As Leaks Multiply, Fears of a ‘Deep State’ in America
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Abstract:
"National security policy in the United States has remained largely constant from the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration. This continuity can be explained by the “double government” theory of 19th-century scholar of the English Constitution Walter Bagehot. As applied to the United States, Bagehot’s theory suggests that U.S. national security policy is defined by the network of executive officials who manage the departments and agencies responsible for protecting U.S. national security and who, responding to structural incentives embedded in the U.S. political system, operate largely removed from public view and from constitutional constraints. The public believes that the constitutionally-established institutions control national security policy, but that view is mistaken.
Judicial review is negligible; congressional oversight is dysfunctional; and presidential control is nominal. Absent a more informed and engaged electorate, little possibility exists for restoring accountability in the formulation and execution of national security policy."
[1] http://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Glennon-Fin...
On a completely unrelated note, a few days ago @Jack compared Twitter usage patterns in the US as similar to that before the Arab Spring. Huh.
It's amazing how prescient he is of the mounting conflict between full transparency and full privacy and the battle over who should conform to one or the other.
I've also been reminded of Eisenhower's warnings about the military-industrial complex: "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience... We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
"Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to "leak" into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?"
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017
He has many times. As examples: He has openly and frequently attacked the intelligence community over their conclusions about Russian hacking and election interference. He said the military was doing a terrible job, IIRC, in the ISIS fight.
That being said, I am not sure how much of this is an organized conspiracy vs. bureaucratic entrenchment of known and familiar practices, defending one's turf, prolonging employment, etc....sometimes these things take on lives of their own.
It could also be explained by Obama and Bush sharing similar philosophies on the security state, and there's a lot of evidence that supports that. That's not to say that the agencies aren't problematic, but rather that elected officials have been mostly happy with what they're doing, and that this is the reason why they keep doing it.
Where there were differences in policy between the administrations, we did see a change - for instance, in the use of waterboarding. It's just that these differences weren't as numerous as many people assumed.
However far apart they were (and they were pretty far apart), Bush and Obama mostly agreed about what the challenges facing the nation were. There's plenty of evidence that Trump doesn't share that common ground.
Like this video from 2007? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmdovYztH8
- Where do/did suspected private sector "deep state" players invest? In the US or abroad.
- Whom do/did they lobby for or represent in the private sector.
- Who do they associate with.
The criticism in some circles is that suspected deep-state members are too close to certain countries (eg. Saudi Arabia).
There are criticisms leveled that suspected deep-state members are either compromised by foreign powers, or they have compromised US officials, and journalists.
I am all for accountability and an infrequent but meaningful shake-up and reset of political influence and power. But the realpolitik bottom-line is that intent and effectiveness matter more than process or accountability. In other words, it doesn't matter if you think John Podesta, Dick Cheney, Kissinger, Soros or Facebook is the "deep state". What matters is the NET result on US national interests at home and abroad.
One thing I know: the things politicians and talking heads in the media often bandy about as being "in the national interest" aren't things in my interest.
Things like waging war on countries that didn't attack the US. Or waging the War on Drugs. Or bailing out the banks. Or the US alliances with certain dictatorial states and human rights abusers. Fuck that. I'm not interested in that. I don't think these benefit the US either.
People bandy about the term "national interest" as if it's some kind of objective standard which we all agree on. But that completely ignores the many diverse and often conflicting interests of the hundreds of millions of people who are the citizens of the United States.
What these so-called "national interests" really are are the interests of those in power. That's why the things I say are in the national interest don't matter, but the things they say are in the national interest do.
So I'm not sure how useful it is to judge the actions of the "deep state" members by whether they're serving the "national interest". That's letting them make the rules to their own game.
Another good example might be a politician arguing for a particular trade deal by saying it will be "good for America" or in the "national interest". This intentionally glosses over important details, if in fact it will be good for some corporations headquartered in the US - and the senior executives thereof - while being bad for many more workers in the US.
Obviously not. But the way it gets bandied around as if every politician speaks for everybody is something fairly unique to America. I've never heard a European leader (at least, not in recent times) speak out loud like that. And if they did it would make me cringe just the same.
The people have only spoken if a > 50% portion of those eligible to vote actually vote and all of them agree.
In that case you might make such a statement, and even then that leaves room for 49% (a) not to vote and (b) to disagree and whoever would make such a proclamation would have to qualify their statement to that effect. But it is of course so much easier to claim a mandate.
Given how many people simply don't bother to vote such statements are simply not true.
You don't think that during a congressman or president's term, they need to at least appear to have acted in the best interests of their constituents, or risk losing their next election? Doesn't this give the people some amount of power over the people they elect during their term?
>The people have little power where Congress is concerned, less where the President is concerned, and none where the Judiciary is at issue.
Presidential candidates often include supreme court appointments in their campaign promises, and it's implicit that they'll fill other judiciary appointments with ones that align with their values. You don't think this is an example of elected officials being beholden to their constituents? If a president appointed to the supreme court a judge that didn't align with the values of his constituents, wouldn't it reflect poorly on him and his party?
>The Federal Reserve, FTC, FBI, etc. are likewise far removed from the will of the people. Its almost as if the framers had very little faith in the people to govern themselves.
Right, well, how is having less transparency and accountability going to give more power to the public? Doesn't that just exacerbate the problem?
It doesn't matter who is prime minister, the government is always in power.
Another quote along those lines is this one:
Hacker: If there were a conflict of interests which side would the civil service really be on?
Bernard: The winning side, Prime Minister.* A highly valuable asset within government is information and thus workers are incentivized to hoard it and protect its value, including by classifying it and not sharing it (i.e., keeping secrets).
* Secrecy can lead to extraordinarily bad results. Instead of being exposed to open debate, the secret information or idea is restricted to a few insiders who lack diverse perspectives, can easily form an echo chamber, or who may be politically pressured or desirous to support the conclusion.
[0] Unusual career, if you don't know of him: Senator, PhD. and published sociologist, Ambassador to India and the UN, White House advisor on urban affairs. With his deep skills and experience in both research and government, few are more qualified to talk about these things.
[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/the-bla...
We saw this in Canada under the Harper government in the early part of this decade, with civil servants actively undermining the government and the government retaliating with gag orders; it didn't take long before the government, knowing that any research they asked for would be leaked in the most damaging way possible, abandoned evidence-based governing in favour of seat-of-the-pants policy-making.
Now, what took a decade in Canada seems to have happened in a matter of weeks in Washington; but the fact remains that when the civil service is overtly opposed to their political masters, good government becomes impossible. It's one thing to have a bungling fool in charge of the ship of state; it's quite another to have a bungling fool who knows his crew are in the process of staging a mutiny.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system
This then became the norm for several decades, gradually declining until it was formally sunset by a federal law prohibiting the associated practices:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendleton_Civil_Service_Reform...
And that system is the one that we had in place basically until Trump. But it should be made clear that it wasn't the civil service that made it partisan again - it was the incoming administration, by doing things like these:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/09/505041927/...
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/22/506629695/...
And then, of course, there was the process of building the cabinet based largely on loyalty. The Trump administration (coincidentally, Trump is a great admirer of Jackson: http://www.salon.com/2017/02/19/trump-embraces-legacy-of-and...) had effectively revived the spoils system. The civil service responded accordingly.
Whether it's good or bad is a difficult question to answer. Like you say, there's a bungling fool in charge. If the crew is in mutiny, the obvious disadvantage is that the ship cannot be easily steered away from dangers... but the advantage is that it cannot be steered towards them, either. Sometimes, dysfunction is really better than energetic action towards the wrong goals.
But, yes, it does set a bad precedent.
The civil service is the backbone of what makes the Federal government a great institution. The fact that the IRS functions at all after two decades of undermining by congress is a testament to that.
The hardest thing about Trump is figuring out where the incompetence ends and malice begins. The admiration of Jackson is one of those scary things. In addition to being a corrupt racist, even by the standards of the day, Jackson and his policy positions were a shitshow that created depressions and smashed the financial system.
This should be absolutely unacceptable to everyone from either party.
If we accept that some form of resistance is justifiable in some situations we have to ask ourselves if these specific forms of resistance are legitimate for these particular circumstances rather than just saying democratically elected leaders can do whatever the hell they want and the civil service should go along with it.
>democratically elected leaders can do whatever the hell they want and the civil service should go along with it.
Isn't this literally the point of democracy? These people should have no say in what our national interests are other than the vote to which they are entitled.
Democracy may be better than other systems, but it is not a moral good in itself.
Is naked self-interest not exactly what's going on here? Do you think these people relishing the thought of some deus ex machina overturning of the 2016 election by the "deep state" wouldn't be arguing these exact same points were the shoe on the other foot?
>The reason we have the concept of checks and balances is because democracy needs to be restrained.
Where exactly does the unelected and unaccountable "deep state" fit into our system of checks and balances? Do we even know what level of power and influence they have, or over whom they have it? If they do a bad job, will we be able to signal our dissatisfaction with the officials we do democratically elect? Do we even know who these people are?
This implies that democracy is the absolute good, which trumps any other. That, if some policy is democratically enacted, that policy is right and proper, and no moral objection can override it. That, for example, mass murder and genocide is legitimate if the decision to carry it out was done via a constitutional democratic process, and that even those targeted by it cannot legitimately resist. Indeed, taken to the absurd (but nowhere guarded against in your definition of "no form of resistance is acceptable") extreme, it would imply that people so targeted would be obligated to dig their own graves and take their own lives, for the sake of democracy.
You are, of course, entitled to such a moral platform, but I doubt that it would be shared by many. History is replete with examples of democratic governments perpetrating atrocities. Indeed, US itself is no exception, from the treatment of Native Americans to Japanese internment. As far as I'm concerned, any civil servant who acted to subvert the latter, for example, by deliberately excluding people from the lists of internees, did the right thing, and I would expect and hope that others would follow their example in similar circumstances.
Democracy is not the end-all be-all; it is but a tool to maximize freedom within the constraints of good government. When the tool is misused contrary to the purpose for which it is intended, it is both moral and legitimate to resist it.
Executive orders are limited by what's allowed by the law. There has been some boundary-pushing but some changes require an act of Congress.
Harperites didn't like the facts, and did their absolute best to hide them. The woolly headed policy making was conducted in defiance of the facts. When the objective facts were highlighted by public servant, in full concordance with the espoused values of their organisations, the conservatives got nasty.
Harper didn't like ridicule, and he proved what a small man he is when he had his satirist sacked. A remote wildlife ecologist public servant writing funny rhymes! What a coward to manufacture a dismissal.
As to Trump: he might think it a mutiny, others would characterise it as obeying the law and understanding the Constitution.
The real lesson is that when the media doesn't do its job of ensuring leaks are accurate (where is the proof? can I see some documents?) they descend into partisan attacks which discredit them and weaken the role of the media as a check against executive power. Wikileaks is the role model: its leaks were factual and credible and could be checked for accuracy.
What is that based on? In the articles I read, they discuss the credibility of the information in detail.
> As to Trump: he might think it a mutiny, others would characterise it as obeying the law and understanding the Constitution.
The article isn't about the legitimacy of any individual leaks, rather:
Even if each individual leak is justifiable, as insubordination becomes more sustained and overt, it inches deeper into the gray zone of counter-democratic activities.
The distinction between deep-state meddling and acceptable protest is difficult to draw in the United States, Ms. Zegart said, because this degree of opposition is so unusual.
In many way civil servants like juries are the most direct form of democracy. There have been a few quiet revolutions where the system effectively said enough is enough.
Importantly, the population does not care is someone leaks an FDA study demonstrating that water is safe to drink. They are inherently useful when people disagree with what's happening. Further, the government leaks constantly at all levels which is how the '5th estate' had all that power.
For more a more extreme example striking is mostly associated with working working conditions and pay. But, it's also one of the way governments can fall with minimal violence. Not paying the police for months just does not work.
If it's any consolation, the same has happened where I live (Australia). Perhaps there are aspects of the US political system that make this less of a problem (e.g. full separation of powers), I don't know. But at least in Australia's (and probably Canada's) case, politicisation of the public service is disastrous. Unfortunately this seems to be lost on many (including public servants). I'm convinced that governments with Westminster style systems cannot properly function without an independent public service.
To be clear, when I say 'independent', I mean only in the way the public service advises the currently elected government (i.e. without considering politics or the Minister's assumed personal preferences, and only giving advice on the grounds of policy merit). The phrase used in Australia (but not often put into operation, unfortunately) is 'frank and fearless'. However, only the elected government should make policy decisions, as they are the only ones with a democratic mandate. Once they have made a decision, the public service has a duty to implement them as best they can, regardless of whether they agree or not (or whether they advised otherwise).
But your last part:
> the fact remains that when the civil service is overtly opposed to their political masters, good government becomes impossible. It's one thing to have a bungling fool in charge of the ship of state; it's quite another to have a bungling fool who knows his crew are in the process of staging a mutiny.
I'm not sure what you mean to say by this. I mean, your statement could technically be true, but what are you suggesting? The phrasing indicates that the civil service has made good government impossible, while I think most would agree with the reverse. If honest facts from civil service has become "partisan", then the problem is entirely elsewhere.
I'm suggesting an analogy to the privilege afforded to communication with lawyers or priests. It is widely accepted that there is a value to people being able to seek advice without worrying that what you say is going to be used against you.
To take a concrete example, suppose the government is considering implementing Policy X. They know that Policy X could be politically problematic, but think it might be good policy anyway -- imagine something like raising taxes or shutting down a military procurement program which creates manufacturing jobs in key swing districts.
In an ideal world, the government would go to the civil service and ask for research -- What would be the macroeconomic implications of this policy? Would it in fact be good for the country? Are there ways the adverse impacts of the policy could be mitigated? -- and bring forward the best possible version of the policy (or not bring it forward at all, based on what the experts say).
In a world where the civil service is perceived as actively working against the government, those questions will never get asked, because there will be a fear that even suggesting that the mere suggestion that Policy X is being considered would be immediately leaked for maximum political damage. The problem isn't the answers -- rather, it's the risk of stifling questions.
We've been involved in a lot of scheming stuff esp in Middle East for decades. The same names keep turning up in the higher ranks regardless of who is President in U.S.. Especially Cheney's. We also find a lot of it comes from the CIA's meddlings despite the public not wanting any of those particular operations. At one point, they were straight-up funding themselves with drug money to do whatever they wanted with their own private military. Recently, esp with Iraq, it's close-knit groups of civilians in think tanks, civilians in defense contractors, executive-branch officials who sometimes pull six digits on side from defense contractors, and Congress committee reps with stock in same companies. There's definitely a deep state going on.
It got cemented, though, when continuity of government legislation was enacted after passing of State of Emergency and Patriot Act. The power it gives the executive branch, esp ignoring Constitution and accountability, is likely why they reinstate it every year. I imagine Congress is just too afraid to fight with them. GAO said Congress hasn't even read any of their reports on the NSA and such. They're totally uninterested in reigning in deep state whether it's not giving a shit, making money off it, blackmail via surveillance system, or death threats.
But, do you think
"Mr. Trump, apparently seeking to cut the intelligence community, State Department, and other agencies out of the policy-making process almost entirely, may have triggered a conflict whose escalation we are seeing in the rising number of leaks."
is a good way to oppose that?
So far, he's just ignoring them or unaware the power players even exist. That lets them continue their schemes. His voters and campaign also preferred having a surveillance/police state so long as it's aimed at other voters with different color and religion. What little I've followed has just been mud slinging and toothless politics. Deep state is watching him closely but not affected yet.
1. Secret people with secret surveillance of whole country.
2. Secret groups watching, kidnapping, renditioning, and/or assassinating their enemies (presumably terrorists).
3. Secret court with secret interpretations of law regulating those secret people.
4. Secret programs (SAP's/USAP's) doing billions of tax dollars work of secret stuff decided in secret by a handful of people.
5. Effective criminal immunity for all these people if whatever they did was ordered by those secret programs, groups, and/or people.
There's no secret government, though. No no no. We have a representative democracy here. Laws are passed. Executive fairly enforces them. Courts test them. There ain't no deep state. Just some people that can't talk about what they do that's all legal or at least justifiable only hurting the right people. Maybe I'm slow or just don't consume the right kind of mushrooms. I just keep thinking... given the above... there's de facto two or more governments running in parallel each doing their own thing with some interactions (eg parallel construction) that should also concern us. That one is full of professional con artists and killers with secrecy and criminal immunity should be scary enough in a democracy but few worry about that either.
The reason they are not losing jobs is for the most part in many countries they are immune to job loss unless they get arrested and convicted.
All this is quite recent, and in each case there have been explanations about how discoveries about the person were made coincidentally as part of other investigations, etc.
Establishing a false causal trail is one of the most basic strategies of using deep surveillance.
The recent leaks about Flynn and the Trump dossier seemed more nakedly political than the others, but leaks like this have always occurred, it's just unusual for them to be aimed at the current president and his cabinet.
The funny thing is that if you wanted to sabotage the US system of global mass surveillance, this is probably how you'd do it. Every story about monitored email accounts or phone calls illustrates how deep it goes, and the intrigue created by the allegations about Russia make the stories incredibly viral.
After all, it was the Cold War and the threat of Russia that started this whole surveillance stuff in the first place.
Frankly, if they mutually self-destruct, I'll be happy. I want neither an authoritarian political leadership nor an authoritarian surveillance state hidden in the civil service.
Who is targeting the attack, and why it's finely targeted? It seems naive to postulate a single wannabe dictator when you can't know the details.
On that kind of fight there's always the risk that a shadier player wins.
That's not a difference. It started out that way in Turkey as well when Erdogan came to power. He eventually crushed the deep state in a series of maneuvers that purged the "dissidents" inside the intelligence agencies, the judiciary and the military.
The exact same thing will happen in America as well unless the practices of the current administration are nipped in the bud quickly.
What evidence are you referring to. As far as I know none has been made public. There have been a lot of accusations and a few rumors but (gasp) zero evidence of hacking or any other troubling links w/ Russia.
This is what George W. Bush said about Iraqi WMDs. The narrative was that there was a lot of evidence provided by intelligence agencies supporting the idea that Saddam had WMDs, but it was top secret and could not be shared with the public.
The truth was that in spite of claims of evidence, there was ZERO evidence of WMDs, and all of the claims turned out to be lies or significant embellishments.
Most fundamentally, they were major failures of SIGINT and showed us how clueless and crude our so-called intelligence operations were.
This wouldn't really matter, except that it cost us Trillions of dollars and close to a million people have died as a result. It's an atrocity on par with some of the greatest human atrocities in history, and it was possible largely because people adopted the view that you articulate in the parent post... that "they have evidence, but they are wisely keeping it secret".
If there were any actual evidence we certainly would have heard about it, either via a leak or via the publication of some kind of smoking gun.
And you are in a privileged position to discern these? As citizens, our role is not to trust our leaders, it is to be harshly skeptical of them and demand that they present evidence for endeavors that are costly (in terms of lives or dollars).
I dispute your claim that I make equivalences, and I would say that in this case there is far more likely to actually be evidence of wrongdoing (if any occurred). In the case of Saddam, we had very little HUMINT or SIGINT presence in Iraq with which to scrutinize Bush's claims, so intel analysts arguably erred on the side of caution.
In this case, we have unprecedented intel leaks (and surveillance capabilities), yet mysteriously no actual evidence, which, if it exists, would seemingly implicate Trump and members of his team in very clear treason.
What patriot would withhold these critical details? Our mental model of the leaker's motivations cannot both maintain that there is smoking gun evidence of significant wrongdoing AND that the leaker was concerned, but content to just stoke a rumor rather than reveal the biggest treason in the history of the modern world.
At this point, the story has so many tentacles that providing evidence about even one thing would do wonders to root it in reality. Yet we're seeing the opposite. More vague, evidence-free, sensational leaks, more promotion of rumor to truth by propagandists, etc.
Yes, as privileged as everyone else. We can and must make judgments - open-mindedness is important, but to withhold judgment indefinitely is foolishness and reckless endangerment of our responsibilities. That includes judging against absurd and evil ideas and not allowing them unlimited leeway to delay or distract us (again, that would be aiding in their propaganda strategy) from acting against them. And while my judgment isn't perfect, I'm pretty confident in this one.
In light of your comment I'm curious how you assess the campaign that we've been discussing in this thread. I posed the question in a different sub-thread but I'd be very interested to read your response to it as well:
And then the whole story with Flynn talking to the Russian ambassador about sanctions. Which, it can be reasonably assumed, is why Russia did the whole hacking thing in the first place.
What makes it special in the American case is the way in which Hillary Clinton lost the election. She lost big enough to unambiguously have lost (unlike Gore in Bush v. Gore), but did not lose with a large enough margin to produce an easily identifiable single reason for losing. Thus, every single explanation for the loss seems somewhat valid.
So, like anybody who is faced with choosing between "this my own fault" and "someone else screwed me", Democrats are choosing option B. What makes it hilariously ironic is that being angry the election was "stolen by Russia" is exactly what Russia wants. So if they care about not playing into Russia's hands, they would have to stop complaining about "Russia hacking the election." But they can't do that because they're not ready or able to say "we lost this election because what we're offering isn't sufficiently appealing to more than half the country for reasons X,Y,Z" (whatever those are).
I think it is terrible that the Democratic party isn't facing up to the problems in their own party that led to that outcome. They have list the House, the Senate and the Presidency. Something is wrong and it isn't just Russian hacking.
They aren't? I read plenty about it.
It is ridiculous to suggest that people should stop demanding that the Russia connection be investigated because it would be playing into Russia's hand. If anything, not investigating will keep the questions swirling, undermining the legitimacy of Trump's presidency.
That was also one possible outcome of Trump winning, and appears to be in the process of becoming a reality.
I'm sure that Putin in particular may have favored Trump over Clinton because he is alleged to have a personal vendetta against Clinton, but I don't think it matters that much in Russia's decision to mess around in our politics.
Hillary was also only "tough on Russia" in contrast to a self-contradictory isolationist like Trump (who may flip his stance if he's persuaded by the people he has chosen to surround himself with besides Flynn). It's not like she was going to challenge Russian geopolitical shinanigans more aggressively than the previous administration.
> It is ridiculous to suggest that people should stop demanding that the Russia connection be investigated
There's a difference between wanting questions about Trump's connection to Russia investigated and using said questions and possible answers to them which are only tenuously supported by evidence as the centerpiece of a "Resistance" strategy. The first option is perfectly fine. The second option is playing straight into Russia's hands, and has the additional negative effect of desensitizing people to actual misdeeds of the Trump administration when they're finally revealed.
The only ones undermining the legitimacy of his presidency are the people claiming Russian interference without evidence. One problem at this point is that people on either side will question the result of any investigation, which would further erode confidence in the government. It's a no win situation, so we need to just stop beating the dead horse.
Prominent Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee in have viewed the evidence and agree with the findings of this report, asserting that the Russian government ordered the campaign to interfere with the election.
President Trump can be legitimate and the Russian government interfered with the election. The "if you're not with me, you're against me" attitude is blinding and counterproductive. The right thing to do is to proceed with investigation and also proceed with the business of government, which is what is happening now. (If you say that Democrats are hypocritically obstructionist in Congress in 2017 I will agree, but it is orthogonal to Russia or any investigation of it).
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...
I mean, I'm being a little sarcastic, he claims that 100% of the fraud was against him, but there are more things making this administration look ridiculous than people concern trolling about Russia.
If the administration loses the ability to govern effectively, it has lost legitimacy regardless of the legitimacy of the elections.
At this point, people on either side will question facts, which will further erode confidence in fact checking. It's a no-win situation, so we need to just stop beating the dead horse [and accept "alt-facts"].
... or not.
I think that explanation is overly simplistic but also more accurate than the simple "Putin wanted Trump" argument.
I think Russia wanted the US leadership to be weak itself and to create cracks within the broad western alliance, and to have the US, where possible, go beyond merely being an ineffective opponent to being an active supporter of Russian interests. To that end, all of the following had value:
1. Casting doubt and uncertainty on the election, no matter who won,
2. Getting Trump elected, given positions Trump had already taken in line with some Russian interests (whether or not Russia actually has particular influence with Trump, though there is certainly reason to believe that.)
3. Casting further doubt on whoever is elected after the election,
4. Creating internal strife after the election (see, e.g., the Russian connections with the "Calexit" movement.)
Note that many prominent Republicans also agree that Russian interference in the U.S. campaign is unacceptable while asserting that the election results stand.
Several others have made the claim that "Russia hacked the election" which I think is meant to imply that Russia stole the election for Trump without actually saying it. At the very least it's extremely misleading.
What is this evidence? I have yet to hear about it.
They have evidence! They have the best evidence! A lot of smart people say so!
Seriously though, the "security community" seems to have solved the attribution problem by simply applying PR tactics to point to someone they suspect but have no proof against. It works because most people are not familiar with the problem domain.
Considering the Media started with 15 intel agencies all saying this was the case and ended only being 3 agencies in the final report with 1 in particular (The NSA) only claiming "moderate confidence" (60%).
The NSA would seem like they would be the best placed to know who did it, yet they gave it just above a coin toss in probability? I believe the intel agencies were more confident about WMD's in Iraq than this "ample evidence".
Please read the actual report rather than the distilled version you got from your choice of media.
We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an
influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US
presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine
public faith in the US democratic process,
denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability
and potential presidency. We further assess
Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear
reference for President-elect Trump. We have high
confidence in these judgments.
- We also assess Putin and the Russian Government
aspired to help President-elect Trump’s
election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary
Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.
All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI
have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate
confidence.
That document was intended to be persuasive, not comprehensive. It blurred together a lot of different things, attributed them all to the same plot by Putin, and used paragraph after paragraph of filler material to "support" the various claims.
Of all the claims making up the "argument" in the document, none of the ones that could possibly be verified by data were verified by data. We were told such data exists, but not shown any evidence of it.
I was deeply embarrassed that our government would release such an amateurish document, and even more embarrassed that the document would be cited as evidence by people who should know better.
This report isn't meant to provide evidence. It's a summary of a report submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee (chaired by a Republican) that has been scrubbed of secret information, release of which would cut off or kill sources. The fact you think it's amateurish reflects your unfamiliarity with what these documents mean (Which is just fine! We can't all be experts on these things).
If you do not trust the Senate Intelligence Committee or the Intelligence Community chiefs, that is just fine also. This document is a report: nothing more, nothing less. Critical thinking and questioning authority is good.
The report contained a lot of information in it that suggested it was thrown together by a person unfamiliar with ITSec who was copying and pasting filler material until the report was long enough (had enough pages) to seem substantial, much like the folders full of blank sheets of paper Trump used as a prop for one of his speeches.
> reflects your unfamiliarity with what these documents mean
That's exactly the point. They mean nothing because they assert nothing factual, simply an opinion whose reasoning is left up to the imagination of the reader under the pretense of secrecy.
> Senate Intelligence Committee (chaired by a Republican)
Fearmongering about Russia has crossed party lines, and is concentrated in some of the more powerful members of congress who are on that committee...
Watch a few minutes of Marco Rubio's questioning of Tillerson about Russia, it's as if he's asking a religious litmus test question, not asking about a rational thought process. I found it deeply embarrassing to watch.
> If you do not trust the Senate Intelligence Committee or the Intelligence Community chiefs
Trust should not be part of the equation when we are talking about going to war. It should be abundantly obvious that war is necessary, and we should not have to take anyone's word for anything.
If the report had been upfront about its lack of evidence-based analysis, then it would have been less than a page long. The fact is, intelligence agencies do not worry about all of their analysis being evidence-based, they use heuristics and other models of understanding behavior to formulate their assessment. I'm not arguing that this method is not appropriate to that specific domain.
However, the report was presented as containing the actual evidence that convinced members of the committee that there was Russian involvement.
Most of us are old enough to remember how not long ago an administration presented flawed evidence about Iraq and how that cost the US trillions of dollars and left nearly a million people dead. It was one of the biggest human atrocities in the modern world, and it happened because too many of us trusted the heuristic and hand-waving approach that intelligence agencies use.
That approach is fine when there is a need to make a last-minute decision and no better methods exist, but they should not be used for promoting/propagandizing wars that have not yet started.
If it were not for the rabid partisanship (not just democrat/republican, there are a lot of vehement anti-Russia partisans in both parties) the report would have been laughed at by the press and no president or intelligence committee would dare release such garbage. Unfortunately, like during the buildup to the Iraq war, such discretion and scrutiny is missing from the equation.
The USIC[2] is The United States Intelligence Community (IC)[1] is a federation of 16 separate United States government agencies that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities considered necessary for the conduct of foreign relations and national security of the United States...The IC is headed by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who reports to the President of the United States.
The full report is [3]. That is also from the DNI (see above), which represents those 16 agencies.
The key judgements from that are:
We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.
and
We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.
So it is 16, not 15. But the media reports I saw said 16 anyway. It's true that the NSA had moderate confidence in one of the judgements, but all agencies had high confidence in the "Russia interfered" judgement.
It is also inaccurate to say "moderate" means 60%. That would correspond to a likelihood of a forecast of "Probable", but confidence is a different scale.
Moderate Confidence actually means: "credibly sourced and plausible information, but not of sufficient quality or corroboration to warrant a higher level of confidence."
[1] https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-departme...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com...
[3] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3254241-ICA-2017-01....
It was thus simply created to serve a political/PR purpose. The sloppiness of its construction, its reliance upon boilerplate content lifted from other places, and its confident conclusion unsupported by data are all big differences from the professional style that is typically used in intelligence document
How would you characterize them?
Most of the people who believe that Russia was involved in the hacking or election meddling seem happy to believe it without evidence.
As McCain spouted, cyber attack could reasonably be viewed as an act of war. This is generally the view of the most passionate anti-Russia fearmongers involved in this debate.
I'm simply demanding actual evidence, the way I should have when I stupidly believed George W. Bush and Colin Powell that there was a direct trail leading to Iraq having WMDs.
Consider that during the buildup to the Iraq war, the UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, was tarred and feathered by those who wanted to go to war in Iraq. This was a career bureaucrat who saw that the inspection regime was being twisted to make the case for a war that he felt was unwarranted based on the years he'd spent on the ground in Iraq, actually inspecting Iraq's facilities.
Not only was he harassed and mocked, his career was ruined because he dared state what turned out to be very obvious once Saddam was unseated -- that Iraq had absolutely no WMD capability.
We are seeing the same thing with Russia. Simply by expressing skepticism people are being called names like "useful idiot" and all sorts of other politically motivated slurs.
War is just politics that turns violent. What we're seeing in the US is a pretty significant propaganda campaign to foment hatred toward Russia. It's quite obvious that if there were any evidence AT ALL this would be a big deal, but after months of repetition and hand waving by those wishing to foment hatred, after leaks by the intel community, etc., there is still zero evidence.
This doesn't mean that those who claim all that stuff are wrong, it just means that they are making a faith-based decision, which is a kind of decision that I do not think the American people should make when wars and lives are on the line.
The comment I linked before presents what I believe to be the strategic background between US and Russia that is relevant to this conflict.
It's possible to believe that US policy on Russia (Esp regarding NATO expansion) is unnecessarily aggressive, that US Intel agencies aren't especially competent, that the CIA was completely wrong on Iraq and yet still believe in Russian interference in the US election.
The thing that convinced me was seeing the campaign on social media. Its pretty easy to find clear pro-Russian bot nets on Twitter that used to be super interested in Turkey and then suddenly became pro-Trump.
The same thing is happening for the French and German elections. Have a look yourself.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/06/how-russia-... takes a much deeper look. Sadly(?) most of the accounts I found when I followed that story have gone, but you can still find some. Here's a search to start with: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Incirlik%20since%3A2016-07-2...
- Why must all of the actions attributed to Russia be part of a larger "campaign"
- Which of the actions could have also been conducted by smaller than nation-state entities? For each, what would you estimate the budget of the operation to be?
- For each of the actions, how easy would it be for some actor to do it and intentionally leave a trail that points to Russia? What level of sophistication would be needed to do this? What auditing mechanisms exist that US intelligence might have already used to rule out any such activity?
Based on the above, how much confidence do you have about each of the actions in the campaign being attributable to a Putin-initiated directive vs other possible explanations?
Also, what strategic considerations do you think Putin made before ordering the action concerning the possibility of being caught (as you'd seemingly argue he has been)? What tit-for-tat response would HRC have done if she'd won the US election, and what tit-for-tat response do you see Trump likely to do?
In addition, supposing the campaign was ordered by Putin, what does it reveal about Russia's ability to meddle in US civil society in a consequential way? He's seemingly been very successful in nearly doing away with years of work to marginalize Russia and punish it for its aggressive behavior, which must be an outcome he is quite pleased by.
Since it is unlikely he thought this outcome would occur, why was it worth doing the campaign in the first place, when it clearly incited HRC and McCain (the expected thought leaders on Russia before election day) to react so strongly?
It would be one thing if the expected outcome were Trump winning, but I think it's very, very hard to argue that Putin could have expected this and would have planned a risky strategy with it in mind. On the contrary he must have expected the opposite outcome when he initiated the campaign, and was likely expecting to be dealing with no Trump victory, merely a heated backlash and sanctions from a US regime he wantonly provoked.
If you manage to notice this comment I'm curious about your thoughts.
It's like a person at a meeting, where people are trying to accomplish something substantive, who just raises endless speculative objections.
I'm not entirely sure what this means. My intention was to better understand your mental model, which appears a bit sloppy, or at least more concerned with its conclusion than with its integrity as a rational process.
I guess what I'd say (constructively) is that if it is too much work to articulate your argument as a tree of probabilistic scenarios to each player and strategic moves which themselves have probabilistic outcomes, then I think that might be a clue that your might not actually believe your own argument.
One example I'd offer about how I think we can understand ourselves better by using probabilistic reasoning is this:
We routinely make important decisions based on imperfect understanding of our own motives or preferences. This is why the technique of flipping a coin to make difficult A vs B decisions is so powerful. The decision was difficult precisely because we expect to be equally happy with either outcome. Thus letting the coin toss result make the decision preserves our utility maximization (to the best of our knowledge). At times, if it lands on heads, we may feel regret, which can indicate that we actually preferred the other outcome. The practice is very illustrative of how opaque our own uncertainty can be to us.
So we should assume when considering the decision-making of those who we can't ask directly for details, that there was nearly always a fair bit of uncertainty behind every decision. The more external evidence there is that the person is deeply rational (as world leaders nearly always are) the more confident we can be that the decision was not guided by a deluded sense of outcome probability.
Thus, for actions that involve many steps taking place blind (without an eye on the outcome) we must assume either that the actor is indifferent to the outcome, or that there is some benefit to outcomes other than the most desired one, and that the potential costs are well understood.
We don't need to know everything about the actor's decisions or expected probabilities to reason about his actions, since we can learn a great deal by outlining the things we feel confident about and determining whether the other pieces of our theory seem to fit. This was the intention behind the questions I posed, to help us both scrutinize your view more thoroughly, since if you are right I'd very much like to agree with you.
Sorry, that just didn't happen.
Blix accused Iraq of stalling the inspections, which was decided as a sign of noncompliance by some US officials.
Blix's career wasn't ruined and he wasn't "harrased or mocked".
Get your facts straight. Please.
http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2003/03/31/weapons-hans-bl...
IMHO: Either an active proponent of or otherwise credulous about Russia's and Trump's propaganda. It takes very little skepticism to see through them.
Nowhere in the criticism of the idea that the US might improve relations with Russia is there any assertion of what US national interest actually is, merely a smear campaign against Putin (much like the one against Saddam, etc.)
To me that is what defines propaganda -- ad hominem smears, moralizing, indignation that someone would have a view different than your own. These are actually a characteristic of some of the arguments you've put forth.
When you are a retired high level military/government person, consulting opportunities such as those abound. The same is true of those who chose to consult for the Ukrainian side, the Georgian side, etc.
It seems like a pretty big leap to say that just because someone did some consulting work for a government that they are somehow ethically compromised. Many US firms do business with Russia, the Saudi government, etc. etc. Where do we draw the line and deem these people somehow unfit to serve in government?
There has not been a principled approach to this, seemingly only finger pointing and other name calling that is reminiscent of the cold war era.
If there were any actual evidence of wrongdoing, it would be a completely different story. Surely with the mass surveillance system many phone calls, emails and other associations/links have been monitored, yet we are not seeing leaks of any troubling details, only vague finger pointing.
It would be a very serious thing if there were some sort of plot, but so far there does not seem to be one.
Worked for Trump to get elected, turnabout is fair play?
The connections alone don't mean a whole lot and the rest you have is just words. If trump was truly in the can for Russia, why wouldn't he just say bad things about putin to score more political points and distract people from his true motives?
Are we to believe that Putin would not allow trump to trash him in order to further his tangible goals?
From what I've heard, Putin is now thinking twice on whether he even wants to be associated with the Trump administration. He may have believed that men like Manafort or Bannon would keep Trump under control, only to find that his new "allies" in the White House are a chaotic mess.
Also, we would be led to believe that putin spent all this time and effort getting his boy in and now is just going to give up on him within a month?
I would ask for a source on that but considering it's nigh impossible for the west to get reliable intel (That dossier was quite something) out of Russia I'm not sure how much it would matter.
It would be surprising to me if Russia went along with US action against their ally Iran, but other combinations are certainly possible. Hell, that is too - who knows!
Here's a quote:
Trump and Putin spoke for one hour and vowed to join forces to fight terrorism in Syria and elsewhere, according to the White House and the Kremlin, signaling a potential shift in U.S.-Russian relations that have been marked by high tension.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-holds-calls-wi...
Trump said a lot of that stuff during the campaign because he likely hadn't realized the extent of the proxy wars between the US and Russia since the wall came down.
One of the main reasons the US invaded Iraq was to do so before Russia took control of the region, due to its importance to the oil supply. Russia had good relations with Saddam's regime and with Iran. When Saddam was overthrown, many of the oil industry spoils that had been going to Russian firms were redistributed to US (or coalition) firms.
Russia is currently helping to stoke discord in Syria and aligning with Iran mainly to force an over-stretched US to react. For pennies on the dollar Putin can keep the US in a middle-east quagmire, so why not do this indefinitely?
Trump may not have realized the strategic purpose that US escalation in Syria was intended to achieve, he may have believed the PR that we were involved for humanitarian reasons, etc. But he seems to have concluded that it was a money pit waiting to happen with little humanitarian upside (which is a correct conclusion, and the conclusion Russia had hoped the US would draw). HRC was determined to signal the opposite so that Russia might stop spending its pennies there.
For those who don't realize this, the decades-long Iran/Iraq war was a proxy war fought between the US and the Soviet Union with both sides having the goal of creating a dominant footprint in the middle east to keep the other side at bay and guarantee the relative stability of oil extraction. This same goal also causes the US to act to prevent any sort of large scale democratic movements in the middle-east; Al Qaida began as that exact sort of pan-Arab movement.
So if Trump is proposing a negotiated deal with Putin involving Syria and Iran, that means he's willing to consider dividing the spoils in a way that may harm US coalition allies (France, Germany, etc.) who also have firms that are heavily invested in post-Saddam Iraq and some of which would likely be displaced by a new US/Russia agreement.
Similarly, allies of the US in Europe that fear an emboldened Russia also stand to lose if Russia gains better access to cheap petroleum. Russia, on the other hand, is poised to take a big leap forward in economic output and also reputation laundering. A successful negotiation with Trump could wipe away the penalties/sanctions that Russia has faced due to Putin's brutal approach to certain domestic issues.
So Russia's goal has been a larger presence in the middle east, a laundered reputation, and possibly more (everyone fears it will attempt to re-annex more former Soviet territory).
The thing that I think HRC and Obama misunderstood is that Russia is very likely to get this whether the US wishes it to happen or not. The US (and allies) are not in a position to undertake preemptive strikes, and so all they can do is vilify Putin and create a massive PR campaign and pressure allies into sanctions, etc. Meanwhile, the US can use clandestine operations to help goad Putin into various crackdowns or overreaches that will force him to act more like a dictator and increase the chances he will be unseated due to domestic dissent.
Why didn't Obama intervene in the Caucuses or the Ukraine? Because the US does not have the will to enter into conflicts like those, and certainly does not have the will to risk nuclear conflict.
Posturing by McCain about both annexations was nothing more than a bluff, as was HRC's sudden tough talk toward the end of the campaign. The hope was that somehow Putin would fall for this bluff and that rabid anti-Russian public opinion in the US would scare Putin into thinking the US might react with force.
Seriously, this isn't going to happen no matter who is president. The question is how long it takes and how many lives are lost in proxy wars before Russia occupies a position of greater dominance in Europe. The Soviet Union was too big and plagued by infrastructure problems, but Russia itself is well placed geopolitically and has historically been a seat of wealth, culture, and regional ambitions.
What is in the best interest of the US with respect to the negotiations (hard or soft) that take place with Russia over the next decade? I'm not sure. But Obama (and Trump also) saw that there was a certain inevitability to it and that it was not worth spilling too much blood over. In spite of this, Obama carried on proxy wars in Iraq and Syria which killed hundreds of thousands of people and caused untold suffering.
Trump has claimed that he may not wish to continue the proxy wars. We should all be relieved. Rather than debating rumors about Russian meddling, etc., we should figure out what is actually in US best interest over the medium to long term and negotiate accordingly. Bluffing isn't going to work. Both Russia and the US are willing to let lots of people die in proxy wars, but neither is willing to engage in direct conflict, so we will either inflict another decade of tragedy upon the victims of our proxy wars, or we will find a less violent equilibrium.
But I don't think you should view all Middle East policy as a proxy US/Russia conflict. There is a lot more going on there, and many more independent actors.
Quite true. I was only trying to make the point that the US/Russia conflict has had a significant impact on the middle east and strongly shaped US enthusiasm for invading Iraq when it had the chance. But there were certainly other reasons, though I don't think any of them were humanitarian.
> decades-long Iran/Iraq war was a proxy war fought between the US and the Soviet Union with both sides having the goal of creating a dominant footprint in the middle east
No. Last Soviet attempt to gain a foothold in Middle East was a failed relationship with Egypt. Hint: War of Attrition followed by Yom Kippur War.
There was no major influx of military advisers or green men during Iran-Iraq war.
> The Soviet Union was too big and plagued by infrastructure problems, but Russia itself is well placed geopolitically and has historically been a seat of wealth, culture, and regional ambitions.
I have a bad news for you - Russia is about the same size as USSR and it's still plagued with infrastructure problems. And as for the culture - everybody can see the decline in post-Soviet cultural scene, especially in Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_and_the_Iran%E2%8...
From my understanding of Russian strategy, they generally don't invest too deeply in any given potential regime. They invest lightly all across the political extremes in Western countries, and then see what crops up. If they like it, they invest more heavily.
For example, say Putin would like the US to get into bed with Syria and Russia to make it more difficult for the US to speak out or otherwise act against later Russian aggression towards neighbors.
Of course that is nothing more than a nice made up story, but why shouldn't the American people support finding out what is going on?
Oops, that was Hillary...
Like, concretely, what's your hypothesis? I don't actually see you trying to say anything, but rather just sort of cast doubt and aspersions without thinking through what it means.
Tillerson was the CEO of ExxonMobil. Of course the guy in charge of one of the world's largest oil and gas companies is going to interact amicably with the guy in charge of one of the world's largest oil and gas producing countries. And of course, given his experience and perspective, sanctions cause a lot of problems in business. What exactly are you trying to say about him here? That he's a Russian spy?
Flynn is a retired 3 star general. He recently resigned for lying to Pence, sure, but no one is really making the argument that he did anything fundamentally wrong. He broke protocol by letting another country know that these new sanctions may be reversed in a matter of weeks by the upcoming administration that he's a part of. I've yet to see a lawyer make an argument that that's really against the spirit of the Logan Act, but I'd love to hear that perspective if you've seen one. But again, what are you trying to say about him here? That a 3 star general is a Russian spy?
> Combined with a very narrow focus on removing sanctions (without any talk about the violations of sovereignty of Crimea/Ukraine)
Sure, I understand your political viewpoint here, but it's just that. People are free to differ on what they think of Russia's annexation of Crimea, and the U.S. response to it.
> plenty of troubling links
Again, troubling HOW? Give me a hypothesis here. I honestly don't understand a coherent world view beneath your fear. Yes, the incoming administration is more pro-Russia than Clinton would have been. And yes, the annexation of Crimea is not automatically a deal breaker to working with them. But so what? Are you actually implying that this is all a coup and that Russia is pulling the strings of the U.S. government right now? That they've compromised a boorish, stupid billionaire, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, generals in the military, and so forth?
Those who (reasonably!) question the lack of actual evidence presented by the US intelligence community over the US hacks would do well to read the 2014 FireEye paper on APT28 (the group involved). It's pretty compelling, even if it doesn't address the specific allegations around the election(s). The TL;DR is that there is significant circumstantial evidence that this group is government backed, and also evidence against it being a false flag operation. Note that the date of the report should provide some protection against allegations it is politically motivated.
See https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2014/10/apt28-a...
I think CrowdStrike was the first firm to attribute it to them[1]. Note that APT28 is also known as "Fancy Bear", so you may see some reports attributing it with that name.
Nothing forcing you to believe it of course, but in the world of cyber attribution this is pretty decent evidence.
[1] https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...
But a proper forensic investigation will almost always find out how an intruder got in. That doesn't make the intruder any less competent.
There isn't much unusual about this - a similar thing happened with the Shadow Brokers/Equation Group (NSA) hack for example[1] (although in that case some of the control tools were taken instead of just the payload). It would be exceptionally unusual for nothing to be found.
[1] https://securelist.com/blog/incidents/75812/the-equation-giv...
If you have "showdead" set to "yes", this is your lucky day:
https://medium.com/@jeffreycarr
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/01/heres-the-problem-with-t...
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/06/underwhelming-intel-repo...
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/10/anonymous-leaks-to-the-w...
http://www.commondreams.org/author/veteran-intelligence-prof...
Basically, how do we know APT28 is one group? It seems like it's defined by the use of certain malware, but is it possible that the malware is "out there" and several different groups are all using it, with different motives? For example, in the PDF your link points to:
> APT28 has targeted a variety of organizations that fall outside of the three themes we highlighted above. However, we are not profiling all of APT28’s targets with the same detail because they are not particularly indicative of a specific sponsor’s interests. They do indicate parallel areas of interest to many governments and do not run counter to Russian state interests. Other probable APT28 targets that we have identified:
> • Norwegian Army (Forsvaret) • Government of Mexico • Chilean Military • Pakistani Navy • U.S. Defense Contractors • European Embassy in Iraq • Special Operations Forces Exhibition (SOFEX) in Jordan • Defense Attaches in East Asia • Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) • Al-Wayi News Site
I started thinking about this because all the evidence pointing to APT28 being involved in the DNC hacks is because the DNC hacks showed evidence of using the malware attributed to APT28. But if APT28 is defined by the use of the malware, it's sort of true by definition. But that doesn't mean there's a single, coherent group behind it, necessarily.
A Back-Channel Plan for Ukraine and Russia, Courtesy of Trump Associates
A week before Michael T. Flynn resigned as national security adviser, a sealed proposal was hand-delivered to his office, outlining a way for President Trump to lift sanctions against Russia.
Mr. Flynn is gone, having been caught lying about his own discussion of sanctions with the Russian ambassador. But the proposal, a peace plan for Ukraine and Russia, remains, along with those pushing it: Michael D. Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer, who delivered the document; Felix H. Sater, a business associate who helped Mr. Trump scout deals in Russia; and a Ukrainian lawmaker trying to rise in a political opposition movement shaped in part by Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort.
At a time when Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia, and the people connected to him, are under heightened scrutiny — with investigations by American intelligence agencies, the F.B.I. and Congress — some of his associates remain willing and eager to wade into Russia-related efforts behind the scenes.
Mr. Trump has confounded Democrats and Republicans alike with his repeated praise for the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, and his desire to forge an American-Russian alliance. While there is nothing illegal about such unofficial efforts, a proposal that seems to tip toward Russian interests may set off alarms. ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/us/politics/donald-trump-...
My understanding of the US/Russia dynamic is described here:
> It may or may not make sense.
The same could be said about jumping off a tall building.
I attempted to frame Flynn's perspective as one of the available strategies toward Russia. I am not making a moral judgment about any of the strategies, though I do point out in the linked comment that here is a significant humanitarian cost to proxy wars.
That's part of my point; it's similar to saying 'I make no moral judgment about the strategy of jumping off a tall building.' It implies it would be reasonable to consider the option.
a) Flynn acts completely in his own, corrupt interest
b) Considering a strategy of engaging with Russia, reducing sanctions, etc., is unreasonable.
c) a and b
Or it might strengthen deep state too much, making them true unelectable power.
Or it might be used as excuse to purge and reorganize deep state, as Trump sees fit.
And in general I think it is unlikely, although prior to this election many people, especially young people, asserted that "voting was worthless since they had already decided who was going to win." That would be in keeping with a "Deep State" sort of situation.
War.
What's the probability that after a few years the 0.1% will be in the 0.1% again? I suspect it's pretty high.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-earners-pay-84-of-inc...
Since a full transcript/recording obviously exists, the leaker seemingly felt that his/her political aims would not be strengthened if he/she released the actual source material.
– The leaker had listened to discussions, but did not see/have the actual transcripts
– Leaking documents carries much stiffer penalties
– Leaking documents feels worse than talking about them in general terms
– Copies are strictly limited and can only be seen in a guarded document room
- Documents may contain hidden markers to identify leakers
...
If they had the evidence that trump was "being blackmailed by putin" or actively working with Russia to undermine the DNC, how would his presidency survive impeachment?
Snowden did what he did knowing he wasn't going to topple Obama, if you had such explosive information that would protect the republic it just seems a bit much that they would only just relay bits and pieces of information via verbal communication.
I support the leaks. I think that leaking is often a principled action and that far from being a sign of compromised institutions, it arguably is an institution -- the ultimate institution is individual judgment of conscience about things that are in the public interest, including relevant knowledge about the actions of those in office.
But I think detail and documentation serves the conversation better.
Mitigating factor -- sometimes detail gives away the source. It's not a perfect world.
20 years of predictable status-quo presidency will set up some deep ties, which should be obviously unhealthy for a nation that believes they elected a leader and not a rent-a-puppy. Having agencies which are actively sabotaging the majority elected party is obviously antidemocratic. The agencies ultimately carry out the work of the government, so if elected representatives don't hold authority over the agencies, you get an autocracy.
I think that's a good thing: they can lead and influence the course of the nation on behalf of the people, but can't whip it around and effectively wield it outside of those agencies' mandates -- which are themselves controlled by elected representatives (the Congress).
What Trump is discovering is that his job is to manage agencies who are created by the Congress and ultimately must live up to the mandate imposed by the Congress, and their oaths to defend the Constitution against domestic enemies, such as would-be dictators (eg Trump).
The oath that officers take mandates that they oppose Trump, and his undermining of the separate branches of government (and separation of powers), role of media, etc.
The system is working, and we should appreciate the dedication of the people making it work -- by checking the president's autonomous power.
Maybe Trump's supporters wanted a dictator, but they shouldn't be surprised that people who love America and spend their lives serving it won't simply roll over and let that happen.
Treason is the alternative?
It is treason to, as president, violate your oath of office to follow and protect the Constitution.
He seems to have colluded with a foreign state to undermine the integrity of our elections and political process. He likely made financial arrangements as part of that process.
He has attacked the independence and authority of the judicial branch, which enforces constitutional restraint on our president.
He has attacked the media, which (while not a government agency) forms a basis for democratic society.
Together, these are a systemic assault on the American system, which while not ideal, is not better served by a despot.
It should be clear something is amiss when renowned senators like John McCain are pointing out Trump is acting the way despots do.
But by the same strict reading of the Constitution, it is also not treason for intelligence officers to leak information to the press. Treason is narrowly defined within the Constitution as "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
If seeking to discredit the media or control its access to information is just all in the game, then seeking to deliver that information to media is also just all in the game.
I think much of the article's point was that there are established norms & institutions by which the President usually interacts with the rest of the government. If the President ignores them, then it's highly likely that other power centers will also say "Well, if they're going to come after me with all the resources available to them, I'm going to go after them with all the resources available to me." And the end result of that is often multiple competing power centers in open warfare with each other, much like what happened in Syria. That would be bad for everyone in America (and a good many people outside of it), and so we should be wary of all parties that seek to ignore the norms of peaceful democratic society.
I'd kind of like to keep the legal meaning of "unconstitutional"(an action that would be ruled against by the Supreme Court), because the alternative is for me to say things like, "It's okay for the President to do an unconstitutional act", which the fuzzier meaning allows.
That reason is pretty simple: populist dictators need to be stopped early, if we're to minimize the harm. (That is, if we're going to resolve the issue politically, rather than through other means.)
Many dictators (and early in history, emporers) who take over from democratic societies do so "legally". They enact measures to remove the various aspects of government they dislike or which check their power after destroying the judiciary and seizing control of the media.
Defending the American system against a dictator -- and America becoming a dictatorship could happen -- requires winning the hearts and minds of the public, and getting them to engage with the system to show their support.
Without the public -- who make up the military, civil servants, etc -- judges are people in silly robes, the Congress is a bunch of old people in a building, the president is just some guy, and the Constitution is just a piece of paper.
Trump's actions are those of a nascent dictator, the people arguing with me are rules lawyering rather than talking about the substantive issues, and neither should be surprised that people stand up to their nonsense.
I know which side of history I want to be on -- the side with people like John McCain speaking out how this, what's happening now, isn't okay, and not the side who has to quibble about technicalities rather than the substance of the issue.
See eg. George Lakoff's comments on framing [1]. If you set yourself up as "opposing Trump", you actually reinforce Trump as the leader of America. You need to propose an alternative frame about what America should look like instead, one that is more compelling than "Make America Great Again", and then let people judge for themselves that the facts of Trump's policy do not fit in with a great America.
This thread is a little different than the general case though, because we're specifically talking about the appropriateness of various agencies talking about brewing scandals and/or internally resisting orders.
For that case, it's perfectly appropriate to point out that the person we're discussing is a nascent dictator and likely Russian collaborator, because it explains why I'm more aggressive on the issue than, say, with Bush.
I appreciate the link, will be doing some reading this afternoon. :)
The original argument was whether the deep state was defending the Constitution, which relies on a) whether Trump did anything unconstitutional, and b) whether the deep state is specifically opposed to Trump on those issues, as opposed to pushing their own (war?) agenda under that cover.
The deep state is not protecting the constitution, but seems to be trying to a) weaken Trump by any means possible and b) push for aggression in Ukraine and escalation against Russia. You'll notice that Trump's position on Crimea and Russia shifted just a few days ago, after the whole deep state debacle.
The rest of your comment is covered under game theory. Trump being friendly to the deep state would have been stupid of him, for reasons that are obvious now.
It's not treasonous, but in most cases it is illegal. They are committing crimes and they should be punished for doing so.
Demand an independent investigation first.
> Treason is the alternative?
Correct. It is the rational and moral choice. Just as you must defy the orders of your superior officer if ordered to commit war crimes prohibited by the Geneva Convention, so must you defy the President to preserve the aims of liberty and equality expressed in the US Constitution.
And you're correct that we don't know the motives of those people. Just as OP doesn't know that they aren't noble, you also don't know that they aren't.
* Within the first week of his Presidency, a de facto Chinese government press organ threatened military action against the USA.
* Legal US residents were detained and turned back at US borders, as a result of an executive order of questionable constitutionality.
* Trump has challenged the legitimacy of US courts and judges, and threatened to remove them from power.
* Trump has declared all the country's major news agencies as enemies of the people. Maybe you have trouble understanding just how serious an accusation that is.
* Having been threatened with a 20% import tax and after the scrapping of the TPP, Mexico as one of the US' major trade partners is scrambling to improve its trade relations with China and other countries that are not the US.
* Trump has fired one of his advisors over allegations of treason he called fake. Whatever the truth is, Trump put himself in the wrong in this matter.
That's an astonishing set of mis-achievements for just a month in office.
Bluffers gonna bluff. What're they gonna do, invade Taiwan over a phone call? Maybe start a nuclear war? Trump's complete non-reaction to these goofy empty threats was one of the few unambiguously correct foreign policy moves he's made so far. Call back when you have a real navy.
Legal US residents were detained and turned back at US borders, as a result of an executive order of questionable constitutionality.
Presidents have been trampling on our rights for decades at least. Obama was particularly fond of extrajudicial assassination by drone, and it appears Trump completely agrees, but I haven't seen any protests about that. Happily, this overreach was overruled in a matter of days.
Trump has challenged the legitimacy of US courts and judges, and threatened to remove them from power.
Like FDR did, right? Except he actually did more than, you know, threaten...
Trump has declared all the country's major news agencies as enemies of the people. Maybe you have trouble understanding just how serious an accusation that is.
Is that a direct quote? I do have that trouble, along with anyone else who has observed these "major news agencies" for more than a minute. They only care about eyeballs, and they will say anything to attract those eyeballs. Criticizing them is not an attack on the First Amendment, but rather an exercise of it.
Having been threatened with a 20% import tax and after the scrapping of the TPP, Mexico as one of the US' major trade partners is scrambling to improve its trade relations with China and other countries that are not the US.
Elections have consequences, but those consequences have yet to occur. Threats and scrambles have no short-term effects. In the long term, they might cause some supply chain modifications, but we ain't there yet.
Trump has fired one of his advisors over allegations of treason he called fake. Whatever the truth is, Trump put himself in the wrong in this matter.
Hiring-and-immediately-firing could be a definition of "nothing happening".
So, in the same spirit in which your suggestions were given, I would suggest that you stop playing psychologist on the Internet. You're clearly not good at it.
Treason against tyranny looks like it turns out for the better; but treason against democracy seems pretty sick to me.
One could also remember that many famous tyrants came to power through a fair democratic process. Erdogan is one such example, Putin is another. And, of course, there was that whole thing in Weimar Germany. Which just goes to show that democracy can sometimes be oppressive, and fighting that oppression amounts to "treason against democracy".
It isn't a democracy, it's a republic.
If the rules were different things would be different. But "different" doesn't necessarily mean the Democrats would have the presidency, it might only mean the Republicans would have spent more time campaigning in Texas and New York because picking up more votes in those states would then have actually mattered.
You'll have to take that up with OP - he's the one asserting that it's "treason against democracy".
Also it's only in the impoverished political climate of USA that one would ever worry about a "majority" for ruler. Most nations have more than 1.5 political parties, so they have lots of elections in which no one gets a majority. Sure some of them have runoffs, but with or without those it's possible for a set of electoral rules to handle the less-than-absolute-majority case perfectly well.
why does this bother you, but corporate campaign contributions dont ? I voted for Trump because he doesn't need the money, so he can't be bought and paid for. The fact that corporations can influence elections with money is a much greater problem than the electoral system.
Most rich people don't need the money, their own motivations drive them toward greater riches. I can hardly imagine someone claiming good moral character and ethics of someone with his questionable at best business and personal history.
You honestly believe big money didn't help him get elected? I supposed he just ended up with a cabinet of mega donors and billionaires?
By all accounts, he's already cashing in on his role as a president big time. The payments to his properties from the government in order to arrange for his security as he travels around already number in the millions. And that's one of the most minor financial conflicts of interest that he is involved in.
And where did I say that it bothers me? I merely pointed out that it's not a democracy if the vote of the majority is disregarded.
When people are sworn into office, their oath is to the Constitution, not to the President.
No, the system was absolutely not designed for departments under the president's control to leak information and participate in insubordination. The checks and balances are between the 3 branches of government, not within a single branch.
It's akin to military personnel not liking a decision their general made and leaking the plan to force it to change.
The way the government and civil service are supposed to work is that the country expresses its wishes via elections and the representatives elected set the policy and create laws. The civil service's purposes is to enact those policies and laws. What they don't get to do is set their own policy or create their own laws (yes, they do get to create some regulations but only within the scope outlined by congress.)
Unfortunately, the leaker of the information about Flynn simply started a rumor and did not substantiate it with any concrete data that would allow the public to formulate an opinion based on his actual conversation.
Purely as an example, "The current US President ordered his troops to fire on American citizens" may sound outrageous, but make sense when enarged to "American citizens who have joined the Army, as part of a live-fire excercise in Texas". (I'm not familiar with how live fire excersises work, this may be a bad example, but I think it still illustrates the point even as a straw man — the point is only that withheld information can radically change the ethics of even true statements).
Huge organizations are complicated. If you rank everything they do by how bad it looks, exclude from it everything that reflects poorly on someone other than your target and then release only the worst 99th percentile of what's left, you're basically lying even if you're technically telling the truth. The sample is intentionally biased and unrepresentative.
Because people make decisions relativistically. If you only hear about the flaws of one side, it makes that side appear to be the worse side regardless of whether or not they actually are.
That really hit me recently the whole comment about "The leaks are true but the news is fake" from trump.
I Immediately understood what he meant, that while the information may be true it's not the full picture and it can also be skewed by editorializing.
The fact that some in the media were outright saying "I don't know what he means by that, that makes 0 sense" is incredibly worrying that journalists can't see this.
I thought the comparisons to Erdogan were of a similar vein; I didn't see the article as supporting Erdogan, but rather saying that Erdogan consolidates power -> opposition forces stage a coup -> Erdogan purges opposition -> the real loser is Turkey.
Morals have nothing to do with it. It's about process and efficiency - and how the established de facto protocol of daily governing affects these. This is about what becomes the established conduct. The functioning of large organizations are based on two parts - the official rules, and the actual culture of operarion. The latter dictates how the establishment actually functions.
Sure. But I'm a bit skeptical of the "initial coup", given that analysts at the time were saying things like "this is the most pathetically incompetent coup attempt I've ever seen"; I avoid using the word "countercoup" since it implies the conclusion that there was in fact a real coup attempt to which Erdoğan responded.
The same media who is interpreting the term "fake news" being used against them means trump wants to destroy every single one of them and just have state run media.
I know his twitter is popular but jeez, calm down a bit.
See: https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=Deep%20State
The same thing happened in WaPo and NYT with HRCs e-mail server. At some point the story is out there, your supporters are going to google it. You need to get a source they trust to report on it otherwise they'll end up somewher you don't control. So you report it and sail just as close as you can to "nothing to see here nothing to worry about!".
What does this article actually do:
Right away appeal to authority and answer the question "Does the US have a Deep State?": "Not quite, experts say..." Phew! For a minute there I was worried but some random expert on Egypt got interviewed by the NYT and can say with clarity there is no shadowy cabal of three letter agency people pulling the strings! Lucky he could tell so easily really.
The rest of the article is trying to drift away from the idea of a secret cabal and instead push the idea that a "Deep State" is nothing more than the standard civil service in tension with their elected leaders. Yea sure.
It's so ridiculous it's not even funny anymore. Somehow people are justifying unnamed, unelected officials bringing down a government because they don't like who won the election.
It's incredibly scary that some of the same people who would have defended snowden for his revelations on the deep state are now praying for the same deep state to enact a Coup d'état.
Wait, how does he come into this, exactly?
It helps me understand why individuals might be skeptical of newspapers when an agenda'd opinion piece (basically a hosted blog) shows up in the nytimes domain.
That was the old patronage system, where you elect a president and he can appoint thousands, maybe tens of thousands of jobs. All of these jobs had one major qualification: you had to be loyal to the president.
As much as we hate it now, for a long time the system worked well. When the government was small, there simply wasn't that much real power to pass around, and the U.S. Constitution was fairly clear that the president should be directly responsible for the executive branch. Nobody else. The founders discussed at length the idea of a complex bureaucratic system of state, like the Europeans had. They wanted no part of it.
But as we know, once the system grew during the Civil War and afterwards, it led to a terrible amount of corruption. Something had to be done. So the U.S. enacted Civil Service reform, where the president is allowed and expected to bring a bunch of partisan loyalists with him into office, but the lower levels of the bureaucracy were to be left alone to the professionals. In this way public opinion could have major impacts on national policy with each presidential election -- but elections wouldn't become such a feeding frenzy for people looking to make quick buck off the government.
Now it looks like we're seeing the endgame of the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction: the deep state. As just some random internet dude, my suggestion to fix it would be to assert more executive control another level or two down, perhaps allow the managers at the next level, who are not appointees, more power over moving people around and letting them go.
If we do it right we'll probably correct too far in the other direction, and hopefully it'll take another dozen or so decades for yet another course correction to be made. Sadly, however, I expect much political wailing and gnashing of teeth during the entire process. Whether it's patronage or the deep state, there's a ton of money and political power being fought over.
People make better decisions when the job they're voting on has a more specific description.
It would work -- if the department heads were of the same party. Perhaps each candidate could provide multiple choices for major posts and voters could choose which one they liked on election day. But it needs to be a single vote, and with a single clear leader at the top. Otherwise you'd have the old Presidential/Vice Presidential system where each could be of a different party. That's no good. That's just the deep state on steroids.
Remember the purpose of the executive is that at some point voters require "single wringable neck" The problem is that the system is so ginormous that there's really no way one person can be responsible for it all. Oddly enough, the system was really still quite useful over the past several decades even when it was too big for one person to plausibly be in charge. This is because it provides the president as a guy you can blame when things go wrong. Our problems? It's all because of that guy! Get rid of him and see how well we do!
So the real danger of the deep state isn't just a system run amok. It's rubbing people's faces in the fact that this whole "electing a president" thing is just so much bullshit. The specifics of the leaks or whether they're in the interest of the country or not? Not as important as the long-term damage to credibility the entire system suffers.
As the system grows it's more and more evident the reason we are supposed to have a layered, federated system. If you can't have that single person anymore, you really no longer have an executive. If the president can't be the guy we blame for all this bad stuff, the Congress is ineffectual and the courts are jammed up, then where do we go for peaceful redress of our grievances?
It wasn't long ago that many Trump supporters were reading articles likes this "Obama drops the pretense - He aims for confiscation of private arms, not ‘control’ of guns" (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/5/editorial-oba...)
They so frequently use half-truths, lies by omission, complete removal of context, and in many cases report on things without substantiating evidence or credible sources, that it's hard to think they have much value at all. And it's not just one outlet, it's all of them. Sometimes they'll be accurate when the story fits what they want to say, and when it doesn't they will either say nothing at all (see: Sweden, Germany, France) or they'll grossly misrepresent things.
The recent Felix Kjellberg incident is a fine example of what I've seen happen non-stop over the past 4-5 years. Every single week it's yet again the same exact thing, this time with a different story. It has never relented.
If the choices are: direct from the source which may or may not be accurate 100% of the time, or via a media known to be incredibly dishonest and inaccurate at an alarming rate, it's really not a hard choice here for me.
Considering you likely have little or no access to most primary sources of information, like everyone else, I don't see how you have any choice other than to rely on their coverage combined with your own critical thinking and research.
Also considering that an incredible number of Donald Trump's statements are easily verifiably false, I don't see how he could be considered a primary source of anything other than his own words.
As far as "The recent Felix Kjellberg incident", What exactly do you mean? Some publications condemning his actions while others rush to his defense?
It is only because America has elected a +radical president has this become somewhat apparent. But the inertia is democratic as it represents the democratic process and accumulation.
It is especially important when you have edge-case of a president wining, but with 46% of popular vote and 26.5% of the potential vote.
The "Deep State" being the actual institutions of law and governance is actually what makes democracy sustainable.
1) He's strongly in favor of keeping the welfare state and all the entitlement programs. Left loves it.
2) He wants to expand the military. Right loves it.
3) He's pushing a mixture of common right and left policies, including lower taxes and regulation, infrastructure spending. He's promoting American jobs / workers first (thus unions have applauded several of his efforts, such as killing the TPP), which used to be a left platform.
4) He wants to scrap the ACA, right loves it. But has talked about either expanding Medicare to all people as the solution, or kicking it down to the states to run their own ACA equivalent programs, both of which the left would be in favor of vs the worse conservative alternative of a total wipeout.
5) He's in favor of a strong border. This is something both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were supposedly in favor of. Bill Clinton talked openly about the need to stop illegal immigration because it was taking American jobs etc.
6) He ran on a platform of putting an end to the US proliferation of entanglement overseas, particularly when it comes to wars in the middle east. George W Bush ran on a platform not so different.
Radical? Where? There isn't anything even remotely radical about Trump other than his personality type. His policies are rehashes of decades of policies espoused by other Presidents.
Whether Trump won 44% or 47% or 50.1% of the popular has absolutely nothing to do with the deep state's response to him. The deep state operates entirely independent of the electorate.
None of the three Clinton runs for Presidency achieved over 50% for example. With only 43% of the popular vote in 1992, and an openly anti-military bias, Bill Clinton didn't have these kinds of problems with the deep state in his first term.
Some of his policies aren't radical, sure. He is a populist. The fact that one time he said he likes the welfare state and one time he said he didn't, or that one time he said he wants to scrap ALL of ACA and then some other time he described all of the policies in ACA and said they were good and wouldn't go away doesn't mean he's moderate, it means he's incapable of telling the truth because his mind changes too quickly to have a consistent position. But regardless, the president doesn't set policy, congress does. He leads the country in words and action, acts as the head of state diplomatically and oversees enforcement of the laws which the legislative and the judicial branch decide for him.
In that sense as the leader of our country he is the most radical president I can think of since FDR who was a wartime leader and was rapidly approaching a dangerous permanent control of the country.
That view would be a lot more legitimate, IMO, if we had a functional government trying to carry on normal business for the benefit of the people. What's actually happening looks to me to be very different, and exceptionally so! An analogy that should ring a bell with many HN regulars would be the new technical manager with zero technical background who was hired because he's the CEO's nephew, who happens to be borderline mentally challenged but makes up for it with defiant corruption, extreme nepotism and flamboyant temper tantrums.
If you're (e.g.) a developer and your new manager is objectively incompetent and deeply disturbed, if he jeopardized important projects and the company's bottom line (that you depend on for a living), no one would be surprised if you voiced your concerns to the manager's superior. In this analogy, the manager's only superior is the public.
Who?
A lot of hyperbole gets thrown around, but do you legitimately believe the US government is no longer "functional" and run by "borderline mentally challenged" people?
You don't have personally like the newcomers to the top levels of the US government, but you're deluded if you think they're not capable people (or good at playing a game) acting within a system that's been built for hundreds of years.
This isn't getting any better with the change of POTUS - now the Democrats are determined to stalemate the new Executive in any way possible. This isn't healthy, this is destructive, and it's certainly not functional. It's disgraceful!
You're wondering whom I'm calling "borderline mentally challenged?" That would be Donald Trump, about whom many professional psychologists have voiced concerns of mental competency. He hasn't yet given the US public any indication that he's even as smart as George W. Bush or more knowledgeable of world politics than the average 5th grader.
The rest of the team is a mixed bag with regard to competence. Certainly Nancy DeVos has shown no indication of capability for her position, and the rest of the team has definitely been selected for ideological proximity to D. Trump rather than capability. Disturbingly, the EPA appointee is a declared enemy of the EPA, the energy guy is a global warming denier, and the national security guy is someone who has publicly announced his intention to overthrow the state. His pick for AG was previously disqualified for being an outspoken racist. Similar (dis)qualifications apply to numerous other of his picks.
I'd say, au contraire, that a considerable amount of delusion is required to believe that a team this poorly matched to their jobs will be effective improvers of the nation's status.
Or, if acting in good faith, disagreed that his goals would be good for US people. More laws and actions do not mean the people are better off.
> You're wondering whom I'm calling "borderline mentally challenged?" That would be Donald Trump
Thank you for your response, but we're going to just fundamentally disagree and while I'm fine with "in my opinion...", the level of hyperbole involved is enough to make me sit this one out. A "borderline mentally challenged" person would not be able to navigate his way to the position of POTUS.
Sarah Palin was McCain's pick for VP, and thus well on her way to "having navigated her way to the position of POTUS." And if you feel that the candidate who couldn't name a single newspaper she read was mentally competent to be POTUS then that's an opinion of yours I won't be able to share.
The government is only functional at this point because of the "deep state" and the fact that bureaucrats are running most actual functions, even if their superiors have been replaced.
As for mentally challenged, there has been a lot of speculation that his erratic behavior is an indicator of mental illness, but I would agree we need to be careful about simply accepting these diagnoses just because of our personal biases but I think the reason there is so much speculation is because his behavior encourages it.
I feel like it's the newest political buzzword after "fake news".
Now instead of having a debate about the allegations and evidence that people in this administration have broken numerous laws, we're discussing the _intentions_ of the "leakers" themselves, rather than the rather substantial amount of publicly sourced and substantiated evidence that suggests people have a right to be concerned.
It's like getting caught stealing a piece of candy and blaming it all on your friend because they ratted you out.
Deep state = military-industrial complex
That remains to be seen.
When denied access to the formal structures, what are these people meant to do, seriously?
As long as that's true and so far there hasn't been any reporting to say it isn't, I don't see the issue.
If there's nothing to the allegations, an investigation would vindicate the administration.
The fact that everyone is stalling on an investigation just raises questions.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/02/18/stakes-trump-us-p...
I don't understand how the article can make this statement. The statement clearly outlines a Conspiracy Theory. As we all know, Conspiracy Theories are false - a priori. How can it be legitimate to concoct Conspiracy Theories for other nations, when, simultaneously, the very notion of (a national scale) conspiracy is seen as being equally as impossible as perpetual motors or faster-than-light travel? Double standards? What's going on?
no it doesn't. the definition is really about a state in a state...
Gulenists did not use any external influence.
Wrong. The deep state not only is already in place and entrenched deeper than almost anyone could imagine, but it's power is at unprecedented levels. The problem is that the general public is being wowed by all the operation mockingbird CIA outlet propaganda to the point that they aren't seeing that right now there is being waged a very real war inside those deep recesses for who gains the power. I do have to say that the media is even bringing the phrase up those is amazing.
The originator of the term "deep state" and I believe "deep politics" is the former Canadian diplomat turned educator, author, poet, Peter Dale Scott. He really is the prime standard in studying the ds because he is very academic in his pronouncements and tries very hard to follow the evidence and not over-exert his positions. eg. he mostly sticks to deductive logic, with smatters of inductive logic. Now, the other authors worth reading on this matter are Michael Parenti, Webster Tarpley, Mike Lofgren, David Talbot, John Perkins, Jim Marrs, G Edward Griffin, Anthony Sutton, and Douglass Valentine.
Following the thread, one tends to come to one particular author though, that outpaces and outshines the others, because he not only gained unprecedented access to the historical documents behind one of the main groups pulling the deep states strings, but because he also was a well connected professor at Georgetown, mentor to Bill Clinton, and his writing is extremely heady: Carroll Quigley.
According to most of these authors, the deep state rose to power primarily in 63 via the JFK assasination (and of course they used a MKUltra/Artichoke victim Sirhan Sirhan to get RFK too), and I would posit that most of them would agree we have barely had a president not completely beholden to them since them. Any time one tried to buck them, he was given a warning very quickly (Reagan assassination attempt made him start playing ball, if he had died we would have had Bush Sr. early!), and the list of similar happenings to presidents goes on and on.
So, the deep state exists, so who are they? Factions and subfactions hiding within: "NSA, CIA, DIA, NSC, UN, NATO, FEMA, Round Table Groups, DHS, Bankers/Financial elite, Defense Companies, Big Oil/Gas, Big Pharma, Think Tanks, Other tax exempt foundations, K-street, The infiltrated media."
What has enabled the deep state? The NatSec Act of 47, The patriot act, the NDAA, 501c3s, COINTELPRO-esque operations against dissidents, abuse of national security as a get out of court free blanket, the black market funding of black budget operations, blackmail as a standard modus operandi on important people, and more than anything the abuse of compartmentalization in the intelligence groups, which creates a situation where top level comprimise can be hidden from everyone but still direct actions and moves in the interest of the deep state.
What are the goals and motives of the deep state? That one, I just have to say I don't know. I have suspicions based on all the contextual clues, but I will leave those for later.
The number one thing you could do research on that will really open your eyes to the deep state is this:
Continuity of Government (CoG)(Shadow Government) plans (which we primarily found out about in the Iran contra hearings), which were written in the 1980s by Rumsfeld and Cheney along with participation by some of the Iran Contra characters like Oliver North.
CoG is the key which can unravel the deep state. According to Peter Dale Scott, we are in a hidden constitutional crisis primarily centered around this issue, and CoG may still be in effect by way of the continual declerations of national emergency (Bush proclamation 7463, EO 13223, 13224, were the starting declerations, later continued with NSPD-51 in 2007, and Obama has continued them). These continual declerations have been in violation of (b) 50 U.S.C. 1622.
Supposedly, if some information Scott has is true, "the provisions of the National Emergencies Act have now been rendered inoperative by COG. If true, this would indicate that the constitutional system of checks and balances no longer applies, and also that secret decrees now override public legislation as the law of the land."
This is the true issue of the deep state in the United States of America, and is one of the most important issues of our time.
EDIT: My spellinh isrterrible.
The HN guidelines ask you not to post about getting downvoted though: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13686949 and marked it off-topic.
You know, like happened with the utterly corrupt British government, right before Brexit ..
Similarly, when civil and security services and the executive quite openly distrust each other and brief against each other, "it could all be explained by paedophilia" is just unnecessary sub-4chan speculation.
[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4238188/Sir-Edward-H...
[1] There have been many allegations made by "Nick", and everyone now accepts none of these are true.
Russia is a barely middle income country with a shrinking GDP, a shrinking population and an ageing military.
Surprising that I've never heard a single story of Russian influence in my country, India. Apparently, Putin and his stooges were able to infiltrate all levels of politics and media in the rich western world, but don't give two hoots about its more direct economic rivals in the BRICS.
And while you're correct about your overall assessment of Russia, that is precisely why it has to resort to measures like these. It cannot compete militarily, and it cannot compete economically, so it is left to resort to Machiavellian devices to fight for (what it believes to be) its rightful place, if not on the top of the pile, then at least on the top tier of it. That's what really grates so many people in Russia, both elites and commoners - that it was a superpower, but it isn't anymore. A lot of people really, really want it to be one again. And for them, the definition of superpower is, "they fear us".