Russian Connection 5: In Which We Plan Sleepovers

[AmazonGrace]

  Coming soon to a Senate near you.

[Howl]

It's now been three full months without a Secretary of Defense. 

TaskandPurpose.com noted today that US halts F-35 equipment shipments to Turkey over its planned purchase of Russian missile defense system.    This likely won't get much coverage, but I'm going to root around and try to find some web sites that cover it. 

Several  key defense elements and players are converging this week: NATO Summit in DC, Russian missile system sales to Turkey, US jet sales to Turkey, Turkish Foreign Minister in DC for NATO summit. 

This will be an opportunity to see how Trump and his minions (I include Acting SecDef Shanahan in that category) handle this critical scenario of competing interests.  My sense is that  Mattis would have been all over this with a hard-core strategy of strengthening NATO ties,  schooling Turkey on the protection of  US interests while igniting a flash-bang in Putin's ass.

Shanahan is a Boeing man through and through, the F-35 is Lockneed Martin, and Shanahan has to prove his loyalty to Trump by not getting between the standing arrangement between Trumpy and Vlad. 

Trust me, it's complicated. 

Quote

The U.S. decision on the F-35s was expected to complicate Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu's planned visit to Washington this week for a NATO summit. The latest development in the F-35 dispute came a day after Erdogan suffered one of his biggest electoral losses in decades in local elections.

and then there's this problem.  Turkey manufactures important parts of the F-35: 

Quote

Reuters reported last week that Washington was exploring whether it could remove Turkey from production of the F-35. Turkey makes parts of the fuselage, landing gear and cockpit displays. Sources familiar with the F-35's intricate worldwide production process and U.S. thinking on the issue last week said Turkey's role can be replaced.

and then also this dicey problem

Quote

The United States and other NATO allies that own F-35s fear the radar on the Russian S-400 missile system will learn how to spot and track the jet, making it less able to evade Russian weapons in the future.

 

Edited April 2, 2019 by Howl

[fraurosena]

Interesting summary of 50 of Trump’s Russian connections that are known in the public domain.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Howl]

Useful summary of Russian interference/active measures 

 

[Howl]

Dirk Schwenk re: Butina  and how Butina's activities may be more damaging than Roger Stone.  Read thread unroll HERE. 

Quote

Several have commented that ongoing Stone prosecution demonstrates that THE COLLUSION INVESTIGATION LIVES ON no matter what Black Hat Barr may say. And they're right. That's not all, though: THE BUTINA PROSECUTION MAY BE EVEN BIGGER when it comes to collusion.

 

[47of74]

Butina is going to the big house.  Just not for as long as I would have wanted though.

Quote

Maria Butina, who admitted to conspiring to act as a covert Russian agent and charmed American conservative leaders with her gun-rights activism, was sentenced to 18 months by a D.C. federal judge on Friday.

Judge Tanya Chutkan’s sentence was what the Justice Department requested for Butina, though she’ll serve closer to nine months thanks to time already served in jail. “The conduct was sophisticated and penetrated deep into U.S. political organizations,” Chutkan said before handing down the stiff sentence.

Butina is a 30-year-old Russian national who came to the U.S. to study at American University in Washington, D.C. and courted gun-rights and conservative activists, especially in the National Rifle Association. She was arrested last July and charged with violating a U.S. law that bars people from acting as foreign agents without telling the attorney general—a charge Justice Department lawyers characterize as “espionage-lite.” Butina pleaded guilty in December and agreed to cooperate with the government.

While living in the U.S., Butina communicated with then-Russian Central Bank official Alexander Torshin about her efforts to build relationships with Americans. In one instance, she claimed she had influence over who would become Trump’s secretary of state. In December 2015, she even helped arrange for a delegation of NRA leaders to visit Moscow, where they met with powerful figures in the Russian government.

I had my way she'd be on her way to a supermax in the middle of the South Pole with everyone else involved in this whole sorry shit storm and spending the rest of her life there.  (And that's since we don't have any phantom zones handy)

[Flossie]

I just had a nice little daydream about such a place.  I'd put the Orange Toddler in with Junior so they could keep each other company.

[fraurosena]

4 hours ago, 47of74 said:

I had my way she'd be on her way to a supermax in the middle of the South Pole with everyone else involved in this whole sorry shit storm and spending the rest of her life there.  (And that's since we don't have any phantom zones handy)

But... the penguins! 

Seriously though, I agree Butina got a light sentence. However, will she be deported after that? And will she be safe? Because girl did cooperate...

[Dandruff]

3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Seriously though, I agree Butina got a light sentence. However, will she be deported after that? And will she be safe? Because girl did cooperate...

But did she cooperate enough?

Wonder if she'll try to seek asylum once her sentence is up.  Could she?

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Howl]

I'd just like to say this about Mitch McConnell: "Fuck that guy!" 

[GreyhoundFan]

20 hours ago, Howl said:

I'd just like to say this about Mitch McConnell: "Fuck that guy!" 

For many years, Newt Gingivitis was the politician I despised the most. McTurtle has now taken his place. I have two friends who live in Kentucky. I have begged both to vote against him next year.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

2 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

For many years, Newt Gingivitis was the politician I despised the most. McTurtle has now taken his place. I have two friends who live in Kentucky. I have begged both to vote against him next year.

I know how petty this is, but in his Cocaine Mitch shirts the characture outline of him has dark hair.  Made me wonder if he just sees the world and himself completely differently than anyone else.

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, no wonder Lindsey has gone full-out BT:

 

[Howl]

My main concern with McConnell right now is that he is blocking legislation that would provide funds and requirements to strengthen election security at the state level.  I can't emphasize strongly enough how that telegraphs that Mitch is complicit with Russian active measures to assist the GOP in the next election. 

And this from the Angry Staffer tweet posted by @GreyhoundFan above: - watches Deripaska’s company spend a ridiculous amount of money in Kentucky

The corruption is now blatant -- there's so much confidence in the base that they don't even have to hide it.  I truly hope that the Amash defection rips the band-aid off the suppurating wound that is the Trump administration and there will be at least a few other defections. 

[fraurosena]

58 minutes ago, Howl said:

The corruption is now blatant -- there's so much confidence in the base in Russian hacking that they don't even have to hide it.

FTFY

They don't need a base when Russians are doing the 'voting'.

[Howl]

7 hours ago, fraurosena said:

FTFY

They don't need a base when Russians are doing the 'voting'.

Good point! 

[Cleopatra7]

9 hours ago, fraurosena said:

FTFY

They don't need a base when Russians are doing the 'voting'.

Unpopular opinion, but I can’t get muster up enough interest to care about supposed Russian interference when the US does this all the time:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/sunday-review/russia-isnt-the-only-one-meddling-in-elections-we-do-it-too.amp.html

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/565538/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.globalresearch.ca/us-interfered-in-elections-of-at-least-85-countries-worldwide-since-1945/5601481/amp

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/12/23/the-cia-says-russia-hacked-the-u-s-election-here-are-6-things-to-learn-from-cold-war-attempts-to-change-regimes/?utm_term=.c0be8a43f72a

There’s a famous quote from Thucydides’ “The Peloponnesian War” that states, “The strong do what they can and the weak do what they must.” In other words, if Russia (or any other country that fancies itself a “great power) has the power and opportunity to flex its muscle through election tampering, why wouldn’t it? It’s not like American attempts at “regime change” have ever resulted in an increased level of freedom or democracy for the people involved, especially if said people are black or brown. Our current domestic situation illustrates that the US is just as authoritarian as Russia, we just wrap ours up in the Constitution.

The hysteria over finding supposed Russian bots/agents posing as disaffected leftists mirrored what happened in the Cold War, when white Americans reassured themselves that civil rights protestors were all “outside agitators” paid by Moscow. Because African Americans have never had sufficient cause to be dissatisfied with the American government /s The American electoral system was always broken, and it wasn’t Russians who did it.

I get why so many people want to cling to Russiagate. They think that a scandal of this magnitude would decapitate the Trump administration and the country would go back to “normal.” The first obvious problem is that the GOP has made it clear they’re going to ride or die to Trump to the end. Trump is giving the far-right everything they wanted, so why would they give him up? if he does become completely toxic to the party, they’ll just forget he ever existed like they did with George W Bush, but at the moment, conservatives have hit the jackpot.

Most importantly, there is no going back to the pre-Trump era. Trump is simply the monstrous American Id unleashed writ large, and perhaps most significantly, the way people and institutions have reacted to him and the hate he has encouraged is very telling. The last three years have revealed some uncomfortable truths about how high the public’s tolerance is for institutional racism, sexism, and homophobia, not just in the US but worldwide. The world is in a very dangerous place right now, and burning and salting the entire Trump administration to the ground won’t erase the Pandora’s box of horrors that he unleashed.

(This turned out to be way longer than I initially intended. Brevity is not a strength of mine)

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, Cleopatra7 said:

Unpopular opinion, but I can’t get muster up enough interest to care about supposed Russian interference when the US does this all the time:

I understand the points you’re making, and I agree with most of them. If you look at what Putin and his oligarchs are doing dispassionately, you have to admit he is being exceedingly clever at destabilizing the world’s political stage. He’s clearly adhering to that age old adage of divide and conquer.

However, that your own country has also employed similar morally and ethically questionable tactics doesn’t excuse you from acting when the tables are turned and it happens to you. 

Just because I kicked your dog, doesn’t mean I should let you kick mine. I will defend my dog from your attack with all I have. As America should defend its democracy. Apathy is not an option if you want your freedom to survive.

 

 

 

[Cleopatra7]

29 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

I understand the points you’re making, and I agree with most of them. If you look at what Putin and his oligarchs are doing dispassionately, you have to admit he is being exceedingly clever at destabilizing the world’s political stage. He’s clearly adhering to that age old adage of divide and conquer.

However, that your own country has also employed similar morally and ethically questionable tactics doesn’t excuse you from acting when the tables are turned and it happens to you. 

Just because I kicked your dog, doesn’t mean I should let you kick mine. I will defend my dog from your attack with all I have. As America should defend its democracy. Apathy is not an option if you want your freedom to survive.

 

 

 

This implies that the unipolar pre-Trump state of international relations that existed between the fall of the USSR and 2016 is and/should be normative, a notion that I disagree with. Certainly many European countries yearn for a multipolar world, if only because they miss their own days of glory in the nineteenth century. As we speak, the US is pushing for a coup in Venezuela, a possible war with Iran, and demolishing any hopes the Palestinians had for self-determination, but I’m supposed to think that clickbait Facebook ads cooked up by  Albanian teenagers are the biggest threat to the spread of “freedom”? 

[fraurosena]

3 hours ago, Cleopatra7 said:

This implies that the unipolar pre-Trump state of international relations that existed between the fall of the USSR and 2016 is and/should be normative, a notion that I disagree with. Certainly many European countries yearn for a multipolar world, if only because they miss their own days of glory in the nineteenth century. As we speak, the US is pushing for a coup in Venezuela, a possible war with Iran, and demolishing any hopes the Palestinians had for self-determination, but I’m supposed to think that clickbait Facebook ads cooked up by  Albanian teenagers are the biggest threat to the spread of “freedom”? 

Nowhere in my post did I imply that there should be a return to how things were in the past.

On the contrary, I want no such thing at all. I’d like the world to learn from mistakes made in the past and attempt to make this planet we all live on a better place. Nobody would like a return to a multipolar world, except those that thrive on having everybody at each other’s throats, which seems to me to be the warmongerers among the populace of all countries, and the ones that have no compunction to do anything for financial and political gain.

I don’t know where you get the idea that Europe would like to see a return to a mulitpolar world. That is preposterous, for it would mean Europe would be stuck between a rock and a hard place, again. I can assure you that nobody in Europe is looking to return to the 19th century. That would be like saying Americans would like to go back to the pre-Civil War era. 

That Europe is looking to unite and become a stronger economic and political player on the world arena is not a threat, just because it doesn’t want to be torn between rivalling factions. Everyone on the political stage should try and work together, not against each other to make the world a better place for everyone. A notion that is quite idealistic of me, I know. But if we don’t try, we certainly won’t get there. 

Are there things going on in the world that are appalling and reprehensible? Yes. Should we forget that, while trying to keep your country’s democracy intact? Absolutely not. Should one forget the attack on democracy in one’s own country, because there are so many bad things happening in the rest of the world? Most assuredly not. You can only change the world if you are ‘free’ to do so. Shrugging one’s shoulders and going “Meh” helps no one, and is precisely the attitude authoritarians and dictators would like people to have, and plays right into their hands. 

I notice that you have focussed on a tiny part of the social media portion of the meddling that went on in 2016. That, to me, is the least worrisome part of what occurred. It’s the hacking of voter registration systems, the breaking into votingmachines and most of all the compromise, financial or otherwise, of many politicians that is the most troublesome and frankly dangerous to me. Keeping democracy intact, however flawed it may be, is key if you want any freedom in your life. I can’t believe anyone would like to have the situation people have in North Korea. And although that’s an extreme example, it could ultimately be where you end up if authoritarians had their way. Or how about Gilead for another example. All the anti-abortion laws in so many states right now are certainly moves in that misogynistic direction. Or what about the appalling situation at the Southern border, born of disgusting racist ideals? Should all these things be ignored, because terrible things are also being done elsewhere in the world? That’s a defeatist attitude that I can’t agree with.

 

 

[Cleopatra7]

@fraurosena, I think if I explain my presuppositions, my conclusions will make a little more sense, even if you don't agree with them. I don't operate from the assumption that there are "good states" vs "bad states," because there's no morality in international relations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(international_relations)

States operate according to their self-interest, however that's defined in any given time. For example, during the 80s, the logic of the Cold War dictated that the US fund the proto-al qaeda in Afghanistan to fight off "godless communism," whereas the logic of the post-911 world dictates that "militant Islam" must be eradicated because it's a threat to "freedom," even if it means interfering with people's religious lives. If you buy into the rhetoric that the US and its allies are unambiguously on the side of "freedom," these stances are hard to reconcile, but it makes a certain sense if you understand IR theory. However, from my perspective, the problem is that what is good for a state's national interests do not necessarily translate into what is good for ordinary citizens, either at the domestic level or the international level. 

The truth of the matter is that there are a lot of places in the US where the living standards are as bad as a "failed nation," including (but not limited to) Native American reservations, the so-called Black Belt in the rural South, Appalachia, the post-apocalyptic urban landscapes in places like Detroit, the colonias on the US-Mexico border, the poisoned water in Flint, etc. I bring this up simply to indicate that American "freedom" doesn't really look like much to brag about when you don't have running water (as is the case on many reservations, colonias, and Black Belt towns) or you do have running water, but it contains lead (see Flint).

The rub in all this is that these dire conditions would still be present even if Trump hadn't been elected, because they're features not bugs of the system. Black and brown people were never supposed to be full citizens of the US, and it shows in how these communities are treated by the state at every level of government. Obviously, I think change can and must happen, but I don't have any illusions that it will be through voting alone. The biggest shifts in social progress -- the women's movement, the labor movement, the Civil Rights Movement, LGBT liberation -- happened because of grassroots direct action that forced the state to change its ways. Waiting for a conservative apparatchik like Robert Mueller to "save democracy" is not only an exercise in futility, but it reduces political life to a passive media spectacle that we merely consume, rather than participate in as active subjects.

When I say that many European countries want a multipolar world, I'm not suggesting that there's a desire to return to the era of pith helmets, but rather that they don't like unquestioned American unipolarity, and wish they could be a counterbalance, either through the EU or (if the EU collapses) individual states. George W. Bush's insistence on going to war in Iraq despite the opposition of its historic NATO allies was a stark reminder of European impotence in the face of American unipolarity. Other countries like the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) are also hoping for a multipolar world as well. I don't think a multipolar world would be much of an improvement, especially with the hard swing to the right that we're seeing worldwide combined with the effects of climate change.