I'd actually like Snowden to face a court case, just to see how it all shook out.
If he's found guilty but because the law's an ass, then pardon him.
Trump cynically floats pardoning Snowden, Dems split on considering it
- Thread starter crimson5pheonix
- Start date
Recommended Videos
If he's found guilty but because the law's an ass, then pardon him.
A good idea put forward by a person who consistently has been against it and any other positively forward ideas alongside and in line with their party mantra requires the motives have to be questioned. Am wondering if he's wondering he can make a deal with Snowdon for dirt on the upcoming election through this. To me at least, that would align most with his usual behaviour and beliefs
No but they do intervene in the election so a Republican candidate with a fanatical hatred of the democratic president gets elected. If the intelligence community had any fondness for Obama or the democrats they wouldn't have intervened on Trump's behalf.
Yes, the US intelligence community intervened in the election to elect a Republican candidate, just for them to squawk on cable news for four years about Russia conspiracy theories involving that candidate's election and be the beating heart of two and a half years of go-nowhere, do-nothing, independent investigation and impeachment. That's why we had FBI deputy directors with material connections to the Democratic party and conflicted interests, committing Hatch Act violations for the federal government to pay for Democratic party oppo, two FBI agents engaged in extramarital affairs with each other sexting each other about sticking it to bad orange man, and other agents under aforementioned conflicted deputy director so overzealously misconducting their investigation that two men who were legally dead to rights walked free, right?
As with most statements politicians make about armed forces, it's just political points scoring
I think it would be overreach to say they intended to help Trump, but in defence of the idea, it is widely believed that Clinton was disliked by the FBI, and the decision to hit her over the emails just before the 2016 election was quite a popular one within the Bureau.
In terms of Trump, it is clear that the relationship between the intelligence services and Trump collapsed after his election win. I think Trump turned on them because they failed to show him the personal loyalty and deference he wanted (especially with relation to the Russia probe), and the intelligence services soured on Trump both over the attacks he made on them and when they realised quite how erratic and incompetent he was. Of course, Trump had the last laugh, because he wiped out all the pros at the top of the intelligence services and replaced them with cronies who offered him the loyalty he wanted.
Frankly if this was the case, I don't blame them and I'd still support the action as I did then. That doesn't mean they were pro-Trump or intervened on Trump's behalf. As I said, the portrait painted of the bureau at the time between Comey's wind-sock behavior, McCabe's unaddressed criminal mismanagement, Strzok's and Page's nonsense, and the wholesale incompetence on display during that entire time period and the year that followed, was bare minimum one of bitter partisan division and unadulterated toxicity.
Between everything that happened at the time up to and including Slick Willie's wholly inappropriate meeting with Loretta Lynch and the highly suspect deletion of 33,000 emails from her server, the portrait painted of Hillary's email investigation is one that was concluded prematurely and without sufficient conclusion for political reasons. Comey himself stood in front of the entire country and admitted Clinton was guilty of what she was accused of doing, then announced he would recommend to not indict, even going so far as to cite the Espionage Act itself which specifically states negligence is not a legal defense.
Comey's a shit, but he was doing his job. When they found the emails on Weiner's laptop, he was obligated to re-open the investigation. Comey didn't leak the letter to the press -- and guess what, the story was going to break when the FBI petitioned the court for a search warrant anyway, given the high level of scrutiny on the Weiner investigation.
Please demonstrate there was one to begin with.
Neutrality or mixed opinions is still a relationship.
The hearsay I have encountered is that there was evidently some skepticism that he would make a good president, but also enthusiasm in some agencies such as the CIA that his bellicose rhetoric would translate into opportunities for, shall we say, 'vigorously proactive' foreign policy.
See, that's precisely where the analogy breaks down completely for me. Hillary was the war hawk in the Obama administration, and largely responsible for Honduras, continued fuckery in Venezuela, Syria, and Libya, and wanted us back in Iraq. She would have been a much better friend to the actual neo-fascists in our government than Trump ever would have been or promised to be.
The Dems were everywhere in the Middle East. It only became a serious problem in Libya and Syria. And Obama was pretty keen for it without Clinton’s help.
But, also, I think this is still better than invasions that the GOP like to do. That would have been worse. Eg. look at Bolton always trying to invade some country,
As to friends of fascist, maybe. Trump has a lot of fascist friends in office so I don’t think he’d beat her. I don’t see Biden being much different, though. He seem way more fascist than Clinton
A relative hawk to Obama and amongst the hawkier end of her party, maybe, but in the wider scheme of the whole USA, I don't think she'd rate as a hawk. I think she was a strong believer in international engagement and a pragmatist, not averse to use military where required. But that's really not the same as having a hard-on for sending in the military.
The problem with comparison to Trump is that Trump is variously disinterested and erratic. Trump seems wary of major military commitments, but then has clearly left subordinates free to engage in all sorts of activity and I don't think Trump really notices or cares unless he can claim some sort of glory for himself - because himself is all he cares about. Thus in practice, Trump has left a load of warmongers free to do their stuff, plus aggressive foreign policy that has heightened tensions and risk of conflict where I think H. Clinton would have instead cooled everything down.
The problem being, your definition of "international engagement" and "pragmatist" includes using the US intelligence "community" to foment and support violent coups in countries that pose no economic, strategic, or political threat except for the mortal sin of having a democratically-elected government and not wanting to be wholly at the mercy of MNC's. It includes politically undermining and waging economic warfare on strategically-important states the US ought to be allied with as they pose economic threats to hostile state actors, rather than acting hostilely towards them on the actually hostile states' behalf. It includes drones, missiles, and special forces deployments as international paramilitary police absent public or even Congressional oversight, enabled by secret kangaroo courts. It includes aggressively disrupting regional balances of power through these channels, fostering civil wars in less-developed and less-stable countries which allow violent extremist groups to flourish.
Having a hard-on to create excuses to send in the military, is "having a hard-on for sending in the military".
Only as long as it's other people's money and other people's friends and family. The only thing John Bolton's invaded is a swinger's club.
Yep, that's international politics. The wider context of the intelligence services is also that everyone else, including the USA's main geopolitical opponents, are plainly doing the same things (and in some cases likely worse). Probably because it works.
I'd argue the point of diplomacy and soft power is to avoid having to destabilise countries, and destabilising (sanctions, intelligence ops) is to avoid sending in the military: sending in the military is disproportionately expensive and fraught with unexpected risk, as H. Clinton will have learnt from personal experience.
Surprise, it was Susan B Anthony.
www.nytimes.com
On Centennial of 19th Amendment, Trump Pardons Susan B. Anthony and Targets 2020 Election (Published 2020)
President Trump’s pardon of the famed suffragist came as women celebrated the 100th anniversary of their right to vote, and in the middle of his attacks on mail-in voting.
lolSurprise, it was Susan B Anthony.
On Centennial of 19th Amendment, Trump Pardons Susan B. Anthony and Targets 2020 Election (Published 2020)
President Trump’s pardon of the famed suffragist came as women celebrated the 100th anniversary of their right to vote, and in the middle of his attacks on mail-in voting.
Trump stole the Dem's performative wokeness! Now they don't have anything left! Oh no!
You have a very strange definition of "it works".
Yeah, funny how the one war in which the actual cost of war was shown to the American public in plain view, it spun up an unprecedented, nation-wide, anti-war protest movement that survived mass unrest, infiltration by the US intelligence community to disrupt and discredit, and ended presidencies.
By this you mean "better for the bottom lines of the fossil fuel, finance, and defense industries", I'm sure.
"We fights 'em over there so's we don't fights 'em over here"...sorta like this?
Last edited:
You win some, you lose some. Few wars are won without any lost battles along the way, and few achieve greatness without making enemies.
I might note Iran's influence in the Middle East is maintained by tactics at the worse end of anything the CIA does. Saudi Arabia funds wars, terrorists, and hauls journalists into their embassies and chops them up into pieces. Russia in Georgia, Ukraine. China funded the Khmer Rouge, and god knows how many other groups in SE Asia.
It's all part and parcel of the game of nations. You can refuse to play all you like, but your enemies will do it to you.
Quite a few countries seem to do well enough without going out to destabilise or topple overseas rulers, or install dictators. It's not a battle of necessity: the US has economic power and security quite enough without this stuff.