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Comment by coldpepper | Hacker News Reader

Xi Jinping and his colleagues must be opening a champagne bottle over the US being this stupid. They could have never imagined an enemy so retarded

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https://theonion.com/fbi-uncovers-al-qaeda-plot-to-just-sit-...

Note that that was published in 2014. Those days seem positively halcyon now.

If you sent all the headlines from the last week back in time to the editor of The Onion they would be summarily ignored as too dumb.

Talk about winning a war without firing one shot at the enemy. The admiration, envy and emulation of totalitarian Chinese despotism in the U.S. must feel like a victory.

This was bin laden’s goal. Making Americans afraid was very successful because it turns out that stoking fear is very profitable and useful for gaining power. Now everyone is taking advantage of it.

This isn't just this person's opion. bin Laden wrote about and spoke about it quite often, even before 9/11.

We know Russia invested a lot in this outcome. Hence, at some point, this government will be seen as treasonous. Didn't China as well, wouldn't they know it's a net win for them and their interests, despite the few hurdles ("tariffs") that were announced?

I never understood why there hasn't been more investigation into Russian influence during the last four years. But maybe the ones to make a call about that didn't care.

It seems to me that it was extensively investigated and the strongest claims about Russian influence didn’t end up being true.

Most of the claims of Russian influence were directly proven, the only thing not proven was direct coordination with the presidents campaign. Notably, there were several ‘dangled pardons’ to prevent people from testifying (pardons that were eventually granted) so who knows what actually happened.

I think the most dangerous claims about Russian interference could not be proven true, they weren't proven false. I'm talking here about Trump being a full on Russian asset.

As a side note, I'm not sure that he is _explicitely_ in contact with Russia, but since he got oRussian assistance, an implicit quit-pro-quo is obvious to me.

The fact Russia meddled in US elections is pretty clear cut by this point.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_...

This is spelled out by the Republican Comitee as well.

I think the hope was that the US electorate would be better than this and see through the bullshit. They weren't.

By all accounts, Russia invested next to nothing in this outcome compared to how much Musk alone invested, never mind the whole of Trump's campaign.

It’s like watching a combined plot of succession and space force.

Definitely. At this point rest of the world might as well become friends with China. At least Xi Jinping the CCP aren't idiots, which makes them more predictable to deal with than Trump's regime.

Everything people keep telling me about how bad China is keeps happening here.

Make the US too busy fighting itself to focus on external threats.

Divide and conquer has always been the most effective strategy.

Dividing is much easier with portable propaganda devices, selling citizens' psychological profiles to anyone with cash.

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