The Military is Intervening in American Politics

Trump is a fascist, says the military intelligence checkbook

(This is Part Two; see Part One here.)

Follow the money.

I wrote this morning about the disinformation expert Caroline Orr Bueno, a postdoctoral fellow at ARLIS — the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security at the University of Maryland (who is identified as Caroline Orr on her ARLIS profile, so that’s the name I’ve used for her). Orr aggressively and repeatedly argues against the American political right, framing conservative politics as fascist and describing Donald Trump as an authoritarian figure. She makes a political argument, and she does it often.

Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D @RVAwonk

Re. Last night’s #TrumpRally: While often taking on the appearance of entertainment, rallies actually serve an incredibly important purpose in fascist movements, and we’d be wise not to write them off as a sideshow that can be ignored. 1/

This is true not only of her social media posts, but also of her published work. She’s a pro-Antifa political partisan (more about this in a moment), specifically arguing against the right and against Donald Trump rather than only studying disinformation across the political spectrum.

Now: ARLIS, where Orr works, is primarily funded by the Department of Defense, and its “core sponsor” is the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. You can download the 2021 annual report from ARLIS here, or click on this PDF file:

Arlis2021report

4.14MB ∙ PDF file

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You can find a description of the laboratory’s $46 million in funding on page 26 of that report:

So a research center largely funded by the military, and specifically sponsored by and aligned with the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, is arguing against a likely candidate for President of the United States and his supporters, participating in the work of shaping a political narrative while drawing DOD funds. Orr’s national security work as a military intelligence-funded researcher is to make sure people know that Donald Trump is bad.

This scholar has military funding:

Military intelligence is paying for politics. Military-funded academic researchers have the same academic freedom every other academic researcher has, and Orr has a right to express political opinions. But she’s doing government-funded research into the academic topic of Trump is bad so don’t support him, and that’s a misuse of federal funding and military authority. I assign the failure to the institution, not to the person. (The irony of military-funded academic leftist politics is not hard to spot, but that sort of thing doesn’t seem to matter anymore.)

What’s more, if you click on that link above to the ARLIS annual report, you’ll find this self-description of the organization:

It’s a military intelligence-funded organization that exists, in part, as a “personnel pipeline for the DoD and Intelligence Community…creating pathways into the national security workforce.” And it’s the home of the anti-authoritarian “In Defense of Antifa” scholar, a solid marriage of political activism and the national security state. State and party together, fighting against fascism! Don’t vote for the authoritarian candidate, military intelligence warns.

The much-discussed tangling of lines, here….

Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald

This is their tactic: they think if they drape a rainbow flag over Raytheon, or celebrate LGBT Day at CIA, or herald the first woman of color on the Citibank board, you’re barred from criticizing them. That’s their scam. It deserves nothing but contempt.

theintercept.comGCHQ’s Rainbow Lights: Exploiting Social Issues for Militarism and ImperialismSupport for Western aggression and policies of imperialism is now manufactured by parading them under the emotionally manipulative banners of progressive social causes.

….muddies the categories of left and right as we tend to discuss them, and suggests instead the presence of a Court Party and a Country Party, insider and outsider politics. It might be possible to talk me out of that conclusion, but the spectacle of the radical pro-Antifa, anti-authoritarian scholar cashing her military-funded paycheck is nosebleed-inducing, and I need a nap.

I’ve emailed officials at ARLIS — Orr’s email address is not listed on her ARLIS profile — and will post their response if I get one.