If I were trying to destroy a country, rip its social fabric to shreds, and bring on a blood-soaked civil war that left it in pieces, what would I do?

That might not be the kind of thing nice, Christian readers of The Stream think about very often. I promise you solemnly that other people do.

Thousands of highly trained professionals around the world strategically ponder such ugly ideas. Some work in China, Iran, or other enemy countries. Others live right here among us, and hate the country that hosts them — or even that birthed them — for ugly, Utopian reasons.

Turn the Elites Against the People

The way to get a country to tear itself apart isn’t a secret. Any student of history could lay it out for you:

Destroy the legitimacy of a country’s institutions, elites, and leaders. Convince people that the rich and powerful in their homeland hold the common man in crass contempt. That the courts are systematically rigged. So the rulers leave no options for the peaceful redress of grievances.

Teach the masses that their votes don’t really count, and the government is their enemy. And the media are lying to them, in service of private agendas. And a double standard prevails, even in criminal courts, depending on which political faction the accused belongs to.

In other words, act as the left did concerning the 2020 election.

Destruction Comes from Within

Nothing, nothing any Communist or Islamist anywhere on earth could try would be nearly as damaging as what America’s elites did to the country to oust Donald Trump. From Obama abusing FISA warrants to spy on Trump’s campaign, through the Russia Hoax, through the “shadow campaign” of US elites teaming up to “fortify” (fix) the 2020 election on behalf of Joe Biden, all the way to the Supreme Court’s refusal even to hear election fraud challenges, American elites have blown through America’s civic capital like Scarface snorting cocaine.

Whole books could be written about this. I fear they will be. By foreign historians in the future. Titles might include The Decline and Fall of the American Empire, What Happened to Uncle Sam? and American Autopsy. 

What They Were Hiding for Biden

Let me just focus on one hideous incident, which my friend Jack Maxey brought back to mind by courageously uploading the Hunter Biden laptop. The event was pivotal — it helped turn a US election. (Some 17% of Biden voters surveyed said they wouldn’t have voted for him if they’d known the facts about Hunter’s laptop.)

Dante puts at the very pit of Hell not fire but ice. The sinners he imagines being chewed for all eternity in the three mouths of Satan aren’t perverts, killers, blasphemers, or even enemies of the Church.

No, they are traitors. They’re men who broke the most fundamental of human bonds. Judas, Cassius, and Brutus sprawl at the dark, cold heart of evil because they destroyed their benefactors and friends.

Et Tu, Brennan?

The better you’ve treated someone, the more appalling it is — and he is — if he betrays you. Imagine if the story of the Good Samaritan ended with … the man he saved from robbers in turn robbing him and leaving him for dead on the road. Or if the Prodigal Son went on to murder his father and older brother, so he could seize their estate.

That’s almost how appalling it is to see members of America’s elites, who swore oaths to serve it, betray its trust. These people drew executive salaries and became powerful and prestigious because of this country’s basic goodness, and the faith it placed in them. And they turned against it, lied to its people, and wielded their credentials to sell it down the river. Why? To preserve their own power, and that of their petty faction.

Yet Another Russia Hoax

I’m speaking of the intelligence professionals who stepped forth just before the election to deceive us about the Hunter Biden laptop. Few, perhaps none of them, had actually seen the documents from the laptop, which sat with the FBI and Rudy Giuliani.

In their own words, they grudgingly admit: 

We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement — just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.

But these Deep State veterans did know one thing: Labeling those documents as “Russian disinformation” might work with low-information voters.

Go read what these highly credentialed experts coughed up as arguments to discount thousands of documents implicating the Biden family in foreign corruption. Actually read the text they cobbled together.

Worse Than the Case for Invading Iraq

The best these men could offer were weak, tush-covering speculations. Vague innuendos no judge would allow in court, and no intelligence analyst could get away with handing his superiors. Lazy misdirection worthy of a bad stage magician. Even the arguments for the US invading Iraq had much more substance than what these men offered. And our media gobbled it up like a dog back at its vomit.

But the arguments didn’t matter, nor the evidence. What counted was the long list of names, and their credentials. They expected reporters and editors to give credence to their Kleenex tissue of lies because of who they were. Their connections, their status. (A similar list could be made of journalists who betrayed their profession by lazily peddling another Russian hoax, to help the Democrats.)

A Wall of Shame

You and I should know who these intelligence professionals were, too. So I’m listing them here, along with the titles they wielded to bludgeon America into trusting them — titles they won by cultivating our trust, and now used against us and our country.

Jim Clapper – Former Director of National Intelligence, Former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Former Director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, Former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency

Mike Hayden – Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Director, National Security Agency, Former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence

Leon Panetta – Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Secretary of Defense

John Brennan – Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency, Former White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor, Former Director, Terrorism Threat Integration Center, Former Analyst and Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency

Thomas Finger – Former Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis, Former Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research, Department of State, Former Chair, National Intelligence Council

Rick Ledgett – Former Deputy Director, National Security Agency

John McLaughlin – Former Acting Director, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Director of Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Director, Slavic and Eurasian Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency

Michael Morell – Former Acting Director, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency, 
Former Director of Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency

Mike Vickers – Former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Former Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency

Doug Wise – Former Deputy Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, Former Senior CIA Operations Officer

Nick Rasmussen – Former Director, National Counterterrorism Center

Russ Travers – Former Acting Director, National Counterterrorism Center, Former Deputy Director, National Counterterrorism Center, Former Analyst of the Soviet Union and Russia, Defense Intelligence Agency

Andy Liepman – Former Deputy Director, National Counterterrorism Center, Former Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency

John Moseman – Former Chief of Staff, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Director of Congressional Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Minority Staff Director, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Larry Pfeiffer – Former Chief of Staff, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Director, White House Situation Room

Jeremy Bash – Former Chief of Staff, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Chief of Staff, Department of Defense, Former Chief Counsel, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Rodney Snyder – Former Chief of Staff, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Director of Intelligence Programs, National Security Council, Chief of Station, Central Intelligence Agency

Glenn Gerstell – Former General Counsel, National Security Agency

David B. Buckley – Former Inspector General, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Democratic Staff Director, House Permanent Select CommiSee on Intelligence, Former Counterespionage Case Officer, United States Air Force

Nada Bakos – Former Analyst and Targeting Officer, Central Intelligence Agency

Patty Brandmaier – Former Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Deputy Associate Director for Military Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Deputy Director of Congressional Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency

James B. Bruce – Former Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Senior Intelligence Officer, National Intelligence Council, Considerable work related to Russia

David Cariens – Former Intelligence Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency, 50+ Years Working in the Intelligence Community

Janice Cariens – Former Operational Support Officer, Central Intelligence Agency

Paul Kolbe – Former Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Chief, Central Eurasia Division, Central Intelligence Agency

Peter Corsell – Former Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency

Brett Davis – Former Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Deputy Director of the Special Activities Center for Expeditionary Operations, CIA

Roger Zane George – Former National Intelligence Officer

Steven L. Hall – Former Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Chief of Russian Operations, Central Intelligence Agency

Kent Harrington – Former National Intelligence Officer for East Asia, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Director of Public Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Chief of Station, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency

Don Hepburn – Former Senior National Security Executive

Timothy D. Kilbourn – Former Dean, Sherman Kent School of Intelligence Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency
Former PDB Briefer to President George W. Bush, Central Intelligence Agency

Ron Marks – Former Officer, Central Intelligence Agency, Twice former staff of the Republican Majority Leader

Jonna Hiestand Mendez – Technical Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency

Emile Nakhleh – Former Director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Senior Intelligence Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency

Gerald A. O’Shea – Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency, Served four tours as Chief of Station, Central Intelligence Agency

David Priess – Former Analyst and Manager, Central Intelligence Agency, Former PDB Briefer, Central Intelligence Agency

Pam Purcilly – Former Deputy Director of Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Director of the Office of Russian and European Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency, Former PDB Briefer to President George W. Bush, Central Intelligence Agency

Marc Polymeropoulos – Former Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Acting Chief of Operations for Europe and Eurasia, Central Intelligence Agency

Chris Savos – Former Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Officer

Nick Shapiro – Former Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to the Director, Central Intelligence Agency

John Sipher – Former Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Deputy Chief of Russian Operations, Central Intelligence Agency

Stephen Slick – Former Senior Director for Intelligence Programs, National Security Council, Former Senior Operations Office, Central Intelligence Agency

Cynthia Strand – Former Deputy Assistant Director for Global Issues, Central Intelligence Agency

Greg Tarbell – Former Deputy Executive Director, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Analyst of the Soviet Union and Russia, Central Intelligence Agency

David Terry – Former Chairman of the National Intelligence Collection Board, Former Chief of the PDB, Central Intelligence Agency, Former PDB Briefer to Vice President Dick Cheney, Central Intelligence Agency

Greg Treverton – Former Chair, National Intelligence Council

John Tullius – Former Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency

David A. Vanell – Former Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency

Winston Wiley – Former Director of Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency, Former Chief, Counterterrorism Center, Central Intelligence Agency

Kristin Wood – Former Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency, Former PDB Briefer, Central Intelligence Agency

Some of these people are drawing pensions from the US government. Many of them still receive highly classified security briefings from it, because they’re supposed to be trustworthy. How long can a country survive when its own elites turn against its people?

I fear we’re about to find out.

 

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream, and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns, & the Government.”