Politico on Bannon REMOVAL: The “big fight is between nationalists and the West Wing Democrats,”

-> a person familiar with Bannon’s thinking.

Who has spoken well of this demotion?

Karl Rove — who, as senior adviser to President George W. Bush, was not allowed to join national security meetings — said it was a move back to a better process. “It was wrong for him to be added in the first place, and it was right to take him off,” he said.

Even if Mr. Bannon really was removed only because there was no longer a need for someone to mind Mr. Flynn, Mr. Rove added, the end result was a victory for General McMaster. “It’s either a sign of McMaster’s strength, or the result is it strengthens McMaster,” he said.

Adam Schiff – “He didn’t belong on the principals committee to begin with — doesn’t really belong in the White House at all,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “I hope that this is a sign that McMaster is taking control of the National Security Council.”

Supposedly Rebekah Mercer (who is a huge donor, an EXTREMELY interesting person and was on the transition team) had to talk Bannon OUT of quitting.

NYT:

The shift was orchestrated by Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, who insisted on purging a political adviser from the Situation Room where decisions about war and peace are made. The principals committee, which is led by the national security adviser and includes the vice president, secretary of state, defense secretary and others, is the primary policy-making body deciding questions that do not rise to the level of the president and framing those that do.

Viewing the multiple excuses put about by Bannon’s people yesterday is humiliating for them and for the ideas HE formed to win the election.

My feeling is that McMasters was promised, as a condition of accepting the job in the middle of post Flynn chaos, and the refusal of the job by others that he would get his own people and would run the NSC shop. Fine. But given what we know about McMasters ..and here is MORE…

He has endorsed  “Militant Islamist Ideology: Understanding the Global Threat,” by U.S. Navy Commander Youssef H. Aboul-Enein .. the point of the book?

Aboul-Enein’s central objective is to urge American policymakers to distinguish between militant Islamists such as members of the Islamic State and non-militant Islamists such as members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

What did McMasters say in the endorsement?

“Terrorist organizations use a narrow and irreligious ideology to recruit undereducated and disenfranchised people to their cause. Understanding terrorist ideology is the first and may also be the most important step in ensuring national and international security against the threat that these organizations pose.

“Youssef Aboul-Enein’s book is an excellent starting point in that connection. Militant Islamist Ideology deserves a wide readership among all those concerned with the problem of transnational terrorism, their ideology, and our efforts to combat those organizations that pose a serious threat to current and future generations of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.”

and his Deputy Dina Powell…

Dina Habib Powell, 43, a former executive with Goldman Sachs, is the first Arab-American to join the Trump White House. She was born in Egypt and immigrated to the United States as a child with her Coptic Christian parents. Fluent in Arabic, she worked in the Bush administration, on public diplomacy to improve perceptions of America in the Arab world.

Powell is also said to be close to many Democrats, including some who have worked in the Obama administration.

…there is a lot to be concerned about.

For those of you who feel McMasters wears a uniform and is tough on our enemies the way one WT Sherman must have been, I remind you that the institutional mind set of this same army (and our ENTIRE ARMED FORCES) result in superb reviews of performance time after time after time for an officer name Nidal Hassan, fired someone like Stephen Coughlin

Politico and the NYT indicate also (and TAKE IT WITH A GRAIN OF SALT) that Jared and Ivanka want Bannon out, and Powell is connected to to Ivanka.

Those who want the ideas of this global war by the ASCENDANT FORM OF ISLAM upon those who make up their own laws by themselves as sovereigns on earth (i.e. democracies and republics) to conform to what was said and done from 9/11 onward have WON a significant domestic strategic victory. The POLITICAL CLASS has won this strategic victory. Oh, how is that struggle going for us?

Flynn, certainly had to be fired, but he and KT McFarland whom Powell is replacing are CLEAR EYED from an ideological and practical standpoint about Islamist war-making, and especially Iran and why Iran does what it does. That Mr. Trump appointed someone who demanded we conform to ideas and practices which are LOSING or leaving us stagnant in the war (2001 -now is not a win, or winning), is a very alarming, and negative outcome. It is, worst of all, either POOR JUDGEMENT, or a way-point marker that a very significant part of Trump’s campaign has purposefully euchred us.