CIA Document from WikiLeaks Sheds Critical Light on U.S. Politics and Wars
greenwald.substack.com
greenwald.substack.com
- supporting allies of the USA
- support Israel (not just an ally!)
- putting a damper on powerful non-ally hegemony (Russia / Iran)
- ensuring stability of resource extraction in the region
What non-petrol resources?
That implies every president serves this function. The article sets out to debunk that exact assumption.
Obama is the top US figure and it's not shocking at all he was trying to get support from allies. It's also not shocking that allies support was boosted when they heard Obama was on board with whatever the issue was.
What does HN think the CIA job is? TBH I don't see anything here that is shocking and I bet almost all of the countries are doing the same exact thing. Wether it be the US's war in Afghanistan, China in the South China Sea or their Road and Belt projects, or even support for Brexit.
China has the Ministry of State Security, MSS.
The UK has the SIS.
Germany has the BND.
The Dutch are also pretty capable with the AIVD.
They all fund nonprofits and groups to help spread good and bad propaganda.
1. Mentions, an NYT article citing a 2008 Pentagon plan to "destroy" wikileaks.
2. States his agenda of exposing "corrupt power centers" in America.
3. Proposes wikileaks was a good thing, driving accountability/transparency.
4. Names the “Red Cell Memorandum,” a leaked CIA document discussing how to manipulate the European public support of wars in the middle east.
5. Highlights that this CIA document recommends using Obama's public appeal as a tactic to reduce public dissent about the Afghanistan war in France/Germany.
6. Refers to this as "deep state" (presumably because it's an intelligence agency using a president, rather than vice-versa).
7. Proposes that the CIA hated Trump, because he didn't pretend the US was morally superior.
8. Provides an example of inviting "Abdel Fattah el-Sisi" to the whitehouse, a dictator we had supplied arms to in private but didn't publicly acknowledge.
9. "Few things infuriate U.S. foreign policy elites more than those who, unwittingly or otherwise, show the true face of the U.S. security state to the world."
Look near the end where he describes Trump helping a dictator as a good thing because "it brings the corruption out in the open". Laughably stupid defence unless you believe the deep state pizza place pedo conspiracies, then it's 4D chess.
He goes on to explain that Trump has publicly done many corrupt and terrible things that you normally don't see because "they're in the shadows". This is just the 4chan deep state crap that's been pushed by crazies ever since it turned out Obama was actually a US citizen, to everyone's surprise. It's far more likely that Trump is just corrupt and doing terrible things because that's what he does.
I pay $5/month for Greenwald’s (and also Matt Taibbi’s) newsletters and it is money well spent.
I could not find this in the article.
> He goes on to explain that Trump has publicly done many corrupt and terrible things that you normally don't see because "they're in the shadows".
This is a statement of fact, what part are you disagreeing with?
Of course, he did a shitty job because he's an overall incompetent person when it comes to anything besides selling himself, but he did try.
And although I didn't read the whole thing, the parts I did make me realize that I agree with the whole bring it out in the open part as well - if we're hiding that we are supporting evil dictators, most people consider that bad.
Anyway, even with all that, I still hate him with a passion and I may make it my mission in retirement to piss on his grave, literally :) - childish but it would make me feel good.
At the beginning of Donald Trump's presidency in early 2017, there were fewer than 9,000 American troops in Afghanistan.[92] By early summer 2017, troop levels increased by about 50%; there were no formal plans to withdraw.[93][94][95] In August 2019, the Taliban planned to negotiate with the U.S. to reduce troop levels back to where they had been when Trump took office,[96] but Trump canceled the negotiations after a Taliban attack.[97]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80...
As a libertarian I had been intrigued by the meme that Trump hasn't started a new war, but this article puts that in the best context I've seen. He was happy to continue meddling in other countries and committing acts of war against Iran, just nothing strategic or long term. This fits with Trump being of low intelligence and used to simply waving his dick around to get what he wants, but that simply doesn't scale to the actions of a country. And so his pigheadedness is great for drawing attention to the workings of the corrupt system, but that's about it.
I do see where Trump supporters are coming from, at least starting out. But I don't see how there can be solidarity while they continue to go on the offensive against the grassroots of the other team (antifa bogeyman, all lives matter, etc). And at this point I would say that is most of the energy of the movement. And so it's ultimately just another round of the same divide and conquer the masses that's been going on for decades, only this time with disastrous pandemic response.
2) Run on draining the swamp.
3) Relay the genuine message of Christ as anti-plutocrat, anti-empire.
4) Build bridges instead of identity judgements.
It's a common critique. So sure he's right (as I said about fake news and drain the swamp), but I don't see how his actions amount to anything more than a battle between different groups of elites.
> 2) Run on draining the swamp.
No idea what you mean by "run on", but there is no draining going on. Trump is criticizing DC while feasting on it with his set of cronies, the same as every other politician has done.
> 3) Relay the genuine message of Christ as anti-plutocrat, anti-empire.
I can get behind this being the original message of Christ, but invoking Christ from 2k years ago as characteristic of what his supposed followers want to do today is fallacious. The basic lifecycle of social movements is that they're revolutionary at the start, and conservative after they've become an ordinary part of society. Modern anti-plutocrats have moved on to modern memes, and most people calling themselves Christian seem to want more government intervention into our private lives.
> 4) Build bridges instead of identity judgements.
To build a bridge requires common ground. As I said, the problem is there can be no common ground while the red team directs their outrage at the grassroots of the blue team. With Republicans in power, it's the responsibility of the Republican grassroots to criticize their own politicians when they go against our country's ideals. But instead they're cheering on authoritarianism because it hurts the other team more. Where are the Republicans seriously condemning this neo-skinhead movement, which is actually manifesting real world violence?
Ultimately if you want there to be any shred of a conservative party left, you're going to have to admit you were conned and repudiate your current radical populist (ie anti-conservative) figurehead and his destructive message. Until then this Libertarian is voting straight ticket blue in national elections. At least Democrats are talking about the problems we're facing (albeit in terms of misguided solutions, identity politics, big government, etc) rather than pretending they don't exist while getting whipped into a frenzy with patently fake news (latest delusion: "stop the steal").
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/29/business/media/glenn-gree...
> Mr. Greenwald later posted on Substack what he called “the most recent draft” of the article, which was headlined “The Real Scandal: U.S. Media Uses Falsehoods to Defend Joe Biden From Hunter’s Emails.”
For what it’s worth, Greenwald and Taibbi both covered it and didn’t say “this is why joe Biden shouldn’t be elected”, they covered it as “why is the media refusing to cover a story that is worth covering”. Big difference.