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FEATURING RAHUL MAHAJAN – Intelligence agency staffers and elected officials alike are expressing shock over the promotion of White House chief strategist and one-time head of the right-wing Breitbart News, Steve Bannon, to oversee US national security policy. Donald Trump has appointed Bannon to the National Security Council, which is the highest level inter-agency group on national security. The move comes with demotions of the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is apparently unprecedented to have a political advisor to the President get a permanent seat the National Security Council.

Meanwhile one of Trump’s first foreign policy moves just days into his tenure was to approve a US raid in Yemen that was planned many months earlier under President Obama. The raid resulted in 30 Yemenis killed including 10 women and children. Among the dead was an 8-year old girl who was a US citizen. Nawar Al Awlaki was the younger sister of a 16 year old US citizen killed by drone strikes under Obama.

Rahul Mahajan is the author of two books on the Iraq war: Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond and The New Crusade: America’s War on Terrorism. He is also a PhD student in sociology at the University of Wisconsin and the US Foreign Policy and Empire Correspondent for Rising Up.