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SWJ Blog
An Analysis of the Candidates on National Security and Defense Issues: Donald Trump (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/an-analysis-of-the-candidates-on-national-security-and-defense-issues-donald-trump)
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Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/an-analysis-of-the-candidates-on-national-security-and-defense-issues-donald-trump) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
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Trump, Islam, and U.S. National Security (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/trump-islam-and-us-national-security)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/trump-islam-and-us-national-security) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
Actually #Guccifer2.0 (the #Russian ops to hack #DNC/#Podesta etc.) is a division of the #SVR residing in building 4 of the SVR compound.
Russian so called "soft power" is really their non linear warfare use of information warfare and cyber warfare COUPLED with/to the heavy use of "black money".........AGAIN......eastern Ukraine.....Syria...and the US elections are part and parcel of Russian non linear warare directed straight at the US.....
Some in US CI community have wanted FISA warrants to go after Trump for many years. He has a lot to hide here. Finally, the game is on.
Prediction: several important members of Team Trump will be lucky to dodge prosecution under the Espionage Act in 2017
http://heatst.com/world/exclusive-fbi-granted-fisa-warrant-covering-trump-camps-ties-to-russia/
Two separate sources with links to the counter-intelligence community have confirmed to Heat Street that the FBI sought, and was granted, a FISA court warrant in October, giving counter-intelligence permission to examine the activities of 'U.S. persons' in Donald Trump's campaign with ties to Russia.
Contrary to earlier reporting in the New York Times, which cited FBI sources as saying that the agency did not believe that the private server in Donald Trump's Trump Tower which was connected to a Russian bank had any nefarious purpose, the FBI's counter-intelligence arm, sources say, re-drew an earlier FISA court request around possible financial and banking offenses related to the server. The first request, which, sources say, named Trump, was denied back in June, but the second was drawn more narrowly and was granted in October after evidence was presented of a server, possibly related to the#Trump campaign, and its alleged links to two banks; SVB Bank and Russia's Alfa Bank.#While the#Times#story speaks of metadata, sources suggest that a FISA warrant was granted to look at the full content of emails and other related documents that may concern US persons.
The FBI agents who talked to the New York Times, and rubbished the ground-breaking stories of Slate#( Franklin Foer) and Mother Jones (David Corn) may not have known about the FISA warrant, sources say, because the counter-intelligence and criminal sides of the FBI often work independently of each other employing the principle of 'compartmentalization'.
Continued.....
WHAT is interesting is that the story concerning the two servers .....one in the Trump Tower and one in the Russian Alpha Bank which five of the top US computer geeks certified as being in "conversations with each other" WERE SUDDENLY turned off when a NYTs reporter started asking questions for their story HAD their report shredded by a number of different internet trolls which basically deflected interest by the larger US MSM media outlets in the NYTs story taking it out of the standard news cycle.......WHAT many did not pay attention to in that story was the ability of those FIVE Geeks to track every server connected to the internet both in the US and globally.....
SECONDLY....concerning Russian cyber warfare....after the rather public warning issued first to Putin via Obama back channels...Russian media accused the US of cyber terrorism....YESTERDAY Putin publicly stated Russia will not interfere in the US elections.....BASICALLY a public Russian admission of their previous interference which indicates the seriousness of the US cyber threat to attack virtually ALL critical Russian infrastructure was fully understood by Putin....
Ah......the games superpowers publicly play that get somehow totally/completely missed by US MSM......
Worth reading....
Trolling for Trump: How Russia Is Trying to Destroy Our Democracy
http://warontherocks.com/2016/11/trolling-for-trump-how-russia-is-trying-to-destroy-our-democracy/#
LAST TIME I checked the US never requested to send US "neutral observers" to the recent DUMA elections that even social media carried tons of ballot stuffing fraud stories on ...even using Russian CCTV video footage from a number of Russian polling stations to prove it....
It begins. Russian MFA's Zakharova pours scorn on FBI, Texas authorities for blocking poll-watching by diplomats RUS https://www.facebook.com/maria.zakharova.167#
SO while the threat cyber warfare from the side of the Russians might have been stopped....Russian info warfare directed at discrediting the US elections is STILL continuing....
From a cold, grey, overcast.. rainy/snowy/slush weather day in Berlin/Brandenburg.....TO ALL US readers....GET OUT AND VOTE.......THIS IS AN IMPORTANT ELECTION not only for the US...... BUT for Europe as well....WHO BTW are better informed about the importance of this election than some Americans......I see being quoted in MSM these days.....
I did even from Berlin/Brandenburg...AND I do not even have a House Representive or Senator to represent me.....
Nothing special, just a headline on RUMoD TV channel Zvezda: "Clinton may start nuclear war on Russia if becomes president - The Daily Mail"
As an American who has for the greater part of 50 years defended the US from enemies near and far under Presidents good and bad from both parties I now after watching a potential Trump presidency give up on my own country…..
I had hoped that a change in US leadership would lead to resolutions of the Russian non linear warfare in eastern Ukraine and that war is as well being directed against the Baltics and Poland…..would have some new solutions for Syria and reigning in Iran in the ME and on how to confront an ever increasingly hostile Russia…..NOT to mention a very serious Russian cyber war we find ourselves currently in…..
BUT a potential US President that alienates a religion of 3B individuals WHICH in turn actually supports the messaging narratives of both AQ and IS…….a President that thinks a "Wall" can resolve immigration……a President that does not even listen to his DNI intel briefings and assumes that the Russians did not hack the US……….a President that publicly belittled US Generals……a President that openly condones and will use torture…..a President that thinks he can be friends with Putin who has unleashed his non linear war directed against US global leadership….which is Putin's stated goal……a President who had advisors tied directly to Russian black money and whatever the SVR has on Trump's own weaknesses while he was often in Moscow…..a President that wants and states he will tear up existing trade agreements and does not believe in climate change…a President that does not believe in clean energy……...a President that states that he will not use Article 5 of NATO unless the attacked country has "paid up their dues" ………….AND a President that claimed he was against Iraq all the while publicly stating he was for it and a President that while I fought in VN for 18 very long months used a "bone spur" in his foot which he could never recall which foot four times to evade the draft…..AND a President who has never shown me his tax returns while I have been audited due to residing and working overseas…..
ALL of this leads me to the simple question…..can I continue to defend the US as an American from enemies near and far??……the answer I am really sorry to say is no……
I have for a number of reasons over the years had the ability to file for German citizenship and passport and never wanted to cut my ties to the US…..but if Trump is in fact the new President of the US I will drop off the citizenship request the second he is confirmed as the new US President…
It is time to let the US be what it wants to be which I think it does not even know itself…..and enjoy the rest of my remaining life in a country that does socially care about it's society and it's positon inside Europe…..
I will slowly disengage from the postings due to the simple fact that the new US President and his "best friend Putin" will resolve Syria an eastern Ukraine as well as the Baltics and Poland and all the commenting in the coming months will not change that…and this new President will not lead the West as has the US for the last 70 years.....
I have enjoyed the posting simply because I have learned a lot about Ukraine and Syria that was never in the text books nor in MSM….and have learned an extremely valuable lesson in Russian non linear warfare that I use daily in my internet security company on the cyber warfare front that Trumps claims is being carried out by a 400lb person sitting on his bed....when even briefed the opposite by the DNI....
I have previously stated in a SWJ article comment……"people love populists until they take power"…
He did it!!!!!! And now America will be great again. Can't wait to see all those Hollywood a&&holes leave the country like they said they would if Trump won.
USA USA USA USA !
To continue....this saga....as per 09:24 today I formally applied for the German citizenship and passport and will be giving up the US passport due to the fact that a populist pied piper convinced millions of Americans that globalization and immigration can be simply overcome by building a WALL, roadbuilding and creating millions of good paying jobs......AND doubling the annual economic growth %.
So on or about 4 Jan 2017 I will formally be "German and a European" who no longer has to pay taxes to IRS.....and who can visit the US for 90 days per year without a visa....which is far more than I have done in the last years....
A little of my history....and it reflects why the pied piper was and will be totally wrong....in 1964 through 1966 before I volunteered for the Army and went onto to join Special Forces....I was working during my last year of HS and the first two years of the University of Texas as an unskilled oil field worker doing pipeline xray work.....as a "common laborer" EARNING 10 USDs per hour 12 hours per day seven days a week for a monthly take home before taxes of 3,300 USDs in 1966 dollars.....I was making more than my father who had a GI Bill BA and worked for an oil company.
Oil pipeline union welders were earning 75 USDs per hour....AND today what are the equivalent wages?.....no way close to 1966...AND that is not due to "globalization"...
Second example...from 1996 thru to the internet bust in 2000 the average bidding war salaries for internet IT personnel and coders was say 100K to 130K USDs plus options....AND today...lucky to break 65-70K...WHY...IT companies took the bust opportunities to drive down salaries and increase bottom line profits to drive their 90 day earnings cycle for their stock...salaries were not driven down by globalization......BUT by the 90 day stock reporting cycle for their shareholders......in order to increase "shareholder value"......
So when a pied piper sells you that the evil of your problem lies with trade deals....or outsourcing....or the other party.....why do we not see people openly questioning those statements.....is it possibly a total lack of information and understanding just how the world's global marketplace works these days...but how could they know as most only have a HS degree???
I now have started an internet security company on the non profit side....for the last three years.. which is part German/part Swedish using available EU startup development funding streams for 17M Euros for the first two years and a follow on funding of 12.3M....in addition to what we earn in our various ongoing/running projects.
THIS is where the pied piper gets it wrong....I could in fact have taken my business directly back to the US and setup shop anywhere in the so called "Rust Belt" that followed the piped piper....and produced WITH Americans in America and then competed for overseas business.....
BUT HERE is exactly why there is a serious problem in the US and also as well in the UK with globalization...WHEN good to lower paying jobs disappear to even the lower paying BRIC countries .....THEY are simply never going to come back....
WHY not....the pied piper says they will come back....BUT it is all about competing for business and inherently good paying jobs means health insurance and other benefits driving up the overall hourly wage that needs to compete for business....in a global market where price determines everything. I recently lost a large deal because I was 4.50 Euros higher per hour than a competitor in Asia as the project was driven by a large number of man hours...and that Asian competitor was using outsourced US/UK geeks via the internet....
IF I had moved into this Rust Belt....I would have never been able to hire the 55 individuals I have now from five countries speaking four core languages....and yes the salaries of my employees effects my business decisions daily.....
Why BECAUSE all my employees have at least a BA/MA in computer sciences and or in five cases PhDs...in computer science.....WHERE could I have found that combination in say in Ohio...or Iowa....or Georgia....Iowa.....Wisconsin.....etc????
So when a pied piper claims to create millions of good paying jobs...I laugh and ask exactly how is that to happen....building roads...schools...bridges etc takes planning lead times....and money....if from the government then via taxes and if from private sources then via tolls and user fees.....
So again people love the heck out of populists and their speeches...BUT wait to see what they do when they are in power and can do something..BUT do nothing as they are in it for the "power"........
The so called Tea Party has basically controlled the US House for over 8 years AND what did they do to help those struggling in the Rust Belt....nothing at all...SO WHY will it be any better under a new "pied piper"?????
Anyway.....decision made......AND in a growing number of parts of this earth a US passport is not an advantage nor protection anymore....besides these days the only thing a passport is good for is crossing borders......time to finally not having to defend some screwed up FP by some US President who does not "get it"....
BTW....I am not the only one in Europe that is foreseeing major issues between the US and Europe....especially in the area of trade as Trump wants to place tariffs on all non Us produced products which actually then violates WTO regulations AND the US farm industry is then not going to be happy if the EU reciprocates with equal and or more tariffs on US products...Trup might one day wake up and realize just how many American good paying jobs are tied to trade with the EU and Asia..
France and Europe must defend their interests after Donald Trump's win, Alain Juppe says http://bloom.bg/2eL6aCQ
Remember, #Trump snubbed President Poroshenko during UN summit in NYC. #Ukraine could be left out in the bitter coldhttp://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/20/tru
mp-gives-ukraine-cold-shoulder-in-new-york-clinton-poroshenko/#
BTW....the German response below was far far different than the UK response....which is interesting as the German view of Brexit with UK is hardening....to the point of making UK pay dearly for leaving the EU...
Someone summed up my thoughts in far fewer words....
The Manhattan billionaire scoffed at ideologies and told his supporters what they wanted to hear: that society could be forced back to a nostalgia-drenched sense of community and purpose, that long-lost jobs could be retrieved, that a pre-globalized economy could be restored.
"People love populists until they gain power....then"???
Natalia Poklonskaya (former Crimean "Attorney") calls Trump to fulfill the promise to recognize "the Crimean referendum"
Here we go....
AND YES even the Iranians are panicking.....right about now as Trump did not have "nice things to say about them"...
IRAN PRESIDENT ROUHANI: Donald Trump's government cannot reverse the nuclear deal
http://read.bi/2ekrJeZ
AND YES he could reverse the Iran Deal as he and a lot of Republicans critiqued that deal....
Charles Lister
@Charles_Lister
"Trump's term may be the beginning of America's fragmentation & its breakup"
- Al-Qaeda celebrates #Trump victory:
http://mme.cm/GSBW00
Notwithstanding internal U.S divisions, if a Trump foreign policy prioritizes 'strongmen' allies, Al-Qaeda will get an unimaginable boost.
Slapout....after 50 years of defending the US from enemies near and far and participating in four wars in the name of three Presidents I am one who took the opportunity as a former highly decorated SF VN vet and applied today for German citizenship and passport which will be granted me on 4 Jan 2017....saving me future years of paying US taxes ........and providing me a healthcare system bar none.....which many in the US would envious of......
FIVE things.....that you seriously need to understand and then reread every single word Trump has stated for the last FIVE years......
1. once in 1973 the West Berlin German Student Leader of the Socialist East German Youth Movement in Berlin West.....told me....."you Americans will one day have fascism with a smile"....ALL via democratic methods....WELL we finally made it 53 years later BUT we made it....HE then went on and stated "if you Americans ever fixed your core three problems you would be a superpower for decades
1.you are afraid of getting old
2. you are afraid of losing your job
Recognize a lot of the complaints of those that voted for Trump in the above three items?? AND this was 53 years ago and still we have not fixed these three problems nor will Trump....
2. Secondly, Trump has delivered AQ and IS a major narrative propaganda victory that ensures their existence for the coming years......so in FOUR years time will those that voted for Trump actually critique him for failing to defeat AQ/IS????
3. thirdly the same exact Trump in 2012 condemned the Electoral College AND has lost the general election voting in 2016......SO in reality he only really speaks for 48.7% of those that voted.......AND the lowest Electoral College number in history.....think about that......
4. fourthly his bashing of Muslims which are a total of 3B globally JUST reinforces the latest narrative messaging from AQ/IS........AND Trump stated he will protect Americans from IS.......so is encouraging IS "protecting the US"?
5. did Trump ever pushback or reject all KKK comments concerning their support of Trump and their being virtually one of just a few newspapers who supported him.....not a single time.....and his last ad of the campaign was not a series of anti-Semitic dog whistles of the KKK and "alt Right"....Trump has made now the KKK and the neo right "alt right" political dialogue fashionable.....
I am older than you are and have seen things while working summers in Louisiana and Alabama in 64 to 66..THAt you may have only seen in history books......BURNING Crosses and White Robes of the Klan....in numbers that would have surprised you every Saturday evening.
Lastly if you paid close attention to those ever boring HS Government classes...my time at least..... the US Constitution was especially designed to prohibit one person and or one party to control everything.....
REMEMBER what the German Communist Student Leader told me..."you Americans have a propensity to go extreme right using democracy as an excuse"....
Trump is arrogant.....aggressive..... full of conspiracy theories WHICH he believes.... MUCH like Iraqi's do....AND driven by vengeance ........and you find that healthy for the body politic called the US????
I have made that decision based on 70 years of being an American and defending her and in four years you might say something different ......but then you might not have the opportunity to leave....
Slapout....after 50 years of defending the US from enemies near and far and participating in four wars in that name three Presidents I am one who took the opportunity as a former highly decorated SF VN and to apply today for
German citizenship and passport which will be granted 4 Jan 2017....saving me future years of paying US taxes ........and providing me a healthcare system bar none.....which many in the US would envious of......
Two things.....that you seriously need to understand and then reread every single word Trump has stated for the last FIVE years......
1. once in 1973 the West Berlin German Student Leader of the Socialist East German Youth Movement in Berlin West.....told me....."you Americans will one day have fascism with a smile"....ALL via democratic methods....WELL we finally made it 53 years later BUT we made it....
2. Secondly, trump has delivered AQ and Is a major victory that ensures their existence for the coming years.......
3. thirdly the same exact Trump in 2012 condemned the Electoral College AND has lost the general election voting in 2016......SO in reality he only really speaks for 48.7% of those that voted....think about......
4. fourthly his bashing of Muslims which are a total of 3B globally JUST reinforces the latest messaging from AQ/IS........AND Trump stated he will protect Americans from IS.......so is encouraging IS "protecting the US"?
Firstly, thank you for your service.
Secondly, acquiring German citizenship does not preclude you from also filing US taxes with the IRS. You would have to renounce your US citizenship, which can be a costly process
Thirdly, the United States is not Fascist because of Trump's victory. Unfortunately, Democrats have been crying wolf about how Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr., Bush Jr. and now Trump are all reincarnations of Hitler ("and this time we're right").
Fourth, how has Trump aided Al Qaeda? He is less likely to support insurgent groups that have common ground with Al Qaeda and is less likely to overthrow governments in Muslim-majority countries than Clinton. Remember when the Kosovar Albanian mafia was transformed into "freedom fighters" by Madeleine Albright, and had to replace "Allah u Akbar" with a two-finger salute?
Fifth, not all of the results are in (Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire) so extrapolating the final popular vote on Hillary's ~225,000 lead is folly.
Sixth, Islam has a problem with terrorism. While that problem is one of a radical minority against a moderate majority and is subject to greater nuance than the presidential campaign has allowed for, it is nevertheless a Muslim problem. The statistics show that Muslim supremacist terrorism is a problem and over-represented, and that Islamophobic terrorism is under-represented and therefore not nearly the same type of problem.
Azor......earnings are in fact double taxed between Sweden and German and now the foreign earnings exclusion is far easier to prove as it was all fully reported to the US.....giving up actual citizenship is being assisted due to a number of previous events that tangate both countries thus no cost....
Fascism takes a number of forms.....now we have the issue that there are effectively no further checks and balances when laws are passed , and or court decisions made.....remember there is the chance that up to two Supreme Court openings will happen.....and the current SC has allowed a massive loosening of the 1964 Voting Rights Law and with the massive gerrymandering done in 31 Republican governed states voter suppression is a real thing..
It will be the statements made by Trump during his campaign and his potential coming actions concerning "Muslims" if he follows through on what he stated...that will play well in the ME to "prove" the AQ/IS narrative....
One vote over the other in the general election is a won general election.
The current ongoing Islamic Reformation has roughly another 300 or so years to run as it took 1500 years for the Catholics and Protestant's to work out their differences.....
What bothers me is the fact that those that voted for trump did not mind his not showing his tax returns....not worrying about his advisors ties to Moscow...and now the FISA search by the FBI on those advisors coupled with a server connection between Trump Tower and Alpha Bank........and no one cared about his servicing a 650M USD debt load when US banks cut him off.....on top of a rape charge hearing in Dec and his pending fraud case.....no one seemed to care.....or the high number of Russian buyers of his properties which in the UK is how Russian launder money or the ties of two of his advisors to Ukrainian black money and their former very corrupt President and who did not report to the IRS those earnings....
A debt servicing of 650M USDs is costly these days when coming from outside the US..we still do not know if it is from Russian and or Chinese banks that is being rumored.....that provided the coverage....
We still do not know the full story behind a top Russian mafia boss who was hiding from the FBI in one of Trumps properties.....complete with Trump office telephone and fax numbers...
Sounds like he is just as "crooked"........
BUT his biggest problem will be all the promises of things he will do that will in the end do him in...he simply awoke a series of expectations that he cannot fulfill inside four years and or eight years....as it flies in the face of actual business decisions that companies make everyday on where they locate and what they pay in this current global marketplace...BUT WAIT Trump is a so called businessman so he should have known that...BUT he still stated he will bring jobs and industries back to the Rust Belt......OR he will raise 1T USDs in private money for construction....SO what do the private investors get on their return and who pays it?????
Like 'The Day Osama was Killed': How the Military is Reacting to Trump' Victory (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/like-the-day-osama-was-killed-how-the-military-is-reacting-to-trump-victory)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/like-the-day-osama-was-killed-how-the-military-is-reacting-to-trump-victory) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
TheCurmudgeon
Outlaw,
I have not always agreed with you, but I am very sorry to see you go. Still, I respect your dedication to the ideals this country was founded on. Perhaps, someday you will return. Until then ...
Analysts Weigh in on Likely Trump Pick for Defense Secretary (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/analysts-weigh-in-on-likely-trump-pick-for-defense-secretary)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/analysts-weigh-in-on-likely-trump-pick-for-defense-secretary) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
Many thanks for the kind comments…..but maybe my disappointment with people like slapout who supported Trump is the disappointment that many Americans can no longer tell what is or is not simple common sense….
Maybe my advantage is having actually lived….and been around real and upfront in your face historical events from two cultures and languages…..AND that I have lived…worked and partied hard in two cultures and speak three languages and the most important point…I have a passport and have travelled this globe both for the government and for myself…
I have learned from years in Germany what is fascism and how it starts which we see again raising it's ugly head here….and it is far more important to me to push back on that development….than worrying about a group of people who voted for a racist….sexist.... vengeance driven male who broke numerous laws along the way and who might in fact be tied deeply to Russia…
AND this is important…..he burnt bridges inside an already divided nation which he failed to realize that by 2040 will no longer be "white" and male…….BUT WAIT that is exactly what he played to and he told those listening to him…nothing but pipe dreams as he can on the economic side not deliver on a tenth of what he said he would do.
WHAT he has unleashed is far more dangerous that Putin…..he wants to turn back the clock to the 50s that will never return and what many do not understand….a person who has stated what he has CANNOT simply change tones…just like a tiger cannot lose his stripes…..
Those that voted for his change and were angry about the status quo failed to realize that it was the same exact political party that has effectively blocked anything in DC for EIGTH FULL years……
WHAT Americans have been bad about is understanding history their own and the world around them….
Check the date of the Trump announcement to the world 9/11/38 here in Germany……..and the start to that event looks….feels ………and is exactly what Trump preaches and practices…..
The demos that many started yesterday who voted against him under the guise of "He is not my President"……is a deep sign of what they believe he will not do …..unite instead of dividing….
BTW…think about it…..the same security requirements for an average American to get the TS/SCI would have been denied on the actions of Trump and his finances for the last 20 years…..AND he has his finger on the nuclear button….AND we just give it to him……NO questions asked..sad really.....
TC.....just a side comment....there is a bitter and deep war already ongoing on the cyber side and where my company has been dealing with the dark net for over three years now and through that work I have constant contact to German and French agencies...where they have "known me " since the 80s where I interacted with them on the interrogation/CI side of the house.
One thing those that supported Trump and YES even Trump himself forgets is that one can only work with "others" when there is a level of "trust" between the members of that group...AND the second thing is "WORDS spoken by someone in power" are taken a full and complete face value especially when coming from an American...by European leaders in general.
My previous and current work has earned me that right of "trust" and believe me EU agencies have a hard time extending that "trust" to Americans who they believe correctly always take but never give back...
Over the last two days there has been in my discussions with them a constant and not so subtle conversation of just how much will be shared with the US in the coming Trump years.....
WHY...BECAUSE from a CI perspective they view Trump as being "compromised" by the Russian foreign intel service SVR....based on his years of parties and women and his known "interests"....THEY would have never missed the chance to "compromise Trump"....and hold that "compromise materials for later use"...that was how the KGB worked and the current SVR is no different believe me.....many seem to think that the Cold War ended and you can party hard with women..drugs and alcohol in Moscow as if you are in say San Francisco or Berlin on a Saturday night.....ain't so.....THEY also knew his money needs and business growth needs and that he wanted to build a Moscow Trump Tower.
WHAT many US voters do not fully understand is that the level and intensity of Russian intel collection and activities by their FSB/SVR FAR surpasses that of the Cold War....they are aggressive and everywhere these days due to the ease of travel which was not there in the Cold War days...AND we in the US has simply "slept through this intel war" in the believe..."it ain't that bad"....
There is now a deep "distrust" of the new US President I have never seen before in all my years of dealing with Europeans as a whole...they truly do view him as "compromised" especially when one looks at his verbal support of Putin...his business and money funding activities in Russia...his selling of expensive property to Russian oligarchs a usually money laundering method for them....and the closeness of two of his first key advisors to Russia one of which had direct and confirmed business ties to a well known Russian spy master...ALL red flags in their eyes...so why would they share information on Russian activities with the US knowing that information has the possibility of then heading on to Russia....actually agree with them...
Trump ranted and called out...the EU trade policies...called out and critiqued NATO leaving NATO to wonder aloud if the US was a partner at all....AND ESPECIALLY called out Merkel and critiqued her openly... FOR over 18 long months.
Today the first polling has come in from Germans and French where 2/3rds of those asked view Trump as a danger to world peace and a danger to Europe...especially a danger to Germany/Germans...
I have never ever seen that before in my 50 odd years or so here.....
Secondly...when the EU announced that they were thinking of redoing NATO and flipping it into a EU Army...Obama and company roundly critiqued that decision as did many US policy wonks in DC....as being reduntant aned not necessary...
BUT this morning the EU Commission President openly stated it is time to start the process as it is apparent from Trump's FP statements he is no longer interested in nor supporting NATO and Juncker stated it is time to form a EU Army to defend both Europe and defend their foreign policies....
WHAT Trump totally forgot BUT how could he have known as he is a construction and real estate businessman...NATO's only one time use of Article 5 signed off by all NATO members was "in the defense of the US after 9/11"....
If one looks at the comments yesterday by the German FM....Merkel and her Vice Chancellor... I have never seen such bluntness.....
1. You are a superpower the world's strongest on the military... economic...political and social side AND you have a responsibility to lead.... as a superpower you cannot simply retire....
2. They openly warned between the lines that Trump must adhere to those common values that Europe thought existed between them and the US....fairness.....trust....protection of civilian liberties and basic human rights.
3. The US will now under Trump go which ever way they want to without consulting Europe...as Trump has repeatedly stated US first and last over everything else.
Europe critiquing the US on their need to hold to the protection of civil liberties and human rights.....strange right???
BUT when you hear Ryan stating yesterday that Trump was given a "mandate" alarm bells ring in Berlin/Paris....as they fully know that he had the lowest Electoral College votes in decades barely over 270---276---and he did not win the popular general election voting thus he does not effectively speak for more than 49% of those who voted not 49% OUT of the entire US population.....
The word "mandate" in European ears means your party took 60% or more on the general popular vote.....the word "mandate" that Ryan is using awakes in their minds the word....."tyranny " ........AND believe me that is exactly what Ryan meant......the 49% that voted for Trump dictating to the remaining 50% percent of the population what will be done in their name....
Meaning Trump threatened to jail Clinton for so called corruption (after EIGHT different congressional investigations found ABSOLUTELY nothing at a cost of millions of US taxpayers money and he basically threatened to deport 11M starting after he takes office....so if he promised that to his "followers" WILL he follow through? Heck his followers wanted to kill Clinton and hang journalists....THAT tone is fascist ...plain and simple....
Secondly will Trump eliminate "free speech" long one of the core US beliefs....WHY..... did not his followers hear him state over and over the media is corrupt....is against him...lies and.. ..and the US needs the same liable laws as the UK so the free press cannot openly critique a leader without threat of being sued....
YES he stated it over and over BUT it appears no one listened except his followers...
That is why I said the "US stands on the edge of a smiling and benevolent fascism"....all under the guise of democracy....ALL the elements are now in place BUT does the public see it coming....no they do not....
WE now have a US President with absolutely no political background..........knows virtually nothing about world politics and security issues...has never served in the military..has damaged directly the US civmil relations by belittling US Generals and how they are attacking Mosul as he Trump knew how to do it better it seems.....AND repeatedly claimed the electoral process was "rigged" BUT he says he will get the best and brightest to advise him......so we no longer have a President ...we have a Presidential Council leading the US that was not elected..........
BUT a major question that his followers DID NOT answer was......WHAT happens if in the IRS audit he is found to have via fraud directly violated tax codes and laws......do those same followers excuse his behavior because that is what business people do Or do they demand his impeachment.....
LASTLY will Trump park all of his businesses into a required "blind trust" what he cannot control nor can members of his family THAT all Presidents before him have done...in order to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest just as he accused Clinton and the Clinton Foundation of not doing and then quoting all of the Russian controlled WikiLeaks leaked emails.????
NO he will not....
WHY he has repeatedly stated he does not play by the normal political rules and those rules do not apply to him WHEN he did not release his taxes as we where in theory to dumb to understand them was his response.....his followers should always remember that Trump and his son's statement....."we the people who have been filing income taxes for years"..."are to dumb to understand his"....
European view of what he will continue to do with his businesses....
Putin: Recognize the theft of Crimea!
Trump: No.
Putin: You can build a Trump Hotel next to the Kremlin :D
Trump: Crimea is Russia.
REMEMBER Trump did state that he would recognize the Russian military annexation of Crimea in one of his debates....AND he was asked that directly yesterday by one of the Russian MPs in Crimea....to do exactly that..."recognize Russia ownership of Crimea"....
Europe, Alone in Trump's World by Mark Leonard via @ProSyn
http://prosyn.org/q4iOTg7
Popular vote:
Hillary: 59,236,903 votes
Donald: 59,085,787 votes
The people elected Hillary, the system elected Donald
FAR from being a "mandate" in the eyes of those 59,236, 903 voters....
@BBCBreaking
Donald Trump protests:
* Demonstrations in US cities
* Chants of 'not my president'
* NY, Chicago, LA, Oakland
http://bbc.in/2eEFPDc
THIS will haunt Trump for the coming four years....meaning the verbal grave he dug between him and those that voted against him.....not to include his requesting his followers to "take care of Clinton via the 2nd Amendment" or his countless comments about Mexican rapists and Muslims...will not be so quickly forgotten IF at all for the next four years....
White Americans have to get use to the simple fact that by 2040 "white" will be a minority and this coupled with a deep male dislike for a woman President played a far greater role in this election that what Trump followers keep claiming ..."economy and jobs"
AT no time did Trump ever really go into his plans for the economy and or jobs other than using big words and generalities....so one would have though his followers would have demanded far more details be they votes...so in the end it was not immigration as that was the just smokescreen just as immigration and the EU was a smokescreen for the UK Brexit that was really all about the effects of globalization....
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/europe-faces-trump-transatlantic-breakdown-by-mark-leonard-2016-11?referrer=/showthread.php
Europe, Alone in Trump's World
LONDON – Alone again. Since World War II's end, Europe has looked at the world through a transatlantic lens. There have been ups and downs in the alliance with the United States, but it was a family relationship built on a sense that we would be there for each other in a crisis and that we are fundamentally like-minded.
Slapout...something you and many Trump supporters have largely either directly supported and or silently approved.....the fought for in 1776 for the right to vote as an American WHICH today if you are even a poor white....black...or minority YOU are still being robbed of your inherent right to participate in US elections by a very determined group of Republican politicians/Republican State Governors....far right white surpremists/nationalists ie KKK and company and outright racists...ALL fearful of power of the single ballot..AND losing their jobs....
That is why I worked for over 50 years defending the US from enemies near and far so you and I both can vote and express our desires/ideas "freely without fear" AND I am 3000% against taking that right from others regardless of their skin color ...religious beliefs and or political leanings....AND yes even I support the right for a KKK member to vote his beliefs......even though I heartily dislike his politics....
THAT is what makes the US so different from say Russia....which claims you also have the right to vote and to free speech...that is until you critique Putin and get FIVE years for being a terrorist......OR you are a Ukrainian living in now Russian annexed Crimea claiming your Tartar rights to vote in the Ukrainian elections....arrested and given two years of prison for even attempting to vote...
Trump won Wisconsin by 27,000 votes. For perspective, 300,000 registered voters in WI lacked strict voter ID
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-gops-attack-on-voting-rights-was-the-most-under-covered-story-of-2016/?nc=1#
EXAMPLE of a Germany "who learned the democratic process from Americans at the end of WW2".....
Every German and I mean every German and registered foreign national with a residence visa carries a government issued bio metric ID card..AND YES even refugees carry an ID card..issued every five years.
On election day you simply go to your local poll station show them your ID card...they compare it to the voting database list for your area where you are registered....you get a ballot and off you go.....takes usually five to seven minutes....there are no extensive requirements placed on you by the government such as in Wisconsin or North Carolina to name a few US States....you are a citizen...carry an ID card and are on the voting registry...
IN say Wisconsin....you can only get it from a central location and have to produce some form of ID that says you live somewhere...BUT what if you are poor and have no firm location and or you do not have a mailbox address or you do not pay utilities to get a bill with your name?????
NO one in a Germany which instituted the US democratic election processes AFTER the WAR would ever think of trying to gerrymander voting districts to favor one party or person over another...where you live is your precinct period end of story and who wins is who wins and that then demands from politicians that they maintain a regular contact to their individual precincts in order for voters to know them over the year until the next elections......that is why German politicians and their parties have offices in their voting distinct offices where anyone can walk in and ask questions or file complaints....
Even homeless people in Germany have ID cards and can vote at a central voting area for say homeless people without a firm address....
HOW many US voters have ever met on the street and or in the supermarket their House Representative and or Senator on a regular basis?....NEVER...
THAT my friend is one of the inherent failures inside the current US so called democracy....that leads to widespread voter alienation and dislike for government...and politics in general.....
Trump named an honorary Russian Cossack. Those are the folks who literally whipped Pussy Riot, so a perfect fit https://themoscowtimes.com/news/trump-named-honorary-russian-cossack-56070#
Ahem....well said.....
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/11/aaron-sorkin-donald-trump-president-letter-daughter
Sorkin Girls,
Well the world changed late last night in a way I couldn't protect us from. That's a terrible feeling for a father. I won't sugarcoat it—this is truly horrible. It's hardly the first time my candidate didn't win (in fact it's the sixth time) but it is the first time that a thoroughly incompetent pig with dangerous ideas, a serious psychiatric disorder, no knowledge of the world and no curiosity to learn has.....
The battle isn't over, it's just begun. Grandpa fought in World War II and when he came home this country handed him an opportunity to make a great life for his family. I will not hand his granddaughter a country shaped by hateful and stupid men. Your tears last night woke me up, and I'll never go to sleep on you again.
TC...the US media reported just before the election about a internet server existing between the Trump Tower and the Russian Alpha Bank....it did in fact exist and is now the subject of a FISA request.
I have been allowed to review their data and in fact the server was configured in a way to avoid monitoring..configured in ways that the SVR uses to communicate with their field agents ie spys....and virtually undetectable if one does not what to look for....
THAT is the clue on this server..configured in ways the SVR is known to use to communicate with their overseas field agents ie spys......
NOW go back and look at how social media attacked the report massively over three days....NOW tie in the over 1/3rd of all proTrump supporting tweets during the entire campaign as being generated by a Russian troll company sitting in Macedonia AND then tie in an unusually high number of actual fake social media news sites carrying the Trump messaging and lies...
AND then tell me European security services are not concerned by Trump getting access to TS/SCI/GAMA intel.....AND their intel...
Russian Foreign Ministry was in contact with Trump team during campaign - Deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkovhttp://www.interfax.ru/russia/536442
AND REMEMBER Trumps own personal statement that he and his campaign has NO ties to Russian contacts and or individuals.....
Slapout....
To those who found Trump's pronouncements absurd, a key to understanding them can be found in an insight buried in an article published by the Atlantic magazine in September.
During an interview the reporter,#Salena Zito, caught Trump out peddling a ginned-up unemployment figure. She did what good political reporters always do and called him on it with a fistful of facts.
He responded with the blithe ease of a man who knew there was no threat for him in this moment.
"That's interesting," he said.#That was when it dawned on her. "The press takes#him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally," she said.
She is right. Trump made himself a populist chimera, and while the establishment bickered about what he meant, he allowed his supporters to make him anything they wanted.
Slapout...now go back into your history books and fully understand exactly just how Hitler took over Germany in 33/34.....by the exact same methodology.....Goebbels was great at it......
Actually all current US and European far right populist groups use the tactic....and use it well...
In Trump, NATO Faces a Challenge (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/in-trump-nato-faces-a-challenge)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/in-trump-nato-faces-a-challenge) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
"Quite a few" members of #Trump team were in contact with #Russian officials -- Moscow.
http://wpo.st/g6BD2
BUT WAIT......when confronted about this during the campaign BOTH Trump and his campaign sworn there was no contact......
KKK announces North Carolina 'victory' parade http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/under-the-dome/article113915898.html#
Trump's business empire poses unprecedented potential conflicts of interest http://reut.rs/2fV6Fg2
US president does not have to put assets into blind trust & Trump says his family will manage his wealth = liable to pressure.
Putin Press Secretary and close adviser Peskov in #NewYork.
Hint:Not only for chess match
#Buildingconnections w/ #PresidentElectTrump
I was watching Sky Europe at 0230 in the morning here in Berlin after the election and there was a US Political Science Professor and an voter analyst that at around 0430 stated that if the local voting counts came in as he was seeing them that in fact it might be possible that both Trump and Clinton tie at 269 to 269...
The Sky moderator waved off his comments in a hurry BUT he remained leery the entire evening about the incoming numbers as being accurate....
BUT two of the media outlets driving the early "wins for each state" were Fox and Sky...both owned by the same media owner and Conservative....
THERE are still a large number of votes that are coming in...and absentee ballots that have not be counted as well as a lot of local recounts and military votes that have not been counted and the popular vote numbers are actually increasing non the Clinton side not the Trump side and AP has YET to call who won four major US states....
THEN this today from AP...if actually when all the ballots are finally counted WHAT if it is actually a tie...THEN it goes to Congress which will then still vote for Trump...
BUT then what is his and the Republican "legitimacy" to claim then to the people they have a "mandate" to do as they please???? WHEN the electoral College was a tie BUT the popular vote went the opposite direction????
Updated#| As of Thursday, three states remain electoral toss-ups, according to Associated Press projections: New Hampshire, Michigan and Arizona. If Hillary Clinton wins the combined 31 electoral votes from those states, she will still be short of Donald Trump's 279 votes, more than the 270 needed to win the presidency.
However, AP analyst Michael McDonald, who teaches political science at the University of Florida and runs the United States Elections Project, an election statistics website, says he is skeptical that Trump won Wisconsin, as the AP projected. If that state flips for Clinton#and she wins the other toss-up states, she and Trump could be in a tie at 269 votes each.
BTW...there are still countless recounts STILL ongoing that are constantly changing the final numbers and the popular vote count for Clinton has actually been climbing and Trump's as remained rather constant...
This was TONIGHT. And he's not campaigning, doing some schtick to rile his "base".
This is simply who he is AND YES even his own voters stated they knew his "baggage" BUT were comfortable with it.
Now imagine him in office.
With the full power of state surveillance at his whim and the ability to imprison without due process.
If perhaps you're not concerned about the rights of free assembly and expression, let's look at freedom of the press.
During his campaign, Trump had media "blacklists" - journalists who were not allowed in his events because he didn't like their coverage.
In other words: he refused to respect freedom of the press even as a *candidate* - which was unprecedented.
He even called out a female journalist in front of an audience of many thousands and had the entire audience boo her. By name. In person
What do you imagine will stop him once he's POTUS from using the powers of the state to act out on his disdain and hatred for journalists?
AND he has voiced support for the same exact UK press liable laws to be able to sue at will any journalist article and or statements....
One of Trump's surrogates has already admitted the campaign is keeping a "list" of "enemies"..."enemies" meaning those that did not fully and completely support Trump...
BOTH bush Presidents saw Donald Trump and his cadre as so dangerous and extremist they disavowed them.
What we're facing in 2017 is a perfect storm:
1. GOP controlled House, Senate, and White House.
2. SCOTUS openings.
3. POTUS Trump
4. No moral compass.
WE have seen this already by statements of his transition team that those that did not fully support Trump will not be hired AND his denial yesterday to allow the press to follow his WH visit yesterday AS he has a distain for the WH Press Corp...THAT he has voiced over the last four years.....
WHAT is amazing is just how fast the press and journalists have finally after a long number of years "has gone against Trump"
WHAT TRUMP has vastly underestimated is the power of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) WHICH now he faces as a government employee....he must respond to and provide everything asked for or end up in court defending why not....and the Press has stated to dig and dig and dig in his past business deals...and his financial contacts to China and Russia...
THIS is the real reason Clinton had her own private email server ...to sidestep FOIA....
BTW.....Like Putin, Trump suggests protesters are being paid.
This destruction of property and violence is what the President-elect wants to see. It will give him a reason later to crackdown and introduce federal laws against demonstrations on anything...
One of the first symptoms of autocratic regimes is the paranoia that all protests are "professional". Good morning.
"Trump's electorate did not take his racism/mysoginism/threats seriously, unlike us", muse soul-searching pundits. BASED ON WHAT EVIDENCE?
IMHO the Trump supporters did fully and seriously take what Trump stated as evidence he would act on what he stated at his rallies..JUST the MSM did not....
Slapout.....this is just how fast a "democratic country" can in fact slide into a fascist state and in the US that slide with be with a "friendly smile" achieved under the guise of voters who thought they were democratically electing change......AND WHO in the end failed to stop smell the coffee and question truly question the comments...statements and actions of their candidate before voting......
You did know for example that in his 30 years he has either sued and or been sued 3000 times...that is 100 per year or ONE in about EVERY THREE DAYS OR that he has rumored outstanding debt loans from Chinese Banks and Russian oligarch black monies WHICH is exactly why he did not release his taxes over the last 15 years....OR that he has right now over 75 active law cases in both federal and state courts filed against him...for rape...fraud.....and criminal racketeering corruption charges....YET Clinton was the criminal in his rallies...
IN one active case he has yet to provide a court ordered disposition in person AS to WHY a company of his he owns DESTROYED over 4000 internal emails that pertained to the active fraud court case....WAS this exactly what he stated Clinton had done and should go to jail for.....????
BTW the Plaintiffs lawyer claimed publicly that his lawyers argued this week in Federal Court that since he is now President the case must be dismissed...Federal Judge..."sorry occurred before becoming President so he is sorry on the hook for the charges and trial...."
IMAGINE a sitting President just elected being hauled in front of a Federal Court for fraud and criminal racketeering charges?????
AND YET no one cared... AND we have those that have won cases against him who had to sign non disclosure statements about their cases state his wealth is not much to begin with...YET he claims he is a billionaire....
BUT WAIT until Trump is forced to reveal all via Freedom of Information Act requests that are being lined up to start on 20 Jan2017...then tell me his voters were right about their candidate....
BTW..if you and or I had done all of the above we would never even get a US Government Confidential Clearance approved...they might laugh at us for even attempting to get a clearance
CONCUR with this as it is what I has both seen and heard in my line of work from others who handle hacking events especially from the Russian state sponsored side and what I have heard as a serious possibility being voiced by European security specialists PRIOR to the US election... as it is a serious concern for their elections as well which are IT based...
AND if one is open minded AND understands the seriousness of the Russian state sponsored hacking attacks against the DNC and Clinton THEN that might if one took the time to analyze all election software line for command line...MIGHT explain why is it that in hardcore Democratic precincts there were larger than normal numbers of Trump votes which the Democratic Party still does not understand..
Russian hackers entered US voting systems in summer.US hackers believe they downloaded malware to influence count
BTW...these US hackers are the same professional IT hacking experts that first discovered and proved BEFORE the entire US IC that Russian state sponsored hackers were hard at work inside the DNC ....THAT "Trump argues was a 400lb person sitting on his bed"....
European officials scared they're next. Crowdstrike says DNC hackers attempted intrusions on 12 EU organizations, a few successful ones.
New York Times Ohio election results. Votes for Trump between these 2 counties
The numbers for MO are off and I'm not alone in thinking so. Margins were the tell. Each state should be examined
What is it about the margin in MO that leads you to this? I see something weird 1 county in OH
The whole thing needs investigating including colluding w/foreign govt during campaign
BTW...when the US hacking specialist group Crowdstrike speaks about this THEN the entire Federal Security and IC community needs to stand up and show the public they are serious about defending the US from Russian cyber attacks........
BTW...from my company and from others I know there were a large number of highly qualified US hackers were working within DoJ and independently to monitor all electronic activity pertaining to the IT driven and based election devices...and from encrypted chatter ongoing during that time indicated strong outside activities and strange unanswered ways the software was acting and it's reported results....not across the board by scattered county by county so as to not wake up monitors....AND always in RED counties driving up the numbers and in selected BLUE counties in swing states driving down the Democratic numbers.
ACTUALLY can and could be instantly proven if in fact the electronic tallies are officially and completely compared to the actual paper ballots....both Anonymous and Crowdstrike are of the opinion you will see the divergence....
Memo sent 4 am Nov. 9th to top HRC advisers based on info from US hackers protecting systems from Russia:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10157855450785389&id=614520388#…
DOJ was also being supported by the Anonymous hacking group ....who along with Crowdstrike seriously think that there is a strong chance....not chance but actual Russian malware installed in many of the electronic IT driven software packages used across the US for the election and that these software packages MUST be checked for a specific malware program...
WHAT is now interesting is that when there is a Republican AG WILL the Republicans actually investigate these allegations or will it be leaking of those hackers involved to open up this can of worms????
Most of your criticism directed towards Trump is disappointingly true, but what you failed to address is we had two deeply flawed candidates, and if you think white males were the only ones who voted for Trump, you are mistaken. Setting Clinton's corruption and nasty character to the side for a moment, she still represented a system that is failing millions of Americans. There is more to being a President than foreign policy, which frankly Clinton's record in that area isn't exactly flawless.
As for fascism, I have no idea how Trump will walk back from his rhetoric of hatred that appealed to red neck America looking for someone to blame their problems on. However, accusing Trump of leading a fascist movement totally bypasses the fascism being implemented by our left for years in the form of political corectness. Independent thinking and free speech have been suppressed for years in our universities.
Frankly I'm glad America didn't accept the status quo. Unfortunately we only had Trump instead of a person of better character to oppose the left. The Republican Party will have to reform, or we will need a new party to represent centrist views sooner rather than later. We're in a sad place now, but this is no time to quit America, it is time to get engaged.
I am not oblivious to the threat. Sites like Lawfare, War on the Rocks, and even Foreign Policy have all reported on the connection It is noteworthy that the only piece of the Republican Party Platform the Trump campaign had any interest in was removing lethal aid to the Ukraine. Why would Trump care about making sure the Ukrainians did not get lethal aid?
I fully appreciate what you are saying. I get the same vibe. But the American government is a huge bureaucracy that pretty much runs itself. Changes will not come quickly. In many cases, it will not come at all without open rebellion - the Constitution will prohibit certain actions.
I have to wonder how long the intelligence community will put up with Trump (or the Trump team) as a Russian pawn. Things to watch early will be who ends up in his National Security Team.
As for the real changes in the country, I am not sure if they will be a real fire of a fizzle. Trump is a symptom of what has happened in America since Nixon left office. 1. Economic - Real wages have been flat and globalization/international trade has redistributed jobs in a global market. American Trade deals did a lot to spread the wealth, but did not take into account the downside to the American worker. 2. Technology - Things are changing fast. You cell phone, that most American barely understand the full capabilities of, are being upgraded every other year. Robotics are replacing workers. The American education system has failed the American people. Add to this the belief that you must go to college, not a technical school. What jobs that were available in manufacturing in the US, American workers were not educated to take. 3. Social change. It was bad enough to have a black President, that was a shock to many people's system. There entire understanding of how American really worked was threatened. Then can gay marriage, women in combat jobs and the Rangers, and the final straw was transgender bathroom rights. At this point many white, older Americans no longer recognized their country. You had people who had been told from the time they were young that America was the greatest country on earth, that their children would have a better life than they would, that this country's motto was "In God We Trust," yet we seemed to be turning our back on God, and that the minorities, who were just a drain on the country's resources, were taking over the country. Trump did not create any of that. None of that was coordinated, it just happened. But some people took advantage of it to spread fear, and the people in power, rather than explain what was happening or soften the blow by not pushing so fast for change, simply dismissed the people's concerns - told them to quit being so racist. Not a smart move.
Regardless of Trump's Russian ties, what is going to happen in this country will be a re-balancing of power from the left to the right. How far right that re-balancing goes is hard to tell. But it would not have mattered who would have been elected. This "blow-back" was going to happen whether through the system, with Trump as President, or through violence by groups like the Oath Keepers and the III Percenters. Time will tell how far Alice goes down the rabbit hole...
TC...but here is the problem...we are now in the 21st century and 54% of the entire voting/registered American electorate are in fact women who earn what percentage less than men these days and who under Trump are poised to lose even more of their basic rights.....that most of the women in Europe take for granted......
Secondly there is no left in the US unless you count Sanders who is a Democratic Socialist....you are right there is a difference in internal and external US policies BUT being the 21st century both are actually intertwined to say the least...you cannot throw tons of money into the market place trying to create jobs without overheating the bond market which is international and with it's lower to no interest rates US has virtually had no cost for the government to borrow even more money.....and thus driving a higher currency value.
What passes for left is in fact liberalism based on US standards and what passes for a liberal in Europe...which might in fact be a moderate conservative in the US....
You cannot expand trade unless the US currency remains stable..and inflation will inherently make the dollar sounder thus exports more expensive thus loss of US jobs if US products get to expensive for the global markets..we already see the dollar climbing against the Euro BUT that only makes the dollar based US exports even more expensive....
EXAMPLE....a standard package of Oreo Red Velvet imported cookies is now 14 Euros...up from 11.50 Euros....as of yesterday a 3.50 change in less than one week
In a world where ethnic minorities are climbing number wise in the US and with a strong American black population the signal sent to the world that a black man could become President and or that a woman could become President is a strong signal that many in the US overlook today...the world would have viewed that as a strong signal concerning the internal civic health of the US...ANd what about the signal to US women and young girls that they can in fact climb the ladder and be just as successful at everything men do??
Regardless of what one thinks ....the US is a superpower...and you cannot simply "retire" and pull back to the borders facing the Atlantic and the Pacific...when it suits internal politics..WE did that twice and got both WW1 and WW2....
I know that the voting groups for Trump were across the board poor, middle income and yes even the wealthy voted for him BUt hear is my beef....
IF you are mad at the system....change the local first as the local has always been the closest to you then change the state level and then finally DC...
BUT does anyone seriously think you can change American top down??? I do not.
BUT my compliant is that if you voted for Trump I truly believe those that did vote were listening to the "narrative he was speaking' and that narrative was taken seriously and not taken as "just some casual rhetoric"....AND if you voted for someone that had heavy baggage as Trump does with 75 pending court cases and his lawyers today trying to get his fraud and racketeering cast delayed until after he is in office....simply because then he does not have to testify and end of fraud case....THEN you have a serious thought problem...
One cannot complain down the road when in the name of the voter Trump really goes off the rails and hits us in an authoritarian way and then his voters sit back and say..this is not what I voted for....
Reference Clinton....I am so tried of the Clinton bashing as I have been voting in every Presidential election since 1964 and after just how many investigations and no charges...how much longer does one need to see that there was never anything there...a total ton of smoke but never a single fire...
There is an old language learning tactic that says repeat the foreign word seven times and it will lock it into the brain...AND propaganda is no different...repeat the propaganda narrative seven times and it will stick in the upper brain area and hear it seven times more and you fully believe it to be true...even in the face of real evidence that it is fake...
Russian propaganda works on the 6Ds principle...distort...demiss/deflect...dismay..distract. all designed to create doubt and distrust...
NOW go back to the countless Trump statements made at his rallies and the very few interviews/debates and tell me just how many Ds were at work????
Trump dislikes no actually hates the media..that is way he held no press conference for over 110 days as he is bad at it.....and why he had no press on his plane....
WHAT he has truly failed to realize that makes the media even more aggressive and they were not in this election cycle...and now they will dig using FOIA....
So we have a future President that has over 75 court cased filed against him...we can prove countless lies stated by him....we know his heartfelt opinion of women and minorities especially Muslims...we know from his various business court cases and his multiple number of bankruptcies that he is not the super businessman he claims to be and we know he had deep ties to Russian officials which both he and his campaign denied publicly twice in six months YET Russian officials fully admitted yesterday they were in fact ongoing and constant...AND we do not know just how he is servicing a 650M debt
YET those that voted for him now argue "hey Clinton was worse"....come on TC ...think....seriously think it through....
On top of that we still have four states that are not truly counted and declared for either party...there are growing questions in Wisconsin and a serious charge of election result changes via Russian malware as well as confirmed Russian hacking before the election and during the election...AND the general vote of Clinton is climbing pass 60M and rising....while Trump's remains caught and stable at around the low 59M or so
AND Trump voters have no qualms about that?????
Go to www.greatagain.gov
You challenged Slap to respond to your critique of Trump, which is fair enough, but I challenge you to defend America's critique of Clinton. Trump and Clinton are both deeply flawed. People voted for Trump for three reasons, first many people wanted change. Second, others held their nose and voted against Clinton, and finally on a much smaller scale those you are raving against for being haters and simpletons. Either candidate swearing in as our President will be a sad day for country in my opinion when we have so many exceptional people in our country that the parties and mainstream media sidelined.
I take issue with your comments on black and women because they are divisive. You are implying, much like MSM did, that you can't vote Republican if you respect equality. While the Republican party does need to wake up the demographic trends you pointed out, the division between the parties should be how they will govern America, while race and gender equality should be assumed. Both parties sadly exploit these fissures, which further promotes divides within America that should not exist. There are many women and minorities who voted Republican because they believe in their economic policies, and they also believe in equality. The opposite is also true, there are many white males who voted Democrat because they believe in their economic policies. We'll become our ideal selves as a nation when gender and race are longer the topics of debate, because they shouldn't be the issue to begin with if we live by our alleged values.
As to your points about our economy being interwoven with the global economy. You're right, but that doesn't mean people won't vote for their interests locally. Hard to explain to the people in Detroit and other cities that you lost your jobs and ability to support your families due to globalization and there is nothing we can do about it. Further complicating the issue is the fact that we are at a significant inflection point with our economic system. Not only the impacts of modern globalization (especially the impact on financial systems), but the increasing impact of technology automating what was formally done by human workers. For the first time in history we are at point where the new technology revolution will result in less versus more jobs. Technology revolutions always led to social disruptions as people societies adapted to the economic order, this one may prove to be especially challenging. We need leaders with a vision that will guide America into this new economic order as smoothly as possible. I'm not convinced we have them yet. It is past time to sop over the election results. Now is the time to pull together and solve our problems. No quitting!
My...my.. a tad to late for buyers remorse it seems...
"Hope he's not so bad" continues a mitigating reinterpretation of Trump backers demanded during campaign despite his clear+odious language.
Trump Shows Every Sign of Carrying Out Sweeping Immigration Crackdown http://bloom.bg/2eGhpcm#
To media who played along with Trump to satisfy their audience needs & pretended he was credible--hope you are doing serious introspection.
Facebook must own up to its role in spreading toxic misinformation & chaos that got Trump elected
https://interc.pt/2fFBHY4#
The full story: 4.3M ballots uncounted in CA right now, likely that number grows in days to come...
Yes, Trump victory is abhorrent and traumatic for Russian-Jewish immigrants. It's just too reminiscent of a world we thought we left behind.
Media must call out PROPAGANDISTS as Remnick does: Trump campaign, Bannon/alt-right press, won w/lies and PROPAGANDAhttp://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/an-american-tragedy-donald-trumphttp://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/an-american-tragedy-donald-trump#…
The Kremlin says Trump's foreign policy approach is 'phenomenally close' to Putin's:
http://reut.rs/2foEbaj
Khodorkovsky Center @mbk_center
So what's going to happen when the tycoon finally gets to meet the tsar?
http://www.khodorkovsky.com/the-art-of-the-deal/#
Slapout...you started this thread and yet fail to respond to the accusations that Trump has far more legal and financial baggage that that "crook Clinton"....
Yes, I started it. I intended to have a discussion about Trump's policy's relative to the future of the country. Then you went into some type incomprehensible rant about what you think you know about me and the Civil Rights movement. And then went off with your democratic talking points that ended with you saying you have become a German citizen???
Anyone who would do that after an election and with the supposed Special Forces back round you have has some issues. Take a break and get some help.
I agree with you on this one, another thread taken over by a hundred meaningless twitter posts, and no space allowed for debate. While he challenged you to respond to his excessive number of posts, he hasn't responded to the criticism of Clinton. This thread is almost effectively dead.
This thread isn't about Clinton. That subject was closed by the election. The subject is President Elect Trump. So let's here what you, or anyone else, has to say.
Here is a place to start:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-and-aides-hedge-on-major-pledges-including-obamacare-and-the-wall/2016/11/11/9196b364-a82f-11e6-8fc0-7be8f848c492_story.html
He is just like every other politician. Now that he is in office, the truth will start to come out. The reality is that he can't do most of what he claimed without assuming powers that the President doesn't have. So now the truth comes out.
Disagree, outlaw made assertions about why people voted for Trump. In many, if not most cases, it was due to he was running against, not because they embraced Trump; therefore, she is relevant.
Regarding Trump, I think he will hit a steep learning curve, and rapidly try to walk away from many of his campaign promises that we're little more than fantasies. If he attempts to befriend Putin, he will lose the respect of the national security establishment and Congress. Domestically, if he starts going after illegals in a way that isn't legal or against the values most Americans embrace he'll build a wall between Congress and the White House. Then so much for making a deal. So he'll either disappoint his true supporters, or isolate himself from those necessary to advance his agenda. There will be rough spots, but our check and balance system will moderate them. It remains possible that he will actually be a decent President, the jury is still out. At this point neither the prosecutor or the defense have a case, so all we can really discuss with any degree of fact is why people voted for him.
The social movement in many parts of the world that brought us Brexit and Trump in broad terms is due to a backlash against globalization and the new economic order. A condition very relevant to the SWJ community for what it portends.
Bill....if you recall a number of my comments pertaining to Trump well before the actual election I was seriously warning of his lies and deceptions and his model that he was pushing which is neo nationalistic built on a healthy dose of racism driven by the KKK and the alt Right ....AND the 270 armed militias.
For concrete proof for what I just said check Trump's very last campaign ad and then count ...yes literally count the number of anti Semitic dog whistles being blared at his followers.....AND YES I use the term fellow travelers very accurately here....
I reside in the land of the living history of a man called Hitler who used a weak and splintered democracy to move his agenda forward USING the same exact dog whistles that Trump and company have used....SO I saw long before many saw in the US just where he was heading and tried to warn.
OUR democracy is a shell of what it use to be....WHY
26.6% of those that voted voted for Clinton
26.4% of those that voted voted for Trump
Actually the Clinton general election votes are still steadily climbing
BUT here is the kicker....over 49% of those that could have DID NOT VOTE
So in effect we now have a minority elected President and a minority splintered Republican Party claiming a MANDATE to rule the majority of the rest of the country.....THAT is a plan that goes over with them like a lead balloon.....look at the term "legitimacy".....and tell me Trump has "legitimacy" to represent the majority of Americans who actually did not vote for him......
We have a minority who voted for Trump trying to turn back the historical clock to a "better time"....WHEN both you and I from a vast amount of experience simply knows that will never work...WHY because we are educated...maybe speak a foreign language ...have travelled this world of ours...have fought and lost close friends in the name of defending this country and on and on......
WHY do you now think we are having the pop up demos across the country as the minority that won the election vote feel robbed....and I predict this movement will both grow and get more radical if in fact Trump follows through....there is actually a great resemblance of the peaceful start of Syrian demos and the reaction of Assad against them we are seeing ever so subtly develop out of this election.
WHAT those Trumpers do not fully understand yet is that their great leader STATED 141 times 141 different comments to them at rallies on 23 different topics......
THINK about that for a moment....WHY did he do that....BECAUSE now he can do what he wants and then claim that is exactly what he stated he was going to do....does one see yet a well planned demagogue hard at work...
WHAT concerns me is the following...
Trump if one has followed him over the years was basically for years a Democrat in belief and statements.....
BUT then suddenly he appears in the birther movement well actually he drove the birther movement only appearing lately to back away from his statements WHICH he really did not...he just wanted black votes...
WHAT I love about social media is the ability to pull back the past and relook at what individuals posted and then did...and there is much on Trump if the US MSM had taken the time to research and fact find.....
CHECK his tweets and statements stating with the 2012 reelection of Obama....especially when he gets on a particular twitter rant....he voiced hatred for the electoral college...hatred for the election process and between the lines he fully indicates that he a full blown racist at heart...BUT that never came up in the US MSM ....
Simply but Trump is a racist...a bigot...a sexual predator who used and abuses his power over women and people and he is at heart a deeply committed con artist who has floated a ponzi scheme called property management....WITH currently 630M USDs of debt that has to be serviced yearly and that debt burden is climbing not sinking...SO will he put his businesses health before the Republic's health if a FP decision damages his personal investments?
IT is a Ponzi scheme when one goes bankrupt six times.....no wonder the US banks have refused to deal with him ...BUT again never fully explored by MSM during the election was it???
NOW we have a new President that evidently very quickly settled a fraud and racketeering federal court case so he would not have to personally testify personally in a court of law arguing up to Thursday that as President elect he did not have "time to testify"....THAT is his "respect for the rule of law" full in your face and the Trumpers who voted for him fully understood that...
NOW we have a new President that instead of truly placing his businesses into a true blind trust which means management by a outside company not picked by him and overseen by a not picked by him law firm WE get his definition of a blind trust...."my family is going to run it".....
NOW convince me his sons and daughter will not utter...speak...write a single word about his businesses inside that blind trust....to him over dinner??
WHAT concerns me far more that his sex problems or his financial problems is his inherent and slowly coming out deep ties to Russian money and oligarchs and yes Putin is a 40B USD oligarch...and Trump is in constant need of cash for his business empire....
WHAT concerns me is that server that was in the Trump Tower which conversed daily to someone in the Alpha Bank in Moscow AND that apparently was ongoing over months....what concerns me is the blatant lie by both his campaign management AND Trump himself TWICE inside four months...."we do not have ties to anything Russian and or Russians"...
The configuration of that server parallels exactly what the Russian SVR does to ensure confidential comms over the internet for their recruited agents and deep covers AND that was alluded to by some very serious internet geeks....
THEN one day after the election Russian officials under approval from Moscow openly crow about their constant ties during the election to Trump..well maybe a little MSM interest and Putin's personal spokesperson wants to fly immediately to NYC...before any other western leader visits him....come on people wake up and smell the roses....
As someone who thoroughly understand Stasi and KGB recruitment tactics find me someone inside the current US IC CI community that does not honestly feel with the track record of Trump in sex.... drugs..soft porn videos... and rock and roll the SVR did not attempt to either directly recruit him and or has compromising material on him....IMHO it is a given....
The Founding Fathers were inherently fearful of the "masses" thus we have the Electoral College that Trump hated in 2012 but loves now....what you say we have a SC...sorry it will be a 5/4 court and evidently a 6/4 right wing court for literally years to come even if the Republicans loss at some point .....you say we have the various splits inside the RP in Congress that will balance...him...We have 38 State Governors controlling 38 Red States with massive gerrymandering programs and some very slick voter suppression programs in place.....BTW all out so called "checks and balances are based on "traditions" not the rule of law if one paid close attention in the HS Civics class.
SO I see no checks and balances as you do...WHICH is exactly what Hitler had going forward in 33...
You say we have the great FBI to keep corruption out of the political marketplace BUT that same RP controlled FBI leaked very badly on Clinton and somehow missed all the proRussian adivsors around Trump...Manafort...Page.... and to a degree Woolsely....who never fired a single person inside the CIA for their failure to detect Ames and then he suddenly quit when there were demands to dig deeper inside the CIA as some stated there were more Ames in play as there always is just as we are seeing now inside the NSA.....
Taken all together....if you...I or anyone else that posted on SWJ had committed over 30 years what Trump has done and proven he has done we would never seen a single security clearance in our lifetimes...
Here is the kicker..if one has been to Moscow and has done business with foreign nationals THAT is reason alone to go far deeper into his history of those travels and contacts AND if there is suspicion on the Adjudicator's part about possible "influence" THAT alone is enough to deny a clearance these days after Snowdon...
As a former strategic debriefer/interrogator with over 17 years of field experience in Europe I learned to pay extreme attention to how someone uses words...the words themselves down to the reflextion in the use of those words....now you fully understand why I was warning on SWJ....
Trump is racist end of story....Trump has been compromised by Russia....and Trump is a ponzi scheme con artist who only cares about himself end of story....
How many Trump voters have seen in their lifetimes the Hitler execution chambers here in Berlin...the mass execution/concentration sites for Jews here in Germany and the Czech Republic and how many have seen the Saddam execution chambers...
I have and I hate them.....I have close Jewish (Israeli/Russian) friends here in Berlin that are telling me they see the second coming...of a new democratically elected by US citizens of a second Hitler....
I have seen the polling of the young German and French (20-35) who by a margin of 2/3rds stated openly Trump is a threat to world peace and world stability...NEVER have I ever seen that before on a US President...yes they laughed about our Cowboy President but in the end they respected him ...BUT this time there is something far different in play....they now basically inside one election results openly distrust the US....
I have never seen a German sitting government basically warn the US to follow the principles of the rule of law and good governance to protect civil and human rights...that coming from Europeans.....
Bill...this is what I mean those that voted for Trump did not stop to count the number of times he changed his narrative EXACTLY 141 times on 23 topics...THEY HEARD the underlying narrative and took it seriously.....whereas most of the MSM took what he was saying "literally"....not "seriously".....it was the dog whistles that his supporters/followers fully understood.....
In the world of Orwell he wrote a lot about the concept of "doublespeak" in fascism and I am afraid many Americans simply do not understand that concept....
Retired Army General, A Scholar and Acolyte of David Petraeus, Now on Team Trump (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/retired-army-general-a-scholar-and-acolyte-of-david-petraeus-now-on-team-trump)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/retired-army-general-a-scholar-and-acolyte-of-david-petraeus-now-on-team-trump) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
Someone recently asked me to build a number of indicators that could/would indicate Trump is in "bed with Russia" ie under their "influence"...
I was up to five or six.........number SEVEN.......came fast and quick.....
Dizzy with success: Putin spokesman suggests Trump scale back NATO deployments to foster ties w Kremlin. #Baltics
http://bigstory.ap.org/295849a11d584a
IMHO.....hate to be in the current shoes of the "grey beards" in the US CI community.......THIS is a nightmare.....HOW do you reject a security clearance for the President of the US??????
A challenge to any reader here at SWJ who cares about CI....show me I am wrong on my assumptions......
HERE is an additional problem...if someone is in fact rejected from a clearance and or renewal of a clearance and has a good lawyer...they could in effect argue that Trump got his in spite of massive issues and actually win in court....the clearance community is setting a precedence for years to come...and that in the face of the Snowden affair where we know he was recruited by the SVR...
Perilous beyond words: Russian govt contacts w/Trump campaign is a "monumental story" demands investigating before swearing in...some outsiders seem to know what is happening before the voters of Trump know it....
Breitbart's expanding. Lotsa $$ in selling fear, hate, lies to delegitimize Obama & Clinton. Trump adviser Flynn spreads the same propaganda
While the media licks its wounds & soothes us with kinder gentler Trump, where the hell is the story of Wikileaks & Russia who helped him??
"So we're just going to forget WikiLeaks and Russia helped Trump?"
http://hill.cm/xGlKia5
Why isn't this thundering thru the news cycle? Why aren't 100s of natl-security reporters all over it??
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a50598/russian-talked-to-trump-campaign/#… @ESQPolitics
Maybe it's because I grew up at the tail end of the McCarthy Era and in the heart of the Cold War, and maybe because I spent 13 awful days in 1962 waiting for the missiles to fly, and maybe it's because I believe that, Tsarist or Communist or Kleptocracy, Russia behaves in pretty much the same way, but I honestly believe that this should be the only story dominating the news right now.
At least, I think it warrants as much space in our various media as was devoted to the BREAKING NEWS about what John Podesta had for lunch last year.
Per The Washington Post:
The statement came from Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who said in an interview with the state-run Interfax news agency that "there were contacts" with the Trump team. "Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage," Ryabkov said. "We have just begun to consider ways of building dialogue with the future Donald Trump administration and channels we will be using for those purposes," Ryabkov was quoted as saying. Ryabkov provided no further details, and his remarks drew a swift denial from Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks, who said the campaign had "no contact with Russian officials" before Tuesday's election.
Why in Christ's sweet name isn't this thundering through the news cycle right now? Why aren't hundreds of national-security reporters all over it? We have elected a guy who may well have traded what little integrity he has to a vicious autocrat and his thieves-in-law.
(Note to anyone who takes exception: This is not "red-baiting" because these crooks are not Red.) We know he can't get a loan from most American banks, so he has to go overseas for a lot of his financing. What banks is he tied into, and are any of those banks tied into the Russian government? Whom does he owe and how much does he owe them? And how do they plan to collect?
This is a monumental story, and it deserves a full airing before we swear this guy in. And it's only part of the unprecedented tangle of shadowy business dealings that will follow him into office. The president-elect also is the defendant in 75 different lawsuits of assorted kinds. He plans to put his assets into a "blind trust" that will be overseen by…his children. I know a lot of people are charmed by his reluctance to abide by traditional political norms and customs, but this is far beyond that. This is a guy toting a huge amount of baggage into the Oval Office and each piece of it contains a ticking time-bomb.
The Russian business is perilous beyond words. But you can sense even now that our Fourth Estate is pushing it ever so gently in the direction of the same memory hole down which went Nixon's treasonous behavior as regards the Paris Peace Talks and the possibility that the Reagan campaign monkeywrenched the release of the hostages in Iran in 1980. The way this works is that the elite political media decides something is so unthinkable that the children—that's the rest of us—are too delicate to handle it.
Well, kids, the unthinkable already has happened. You might as well cover it as fully as possible
Democracy, complacency, Trumpistan: The Unthinkable Becomes Normal, Authoritarian GOP won't stop it http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/trumpistan-week-one-the-unthinkable-slowly-becomes-normal.html?mid=twitter-share-di#…
America is not Ukraine, tho Putin's working on it: "Eerie Parallels Between US Election And Downfall of Ukraine"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2016/11/10/the-eerie-parallels-between-the-us-election-and-the-downfall-of-ukraine/#1f30742003ce
For Putin, Trump is not an end in himself but a means to weaken the US and the#West
http://euromaidanpress.com/2016/11/12/for-putin-trump-is-not-an-end-in-himself-but-a-means-to-weaken-the-us-and-the-west/#
Love it when people fail to remember the endless and countless so called investigations that were to reveal just how corrupt the Clintons were and are suppose to be.....DO I seriously need to repeat all of them in a very long list to readers such as Bill and Slapout...since the 90s...WHAT is that 20 or so odd years an still counting....AND over what 14 different investigations.....
AND remember their close personal friend who was an advisor who committed suicide....do I need to respinn what was spun by the Republicans for three long years when the DC Police had long before declared it a suicide due to personal reasons....AND lo an behold it came up again via Trump and company.....
Some complain that Bill got a massive speakers fee in the 100s of thousands of dollars...BUT WAIT it went into the Foundation and was IRS declared and taxed as earned income....BUT WHEN all politicians and ex Presidents hit the speakers and lobbyist circuit earning also hundreds of thousands of dollars WE declare BUT hey they earned it....BUT WAIT do we question currently the outside earnings of our own House Reps and Senators..THAT occur every single day of the year........NO...
BUT at the end of the day AFTER all those countless and endless investigations driven primarily by Republicans WHERE any charges ever filed against either of them......
Oh...and that Whitewater land deal mess the Republicans screamed about for years.....never a single charge and in the end it actually had been handled correctly.....confirmed if one took the time to read the IRS findings to be completely and truly "legal"....
Oh......and that so called pay for play accusations against Clinton for the Clinton Foundation donations in exchange for favors by the then DoS Clinton....AND pounded by Trump in each of his rallies as "that corruption swamp of the Clintons...hang her...arrest her...throw her in jail".....
WILL highly recommend you both go back to the WikiLeaks email dumps which actually when one excludes the fake Russian placed emails CLEARLY states she definitely separated office and play......BUT hey you both overlooked that tad bit of information in all the WikiLeaks chatter.
BTW...this is the same WikiLeaks that we now know was feed those hacked emails by the Russian state sponsored hacking groups...AND we know that the Russian propaganda media released a statement that Wikileaks released BUT TWO DAYS before Wikileaks released the same exact press release...strange is it not that the Russian government could read the computer of WikiLeaks and knew in advance what was to be released word for word....
Nothing like actually ignoring WikiLeaks inadvertently supporting Clinton with in those emails....
HER use of a private email server...WELL three other DoS's in the last 30 years DID the same exact thing.....BUT that never seemed to get through the chatter...
AND THOSE TWO MILLION emails deleted from all of the Bush computers WHERE NOT A VIOLATION of federal law...AND not pursued by the incoming Obama........AND those 4000 Trump company emails deleted THAT the federal court told Trump to not delete as they were evidence in a fraud case...one should never thrown stones at a glass house as they can come back at you....NOTICE Trump was not called "a scheming crook trying to hide damming evidence from a federal court" was he?
Come on guys we complained about Bill's sexual adventures in the WH BUT YET WHEN we have the next President claiming he grabs women by their "pu...ies" WE declare that what "locker room talk" ....but consenting sexual encounters between two adults we seem to have problems with these days VS sexual assaults as defined by law by the now new President....
WHEN 12 and still counting women over a period of 20 years come forward and state he treated them exactly as his videos indicates...we call them lairs and Trump wants to sue them.....WHEN he comes into the WH with 72 pending state and federal court cases we call him a great businessman....WHEN he has had a total of SIX bankruptcies and has to service monthly a debt load of 650M USDs we call him a REALLY GREAT businessman.....
WHEN a sitting Republican Representative cheers the fact he got the security funding for the Benghzi Consulate cut months before the attack as a sign of Republican success against the then DoS Clinton and then later American personnel get killed...."IT was the fault of that corrupt Clinton".....AND WE ignore the Reps comments and actions that contributed directly to their deaths....AND we ignore DoD held back a DELTA team that was waiting on the tarmac because DoD could not get their act in order to respond to the WH.......
WHEN you critique me be ready to respond to facts line by line....
SO when we accept in the realm of public debate statements by the now new President ..."she is a crook...needs to be in jail...I will jail her when I take over...she sold out the DoS for money....."
We are suppose to what accept that as the new standard of political discourse....????
I chose a new nationality simply because I feel that both Trump and the current Republican Party no longer represent the values that I felt for years the US represented and with my wounds and spilled blood for this country in 18 long months of pure combat and in serving in two other wars I have long ago earned the right to be critical...far more critical than say a Slapout that accepts what he apparently "hears" to be the gospel and truth...
BTW Slapout I was not a supporter of the VN far from it but when my country asked me...well maybe ordered me to VN.....I went and did my best and lost a lot of close friends along the way.....which you have never experienced.
So I have the inherent right to critisize when I think the US is headed the wrong way....
Slapout and Bill...the floor is open for debate....now prove me wrong...
Listening......
BTW....here is the inherent kicker now...IF you really look at the email issue with Clinton....WHEN you are in public service even as a First Lady you are inherently open to FOIA requests...and both Clintons have been literally hounded by FOIAs for 20 years....BUT a private personal server does not fall under FOIA....
NOW that Trump is a government paid employee HE is fully liable now to fulfill ALL FOIAs coming into his office....there are hundreds now lining up to file FOIAs on every single aspect of his business and personal life....he will shortly learn what the Clintons have felt like living under FOIA.
QUESTION is...is that private server sitting in his Trump Tower used for months for direct conversation with someone in the Russian Alpha Bank located in the heart of Moscow going to be declared "private"...BTW the server was scrubbed clean and reconfigured after it become known that it was chatting with Russia....
AND this does not worry the both of you...it does me?
BTW...one could argue that Clinton have gotten the same punishment as did General Petraeus who also got caught with classified materials....BIG difference though...Petraeus "parked classified" information in a email draft and parked it in his email draft box for his girlfriend a journalist to log into his account and then read the draft email....that is a deliberate and clear violation of security regs....and the method used to transfer that info was a deliberate attempt to hide that he knew what he was doing....end of story...
American true democracy hard at work in the strangest of places...sparked by the election of Trump.......
Today over 3000 US citizens....ex pats....US students studying for 300 Euros a semester on four major Berlin Universities to include THREE I met that were studying medicine and three studying international law also at that 300 Euros per semester...so basically free.AND all with 100% healthcare costing 30 Euros a month a student rate.....HS students from the JFK International School.......kids whose parents were working inside the Embassy.......a lot of US business people.... men and women who work in US based international trading and service companies here in Berlin....and a lot of military retirees.....
WHO all voted BTW.....
ALL demonstrating in front of the US Embassy next to the world famous Brandenburger Tor
AGAINST Trump and his views on Europe and the role women play in the US society and the protection of minorities something Germans as a whole feel strongly about since over 20M Germans were refugees at the end of the war and or ethnically cleansed from Poland and the Czech Republic....and yes US citizens also know German history when it comes to refugees....
SO when Trump critiqued Merkel and Germany he hit a super raw nerve with Germans....which did not go down well....even with the common German on the streets
Only one problem with 2nd Hitler/Trump
Ivanka Trump was raised Presbyterian BUT CONVERTED TO JUDAISM IN 2009 to marry husband Jared Kushner.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/us-election-2016/73022/who-is-ivanka-donald-trumps-daughter-proxy-wife-and-actual-first-lady
Ah......the bromance between the Russian SVR compromised Trump and Putin steadily grows....
NOW we see his FP taking shape rather quickly when it comes to Russia..his support for a genocidal dictator and Iran in Syria .....
Trump to call Putin after his 'beautiful letter'
SO Trump is in love with the idea that he is supporting his bromance pal Putin and the second bromance dictator Assad.....SO is now Trump stating for the record a US sitting President supports the use of CWs against unarmed civilians???????
Kremlin "regrets" & is "disturbed" by official recognition by the OPCW#Assad under #Putin control used chemical WMD in #Syria http://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-chemicals-idUSKBN1361BE#
AND from the UK Brexit group of supporters...........
"We do not see the need for an additional meeting" - Boris to skip EU FM's dinner discussing Trump win.
Blunderbus move that will rouse high suspicions and shows no understanding of where Paris/Berlin see the election.
Assuming half of these are legitimate versus anti Trump propaganda it is a disturbing trend that Trump better speak out against. There is no doubt Trump also attracted a bunch of low lifes with his inexcusable rhetoric in addition to people who just want change. This is worth watching, but I bet many of these incidents were generated by his opposition to create the perception this is a white supremacist movement. If it actually turns into one then I will turn against it. I'm currently in a state of denial.
Bill..this trend of white supremacist activity has been flying largely under the radar and building over the last years ..the FBI had basically backed away from it "fighting jihadists" was the excuse and "besides they are law abiding US citizens and not hurting anyone"....BUT we have currently 270 armed white militias inside the US....
BTW...REMEMBER we truly never got to the bottom of the Oklahoma City bombing did we....or did two guys simply mix by hand a 5000lb chemical fertilizer IED style bomb ....surely you must still have questions about that attack??????
BUT if you seriously look at the Trump rhetoric the last three months of the campaign with his "Breitbart guru Benon"...the rhetoric took a massive turn to the "alt Right" KKK direction....when he arrived and took over...AND it took a strong anti Semitic turn as well...or did we all "forget the Trump "dustup" when the Jewish Star of David was used in an anti Semitic ad and Trump claimed to have thought it was a "sheriffs badge"..come on ...and his son retweeted five white supremacist and when called out had no idea they were anti Semitic.....
I know this commenter and he has never posted "fakes"...these are real and accurate...BUT here is what we did not notice after Brexit in UK...the exact same hatred broke into the open and hate crimes are climbing as well in UK...
REMEMBER Brexit was also fought using the battle slogans of immigration and globalization...exactly as it was used with Trump....
AND who just walked into the Trump Tower today for a visit...the former leader of UKIP the ulta nationalist group in UK that drove Brexit.....
I confirmed the hate SMS that went out to Black students at Penn..it was real and whoever sent it had the accurate names/cell numbers of all Black students....which means someone accessed their main database....
% of Americans "proud" about election outcome, per Gallup
2008: 67%
Ok Outlaw, let us now bring some balance into the discussion. The democrats have been caught red handed promoted violent protests in an attempt to get their way. The current violent protests are not condemned by Democratic party leaders, instead they are quietly promoted. Shameful, and much closer to anything Trump has done so far. Many of the dems reject the Constitutional process for change in government, and our President quietly supports this. There have many attacks on Trump supporters since the election, and just as many kill whites comments as the racist attacks you posted. Action equals reaction, and sadly, very sadly our national leaders are promoting this. They're practicing a form of UW against their own country men, because even with MSM on their side they still lost, and they can't accept the result of the election.
Your posts are bias to the extreme. You simply post Twitter comments that reinforce your view, but fail to respond to legitimate challenges with reason. We have a lot in common, and while I found both candidates to be deplorable, yet you only address the perceived faults of one.
I answered the Clinton accusations I feel quite openly and directly previously...secondly the current demonstrations are if one really thinks it through a direct result and responsibility of a single man and his surrogates who pounded away at the racist and anti Semitic messaging for 18 long months....
BUT a side comment Clinton did not win Trump did so he is the center of attention here in this thread that was started...
Thirdly....demonstrating is a US god given right under the rubric of free speech just as are the racists comments by Trump and company....comes with the territory these days...remember Trump would incite during his rallies aggression against the journalists that were covering his rallies and who were just doing their jobs to pay the bills.....who were spit on and sometimes roughed up and or needed security to protect them in order to just the exit rally....BUT did the MSM or general public say anything but burn trash cans and smash a few car windows and the whole world falls apart....one sided do you not think????
For 111 days Trump never held a single press conference..he never allowed press on his plane...he has stated the press lies, are corrupt and he never reads MSM and the WaPo and NYTs should be sued over what they wrote about him as it was all false.......BUT he trusts the heck out of social media and twitter...make sense to you?
Would you though then admit that publicly ridiculing and browbeating journalists verbally into a state of fear is just as bad as those
demonstrating and using violence...I would ????
Remember if you really take the time to look at who is involved you will see a lot of women....WHY is the question...because you had a sexual predator tell them to their faces during public debate he is going to take away the rights women have fought for over the last 30 years starting with Wade v Roe and continuing onto birth control etc......AND he stated in his 2005 video the right to sexually assault women....remember we as men do not walk in their shoes everyday at work...at the gym or when they are out walking alone are we???
If you noticed a number of the racist harassment postings were from women....I could have easily posted another 50 or so ....from all over the country...
BUT WAIT..."that was all just locker room talk".....THAT is not what women in the US experience daily in their lives....
What if you are Latina...you have been declared rapists and murderers....and you are going to be deported.....if you are Muslim you have been declared to be terrorists..if you are black you are a drug dealer....and you do not like to work..AND yet you wonder why they burn trash cans?
Remember this new President insulted a Muslim family whose Muslim son an Army CAPT was killed defending the rights of Trump....and continued to insult them for days via Twitter and yet his wife speaks against cyber bullying...via twitter...make sense to you?
So yes while I do not condone the violence...I can though fully understand why it is occurring...BUT as of yet I see not a solid piece of evidence tying the "Democratic Party" to it....
BTW...it is tradition in Paris and Berlin to burn cars during Christmas and New Year...over 200 cars in both locations both go up in smoke so hey the US has it far easier...believe me and yet the earth still spins around the sun and we all survive.
You are right I am bias because opposite of what Trump did when he received four draft notices that he got out of by using a doctors note stating he had a bone spur...and in a recent interview he could not remember which foot.....I served....
BTW there was a man in my Ft. Polk basic training unit who had been drafted who was a lumberjack from Alabama who had an axe accident prior to being drafted ...the axe had hit his foot leaving a deep scar..which when we did long road marches he would limp all the way and the foot would be bloody when he took off his boot....he tried to get a deferment for the injury multiple times even with doctors surgery notes...but after training he was assigned to the infantry and was killed in VN...leaving a wile and two children behind and his wife received only 10K as the death benefit...and Trump continued to party hard .....fighting off women as he stated....
He served with a bloody foot and limped the whole time he was in training and was killed in VN...WHILE our new President was "deferred FOUR times" for a bone spur he cannot remember which foot it was in ..AND when he was asked about it......he stated..."his war was fighting off the women"......YOU are darn right I am biased....I have earned the right to be biased when I think someone and something is destroying the fabric of US democracy....
YET a sexual predator...a businessman with SIX bankruptcies WHO failed to show us his tax returns BECAUSE we would not understand them whose last wife worked illegally in the US and who we do not know what his ties are to Russia.....AND who will place his businesses into a blind trust run by his sons and daughter WHO definitely will not talk to him about his own businesses TWO full days after telling us publicly he would follow what previous Presidents had done.......will led us into what?????
So those that are currently demonstrating are suppose to "trust" this President who was elected with only 26% of the total voting electorate AFTER what he has said for 18 long months...come on even you can see the dots.....I did and have seen them for 18 long months.....
REMEMBER what I posted at another SWC thread awhile ago..."people love populists until they are elected and in power"....AND presto 2-3 full days into this new administration Trump as flip flopped so badly on virtually all of his major themes no one that supported him really knows what they signed up for...but sign up they did....BUT we do now know one thing..he is definitely in bed with Russia...
ALL we have heard for the last week or so is his surrogates running from interview to interview trying to "interpret for us" WHAT they think Trump really meant when he made public statements at his own rallies....bad really bad....
NPR's Beirut correspondent Alice Fordham weighs in on one pressing international issue facing President-elect Trump – the war in Syria
Donald Trump set to ditch Free Syrian Army and side with Assad and Putin instead
http://ind.pn/2fZQiz5
THIS is the perfect example of inexperience trying to act like he is the greatest leader of all times....THIS move will drive 100,000 experienced FSA fighters straight into the arms of JFS (AQ) and IS....WHICH is what Trump appears to not fully have understood...it is exactly what Assad/Putin wants....Assad wants the West to see him as the only viable solution to IS....WHEN there is no FSA...AND Trump is handing it to him on a silver platter....THE core question is WHY?????
WHY is Trump stumbling all over himself to please Putin????
Compromised maybe from his trips to Moscow...SOME in the IC think so.????
The new RUSI Director, Karin von Hippel, a SME from within 'The Beltway', spoke on BBC Radio Four this week and in three minutes gives her viewpoint:https://rusi.org/multimedia/assessing-president-elect-trumps-foreign-policy-priorities
Her Deputy, a British defence academic, Malcolm Chalmers, has a longer written commentary and as RUSI is close to Whitehall-Westminster thinking, it appears he is worried. For example:
It is too early to predict what Trump will do when he assumes office on 20 January. But it is already incumbent upon the British government to begin some serious thinking on the basis of what he might do.....Third, the Ministry of Defence should begin to review areas in which British conventional capabilities are overly reliant on US support....Questions must now also be asked about the strategic dependency that reliance on US military systems, including US black-box software, is creating, and whether the consequent risks remain acceptable in the new circumstances in which we find ourselves.
Link:https://rusi.org/commentary/preparing-british-defences-trumpian-world
Both excellent commentaries, and I suspect the entire world will hold its breath to see what Trump will actually do versus his bombastic rhetoric. England, perhaps more than any other country, is most concerned with Trump's future policies, especially after Brexit. I suppose it is possible he'll create a fissure in the special relationship between England and the U.S., so closer ties with France and Germany would be good hedging options for England.
Other countries are concerned also, if Trump doesn't follow through with the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement, that will harm our relationship with many Asian countries, in fact it could kill the rebalance to the Asia-Pacific. At least for the short term, few conditions last forever. However, Clinton also backpedaled during the election and indicated she would also do away with it, so who knows if one is better than the other in that regard.
Will Trump really get closer to Russia? That is one of my bigger concerns, and if he does will it further undermine U.S. credibility around the globe? The terrorist threat is serious, but giving Russia a free hand to pursue their global interests by tossing their military might around to defend thugs is a greater threat longer term.
While the Brits have no idea what Trump will "really" do, you shouldn't feel lonely, we don't either. Let's see who he puts in key positions, and what actions he actually pursues when he gets in office before we start passing judgment.
I suspect he'll do something about illegal immigration, and if he simply tells law enforcement to enforce the current laws (there is a current freeze on in our country to do so via executive order) that should be sufficient. For health care, he needs to revamp the affordable care act with safety caveats, which he has already said he will do. For example, he said he will maintain being able to keep your children on your insurance until they're 25 y/0, and prohibit insurance companies from denying insurance for preexisting conditions. In many ways Trump is more of a democrat than a Republican when you honestly evaluate his positions. This even makes him more unpredictable.
If worse comes to worse and he ends up getting impeached for whatever in the future, at least the Vice President is level headed and respectable.
Interesting a number of reasons..also goes to Bill's comment about the VP...
Everyone here beats me up on over use of twitter BUT I come from the world of open source...open source when done correctly provides 80% of all intel the technical side 20% is largely used to confirm the 80% and for targeting purposes....
Twitter while it appears to be crazy does allow a far more thorough chase of info than does current MSM...TV and talking heads on Sunday...AND this is key all achieved from years past..so you can call up Trump rants from 2012 or 2008 or even back to 2004....AND those YouTube videos the same way and there are now some really good social media open source analysts out there and the number in growing daily and they get more tools to work with....
I did not post it yesterday BUT I stood up and saluted the following info.....
Check all available MSM articles and the tweet confirmed it....a US Professor at a major Us university has a 13 point model he uses ...and not accepted by the pollers....but using his model he correctly predicted Trump winning as earlier as FIVE months ago....and using the model he has correctly called all elections since 1980...
He has now come out and stated Trump will be impeached and or resign within the year and Pence will take over..that would throw the VP position then to the speaker of the house Ryan...he was not sure whether resign do to his business frauds which is my tip or impeachment is my other tip due to his Russian connections....
HERE is the kicker...why he even answered...Trump cannot be controlled ....Pence can....go back and thoroughly review Pence statements..it is like he was the one running for President......
What will Trump do...I am surprised by why many even discuss this...Trump is an ego driven "I" person only concerned about appearances of wealth and money around him...go back and reread all unnamed comments in articles about his inner staff since say eight months....
Here is the craziness around Trump...once he gets an idea he simply stays with that idea...take Syria....he started eight months ago in statements during a rally and in the first two debates...and presto we hear that is what he is doing to the true determent of Europe and the US by driving 100,000 well traine urban warfare moderate for Syria fighters into the arms of JFS and IS...meaning the guerrilla war will continue in Syria for at least another 10-20 years....EVEN if he joins with Assad and Putin...and we the US will take some serious future hits as will Europe for that single move...
Will he formally recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea in his current love affair with Putin..he is seriously trying to figure out just how to....not a question of IF but rather WHEN....
When he slowly decouple from NATO..yes he will using money as the argment ..he already set that in play with his countless comments on it.....
Will he throttle back US NATO exercises...WE saw the Putin spokesman already state that as the minimum for dealing with Putin and he known the ongoing love affair is true....
THIS is the given take him at his word...seriously this guy is surprisingly easy to read...meaning "what you see is what you are getting" end of story.
My more serious concern is the racism he has unleashed inside the US.....which in some ways can be used to crack down heavily and install new security control laws over American right to protest and free speech....ANd his serious love affair with Putin....
Right now I can seriously list SIX major items that in the normal clearance world of say 1975 would have raised immediate red flags with his clearance paperwork and it would have been siting on the DIS Directors desk as a potential "Soviet agent of influence"....and the file would have been handed off to INSCOM......
Even former CIA/NAS Directors tried to quietly raise this same exact reason as a major concern and they did not mince words...they openly called Trump "an agent of influence for Russia"...
I personally have raise similar red flags on three US COLs who were ASA/NSA on actually much less and it cost them their jobs....
BUT here were are years later and it seems no one even cares outside of social media and a few of the top MSM.....those that voted for him never gave it a thought....
I will post those six reasons later today here....
BUT here is the problem.......just how many of those voting for Trump have actually travelled to Russia ie Moscow and who have filled out the visa paperwork that takes several weeks to get approved....think about it..in the age of computers it still takes the Russians several weeks to issue even a tourist visa....WHY because they run their internal database of records and see if the individuals is worth approaching or not....same exact process when I camped my way through the Soviet Union in 1972 and 1973...then it took 30 days to get a tourist visa...
A tiger can never lose it's stripes is an old saying but the KGB and now FSB and it's overseas intel unit SVR and the old Soviet/new Russian military intel GRU......they never even changed the name of GRU.....are some serous tigers when it comes to recruiting Americans....
In 2012/2013 Trump was signaling inside the US he was wanting to run for President and with all the mass media he got in those days...convince me the FSB/SVR and GRU did not know this and were simply waiting and waiting and waiting until the day was right....and that was around his businesses and his well known now private life and a "love of women"....
One thing Americans and Europeans do not realize...FSB/SVR and GRU as some of the worlds greatest "waiters" and have the memory of an elephant...that goes back to the 70s....our services have never been good at "waiting".....
An IMHO Trump has indeed been "compromised" via a "wet operation" which the Soviets and Czechs were really good at in the 70s.....IMHO video footage exists...and Trump knows it...
Again I will post those six items and parallel to them his last known stance on FP issues...ranging from NATO to Ukraine to Syria......
Believe me when I say we have a serious problem...both internally and externally.....
Bill fully knows what the statement "defend the United States against all enemies near and far" means for military and government employees...Trump has never in his life made that verbal statement/commitment....
I am back into posting here as I was right where the Trump Syrian policy was going....he has as well as his surrogates stated they want to do joint operations with BOTH Assad a proven genocidal dictator who is currently using CWs and Putin against IS.......
THIS will be one of the biggest blunders from Trump if done for years going forth..he will have been responsible for driving 100,000 armed and experienced urban warfare moderate Syrian FSA fighters into the welcoming arms of JFS (AQ) AND IS as they will have seen that the US has no interest in kicking out Assad and is in a bromance with Putin....
THIS move will certainly ensure fighting in the ME for the next 20 odd years and not to say provoke a response from KSA...Qatar..GCC. and Turkey....NOT LEAST Israel who informed Russian via their PM visit this week Israel will not tolerate Iran inside Syria....as they have Hezbollah on one border already and they do not want Iran on the Golan Heights border...
Dr Shajul Islam @DrShajulIslam
4 #RUSSIAN BUNKER BUSTERS on our hospital just now! Lost underground operating room, £60k equipment, 3 ambulances, medication warehouse!
Slapout and those that voted for Trump...pay close attention to this posting as it sets the stage for a posting on Trumps deep ties to and with Russia..
As an avid supporter of social media from an open source analysis side simply because it covers when one takes the time to vet the commenters far far more than any amount of MSM will get you and the US IC community gets 80% of it's current intel via HUMINT which is really open source.....
Open source can often tell you what is someone thinking/doing/working OR what is behind a specific door because the high tech side cannot provide that sort of info.....
NOW to Trumps infatuation with money....and is it possibly his Achilles heel with Russia and is being potentially exploited by the Russian foreign intelligence service SVR and or the Russian military intelligence service GRU and due to his love of the fast lane even at 70 of sex....drugs....rock and roll.....
IF we take open source comments we will notice in in a Fortune Magazine interview in mid 2000 Trump openly and unabashed stated...."you know if I would run for President I could actually make money".......
Reference Trumps inherent and outspoken racism...he drove the birther movement against Obama from 2008 onwards AND was one of the loudest spokesperson on the birth certificate issue...and his countless racist comments during his rallies never changed in 2016...be it against Latinos...blacks..women...Muslims..and last not but least Jews...when he went anti Semitic
Jump now to 2016 and his outspoken denial to open up his tax returns with the statement you and I to dumb to understand them also voiced by his oldest son.......
WHY would they both state that????
During the last set of rallies Trump kept stating he is spending 100M USDs (although FEC filings only indicated a max of 66M USDs so where is Trump digging out the remaining 34M USDs for himself....of his own money...BUT WAIT...this money has not been donated which all candidates from both parties have always done....THIS money was "loaned with a 6% per cent a compounded monthly twist" SO all his voters basically paid for his own campaign....and no money will flow back to the RNC for future election uses......AND true to the Fortune Mag interview in 2000 HE is making money on the election...
SECONDLY....the last FEC filing indicates that it is possible as the forms were so vaguely filled out deliberately by the way BUT still it indicates that an approximate 12-17M USDs will be flowing and or have flowed to companies directly owned by Trump to cover election expenses like the rooms that he uses in Trump Towers for his HQs where he even TRIPLED the monthly rent ....as per FEC filings.....
NOW take a look at the business empire created by Trump....over 500 companies....and he sits on the boards of most of them...MOST or ALL have something to do licensing of his products and around licensing for golf etc....YES where he has a strong property aspect there he has gone he had SIX bankruptcies and US banks refuse to deal with him since 2006.....forcing Trump into getting debt loans....debt service loans and construction loans from overseas banks....WHICH ones we do not know as he failed to open up his tax returns which would fully indicated who funds him and his operations......
NOW this is where social media kicks back in...for the last three weeks there has been circulating a series of Russian documents that are not fakes as they were issued by an official Russian department complete with seals and telephone numbers of the office which can be double checked for accuracy.....
In that list WHICH is strictly pertaining to Trump it LISTS a total of 249 Russian companies all bearing the name Donald Trump...am betting these are his Russian licensing deals and remember he stated in 2016 that he sits on all the boards of his empire as he earns money for being a board member...I am suspecting the Russian office is their equivalent to what we have at Treasury as to what foreigner owns what inside your country..
THAT list has somehow been totally ignored by US MSM...although the accuracy is easy to check...WHY is that???? ALL company names are there their addresses are there major copartners are listed and what they do is included...
Back to 2012/2013 when he was invited to bring his Miss Universe and Miss World to Moscow at the behest of two Russian oligarchs close to Putin's inner circle who wined and dined him while he was on Moscow and who wanted to invest in both businesses. All the while Trump was attempting to interest them in a Trump Tower in Moscow...the Russiasn kept him dangling as they say in the business and never really committed...even Trump's son came back who a round of met and greets and property plans...no takers which is actually strange as Russian oligarch like to invest in property...
NOW what is interesting WHEN Trump messed up and stated in a debate he and Putin had seen each other then...suddenly Trump and his campaign went to ground and denied any connections to and or with Putin....
BUT good ole social media dug up a 2013 video where he stated he had indeed met Putin and found him to be personably engaging.....
WHY would he and his campaign lie about that meeting in 2013?????
WHY would Trump still today no released his feral income tax returns?
MAYBE because of the following which would in fact be seen in those returns as any American who has overseas bank accounts and large amounts of cash must declare them to the IRS....
HERE is the Achilles heel hard at work....the estimated current debt load to be services monthly and yearly of the so called Trump Empire is a round solid 650M USDs and that ain't as they chump change...
It has been rumored again via social media that Trump has several large Chinese bankers as investors and Alpha BanK in Moscow...REMEMBER the internet server in the Trump Tower caught talking to a server located in Alpha Bank Moscow...both going dead when NYTs journalists were asking about them...????
NOW reenter the Trump son who has again pointed out by social media and not MSM officially stated in interviews pertaining to several ongoing court cases that Russian oligarchs have been large scale purchasers of Trumps various investment properties and condos.....
WGAIN we know far some very good UK journalists who have been following corruption money and Russian black monies that have flowed into UK and again via social media we know that Russian oligarchs and top Russian mob individuals use the form of investing into properties as a "legal way" to wash black money white....
SO is Trump beholden to Russian and Chinese investors and to Russian black oligarch and mob monies and OR has he been "compromised" by the Russian SVR and OR GRU based on his life style????
All we heard during his rallies was Clinton is a crook ad the Clinton Foundation was a swamp of corruption BUT Trump and his campaign repeatedly lies about his contacts to and with Russian officials....WHY was that?????
SO is in fact Trump now and in the future "ethically challenged"...YES he is as long as he never open his federal tax filings for reviews by any major US accounting firm.....
REMEMBER also both Trump and his campaign BOTH stated when asked by MSM after picking up on social media comments......he was asked about contacts to and with Russian officials....in AUG and again in SEPT/Oct both he and his campaign denied it..clearly and publicly denied it....
NOW exactly TWO full days after his election we get formal and accurate information out of Moscow from a named Russian top official...oh we were in constant touch with the Trump campaign..SO either the Russians are lying but in this case I do not think they are OR Trump is basically lying to his voters and those that voted against him....
The public and the Us security service demand an answer....
REMEMBER those that work in sensitive government positions and agencies since Snowdon a getting what is called a "life style and CI polygraph" done in order to just keep working....
MAYBE it is now time for one for Trump and those that work around him and or going to be working for him in the WH.....
Decision time coming fast and heavy out of Europe for Trump and his multitude of advisors since he knows nothing about internal affairs and security treaties...
Sweden seeks assurances from Trump on recently signed #US defense agreement@NATOSource
REMEMBER the FBI came to the sudden conclusion just before the election that there was no Trump Russian connections that they could "see"...BUT this a statement from the FBI Criminal Divison that could not even find a highly wanted Russian mobster living in a Trump property carrying the Trump main office and fax numbers on him when someone blew the whistle and told the FBI where he was.....REMEMBER this is the same very FBI that suddenly "found and announced more so called missing Clinton emails"..the very same Criminal Division....
BTW...Slapout just so you know the FBI has been always viewed as being a solid supporting Republican organization....since the Hoover days....
BUT the FBI CI Division has been rumored to have sought an received a Federal FISA Court order pertaining to the so called non talking to the Russian Alpha Bank server...
AND the very same CI Division has been interviewing extensively Carter Page and Manafort..two highly paid consultants for the Trump campaign that suddenly quite,,,BUT where still being paid as if they did not quit...WHO showed up with their lawyer in tow for those interviews and the IRS is looking into their declared earnings from Ukraine and it is rumored that neither filed the required federal paperwork as a paid "foreign agent"...
More on Trump Russian ties #DworkinReport
https://www.scribd.com/document/330757147/The-Dworkin-Report-by-The-Democratic-Coalition#
Slapout and those that voted for Trump...this next two months we are in for a very bumpy ride.......
NOW Trump and his surrogates are basically stating he is "above the rule of law"....no American he is not above the "rule of law".....Nixon found out the hard way when he left to avoid federal law violations.....
Giuliani to @jaketapper on ethics laws on conflicts of interests: "Those laws don't apply to the president."
So Slapout and company we Americans can now go out and rob banks and use the Trump statements to say to the police..."your laws do not apply to me and I am free to do what I want"...come on get real here.....
I had posted yesterday a comment on the Breitbart Bannon who is setting up shop now in Europe to drive a new White Nationalist Movement in France and Germany.......
Team Trump tells me Bannon did NOT reach out to Marion Le Pen, a leader in a French conservative party, or anyone connected to her/her uncle
BUT WAIT she was responding to Bannon's first contacting her…..
Marion Le Pen
Verified account
@Marion_M_Le_Pen
Je réponds oui à l'invitation de Stephen Bannon, directeur de la campagne #Trump, à travailler ensemble.
From Reuters though the opposite of what the Trump campaign again says…..
Riding the Trump wave, Breitbart is expanding its U.S. operations and launching sites in Germany and France
Trump vows to immediately deport up to three million immigrants: interview - AFP
And Trump "ain't a racist"??????
BUT he pleaded to be a unifier….not a divider…..
Kleptocracy Now™ #TrumpTrash Watch: Florida
http://usat.ly/2fGoNqT
Neo Nazi website The Daily Stormer published a twitter list of 50 Clinton supporters and said they should be harassed to commit suicide…….the Neo Nazi's now feel vindicated by Trumps rhetoric and they feel they are now accepted in the US mainstream just as the Alt Right…..
Trump says 'certain areas' of border wall with Mexico could be fence
http://reut.rs/2g3r7eP
BUT WAIT Trump kept talking about concrete walls not a "fence" which is sure not going to stop anyone these days….what will his supporters think now?????
@realDonaldTrump
The @nytimes states today that DJT believes "more countries should acquire nuclear weapons." How dishonest are they. I never said this!
BUT WAIT…he did in fact state this
Yes you literally did. Even Breitbart reported it
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/03/29/trump-i-hate-proliferation-but-it-would-be-better-if-japan-saudi-arabia-and-south-korea-had-nuclear-weapons/
The man cannot even what he said anymore…..beginning of Alzheimer's….?????
THE question of actually "legitimacy" rises it's head one more time……
Clinton will finish with widest popular vote margin among Electoral College losers, excluding years (1824, 1876) where not all states voted.
Votes received by GOP presidential candidate in general election:
2008 - 59.9 million
2016 - 61.2 million (est.)
Votes received by Democratic presidential candidate in general election:
Kellyanne Conway says on @FoxNewsSunday Harry Reid's comments are "beyond the pale," advises him to be careful in "legal sense"
(Reid called Trump a "sexual predator")
BUT WAIT…the discovery process would be painful for a Trump lawyer…..
For reasons too obvious to require explanation, it's a huge free speech threat for a President to threaten critics with legal action.
`Now there is a hashtag #Trumpriot and Russian Propaganda Agency RT tries to stoke the fire
Russia's so protective of its Trump. RT loves showing US protests, but when against Putin or Trump, suddenly they're illegit & Soros funded
Anonymous accuse Assange of corrupting @wikileaks, conspiring w/ #Russia to promote #Trump, hide certain SyriaFiles
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=-t2Gj0dDz8c
Interestingly it is Anonymous calling out Wikileaks as proRussian controlled…
It would be nice to have an update on this FBI investigation into Russian hacking of electoral systems of FL, WI, AZ etc.
FBI: 'Russian hackers' accessed Florida voter info, possible breaches in WI and AZ
Henry Kissinger, Cold War era strongest hardballer, predicts Trump's temper calls for terrorists to attack America.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/12/the-lessons-of-henry-kissinger/505868/?utm_source=twb …
MUST READ "The choice is between cowardice and absolutism"
https://medium.com/letters-code/the-choice-is-between-cowardice-and-absolutism-93aa49d1fbb8#.woaxqev76
Calling out modern fascism…..
THIS man claims to be this fantastic highly successful businessman and YET they cannot build their own website without stealing from others....just as the speech of his wife at the RP Convention was "lifted".....
.@realDonaldTrump transition website lifts passages from nonpartisan nonprofit
http://politi.co/2eTq1zT
Trump tried to "buy positive coverage with gifts"
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/megyn-kelly-trump-influence-coverage-gifts/
RP controls now the Presidency...SC....both houses of Congress and then potentially....
Democrats now control only 13 state legislatures (26%). If they lose 1 more they fall below the % needed to stop constitutional amendments.
THEN they can change the entire US Constitution at will.......remember I mentioned the concept of the US slipping into fascism...."with a friendly face"?
We are now not far from that happening in the coming years are we????
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/opinion/sunday/the-danger-of-going-soft-on-russia.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1
SundayReview | Editorial
The Danger of Going Soft on Russia
By THE EDITORIAL BOARDNOV. 12, 2016
Among the first world leaders to congratulate President-elect Donald Trump was Vladimir Putin. And why shouldn't he?
Just when relations between Russia and the West are at their most precarious point since the Cold War, Mr. Trump has been Russia's defender and the beneficiary of Moscow's efforts to influence the presidential campaign.
At times he has seemed almost intoxicated by the Russian president, praising Mr. Putin's firmness and insisting that the two could resolve any differences if they met. Meanwhile, he has shown little concern that Russia poses a major strategic challenge.
Few experts believe that Russia wants war with the West, but many worry that Mr. Putin's aggressive behavior as he tries to revive Russian greatness (thus masking problems at home) could result in the kind of dangerous miscalculations that often lead to armed conflict.
Russia's hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign to interfere in the election was brazen. Even worse were actions that threatened human life and global stability, like Mr. Putin's airstrikes against civilians in Syria, his positioning of nuclear-capable weaponry near Poland and the Baltic States, his annexation of Crimea and the war he waged in eastern Ukraine.
He violated the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty by producing a ground-launched cruise missile and canceled a 16-year-old accord on reducing stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium.
Despite this behavior, despite the obvious need for the next president to be alert to Mr. Putin's mischief and to be willing to resist it, Mr. Trump has so far been Mr. Putin's apologist.
Mr. Trump has dismissed the intelligence community's finding that Russia was behind the hacking, displaying a disrespect for the facts and for the security institutions that compile them. On Thursday, a senior Russian official admitted that the Kremlin had been in contact with Trump allies during the campaign. While it's not unusual for presidential campaigns to be in touch with foreign leaders, the situation raises heightened concerns given the hacking and the connections between a former senior Trump campaign official and the pro-Russia former president of Ukraine.
NOTE: WHY is the Trump campaign and Trump himself so adamant there was never any contact..COULD that lone server in Trump Tower and in the Russian Alpha Bank in Moscow be far more important that many think....it certainly was a connection between two people used for potentially intelligence reasons...WHO used it is the next question.....
WHEN MSM should have been chasing the Russian connections before the election which they somehow strangely did not BUT social media kept the story alive .....NOW it is a true US Intelligence Community CI issue....
Since Mr. Trump has refused to criticize the Kremlin, it's important that Mr. Obama figure out, before he leaves office, how to punish Russia for the hacking in a way that demonstrates Washington's determination to resist cyberattacks without further escalating the conflict. Getting the balance right will not be easy. Mr. Obama should also keep talking with Russia on mutually acceptable cyber-deterrence guidelines that set rules for regulating, defending against and deterring malicious intrusions in cyberspace.
The deteriorating relationship between Moscow and Washington is a long way from what was envisioned when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and there were high hopes that Russia would become a democracy integrated with the West. In 2009, Mr. Obama authorized Hillary Clinton, his first secretary of state, to "reset" relations, aiming to foster cooperation.
The two sides worked together on an arms control treaty and the Iran nuclear deal, but on the whole the reset failed, largely because of Mr. Putin. Restoring Russia to power and to a central role in world affairs turned out to be more important to Mr. Putin, and the Russians, than peaceful or profitable ties with the West. His foreign policy is a fairly consistent continuation of Soviet policy — preventing Western encirclement by moving into Ukraine; fighting proxy battles to support Russian interests, as in Syria; and challenging American power wherever possible.
Continued....
Oh great, @RT_com is spending its time hyping up fear, instigating an image of total chaos & insecurity in #Europe ahead of #French election
I know Slapout and 60M others that voted for Trumpkin might not like the following but if we take the SWC posted comments of Winston Churchill to heart....HERE goes a rant that will definitely not be liked by many who voted for Trumpkin.....
IF we look at just how populism has unfolded over the last say SIX years across the globe and especially in the US....we need urgently to honesty be willing to admit that those that voted for Trumpkin have no earthly idea what ethno nationalism is...no earthly idea what fascism is...no earthly idea that the Us still is entrenched in racism directed at blacks and minorities and no earthly idea many do not support women's rights and her reproductive rights...AND those civil liberties and human rights..WELL not for non Whites is the answer....
AND for the US those that voted for Trumpkin failed to distance themselves from the KKK with their media outlet The Klansman and the US Neo Nazi Party and their media outlet The Stormer and the countless media outlets on the neo right and extreme right ie radio stations that drove home the messaging/narrative of the reemerging "alt Right"..."and white supremacy"....
BY not distancing themselves from this element within the Trumpkin voting mass...they actually inadvertently support ethno nationalism BUT what might be far more crazy is DO they in the end "identify" with those messages from the extreme right????
A history lesson for those that did not have much to do with Europe theses days.....
Hungary under Orban started out as a relatively strong supporter of a pro EU Party and who ever so gently moved that pro EU party to the far right ie "populist party" WHERE now he is formally known for his tight Putin connections and his "populist party" is now currently more and more anti EU....ALL the while still taking EU financial handouts to the tune of millions of Euros....WE are seeing the same exact maneuvering in France with Le Pen and in Poland..while at least Poland remains tightly committed to the EU and NATO
JUMP forward to the US...it is the general consensus that no independent can win in US elections...Trump was a and is still a closeted racist hidden in the garments of a "populist".....knowing he could not get elected as "independent populist" he needed a "populist party"...EXACTLY as Oran needed one before he shifted.....
SO Trumpkin started running in the RP primaries and if one really followed him he countless times stated he was not really a "true Republican" and played then the media and his constant racist..sexist and bigoted statements to a vaster audience than he has ever had....AND the messaging resonated....
THEN after winning the primaries he stood "legally alone" as the winner of the RP and then became the RP candidate for President WITHIN the RP.....
NOW kicks in the current Hungarian Orban model....Trumpkin never changed his rhetoric of racism...sexism. and bigotry......
NOW suddenly the old line political RP is now the new populist party led by a populist still using the same racist...sexist and bigoted messaging that he started with....
BUT now the so called old line RP is really no longer the true RP BUT the WHITE NATIONALIST PARTY.....
BTW..posted here was a Bannon tweet indicating he was moving his operations from Breitbart to Germany and France....THEN he was pushed back and told to shut up....in that SWJ posted tweet EVEN Bannon wrote the words...to create a WHITE NATIONAL PARTY....UNQUOTE...think that term through very carefully ...
Savor the words "white supremacist"
With the addition to the Trumpkin staff of Bannon who is a declared ultra nationalist...basically a "white supremacist" AND anti Semitic all strategic Trumpkin messaging ie propaganda will be coming through him and directed by him....for the next FOUR years...
AND those that do not believe it possible to have fascism with a friendly smile get ready for some changes you never expected to see in the US...
Just some highlights from the the last 18 months to refresh one mind about Trumpkin....and company....
1. REMEMBER when David Duke KKK leader endorsed Trumpkin..his response...WHO is David Duke...once it was explained to him...DID he push back on The Klansman editor supporting his election..NO he did not.
2. REMEMBER when he released one of his first anti Semitic ads with the Star of David and he took flak for it...EXPLAINING he though the Star of David was a sheriffs badge....come one guys....
3. REMEMBER when Trumpkin repeatedly six months ago retweeted anti Semitic tweets from the Klan and the "alt Right" ..his statement..he did not know they wer anti Semitic....come on guys
4. REMEMBER his last campaign ad...truly anti Semitic and he did not even comment when called out on it...
5. REMEMBER when his son Eric retweeted countless "alt Right" Tweets and he did not repute them when he was called out....
6. REMEMBER all is his rally statements that where blatantly sexist....racist and bigoted....NONE of them ever called back....
LASTLY an all important point...JUST how long did Trumpkin drive the "birther issue" and lead that movement in a direct fashion...STARTING WHEN?????
THEN his speech where he stated he was going to be the President of all of us and the great uniter...BUT it took him until yesterday to call out the violence of his supporters against minorities and women....being reported literally from all over the US....AND some of it was posted here and some felt it was the work of a "Clinton organized opposition"....
AND most of ALL did he call out the Neo Nazi media outlet that listed the names of 50 Clinton supporters..mostly women and stated send emails..tweets...calls to this listed individuals and rive them to suicide....
NOTICE he did not repudiate "The Stomer" did he?
With the naming of Bannon...and believe me many Europeans fully understand US politics far better than most Americans...the morning headlines in some of the most influential German newspapers and yes German read a lot of newspapers...."Bannon the ultra nationalist" named to Trumpkin's Staff".....
"Ultra nationalist" is buzz speak for Nazi....
The debate over what the Trumpkin FP will and or could be has run it's course we now know with Bannon and the neocons that have drifted back towards the WH ..it will be aggressive to anything other than American..it will be Protectionist and it will be Ethno Nationalist in ideology..
BESIDES his bromance with Putin and his 300% alignment with Putin's FP tells us were we are going with Russia....
THIS confirms what I have been posting on SWJ since Brexit and now Trumpkin...immigration and the effects of globalization are just smokescreen for a populist/facist trend .....
Highly recommended article by @epkaufm. Fear of change most important reason for #Trump and #Brexit, not economy.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/trump-and-brexit-why-its-again-not-the-economy-stupid/#
ASK anyone who voted for Trumpkin just what is information warfare inside the Russian non linear warfare and you will get a totally blank stare coming back to you......and then ..what do you mean comes next?
Information warfare is the attempt to change an entire societies way of thinking and to accept your narrative as the "truth" and to distrust actual truth/facts....IT is all about Russian propaganda driving on the 6Ds....dismay...dismiss/deflect...distort....distract ALL designed to create doubt and distrust....
Editorial Opinion: "Lies in the Guise of News in the #Trump Era," via Nicholas Kristof in the @nytimeshttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/opinion/sunday/lies-in-the-guise-of-news-in-the-trump-era.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share#
MANY Trumpkin voters would point to the sheer volume on Twitter as "proof" of the Trumping popularity and even Trumpkin mentioned the sheer number of followers on Twitter as proof of his message ebing correct...
BUT did they and Trumpkin ever comment on the proven information coming out of Europe that over 1/3rd of all proTrumpkin tweet were being generated by a Russian company paying young Macedonians to tweet proTrumpkin comments...THAt means on any given day 33% of Trumpkin social media supporters were Russian paid info warriors....
THINK about it?????
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Duncan Hunter Mentioned for Defense, National Security Positions in Trump Administration (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/duncan-hunter-mentioned-for-defense-national-security-positions-in-trump-administration)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/duncan-hunter-mentioned-for-defense-national-security-positions-in-trump-administration) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
One-Hundred Years of Fear: America Has Abdicated Its Leadership of the West
http://spon.de/aeRLF via @SPIEGELONLINE
Charles Lister @Charles_Lister
My brief comments on jihadist perceptions of #Trump's victory in the U.S., plus implications for the region:
http://www.mei.edu/content/article/monday-briefing-trump-assembling-foreign-policy-team … #Syria
Donald Trump Likely to End Aid for Rebels Fighting Syrian Government
By DAVID E. SANGERNOV. 11, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/world/middleeast/donald-trump-syria.html
Military aid to rebels financed & delivered by regional sunni powers, what happens next is a test for GCC-Turk ties.
This could also force all factions including JFS and FSA to unite and fully merge when the moderate-radical limitations becomes irrelevant
THIS means 100,000 rebel fighters merging into JFS.....
Future Trump FP being driven by cash.......????
Trump's Top Military Adviser Is Lobbying For Obscure Company With Ties To Turkish Government
Flynn wrote an op-ed on Tues. calling for extradition of Fethullah Gulen. It was a curious piece and unusual for a former DIA Director..........

http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/11/trumps-top-military-adviser-is-lobbyin...
An intelligence consulting firm founded by retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Donald Trump's top military adviser, was recently hired as a lobbyist by an obscure Dutch company with ties to Turkey's government and its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The revelation of that new lobbying contract, which has not been previously reported, raises several questions given that Trump is said to be considering Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), to take over as either Secretary of Defense or National Security Advisor.
It also raises questions about disclosure.
Flynn wrote an op-ed for The Hill on Tuesday, just before Trump's stunning upset of Hillary Clinton, in which he heaped praise on Erdogan and called on the next president, whoever that would be, to accede his request to extradite the U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen back to Turkey
Putin Says France 'Deceived' Russia On Syrian UN Resolution - Likely False
http://bit.ly/2eyKRWB
US info warfare on its self hard at work......fake site could though not be tracked so it could have come from outside the US
Google's top news link for 'final election results' goes to a fake news site with false numbers
http://wpo.st/4xBE2
Gentlemen:
Once Trump assumes that presidency in January, how will the Free Syrian Army be impacted?
My impression of the current situation is that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are supplying the weapons to the FSA (including the TOWs), and the CIA's role is to vet those units that are being supplied.
If Trump terminates the CIA operation, it is reasonable to assume that Doha and Riyadh may increase their support for the rebels and do so in an unconstrained manner, supported by Ankara and Amman.
While Clinton would have imposed a no-fly zone over Aleppo possibly, Trump may well prove less restrictive in practice than Obama...
Azor...interesting questions that some here at SWJ do not really want to discuss.....to fully understand Trumps FP one must discuss Trump himself and what has he stated during say not the campaign but even earlier..WHAT you hear from Trump is what you get....and people do not take that serious enough...they just think it was campaign rhetoric....
1. first concern is the serious CI question hanging directly over Trump and a number of his advisors past and current...
If you thoroughly and some here at SWJ did not want to go down that road. Thoroughly look at the period 2008 and 2012..Trump shifted and shifted hard to a proRussian stance on a number of things...in exactly the 2012/2013 timeframe when he was in Russia SO one must actually ask the core question.... WHY the shift and for what reasons when the RP has had a strong counter Russian policy since Reagan.
2. take the Ukraine....he shifted with direct influence the RP Platform on Ukraine from what the RP Congressional side wanted...strong support to Ukraine to a position matching exactly what Putin has been stating and then he and his campaign when confronted with the sudden shift denied as usual that they were behind it.....
3. he then stated the same exact Russian position in numerous rallies and debates
4. he strictly avoided meeting with the Ukrainian President during the recent UNGA when all candidates were pushing for photo ops..CHECK his statements on the Russian military annexation of Crimea..."he stated I can see me recognizing the Russian Crimea referendum".....CHECK his statements on the continued need to sanction Russia.."he can see eliminating those sanctions"....
5. take his position now on Syria ..your original question...you can match exactly what Putin has been pushing since their first proposal to work jointly with the US against supposedly IS to the exact same statements made repeatedly by Trump.
Trump is a perfect fit to the same Russian position even down to potentially fully supporting the Kurdish drive for statehood...AND check his comments on Israel and the Palestrian's where he stated he will move the US Embassy to Jerusalem.
He wants to fight IS jointly with ASSAD and Putin...will he go down that path? Check my first comments...he is for some strange reasons joined at the hip of Putin and the question is why....
If the US pulls it's connections ...one you have great resistance right now inside DoD to work jointly with Russia with good reason....IMHO I do believe the CIA has the same security concerns a number of current and former CI types have....Trump has been compromised during his 2012/2013 trips to Moscow and his great reliance on Russian oligarch monies and his 249 Trump companies inside Russia.
This concern was voiced by two former CIA/NSA Directors who went even further than I do and they called Trump directly "a Russian agent of influence"....buzz words for "he has been badly compromised security wise"....
BUT actually it might not be so bad for the anti Assad forces...as the Obama group has been influencing the delivery of TOWs/MANPADs and that restriction would come off and the rebels have been easily getting them into Syria....
Secondly...what has been strange is that Israel flatly told the Russian PM when he was just in Israel....Iran out of Syria BUT then we hear that while Trump wants to cancel the Iran Deal...which is dead anyway because Iran has seriously violated several critical parts....recently again confirmed by UNSC KSA wants the agreement held in place...WHY...I think the KSA is fearful that they will have to then drive to develop a nuclear counterweight to Iran and then you have an instant nuclear arms race...remember KSA does not have to develop one they just purchase one from Pakistan which that have supported for years in their nuclear developments....
With the US out of the picture then KSA..Qatar and their other Sunni sponsors are free to drive fully against Assad....question is what is the Turkish position and how much financial support does Erdogan then gets from the Sunni Front States....
There has been a floating rumor among the FSA groups that Turkey and Russia have "an agreement on Aleppo"...meaning Russia "allows Turkey to control the entire border area blacking the YPG/PKK in exchange for giving up Aleppo to Assad"...do not believe this as Aleppo has always been a red line publicly stated by Turkey....
Without US involvement the rebels and their sponsors are then free to drive against Assad which the US has under Obama been basically blocking for the last two years...something the Russians do not want...
The biggest problem though for Trump is he hangs himself onto Putin is that he would be highly successful in driving approx. 100,000 relatively well trained and combat experienced fighters into the open arms of JFS (AQ) and that would not be the "victory he promised the Trump supporters"....
You can sense the mutual joy by both IS and AQ in the Trump election..in one fall swoop Trump has confirmed their propaganda narrative about the West and the US and they both feel vindicated in their fight against the West and the US.....
Again my central concern is the Trump Russian connection and is the President of the US CI wise badly compromised to the point that US FP is Russian FP....
Just my opinion.....BTW back to the Trump security clearance and access issue...Trump announced that his entire businesses all 500 of them will be placed into a blind trust run by his family...and that will guarantee surely he does not hear a thing about the businesses for four long years...come on....
NOW he wants TS/SCI clearances for the exact same family members....IF you have been either in the military and or government TS/SCI and being read on is strictly on a need to know basis.....so are they also going to participate in his intelligence briefings and decisions AND at the same time not talk to him at all about his 500 businesses????
Also I posted initially on the Trump thread that got shut down the fact that while he was bashing Muslims daily in his rallies and debates HE via back channels informed Araba countries..." do not pay attention to the anti Muslim Arab rhetoric it is just campaigning rhetoric"...WHY because he has a lot of businesses in the entire ME and needs their investment monies to finance his so called empire because he is cut off from US banks...SO will in the end will his businesses determine his FP...IMHO I truly think so....BUT did he state that to his supporters and hundreds of rallies..no he did not....he just kept on bashing Muslims....
BUT again why do his children need TS/SCI clearances????
BTW..this goes in general for other FP areas and Trump.....
Chinese activists fear they will be forgotten as reality show president prepares extreme makeover of US-China ties
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/15/trump-and-china-fears-deal-making-consign-human-rights-to-political-roadkill#
QUOTE from social media....
And they're still running his businesses -- so he's giving his businesses free access to trillions in dollars of American intelligence.
AZOR...this is in fact a serious issue inadvertently raised.....there are tons of business and economic intelligence passed on a daily basis from embassies around the world AND Trumps has over 500 businesses worldwide...
What a @realDonaldTrump Presidency Means for the Middle East. @ACmideast→
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/what-a-donald-trump-presidency-means-for-the-middle-east#
Russia Is About To Send $10 Billion Worth Of Weapons To The Leading State Sponsor Of Terrorism –
http://defconwarningsystem.com/2016/11/14/russia-is-about-to-send-10-billion-worth-of-weapons-to-the-leading-state-sponsor-of-terrorism/#
My @NewStatesman analysis on what the Kremlin wants from the first Trump-Putin summit.
http://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2016/11/vladimir-putin-and-donald-trump-get-ready-big-deal#
AZOR....this is a serious concern for me personally as I have been posting repeatedly on the Ukraine thread from the very beginning....PUTIN wants badly a Yalta 2.0 agreement giving him total "influence over eastern and western Europe" and that is then recognized officially by the US".....that has been his goal since Georgia...Moldavia and now eastern Ukraine/Crimea .....he has been pushing and pushing the EU and Obama to do just such a deal.....SINCE 2006 he and his FM have repeatedly stated they wanted to see an economic region under Russian "influence" from Portugal to the Russian Far East and both have never come off of this "dream"...WITH Trump they see this as now being possible....WITH Clinton it would have never happened in their lifetimes....
If you think that this is not possible go back to the Trump statements about his abilities to do deals and then seriously relook Trumps Russian comments since 2012...THIS deal is coming.....
THIS confirms the Russian drift inside Trump's inner circle and one has to wonder why that is so...WHEN the Reagan RP has a clear vision of the Russian threat to the US.......?
Giuliani thinks Russia's invasions of its neighbors (Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova) and aggression against the Baltics, etc. etc are our fault?
Giuliani is rumored to be the coming next DoS...REMEMBER it was Guiliaini who in fact leaked the additional Clinton emails two full days before the FBI announcement about more emails.....as he has deep friends still inside the FBI and the FBI Director worked for the Giuliani law firm before becoming FBI director...
Azor...this is exactly what I am saying here ...
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump%E2%80%99s-far-flung-holdings-raise-potential-for-conflicts-of-interest/ar-AAkigrV?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp
What we never heard in the campaign is that Trump owns and or controls 249 Russian companies he has never explained to the voters....SO will his FP say with Putin reflect a desire to protect and improve his Russian business bottom lines or will he act in the interests of the US electorate and potentially lose tons of money in that decision????
Same goes for virtually the entire planet were he has business interests...especially the ME and their cash assets he needs to service a 650M USD debt load...
Trump has not released his tax returns especially those since 2012...and we do not know for sure... is his bromance with Putin due to say a large Russian bank loan at great low interest rates to service a massive debt load or has the business empire profited heavily from strong Russian oligarch property purchases one of their selected methods to launder untraceable black monies...AND that is the reason for his early rejection of Ukrainian US interests and his early drive to support both Putin and Assad in Syria ....this is a serious conflict of interest until resolved....
BUT Trump and his surrogates say ..."trust Trump he is rich so he will not be greedy"...BUT at the same time Giuliani stated on a Sunday talk show Trump is above the US conflict of interest laws and does not have to answer to them as President ....BUT is this not exactly how rich oligarchs think and act.....for them it is all about making even more money.....REMEMBER in a 2000 Fortune Magazine interview Trump stated that if he ran for President "he could make money at it"....
SO in the future instead of debating why a FP is strategic for the US will we see FP decisions made on the business bottom line of the Trump Empire or in the true interests of the US and YES even in the ME.....
Azor...this is exactly what I mean......read the Russian wording of the FM stated..current US discredited anti Russia policy"..SO does the Russian FM know in this statement that the coming Trump FP is "a friendly Russian policy"...based on Trumps initial statements I believer they believe that actually.???
MFA Russia 🇷🇺
@mfa_russia
#Ryabkov: #US expanded list of #sanctions reflect discredited anti-#Russia policy of outgoing Obama administration
http://sptnkne.ws/cG96
SIX Crimean Duma reps were placed on the sanctions list...
QESTION is will Trump continue them since he favors recognizing the Russian referendum as it was "legal"....he seems to have completely missed the "little green men" Russian invasion of Crimea....
HOPE Trump who loves social media is tracking his in his transition team's Trump Tower that he is billing you the taxpayer for....
THESE are his future partners HARD AT WORK fighting IS that he wants to work with?????
#ALEPPO RIGHT NOW.
Yeah, world! Let's support #Putin in #Syria! Will help for sure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoNiK8A5dzE#…
Russian information warfare hard at work and Trump does not seem to mind since a 1/3rd of the tweets supporting him come from a Russian company in Macedonia......he is overly impressed it seems by numbers and seems to never question if a real person is behind that tweet.....
Telling.
Only 1699 of the 5000+ accounts I blocked are still active.
Gives you an idea about professional & automated trolling accounts.
Trump Should Learn From Obama's Mistakes (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/trump-should-learn-from-obamas-mistakes)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/trump-should-learn-from-obamas-mistakes) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
TOTALLY forgot this.....went back and dug it out of the past
Giuliani was kicked off Iraq Study Grp bc missed meetings to give paid speeches. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2007/06/the_man_who_knows_too_little.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_ tw_top#
Open challenge to anyone who voted for Trump and who follows SWJ on a regular basis...CARE to comment????
Bolton: Britain leaving the EU will strengthen Nato because together US and UK will "sort the Europeans out." Not exactly sure I follow his thinking here...BUT he is pushing for DoS...
If this is any indication of the coming Trump FP...WE are all in trouble....
Not a fan of Ron Paul.....but in this case I fully and massively agree with him....
Rand Paul slams John Bolton as potential secretary of state: 'The man is a menace' http://read.bi/2eX7Zt5
Trump the man
Firstly, Trump is a self-promoter. What we witnessed during the presidential campaign was Trump's Apprentice persona campaigning for the presidency. Trump did his utmost to distinguish his positions from those of fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, seizing on as many wedge issues as possible. With respect to Putin, if there was an unspoken but popular sentiment that Obama and Clinton were engaging in a policy of appeasement toward Putin, Trump would have taken the opposite stance.
Secondly, the accusations that Trump was an agent of the Kremlin, ostensibly due to his reliance upon revenue and/or loans controlled by Russia, truly came to the fore when Clinton and Trump were pitted against one another. Paul Manafort certainly had some very disturbing ties to Russian oligarchs and the Russian-backed Party of Regions in Ukraine, but Manafort also had a long history advising the presidential campaigns of Ford, Reagan, Bush and Dole.
Thirdly, Trump knows that the American electorate does not comprehend the complexities of the Syrian Civil War or the nuances of opposing Russia's invasion of Ukraine by diplomatic and economic means. Indeed, Russia's crimes in Ukraine and Syria gained the most attention after the fact, when the Democrats began tying Trump to Putin. Suddenly, every Democrat became an expert on Russian aggression and suddenly all the trolls from Olgino were challenged after years of posting misinformation at leisure. It was saddening to see that Syria, Donbas and Crimea only mattered in the context of a bitter election. The problem with Russian information warfare is that it takes too much time and effort to correct the propaganda and by that time the target audience is no longer receptive.
Fourth, Trump knows that the American people do not care for Obama's incrementalism, which Clinton would merely continue, and it is understandable. If annexing Crimea was wrong Americans reason, then why not have it out in 2014? Why have another Cold War in which Crimea remains part of Russia? If Assad is a tyrant, then overthrow him. If Syria is too complicated and there are no good options, then leave it alone.
Fifth, Trump is a showman who is capable of saying one thing and doing something completely different, just like Putin. You might as well take Putin at his word.
The Free Syrian Army
I see that you agree with me that Riyadh, Doha, Amman and Ankara will shake off Obama's constraints and ensure that the Assadists never win. While Hillary would have imposed a partial no-fly zone for Syrian military aircraft, she would have been under intense pressure to not allow TOWs to end up in Daesh/Al Qaeda hands.
The JCPOA
The Iranian violation was immaterial. What is material is that for all of the work on the agreement, it is neither an executive agreement nor a ratified treaty. Moreover, examining what befell Libya (2011) and Ukraine (2014), watching the North Koreans continue to advance despite the most crippling of sanctions, and watching India and Pakistan expand their arsenals, Iran never had a good reason to negotiate in good faith, especially when the United States could have changed its mind in 2016.
Azor......these comments need to thoroughly be understood......It is interesting what you say about Trump
Now turn back the historical clock to 1933 I say a place called Germany....
1. Fragmented weak democracy...much like the current US
2. Millions of unemployed......BTW largely aggravated by the US instigated protectionism EXACTLY if you read between the Trump statements he wants to do...the US move in 30 has now been seen as causing a worldwide 30% reduction in all global economies on top of the global depression
3. then came along a "showman" and the world say "he is just a showman trying to get elected
4. BTW that "showman" also wanted to "restore Germany's greatdom" and is that not what he constantly heard Trump state over and over and over..."Make American Great".....
5....AND from late 33 to early 34...a total of eight months....there were no more German political parties...the police and security services all were Hitler's own....and instead of deportations talked about by Trump Hitler had concentration camps....
Now seriously go back and compare the early Hitler rhetoric to the current Trump rhetoric and what do you see and hear....
AND this is the serious part...now we the US have the KKK...the Aryan Nation militia groups...the alt Right ...basically all white supremacist ultra nationalists cheering on Trump and for the first time actually gaining fashionable mainstream media attention with their comments, statements and ideology....
Couple that with the exact Trump comments being actually implemented as far as they can without "upsetting American feelings that something is wrong with them"...and yet those that demonstrations against what they perceive to be the same drift I see....are condemned as terrorists....AND even the FBI admitted that after the election hate crimes registered against Muslims has hit in such a short period 67% over the previous year...
Yesterday one of the main "alt Right" media spokesperson carried on 300 radio stations stated...."Trump will build a wall and setup Muslim registries"....just as Hitler registered the Jews.....
The Arab saying...."history cannot be repeated twice"...is wrong after 1500 years....
As for the Russian "connection"....if it had not been for social media picking up on it far far far longer than US MSM and finding the Ukrainian connection documents which the FBI still has not requested from Ukraine....MSM would not have picked up on the story....
Secondly when this story should have been thoroughly discussed and debated before the election it was not and is now simply a CI matter....
Just for the record...when the "Trump Tower/Alpha bank server" story hit....watch just how MSM and a large number (roughly 50 fake news sites) pushed massively back on it and basically buried it again until after the election...that my friend is information warfare hard at work....
Azor....one small step for mankind but one really big step for Americans.....
Finally US social media gaints are taking action what social media themselves have been saying is necessary...literally years ago....
Twitter announced they are removing all "alt Right" accounts...FB is soon to follow.....
AND the "alt Right" is screaming ...censorship and yes it is....freedom of speech and press are being violated but preaching hatred of minorities and white supremacy is verbal violence....and it should have been stopped years ago.....
I was once approached by German intelligence services in the 80s and privately asked if I could get the US intel community to help them track 20M USDs that were flowing into German to neo Nazi groups PER YEAR from the US...US response...bank and personal privacy laws..cannot help...
This was 30 years ago and just how does US neo Nazi groups get 20M USDs to spend every year and from Whom?
THIS is exactly how a country raised and nurtured under US views of democracy handle hate groups since WW2.....there are laws designed to stop hate groups from both left..right and Islamist....if their hatred threatens the existing government...just takes the Justice Minister's review and then they can be forbidden and all assets pulled in their members arrested.....if they continue their activities.....
Yesterday there were 85 raids all across German arresting over 200 and seizing assets......computers and other materials of a very active Islamist religious group that had recruited 140 young Germans for Syria....they claimed religious freedom...the German government ruled ...religious freedom yes..but hostile and subversive activities against Germany and the West no...therefore you lost your religious freedom security.
3 days after being invited into the Trump team by right-wing Stephen Bannon, Marion Le Pen pledged French allegiance to Russia in Moscow...during a public press conference
And before you ask: She means the West's "intervention in Syria" of course.
Not the Russian one ...SERIOUSLY REMEBER I posted the Trump "alt right advisor" Bannon's own tweet from his personal account that he was immediately going to expand his private business into France and Germany to help build a QUOTE "White National Party UNQUOTE
AND I posted the Le Pen response to his offer to work with LePen's right wing nationalist party taken from her twitter account.
THEN when social media picked it up and then US MSM started asking the Trump campaign about the Bannon exchange with LePen.....WE HEARD the standard Trump response..."it ain't us and we have had no contacts with her"..JUST as he stated when challenged about his Russian contacts....
Anyone notice a trend developing...contacts with ultra nationalist parties/Moscow...then discovered....then asked about it..then denial....
Steve Bannon's admiration of France's National Front exceeds even that of UKIP:
This particular article gives great insight into the coming Trump FP....Trump via his surrogates believes that if the US threatens Russia with force to contain them...Putin will back down.....
https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world?utm_term=.mvZq1qYpqZ#.lqxxyx9Dxl
Donald Trump's newly named chief strategist and senior counselor, Steve Bannon, laid out his global nationalist vision in unusually in-depth remarks delivered by Skype to a conference held inside the Vatican in the summer of 2014.
Well before victories for Brexit and Trump seemed possible, Bannon declared there was a "global tea party movement" and praised European far-right parties like Great Britain's UKIP and France's National Front. Bannon also suggested that a racist element in far-right parties "all gets kind of washed out," that the West was facing a "crisis of capitalism" after losing its "Judeo-Christian foundation," and he blasted "crony capitalists" in Washington for failing to prosecute bank executives over the financial crisis.
The remarks — beamed into a small conference room in a 15th-century marble palace in a secluded corner of the Vatican — were part of a 50-minute Q&A during a conference focused on poverty hosted by the Human Dignity Institute, which BuzzFeed News attended as part of its coverage of the rise of Europe's religious right. The group was founded by Benjamin Harnwell, a longtime aide to Conservative member of the European Parliament Nirj Deva to promote a "Christian voice" in European politics. The group has ties to some of the most conservative factions inside the Catholic Church; Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of the most vocal critics of Pope Francis who was ousted from a senior Vatican position in 2014, is chair of the group's advisory board.
The transcript begins 90 seconds into the then-Breitbart News chairman's remarks because microphone placement made the opening mostly unintelligible, but you can hear the whole recording at the bottom of the post.
ContinuedNOW one can understand the Bannon interest in ultra national parties in Europe....
Kremlin's web of political influence in UK, France and Germany. Must-read report from Atlantic Council.http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/The_Kremlins_Trojan_Horses_web_1116.pdf#
BUT WAIT..when it comes to punishing the Russian government for their war crimes and genocide in Syria the Obama WH is not different that the future Trump ME FP....
The @BarackObama government "worked secretly to delay" and "weaken" sanctions re #Russia and #Iran on #Syria ...https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2016/11/15/congress-presses-trump-administration-to-stop-syrian-atrocities/?utm_term=.4a5679b75406#…
"The Obama admin failed to use the tools at its disposal to stop the suffering of innocent civilians in #Syria."
http://wapo.st/2fen3DS
The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act passed the House, would sanction #Assad and those (#Iran and #Russia) that abet his mass-atrocities
Sec. Leon Pannetta at @CSIS, on dealing with CVE in a #Trump Presidency:
"We're going to need to pray a lot."
Assad correctly interprets a sole focus by Trump on #IS as a pro-regime policy.
This is also current policy
Obama's reaction to Trump mirrors his reaction to foreign dictators, whom he was sure he could mollify with reason:
Pentagon officials have been preparing to welcome to Trump transition team, but nobody has shown up:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2607438/#
NSA chief essentially says @wikileaks is a vehicle of the Russian State that helped #Putin install the next US president.
Russian info and cyber warfare directed straight at the US and the Obama WH blinked and let it go by....
Germany's top spook bemoans Russian intel interference in US electionhttp://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN13B14O? (http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN13B14O?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+Reuters%252FworldNews+%2528 Reuters+World+News%2529#)
Prince Turki Bin Faisal at #MEIconf - says #IranDeal should remain. Any surprise to that opinion shows people haven't listened to #Saudi.
At #MEIconf, @jjz1600 reminds us that POTUS is not so much a "captain" as much as a "captive" of events that unfold. "You get no do-overs."
At @MiddleEastInst's #MEIconf, @jjz1600 gives impassioned speech on dangers resulting from #Trump's anti-Islam tendencies.
Cue: Applause.
Donald Trump's presidential transition team is reportedly discussing a national registry of Muslims.
Reuters reports that anti-immigrant leader and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is part of the Trump presidential transition team "said in an interview that Trump's policy advisers had also discussed drafting a proposal for his consideration to reinstate a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries."
Kobach told the news service he has been "in regular conference calls with about a dozen Trump immigration advisers" for months.
Trump discussed the possibility of a Muslim registry during the presidential campaign.
Kobach cited a program called the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS, as his preferred model for the Trump Muslim registry system. NSEERS, which was created by George W. Bush and dismantled by the Obama administration, was described by Chris Rickerd, policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, as "An executive branch post-9/11 reaction that made people from predominantly Muslim countries to go through an arcane series of registration and other screening mechanisms. if they didn't, they were punished. Thousands were hit with civil deportation consequences.
Not a single person was ever prosecuted for terrorist charges while the system was in place.
Rickerd pointed out that NSEERS was an enormous waste of time and resources leading to "countless hours of law enforcement time spent on people who had no individual reason to be on the authorities' radar."
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the scourge of fake news on the internet could have swung the election to Trump:http://thebea.st/2fFksn3
WHAT Trump needs urgently to understand about a very complex world right now.....there are people fighting and dying against Russia as they either fight Assad for their vision of a new country under the rule of law and good government and or Ukrainians fighting and dying daily to defend their country from a Russian invasion.........
THIS is the respect the Ukrainian people show to their war dead even after two years of war that we often miss seeing in the US MSM.......
There are heroes
who sacrifice themselves
and fight for everything we hold dear
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LzX3bYqG98&feature=youtu.be
Actually an interesting thesis as he is a solid well informed Russian SME.........
PODCAST: The Kremlin had a plan - and Donald Trump winning wasn't part of it, says @MarkGaleotti.
http://reut.rs/2fFMfUi
As a student of history, mostly self-taught, I find the comparisons between Trump and Hitler to be yet another instance of reductio ad Hitlerum. There are many right-wing democratic populist politicians in Europe, including some leaders, and yet Trump has not been compared to any of those, nor even less murderous populist tyrants e.g. Mussolini, Chavez, Castro, Franco, Putin, etc.
The comparison between the contemporary United States and Wiemar Germany is equally ridiculous. The latter had weak and mistrusted institutions, had faced a series of armed rebellions, had to contend with a Freikorps that was larger and better armed than its humbled armed forces and police, was suffering from major economic problems and in which the overall sentiment was one of chaos and betrayal. Wiemar was more reminiscent of the Russian Republic's Provisional Government, and Hitler's seizure of power was more reminiscent of the Stalinist takeover of Czechoslovakia over 1945-1948.
If every Hitler comparison was true, then Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr., would all have much in common with the Fuhrer. Yet now we are to believe that the Democratic media only cried wolf before, and that this time there is a wolf i.e. Trump.
White supremacists, including white nationalists, would support any candidate that promises to deport illegal aliens and improve border security. In whichever presidential election, one candidate is perceived to be tougher on the issue than the other.
With respect to terrorism and hate crimes, the FBI will issue a report for 2016 next year. I have seen all manner of commentary attempting to tie Trump's rhetoric to a rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes, yet historically, they have been in fact tied to acts of Muslim terror. We have seen attacks in San Bernardino, Paris and Orlando that have coincided with a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment among Americans. Looking at the number of hate crime and terrorism attacks and deaths since September 11, 2001 (which would obviously skew the statistics), we can see that over 100 people have been killed in Muslim supremacist terrorism in the United States. In comparison, under 20 people have been killed in anti-Muslim hate crimes over the same period. This contrast is rather stark.
Nor do I believe that the mainstream media suppressed a story about Trump's connections to the Kremlin. I have seen repeated news articles and opinion pieces on the matter to the extent that people might as well conclude that Trump is a "Manchurian Candidate" in addition to being a reincarnation of Hitler.
If you disagree with the First Amendment and believe in the state's right to suppress hate groups and hate speech, then you would agree with deeming all Wahhabi and Salafi congregations as cults and banning them, correct?
Unfortunately, the German government is not necessarily the best judge of what is a threat and what is not. Today, Germans who oppose Merkel's open border policy face official censorship and censure for discussing it on social media, in addition to being victims of migrant crime. Tomorrow, the German government may change and people or Turkish, Arab, Kurdish or African descent may find themselves forced to assimilate into Germans and censored and censured when they attempt to practise their cultures. Given your knowledge of history, you should know how rapidly German society can transform itself.
In conclusion, the Hitler smear and the GRU/SVR canard were efforts at negative campaigning that failed. They were attempts to scare American Jews and the historically ignorant into voting for Hillary Clinton, and to convince the foreign policy hawks to cross the aisle. Hitler has notoriety and name-recognition that other tyrants don't, and Americans have forgotten how confronting Putin was a Cold War anachronism for both Obama and Hillary and how relations needed to be "reset"…
If, as John Kerry bloviates, global warming is the biggest threat to humanity, then they should have left Hitler and Putin out of it…
I have yet to listen to the clip, but I will. I will say at the risk of assuming, that if Galeotti is claiming that Putin believed Hillary would win and was on the attack to prevent popular support for her more muscular foreign policy, I would agree. I think that Putin is more comfortable with a more aggressive incrementalist (Clinton) than with an unpredictable showman (Trump).
Azor...as an historian then you fully under the process by which facism slowly undermines a so called democracy....do I need to point to the current Hungarian and or Polish models where both countries did well under so called proWestern and proEU parties and both countries developed well actually in the last 25 years but then a slow but steady nationalist trend entered and now both are full scale nationalist and to a developing degree ultra nationalist government BUT still wanting naturally the EU cas flow to keep them in power.....
Secondly when talking recently to a good Russian friend a Jew who left Russia with his family for Germany in 1998 about the election...he stated...well you Americans have a tendency for radical shifts and this is one of those shifts....end of his comment.....
Thirdly, if you have been following the Ukrainian thread and lately this thread you will see I keep pounding away on the Russian non linear warfare model with the two critical cornerstones of cyber warfare and information warfare....
Russia is running circles around us with both right now and not a single pushback by the US...Obama WH nor the Republican Party...heck the RP stepped up and used the Russian hacking/wikileaks against the US as a weaponized attack system against Clinton and said thank you as we heard in both the Trump statements about asking Moscow to release the emails..and the Breitbart.com repeating a lot of the "fake news sites"..fake Clinto accusations.
Only two Senators feel it necessary to conduct an open hearing on the DNC hacking attacks and or fake news sites....
Fourthly, Russian info warfare....during the height of the campaign a large number of Trump voters when interviewed stated they get their information from social media.....WELL.....after our analysis of proTrump tweets...41% of those were sent by a Russian company based in Macedonia using teenage labor
So if Trump claimed as he often did that he has say 100,000 new followers following his account TEHN just how many of those accounts are Russian?
Fifth....you will be seeing far more on the "fake news accounts on social media...we and others have been tracking social media and conducting network analysis of those accounts and strangely right now 64% of those found came out of European servers largely via Russia and Belarus....
THEN is we take the official Russian propaganda media legally residing in the US Russia Today and Sputnik International ....one has a massive info war machine 24 X 7 X 365 hard at work on the same narrative....
Sixth..as a historian you know then the ideological differences and the historical differences between Whabbism...Salafists....Takfirists....Sufism...and especially a little discussed Islamic aspect.....Shia Revolutionary Islam...
You do realize that many believe Sufi's are a mystical peaceful group...BUT hey the Iraqi Sufi Order Naqshbandi was one of the largest Iraqi Sunni insurgent groups...is still in the fight and still lead by the Iraqi General al Duri
AND historically they have often been jihadists.....
BTW...German security services announced today that Europe wide there are an average of only FIVE per day drifting into Syria from Europe vs the previous 100 or more per day....
Seven.....the Germans go a lot further in protecting free speech and freedom of the press than Trump does right now as he has signaled his deep dislike or rather outright hatred of the US media...thus his constant twitter battles with NYTs and WaPo because he did not like their articles about him....he even wants to change some of the laws around protection of the press to a more UK like model which really does restrict the freedom of the press via the threats of being sued constantly...
Before a German government can restrict both it requires an investigation into the question of FDGO....their support for the basic principles of democracy and do they in words and deeds combat the FDGO..in the case of the raids against one of the largest religious protected German Salafist their recruiting 140 German youths to fight in Syria was basis enough........
So if you do believe in the concept of information warfare...then maybe we should as a government forbid Russia Today....Sputnik International and Brietbart.com to stop as they are nothing but propaganda tools.....
Azor....what you missed completely is that by Trump...Bannon...Giuliani and others around Trump using the classical dog whistles of racism...... sexism...white supremacy.....Trump and company have now made the ideology and doctrine of the KKK....the "alt Right...Aryan Nation...now fashionable for MSM...once when they were actually on the political fringe they are now acceptable and their talking points even repeated by Trump lending respectability to them.....would you not agree????
AND that is truly dangerous....
Fake election stories got more engagement on Facebook than top election stories from 19 major news outlets combined https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/viral-fake-election-news-outperformed-real-news-on-facebook?utm_term=.sr8ld6RPo#.mpRxNrDp5 …
NOW Azor the analysis of these fake sites show an major amount of the fakes articles pertained to alleged Clinton corruption...crazy stories about the emails downloaded by WikiLeaks...AND this is critical....a large number centered around of set of totally faked and doctored emails that were part and parcel of the WikiLeaks dump....NOW this is not "information warfare"...BUT WAIT some call it "freedom of the press"......and "free speech" BUT WAIT when it is designed to undermine the core principles of democracy THEN what is it????I would love to post the locations of IP addresses of the servers pushing these sites but I am restricted by my customer......might be an eye opener for you and other Americans....
BTW....there is a Chrome add-on floating around on the net that allows Chrome to indicate if the site is fake or not...
.@selectall made a Chrome extension that will flag fake-news site for you. Super smart.
http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/11/heres-a-browser-extension-that-will-flag-fake-news-sites.html#…
Azor the reason these fake sites are dangerous is the way the current 24 hour news cycle works.....we tracked one particular European based fake news article into the US....then watched it get picked up SIX other fakes sites....then it was further picked up by the right wing radio talk media quoting these fakes sites as if they were real news and then made the leap into the standard MSM as they assumed wrongly the article was true AS they failed to simply fact check...this is what we call the Post truth...period...
Ku Klux Klan Plans Victory Parade For Donald Trump
https://youtu.be/35CS5E9jeTQ
Any pushback from Trump and company and distancing himself from this parade....nothing...silence..crickets.....
Azor....just a kind of historical wakeup for Americans...in 1986 the US Nazi Party was flowing 20M USDs per year into the German NPd and various associated groups and the German Postal system was intercepting over SIX tons of printed US Nazi Party materials as they contained Nazi symbols forbidden under German law....
AND that was 1986 and it has only gotten worse over the years.....a famously rich American LaRoche who has served US jail time once wrote in a book of his...."you do not need to wear Brown to be Brown"....and his daughter has led the European Workers Party from the very beginning and it has seats in the European Parliament just as does UKIP and LePen's Front Nationale....simply because of the EU election laws that state if your party reaches a certain percentage of votes then you can make it into the EU Parliament...
The former UK UKIP leader once he won Brexit after beating up on the EU quit his UKIP leadership position BUT maintained his EU Parliament seat as that pays 12K Euros per month....and health care and free transportation as a EU Parliament member....THAT is what I call hypocrisy first call version.....AND his wife is German and that gives him the right when UK goes into Brexit to remain a EU citizen what he fought against becoming.....with everything he condemned about the EU...
U.N. nuclear watchdog criticizes Iran for overstepping deal limit
http://reut.rs/2fkeask
NOT SO SUBTLE KSA warning to Trump and his advisors....
Prince Turki al-Faisal at #MEIconf: 'If #Trump makes a deal w. #Russia & #Iran over #Syria, it'll be the most disastrous step possible'
Rumored to be the next national security advisor who actually got fired by Obama from his failure with and inside DIA.....and who has shown himself in numerous trips to Moscow to in fact be Putin leaning....as well in his comments...
Putin's Darling: Nat'l Security Advisor Flynn on Russian TV. Amazing that Republicans have decided they are OK with this. Party > Country
BUT WAIT.....engaged as a lobbyist for Turkey...and no conflict o interest there whatsoever is there...he had suggested Gulen be deported from the US to Turkey....????
Trump adviser linked to Turkish lobbying and Russian propaganda arms
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/donald-trump-turkey-lobbying-231354#
.@GenFlynn nixed Peter Pace, Bill McRaven, Jim Mattis and former House Intel chair Mike Rogers, reports @KellyO:
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/power-tension-purge-inside-trump-transition-turmoil-n685321#
Flynn's DIA firing not behind this right?????
Obama changes tune about #Russia: once he said it was "regional power" now he says its a "military superpower"
No, really, we just wasted 4 years over Hillary's private server and now Prez-Elect Trump is talking to world leaders on his private phone.
Russia's Foreign Ministry says starting to contact Trump's team over Syria
http://www.interfax.ru/world/537450
Army Secretary Fanning Says Trump Would Have Trouble Rolling Back Women in Combat (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/army-secretary-fanning-says-trump-would-have-trouble-rolling-back-women-in-combat)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/army-secretary-fanning-says-trump-would-have-trouble-rolling-back-women-in-combat) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
What worries me in all theses discussions whether here or on the Ukraine thread or the blog on what is Trump's future FP....are two inherent things that go deeply into a sphere that many Americans do not nor do they like discussing....propaganda/information warfare and can US citizens be compromised by Russian intelligence and used as "agents of influence"...
If anyone does not know the term please Google "agents of influence" for a clear definition....
I have tried to pound the theme here that we are losing and losing badly the propaganda war....when it was the US cornerstone in the Cold War days...BUT it was elegantly wrapped in the narrative "common values"....
Latest example..last night on CNN ...a major Trump supporter was called out on the unusual amount of lies put into play by the Trump campaign and from Trump himself....I personally stopped counting at 121....in six months....
His response was yes there were lies and I know it BUT I liked what I heard coming from Trump.....WHAT can be said about that statement?
Second example....in order to get a TS/SCI and other side clearances such as Gamma and since Snowdon you must currently pass what is called a "lifestyle and CI polygraph".......
NOW we have a potential conflict of inter4est when a former US 3 star intel General who was fired or poor performance as the DIA Director has been making or over three years very positive statements about Putin's FP and then shows up in Moscow at a major Russian Today event sitting on the same table as Putin.....
THEN when questioned about that he refuses to state was the trip a consulting deal...was it paid for by RT and how much has he received fro previous RT interviews....."he refused to answer those questions as a former US senior intel officer"......
SO now does he simply get his previous clearance reinstated and slides past the "life style and CI polygraph"...or is he held to the same standard and thousands of other US citizens who hold such a clearance????????
WHEN Politico are more conservative media outlet starts writing articles like this ...they are as concerned as I am about who Flynn really works for.....
Gen. Mike Flynn goes to Moscow:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story
/2016/04/donald-trump-2016-russia-today-rt-kremlin-media-vladimir-putin-213833#
JUST a side comment....Gazprom the Russian natural gas company has been used for years as a "weaponized economic influencer" against or for Russian opponents or supporters.....they have thrown millions of dollars/euros at their supporters and then massively overcharged their opponents....
The same exact game is being played by Russian Today that has even corrupted former anti Russian journalists and news media personalities who now work for RT praising Trump and Putin with multi million dollar contracts with RT....
Trump's national security pick is a proponent of #torture & #warcrimes
http://bit.ly/2fKVEKc
And, Islamophobia...
http://nyti.ms/2fKUGOg
(Washington) – President-elect#Donald Trump's#choice of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for National Security Advisor demonstrates a deeply disturbing disregard for#human rights principles and the laws of war. Flynn has repeatedly endorsed proposals#by Trump that#would constitute torture and other war crimes.
"Michael Flynn has#shown a stunning contempt for the Geneva Conventions and other laws prohibiting torture," said Sarah Margon, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. "By offering this key post to Flynn,#President-elect Trump is undermining US commitments to international laws that have been broken to America's detriment."
BTW...just a side comment..in 2005 and 2006 the US Army was under massive pressure by HRW for their actions in Iraq....in 2006 HRW was invited to the Army's National Training Center at Ft. Irwin CA and asked to ensure that the Iraq training scenario conformed to what they expected....BTW they were totally surprised we had invited them...thus began a very fruitful exchange for both... much to the surprise of HRW as they were provided unlimited access and input.....and the scenario they worked with us on was solid in the areas they foresaw to be problems as they had seen them in Iraq......suddenly the critique of the Army in Iraq by HRW stopped.
SO when they make this kind of statement public THEN I intently listen to them.....
These Cold War Lions Could Teach Trump a Lesson or Two (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/these-cold-war-lions-could-teach-trump-a-lesson-or-two)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/these-cold-war-lions-could-teach-trump-a-lesson-or-two) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
FOR those that do not fully comprehend "fake news" and HOW it works....THIS is the greatest example AND from our new President...THIS is in fact hardcore info warfare being directed straight at Trump voters...some in Europe call this what it is.... outright propaganda/disinformation.
Trump tweets this yesterday...got picked up on the right wing radio media outlets and on the Trump twitter feeds and passed countless times around on proTrump social media sites and fake news sites as the "truth"...AND THIS MORNING I see it was picked up by German MSM....AND roundly critiqued as FALSE....
Just got a call from my friend Bill Ford, Chairman of Ford, who advised me that he will be keeping the Lincoln plant in Kentucky - no Mexico
SO we have our new President basically lying as no plant was ever moving ANYWHERE and he SAVED no jobs as none where being lost....AND we have FOUR years of this lying coming full at us....
AND Ford responded to this fake claim TWO full months ago....
Our president-elect tweeted something that clearly implies his election prevented a plant from moving south.
I worked at the plant mentioned. We build a Lincoln at the Louisville Assembly Plant. It was and as far as I know still is
Yeah, the confusion is over the shift of one type of car from a plant in Michigan to a new one in Mexico
WaPo confirms that according to union there were never jobs at stake. No "plant" was ever moving.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/17/trump-just-took-credit-for-stopping-ford-from-moving-a-plant-to-mexico-but-it-was-planning-to/#…
Flynn will be advising Trump on Syria as well...........
General Flynn (at left) at the Kremlin with Putin (At right), without clearance from the Pentagon and he still holds at least a TS/SCI.
Flynn boasts he was the first US officer to be invited into Russian military intelligence HQ where he lectured Russian spies on leadership..he would have had to fully and completely inform DoD of this trip and pull in an authorization for this trip as well as being CI briefed and then CI debriefed after his return...BUT he did neither thus is in complete violation of DoD security regulations pertaining to visits to Russian military and or intelligence facilities...
BBC Russian runs headline:
"Trump proposed Nat. Sec. Adviser post to General with Russia Today".
https://twitter.com/bbcrussian/status/799455285467377665#
Vladimir Putin Knows More About Donald Trump's Plans Than U.S. Officials Do - The Daily Beast
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/17/vladimir-putin-knows-more-about-donald-trump-s-plans-than-u-s-officials-do.html#
WHAT is extremely interesting is that a top Trump advisor Carter Page is known to have been in Moscow speaking with high Russian officials over policy questions BEORE the election and the FBI has questioned him about this trip and he and his lawyers have reused to provide answers to their questions......At first he did not want to even admit social media reports of him being in Moscow..
Profound ethical & security questions over Mike Flynn, Trump's pick for National Security Adviserhttps://www.yahoo.com/news/michael-flynn-key-trump-aide-sat-in-on-intel-briefings-while-advising-foreign-clients-004512931.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw#
Getting TS/SCI briefings and then advising foreign clients simply would cause a normal human being to lose his US security clearance OVERNIGHT....ESPECIALLY if the government is not informed about those clients BEFORE the briefing as is this case....
THIS is funny if it was not so serious......WE have heard the names of 14 people to be the DoS....SIX of which had checkered lobbyist backgrounds....FOUR had close Russian ties.....AND NOW
We get the name of former Gen. Petraeus being thrown out of DoS BUT WAIT he was actually sentenced and firnd for mishandling and giving away truly proven classified information to his then girlfriend and hid it on his private email account on a public email company set of multiple servers and Clinton was suppose to be what "worse"?????
THIS whole thing is turning into a circus of farces......
AND the farce just continues onward and upward....
Russian media literally cites & regards @realDonaldTrump twitter account as an official @POTUS account. No need for Department of State
The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.
– Tom Clancy
The fake news Cold War in the US is heating up...now the "alt Right answers"....
'Obama is a sulphur demon' conspiracy theorist vows to fight fake news on the internet
http://ibt.uk/A6g9Y?utm_source=social&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=/alt-right-conspiracy-theorist-vows-create-fake-news-analysis-centre-fight-google-facebook-1592008#
… via @IBTimesUK
US blames USSR for disinformation & forgeries —Soviets blame America for The New York Times & Hollywood, ca 1988
MORE Trump disinformation hard at work......
Spokesman claims #DonaldTrump never called for Muslim registry despite video evidence https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/17/trump-camp-denies-muslim-ban-registry?CMP=share_btn_tw#
Flynn is a well known staff-abuser. Bad rep in DC. It will be impossible for Trump WH to get quality people to staff NSC if Flynn's boss
BTW...Russia Today has the Flynn bio when they write about him...stating he was a commander of special operations????????
Top five FAKE election stories by Facebook engagement three months before the election. Read carefully.
NOW the latest automated trolling is....
Trump internet trolls from Macedonia claiming Clinton only won the pop vote due to fraud.....BUT US fake news site celebrates Trump win of the popular vote.....go figure......BUT CHECK the shares distribution ....impressive for a fake news site so are the numbers even correct as some European research is indicating the numbers are faked as well....
We at @cepa described Russian disinformation in East Europe last summer. Now read @AtlanticCouncil on West Europe
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/The_Kremlins_Trojan_Horses_web_1116.pdf#
SO the Russian info warfare in Crimea...eastern Ukraine...Syria and now the US is definitely NOT intertwined...think again....
If you want to understand Trump's rise, you have to understand the incredible power of fear in American media.
http://mm4a.org/2fM39R9
Did #Russia hack #DNC, cyber attack vs US election system? "You can take it to the bank" per fmr CIA Dir Michael Hayden
SO IF we saw the first of the two key cornerstones of Russian non linear warfare involved directly in the US election process...WE did not see informational warfare being directed straight at the US?????
BUT WAIT...a pro "alt Right" commenter......
Why should Facebook censor the news? What authority has its biased staff have to decide what's real? NYTimes purveys plenty of fake news
This was tweeted just hours before he accepted the DCIA position....think Iran needs to run for cover now....and those future Iranian nukes...will definitely be rolling out sooner than later....interestingly KSA is against the Trump moves to eliminate the Deal....because they do not want to get into a nuclear arms race in the ME.....
@RepMikePompeo
I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism.
ICYMI: My latest article in @ForeignPolicy:
"Trump's Syria Strategy Would Be a Disaster"
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/17/trumps-syria-strategy-would-be-a-disaster/#…
CrowBat
In relation to Syria, this is getting funnier and funnier, actually.
About a year ago... Pompeo published an article in the National Review.... here it is: On National Security, Some Republicans May Be as Weak as the Democrats (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428822/some-republicans-weak-national-security).
Now lookie here (excerpt from the same article):
"Syria — an ungoverned territory where terrorist groups control swathes of land, Russian troops roam freely, and the Islamic Republic of Iran has found an ally in the fanatical butcher Bashar al-Assad."
"It is in our interest to crush ISIS, terrorist groups like the al-Nusra front and Ahrar ash-Sham, and Iran's puppet Assad."
"Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and Assad are two sides of the same terror coin. Letting Assad continue to wield lethal power means that Tehran's terror network — from Hezbollah to the Houthis — will persist in threatening the West."
Will Trump Really Purge Obama's Generals? (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/will-trump-really-purge-obamas-generals)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/will-trump-really-purge-obamas-generals) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
CrowBat.....here is the perfect example of the coming Trump hypocrisy of a Russian driven FP and we thought the Obama WH FP was bad...OR non existent.
Trump is an ego driven power and wealth seeking individual and those that do not follow/support his thoughts...words and deeds are considered to be "against him".....and he seeks revenge for those that slight him and or his family especially the press..this man does not believe in freedom of the press and free speech...BUT WAIT he in fact does...his own....
We must based on his own declared biases take what he says seriously...if he is going to fight IS then he will do it with Putin and Assad and we see that both assume he will fight with them thus ensuring the remaining of Assad in power which has been the core reason for the Syrian rebellion by 78% of the civil society....and they will support Assad and Putin because of a "religion" which is what those advisors selected yesterday by Trump fully believe...these selections I one looks at them are in fact a declaration of war on 3B Muslims.
Exactly what both IS and AQ have wanted since 2003.....
From the NYTs....today....
"We need to use common sense with the who-what-where of the threat. It is the toxic ideology of Islam."
General Flynn similarly favors the immigration ban and has expressed support for the idea of forcing Muslims in the United States to register with the government. He once erroneously wrote on Twitter that Shariah, or Islamic law, was in danger of taking over the country.
Should the Trump administration shape its counterterrorism strategy and broader foreign policy around these ideas, Mr. McCants predicted the United States would find itself at odds with its allies in Europe and the Middle East, which have long sought to separate violent extremists from the billions of peaceful mainstream Muslims.
"This kind of rhetoric pushes them together and in a way creates a self-fulfilling prophecy," Mr. McCants said. "It is a sea change, and it really changes the terms of the discussion about what to do about it."
THIS is exactly how wrong many are getting about Trump...this individuals were not selected out of loyalty to him during the campaign..they were selected as they will provide the echo chamber Trump needs for his ego....
People are saying well he will balance them with his DoJ and DoS and SecDef with say a Romney but that would then require him have to take back his comments against Trump and become then an anti Islamist and these positions will not counter balance the national security selections...so as a possible DoS will other countries actually trust what he says to them as they know he totally flipped in his onw personal belief system.
We are in the new buzz word "Post Truth Era" where lies count far more than the truth....take Flynn who has blasted away at Islam the religion and lead the chants at the RP Convention of "jail her" this coming from supposedly a great thinking intel officer...if we summarize many of those that voted for Trump into a single sentence it would be..."yes I knew he had bad baggage and that he lies steals and cheats people BUT hey he is this great super rich businessman and that is what they do and besides I liked what he says"....
BTW Flynn coined a great statement that he supposedly lives by but in fact he does not...."the truth always answers questions"....the core problem now in the Era of "Post Truth"...is whose "truth".
THUS the article I posted from Lister is extremely important for many to read...
There has been since 9/11 on the right a deep desire for payback and make the dispute with a bunch if armed Takfirists into a "clash of civilizations" which BTW the Russian Orthodox Church declared with the "crusade comments" when the RuAF went to Syria......and this makes that clash come even closer....
I see. From my POV, this means: get ready for the same mix of all sorts of obscene lies, nonsense and PRBS like emitted all the time by Keystone Cops in Moscow... :rolleyes:
CrowBat.....you actually hit on something that many in the US have failed to truly see in this era of "Post Truth".......MAYBE it takes living outside the US to really understand the US and all of it's quirks....
There is uniquely something binding Putin to Trump and vice versa which is the reason of their bromance.......it is their inherent ability to spin truth to lies and lies to well their "definition of what is the truth"....and yes there are great similarities in how both view government and their role in that government....and both regardless of what Trump supporters think...Trump is just as authoritarian as is Putin....
This is a match made in "heaven" just not sure how to define that "heaven"....
My Trump FP prediction for the next four very long years....since we have seen him track both left and right ...meaning first he states publicly in front of rolling cameras...and when confronted with the same footage denies he said that....that will be his exact FP....meaning one way one day and two days later another confounding both the ME and EU....and in the end it will force both EU/ME to finally step up and lead pushing the US as a FP leader into a secondly roll.....WHICH is exactly what Putin wants...
If one takes the Russia non linear warfare to heart Putin has stated many times since 2008 his three geopolitical strategic goals.....WHICH Trump also wants to do if we take his verbal outbursts to heart which we must as that is exactly what he in the end does.....
1. Putin has declared he wants to weaken and damage EU
2. Putin has declared he wants to weaken and damage NATO
3. Putin wants the US completely discredited and damaged in EU and ME....
THIS drives to a core Putin goal....the coming of a Second Yalta...giving Putin and Russia complete hegemony over all of Europe and the Far East to China....plain and simple...which he has stated publicly he wants this in potentially declared when he first meets Trump...
http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/03/10/russias-goals-in-ukraine-toward-a-second-yalta/#arvlbdata
A similar thesis was proposed by another Russian PR guru, Stanislav Belkovsky.
…"Putin's most important task is to become in international politics a new Stalin, not in the domestic sense but in the international. That is, to move toward a second Yalta, to return to the world of Yalta and Potsdam, and to agree with the US and the EU, and in the case of the EU in the first instance with Germany, about the division of the world" with clearly "fixed zones of influence."
BTW.....not especially a fan of NewStatesman BUT the author of this article is a solid journalist who knows much about Putin and company.....AND he lays out the new Yalta Deal very accurately......
http://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2016/11/vladimir-putin-and-donald-trump-get-ready-big-deal
AND here is the proof it is coming.....those that Trump are selecting will both support a Second Yalta and want a Second Yalta.....that is what is concerning both EU and ME......they see it coming.......and what Trump fails to realize is that for example the EU with 500M is both economically and culturally a massive powerhouse and militarily not a pushover as many seem in the US to believe......ALL they have needed for closer military harmony has been a push to do it......the US has repeatedly sidelined that push as they wanted since 1945 to control militarily Europe in their Cold War with the Soviet Union......
BTW...much as the US has limited the delivery of arms and TOWs to the Syrian rebels.....
WHEN Germany openly states......well we have also a nuclear shield ie France and UK.....we just need to formulate it.....they are serious about it....especially if Iran marches on to their nuclear weapons. This was not a threat against the US/Trump but a simple EU view of the new Trump world....there is an old belief that states how many nuclear devices do you need to ensure your opponent thoroughly suffers as you do.....2..4..10 ESPECIALLY when during most of the year European winds cross West to East?
BTW...what Trump in all his fury against free trade has failed to realize....right now Canada is tied into the EU via CETA....and actually over the years the EU has expanded into northern Africa and now there is talk about expanding free trade agreements into all of the ME that would help in creating local jobs and economic expansion....it just got sidelined by the IS debate and Assad....
That would create a free trading block that Trump has to deal with or not deal with but it would be in EU terms not those of Trump....
Outsider Picks by Trump Could Give US Intelligence a Jolt (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/outsider-picks-by-trump-could-give-us-intelligence-a-jolt)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/outsider-picks-by-trump-could-give-us-intelligence-a-jolt) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
IS the coming Trump FP being driven by the Trump businesses and or vice versa.....ALL need to thoroughly read this and REMEMBER just a week or so ago Trump was calling for "Drain the Swamp"...BUT WAIT he is the swamp now????
Banana republic watch. Foreign diplomats getting sales pitch on Trump hotel, figuring out how to curry favor. Day 10
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/2016/11/18/9da9c572-ad18-11e6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html#
Blatant conflict of interest seems to not bother anyone associated with and or Trump himself....this is going to be a long hard four years...
REMEMBER this is the same man that stated in 2000 in a fortune interview he could make money both running for President and being President.....:D
Dear all, dear Pres-elect @realDonaldTrump.
I asked @CJTFOIR about the effect of the Russian air strikes on defeating #ISIS.
SOME URGENT insight for the so called great anti IS intel officer that he seems to not know is ongoing yet he claims to be the greatest US intel officer of all times...former Gen. Flynn.....
AND this insight is coming from a very good SME on the ME.....WHO holds NO US security clearance BUT has access to information that the DoD and the IC seems to want to either not hear and or want.....
By "infighting," I mean competition, outbidding & rivalry, *not* violent clashes.
Big developments inside JFS in #Syria, as infighting has erupted betw'n pro-AQ & pro-JFS elements.
Talks ongoing, rumors of possible split.
pt: JFS's internal tensions began during the Nusra-to-JFS formation, which was actively rejected by several very senior Nusra leaders.
pts: Most 'rejectionists' didn't publicly split from JFS, but have been working to convince JFS fighters to break away & form new AQ group.
pts: JFS's crisis reached its peak when "reformist" figures began pushing for further JFS "reforms," thereby enraging AQ loyalists further.
NOTE: the current Trump and yes even Obama advisors have often overlooked that the Salafist groups are always discussing and modifying themselves internally and what was said/done two years ago is not what you see and hear now...there urgently needs to be engagement with this development NOT trying to simply kill them and or run from them.....these groups do respond to their supporting civilian societies regardless of what we in the US think....and right now JFS while no longer officially AQ is highly regarded by the Syrian people BECAUSE they are fighting to protect them against the Russian onslaught that Trump wants to work with THUS driving them straight the arms of JFS and indirectly IS....AND CAN we blame them for it???
THIS has been one of the most ardent arguments used by Obama WHEN the argument turned to arming the moderate Syrian FSA.....BUT TOTALLY SHREDDED by ground reality......
U.S. maintains relations with 80+ vetted FSA factions.
- 1,073 TOW missiles sent
- Only 12 were proliferated
12 single TOW missiles found their way to other groups...NOT a really big threat it would appear....
Apologies for the delay in completing a review - other commitments will suffice.
I have edited out a number of photos, most originate from Twitter, plus some posts which cite an un-named source and deleted thirty-eight posts that simply go way beyond the Forum's ToR.
A reminder Small Wars Forum has this section for:
Politics In the Rear National will and developments back home for the intervening nations.We are not a political discussion board, but after such an apparent seismic event, with the election of President Trump, there was bound to be a reaction and an exchange. The exchange was not a "level playing field". That happens on SWC, but members have expressed concern here and directly via PM.
I have noted a number of posts on President-elect Trump in other threads, which circumvent this thread being closed. If I have time those posts will be moved here. If more such posts appear, for example in the Syria thread I will delete them.
Update: Sixty-eight posts moved here from the Syria thread and approx. twenty to other threads soon.
Meeting Cabinet Contenders, Trump Praises General Mattis (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/meeting-cabinet-contenders-trump-praises-general-mattis)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/meeting-cabinet-contenders-trump-praises-general-mattis) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
Retired Marine General John Kelly Eyed for Potential Role in Trump Administration (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/retired-marine-general-john-kelly-eyed-for-potential-role-in-trump-administration)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/retired-marine-general-john-kelly-eyed-for-potential-role-in-trump-administration) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
I will be backing out of posting to the Syrian as well as the Ukrainian threads because in both the killing just keeps on going on as the core problem with the Russian non linear warfare is...it has never been fully countered by either NATO and the US and under Trump it will continue to be potentially a supportive proRussian positon taken by Trump thus making the current global problems even worse.....
SWJ had a recent article on the success or failure of the Russian non linear warfare with the two key cornerstones of 1) cyber warfare and 2) informational warfare....
HATE to admit it and many might not like this... we the US and the entire West have lost and lost badly.....
Russian cyber warfare is still going strong and not a single pushback by the US has occurred and NOW we have a "cyber arms race" and we are even losing that....and that informational warfare using fake news sites....social media trolling companies aided by the Russian government and a Russian state sponsored global disinformation/propaganda media network...being funded for 1B USDs per year and going strong with no pushback by any Western country....WELL they have actually won there with the massive upsurge in "populist" parties culminating in the election of a US "populist" that is proRussian leaning...and who firmly believes as do Russian oligarchs in the concept called "kleptocracy".....and potentially a number of NATO countries also swinging towards "populist leaders/parties" and proRussian leaning leaders being recently elected in Estonia, Bulgaria and Moldavia...
Nothing has changed in eastern Ukraine and in Syria where we the US are now fully complicit in supporting a genocidal dictator and Trump's bromance partner Putin and Trump states a number of times he would support both against IS driving 100,000 well trained and experienced FSA fighters straight in to the arms of JFS ....
We now hear about US Muslim Registries and banning of immigrants from "supposedly terrorist nations" and those that voted for Trump..."see" radical Muslims on every street corner and behind every bush/tree..AND Sharia law literally taking over the entire US State/Federal Court system..and the racist and anti Muslim rhetoric just keeps climbing in the US driving sadly towards an eventual "clash of civilizations" that both IS and AQ have predicted and wanted....
We are sadly now in the "Post Truth Era" and no amount of trying to keep people informed about areas of the world that have sadly become part of this "Post Truth Era" that MSM is failing to fully and completely inform the reading public about is another reason to slowly back away....
One can lead a horse to the pool of "truth" but you cannot make that horse understand that it is the "truth" in this "Post Truth Era"....
The killing still goes on in eastern Ukraine and Syria and just posting that which everyone knows never will change appears to me to be just a exercise in futility and a waste of time...
Interestingly the sheer number of Reads (over 570,000 since 2015 on Syria AND the over more than 400,000 on Ukraine in the same timeframe) over the last year or two indicate to me that some do want to be kept informed even if of another political opinion, but in the end just being informed does not change FP and with this new coming Trump FP....I am thoroughly happy to be getting my German Passport on 4 Jan which is another reason to back away...as I personally feel then that a former US citizen now future German does not have the right to critique the US...
I had thought after Rwanda and Srebrenica genocide had been beaten back into the ground .....it has not...I thought after the Wall fell the issue of changing international borders using force had stopped...it has not and after roughly 15 years of war against AQ and IS we still have not learned a single lesson on how to deal with them other than more killing....and until we learn those lessons that are literally in our faces.... that we must honestly address AQ and IS directly....the killing will continue for the next several decades.
Trump or no Trump....
So it is time to move on....the photo that haunts me from my time in VN was the little nude girl running from napalm and two ... 8 and 10 year old Vietnamese boys killed in my ambush who even though while 8 and 10 both carried VC ID cards and two old rusty US ,45 pistols AND the picture of the little Syrian girl injured from an air strike with an oxygen mask who died later not even achieving the age of 1...sad that the world has never seemed to learn...
If the US FP cannot stand up...lead and provide answers any more...that is a simple declaration of bankruptcy...a bankruptcy of morale values...civil and humans rights....end of story...
Time to move on..... if someone would have told me that I would be ending my life time in a country that will be pushing back on European populism ie fascism with a smile in the coming years I would have called them crazy....
Amazing to watch US citizens using Nazi salutes during Trump rallies and yesterday in DC......this is not the America that I defended from enemies near and far.....
From those SWJ commenters/readers who maybe have not liked my comments on "white supremacy and or ethno racist nationalism" called now "white nationalism"..this might help to explain why I am so adamant of being against it and why I see the threat of so called "populism" that Trump is deliberately using far more dangerous than anything IS can do to the US........this "white nationalism" is being pushed by the KKK...the 270 armed militias in the US....the 300 or so right wing media outlets and now the Brietbart.com which uses "alt Right" arguments..and which the new Trump advisor pushed...used and developed.....
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/%E2...cid=spartandhp
White Nationalism Explained...
A question has been posed in a puzzled whisper in many of the nation's living rooms and newsrooms ever since Donald J. Trump's triumph in this month's presidential election: What, exactly, is white nationalism?
Self-proclaimed white nationalists have happily embraced Mr. Trump's victory and, particularly, his choice of Stephen K. Bannon as chief strategist, as a win for their agenda. A barrage of groups that fight discrimination and hate speech have, in turn, criticized Mr. Bannon's appointment, warning that his embrace of the "alt-right" movement was little more than an attempt to rebrand racism and white nationalism into something palatable enough for mass consumption.
And much of the rest of the country has been left to wonder what this unfamiliar term actually means.
While white nationalism certainly overlaps with white supremacy and racism, many political scientists say it is a distinct phenomenon — one that was a powerful but often-unseen force during the presidential election and will most likely remain a potent factor in American and European politics in coming years.
Eric Kaufmann, a professor of politics at Birkbeck University in London, has spent years studying the ways that ethnicity intersects with politics. While most researchers in that field focus on ethnic minorities, Professor Kaufmann does the opposite: He studies the behavior of ethnic majorities, particularly whites in the United States and Britain.
White nationalism, he said, is the belief that national identity should be built around white ethnicity, and that white people should therefore maintain both a demographic majority and dominance of the nation's culture and public life.
So, like white supremacy, white nationalism places the interests of white people over those of other racial groups. White supremacists and white nationalists both believe that racial discrimination should be incorporated into law and policy.
Some will see the distinction between white nationalism and white supremacy as a semantic sleight of hand. But although many white supremacists are also white nationalists, and vice versa, Professor Kaufmann says the terms are not synonyms: White supremacy is based on a racist belief that white people are innately superior to people of other races; white nationalism is about maintaining political and economic dominance, not just a numerical majority or cultural hegemony.
For a long time, he said, white nationalism was less an ideology than the default presumption of American life. Until quite recently, white Americans could easily see the nation as essentially an extension of their own ethnic group.
But the country's changing demographics, the civil rights movement and a push for multiculturalism in many quarters mean that white Americans are now confronting the prospect of a nation that is no longer built solely around their own identity.
For many white people, of course, the growing diversity is something to celebrate. But for others it is a source of stress. The white nationalist movement has drawn support from that latter group. Its supporters argue that the United States should protect its white majority by sharply limiting immigration, and perhaps even by compelling nonwhite citizens to leave.
Mr. Trump's appointment of Mr. Bannon as his senior counselor and chief West Wing strategist has, more than anything, brought white nationalism to the forefront of conversation. He is the former editor of Breitbart News, a site he described in August to Mother Jones as "the platform of the alt-right."
Although the alt-right is ideologically broader than white nationalism — it also includes neoreactionaries, monarchists, and meme-loving internet trolls — white nationalism makes up a significant part of its appeal.
For instance, Richard Spencer, who runs the website AlternativeRight.com, is also the director of the National Policy Institute, an organization that says it is devoted to protecting the "heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world."
Mr. Spencer argues that immigration and multiculturalism are threats to America's white population, and has said his ideal is a white "ethno-state."
He has avoided discussing the details of how this might be achieved, saying it is still just a "dream," but has called for "peaceful ethnic cleansing" to remove nonwhite people from American soil.
Mr. Bannon, the Trump adviser, told The Times upon his appointment that he does not share those ethno-nationalist views. But under his leadership, Breitbart News has gone to considerable lengths to cater to an audience that does. And in a 2015 radio interview that was resurfaced this week by The Washington Post, Mr. Bannon opposed even highly skilled immigration, implying he believed it was a threat to American culture.
"When two-thirds or three-quarters of the C.E.O.s in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think..." he said, trailing off midsentence before continuing a moment later, "a country is more than an economy. We're a civic society."
White nationalists, including Mr. Spencer, have rejoiced at Mr. Bannon's appointment to such a senior position in the Trump White House. But focusing on high-profile figures like Mr. Bannon may obscure the more significant way that white nationalist ideas are affecting politics — and fueling the rise of politicians like Mr. Trump in the United States as well as anti-immigrant populist movements in Britain and continental Europe.
Several studies of other countries have found that a desire to protect traditional values and culture is the strongest predictor of support for the sort of populism that propelled Mr. Trump to power in the United States.
Many of those voters would not think of themselves as white nationalists, and the cultural values and traditions they seek to protect are not necessarily explicitly racial. However, those traditions formed when national identity and culture were essentially synonymous with whiteness. So the impulse to protect them from social and demographic change is essentially an attempt to turn back the clock to a less-diverse time.
A recent working paper by Pippa Norris, a political scientist at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and Ronald Inglehart, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, concluded, based on an analysis of wide-ranging survey data, that populists have succeeded by appealing to the cultural anxiety of groups like older white men, who once formed the cultural majority in Western societies, "but have recently seen their predominance and privilege eroded."
Elisabeth Ivarsflaten, a professor of politics at the University of Bergen in Norway, came to a similar conclusion after studying anti-immigrant policies in Europe. Their supporters, she found, were motivated by a desire to protect their national culture — suggesting they believed that immigrants posed a threat to it.
Mr. Trump's criticism of immigrants and promise to "make America great again" may have tapped into those same cultural anxieties, fueling his success with older and less-educated white voters. (Over all, he won white voters by 21 percentage points.
Professor Kaufmann argues that anxiety over white identity and anti-immigrant populist politicians can have a symbiotic relationship, each strengthening the other. When populist politicians gain mainstream success, that can make white nationalist ideas more socially acceptable.
"It's not just a question of ethnic change and people being alarmed over it," he said. "It's also a question of what people see as the boundaries of acceptable opposition. It's about what counts as racism, and whether it's racist to vote for a far-right party."
"This is all about the anti-racist norm," Professor Kaufmann continued. "If it's weakening or eroding because people think the boundaries have shifted."
Mattis as Defense Secretary: What it Means for Us, For the Military, and For Trump (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/mattis-as-defense-secretary-what-it-means-for-us-for-the-military-and-for-trump)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/mattis-as-defense-secretary-what-it-means-for-us-for-the-military-and-for-trump) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
A considered Lawfare article by Professor Daniel Byman 'Should We Work with the Devil We Know against the Islamic State?'. He ends with:
None of this is ideal, and even in the best of circumstances the Islamic State is likely to survive in some form (https://www.lawfareblog.com/thinking-beyond-defeat-islamic-state), but all of it is better than a deal with the Syrian devil.
Link:https://www.lawfareblog.com/should-we-work-devil-we-know-against-islamic-state?
Plea to Donald Trump: No More 'Quibbling Micromanagers' at the Pentagon (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/plea-to-donald-trump-no-more-quibbling-micromanagers-at-the-pentagon)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/plea-to-donald-trump-no-more-quibbling-micromanagers-at-the-pentagon) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
General David Petraeus Opens Door to Trump Administration (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/general-david-petraeus-opens-door-to-trump-administration)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/general-david-petraeus-opens-door-to-trump-administration) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
What Trump May Not Know About the Generals He's Eyeing for Top Positions (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/what-trump-may-not-know-about-the-generals-he%E2%80%99s-eyeing-for-top-positions)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/what-trump-may-not-know-about-the-generals-he%E2%80%99s-eyeing-for-top-positions) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
omarali50
I had a post about President Trump, the unknown unknowns:http://brownpundits.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/president-trump-unknown-unknowns.html
...I don't think Trump is particularly racist or sexist (relative to most 70 year old males, of any ethnicity) and he is obviously socially liberal compared to traditional Republicans. But the possibility is there that this shallow man (more or less socially liberal, a conman, ignorant) will be manipulated by his newfound advisers into disasters (initially abroad) that could have endless branching and mutating unintended consequences here and abroad. That could be a truly transformative crisis.. Racism and the rise of the KKK (real and imagined) are small potatoes compared to the storms that could potentially be unleashed in the world...Muslims, being intimately connected to the worldwide crisis in very direct ways, will likely face the consequences within the USA too; but the crucial point is that the whole ####storm is likely to proceed along tracks that are occasionally parallel, but mostly completely unconnected with the identarian postmarxist postmodern worldview that dominates the elite Eurocentric Left today...Incidentally, if the ordure does hit the fan (I hope it does not, i hope the much maligned current world order survives or at least, has a soft landing), then Blacks and Latinos, like other citizens, will fight for America. I suspect that the fantasy worldview that emphasizes supranational and subnational identities well above national ones will prove very flimsy; flimsier even than "class solidarity" proved to be in the first world war...the elite Left's freakout about the KKK and the coming age of Jim Crow is not completly wrong, but misses the biggest threats and their likely consequences. Which is not to say that no connection can be made between racism and the international order, but the race-obsessed post-truth glasses of the new postmarxist Left do get them into endless wrong turns and dead-ends in terms of priorities to be tackled
..But having taken him seriously, we still have what his own chief strategist calls "a perfect vessel", waiting to be filled. But with what? Partisan commentary almost necessarily has to try and freak-out their support base for or against the incoming administration, and may be grossly exaggerated. But there are some grounds for thinking it may not be business as usual. My preference is clearly for business as usual (because I tend towards the belief that change will happen anyway, but it is better if it happens slowly and imperceptibly; of course, this is not how providence sometimes operates, so real life can and does deviate from my personal desires) so I personally will be relatively at ease if Trump turns out to be mostly talk; relying on distractions and culture wars to keep his constituency from noticing that nothing has changed for the better in their life, in short, just another modestly corrupt Republican administration; consistent in serving the short-term interests of the "top 1%" , willing to damage the long term interests of America (and the world at large) if it means more profits in the short term, and more than likely, losing the next election. Hopefully without terminally tarnishing the dignity and gravitas of the office of President.
It may turn out this way. Which will be unpleasant, but life will go on until the next election and then perhaps the next (modestly corrupt) Democratic administration. Such is the best case scenario. And I hope this less than exciting outcome does come to be.
But suppose it is not business as usual? Then I am looking for insights about two scenarios:
1. World War Z. The big changes will start abroad in this scenario, and most will probably be unintended. We will soon have a National security adviser who thinks that war against Islamism (or as he prefers to call it, Islam) is the defining feature of the world today. Without getting into any long discussion of whether this is true or not, look at it this way: there is no competing Islamic civilization out there in terms of unity, material progress or military strength. Even if we imagine (as Islamists sometimes do) that superior fellow-feeling and social organization (a patriarchal but otherwise egalitarian religion, resistant to culture-destroying postmodern memes; their view, not mine) means that they win in the long term, even Islamists recognize that in the short or medium term this "victory" involves getting invaded by competing infidel powers with better artillery and missiles.
So let us imagine Flynn has his way. What would such a war look like? His views are frequently incoherent and it is by no means clear where they will end up. e.g. he seems to regard IRAN (not Pakistan, Turkey or Saudi Arabia, the big three Sunni hopes) as the main threat and regards Russia as both threat and ally. There is just no rational way to predict what happens next based on these reported views... The US would presumably want to smash any and all Islamic counties that don't cooperate, but isn't it then a given that China, Russia and the US would also compete against each other in this new "scramble for Africa" (the Muslim world being only one order of magnitude more capable than Africa, while the big three are several orders of magnitude more materially capable than any Muslim country)? Who will line up on what side? Will it be mostly covert, low intensity warfare or will things spin out of control (the "scramble for Africa" being followed by World War One)? What about India? Japan? Latin America? The Baltics? Poland? Ukraine? This is a very complex system. Start a disturbance at a few critical points and the transitions can become totally unpredictable.
Think about it this way and it is easy to reach the comforting conclusion that this scenario is so nightmarish that "saner heads will prevail". The current international order will survive. I certainly hope so, but then again, that is probably what many sane people thought in 1913. I look forward to your thoughts.
2. From Dawn to Decadence...to collapse?
The amazing rise of Western civilization and its steadily increasing dominance of the globe in the last 500 years have given it an aura of inevitability and permanence. Not in terms of particular nationalities (particular powers rise and fall), but in terms of intellectual paradigms and visions of reality. But alongside this dominance are well established currents of doubt, pessimism and rejection, from Ivan Illych to Dugin (and even, in a way, Bannon). I am not including the currently fashionable postmarxist postmodern current in Western universities, with its rejection of tradition, authority and "dead White males" and its glorification of identity politics and not so critical "critical studies". This current seems just the next (last?) stage within the Western tradition itself; more a sign of its bankruptcy than the vision of an alternative (simply put, because it's major themes seem to have such tangential,incidental, and minimal, contact with actual biology, history, culture or science). Anyway, without getting too far into this potentially book-length debate , suppose this really is terminal decadence, then what comes next?
The unknown unknowns get really interesting at that point.
.........Think about this statement and how this same mentality is to underline US FP going forward over the next four years......an advisor this close to Trump tells you where we are going......
WHEN an advisor this close to Trump cannot even understand that capitalism is not a form of government then we are all in trouble.....so when Syrians demand the rule of law and good governance instead of raw pure capitalism then are we the US to support or not support????
Trump advisor Stephen Moore: "Capitalism's more important than democracy, I'm not even a big believer in democracy"
It's no exaggeration to say that we should count ourselves lucky if human civilization simply still exists when Trump leaves office.
AFTER a Trump twitter rant yesterday...we learn he was angry and tweeting based on a fake news site driven by a 16 year old and this is the next President driving US FP.....
QUOTE from a leading journalist when he saw the Trump twitter rant.....
holy f$&! So, the burden of proof is on reporters to prove the sxxxxxt Trump makes up is really made up? Insane.
We as a nation are in serious trouble when a President is in an altered state of reality about the real world around him....
BACK to my previous posting.....DID everyone notice the elegant shift from the weekend MSM carrying articles about the Trump businesses actually potentially dictating his FP.....SUDDENLY two twitter rants later the entire US MSM news cycle is diverted from his business....WHEN the business articles were actually about the statement....."capitalism is more important than democracy"....
Russian propaganda has 6Ds to be effective.....Distort...Dismiss....Distract....Def lect...ALL designed to create Doubt and Distrust.....NOW which did Trump use to Deflect the increasing questions about his business ties and US FP?????
Think about it....
I had a post about President Trump, the unknown unknowns..
...I don't think Trump is particularly racist or sexist (relative to most 70 year old males, of any ethnicity) and he is obviously socially liberal compared to traditional Republicans. But the possibility is there that this shallow man (more or less socially liberal, a conman, ignorant) will be manipulated by his newfound advisers into disasters (initially abroad) that could have endless branching and mutating unintended consequences here and abroad. That could be a truly transformative crisis.
Bravo!!!! More, more, more!!! Finally somebody gets what this thread was supposed to be about!! Good honest discussion based on factual estimations ( since we cannot know what Trump will actually do yet!!!!) as opposed left wing democratic talking points. Or more accurately communist disinformation posted by traitors and democratic operatives.
Again great post!
Posted by "traitors and democratic operatives".....what planet have you landed on....?
Let's analyze the latest childish twitter rants of an elected US President who is 70 maybe that explains his childish rants.....
FIRST we get the Trump recount twitter barrage (7) about the Green Party using their Constitutional and legal rights for a recount for which they raised
Trump publicly stating in those SEVEN rants that he Trump had be defrauded of millions UNDERLINED MILLIONS of votes by MILLIONS of illegals....
SLAPOUT his comments not mine....
THEN when challenged by MSM as to what was his evidence he quotes a fake news site run by a 16 year old and THEN goes on another twitter rant against CNN BECAUSE they could not provide him "the evidence" he claimed he had....
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 6h
.@CNN is so embarrassed by their total (100%) support of Hillary Clinton, and yet her loss in a landslide, that they don't know what to do.
14,088 retweets
"@sdcritic: @HighonHillcrest @jeffzeleny @CNN There is NO QUESTION THAT #voterfraud did take place, and in favor of #CorruptHillary !"
5,942 retweets
"@FiIibuster: @jeffzeleny Pathetic - you have no sufficient evidence that Donald Trump did not suffer from voter fraud, shame! Bad reporter.
"@JoeBowman12: @jeffzeleny just another generic CNN part time wannabe journalist !" @CNN still doesn't get it. They will never learn!
"@HighonHillcrest: @jeffzeleny what PROOF do u have DonaldTrump did not suffer from millions of FRAUD votes? Journalist? Do your job! @CNN"
SLAPOUT...BTW.....those 5-14K retweets generate on average another 20-100K tweets and BTW....many of the above Trump twitter rants were picked up by 120 other ring wing social media commenters....and made even it even to Breitbart.com
Info warfare directed straight KKat the American is what you are seeing.....
And you want a debate....?
HERE is your factual debate that you provoke and then disappear.......
factual estimations ( since we cannot know what Trump will actually do yet!!!!)
NOTICED that yesterday MSM took the time and went through ALL of Trumps tweets...rally statements......debate statements...interviews..few actually and Fox statements as well as MJ and CNN.....
THEN surprise surprise there were over TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY TWO Trump PROMISES as to what he was going to do when elected....IN EIGHT AREAS.....
SO yes we know what he promised to do......BUT he has FLIPPED on SIX now....so yes we do not know what he wants...BUT THEN look at his staff nominations and Cabinet AND PRESTO we see he is following through on what he promised
SLAPOUT.....YES we know what Trump is going to do as he as told you via his Tweets........that is his new DoS BTW........
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 19h
If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate deal.
1. Cuba is Cuba and no nation state likes to be told what they are going to do for you....especially Cuba and why would they listen in the first place to a Trump tweet rant?
2. IF Trump terminates the Deal then American law goes back into effect and any Americans traveling to and or dealing business wise with Cuba and YES that means Trump as well is liable to be hauled into Federal Court and hit with heavy Federal fines and or jail time....and kiss those Cuban cigars s goodbye.
3. ALL other countries WHO followed the Deal and have loosened up and established contact with Cuba due to tourism and trade are NOT BOUND by Trump's actions
AND they will just continue to develop the Cuban tourism trade and development of new Cuban joint companies in the end killing US jobs....
NOW we know the "factual actions Trump will take".....
Care to join in this debate on his stated FP towards Cuba...THEN we can move on to Syria after that as he has repeatedly made Twitter and public statements to what he is going to do.....
In the Trump world of politics words have meanings...the core problem has been what does his words actually mean???
Confusion reigns when Trump constantly and deliberately twists those words around to the point no one fully understands what he means....
FINALLY one MSM outlet AP has caught onto the word game and set standards for the meaning of words....for all of their reporters....
Associated Press directs its reporters to stop using "Alt-right" without defining what it is:
"a white nationalist movement"
So in the future Trump or any one of his staff and cabinet using common words, phases, buzz words...dog whistles... and or slogans of the "Alt-right" will be simply declared....by AP in their articles as
"a white nationalist"......from the "white nationalist movement".....end of story......
THIS applies also to their overseas reporters especially in Europe...when reporting on populist parties....
AWAITING the next Trump twitter rant on this.....
Ah...the games Trump plays and yet we are suppose to not believe he is going to do it......
Before the election it was all about Hillary the crook...lock her up and kill here.....
Then suddenly he mellows and states he is not going to do what he claimed he was going to do during the campaign....
THEN suddenly the Green Party exercises their constitutional rights for a recount and the Democratic Party states we will join in order to monitor the recount and Trump literally flies into a twitter rage.....against the DP and Clinton.....
THEN Clinton is leading in the popular vote at approximately 2.5m votes ahead of Trump and then he flies into a twitter rage ABOUT actually winning the popular vote...IT is he was just cheated by the millions of illegals who voted against him and or the DP.....
ANYONE notice anything here????
@thehill
Top Trump ally on recount: "Hillary increases her chances of prosecution by acting this way"
http://hill.cm/pXFSBWV
BLACKMAIL the new form of American politics.
THEN we get the Trump rant today about burning the US Flag ......
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!
SOMEHOW the new PEOTUS simply forgot that the US SC ruled recently that buring the US Flag is within the bounds o the 1st Amendment and thus allowed...and yet he knew nothing before his rant.....
Russian 6Ds of propaganda hard at work here.....
Dismiss...Distort...Deflect....Dismay...ALL designed to create Doubt and Distrust...
Fear is rational. Our system can betray us. Trump toying with citizenship is treacherous. Today's @Morning_Joe row.
http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/writer-discusses-the-fear-before-january-819817539508#
In violating Cuban embargo in 1998, @realDonaldTrump committed a crime. No statute of limitations for impeachment.
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/14/donald-trump-cuban-embargo-castro-violated-florida-504059.html#
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 28. Nov.
Anyone notice a contradiction here???
Trump:
"Today, the world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades," the statement began. "Fidel Castro's legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty, and the denial of fundamental human rights. While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve."
He continued, "Though the tragedies, death, and pain caused by Fidel Castro cannot be erased, our administration will do all it can to ensure the Cuban people can finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty. I join the many Cuban Americans who supported me so greatly in the presidential campaign, including the Brigade 2506 Veterans Association that endorsed me, with the hope of one day soon seeing a free Cuba."
Now,EU Commission lectures:
https://twitter.com/BrunoBrussels/status/803211345323819009
For me,East European,it is big difference.
Talk is cheap.
Forgot to add the link to the original post (President Trump, The Unknown Unknowns (http://brownpundits.blogspot.com/2016/11/president-trump-unknown-unknowns.html))
Now corrected and I note - for readers - it has many links and some videos.
For your consideration.
Foreign Policy ER Podcast - Hitting the Reset Button on the International Order
"On this week's episode of The E.R., David Rothkopf, Kori Schake, David Sanger, and Hisham Melhem look at the threats to world order and U.S. foreign policy under a Trump administration.
Based on his slate of advisors and tweets so far, it seems that President-elect Donald Trump's foreign policy is taking a giant leap backward. Will his apparent alignment with the anti-Europe movement, overtures to Vladimir Putin, and isolationist sentiments erode the international order and U.S. alliances? And could a rise in nationalism in the United States and abroad bring fundamental changes and realignments to American foreign policy? Or, like many other Trumpian claims, will these views pass?"
David Rothkopf makes no bones about his disdain for Trump, largely because of Trump's total lack of foreign policy or governmental experience, as well as the anti-Semitic hate-mail he got during the campaign from Trump Supporters who thought he should be gassed in a Nazi Death Camp. Still, the conversation is worth a listen.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/29/hitting-the-reset-button-on-international-order/
Don't miss this— Trump owes Deutsche Bank about $365,000,000, posing a major conflict when he takes office, per @NPR
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/12/01/503903737/trumps-loans-from-troubled-german-bank-pose-conflict-of-interest
But Johnson says Deutsche Bank is in deep trouble with the Justice Department over a number of allegations.
"The tip of the iceberg is a particular fine by the Department of Justice, a large fine with the opening numbers around $14 billion, with regard to how they created and sold mortgage-backed securities before 2008," he says.
There are private negotiations underway over the amount of that fine, Johnson says, with the bank and the German government pushing back.
He says this sets up a huge conflict of interest for the president-elect: Once Trump takes office, he will be overseeing the Justice Department, which in turn is negotiating a fine with his biggest lender.
Some German sources are saying that in order for Merkel to have initially reached Trump..she had to go through his son-in-law...
MAYBE should have gone through the CEO of DB....????
Since Trump has caused many (including me, in my last post (http://brownpundits.blogspot.com/2016/11/president-trump-unknown-unknowns.html)) to think dark thoughts about the end of Western civilization :), a short post on what brought Western Civ down
Is Islam the Rock on Which the Liberal Order Broke? (http://brownpundits.blogspot.com/2016/12/islam-is-rock-on-which-liberal-order.html)
Back in 1992, Fukuyama wrote his (much maligned, frequently misunderstood) book about the End of History and had this to say:
What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such.... That is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.
People jumped on him for all sorts of reasons, but I don't remember any broad feeling that the Western liberal project had failed. Its most visible Western critics at that time tended to be postmarxists and postmodernists, whose entire existence (from their university appointments to every detail of their lives) was itself an appendage of Western liberal democracy and had no meaning outside of that system, and whose real-life ability to bring down Western liberalism appears insignificant (i.e., if and when it falls, it will not fall to these clowns).
More "real-life" opposition came from the "Confucian authoritarians" (or postmarxist fascists, or whatever you want to call them) in China (and in smaller but influential exemplars, like Singapore). But while these groups had power, they had no great legitimizing ideology. They are only winning as long as they provide more and more goods to more and more of their people. And even while they do so, their people are watching "Friends", picking up liberal memes and dreaming of making Shanghai "better than Manhattan". It is hard to say this was a coherent ideological opposition.
Internal opposition did come from people who rejected liberalism more deeply. But currents like Great Russian Fascism or illiberal Western ideologies (from the "almost inside the Overton Window" Pat Buchanan to Christian identity folks and a few hundred actual fascists) was always there ,but was also treated as a fringe affair. Triumphant liberal ideology had internal divisions, weaknesses (including the above-mentioned defection of many university trained intellectuals to postmodern/postcolonial/critical theory etc) and lacunae, but no serious competitor; The way of thinking that puts humanity, rationality, freedom and the individual at the center of the world and includes memes (not necessarily unique to it, not necessarily derived from first principles, but aggregating in a recognizable meme-complex) like legal equality, secularism, democracy and human rights, was so dominant it was taken for granted. These were the legitimizing ideas that all modern states at least paid lip service to. Democratic socialism, by the way, is just another variant of this post-enlightenment meme complex; even Marxist socialism is a variant of the same (Marxist revolutionaries, for example, idealized the same memes of equality, liberty and rights, but claimed that mainstream liberal Democracy failed to match its ideals, was a sham, etc.).
The place where this whole meme-complex really hit a solid rock was in the Islamic world. It was not immediately apparent that this was so. Many Western post-enlightenment ideals were popular among the Westernized intellectuals of the postcolonial Muslim world. But the grip (and even the personal commitment) of these intellectuals was shallow. This was not immediately apparent to liberal contemporaries (and frequently, even to themselves; it is doubtful whether someone like Jinnah ever really understood the illiberal nature of his demand for Pakistan for example). The difference between Muslim and non-Muslim intellectuals,whether in the third world or the first, could be seen as one of degree; i.e. non-Muslim intellectuals too had older loyalties and identities that belied their liberal ideals, but the difference of degree was always in the same direction, and it was significant enough that the quantitative difference can be seen as a qualitative difference; more on this some other day).
THIS challenge proved most difficult for Western liberalism to process; large numbers (probably clear majorities) of Muslims simply did not accept the most fundamental assumptions of the post-enlightenment Western worldview. This was such an alien thought (especially to those on the Left side of the liberal spectrum) that it was repeatedly obfuscated under other categories ("poverty" , "colonialism", etc). For this resistance exposed and undermined the universal validity of the whole liberal project. And it continues to do so. And as these events multiply, they evoke rethinking in other groups. The emperor can start looking ragged, if not completely naked. (e.g. the resistance of Muslim populations to joining the mainstream in countries they migrated to is neither total nor unique, but it is greater than that exhibited by contemporary Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist migrants, and again, always in the same direction. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but when it happens again and again, people start looking for explanations. Of course, not necessarily for good explanations..).
As a result, all the other alternatives (most of them much stronger in "real-life" material terms than any Muslim country or party) like Great Russian Nationalism and its Orthodox Christian backstop, Chinese nationalism with Confucian and fascist characteristics, nascent Japanese nationalism, Hardcore Hindutva in India; all of them have become stronger because Islam has already wedged the door open and thrown open the possibility that the liberal project itself may be incoherent; that it does not map to the real world, that it may even be dangerous to non-Muslim groups to stick to it..
In short, here is the thesis question for the day:
If and when modern humanism and liberalism (broadly defined, you know the drill) crashes and burns (who knows, it may not), will future historians look back and say that Islam was the rock on which it first and decisively broke? Was Islam the kid who asked about the emperor's clothes with sufficient naive determination and clarity, and stubborn unwillingness to accept "the facts".. and thus opened the way to the future (which looks suspiciously like the illiberal past)..
A set of tweets, storified here, (https://storify.com/omarali50/fukuyama-redux) explains some of the thinking behind the above blog post.
If and when modern humanism and liberalism (broadly defined, you know the drill) crashes and burns (who knows, it may not), will future historians look back and say that Islam was the rock on which it first and decisively broke? Was Islam the kid who asked about the emperor's clothes with sufficient naive determination and clarity, and stubborn unwillingness to accept "the facts".. and thus opened the way to the future (which looks suspiciously like the illiberal past)..[/I]
Short of physical invasion, what brings about any liberal democracies demise is internal, not external. The fact is that there are large swaths of the planet that do not agree with Liberalism and have no intention of adopting it in the near future. Most of sub-Saharan Africa is communalistic, not liberal. The same could be said for Asia.
Your argument is similar to the argument that the Soviet Union would be the demise of liberal democracies back in the 1950's and 60's. That the Marxist ideals were so incompatible with Liberal Democracy and capitalism that they could never be reconciled was common back then.
In fact, I would argue that the decadence of liberalism is more a threat to Islam than Islam is to liberalism. Women are driving in Saudi Arabia and Iran, there are two McDonalds in Mecca, and Justin Bieber plays concerts in the UAE.
Islam is unique in that it is still largely a religion and a political system at the same time. But so was Judaism. Arguably, so was Christianity from late Roman times until the demise of the Holy Roman Empire.
No, if Western Liberalism fails it will not be because of Islam, or any other outside source. It will be because its people, being so steeped in the individualistic ideal of Liberalism, will no longer feel compelled to fulfill any of their civic duties. It is the curse of Liberalism – catastrophic success.
A different view from mine, but one that I see as valid. When Liberal democracy becomes too hard - requires too much effort for too little reward - then populism can take over.
"The steady dismantling of democratic norms and practices by democratically elected leaders, what we call "authoritarianization," marks a significant change in the way that democracies have historically fallen apart. Data on authoritarian regimes show that until recently, coups have been the primary threats to democracy. From 1946 to 1999, 64 percent of democracies failed because of such insurgencies. In the last decade, however, populist-fueled authoritarianization has been on the rise, accounting for 40 percent of all democratic failures between 2000 and 2010 and matching coups in frequency. If current trends persist, populist-fueled authoritarianization will soon become the most common pathway to autocracy."
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2016-12-05/how-democracies-fall-apart?cid=nlc-twofa-20161208&sp_mid=52950027&sp_rid=dGJhcXVpbmFzQGdtYWlsLmNvbQS2&spMailingID=52950027&spUserID=MjEyOTUxOTA0MDU5S0&spJobID=1061608153&spReportId=MTA2MTYwODE1MwS2
I don't think the democratic failures between 2000 and 2010 can be blamed on Islam.
That was not my point at all. As I tried to explain in the postscript, my thesis is not that Islam will defeat Liberalism. The thought process was more like this:
1.The weaknesses/incoherence/decay of the liberal world order are mostly internal to it. They may be simply a matter of the inevitable decay and corruption of any highly successful civilization (what you call "catastrophic success"), or some blind spots in the world view, some failure to map adequately to human nature, whatever. They are not caused by Islam.
(the series of tweets regarding Cambodia from @scholars_stage, appended at the end and in the storify link make this point a bit clearer; i.e. the liberal order failed in Cambodia (as it did in many other places) without Islam playing any role, but that failure did not lead to any sudden collapse in self-confidence, or in widespread realization by those outside the liberal order that the emperor may be weaker than she looks, etc)
2. But Islam/Muslims are a large enough phenomenon that their failure to line up and their almost naive refusal to accept the brutal facts (that they are weak, that the liberal order is very mighty, that the washing machines and iphones come from the modern world and everyone wants those, so how could large populations possibly consciously opt for alternatives that provide little realistic hope of a new washing machine, and so on) is increasingly hard to sweep under the rug. They are not killing the liberal order (at least not yet, probably never), they are making its blind spots visible to many others who can do some killing. They are creating doubt in the minds of the citizenry, but even more so, in the minds of the clerisy itself. Of course, the clerisy tries/tends to ignore or obfuscate the problem. It is about poverty. It is a reaction to microaggressions. It is a revolt against imperialism or colonialism. And so on. All these explanations have some truth to them. But not enough truth. Something else is going on. It may be that human beings are not the convenience-maximizing homo economicus we assumed. Or they are not naturally egalitarian when it come to gender. Or whatever..the particular doubts engendered vary from person to person. But the recurrent eruption of events that do not compute undermines confidence in the software.
3. As the doubts spread, they lead to a search for alternative software. "Maybe the racists were right". "Maybe the religious revivalists were right". "Maybe the cultural nationalists were right". Maybe even that ignorant conman from Queens is right.. Whatever, the point is, the liberal order is losing the confidence of its own people. That can become a self-reinforcing downward spiral. By the way, the alternatives being considered are NOT necessarily correct. That is part of the point. The liberal order could fail, not because its failure was inevitable or because its enemies are better, but because it lost asabiya, coherence, confidence, public support, shared delusion. Something like that.
4. Future historians look back at WW3 (I am just making this up, it may not be WW3, it may just be a lot of decentralized violence and decay, whatever, let your imagination run wild :) ). FFS, Trump is going to be executive producer of "celebrity apprentice" (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/309594-conway-doubtful-trump-will-take-salary-from-celebrity) WHILE HE IS POTUS! I think this deserves all caps :) (and it doesnt matter if it ends up not happening. That he thought of doing it is enough. Seriously).
Anyway, these imaginary future historians look back the fall of the Western enlightenment project, and one of them says "hey, you know, I think Islam was the rock on which this ship floundered. Not militarily or economically defeated by Islam, but exposed by Islam. Shown to be naked.
5. Finally, the tweets about Fukuyama Redux (https://storify.com/omarali50/fukuyama-redux)are supposed to hint that this is not the end. Just another turn of the spiral. The enlightenment will be back. Ideologies not centered on man, on this world, on rationality, on empiricism will not take over the world. But the mess of 2032 will be a topic of study. And the role of Islam in undermining confidence in the first matrix (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBU02NA62k0) will be a topic of study.
6. Its is supposed to be a kind of thought experiment. To be put out there to get feedback. To start a debate. To learn something. I hope. Not as the literal true description of the mess of 2032 and its aftermath. More like a tiny effort to figure out what is going on, as our honorable President-elect likes to say. :wry:
I think I understand your argument (but probably don't). My guess (or hope) is that, 50 years from now when historians look back at the collapse of American Democracy, they will see that it started in the 1970's. Young children at that time witnessed a President resign in disgrace after being involved in a criminal cover-up. They were told that America was exceptional and their children would live better than they did, but that is not what happened. If they were part of the white, Christian majority they came expect certain social norms and personal privileges, all of which were challenged by the spread of Liberal ideals and the election of a black president. For example, more Americans see the "End Times" as near because of Gay Marriage than other, more rational threats like Russia or even Islam. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/12/07/more-people-wondered-if-the-world-was-ending-because-of-gay-marriage-than-because-of-trump/?utm_term=.04df025ec632; http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/cal-thomas-gay-marriage-all-prophecies-coming-true-end-times-are-right). They were told that trade deals like NAFTA would bring prosperity, but all they saw were jobs departing for Mexico. All of this led to a disillusionment with the systems as it existed. That disillusionment resulted in a shift in value emphasis away from liberalism and towards nationalism. Trump was the beneficiary of that value shift.
I don't see that Islam had any great affect on what I just described. But I am only talking about America. I would have to do a separate analysis for other countries, but I assume much of the same factors come into play. In Europe you could certainly make the argument that the refugees, who were refusing to assimilate, along with terrorist attacks, had a greater impact. In the US, that impact was replicated by the Mexicans crossing the boarder and killing pour, innocent white women.
... of course, when they write that history of the collapse of American Democracy, they will be writing in it Cyrillic.
Pentagon Prepares Tougher Options on Fighting Militants to Show Trump Team (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/pentagon-prepares-tougher-options-on-fighting-militants-to-show-trump-team)
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/pentagon-prepares-tougher-options-on-fighting-militants-to-show-trump-team) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
I think you may find this book interesting
http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9780745612690
Thank you. I see your point. I may revise my thesis to say all of that (what brought America down) and still say "the rot was not obvious until Muslims showed it to be the case".
Something like that.
Who knows, it may not even happen. As Saul Bellow said somewhere, we see the world falling apart, but it is not the world, it is us. We are getting old. Friends are dying, etc.
It may be over for the rust belt, but maybe this is their last hurrah, not some sort of change of course. Trump will be followed by other Goldman Sachs Presidents. Life will go on.
Who knows. :)
Anyway, from a "world historical" perspective, what next?
I will throw out something that is swimming around in upper circles here in Europe that is of great concern across the EU.......
Goes to the heart of the debate here....if one takes all the anti-Islamic/Muslim comments made by a lot of those being selected for Trump positions....take Trump's own comments....take those comments by say Bannon and Flynn...those comments from Mattis/Kelly.....on the same topic.....if we take the Muslim immigration comments by Trump and company and all of the "alt Right"...ie white supremacist social media sites on the same topic.......if we then couple it with the constant social media comments made by Trump supporters and the 600% increase in hate crimes across the US after the election....
EU concern....are we seeing the possible beginnings of a US long term war with Islam?
Not exactly far fetched....especially in light of the Trump comments about working together with Putin/Assad in Syria......
REALLY read and then reread again and again and then ask yourself is the Trump pick of Tillerson a good one for the US....????
This @juliaioffe story on what it takes to be "a friend of Putin" explains all you need to know about Tillerson.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/rex-tillerson-exxon-putin-russia-ties-friend-214515#
Written by someone who fully understands Russia...maybe she should be the next SoS....BUT WAIT she is a journalist thus not a friend of Trump since she does not work for Fox...Breitbart.com nor Infowars.....
Don't confuse how we got here with what will happen next. I believe that it is very possible that, based on the team Trump has assembled so far and his pension for looking for scapegoats when things go wrong, we could very will end up in a war with Islam, starting with Iran, once his economic policies fall flat. Worse, we will be going it alone, since all the other major players want to keep the Iranian Nuclear deal. He will do the same thing that Bush did; only accept intelligence that fits into his view of the world (if he even bothers to listen to the CIA now that they have openly said the Russians tried to manipulate the election in his favor).
No, things can go south fast with Trump in the WH. But it won't be BECAUSE of Islam. It will be because of a serious of events that ended up allowing Trump to get into the WH, and then the catastrophic mistakes he makes once he is in.
Ah...a man after my heart.....if we make the assumption and I think it is a valid assumption based on the characters Trump is surrounding himself with that his statements before the election are really what he is going to due FP wise...
We know the following.......
1. although he claims to be for the common worker and he wants to increase jobs and pay...most of his economic team is either Goldman Sachs who profited massively from the housing crash and even bet against the US government since they had insider knowledge of the bad bundling of mortages...OR one is a corporate raider who bought sinking companies..stripped out the assets and then promptly fired the employees....OR someone who does not believe in the minimum wage for low income workers
2. he claims to want good paying manufacturing jobs yet demands a 35 tariff on imports openly knowing the current global manufacturing works on a just in time process pulling components from around the entire globe thus driving up the overall consumer prices ...already indicated to happen by Wal Mart and Target and company
2a. PLUS triggering potentially a massive trade war with 35% tariffs placed on exported US products and leading to overseas paid for US plants slowly shutting down...also losing jobs
3. places someone into the EPA who does not believe in global warming thus no longer supporting the development of alternative energy sources which drives a modern manufacturing potential ie wind generators built in the US by US labor instead of coming from Germany......or solar cell roofs which would drive more installation jobs thus lowering the over all cost of electricity.....
4. ALL of this in the face of a Trump who claimed he wanted more good paying manufacturig jobs.....
NOW let's get onto to the potential Trump FP
1. he wants to export more US products into China..cut back Chinese imports...place a 35% tariff on products coming to the US from China AND he wants to have China change it's currency rates......
NOTE...every thing previous US governments tried and failed at.....
2. then he clearly signalled a new approach to Taiwan claiming it was just a congrats call.....sure......
AND the Chinese response....they flew for the first time a Chinese AF nuclear bomber through the entire South China Sea......
3. IF we take the combined statements of Trump and those that he has selected including Bannon and Flynn...WE will have a war with Islam....BTW this also includes Mattis as well.....
4. NATO....he has basically walked away from Article 5...when he stated unless NATO pays the US is not interested in defending NATO.....
5. Russian annexation of Crimea...Trump during the campaign voiced the opinion that it was possible that Crimea did in fact legally voted in a Referendum to join Russia......
6. Check the Republican Party plaform on Ukraine....totally proRussian position ..directly oppostion many of his own Party in Congress
7. International treaties ie Iran..he states he will redo them.......
8. International trade treaties...he will either drop them and or redo them...that will never happen.....
9. TPP..he will drop it allowing China to firmly control the trade of the entire Pacific Rim.
10. TTIP and CETA....he will lose the opportunity for the US to trade freely with a 750M person marketplace denying more well paid manufacturing jobs and thousands of jobs associated with increased trade.....
11. Russian info and cyber warfare...does not exist........
12. Russian violations of INF...START and OSCE Agreements....does not exist for Trump....as Putin is his best friend and best friends do not do those things....
Conservative Trump supporters reminding Dems of their navet about Putin, while ignoring what their man and his appointees think of Putin.
BUT WAIT........Trump invited a hostile foreign power to hack and publish his opponent's emails. It's on video.
Huge sleeper story: House GOP just gave Trump full control of VOA/RFE/RL, ability to broadcast propaganda worldwide.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/a-big-change-to-us-broadcasting-is-coming--and-its-one-putin-might-admire/2016/12/09/6c6d5786-bcb7-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html?utm_term=.bf4e6ee7b4f3 …
NOW AGAIN...exacty WHY was Bannon selected for "strategic messaging"........Brietbart.com and Infowars on steronids
Five unanswered questions about Russia's election hacking:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/five-questions-about-russias-election-hacking/510305/?utm_source=twb …
Exactly which institutions did the Russians hack?
When did the hacks occur?
Was there coordination?
Are there financial ties?
Where else has Russia intervened using the same exact tactics?
BUT WAIT...based on Trump's own Fox comments...NONE of this ever occurred and he blatantly attacked the CIA....WHO is responsible for defending all of the US from enemies near and far
USING the sad excuse that "he is a smart person".....
APPEARS Republicans are in open revolt against Trump.......
McConnell: "It defies belief" some Senate Republicans are reluctant to "review Russian tactics or ignore them"
Donald Trump Loses Mitch McConnell, Who Wants to Dig Into Russian Hacking
http://thebea.st/2gsS9ar via @thedailybeast
Appears Pual Ryan is also disagreeing with his new boss......
Our Intelligence Committee has been working diligently on cyber threats to the US. This important work will continue & has my support.
Breaking: #China flew nuke-capable H-6 bombers over #SouthChinaSea Dec 7 & 8, first time flew full length of "9-dash line"-US Def Official
This area includes #Taiwan & along with China's votes in UNSC against US on #Syria could very well be not-too-subtle msgs to PEOTUS Trump
Donald J. Trump Verifizierter Account 
Unless you catch "hackers" in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking. Why wasn't this brought up before election?
It was brought up before the election in the very public Oct statement by DNI & DHS expressing confidence #Russia behind hacks
APPARENTLY Trump did not know this.......
Report: Russian cyberattacks on Clinton camp continued until Election Day
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/309944-report-russian-attacks-on-clinton-camp-continued-until-election-day#.WE7j_xXefgs.twitter …
The difference between @bellingcat & DNC / RNC hack was the latter had #GRU operatives on ground, assisting.
https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/808363689653010433 …
NOW THINGS ARE GETTING SERIOUS
BREAKING: Clinton campaign backs call for intelligence briefing before Electoral College vote… via @politico
http://www.politico.com
The Kremlin Would Be Proud of Trump's Propaganda Playbook
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/trump-russia-kremlin-propaganda-tactics …
Trump Declares War on the Intelligence Community
http://observer.com/2016/12/trump-declares-war-on-the-intelligence-community/#.WE7nMllcZgg.twitter …
I have been privy to the analysis work done by two top US private security companies tasked with the hacking forensics.....it was Russia right up to the election as we were tracking their activities on this side of the Atlantic for several European interested partners.....
BREAKING: White House: No doubt Trump benefitted from Russian hacking
http://hill.cm/qAaZHrj
WH spox: Don't need security clearance to see: Results of hack & leak op attacking Clinton–carried out on orders of #Russia–benefited Trump.
Trump involved in Insider trading....????????
Someone started dumping Lockheed Martin stock just before Trump's tweet. Can someone else please verify my findings.
BTW....just a side note.....the computer I am using this evening while connected to the net at a customer site uses a very good detection system to spot when a hacker is ever so slowly attempting to connect and montior all ongoing comms.....using a falsified security certificate....a typical MS weak point....
Blocked it...will be interestig to see if he attempts it again before I sign off for the evening.....the core problem is one cannot state who was attempting to connect....as the tools needed to analyze are not on this computer.....
Here's What America Needs to Know About Trump and Russia
By Evelyn Farkas
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/trump-russia-intelligence-need-to-know-214520
I've worked in the defense community for the last 20 years, the past 3 years as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia. Over that time, my colleagues and I have watched Russian cyber-operations become far more ambitious and insidious. They've moved from technical denial-of-service attacks – targeting Estonia in 2007, Georgia in 2008 and against Ukraine's internet and cellular phone networks in 2014 and electrical grid a year later – to use of cyber spying and release of captured information to influence publics, including their own. In 2014, during U.S. and European Union negotiations to build a transitional government in Ukraine, Russia made public a wiretapped conversation between my colleagues Assistant Secretary Toria Nuland and the U.S. Ambassador in Ukraine, Geoff Pyatt, during which Nuland is heard saying "#### the E.U." The objective was to embarrass U.S. officials and increase tension between them and their European Union counterparts.
I watched as Russia funded far-right and far-left political parties in Western and Eastern Europe (most notably in France and Hungary), as well as NGOs and used its economic influence (especially in oil and gas) to pressure European politicians to support Kremlin objectives. This fall we saw Moscow continue to intervene in other nations' politics, funding pro-Russian political parties in Moldova, and sponsoring demonstrations against that country's pro-Western government. This week the head of the German domestic intelligence agency warned: "We see aggressive and increased cyber spying and cyber operations that could potentially endanger German government officials, members of parliament and employees of democratic parties."
We know from the most senior intelligence officials that the Russian government hacks and transfer of information to Wikileaks were conducted at a minimum to cause Americans to lose faith in their political process, and at a maximum to increase the odds that Trump could win the election. And we should heed their words: As a close consumer of intelligence on Russia for 3 critical years, I know our intelligence on Russia, unlike that on North Korea, for example, is excellent.
Given Russia's capabilities and its recent patterns, it is not at all far-fetched to ask whether Trump is indeed the "puppet" Secretary Clinton mockingly named him in the second presidential debate. Is he financially and politically beholden to Russians close to the government and to the Kremlin itself? If so, is he prepared to accommodate Putin's interests? Should we expect a robust "reset," in the tense relationship between the two countries, perhaps one that even compromises U.S. interests, like the stability of its allies in Europe, and American values, like democracy and human rights? If the Trump administration attempts one, it is worth noting that whatever the US gives up would likely be very temporary: for domestic political reasons, Putin needs the United States as its public enemy, given Russia's current and foreseeable economic situation, and Russian presidential elections are coming up in 2018.
Today, we already have enough clues and too much undisclosed information to warrant worry about the puppet scenario. There are signs the Trump campaign was involved in coordinating this release of hacked information – then-advisor Carter Page's trips and meetings in Moscow, and Russian statements that they were in touch with the campaign. And of course, Trump publicly called on the Russian government to continue hacking Hillary Clinton's computers during a televised campaign appearance. His campaign dismissed it as a joke; it's not clear everyone did. It may be too much to say that the Kremlin and Russian secret services put Trump on the path to seeking the presidency, but they certainly contributed to getting him there – even perhaps, to their surprise.
Since the elections, various senior Russian officials, such as Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov, have asserted that they've had ongoing conversations with the Trump camp. Trump spokesperson Heather Hicks has denied this. If the Russians officials in this "he said / she said" game aren't lying, it raises the question about what they are discussing or planning.
We know, per Donald Trump, Jr., that Russians make up a significant amount of the family business. What we don't know is how much Russian money is involved, and what Russian money. How did Donald Trump get out of debt? To whom does he owe money? Who provides the collateral for his loans? Is he beholden to Russian oligarchs and banks who are under the thumb of the Kremlin and Russian security services?
If these relationships do exist, the basic foreign policy implication is that Donald Trump as president will seek to accommodate Vladimir Putin's objectives: equal status between the United States and Russia; a 19th century sphere of influence for Russia in Europe/Eurasia/Central Asia; and acceptance of brutal non-democratic dictators even in the face of their people's nonviolent attempts to force them from power. And the United States is unlikely to retaliate against Russian cyberattacks, and may not maintain strong deterrence against Russian violations of air, sea and space protocols for military behavior.
In Europe, this would mean no further NATO enlargement and no military or other assistance to non-NATO states like Ukraine and Georgia that are occupied in part by Russian forces and trying to maintain their political and economic sovereignty. It would likely arrest the movement toward democracy and free-market capitalism. In the Middle East it would mean letting the brutal dictator Bashar al Asad try to rule Syria by force, with Russia and Iran helping.
The result would be more insecurity – Eastern and Western European states would start looking out for their own interests, arming unilaterally and weakening NATO and further dividing the European Union. With collective security diminished, and the chance of American resistance significantly reduced, Russia may be tempted to test NATO countries by sending security forces into the Baltics to protect ethnic Russians or by conducting risky military maneuver in NATO air or maritime space. If conflict were to break out among major European powers – collectively our top trading partner, and individually our closest allies – U.S. basic interests would be impacted. If America chose to side with Russia over our European allies, that would be a repudiation of U.S. interests and values. In the Syria, the final crushing of the conventional opposition forces would spell the dawn of a bitter and destabilizing insurgency against Assad, Iran and Russia.
For the homeland, the failure to respond to Russian cyber-interference and to establish and maintain military deterrence against attacks on U.S. military and civilian infrastructure will make us less safe. There will be a greater temptation for the Russian government to use cyber and other means to disrupt normal life in America for smaller stakes, like getting sanctions lifted or retaliating against the Magnitsky human rights law. Being cooperative in this area will only make America weak, coupled as it will be by mutual distrust between our militaries and the conventional and nuclear balances between us.
For a lot of Americans, this whole Russian-intervention scenario may seem farfetched. And political scientists and former policymakers like myself know not to jump to conclusions based on a few data points, and on the significant questions Donald Trump has refused to answer. It is also possible that the somber professional cabinet members like Jim Mattis and John Kelly will successfully advocate for U.S. interests, and the Trump circle's evident impulses to accommodate Putin will be effectively countered or moderated.
Nonetheless, there's already plenty to worry about. Nothing like this level of foreign interference in American democracy has even been imagined in modern political history. So before we even get to interagency debates on Russia, before the president-elect takes the oath, the American people deserve to know what the intelligence community knows about his business history and entanglements with Russians and Russia.
The intelligence community, especially the CIA, will be loath to reveal too much lest their sources and methods are compromised. But if our worst fears are realized, Trump has knowingly benefited from Kremlin help, those means may be jeopardized by the next administration anyway. His team would be motivated to eliminate means of collection and analysis and of informing others in the executive branch or Congress. As the public and legislators press for more clarity, there are a handful of specific questions they need to focus on:
1) What did Russia do to interfere in U.S. elections?
2) Did any American citizens collude with Russia to assist in the Kremlin's efforts to interfere in U.S. elections? If so how, and were Trump associates, or Trump himself, aware?
3) Have Russians given or loaned Donald Trump and/or his businesses money, or provided collateral or other financial assistance to Donald Trump?
If the answers yield further evidence that the president-elect is indebted to the Russian government or individuals with Kremlin ties, the intelligence community and policy officials should also begin disclosing what they know about whether Trump's associates have been in contact with Russian officials, and what they've been discussing.
Continued......
The next Trump move? Will play very badly across the Muslim world. And be a great gift to Daesh and their likes.
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.758560 …
1. Personally, I believe that political ideology is three-dimensional rather than two.
2. I agree with you that rural voters have increasingly turned toward the GOP since the Great Recession began in 2007. I disagree that the 1920s is relevant, given that the surge in white supremacy was accompanied by religious fervor and occurred during a period of official and institutionalized racism. The support of the "Alt-Right" is immaterial compared to that of the mainstream media for Clinton. However, let's look at the economic record for Obama's tenure:
The same real GDP growth as Bush (half that of Reagan and Clinton)
The smallest US manufacturing sector as a share of GDP
A Labor Participation Rate not seen since Carter
Real median household income lower than Clinton on average
Real median household net worth set back a decade for whites and a generation for blacks
Yet Hillary expected to campaign on the status quo?
3. Trump is a politician who will take credit where credit isn't due.
4. I read The Art of War to be philosophically against war in a way that many martial arts are philosophically opposed to violence.
The Russians have not altered the beliefs of American or European society. They have attempted to amplify popular doubts about the status quo, but the fact is that the establishment has been unable to put forth a compelling vision that Western nations can understand and support. The European Union was provoking ire among many Western Europeans in the early 2000s for its ideological bias and overreach, years before the Great Recession and rivalry with Moscow over Ukraine. On the whole, no new vision has been put forth since 1992's The End of History. Yet Western faith that liberal democracy will triumph everywhere has been eroded over time and replaced with cynicism if not pessimism.
As for Russia's curious blend of Czarist and Soviet ideology as well as the Byzantine Caesaro-Papism of the Russian Orthodox Church, it is unsustainable in the long-term.
Russia's true contest is with China, and if history is any guide, Russia will have to ally with the West or find itself the Austria-Hungary or Italy to China's Germany…
5. First, Russia was accused of hacking the polling machines. Now, it is accused of hacking the DNC and leaking the correspondence to WikiLeaks, which I believe it did. But did it swing the election in Trump's favor? No. The biggest blow to Hillary was her "basket of deplorables" remark (32 estimated electoral votes lost) and Comey's letters to Congress (24 estimated electoral votes lost); in fact, the Podesta release was more than overwhelmed by the Access Hollywood one.
The "vast right-wing conspiracy" of the late 1990s has transformed into a sprawling conspiracy that would baffle even Jim Marrs. Do you want to know the candidate that imitated Russian non-linear warfare? Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Her response to the Server Scandal was reminiscent of Russia's propaganda regarding MH17:
Hillary suffered a concussion and remembers nothing (did the security briefing occur after she had been Secretary for over 3 years?)
It was Colin Powell's fault (he was in no position to approve or authorize it)
It was her aids' fault
There was no classified material on the server
There may have been classified material but Hillary didn't know what the "C" meant
The security protocols are too onerous
Stop asking questions
This is yet another right-wing conspiracy
Again, look at how her minions have responded to her loss:
It was a "whitelash" (despite Trump's share of the white vote being within recent GOP norms)
It was white men
It was white women (betrayal!)
It was Comey (he is a secret GOP agent provocateur)
It was Obama (asking her to concede early)
It was the Electoral College (set-up to ensure GOP victory!)
It was Russia
1. You reside in Germany and are clearly not facing the adverse economic and financial conditions that prevail in the Rust Belt and for roughly half of Americans. This is not a criticism, but context...
2. You wanted Hillary Clinton to be elected President because you expected her pursue a more confrontational foreign policy with respect to Russia and Iran, and toward the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. You also were aware that she would largely ignore domestic policy, knowing that any initiatives would be obstructed by Republicans in Congress. Clinton's policy focus and ability to effect change were both in the area of foreign affairs, and Clinton had established herself as a hawk.
3. You have accused Obama of ignoring Russian aggression in Ukraine and Syria, and Iran's aggression in Syria and Yemen. In fact, you have argued that Obama has been complicit in Putin's attempts to coerce Kiev into recognizing Putin's puppets, and in Assad's attempt to annihilate the moderate rebels. You have posted sources and articles suggesting that Obama is cooperating with Putin and Khamenei and is seen as their accomplice by many Sunni Arabs.
Therefore, I have two questions for you:
Question 1: If Obama has caved to Putin and Khamenei as you suggest, what could Trump do to make things even worse?
Lift sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine? The Europeans are the least enthusiastic about maintaining the sanctions, Kerry has already tied them to Donbas rather than Crimea, and they show no signs of causing Russia to withdraw from either territory.
Allow Russia to bomb the Free Syrian Army? That is already happening.
Suspend aid to the rebels? That would only cause the Turks, Saudis and Qataris to increase aid without the CIA's restrictions and would probably be a net benefit to the FSA.
Cooperate more with the Iranians and their mercenaries? Actually, Trump would prove more confrontational as he cares little for the JCPOA. This would mean more arms sales and transfers to the GCC.
Question 2: What could Hillary actually accomplish more than Obama?
Create a NFZ in Syria? Doubtful unless you want war with Russia.
More aid to the FSA? And suffer accusations of supporting Daesh and Al Qaeda…
More sanctions on Russia? Not if the Europeans can help it.
Lethal aid to Ukraine? In return for advanced weapons to Syria, Iran, the Houthis and others?
ALL Western leaders of all Western nations are now fully and completely complicit in the ongoing genocide in Aleppo...NOT a single word out of the entire UNSC...
I suppose then that the West is also responsible for:
Congos
You know that Russia has blocked UNSC action on Syria, despite various toothless resolutions being passed.
Azor..regardless of what you think the whole problem of the so called common man voting for Trump is traceable back to the total crash of the real estate market in 2006 which if one checks it out was triggered by the repeal of the Glass Siegel Banking requirements pushed by Bush and his privatization merry band.....
Rural America and middle American suffered badly at the hands of the banks and real estate brokers....and it destroyed a vast amount of middle class wealth that has never been recovered.....AND no one went to jail.
Check again why no one went to jail....RP revolted and threatened to block such actions when they took over control.....and look how long it took to get Dodd Frank for banks passed that now Trump wants to roll back....
THEN we had McConnell stating openly on day one...I will make sure that Obama never serves more than once...and the RP went directly into blocking virtually anything which in then fed the common man's views that everything in DC was fake and doing nothing for them.....
We can go on forever......
IF you take it seriously then yes the US is just as complicit in those events as well...WHY....as the supposedly leader of the "free West" declared that by the Reagans and Bushes of this world ....then non action on the part of the US is in fact action in this case..being complicit.....the term complicit means one has knowledge of specific events and does nothing to stop it.....
BUT here is the interesting act about the use of the Russian veto....
1. there has never been a direct legal challenge as to the validity of Russia actually taking over for itself the UNSC seat that was reserved for the Soviet Union based on the existence of the Soviet Union in 1945...there are a number of international legal types that make a serious case that Russia illegally took the seat and the West looked the other way
2. there is a little known internal UNGA procedure that allows the entire UNGA to override all UNSC decisions and was just used in the last week or so when they voted 122 to 12 to pass a Syrian Resolution.....they could have gone further and made it binding on the UNSC and then sanctioned any vetoing nation state for not following through..........BUT China...US and Russian maneuvered to kill that move as all three see it as a danger to their veto rights....so really we now have a the great example of how totally ineffective the UN has basically become in the 21st century....
IF you take the comments by the US after Rwanda and Srebrenica and after say Kosovo....the US publicly stated to the world never again...and YET hear we are discussing genocide...war crimes....and starvation in 2016......
You mentioned Yugoslavia...I wrote many years ago a thesis for a project that I was accepted for on Yugoslavia and how it would look after Tito...that was in 1985....if you layer it over the actual events I was 500% correct...and hate to say it .......brutally correct....
AND again the US still remains quiet over Syria...hypocrisy is what that is called...
WHY does the US not finally admit that it is driven FP wise largely by hypocrisy and move on...and drop all this secondary chatter of western values....rule of law...good governance and exceptionalism....as it is really nothing more or less than a smoke screen for blatant hypocrisy....
BTW...you forgot the Biafran Nigerian civil war
Take note - with near-daily war crimes being committed in #Aleppo & US-vetted assets left to die, President #Obama was *literally* silent.
THAT Azor is complicity.....
BTW......for a historical lesson on American financial failures under Republicans I would suggest going back in time and studying the Savings and Loan debacle....also pushed by Bush Sr. under the concept of "privatization" of the billions being held by the banking requirements that were strictly for S&Ls....far different than banking requirements on what amounts of deposits had to be held in cash and bonds...
THEN look how the criminals of that period were handled and how many went to jail...VS the real estate crash beginning slowly in 2006......
NOW look at the Trump comments on Fannie and Freddie in the mortgage business...they want that privatized and their mortgage work tied to the banking industry benefitting say Goldman Sachs and company....
Americans bailed out Fannie and Freddie to the tune of 188B USDs OVER the vast complaints of the Republicans......BUT they paid the 188B FULYL plus interest.....and now pump annually several Billion USDs back into the Treasury every year since then.....
Americans have a very short memory of their own events...therein lies the main problem.....
BTW....I do know the US internally as well as you do...was in the US from 1986 until 1997 and then again 2006 to 2012....
BTW.....
Anyone refusing to acknowledge democratic norms were/r violated is complicit in degradation of our republic
http://nyti.ms/2hDuO6Y
Azor...this simply shot holes in the massive worker voter support for Trump who claimed he was going to stop jobs going to Mexico and he was going to create good paying manufacturing jobs......and goes to why I stated I could not move my company to the Rust Belt......
This is interesting, some 85% of jobs in US manufacturing have been lost to automation not trade,
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2016/11/18/what-is-the-future-of-free-trade-5-facts-about-us-trade-policy/#
Many US Trump voters would have a hard time understanding how it is possible that the Germans have a far higher average labor cost in manufacturing than the US does yet with all the higher costs the German export economy is growing and growing and growning....AND the first truly robot produced BMWs are now rolling off the assemble line....YET the economy is stronger than before 1991......
How is that possible should be the shouts coming from the US Rust Belt....answer is simple...strong unionization....strong company management and strong government involvement in the process....AND a strong education system capable to producing qualified workers for the 21st century......
YET all we hear from US workers is complaints...complaints and it's the fault of others.....easily exploited by Trump and company...
BTW....a German study indicates that one robot replaces five workers....and the main builders of manufacturing robots with a global reputation for quality....are the Germans...
Something that is typical for German and not for the US...how do you hold onto your older employees....meaning after 30-40 years of experience why lose them to retirement...so manufacturing looked at the processes and designed a new series of devices allowing older workers to continue doing what they have done in the past on the assembly lines and not hurting their health in the process..AND making it even easier for the younger workers in the process...THIS led to a whole new export market around the world....
WHY hold onto the older workers....their experience cannot be replaced when they leave by the younger generation.....that experience is worth millions to manufacturers here....
Trump already on path to extradite a man Turkish president wants and who is using blackmail on Trump biznes to get.
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/12/23/donald-trump-foreign-business-deals-jeopardize-us-531140.html#
Trump administration's 1st #NATO decision could lead to US losing "its highest-ranking official in NATO"
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/trump-team-working-to-remove-top-nato-official#
The incoming Trump administration is looking to get rid of the No. 2 official at NATO, an American nominated by President Obama whom most Republicans don't trust. But NATO's Brussels leadership may not play along, setting up an early confrontation with President Trump.
Two Trump transition sources told me that a representative of the transition team met late last month with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels and delivered a private but deliberate message: The incoming administration would like Stoltenberg to replace Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller. Gottemoeller, who was nominated for the post by Obama this past March, started her job in Brussels only in October and has a multi-year contract. She works for NATO, not the U.S. government.
If NATO leadership agreed to remove Gottemoeller, it would set a new precedent for U.S. government control over American officials in top NATO positions. If the NATO leadership doesn't agree, the incoming Trump administration could work to marginalize Gottemoeller and render her ineffective. Either way, her role is set to change when the new U.S. president comes into office....
Trump transition sources told me that Stoltenberg agreed to look into how Gottemoeller might be removed. But NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told me there has been no formal request from the Trump transition team for Gottemoeller to be let go and that no process for examining such a move is underway.
"This is not a national appointment, and the selection is made in a competition, based on merit," Lungescu said. "Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller enjoys the full support of Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the North Atlantic Council...."
Gottemoeller's allies see the Trump transition team's quiet move to replace her in NATO as a brazen, brute-force tactic to pressure the alliance to bend to Trump's will.
"This is a whispering campaign by schoolyard bullies to try to pressure an organization they have already disrespected," said Ellen Tauscher, who served as undersecretary of state for arms control before Gottemoeller. "Do they really want to pick a fight with the first American woman who is in NATO leadership, somebody who was confirmed by the Senate more than once?"
There is no formal mechanism for a member country to ask NATO to remove an official. Stoltenberg may rebuff the effort altogether. If the Trump administration can't get Gottemoeller removed, it could just work around her, limiting contact to whomever Trump appoints as the U.S. permanent representative to NATO. Gottemoeller would stay in place, but without the backing of her home government and without access to any American officials....
If Gottemoeller decides to step aside, there's no guarantee an American would be chosen to replace her. Trump would be able to nominate someone for the job, but other countries would nominate their citizens as well. The United States might lose its highest-ranking official in NATO.
Azor,
This is no longer about Clinton or Obama. This is all about Trump. Trump won the election so the question is not about what ifs and more about what is to come. Based on his personality and exceptionally thin skin, his total lack of foreign policy experience, and his refusal to take advise from anyone (like the intelligence community), I think trepidation is in order.
1. I completely agree that the Financial Crisis and Great Recession laid bare the increasing inequality of American society as well as the impacts of globalization, as lower-skilled and lower-earning Americans had relied upon real estate speculation to achieve the "American Dream". As Thomas Friedman observed: "If you were born in Minnesota in the 1950s, '60s and '70s, you needed a plan to fail…today, you need a plan to succeed."
2. The Russian Federation became the successor state of the Soviet Union, and it would not make sense to either apportion the UNSC permanent seat among the former SSRs nor to transfer the seat to say Ukraine or Belarus. Without Russia on the UNSC, the UN will resemble the LON and start breaking down.
3. The UPR has never been used by the GA to override a SC veto, nor can I see it compelling military action. The UN is a forum for diplomatic resolution of conflicts and a coordinator of international aid; it has no ability to coerce the great powers either diplomatically or militarily. I could write over 10,000 characters on its "failures" in the 20th Century…
4. The fact that the United States deplores the mass murder and other crimes in Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East, does not mean that it is responsible for intervening. Was the United States also responsible for mass murder in China under Mao or in Afghanistan by the Soviet Union or in Chechnya by Russia? If the United States is to be the "world's policeman" then it should receive compensation for this burden and the Chinese and Russians should disarm, no? Many feared ethnic and sectarian violence would break out as the Eastern Bloc crumbled, although the Soviet republics received more attention because of the reasonable possibility of nuclear-armed warlords springing up throughout Central Asia. As for Yugoslavia, you were dealing with a unitary authoritarian state imposed on a variety of ethno-religious groups that had been warring for centuries, and which had "unfinished business" left over from World War II.
I find it difficult to reconcile your service during the Cold War with your naiveté with respect to American foreign policy. I am not trying to offend you, but you seem blind to shades of gray.
In World War I, the United States allied with four empires, including one that had committed genocide (Belgium)
In World War II, the United States allied with an aggressive and genocidal empire (Soviet Union)
During the Cold War, the United States supported or cooperated with many non-democratic anti-communist states, including ones that committed genocide (Pakistan, Indonesia) and ones that used WMDs on civilians (Iraq)
During all three periods above, the United States was avowedly acting in its own national interests, on behalf of liberal democracy and against non-democratic aggression.
Yet the United States government compromised its liberal and democratic principles in order to achieve its main objectives, and of course, no state policy can be pursued without a degree of corruption and selfishness by those tasked with executing it.
After all, was Great Britain's World War II legacy the defense of liberal democracy against the worst barbarian to conquer Europe? Or was it heroic self-defense and ruthlessly preserving its Empire at the expense of its allies and those peoples it swore to protect (e.g. the Poles and Czechoslovaks)?
Germany today is an instance where the American national interest and commitment to promoting liberal democracy have come together. Yet for Western Europe, Japan and to a lesser extent Taiwan and South Korea (initially authoritarian) to be priorities, other seemingly less important countries were sacrificed.
5. Germany's balance of trade surplus is not merely a product of its model of industrial relations, culture of consensus and embrace of automation; it is also derived from Germany having adopted the Euro, which is far lower compared to other major curries than the Deutsche Mark would be.
Adversarial industrial relations in the United States and resistance on the part of workers to accept automation, were headwinds that were thoroughly documented in the 1970s and 1980s during the rise of West Germany and Japan, when the latter seemed poised to occupy a more powerful position in the world than in 1941.
No American presidential candidate or sitting president can tell the people the truth about industrial or manufacturing jobs in the United States, nor do the term limits allow a lengthy and costly strategy of retraining and education to be implemented.
Firstly, you are dismissing my reasonable questions about how Trump would be "worse" for those voters wanted a tougher line on aggression in Ukraine and Syria.
Secondly, Obama had a very thick skin, and it only encouraged the Russians and Iranians to provoke him and put US servicemen and women at risk. Erdogan shot down a Su-24 that was in Turkish airspace for less than a minute, and nothing happened. Yet the Russian Air Force violates NATO airspace regularly and skirts it with nuclear-capable bombers.
Thirdly, the Director of the CIA and his two Deputy Directors are all political appointees, and only the Director has relevant experience with the CIA, albeit from 2005. Therefore, we cannot regard information from the CIA released officially or by unnamed sources as merely the apolitical expert opinion of intelligence analysts.
The CIA gave absurdly low numbers for Daesh's strength from 2014 on, which were up to ten times lower than the Peshmerga's estimates. To date, Operation Inherent Resolve has killed more Daesh fighters than were estimated in 2014 and 2015.
Now we are seeing a regurgitation of the allegation that the Russians hacked the DNC, which I believe that they did. Yet the WikiLeaks release of July was only a temporary setback to Clinton's chances and Comey's letters as well as Hillary's "deplorables" remark had far more of an impact on her electoral chances, with the latter having by far the greatest (est. 32 seats lost).
Trump understands that the CIA's claims and Obama's investigation are yet another attempt to question the legitimacy of Trump's victory, after the suggestions that Russia hacked paper-based booths and after Stein's failed recount bid.
Lastly, many Republican officials associated with the CIA also denounced Trump's nomination by the GOP and publicly supported Clinton.
So is it Trump's fault for tensions between the president-elect and the CIA, or the CIA's role in the scorched earth tactics by anti-Trump Republicans and the DNC?
It was said that during Bill Clinton's presidency, that the DCI had to crash his helicopter into the White House to get a minute of Bill's time, and the lack of action on Al Qaeda is indicative of that. Now that the ODNI has publicly disagreed with the CIA's conclusions based on evidence from the Summer, it is incumbent upon the Agency to make music with the president-elect.
No one is questioning the legitimacy of the election. That is a discussion for elsewhere.
Look, this thread is about Trump, not about Hillary Clinton, not about Obama, not about Bill Clinton. So I will ask you politely to please stick to the topic.
What do you see Trump doing differently about ISIS? About al Qaeda?
Well, my responses were to Outlaw 09, who does question Trump's legitimacy, and were repositioned by the Moderator.
For people that are opponents of Trump, it is important to ask what they think Clinton would have done differently...
Trump is a showman, and I expect him to carry on Operation Inherent Resolve, albeit with a bit more flair:
Reduced ROEs
An emphasis on massive strike packages as opposed to smaller sorties
Use of Land-Attack Cruise Missiles and strategic bombers
More frequent and boastful updates on progress directly from the White House and SecDef
Al Qaeda is more of a tricky situation, as it might be best to negotiate with the former Nusra and ignore those Sunni jihadists not focused on attacking the West. How he gets along with Iran will determine his priority on targeting Sunni jihadists, when they would prove useful proxies against the rampaging Shia militias.
BTW....the Russian Federation is by even some Russian legal experts not the "real" inheritor of the SU..as the SU was comprised of 128 different SSRs....and the RF was just one of them.....
Just as the Electorial College was the Founding Fathers check and balances on the common one man one vote of the masses....if at some point the UNSC becomes largely ineffective which it has shown itself to be in Syria...then the UNGA option is in fact a valid option.
If you take the time and reread the statements just after Rwanda and Srebrenica which where led by the US who then had it anchored that in the UN by calling it the "protection of the population" agreements.....
So basically I am sorry the US is on the hook for something they pushed and signed and shouted to the globe 10 years ago...what happened in WW1 and 2 or the Cold war in Africa..does not matter to me...WHAT does matter is what the US is on record to do pushed ten years ago....
Which actually when you think about it....the US reneged on the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and had they adhered to it...we would not be seeing the Russian fighting in eastern Ukraine.....
Actually viewing the world should be right now a true matter of black and white because IMHO...the concept of discussing and acting in the grey zones is what the Obama WH has been doing for 8 years as did Bush in his 8 years....I personally find working the black and white fields allows for clearer thinking and actions....BECAUSE grey just becomes another option if a strategy is actually being used...
The military in their planning calls the grey zone 2nd...3rd...4th order of effects......
BECAUSE Obama and Rhodes spun us so hard using the grey zone for their Iran Deal no one even knows any longer what is really black and or white....
In some aspects this is exactly where Trump functions..he determines his own black and white and all others are in the grey zone and he pays no attention to them....
Reference Germany....Germany works because they have adhered for years to what is called..."a social contract" which is now causing problems because under the former Schroeder SPD government they followed the US model and went for a loosening of this "contract" and it is now causing a negative impact overall.....in 2016.
Secondly the Euro as it was envisioned was to be exactly equal to the USD...one to one....but surprisingly it jumped immediately to a level of about 20-40% higher than the USD....depending on the markets..right now it is 6% over the USD.....I know as my USD salary when the Euro came in was suddenly 25% less when I had my salary deposited in the French bank...
The EU wanted the equal value in order to give them more export chances and eventually potentially surpass the USD as a global standard currency instead of the USD.......
EVEN in the face of a Euro worth far more than a USD....still does not explain the success in their exports.....that means if anything they must produce at a range of 6-40% cheaper in order to compete with US goods using the USD....
Will now give you a lecture on the Euro and how much it has changed to actually now a determinate to actual EU wide growth......
When the euro came out in each country it was to be pegged to the then national currency....for Germany...2.5DM per euro...in France 10 Francs to the Euro...and so on...for each Euro member state.....which in the first five years was great....Germans were buying wine and cheese inside France far cheaper than it was in Germany and French were buying their construction materials and meats in Germany as it was cheaper there......
BUT then globalization took over...actually the older term MNC...multi national corporations took over but I like the term TNC transnational corps....and figured out that they could actually demand a single price for a single product in all of the EU....and suddenly the cost of living rose by over 20%-50% in the last ten years in the countries of say France and Italy and remained stable in Germany...as they were high to begin with....
AND not a single EU leader say a single thing about this development.....
That is the true problem inside the Euro zone........
Azor....so for these Trump voters corruption and the possible enrichment in a political position ie the Presidency is not a single problem for them...BUT those emails and the Clinton Foundation and all those drain the swamp shouts were about exactly WHAT???????
I would say those 73% are actually in the "grey zone themselves".......
73% of Republican voters think it's a good thing that Trump will govern in the interest of his own businesses.
https://morningconsult.com/2016/12/13/voters-agree-trumps-business-interests-will-affect-governing/#
Interestingly Chinese MSM which reflects the government's thinking called Trump a small kid and who knows nothing......
Beijing isn't kidding here. This isn't a game or a reality TV show -- this is playing chicken with a nuclear power.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-38313839#
And we have today a US Admiral stating he is ready to defend US rights in the South China Sea........is he channeling Trump as he knows what Trump has stated about China?????
REMEMBER both Trump and his selected natsec advisor shouting...."lock her up....lock her up......WELL maybe the Trump natsec advisor and Trump should not throw stones at a glass house.......
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trumps-national-security-adviser-shared-secrets-without-permission-files-show/2016/12/13/72669740-c146-11e6-9578-0054287507db_story.html?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.2638cb2c605c#
A secret U.S. military investigation in 2010 determined that Michael T. Flynn, the retired Army general tapped to serve as national security adviser in the Trump White House, "inappropriately shared" classified information with foreign military officers in Afghanistan, newly released documents show.
Although Flynn lacked authorization to share the classified material, he was not disciplined or reprimanded after the investigation concluded that he did not act "knowingly" and that "there was no actual or potential damage to national security as a result," according to Army records obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act.
Flynn has previously acknowledged that he was investigated while serving as the U.S. military intelligence chief in Afghanistan for sharing secrets with British and Australian allies there. But he has dismissed the case as insignificant and has given few details.
The Army documents provide the first official account of the case, but they are limited in scope because the investigation itself remains classified. Former U.S. officials familiar with the matter said that Flynn was accused of telling allies about the activities of other agencies in Afghanistan, including the CIA.
The Army files call into question Flynn's prior assertion that he had permission to share the sensitive information.
During the presidential race, Flynn campaigned vigorously for Republican nominee Donald Trump and drew attention for his scalding attacks against Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified material. Clinton was investigated by the FBI for allowing classified information to be transmitted on her private email server when she ran the State Department.
No charges were filed against the former secretary of state, but the issue dogged her for more than a year.
At the Republican National Convention in July, Flynn called on Clinton to drop out of the race for putting "our nation's security at extremely high risk with her careless use of a private email server." He egged on the partisan crowd in chants of "lock her up," adding: "If I, a guy who knows this business, if I did a tenth, a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today."
Flynn did not respond to requests for comment.
The office of the Army's Judge Advocate General released a four-page summary of the investigation into Flynn in response to The Post's Freedom of Information Act request for records of any misconduct allegations involving the retired three-star general.
The U.S. military opened the investigation into Flynn in 2010 after receiving a complaint from an unnamed Navy intelligence specialist, according to the documents. The intelligence officer charged that Flynn violated rules by "inappropriately" sharing secrets with "various foreign military officers and/or officials in Afghanistan."
The documents do not reveal the nature of the information. But former U.S. officials familiar with the case said it centered on slides and other materials containing classified information about CIA operations in Afghanistan.
"It was a general intelligence briefing that included stuff that shouldn't have been on those slides," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject. The disclosures revealed "stuff the intelligence community was doing that had a much higher level of classification."
The agency has had an extensive presence in the Afghanistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Beyond gathering intelligence on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the CIA has also assembled its own paramilitary networks in the country, paying warlords for cooperation and funding armed groups known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams.
A second former U.S. official said Flynn failed to secure permission to reveal those secrets. "This was a question of whether or not information was put through proper channels before it was shared," the second official said.
The episode marked the second time in a year that Flynn had drawn official complaints for his handling of classified material.
Former U.S. officials said that Flynn had disclosed sensitive information to Pakistan in late 2009 or early 2010 about secret U.S. intelligence capabilities being used to monitor the Haqqani network, an insurgent group accused of repeated attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Flynn exposed the capabilities during meetings with Pakistani officials in Islamabad. The former U.S. intelligence official said a CIA officer who accompanied Flynn reported the disclosures to CIA headquarters, which then relayed the complaint to the Defense Department. Flynn was verbally reprimanded by the Pentagon's top intelligence official at the time, James R. Clapper Jr.
Clapper subsequently became director of national intelligence and endorsed Flynn to become his successor as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. In 2014, however, Clapper forced Flynn out of that job over concerns with his temperament and management.
The newly disclosed Army documents state that the 2010 investigation was ordered by the head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Although the records do not say exactly when the case was opened, the commander at the time would have been Marine Gen. James Mattis.
Mattis took charge at Central Command's headquarters in Tampa, Fla., in August 2010. One month later, Flynn was ordered back to Washington from Afghanistan. He was assigned to a temporary job at the Pentagon as the special assistant to the Army's chief of intelligence while the investigation unfolded, records show.
Mattis was nominated this month by Trump to serve as secretary of defense. In that role, Mattis will work closely with Flynn; the retired generals are expected to be the most influential voices on national security in the Trump administration.
The Army documents that summarize the investigation into Flynn do not specify which countries he was accused of improperly sharing secrets with. In an interview with The Post in August, Flynn said he was scrutinized for giving classified information to British and Australian officials serving in Afghanistan alongside U.S. forces.
In that interview, Flynn defended his actions and said he did nothing wrong. "That was substantiated because I actually did it. But I did it with the right permissions when you dig into that investigation. I'm proud of that one. Accuse me of sharing intelligence in combat with our closest allies, please."
The Army documents, however, state explicitly that the Central Command investigation determined that Flynn did not have permission to share the particular secrets he divulged. The Defense Department's inspector general, which conducted an independent review of the investigation, came to the same conclusion, the documents show.
It is routine for the U.S. military to share intelligence in Afghanistan with NATO allies such as Britain, as well as other members of the broader international coalition fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda, including Australia.
But there are established mechanisms and guidelines that must be followed.
Flynn was highly regarded within the Army for the key role he played in shaping U.S. counterterrorism strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pentagon officials had intended to promote Flynn in 2010 to the rank of lieutenant general and to make him assistant director of national intelligence, a job that would place him in charge of improving ties with foreign intelligence agencies.
The Central Command investigation delayed his career advancement for a full year. He received his promotion and new assignment in September 2011.
After being forced to retire from the military in 2014, Flynn became a vocal opponent of the Obama administration's policies regarding Iran and al-Qaeda.
At the same time, he gained a reputation for floating conspiracy theories on Twitter.
Some Democratic lawmakers have criticized his selection as Trump's national security adviser. The position is not subject to Senate confirmation.
Says Someone Who Should Know | Trump Is Using Our Old Putin TV Propaganda Playbook
http://thebea.st/2gBulpV
I expect him to leave ISIS to the Russians outside of Iraq, or at a minimum, follow their lead. I also don't expect him to change the current policy much in Iraq. He will talk tough, but I don't think the policy will change much.
He is going to have a divided cabinet on Iran. Russia is solidifying links with them, so I am not sure that he will do anything more than talk.
There is also a much more interesting thought process coming from people like Tom Ricks, who believe that Trump will have little if anything to do with foreign policy. I offer this for your consideration ...
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/12/13/trumps-four-star-friends/
China, target of Trump tweets, could in turn target Ford or GM.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-autos-penalty-idUSKBN143014#
@thehill
McMullin: "I know for a fact" GOP knew about Russian election meddling and ignored it
http://hill.cm/7D5YUng
The perception of being legitimate is an interesting one...notice I place the emphasis on the single word.....perception.......
Winning the Electoral College by 100K votes but losing the popular vote by 2.8M and still climbing when 46% of the electorate did not even vote does not bestow either a mandate to govern nor "make major changes" that impacts those 2.8M more general votes.....and those 46% that did not vote...
In some aspects Trump is what some in Europe would call a minority President....and needs to fully understand that....
If the indications of the Office for Government Ethnics is correct all those business types and Generals have to submit an extensive amount of documentation that many of them will find intrusive....to say the least and even though nominated just getting that information to the Office before they can go in front of Congress for approval can in fact take literally months.....if that is they get past any conflicts of interest the OGE finds .........
The NYTs had a great Editorial on this today....
*Please, less ellipsis!
…the Russian Federation is by even some Russian legal experts not the "real" inheritor of the SU…as the SU was comprised of 128 different SSRs....and the RF was just one of them....
Oh really? Then who is the "real" inheritor of the Soviet Union?
…if at some point the UNSC becomes largely ineffective which it has shown itself to be in Syria...then the UNGA option is in fact a valid option.
Most UNGA members are not fully free or full democracies (54%), and 56 are members of the OIC (29%). Only 32 or 17% of the UNGA's members are Western liberal democracies. I am not sure that a non-democratic and non-Western bloc of the UN should be able to impose its will upon the West or compel Western military activity.
So basically I am sorry the US is on the hook for something they pushed and signed and shouted to the globe 10 years ago...what happened in WW1 and 2 or the Cold war in Africa..does not matter to me...WHAT does matter is what the US is on record to do pushed ten years ago...Which actually when you think about it...the US reneged on the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and had they adhered to it...we would not be seeing the Russian fighting in eastern Ukraine...
History is replete with pronouncements by American presidents that are meaningless because of opposition in Congress, particularly the Senate (e.g. Wilson and collective security). Bill Clinton had the freest hand in the developing world of any president, and did nothing in Rwanda, Sudan, Congo, North Korea or Pakistan. I suggest you take it up with Bubba…
As for the Budapest Agreement, its text only provided for consultation in the event of violation, and referral to the UNSC if that violation involved the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. Did you think that Yeltsin was going to handicap himself? Did you think that Bubba would commit to military action in defense of Ukraine? Did you think that Ukraine signed because of ironclad guarantees, or because Russia threatened invasion?
Budapest was the best agreement that Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan were going to get at the time; securing nuclear warheads in the 1990s and averting a violent dissolution of the USSR (ongoing) were the main priorities for NATO and Russia.
…Actually viewing the world should be right now a true matter of black and white because IMHO...the concept of discussing and acting in the grey zones is what the Obama WH has been doing for 8 years as did Bush in his 8 years....I personally find working the black and white fields allows for clearer thinking and actions....BECAUSE grey just becomes another option if a strategy is actually being used... BECAUSE Obama and Rhodes spun us so hard using the grey zone for their Iran Deal no one even knows any longer what is really black and or white...
The world is shades of gray. Americans prefer that every conflict suit the mythology of the Civil War and World War II, when they fought for a "higher object", but until the next one occurs, there are plenty of dirty, gray and selfish ones to fight.
Had Obama been painting in grays, he would have done the following:
Supported the Arab Spring in Tunisia
Supported Mubarak in Egypt (against the Muslim Brotherhood)
Refused to help the Libyan rebels (nuclear non-proliferation)
Supported the Arab Spring in Syria (against Iran)
Signed the JCPOA with Iran (at least there is a verification mechanism)
Supported Saudi efforts in Yemen (against Iran)
Not confronted China (to prevent a Sino-Russian condominium)
Confronted Russia in Ukraine (lethal aid)
Encouraged Chinese penetration of Central Asia (against Russia)
Deployed peacekeepers to South Sudan (against Sudan)
Partnered with China to effect regime change and unification in Korea
Allowed China to bully the Philippines and Vietnam, but not Taiwan and Japan
Prior to the Financial Crisis and Great Recession, many American Neo-Conservatives were referring to Germany as the "sick man" of Europe. How ironic…
Yet Schroeder did not erode Germany's manufacturing sector as a share of GDP, the current account went from -$5 billion to +$12 billion during his tenure, and economic growth had begun to slow during Kohl's tenure.
Secondly the Euro as it was envisioned was to be exactly equal to the USD...one to one...but surprisingly it jumped immediately to a level of about 20-40% higher than the USD...depending on the markets...right now it is 6% over the USD...I know as my USD salary when the Euro came in was suddenly 25% less when I had my salary deposited in the French bank...that means if anything they must produce at a range of 6-40% cheaper in order to compete with US goods using the USD... BUT then globalization took over...actually the older term MNC...multi national corporations took over but I like the term TNC transnational corps...and figured out that they could actually demand a single price for a single product in all of the EU...and suddenly the cost of living rose by over 20%-50% in the last ten years in the countries of say France and Italy and remained stable in Germany...as they were high to begin with...AND not a single EU leader say a single thing about this development...That is the true problem inside the Euro zone...
Yet if Germany had retained the DM, it would be far more expensive vis-à-vis the USD than the Euro. What you described is the free market acting against arbitrage, which was far easier with a single currency.
And we have today a US Admiral stating he is ready to defend US rights in the South China Sea...is he channeling Trump as he knows what Trump has stated about China?
You do realize that Obama used Breedlove as he uses Harris: to talk tough on Russia and China, respectively, while the White House takes a more conciliatory tone?
…WELL maybe the Trump natsec advisor and Trump should not throw stones at a glass house...
Yawn. Hillary deliberately put classified materials at risk for her personal convenience, whereas Flynn unknowingly shared classified materials with US allies that did not cause any real or potential damage. It is unknown if Hillary's violation caused damage.
Azor....ABSOLUTELY no US military intelligence officer ACCIDENTLY and or UNKNOWINGLY shares any level of classified materials outside his or her intel chain of command ....simply does not happen.....you saw what happen to Pateraus and nothing happened to Flynn?????
Costing him a promotion to the next General level for a year depicts the quality of the damage done....and the penalty he received....and it caused him in the end to be fired for cause from the DIA....
Revealing a TS/SCI special ops HUMINT program to Pakistan is not what you want in a so called natsec advisor....
You do notice you distract from Trump who is the focal point in this thread.....
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 36m
If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House waite so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?
BUT WAIT....the MSM did carry articles on top of countless social media accounts before the election...Trump did dismiss the Russian hacking as it could have been a 400lb person on his bed doing it was his comment DURING the second first debate......
The WH and the IC did in fact allude to it before the election..........
MATTER OF FACT the WH issued a rare public warning to Russia and Putin to not get involved in the election BEFORE the election and the Putin response is no we will not....
BUT WAIT we now have a President elect claiming what exactly in the face of the above.....
SO who is now lying again Trump with this tweet or the entire 17 IC agencies who have all agreed Russian hacking did in fact occur NOT the Trump 400lb excuse.....
OR is Trump simply deflecting again and lying again??????
Actually, all 17 US intelligence agencies said Russia was behind the hacks back in October
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national#
Trump Disciples Suddenly Showing Up In #Russia
(seriously, it can't really be considered "sudden" anymore)
http://www.npr.org/2016/12/14/505581348/trumps-men-in-moscow-trump-disciples-suddenly-showing-up-in-russia?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news#
Carter Page is currently being investigated by the FBI for his Russian contact shortly before the election as a "foreign agent" which he never registered as.....
Cater Page made the announcement concerning Tillerson as SoS BEFORE Trump did in Moscow of all places and Moscow media kept calling his a close advisor to Trump when Trump stated he no longer worked for the campaign....just as Manafort and the Trump campaign stated he was no longer working for them when his Russian and Ukrainian connections came out ONLY to find out later he was still being paid the entire time....
The Trump cabinet wants to stop Iran. So what do they propose to do about Aleppo, which Iran just conquered?
http://thebea.st/2h2XQx5
Azor...you ask what the Russians benefit from being in Syria in combat conditions just as in eastern Ukraine.....
Ukraine – a proving ground for modern and application of prohibited russian weapons
http://bit.ly/2hz9gJH
Donald Trump's "entire career was built on breaking the law," Gingrich says on a regulatory panel
http://at.law.com/r9etmp
@businessinsider
Trump keeps falsely claiming allegations of Russian hacking only came after he won election
http://read.bi/2h4eNal
Michael McFaul
@McFaul
Explosion of Russia trolling mockery on my twitter feed today suggest that people in Moscow might be getting worried about hacking stories
McFaul was the former US Ambassador to Russia and speaks fluent Russian.....
Azor.......
http://observer.com/2016/11/the-kremlin-didnt-sink-hillary-obama-did/
The Kremlin Didn't Sink Hillary—Obama Did
Democratic panic about Russian disinformation neglects to mention that it was the White House that refused to stop it
By John R. Schindler • 11/26/16 11:07am
The liberal conniption about alleged Russian "hacking" of our election has reached a boiling point. A politically dangerous Democratic narrative is emerging which posits that it was aggressive Kremlin propaganda that undermined Hillary Clinton's presidential run—not that she ran a terrible campaign which alienated the white working class to Donald Trump's benefit.
Like so many half-truths, this narrative contains its fair share of accurate claims. I know, because I was warning the public about Kremlin espionage and disinformation long before Democrats suddenly became passionately interested in the subject because it was hurting their candidate. After Vladimir Putin seized Crimea in early 2014 and began a war of aggression against Ukraine, Russian propaganda efforts aimed at the West went into overdrive.
To anybody acquainted with well-honed Moscow agitprop techniques, this was no more than old-style KGB Active Measures sped up for the Internet age. That said, the threat posed by this online disinformation offensive is real, as I and other experts counseled years ago (in my case, beginning with the defection of Edward Snowden to Moscow in June 2013).
However, it was frankly difficult to get the mainstream media interested in this rising problem—at least until the Kremlin's disinformation machine went after Hillary, as it did in 2016 with gusto.
The Washington Post reported this week that Kremlin-backed websites pushed "fake news" regularly portraying Hillary and the Democrats in a negative light.
There's really nothing new here for anybody who's followed Russian propaganda for any length of time. Kremlin agitprop aimed at the West—properly termed disinformation—contains an amalgam of fact and fiction, plus lots of gray information somewhere in between which can be difficult and time-consuming to refute.
Back in the 1980s, when the KGB was pumping all kinds of outlandish conspiracy theories into Western media outlets to smear the Reagan administration, Washington got proficient at countering this sort of nasty deception (the Pentagon created AIDS, for instance).
The Active Measures Working Group, an interagency entity stood up expressly to debunk Kremlin lies, became effective at its job, drawing on expertise from various government departments and agencies. With Cold War victory, however, it folded along with the Soviet Union.
By mid-2014, it was apparent that Moscow was up to its old disinformation tricks again, and it was obvious to anybody acquainted with the Kremlin that Washington needed to react to the torrents of lies filtering into Western media thanks to Russian intelligence and its friends in the West. Putin, that wily KGB veteran, is familiar with Active Measures, and his Kremlin has become more aggressive about employing it abroad than the Politburo ever was.
There were hardly any veterans of the Active Measures Working Group still on active service by 2014, however, so Washington quietly cobbled together a shoestring effort—no more than handful of experts—to start debunking Kremlin disinformation. Its mission was clear: track Russian lies aimed at the West, particularly falsehoods designed to harm the United States and its allies, then show how they are false.
However, that worthy effort never got off the ground and its website was shut before it went live. The counterpropaganda baby was strangled in the crib—by the White House. As I explained in a column titled "Obama Failed to Fight Putin's Propaganda Machine," which appeared almost exactly one year before our election:
Nearly a year ago, the State Department created a Counter-Disinformation Team, inside its Bureau of International Information Programs, as a small, start-up effort to resist Russian disinformation. Consisting of only a handful of staffers, it was supposed to expose the most laughable Moscow lies about America and the West that are disseminated regularly via RT and other outlets. They created a beta website and prepared to wage the struggle for truth online.
Alas, their website never went live. Recently the State Department shut down the tiny Counter-Disinformation Team and any efforts by the Obama administration to resist Putin's propaganda can now be considered dead before birth. Intelligence Community sources tell me that it was closed out of a deep desire inside the White House "not to upset the Russians."
Yet again, President Obama's unwillingness to confront Putin and his regime about anything—Syria, Ukraine, deploying nuclear missiles next to Poland—only encouraged the honey badger in the Kremlin to grow more adventurous and aggressive. By refusing to debunk noxious Russian lies, Obama encouraged Putin to tell more of them—including about Hillary Clinton.
This culminated in the Russian intelligence operation which employed Wikileaks as a front to disseminate Democratic emails which had been intercepted by Moscow—as I told you months ago, and which the National Security Agency has recently admitted.
A year ago, knowing that killing our counterpropaganda effort in Washington was certain to beget more Kremlin lies aimed at our country and its institutions, I asked several pertinent questions about why the White House acted as it did:
Who killed the Counter-Disinformation Team and why? What did the team produce during the time it existed? What has become of this product? How many people were on it? Does the State Department not consider countering Kremlin disinformation to be in its remit? Does the White House agree? What about the National Security Council? Is anybody in the U.S. government authorized to debunk Putin's lies—if so, who? If not, why not?
To this day, nobody has answered any of those questions. Democrats are clamoring for a Congressional investigation of clandestine Russian operations which influenced our election this year, and that's a great idea. At the outset, they should demand that the White House answer the questions I asked a year ago—they are the logical place to start any inquiry into what went wrong in Washington, and why.
It's past time to ditch wishful thinking and embrace clarity, what spies term "ground truth." Russian intelligence interfered with American democracy this year. The extent of its impact on our election is debatable, and may not be fully understood for years.
However, the blame for Russian disinformation damaging Hillary Clinton and her party—in particular, the lack of any pushback from Washington, which allowed the Kremlin's deception machine to go into overdrive—lies not with Donald Trump or the Republicans, but with Barack Obama himself.
"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." - Trump, July 27, 2016.
CBS Poll:
60% say necessary for Trump to release tax returns
59% say Trump biz a conflict
70% say putting family in charge still a conflict
Democratic House Candidates Were Also Targets of Russian Hacking
http://nyti.ms/2hCOgEY
http://observer.com/2016/12/understanding-russias-spywar-against-our-election/
Understanding Russia's SpyWar Against Our Election
By John R. Schindler • 12/15/16 pm
In the latest twist in the evolving story of how Moscow and its spies interfered with America's 2016 election cycle, U.S. intelligence has determined that RVladimir Putin himself was deeply involved in the secret operation to discredit the Democrats and Hillary Clinton.
According to NBC News, our Intelligence Community has "a high level of confidence" that Russia's president#"personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used." Putin's#motivation was revenge, according to unnamed senior IC officials, since he#despises Clinton, plus the Kremlin sought to create confusion in the United States to make us appear an unreliable ally and an ailing global power.
To anybody acquainted with Putin and his Russia, this is entirely unsurprising. The Russian president grew up in the KGB and long worked in counterintelligence. To his core, Putin is a secret policeman, what Russians call a Chekist—a term worn with pride in the Kremlin. It's an easy bet that Putin was briefed on this most special intelligence operation daily; it was very likely the first item in his morning briefing from Russia's spy services, a quotidian event that Putin—unlike our president-elect—takes seriously.
For a former KGB officer, humiliating the hated Americans by disseminating the embarrassing emails of our top politicians is the summit of glee. The takedown of Clinton, Inc.—and no matter the reality, this is unquestionably how it's being sold, with smiles all around, by Putin's inner circle—was by any standard a very successful operation. A century hence, it seems likely that Moscow's spies will rank this achievement among their "greats" like the TRUST operation and the Rosenbergs.
However, some salient facts about this secret Kremlin operation need to be understood. In the first place, there wasn't much "hacking" going on here. Instead, most of the purloining of emails from top Democrats fell under normal 21st century signals intelligence operations of the kind done by Russia, the United States, and pretty much every technically advanced country on earth. Everybody spies—among adults this isn't a controversial statement.
What set this year's election games apart, however, was how the Kremlin weaponized what its spies in the ether had systematically purloined, disseminating it through its#Wikileaks front to harm the Democrats. Russians intelligence has countless emails from American politicians of every stripe—if you're a Washington macher of any variety who uses email, it's a safe bet Moscow reads#them—but this year it only wanted to expose the ones from Democrats.
Russians call this kind of nasty covert action scheme Active Measures, and Moscow's spies have been doing it a long time. The only novelty here is that the Internet makes it devilishly easy to disseminate such disinformation, to use the proper term, quickly and anonymously. As the Internet has sped up our news cycle dramatically, it's made spreading disinformation faster and easier, too.
Our biggest problem resides in the Russian moles in Washington who haven't been caught.
The Kremlin has done this sort of thing many times to countries it dislikes or fears, indeed it's old hat to a seasoned Chekist like Putin. But the Russians have never done anything quite this brazen to their "Main Adversary"—as they called America during the Cold War and today do again. To be clear, Putin ordered his spies to execute strategic Active Measures against the United States and top Democrats in 2016 because Moscow possessed enough stolen information to do so. He#didn't fear retribution.
Here we need to see this from the Russian point of view, briefly. Putin has a very different way of looking at espionage than American spies do. Russian intelligence culture is its own breed of cat—cagey, conspiracy-minded and dangerous when cornered. They play the long game and take risks that no Western spy service would. For Chekists, the crown jewel in the SpyWar—the never-ending clandestine conflict between states, seldom seen by the public—is offensive counterintelligence, that is gaining control of the enemy's intelligence apparatus to deceive him.
Russian intelligence aims to create what counterspies term the "wilderness of mirrors,"#and over the last century the Kremlin has gotten very adept at this cunning game.
Viewed in this manner, several important spy stories in recent years come into focus and can be understood for what they really are. American counterintelligence, which has never been a high priority in Washington, suffered complete collapse during President Obama's two terms. In matters of basic security, Obama's inattention and escapism amount to presidential dereliction of duty. Pretty much all our Federal agencies have been hacked by Russia and/or China, including the White House itself, while the pillaging of the Office of Personnel Management ranks as a security debacle without parallel in espionage history.
Then there's the case of Edward Snowden, who, contrary to vast media myth-making, did enormous damage to Western intelligence by stealing and leaking 1.5 million classified documents, many of them relating to enormously sensitive intelligence programs. Snowden has been working for the Kremlin since he landed in Moscow in late June 2013—and perhaps before. It's no coincidence that he was shipped to Moscow by Wikileaks, since that vaunted "privacy organization" has been doing Putin's bidding for years, long before Julian Assange went on a crusade to take out Hillary Clinton.
Our biggest problem, however, resides in the Russian moles in Washington who haven't been caught. There was one clear counterintelligence success on Obama's watch, the roll-up of 10 deep-cover Russians spies in the United States in the summer of 2010. That operation, called Ghost Stories by U.S. counterintelligence, was a genuine coup, although it had been in the works for years, long before Obama moved into the White House. Putin was furious at our unmasking of his network of "Illegals" (to use the Chekist term) in America and he wanted revenge—which he got in 2016.
The most important aspect to Ghost Stories, however, was the dog that didn't bark. In the course of the extended IC investigation of Russia's Illegals network, it became obvious that Moscow had several moles in Washington, including inside our intelligence agencies—with one or more burrowed into the National Security Agency, our most important spy service—and Snowden wasn't one of them.
The evidence for their existence going back at least to 2007—and perhaps even earlier—is overwhelming to anyone who understands Russian spy tradecraft, what the Kremlin calls konspiratsiya (yes, conspiracy). Since no Russian moles in our nation's capital have been unmasked over the last six years, it's safe to assume they're still active.
In this light, the events of 2016 come into proper focus. Putin confidently executed a strategic spy operation against our election, specifically to harm the Democrats and their presidential nominee. Russia's president didn't fear retribution, as he correctly assessed that Obama was too timid and eager to win Russian favor to respond in any meaningful way. After all, the White House in 2015 quashed a tiny State Department effort to counter Kremlin disinformation, which was taken in Moscow as a green light to put their spies-telling-lies machine into overdrive.
Moreover, Putin knew what the Obama administration would (and would not) do about this massive and aggressive jump in the SpyWar thanks to his moles in Washington. It seems highly likely, based on available evidence, that Russian intelligence has been reading secret U.S. communications for years—that's what moles inside NSA are for—which would give Putin the ability to beat American spies every step of the way, not to mention deep insights into top-level decision-making in Washington.
This all resembles the famous XX Committee of World War Two fame, after which my Twitter feed and my blog are named. That was the remarkable British counterintelligence program which first caught all the German spies in the UK, then turned them into double agents without Berlin noticing. They became a channel for disinformation with war-altering impact. Patiently, British counterspies fed bogus intelligence to the turned German agents, fooling the Nazis time and again. Most importantly, they provided Berlin with wrong information about the time, size, and location of the Allied invasion of France in June 1944.
The key part of the XX Committee was the fact that British spies could read secret German communications, unbeknownst to the Wehrmacht. This was the famous ULTRA secret. Cracking the Enigma code machine, thanks to the Poles, gave London the ability to see that their disinformation was believed by the enemy. They knew that turned German agents were really working for Britain, not their original masters, and they could see that their lies were accepted as truth. This made the XX Committee one of the great successes in the annals of espionage.
Looking at the available evidence with the eye of a counterintelligencer, it's alarmingly plausible that Russia has done something similar to us in recent years. Putin acted so brazenly in 2016, subverting our election, because he knew he could get away with it. Moreover, as someone who's been critical of President Obama's many foreign policy missteps, particularly regarding the Russians, it bears pondering that some of his underperformance may be attributable to the serious possibility that the Kremlin has been reading his mail.
Continued.......
…ABSOLUTELY no US military intelligence officer ACCIDENTLY and or UNKNOWINGLY shares any level of classified materials outside his or her intel chain of command...simply does not happen...you saw what happen to Pateraus and nothing happened to Flynn????? Costing him a promotion to the next General level for a year depicts the quality of the damage done....and the penalty he received....and it caused him in the end to be fired for cause from the DIA...Revealing a TS/SCI special ops HUMINT program to Pakistan is not what you want in a so called natsec advisor...You do notice you distract from Trump who is the focal point in this thread...
So you're arguing that Flynn got off lightly (an "informal reprimand") and that his dismissal from the DIA was due to the classified materials issue and not the other reasons given by Powell and others? You seem to be trying to make more of the issue than there is…
You brought up Hillary Clinton and the Server Scandal in the context of Flynn, and I responded…
…BUT WAIT...the MSM did carry articles on top of countless social media accounts before the election...Trump did dismiss the Russian hacking as it could have been a 400lb person on his bed doing it was his comment DURING the second first debate...The WH and the IC did in fact allude to it before the election...MATTER OF FACT the WH issued a rare public warning to Russia and Putin to not get involved in the election BEFORE the election and the Putin response is no we will not...
Yet the CIA only supposedly concluded that the WikiLeaks release in July was part of a Russian intelligence operation to support Trump's candidacy in December. How can that not be construed as part of a wider effort to render illegitimate Trump's victory?
…SO who is now lying again Trump with this tweet or the entire 17 IC agencies who have all agreed Russian hacking did in fact occur…
Yet the ODNI and FBI do not agree with the CIA's "conclusion" that it was to benefit Trump.
…Azor...you ask what the Russians benefit from being in Syria in combat conditions just as in eastern Ukraine...
So Iran is the main beneficiary as I said previously.
We all know - hopefully - that engagement in small wars invariably leads to friction and far worse in the realm of civil-military relations. As President how will he fare? Not his Cabinet and advisers.
'Telling truth to power' already appears to be one (I assume for the moment the hacking intelligence is correct).
Then there is his lack of experience. Even if surrounded by those who know better (we assume and hope; let alone that he accepts their advice). A property and media empire is hardly similar IMHO. He faces a rather steep learning curve in January, however good his transition team and others try to prepare him.
Personally and from "across the water" I do wonder if President Trump will concentrate on domestic matters and devolve responsibility for much of foreign policy to others.
Throughout the election campaign, Trump has vocally opposed humanitarian intervention and regime change (e.g. Iraq and Libya), while calling for stronger action against Daesh* and threatening to respond with force to threatening or dangerous maneuvers in international airspace and waters**.
Hindsight may always be 20/20, but the military adventures of Clinton, Bush and Obama (first term), were disasters in the main. Not only were there errors of commission (Iraq, Libya, Kosovo), but also omission (Pakistan, North Korea, Africa).
Unfortunately, due to Putin's long personal rule and the CPC's bureaucratic inertia, Moscow and Beijing see American foreign policy as less at mercy of party politics and the various election cycles, and more as a bid for global mastery disguised as chaos. Note that Stalin believed that all Western leaders were as capricious as him.
Trump's reaction was not measured, but was a reasonable response to the Democratic/Clinton insinuation that Trump was effectively a Russian agent. Or perhaps Trump understood that Americans would not grasp the nuance of acknowledging probable Russian responsibility for the hack, but denying any benefit from it. The Russian hacking issue is toxic because of the narrative that the DNC and Clinton built around it...
Certainly, the ODNI and FBI have disagreed with the alleged CIA conclusion that Putin was supporting Trump as opposed to casting doubt on US democracy.
Moreover, the damage done by WikiLeaks was in July (and less than Comey's public release), and overcome by Clinton winning the nomination, the Access Hollywood tape and Trump's performance during the first debate (in estimated electoral votes as counted by FiveThirtyEight.com). What did Hillary in was her remark about "deplorables" in October, followed by Comey's letters in November and December.
It does seem that the Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans, especially with ties to the Intelligence Community, are contesting Trump's legitimacy. Clinton, through her surrogates, is blaming Comey, Obama, Russia, the Electoral College, etc.
I partly agree. I think that he will focus on domestic policy, but be a showman overseas (not unlike Putin).
*Looser ROEs? More air assets? Greater support to anti-Daesh fighters?
**He threatened Iran, but China has acted similarly and Russia is the worst provocateur. Obama has not responded to these provocations
Ah...."the smell of napalm in the morning".....WikiLeaks trying to put distance between himself and the Russians and the coming hacking hit on him as he was part and parcel of the Russian hacking adventure into the US and the CIA determined him to be part and parcel of the Russian FSB/SVR/GRU.....disinformation/hacking operation.
Assange: Some leaks may have been Russian
http://www.unian.info/world/1682321-assange-some-leaks-may-have-been-russian.html#
Sorry...he knows exactly who provides what to him.....
BUT WAIT..we are talking about the Russian hacking event that Trump stated was not done by the Russians...and that the US government should have done something about...and why did they not say something WHEN in fact his own tweet was a falsehood to begin with....and the government had said something long before the election....
We are talking about the same Trump here right??? Or are we talking about the Twitter Trump....????
Trump appoints @MonicaCrowley as senior director strategic communications at NSC. A woman who didn't understand what the Berlin Wall was......
THIS refers to her tweet of here standing in front of the Berlin Wall stating "see Walls do work"...forgetting there was an entire killing machine behind that Wall....which the US does not have nor wants to have the last time I checked on the border to Mexico.....
She is taking the place of Rhodes.....what a next 4 years.....
There was a time when abject stupidity was something to be embarrassed about.
Nowadays it's a ride to the top.
FIRST Trump disputes the Russian hacking actually occurred.......THEN he blames the Obama WH for not talking about until after the election ALTHOUGH he knew about also before the election......AND this.........
IS this President elect of sound mind......STATING now the Russian hack that he denied was a "public service"....???????
Trump suggests Russian hacking was a public service - For the president-elect, the ends justify the means
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/12/donald-trump-russian-hacking-twitter#
CNN is reporting that Trump's refusal to acknowledge Russia interference has made White House decide orderly transition isn't main priority
Trump has to service a 365M USD debt load on his business empire......AND this is exactly why he is Russian friendly since 1987....when he first went to Russia...BEFORE the Wall days....and when the true KGB existed.......
BREAKING: #Trump's soft spot for #Russia: wealthy Russian oligarch condo buyers @usatoday WHICH in the UK experience with rich Russian oligarchs..means "black money"......ie money laundering as simple as that
Flynn has a big role in Trump's White House -- and business deals with defense contractors
http://bloom.bg/2h6q9dS
REMEMBER the Trump drumbeat......."drain the swamp"...does not appear to appear to apply to him or his staff.....
BREAKING: China's navy has seized an unmanned, underwater U.S. Navy vehicle in international waters of South China Sea.
Thanks, Don. Well played. Beijing wants to fight us and you're not even POTUS yet.
ALL because you and the idiots of your staff decided to challenge the "One China" policy since Nixon with that stupid so called "congratulation call" you personally played down from Taiwan...
AND REMEMBER the Chinese just flew their nuclear bomber the entire length of the boundary that they call their's....
REMEMBER they called you a "child with no knowledge" in their MSM after your Taiwan call.....
Azor...being fired "for cause" is a serve term in the civil service world for a total failure in your position.....
HERE is what you are absolutely missing which is normal for not having ever worked in the intel world especially the HUMINT world....
The 17 intel agencies and the ODNI AND the FBI did not disagree in a single line of the CIA report that in fact the Russian hacking had occurred and who it was against....
IF you had spent time in such intel major meetings then you will have realized that each of the 17 agencies approach their analysis from their own "charter" meaning what they were created for....
In the case of the FBI...they will never fully agree with what the CIA ever states as the FBI collects in order to prove solid evidence for a conviction in a court of law......
CIA...and DIA are in the business of "indicators"...and when the "indicators" get tighter and tighter then they attempt to fathom the WHY....
THESE "indicators" are funneled into an Indications and Warning Team that then briefs the National Command Authority that means Trump on potential critical events he needs to especially be aware of since he will have to make decisions on those 'indicators".....
ODNI...BTW the ODNI does not have a true analysis function of "indicators"...his job and Clapper over stepped that ODNI charter....his job is to manage the movement of analysis work towards a conclusion and to ensure all 17 agencies are supporting that end goal...
WHAT bothers me intensively is the simple fact that the FBI pulled literally all manpower off the hacking issue in order to go through 30,000 emails which in the end were duplicates and or private....TAKING critical analysis personnel away from the FBI investigation of those Trump individuals who had blatant contacts to Russians and the Russian hacking....
LASTLY and again I repeat all 17 agencies agreed that there was an active measures Russian hacking operation underway in the US directed against the DNC....Clinton personally....and the Democratic Congress candidates....AND nothing directed against Trump.....
WHERE they differ is in the Russian intent....
WHAT you have not heard and are seen written in the US MSM is the simple fact that the CIA stated "with near certainly that Putin was personally involved"....WHY did they go out on that limb??????
BECAUSE UK and German intel services provided input from their field agents or as some would call them "spies" who provided concrete evidence...in the form of electronic data and or personal accessment.
In this business one cannot get more concrete than that......
AND then we have an idiot calling out the CIA whose field agents as well as the field agents of allied countries who put their lives on the line and at great risk to provide information necessary for decisions....
REMEMBER this is the same Trump we are talking about that avoided the VN war draft FOUR TIMES by claiming a "bone spur" but when asked about it during the campaign he stated...QUOTE..."I am not sure which foot" and my "hardest battle was fighting off the women"....
WHILE others fought and died........so "he could fight off the women"......
BUT WAIT...........this firms things up even more......
Federal agency in charge of certifying voting machines hacked by Russian-speaking hacker: report
http://hill.cm/3diHIVV
Russian hackers seized control of the Pentagon's unclassified email system in 2015
http://read.bi/2gSr5ql
Azor.....you will see me beating up on Obama about this hacking event as much as I do on his Ukrainian and Syrian lack of actions.......
I have always asked WHY is he basically avoiding anything to upset Russia in the face of Putin challenges and actions......
We have little ability to stop Russian SIGINT ops.
We can easily counter RU disinformation.
But Obama refused to.
It is just not the US right now...
Ukraine: #hackers downed websites of #infrastructure ministry & state #aviation service
#cyberwarfare
http://rus.newsru.ua/ukraine/16dec2016/hakersa.html#
Trump team: Too early for timing on U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem
http://reut.rs/2hWD2qU
THIS will inherently whip lash the entire ME......and it will destroy the two state concept that is needed to finally resolved the Palestine question which is at the heart of all the ME issues....and has been since 1945....
SO how is exactly the Trump son-in-law suppose to resolve the Palestinian Israeli dispute....?????
BUT WAIT...Hezbollah has sworn it will march into Jerusalem........
'Russia Today is advancing a narrative that Russia's gov't is fundamentally trustworthy, US is fundamentally untrustworthy'
http://n.pr/2h8GMpu
It's a good thing Trump won't need any Arab allies to defeat #ISIS & AQ.
Nominating an Amb to Israel who advocates a 1-state solution & calls liberal Jews Kapos...yeah, that Trump peace process is gonna move FAST!
Holy sh**... This is what Haaretz says about Trump's nominee for Ambassador to Israel...
Azor....if one reads between the lines here the ODNI after the Trump campaign and Trump blasted and questioned the integrity of the CIA will now only present to the Gang of Eight and no one else....
Notice how the single Congressman on the transition team is pushing to fully understand what is ongoing so he can then inform Trump WHO still is not accepting the Russian activity.....
U.S. intelligence agencies feuding with Republicans over Russian hacking
http://reut.rs/2hWY7lf
Republican members of Congress are complaining that U.S. intelligence agencies are refusing to brief them widely on a classified CIA report that concluded Russia hacked Democratic Party data in an effort to help Donald Trump win the presidency.
The Republicans said Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has refused their requests for full briefings of Congress' two intelligence committees. U.S. government officials said the leaders of Congress and the chairmen of the two intelligence committees, known as the "Gang of Eight," have been briefed on the CIA's conclusion.
Nevertheless, Representative Devin Nunes, the California Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee and is a member of President-elect Trump's transition team, as well as the Gang of Eight, has called for a briefing for his entire committee on the CIA assessment, which the Washington Post reported on last week.
"The committee is vigorously looking into reports of cyber-attacks during the election campaign, and in particular we want to clarify press reports that the CIA has a new assessment that it has not shared with us," Nunes said.Representative Ron Johnson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said his panel also has asked for a briefing but the CIA refused.
"It is disappointing that the CIA would provide information on this issue to the Washington Post and NBC but will not provide information to elected members of Congress," Johnson said in a statement on Friday.
Three U.S. government sources, who all asked for anonymity to discuss classified information, told Reuters that the while the full congressional committees have not been briefed, the congressional leadership has, which is the standard procedure for briefing Congress on sensitive intelligence.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement that because President Barack Obama last week ordered the intelligence community to conduct a full-scale "review of foreign efforts to influence recent presidential elections – from 2008 to the present," the agencies would not comment further until the study is completed.
BRIEFING TO FOLLOW
ODNI, which oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said that when the review is complete, the U.S. intelligence community "stands ready to brief Congress."
The office said it also would make#the study "available to the public consistent with protecting intelligence sources and methods."
The CIA based its conclusion about Russia hacking to influence the election not on irrefutable evidence but largely on its analysis of the fact that the Russians hacked both political parties while only publicizing information damaging to Democrats and their presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, said a fourth U.S. official familiar with the agency's work.T
The FBI, which has responsibility for counterintelligence investigations inside the United States, did not endorse the CIA's finding because it does not meet the standards of evidence necessary to win a conviction in a U.S. court or identify individuals whose hacking violated American law, the fourth official said."The CIA's case would never hold up in court but it is almost impossible to reach a different conclusion than the agency did based on the selective nature of what the Russians did and did not choose to publicize," the official said.
ODNI has not endorsed the CIA's conclusion but does not dispute it. Two sources said there was "no daylight" between ODNI and CIA on the issue. An ODNI spokesman said the agency would not comment beyond its official statement.
The debate over Russian hacking, which three officials said has continued after Election Day and extends beyond the election to multiple U.S. government agencies, as well as to private firms and individuals, also is opening a rift between Trump and some Republican members of Congress.
The president-elect continues to dismiss the intelligence agencies' conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin directed the hacking of this year's election but Republicans such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, are calling for a full investigation.
Note the need of the Chmn of Senate Intel Cmte @SenatorBurr to profess respect for Intel community in announcing probe of #RussiaHacking
Turns out this new viral video site is part of Russian government-funded Russian Today, although you'd never tell by looking:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/ishmaeldaro/quirky-viral-video-channel-is-funded-by-the-russian-govt#
The US Response to Russian Cyberwarfare
It is astounding that the White House and Intelligence Community would not count on Russia interfering in the primaries and election.
Snowden revealed that the United States has the best SIGINT and cyberwarfare capabilities in the world, and this was kept secret from the public, who believed for many years that China and Russia were superior in these areas. There is a great deal of discussion on how the DOD and various service branches are creating cyberwarfare units to "catch up" to their opposite numbers in Russia and China, but this discussion misses the point that it was the NSA developing the capabilities. The creation of Cyber Command at the NSA's headquarters had more to do with legal and political issues than ones of capability.
As for Russian disinformation, it is actually difficult to counter. Putin did not create the machine in order to convince Westerners of anything, which he knew would fail. Instead of taking on the role of a prosecutor, who has to prove a case to the audience, Putin took on the role of defense counsel, where his only task was to create doubt. Russia issues a swarm of positive claims that independently are unbelievable, but in aggregate, and in concert with its negative claims, succeed in creating doubt. Putin isn't seeking to influence elites in the West. He is seeking to influence the man at a bar or dinner table, having a casual conversation with friends.
Example 1: "Don't you believe that Russia invaded Ukraine?"  "Yeah, but there are Russians there and…it's complicated…I just don't know…we should just stay out of it…"
Example 2: "Not all Syrian rebels are terrorists, you know that right?"  "I know, but it seems that way sometimes…it's complicated…I just don't know…we should just stay out of it…"
Putin places the burden of proof on Obama, who would rather "just stay out" of foreign crises if possible. In today's world of Tweets, how can Obama possible explain the nuances of the Syrian Civil War to the American public? He can either take a pro-Assad or anti-Assad position, and Trump has chosen the former. For the latter, Obama would have to declare that Iran has invaded Syria, is attempting to conquer it and that Iranian aggression, including by their client Assad, must be defeated.
But then this narrative if followed would nullify the JCPOA and lead to a US war with Syria, Iran, Iraq and possibly Russia, with additional insurgencies in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. So Obama has no counter.
The Intelligence Community on Russian Theft and Disclosure of DNC Materials
Again, I believe that the Russians were responsible for the WikiLeaks releases of DNC materials. I have always believed that Snowden, Assange and Manning are Russian agents, because the Russians are probably the best at developing assets whereas the West has to typically wait for defectors to approach.
I agree with the conclusions of Mark Galeotti (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-war-college-trump-podcast-idUSKBN13B2OK) and Paul Gregory (http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2016/12/11/the-battle-over-russian-hacking-is-over-the-legitimacy-of-the-trump-presidency/#590fe7676ed7) on Russia's interference during the election.
I also believe that the CIA's conclusion about Russian intentions, leaked to the press by an anonymous official, was intended to insinuate that Trump was an illegitimate president. CIA Director Brennan has stated that he wants to serve under Hillary Clinton (https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-03/obama-s-cia-director-wants-to-stick-around-for-clinton), and both Deputy Directors are Democratic operatives with no intelligence or defense experience prior to appointment by Obama.
Also note the list of former intelligence officials who have publicly endorsed Hillary Clinton, and this list does not even include former NSC or DHS officials:
David Shedd (DIA)
John Negroponte (ODNI)
Michael Leiter (ODNI)
Matt Olsen (ODNI)
Michael Hayden (NSA)
CIA alone:
David Petraeus (ex-Director)
Michael Morell (ex-Director)
Michael Hayden (ex-Director)
Robert Gates (ex-Director)
Mike Baker (officer)
Evan McMullin (officer)
Quite an unbiased group of professionals, wouldn't you say? Arguably, the WikiLeaks release of the DNC e-mails was intended to influence the primary and give Sanders a chance.
As with Brexit, the losing side is executing "Project Fear" and attempting to overturn Trump's election. First, there were accusations that the Russians manipulated the polling machines, which were baseless. Second, there were accusations that Russia swung the election for Trump by manipulating public opinion. Third, Comey was accused of acting for Trump by issuing his letters to Congress. Fourth, there are attempts to change the Electors' votes so as to trigger a constitutional crisis. Notice that everyone is blamed but Hillary.
Trump's Response to the CIA's "Conclusion"
Trump's response was correct. He knew that the CIA was playing politics. He also knew that Americans would not understand the nuance of: "Yes, the Russians interfered. No, they didn't necessarily want me elected. No, they weren't responsible for my win". Clinton's insinuation that Trump is a Russian agent, began months ago, is too toxic for Trump to even approach.
We know that intelligence on Operation Inherent Resolve was manipulated to show a higher level of success against Daesh than in actuality. In addition, the CIA and DOD estimates of Daesh's fighting strength in 2014 and 2015 were ridiculously low (~10X lower than Peshmerga estimates). Of course, it wouldn't do for Obama's hasty exit from Iraq to have helped create a larger and worse version of Al Qaeda, now would it? To date, the Coalition has killed more Daesh fighters than originally estimated...
As with Brexit, you are propagating "Project Fear". Do you remember our tête-à-tête over Brexit? If you do, then you should know that I'm not going to roll over for this one either.
You thought that Hillary would give you the more muscular foreign policy you wanted: arms to Ukraine, increased information/intelligence operations against Russia, increased sanctions on Russia, a no-fly and perhaps no-drive zone in Syria, etc. I know you didn't get what you wanted, but it's not worth a constitutional crisis over.
When Obama doesn't do as you like, well, he's throwing the poor Ukrainians and Syrians under the bus, he's in league with Putin and Khamenei to massacre Sunni Arabs, etc.
You can continue to swarm with posts and links, but it doesn't change the fact that Trump won, and Russia's interference didn't change the outcome of the election. It didn't. Not by any measure of electoral chances. If you want to blame someone, blame Comey, or better yet, Hillary herself.
We'll see what Trump does. He might surprise you yet and let the Russians and Iranians have it. If he does, and he earns your absentee ballot, you'll have a lot of deleting to do.
You correctly described Russia's influence operations focusing on creating doubt, and I agree, as does every professional intelligence analysis without a political axe to grind that their hacking didn't change the outcome of the election. Furthermore, you are probably correct their goal is to divide further politically by calling into question the legitimacy of the election. Finally, Obama and Clinton knew about the allegations of Russia's hacking long before Trump was authorized to see intelligence reports, yet there were no complaints from the left when Clinton was ahead. We are increasingly vulnerable as a nation with the level of division between the left and the right.
Thank you for your words, Bill.
Placing yourself in the center is an exhausting proposition when both sides want to crush you.
I never subscribed to the view that Hillary Clinton was a criminal or responsible for Benghazi (what then of Schultz and Albright?), but I do believe that she was dishonest, unethical and arrogant. Remember that Hillary decried a "vast right-wing conspiracy" against her in 1998, so only arrogance can explain why she did not take steps 13 years later to prevent that relentless foe from finding chinks in her armor.
As for the FBI investigation, there were only two choices for Hillary in June/July: criminality or incompetence, of which Comey chose the latter. She was not unlike a criminal who pleads not guilty by reason of insanity, but then wants out of the psychiatric unit the next day.
I find the insinuations that Trump is a Russian agent equally ridiculous. Hillary wanted to attract the hawks from the Republican Party, and used Russia as a wedge issue, and yet while she was successful with the elite, the rank-and-file were not convinced that the United States should be more assertive in either Ukraine or Syria. Sanders' supporters were equally isolationist if not more so...
If you look at the timing of the major WikiLeaks release in July, it was intended to influence the Democratic primary and give Sanders a chance, rather than help Trump edge out Clinton.