2018, he accused Hillary Clinton’s former aide Huma Abedin of putting “Classified Passwords into the hands of foreign agents.” Did this mean, he asked, that the “Deep State Justice Dept must finally act”? If it were to “finally act,” he added, it should be “Also on Comey & others.”

• In May 2018, he accused the “Criminal Deep State” of going after “Phony Collusion with Russia, a made up Scam” and “getting caught in a major SPY scandal the likes of which this country may never have seen before!” Apparently the president was referring to a conspiracy theory of his that the Obama administration had embedded a spy in his campaign operation in order to ensure a Hillary Clinton victory.

• In July 2018, he was ruminating about a supposedly missing Democratic National Committee computer server that the FBI, he believed, had failed to impound. Was this failure, he wondered, an action of the “Deep State”? (Yes, this is the same nonexistent server he later asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look for in his country as a precondition for releasing U.S. military aid.)

• In September 2018, he inveighed against the deep state in general, suggesting that it and its allies were upset at his policy achievements. This time he suggested that the deep state does have its extra-governmental allies, “the Left” and “the Fake News Media”: “The Deep State and the Left, and their vehicle, the Fake News Media, are going Crazy — & they don’t know what to do. The Economy is booming like never before, Jobs are at Historic Highs, soon TWO Supreme Court Justices…”

Trump, in other words, sees the U.S. government as infected by “Unelected, deep state operatives who defy the voters, to push their own secret agendas.” Those “operatives,” he told a rally in 2018, are “truly a threat to democracy itself.”

Does the United States Have a Deep State?

The November House impeachment hearings brought us the testimony of a number of career diplomats and civil servants like Marie Yovanovich, the former ambassador to Ukraine, and Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a Ukraine specialist on the National Security Council. Their appearance led John McLaughlin, a former deputy director of the CIA, to exclaim in a speech at George Mason University, “Thank God for the deep state.”

He meant it as a joke, but he was also pointing out that their dignified testimony might serve as a reminder of the value of government service. “Everyone here has seen this progression of diplomats, and intelligence officers and White House people trooping up to Capitol Hill right now,” he explained. Those who watched that progression, he said, certainly recognized that “these are people who are doing their duty.” McLaughlin told National Public Radio’s Greg Myre and Rachel Treisman that he had received some “blowback” from his joke, and added:

“I think it’s a silly idea. There is no ‘deep state.’ What people think of as the ‘deep state’ is just the American civil service, social security, the people who fix the roads, health and human services, Medicare.”

I’ll give one cheer for that kind of deep state: not a secret, extra-official shadow government, but the actual workings of government itself for the benefit of the people it’s meant to serve. Personally, I’m all for people who devote their lives to making sure our food is as safe as possible, the cars we drive won’t kill us, our planes stay up in the air, and roads and railways are built and maintained to connect us, not to speak of having clean air and water, public schools and universities to educate our young people, and a social security system to provide a safety net for people of my age — all of which, by the way, is in danger from this president, his administration, and the Republican party.

But there’s another way of thinking about the deep state, one that suggests an ongoing threat not to Donald Trump and his pals but to this democracy and the world. I’m thinking, of course, of that vast — if informal, complex, and sometimes internally competitive — consortium composed of the industries and government branches that make up what President Dwight Eisenhower famously called the “military-industrial complex.” This was exactly the “state” that I think President Obama encountered when he decided to shut down the George W. Bush-era CIA torture program and found that the price for compliance was a promise not to prosecute anyone for crimes committed in the so-called war on terror. January 2009 was, as he famously said, a time to “look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

Here is Mike Lofgren, a long-time civil servant and aide to many congressional Republicans, writing in 2014 about that national security machine for BillMoyers.com. In “Anatomy of the Deep State,” he described the power and reach of this apparatus in chilling terms:

“There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another, more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists at the White House or the Capitol…

“Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose.”

Lofgren was not describing “a secret, conspiratorial cabal.” Rather, he was arguing that “the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day.” This has certainly been the experience of those who have, in particular, opposed U.S. military adventures abroad. They discover that many of the lies, deceptions, and crimes of that “state within a state” are openly there for all to see and are being committed in the equivalent of broad daylight with utter impunity.

This, by the way, creates certain obvious problems for those of us who oppose the presidency and the striking new militarism of Donald Trump — if, at least, it means embracing such representatives of Lofgren’s deep state as that old war criminal, John Bolton. He has not become a progressive hero just because he’s suddenly proclaimed himself ready, if subpoenaed, to testify in the Senate impeachment trial of his former boss. If Bolton chooses to do so, you can be sure that he will not be motivated by a devotion to democratic government or the rule of law.

Trump’s own relationship to the national security deep state has been ambivalent at best. It’s clear that many of those officials initially thought he might be a weapon they could aim and shoot at will, but he’s turned out to be far more bizarre and unpredictable than any of them expected. There’s evidence, for example, that the assassination of Iranian Major General Qassem Suleimani was presented to Trump as the most extreme option possible — in a bid to convince him to act against Iran, but in a less drastic way. As the New York Times reported recently, “Pentagon officials have often offered improbable options to presidents to make other possibilities appear more palatable,” but they don’t expect presidents to choose the decoy. Donald Trump is clearly not one of those presidents.

There is a sense, however, in which the United States under Trump does resemble the original Turkish conception of a deep state, that “kind of shadow or parallel system of government in which unofficial or publicly unacknowledged individuals play important roles in defining and implementing state policy.” That’s a pretty apt description, for instance, of the actions of the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, in relation to U.S. policy towards Ukraine, which he’s been coordinating and in some sense directing for some time.

The only difference in this case is that Trump has been fool enough to acknowledge his personal lawyer’s role. May that foolishness get him turned out of office, one way or another. In the meantime, I’ll keep giving my one cheer for the civil servants who keep the wheels turning. I suspect, however, that as the world awaits developments in the Middle East now that Trump has followed 18 years of U.S. state (and deep state) disaster there with his own impetuous intervention, few people will be offering many cheers for the United States of America.