{"id":667821,"date":"2026-01-01T23:43:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T23:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/667821\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T23:43:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T23:43:17","slug":"a-blog-about-the-poetry-of-information-security-since-1995","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/667821\/","title":{"rendered":"a blog about the poetry of information security, since 1995"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Defense Department functionary published an op-ed in The Hill<\/a> this week falsely claiming that Donald Trump faces unprecedented resistance to executive power. The author throws \u201cscholars\u201d shade at President Truman and then signs his byline \u201ca civilian employee of the War Department.\u201d<\/p>\n

The War Department was abolished in 1947. <\/p>\n

Erick Chomskis is a good example of why.<\/p>\n

He is not randomly picking Truman as an example (along with references to Carter, Clinton and Obama). He apparently has been tasked by someone to attack the architect of the system that constrains war crimes. The \u201cWar Department\u201d signature isn\u2019t cosplay, it\u2019s an ideological marker. It rejects the entire post-Truman civilian oversight architecture.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Truman built the guardrails. In 1947 he set civil rights<\/a> and the anti-fascist precedents the GOP hate. Notably, after he fired the \u201cdumb son of a bitch<\/a>\u201d General MacArthur in 1951 for refusing to respect civilian authority\u2026 in 1960 Truman correctly warned that Nixon was \u201ca no good lying bastard\u201d and told voters that anyone who supported him \u201cought to go to hell.\u201d He also said as much about the 1948 GOP in public<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n

PRESIDENT LIKENS DEWEY TO HITLER AS FASCISTS\u2019 TOOL; Says When Bigots, Profiteers Get Control of Country They Select \u2018Front Man\u2019 to Rule DICTATORSHIP STRESSED Truman Tells Chicago Audience a Republican Victory Will Threaten U.S. Liberty TRUMAN SAYS GOP PERILS U.S. LIBERTY<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Nailed it. <\/p>\n

So Chomskis is revisiting a very particular angle of propaganda, spreading specific falsehoods about Truman, to reverse the defenses against fascism.<\/p>\n

Writing Wrong History is Wrong<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chomskis claims Truman\u2019s Korea intervention established a precedent for unilateral presidential action.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2026what scholars call the \u201cKorean precedent\u201d for unilateral presidential action in armed conflicts.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is absurdly false. <\/p>\n

Truman acted under UN Security Council Resolution 83<\/a>. The State Department meticulously documented the intervention as an international police action as intended under the emergent UN authority. Congress appropriated funds and extended the draft. Contested? Sure, because politics, duh. Unilateral? Not even close.<\/p>\n

Let me be even more clear, to help the scholars Chomskis wants to invoke on this, because they actually contradict him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chomskis\u2019 claim that Korea established a \u201cprecedent for unilateral presidential action\u201d is brain dead. Truman explicitly ordered multilateral \u201cpolice action\u201d as a peace-time operation. It was the most exact opposite of Trump\u2019s random acts of unilateral war.<\/p>\n

Chomskis similarly screws up his claims that Obama \u201cordered military intervention in Libya in 2011 without a congressional vote.\u201d <\/p>\n

Nope. <\/p>\n

He omits how Obama reacted under UN Security Council Resolution 1973<\/a>, reported to Congress within 48 hours per the War Powers Resolution, and faced sustained Republican criticism almost as bad as the time he wore a tan suit. <\/p>\n

Come on. America must have a shortage of historians because this op-ed is unfit for print.<\/p>\n

Every example Chomskis cites operated within international legal frameworks. Yet Chomskis omits all the legal frameworks, to compare with Trump who ignores legal frameworks. That\u2019s the whole ruse of his disinformation.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s Caribbean bombing campaign is within no legal framework, unlike how Presidents before him operated. The comparison being made isn\u2019t about any real precedent. It\u2019s a targeted attack on Truman, telling wrong history, corrupting the record, with shameless war propaganda.<\/p>\n

Double Standard Donald<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chomskis is upside down and backwards as a sloppy propaganda tactic.<\/p>\n

The establishment (Republican House) that couldn\u2019t stop itself from puking all over Obama about Libya has said nothing about Trump bombing Venezuelan ports without congressional authorization. <\/p>\n

The party that went absolutely bananas about executive overreach now eagerly watches Trump refuse to spend congressionally appropriated funds, and says nothing. <\/p>\n

The \u201cestablishment\u201d supposedly persecuting Trump? That\u2019s his own congressional majority, who are maintaining perfect silence.<\/p>\n

Trump is committing obvious war crimes and is the literal opposite of Truman. <\/p>\n

He faces no impeachment proceedings. No congressional war powers challenges. No resistance from the establishment on any constitutional question. The unprecedented persecution of Trump exists not at all, unless you count Chomskis\u2019 disinformation.<\/p>\n

Fiction Function<\/strong> <\/p>\n

The Hill piece is an information operations product of the military\u2014strategic omissions producing false conclusions from grains of truth. <\/p>\n

Strip all legal frameworks, ignore all major details, erase congressional responses, and you can make anything look like a precedent.<\/p>\n

The target audience probably aren\u2019t historians and won\u2019t know the UN resolutions. They\u2019ll share because a \u201cWar Department\u201d just produced a hit piece on Truman.<\/p>\n

Chomskis is literally arguing in his conclusion that constraints on executive power threaten the republic\u2014when unconstrained executive power is the actual threat to republics. This is weapons-grade military propaganda, pushing fascist inversion dressed in constitutional language.<\/p>\n

His bonkers framing suggests that only elected officials (i.e. Trump) have legitimate authority, which is precisely the argument authoritarians make to dismantle checks and balances. His \u201cpermission slip\u201d fear is pure projection. Trump constantly talks and operates as if the presidency IS a permission slip for him personally, from no one.<\/p>\n

The byline of Chomskis is the signature. A defense bureaucrat calling his employer by its pre-Truman name is not confused about institutional attacks. He is announcing revisionism to promote fascism, choosing the wrong side of history.<\/p>\n

The Hill served this state-run Trump disinformation sausage without correction. Draw your own conclusions about what The Hill has become.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Defense Department functionary published an op-ed in The Hill this week falsely claiming that Donald Trump faces…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824],"class_list":{"0":"post-667821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115822500494925235","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}