Someone is finally taking Jill Stein and the Green Party seriously: the United States Senate’s Intelligence Committee. Buzzfeed reports:
The top congressional committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election has set its sights on the Green Party and its nominee, Jill Stein.
Dennis Trainor Jr., who worked for the Stein campaign from January to August of 2015, says Stein contacted him on Friday saying the Senate Intelligence Committee had requested that the campaign comply with a document search.
Trainor, who served as the campaign’s communications director and acting manager during that time, told BuzzFeed News that he was informed of the committee’s request because during his time on the campaign, his personal cell phone was “a primary point of contact” for those looking to reach Stein or the campaign. That included producers from RT News, the Russian state-funded media company, who booked Stein for several appearances, Trainor said….
When asked Monday what the committee was looking for from the Stein campaign, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, the committee’s chairman, responded, “collusion with the Russians.” Burr said that the committee is “just starting” its work investigating two campaigns, but did not elaborate.
Of particular interest is RT, the Russian propaganda channel. Stein attended “the 2015 dinner hosted by RT in Moscow. Stein sat at the same table as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Michael Flynn.”
Trainor, who played a role in managing Stein’s campaign, has made appearances on RT himself. He’s also somewhat defensive of the propaganda outlet:
“There’s a lot of smoke around RT and not a lot of fire,” he said. Trainor also believes Intelligence Community assessment refers to his own documentary about Occupy Wall Street, though not by name, in a section [of their report] about RT’s alleged attempts to “fuel discontent” in the US — something he called a “body blow.” He said the documentary, American Autumn, fits the description of the film cited in the assessment and was airing on RT at the time.
The Russians target many people, hoping to use them at some point. People on the American Left are not immune to Russia’s outreach. Oliver Stone has done a sycophantic documentary on Putin for cable. His son Sean hosts a show on RT America.
No way Stein could have “sat at the same table ” and not be guilty, Right, Stan Rosenberg?
Well you coulda knocked me over with a feather. Like so much of the Russian interference, Stein’s connection to the Russians was, of course, completely out in the open. Lefties who couldn’t stomach Hillary but voted for a Putin stooge, got played — hard.
Who is Sean Illing and why should we “trust him” on this?
Charlie, this is unlike you.
I don’t need Sean Illing to tell me that Jill Stein is a sham: a professional candidate with no electoral victoris; the living embodiment of ‘failing upwards’… running for Mass Gov twice, Sec’ty State once and twice for President with nothing to show for all her electoral prowess besides a comfy seat at the Lexington Town Meeting.
The “Green/Rainbow” party has become a life support system for Stein’s ego.
Spot on. Stein has always been a wannabe with zero work in real politics. The Green Party decline from Nader to McKinney to Stein is the path to zero. Stein fell for Putin just like she fell for the anti-vaccine BS, despite the fact that she is an MD. It is hard to exceed this level of dishonesty/stupidity.
What’s the issue here, exactly?
Stein attended the dinner. That’s well known. It’s a little weird, but has anyone asked her about it? Maybe she felt it was OK because an American general (Flynn) was also there.
Her campaign manager made a documentary about Occupy Wall Street, and he believes that was included in the Russian interference investigation? Knowing what we know of American intelligence, that seems possible. It’s also troubling if it’s true. So Mark, even if he’s wrong about that, why are you impinging his credibility?
As usual I argue for caution.
Jim,
I tried to pull my punches. I loathe the Green Party, but Stein didn’t necessarily do anything illegal. That’s why I used the verb “Explore” in the title instead of “investigate.”
The Buzzfeed article–don’t know if you read it–is poorly written. It’s unclear what Trainor thinks or did, other than have his documentary featured on a Kremlin propaganda channel.
The story for me is the naivete of the Lefties. Russia is not a friend of the Left. Putin is not a friend of the Left. RT is a propaganda outlet. Why did Jill Stein think it was a good idea to be at the gala?
The nation was publishing Putin apologetics when Russia invaded Ukraine and Crimea. The pieces were published by Katrina Vanden Heuvel’s husband, a former Russian professor spouting whataboutisms.
There’s no evidence at this point suggesting that Jill Stein was anything other than a slightly useful idiot. The Left needs to be careful.
“Knowing what we know of American intelligence…”
I submit that we know little about American intelligence. We know about bad things that have been done, but the CIA, NSC, and FBI are huge organizations that do a lot more than that. Salience bias and ideology color our view of these organizations.
Stein comments on the Twitter:
https://twitter.com/DrJillStein/status/943155134657454081
There’s no question that the sham Stein campaign played the naive Bernie Bros.
Their Stein votes tipped the scales in Trump’s favor, a result beneficial to Bernie, Stein, and Putin.
We can critique the Stein/Russia connection without peddling falsehoods that her all votes would somehow magically transfer to Clinton if she hadn’t run or came solely from disaffected Bernie supporters.
Far more Bernie supporters came home to vote for Hillary than voted for Stein. Far more Bernie supporters came home to vote for Hillary than 2008 Hillary supporters who voted for McCain. Let’s not confuse two separate issues. The use of Russian propaganda interference and lingering animosities from the last primary. One is far more important to our future than relitigating the past.
I’m with Mark. The caution that Trickle Up and JimC are arguing for is the same caution President Obama mistakenly exhibited time and time again when he failed to respond to Russian interference in our elections and long term cyber aggression.
The time for caution has long past. It’s not in dispute the Russians ran operations on the alt right and alt left to divide Americans and undermine Clinton. It’s not in dispute that Stein has become a constant mouthpiece for the Russian government since she attended that dinner. These revelations are just following the money and leaked information they received. It’s time we take this seriously and investigate every lead.
If what’s happening is “Investigate every lead,” then fine, I’m good with that.
I’m not entirely convinced of your other assertions. Remember, Obama wanted to go public. Mitch McConnell talked him out of it. (In retrospect, that might even have been the right call; we don’t know yet.)
Talked him out of it? More like politically blackmailed him!
Jconway, read my comment again. I do not know where you get the “caution” crap. I asked an honest question.
For the record I got into a huge fight with my wife when I insisted, in June of 2016, that Vladimir Putin was going to select the next president.
I take great exception to drive-by smears against the left, often conflating Stein and Sanders (see, for instance, the upthread comment from the so-called methuen “progressive.”). I still find Charlie’s comment to be really out of character. I honestly do not understand where he is coming from.
And I do not understand why I should pay any attention to a random tweet (a) by someone whom I have never heard of before (b) that is completely orthogonal to the ostensible point.
By the way, are we going to start blaming Clinton’s loss on Jill Stein now? That should work out well.
This place has gotten really weird and uncongenial of late. Not in a good way.
I’m 100% with you on blaming Stein or Sanders for the loss or conflating their base of support. I responded forcefully to the same “progressive” you’re arguing with.
I apologize for conflating you and JimC. JimC, an honorable civil libertarian opponent and historically minded skeptic of the intelligence community, has been quite dismissive of the seriousness of these charges and investigations. Almost taking the position that where there is smoke now there can be no fire since there was no fire on Iraq and let’s not forget Ellsberg from 50 years ago.
James Jesus Angleton and J Edgar Hoover were horrible. I wouldn’t put Clapper or even Comey in their category. These are center right security hawks for sure. But they are patriots who put the rule of law over their party to a fault. Their conclusions on this issue cannot be as easily dismissed by Iraq or Vietnam as some would argue.
It’s rare all 14 agencies come together so publicly and forcefully on an issue. I’ve been consistently hawkish on Putin since my State Department service during the Georgian War showed me how woefully inadequate our cyber capabilities were vis a vis the Russians. How naive the Bush administration desperate for an alliance against Islamist terrorism or the Obama administration desperate for a reset were in their dealings with Putin.
I can link to articles from credible sources that have solid evidence showing how he manipulated this election and why. I particularly recommend the recent Atlantic piece. Stein was played. Flynn was played. Trump was played. Obama was played. Bush was played. The time for getting played is over, the time to fight back and prevent this from happening again is now.
I don’t have the time to reply to this fully. It misrepresents my position, but thanks for calling me honorable.
“Investigate every lead” is part of my position. And yes, I am skeptical of intelligence services. I don’t think that’s a particularly radical position.
I’ll give you time to respond more fully to my critiques and to clarify your own position. I’ll only add that I genuinely find your skepticism to be healthy and historically warranted.
I do think that we need to look at the evidence on a case by case basis.
In the Vietnam example we had credible experts saying one thing in public and making different conclusions in private with credible experts like Ellsberg exposing their duplicity. His evidence was better than theirs. We forget he was no hippie but a RAND corporation advisor and high level DoD official himself who concluded the public had to know the real intelligence on the war to make informed choices.
In Iraq we had Tenent cooking the books on the official intelligence but he was contradicted by other experts on Iraq from the intelligence community like Scott Ritter, Richard Clarke, Valerie Plame, Brent Scowcroft etc.
The IC was not united in their conclusions in either case.
They are in this case and that should indicate something. Even right leaning officials like Hayden and Clapper who had severe policy disagreements with the Obama administration would normally be friendlier to an incoming Republican administration. For them to charge collusion and disloyalty should be making more headlines than it is. It’s a big deal. They also had access to the evidence.
Every major intelligence mistake in the past had a divided IC in its history. Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Iraq, Sino-Soviet split, Soviet collapse,
Iraq; these examples all had experts and evidence on both sides of the issue. It’s that the internal skeptics were vindicated by the actual results. Here there are no experts saying the intelligence community is wrong. No internal dissenters. Even Trumps own appointees concede Putin interfered and will do so again. To me that means something.
Jill Stein hates ThinkProgress, which is affiliated with John Podesta’s Center for American Progress, but their commentary is accurate:
Stein received a wealth of support from the Kremlin propaganda channel RT. Not only was her campaign, as NBC noted, “heavily promoted by RT,” but she opted to participate in the 2016 Green Party presidential debate, broadcast on RT. Where other Green Party candidates boycotted the debate because it was hosted on a Russian propaganda channel – one candidate described it as the “worst kind of representation of what the Green Party should be” – Stein instead lauded the hosts, describing the debate on RT as a “step towards real democracy and an inspiration for … millions of Americans.”
https://thinkprogress.org/jill-stein-campaign-russia-ecf424ac3b7e/
Here’s a Stein quote from RT, which sponsored a Green Party presidential candidate debate:
“RT is breaking the two-party stranglehold on debates and beginning the open discussion the American people are clamoring for,” she said. “It’s a step towards real democracy and an inspiration for the millions of Americans who are ready for a new politics that puts people, planet and peace over profit.”
https://www.rt.com/usa/342395-green-party-rt-debate
That’s an American Lefty endorsing a autocratic state diametrically opposed to the economic polices of the Green Party that uses homophobia and hate groups to influence and corrupt foreign governments to enrich the oligarchs who are robbing Russia and its satellites blind.
…and what happened to the millions the Green Party raised days after the 2016 election so that could get recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania? (States where her votes far exceeded Trumps, aka Nader in 2000)
That’s a good question; I’ve wondered that as well.
But I’m not sure what it has to do with Russia.
Follow the money JimC. I wouldn’t be surprised some of Putin’s billions found their way into Green Party and Trump coffers via shell companies or in kind contributions. Certainly RT spreading misinformation beneficial to either candidate would be one example of an in kind contribution.
Not suggesting it has anything to do with the Russian story, but MAY highlight some less than noble efforts to cynically raise money off angry voters. Was all the money sent on a recount or financing the Green Party’s future efforts?
I assume you mean her vote exceeded the margin between Trump and Clinton, not that her vote exceeded Trump’s in toto.
I think we should be really careful with equating the American Left with the Green Party. As someone who tried to work closely with the MA G-R leadership on ballot access questions, I can attest that their leadership was always hostile and skeptical to Bernie Sanders and his supporters and committed to a Green Party first/only strategy.
They were also quite leery of working with the UIP on cross endorsements or fusion approaches, unlike the Libertarians who were quite open to running on our ballot line and helping us out.
My friend Luc Schuster, one of their few officials elected locally, quit the party since they refused to help him financially in his re-election bids and since he refused to give his locally raised money to Stein’s gubernatorial campaigns. The extent that the party has become her personality cult is something that is only beginning to be reported on.
Equating them with the left is like equating the LaRoche movement with any ideology. You either buy into the leaders purity and vision or you don’t. It’s why her alliance with Putin makes sense. She and Trump are attracted to a fellow personality cult leader opposed to the establishment and it has nothing to do with their vastly divergent ideologies.
Put another way these things can be simultaneously true:
1) The Stein campaign had minimal impact on the final result
2) The Stein campaign is a personality cult disassociated from actual leftist electoral work and activism
3) She was and remains a Putin Patsy and this is incredibly problematic
Yes, to all of the above
It’s amusing to hear the conflicting arguments. Mark thinks that there is a lot of good stuff within the national security apparatus and we poor outsiders can’t possibly know about it all. JConway thinks that the internal workings of the same agencies are so transparent that we can be sure that there are no internal dissenters. But since they both hate Jill Stein nothing else matters.
Clapper lied to Congress about the illegal NSA eavesdropping on American citizens. Anyone who considers him to be credible is naive and is being played. If Jill Stein had committed the same crime that Clapper did she would already be in jail.
Trigger Warning
Bob Gardner forgot to check his arrogance at the door before entering this conversation, but he has worn his amusement to lessen any offense he might cause.
Boom!
Arrogant or not, this is an excellent distillation of the problem.
” If Jill Stein had committed the same crime that Clapper did she would already be in jail.”
We loinize these intelligence services, and hold them to almost no scrutiny. Hell, they got caught spying on Congress itself a few years ago, and Congress did nothing. When Rep. Jefferson had his refrigerator raided several (maybe 100 or 11) years ago, they all went nuts and talked about injustice. But the NSA listening in? Not a word.
Jim, Bob Gardner’s comment is stupid because it is fallacious, not because he’s arrogant. His arrogance is bonus.
No one is lionizing the intelligence services. I’m not.
What I would have said to Bob, had he or his comment been worth responding to, is we don’t have enough information on these 14-16 intelligence agencies to say everything they do is wrong. These are very big agencies with tens of billions of dollars in budgets.
Bob’s absolutist opinions are due to salience bias and political preference.
This is a red herring and whataboutism: “Clapper lied to Congress about the illegal NSA eavesdropping on American citizens. Anyone who considers him to be credible is naive and is being played. If Jill Stein had committed the same crime that Clapper did she would already be in jail.”
Ted Kennedy lied once about a big thing. Anyone who considers him credible is naive.
I’m inclined to believe you’ve lied about a big thing once. Anyone who considers you credible naive.
Mark, be serious. Yes we’ve all lied. We haven’t all lied to Congress (while under oath), about our role, when it’s Congress’s job to over see that role.
You may not be lionizing them, but you don’t have to bend over backward to defend them either. My only point is that much of what they say has to be taken with a grain of salt.
I take everything–everything with a grain of salt. I don’t state it in every post or comment, but I try to look at things in terms of likelihood of truth. Percentage-wise. I started that after reading Superforecasting.
I also take you at your word when you write, “Arrogant or not, this is an excellent distillation of the problem.” It’s a gross overstatement of a “grain of salt.” I’m not trying to play gotcha. If you don’t completely agree with what you said, I don’t see that as a weakness.
Incidentally, when James uses the word “patriot,” a word we all have a problem with, I suspect he is not “lionizing.” Rather he’s using it in the “which side are you on” context that I’ve seen national security people use meaning, putting country over party. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get past the jerking knees of some people.
I completely agree with what I said.
We allow intelligence services to have it both ways. We allow them to lie to us. This is a problem.
Further, even if we think they’re telling us the truth, we allow them to not tell us everything (“We don;t discuss sources and methods,” as Dick Cheney used to say). This is inherently problematic.
PS. I believe that you take all this with a grain of salt. But that wasn’t how the discussion was going.
That’s not how I read your agreement with Bob Gardner’s comment.
I agree with what you say here. That’s good enough for me.
Redstate made the same argument Bob Gardner is making today (https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2017/03/05/james-clapper.-lied-congress-believe-today/).
Clapper supported a program he and other policymakers believed was legal and protecting Americans. I happen to disagree on both of those counts, but until Congress repeals the Patriot Act, the AUMF, and it’s own Warrentless Wiretap authorization bills, then we will not have a climate where civil liberties will be valued over national security again. I still don’t see how Flynn or Stein meeting with Putin or his personal propaganda channel helping her candidacy and Trump’s is somehow justified by a misdeed James Clapper committed.
I don’t see how the misdeed of one intelligence official somehow overrides the consensus of 14 independent agencies with thousands of analysts coming to the same conclusion. I don’t see how a mistake in one area of intelligence gathering negates all other forms of intelligence gathering on any issue. Those are ad hominem fallacies at their finest.
So let us examine these questions on a case by case basis. Putin had the motive. He had the capability, 14 intelligence agencies and several foreign intelligence agencies confirmed that he engaged in these actions.
This leads me to ask either one of you what it would take and who would it take for you to believe this to be true? What caliber of evidence and caliber of expert would be needed to satisfy your collective skepticism on this issue?
You keep making arguments I haven’t made. Please stop doing that.
I stand in awe of our intelligence services — they do incredible things every day, and they have incredible technology. But they’re problematic, and their misdeeds go beyond one lie by one official (again, under oath), and you know that as well as I do. (Also, Clapper knows as well as you and I do that the surveillance program isn’t legal at all, but let’s move on from that.)
I believe Russia did something. I don’t think anyone disputes that. But it’s really important to establish WHAT they did. We know about ads on Facebook,for one thing. Have you seen the Jesus vs. Satan one? Do you think that swung any votes? But maybe they did other, more nefarious things, and we need to know that.
Another important question is what the Trump campaign did. My assumption is that Russia tries to penetrate every campaign (nominees anyway), and they just succeeded more than usual this time. But in Trump’s case, Manafort’s role seems larger, and if not outright deliberate than at least not obstructive. Maybe he was compromised? We don’t know.
Then there’s Flynn, whose story (what we know of it) seems pretty incredible.
Getting back to the original news story, is Bob Mueller going after the Stein campaign? No, the GOP-controlled Senate committee is. I’d feel better if it was Mueller.
Patience, patience, patience. We’ll find out all eventually. Hopefully in time for our next election.
That’s a far more nuanced take from you JimC and one I can endorse 100%. I also think in the spirit of chasing every lead that it is worth going after the Stein connection just to see what is there. I frankly think she swung even fewer consequential votes than the Satan/Jesus ads, that doesn’t mean it’s not worth investigating to see if she also received material help from a hostile foreign power.
The Manafort connection is far more direct since he worked for Yanakovich and made millions off an indirect Putin payroll.
Follow every lead. I think that’s a solid standard we can all get behind. As well as insuring this investigation can be free from partisan interference from the GOP Congress or the Trump WH.
1. Pure guilt by association from JConway. “Redstate made the same argument Bob Gardner is making today”.
Clapper lied to Congress. That’s not an “argument” that’s a fact. People on this blog used to quote the line about “You are entitled to your own arguments but not your own facts.” I got sick of hearing it, but apparently it was not repeated enough, because it didn’t sink in.
2.”No one is lionizing the intelligence services.” (MB) “But they (Clapper and Comey) are patriots who put the rule of law over their party to a fault. Their conclusions on this issue cannot be as easily dismissed by Iraq or Vietnam as some would argue.” (JC)
Comey of course has nothing to do with this latest “exploration” of Stein, so let’s leave him out of it.
My comment about Clapper lack of credibility was a direct response to JConway’s comment about Clapper’s credibility. “Lionizing the intelligence services.” is exactly what JConway is doing. Clapper did not “put the rule of law” over the interests of the national security apparatus. He did just the opposite.
Mark Bail’s contention that we should ignore this because Clapper only lied about a big thing once and what about Ted Kennedy really hurts me to the core of my stupid, arrogant heart.
3. Once someone has actually made a case against Jill Stein we can examine it. That hasn’t happened yet. Instead we’ve seen Stein called a lot of names. And not much else unless you believe that the Illuminati have given way to the Green Party.
1. I am saying the argument that Clapper lied to Congress about a specific secret program he felt compelled to protect destroys his credibility on any issue involving Russia or Trump is a bad argument. Plenty of politicians and public officials lie. Many others have justified Bill Clintons lying under oath as a reasonable act of self preservation against an unreasonable investigation. Clapper felt the program worked, was secretly authorized by the Executive and FISA, and revealing it would undermine national security.
I completely disagree with him there, but it’s a different motive entirely than the kind of lying that Trump administration is doing to avoid accountability over Russian interference in the elections. Clapper is also just one person. Even if his credibility is shot it doesn’t undermine the credibility of thousands of independent analysts coming to the same conclusion.
Your position about internal dissent being impossible is also fairly hard to prove. We obviously say a lot of open dissent from within the agencies and from former officials during the lead up to the Iraq War. Obviously one contractor felt compelled to leak the wireless wiretapping program and dissented from its application. There have been zero leaks from inside these agencies or public dissent from former intelligence officials about Russian interference. It’s likelier than not to be a real thing.
2. My definition of patriot is fairly broad. I believe that a highly decorated veteran like Muellar who has a 40 year career of integrity in intelligence and law enforcement is putting country over party (incidentally he’s a Republican) when it comes to investigating Trump. I don’t think digging up all the lousy things the FBI has done in the past discredits him, his team, or his investigation. Nor do I think it compromises the intelligence services and the information it has gathered on this specific front. You are demanding that our public officials and public agencies have infallible records in order to be credible, and that’s an impossible standard to assess the validity of their data on this narrow range of questions.
They’ve been wrong in the past. They’ve committed wrong doing in the past. They are right right now on this narrow range of issues barring credible evidence that they are not. I have yet to see that from you-just a lot of valid criticism of the IV on totally unrelated topics.
1. If I understand your position correctly, you are saying that lying doesn’t affect credibility. I fundamentally disagree.
2. “There have been zero leaks from inside these agencies or public dissent from former intelligence officials about Russian interference.” This statement is simply untrue. There are plenty of former intelligence officials who publicly dispute the Russia connection. Check out Consortium News for a sample. You don’t have to agree with their conclusions, but you can’t wish them into non-existence.
As to internal dissent, who knows? In every example you give, whatever internal dissent there was emerged very late, after it became impossible to defend the policy publicly.
There wasn’t a peep of dissent before the Bay of Pigs invasion. The Pentagon papers leaked only after years and years of American involvement in Vietnam .
Your statement on Bay of Pigs is actually wrong as there was a lot of dissent from within the Executive Branch. Kennedy made the mistake of listening to his generals instead of his advisors, a mistake he thankfully avoided during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I think your arguments against Clapper amount to guilt by association. He is guilty of lying to Congress thus the entire Intelligence Community is wrong on Russia. The IC was wrong on Iraq and Vietnam thus it cannot be right on Russian interference.
First of all, the Church Committee happened and many of the excesses and abuses you cite from the past were reigned in by Congressional oversight. Secondly, the Iraq Study Group and 9/11 Commission also happened along with the creation of the DNI and DHS which have streamlined a lot of the inefficiencies in information gathering between agencies as well as creating further firewalls between these agencies and partisan policy preferences. It’s unlikely a CIA Director will be able to cook the books at the behest of a president again without severe consequences. The fact that Trump is the President and active intelligence officers are still arguing he’s compromised by Russia is further proof that they are acting above party politics and independent of the executive branch.
For Clapper, Hayden. Morrell, Dick Clarke, Tom Donilon, and Muellar to be on the same page about something is significant. Even if you feel some of those actors lack credibility due to past misdeeds-collectively they represent a wide spectrum of the left and right of the foreign policy establishment. For cautious, small c conservative, realists to make such sharp accusations against someone who’s policies they probably sympathized with is significant.
I’ll look up your dissenters and examine their credibility and will withdraw my claim there is universal consensus.
Here’s some background on one dissenter:
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist, essayist and philosopher bard. His poems, short fiction and essays have been published in numerous print publications and anthologies; his political essays have been widely posted on the progressive side of the internet. After much angst regarding his alienation from the excesses of empire and the hyper-capitalist/consumer paradigm of the present era, Phil has resolved to “make a home in being lost,” and make the collective folly and personal vicissitudes of the predicament the theme of his creative efforts.
Frankly the real people you should be angry about over the NSA wiretapping is Barack Obama who voted to reauthorize it as a Senator and kept it in place as President. Our agency heads follow the policies set forth by the Executive and the Legislative branches. Until the public cares more about civil liberties than counter terrorism it is unlikely these programs will be reigned in.
I am with you that they are unconstitutional, but you should be lashing out at the voting public that Has essentially surrendered the 4th amendment in the name of preventing another 9/11 while broking no limits on the 2bd amendment despite the fact that guns cause 20 9/11’s in a given year. That’s America and our intelligence and defense community is simply following the public skewed priorities on those issues. They aren’t twirling their moustaches and asking what amendments they can ignore today, they are being issued directives to stop terrorism at any cost and pursuing every means to those ends. Those directives come from the people we elect-not their own warped minds.
Also, the courts. Should we be more aggressive there? If SCOTUS says these are constitutional that’s pretty much it.
They said internment was constitutional too during a time of war, I think the 2005 and 2007 decisions were still too inflicted with post-9/11 sentiment. Reissuing these challenges may be a wise strategy, though it’s unlikely the composition of the court has changed.
Meanwhile, Jill Stein’s stance on Russia remains troubling:
CNN host Alisyn Camerota on Friday grilled 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein over her insistence that she hasn’t seen any evidence that the Russian government interfered in last year’s presidential election…
“The intelligence agencies themselves say they assert this, and this is their opinion and they do not have the factual information,” she replied.
Stein went on to argue that if the intelligence agencies have evidence that the public has not yet seen, they should release it now so that we don’t go to war with Russia under false pretenses.
Stein’s grounds for proof are a joke: “I haven’t seen the evidence.” The public evidence itself is overwhelming. The idea that we would “go to war with Russia,” and “under false pretenses” is ludicrous, and frankly, the repetition of a Putin talking point.
And before Bob starts declaring my opinions for me, I’m not saying Jill Stein is a Kremlin spy, but her evasiveness raises a lot of questions about her stance on Russia.
“The idea that we would “go to war with Russia,” and “under false pretenses” is ludicrous, and frankly, the repetition of a Putin talking point.”
Two minuntes of googling produced the following headlines:
“War With Russia Looms, Says Former NATO General in New Book”
“Russia is going to get worse, if not better,” Graham said Sunday. “Mr. President, go after Russia because they’re coming after us.”
“Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is again urging President Trump to provide lethal aid to Ukraine.”
Ludicrous, huh? Putin has NATO generals and US Senators repeating his talking points.
Good googling there, Bob. You cite three military hawks, two of whom never saw a conflict that couldn’t be a war.
The book of which you speak happens to be a novel by a retired general in the British Army of whom The Telegraph writes:
David Cameron has made Britain a “semi-pacifist” nation more interested in protecting “welfare and benefits” than adequate defences, one of the country’s most senior retired generals has warned.
General Sir Richard Shirreff, former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander of Nato, said the UK had “shrunk in to itself” and carries an “increasingly impotent stick”.
He said the country now risked losing its post-Falklands global reputation for military might.
Quoting Lindsey Graham and John McCain? If I did that, you’d berate me for using two hawks to support my position. Neither is particularly insightful on anything I’ve ever read.
Aside from the fact that you have an excellent knack of attacking a tree and forgetting the forest.
This is more persuasive:
Marine Leaders Highlight Norway Unit’s Role as Deterrent to Russia
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/12/21/marine-leaders-highlight-norway-units-role-deterrent-russia.html
The possibility of war with Russia is far greater than zero, but from a defense standpoint, it’s critical to be prepared. A conventional war is highly unlikely; The Russians have been developing what they call a hybrid war strategy, something more akin to what happened in Georgia. Jill Stein, of course, doesn’t see Russia as an enemy.
In this case, however, you didn’t just miss the forest for the trees, you missed the actual tree and hit a branch. I wrote: ““The idea that we would “go to war with Russia,” and “under false pretenses” is ludicrous.'”
Keep picking those cherries. Someday you can bake a pie.
I’ll also agree with Mark on the hybrid war model. I saw that first hand as a Foreign Affairs Fellow at DOS/PMRSAT during the Georgian War. I cannot emphasize how unprepared the entire American foreign policy and security apparatus was for that invasion. Rice said to my face that there were no indications a war would happen and it happened three days later. We were caught totally flat footed and their cyber warfare delayed and impeded our ability to respond on the ground. American citizens and officials were directly attacked by Russian cyber warfare during that conflict.
We saw it again when we were caught flat footed on Crimea. Special forces units operating under a false flag combined with cyber warfare against the Ukranian military and pro-western forces allowed them to take it. Putin knew we wouldn’t respond in time to stop him. Our sanctions have hurt him and is inner circle, severely, and getting a candidate like Trump willing to remove those sanctions was a goal of Putin’s. The rare and unprecedented unanimous Senate action stripping Trump of the power to lift sanctions undermined Putin. He is now cornered and could very well sink with Trump. The Atlantic has a good piece on this (https://www.theatlantic.com/press-releases/archive/2017/12/the-atlantics-cover-story-what-putin-really-wantsjulia-ioffe-reports-from-russia-on-putins-end-game-for-januaryfebruary-2018-issue/548036/)
There is an element of ideological differences at play here. There is a wing on the left led by Stephen Cohen at the Nation and on the right by Pat Buchanan that actually believes the US antagonized Russia with NATO expansion and the Soviet breakup. That Ukraine ought to be a part of Russia. I strongly disagree with that.
This may be an ideological view, but I happen to think the Yanukovich government was corrupt and lacking in democratic legitimacy. That the Maiden protests were just criticisms of that regime and a cry, along with the Orange Revolution a decade earlier, for integration with the liberal West.
I disagree with Trump that the US should be a self interested nation that expands its power and works with authoritarian regimes. Protecting human rights and the rule of law matters since it gives legitimacy to our policies overseas. The world still looks to us for that leadership.
Now I’m also a realist. We shouldn’t expand NATO to countries we are unwilling to fight for. We shouldn’t invade countries pre-emptively or play at regime change. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya were mistakes. Failing to stop Assad feels bad, but was likely the right call in the end. That said, stopping Putin and containing his ability to make hybrid war on his enemies should be a top security priority. Both for realistic and idealist reasons.
We’re on the same page, James.
I think we are almost completely unprepared for hybrid war BECAUSE we are more interested in private enterprise and less interested in the common good or democracy. Trump is sort of a culmination of what we have been doing.
(Stephen Cohen is a clown. I cancelled my subscription to
The Nation, based on his bullshit. The Nation has pulled back from their Russia denialism, but the fact that I was repeating Cohen’s falsehoods on Ukraine has pissed me off to no end).
Let’s back this up, Mark.. You wrote “The idea that we would “go to war with Russia,” and “under false pretenses” is ludicrous.’”
I quoted two Senators and a former NATO general, each of whom talked about a war with Russia as either inevitable, or is an option or even,( depending on how you interpret what they say) desirable.
These are powerful, influential people. The fact that they are tossing around this idea should concern us. It’s not ludicrous to be worried about the possibility of war with Russia, as Jill Stein says she is. It’s warranted.
I have to say, Mark, that I’ve rarely seen someone get less out of a book than you seem to have gotten out of “Superforecasting”. Almost everything you do, from your constant name calling, to your preemptive attacks on what you imagine I might say, to your cutting yourself off in disgust from anyone who disagrees with you, like Mike Taibbi, and Steven Cohen, to your inability to evaluate individual pieces of evidence, because such evidence is only a tree, and you (like a hedgehog in that book.) can see the whole forest, is exactly what the author of Superforecasting warned against.
It’s almost as if you’ve read “Superforecasting” and decided to do exactly the opposite, in detail.