U.S. Politics

[snowychap]

5 hours ago, maqroll said:

His top advisor is a white supremacist, his AG pick is an Alabama good old boy, and Flynn is certifiably bananas. It's a KKK wet dream so far.

It does look like he's getting his pro-torture team in place.

[peterms]

Flynn denies having ever used torture in interrogations he was part of, agrees it serves to create recruits for terrorist organisations, and claims to have shut down a prison which was breaking rules.  He says history will judge the US harshly for its actions.

See Mehdi Hasan interview on youtube, don't have link to hand.

[snowychap]

22 minutes ago, peterms said:

Flynn denies having ever used torture in interrogations he was part of, agrees it serves to create recruits for terrorist organisations, and claims to have shut down a prison which was breaking rules.  He says history will judge the US harshly for its actions.

See Mehdi Hasan interview on youtube, don't have link to hand.

Fair enough on Flynn if that's all true - I haven't got the patience to listen to anything with Nedhi Hasan on it.

I think the likes of Sessions and Pompeo are cut from a different cloth from what I've briefly read.

Edited November 18, 2016 by snowychap

[Awol]

3 hours ago, peterms said:

Interesting that he publicly admitted that the US government armed and supplied Al-Qaeda and ISIS in order to undermine the government of Syria.

I'd be very interested to read that please mate if you have a link? 

[Awol]

On 17/11/2016 at 23:13, Davkaus said:

Swings and roundabouts really, isn't it. Trump wants to have a special database tracking every muslim in America, and a prominent supporter has tried to justify it by citing the shameful internment of japanese-americans as precedent. And some lefties tend to decry bigotry a bit easy. Who's the real bastards, eh? Hard to say.

The US ran such a database from 2001- 2011, Trump wants to reinstate it -  not saying that's good or bad, only that it was mainstream policy under Republican and Democrat administrations.

[Keyblade]

1 hour ago, Awol said:

The US ran such a database from 2001- 2011, Trump wants to reinstate it -  not saying that's good or bad, only that it was mainstream policy under Republican and Democrat administrations.

I don't think he was even aware of any databases. This is a bright idea he came up with himself, so who knows how he'll implement it. The parallels drawn with the Japanese in WWII are cause for concern.

[Awol]

29 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

I don't think he was even aware of any databases. This is a bright idea he came up with himself, so who knows how he'll implement it. The parallels drawn with the Japanese in WWII are cause for concern.

 The entire population of immigrant and US born Japanese Americans were herded into internment camps for the duration. It was a disgrace.

Trump is proposing to readopt a lapsed policy of entering certain people's details on a database. Not saying I agree with it (how can it be right in a country that enshrines freedom of religion to treat people differently on that basis) but it seems hyperbolic to say a database has parallels with mass incarceration.

If the security concerns are so high the place to get tough is around vetting & immigration policy, but ongoing discrimination once you are in the country doesn't seem to be constitutional.

[maqroll]

Flynn is a politician now, so he'll couch his language, but he's a hardliner who has supported Trump from the off. He's diabolical, and I don't give a **** how effective he is on the battlefield.

Edited November 19, 2016 by maqroll

[maqroll]

**** Trump and **** what my country is turning into 

[Awol]

8 hours ago, peterms said:

See Mehdi Hasan interview on youtube, don't have link to hand.

Thanks, watched it. Despite Hasan's attempts to put words in his mouth reference AQ & ISIS, it's clear Flynn opposed the  Team Obama view that arming other Jihadists groups was a good idea. 

No wonder they got rid of him.

 

 

[Brumerican]

On 17/11/2016 at 21:08, TheStagMan said:

 

 

However, Presumably all of the career comedians who mock people in a similar way, and those who make fun of Trump's appearance will be similarly chastised and hated? including the "very funny" comedian mentioned a few posts ago? No, oh thought not.

 

 

Context is very important .

It's a comedian's job to take the piss . 

[Keyblade]

Yeah there a huge difference between telling a joke as a comedian and a presidential candidate mocking someone purely to insult them. 

Edited November 19, 2016 by Keyblade

[HanoiVillan]

13 hours ago, Awol said:

Flynn is a good pick. He was forced out by Obama for refusing to manipulate intelligence & conceal extent of problems in Iraq at the time. Principled and prepared to speak truth to power when required.

 If Trump can get Jim Mattis on board as SecDef and Jack Keane out of retirement and in as DNI then they'll be in very good shape.  Obviously that's a big"IF", but probably who I'd go for in Trumps position.  

Flynn co-authored a book with Michael Ledeen (not a good start) the thesis of which is that jihadists are working as part of a global anti-American alliance with countries like Russia, Cuba and North Korea. If you liked Rick Santorum's foreign policy, you'll love Michael Flynn's!

[MakemineVanilla]

5 hours ago, Awol said:

 The entire population of immigrant and US born Japanese Americans were herded into internment camps for the duration. It was a disgrace.

Trump is proposing to readopt a lapsed policy of entering certain people's details on a database. Not saying I agree with it (how can it be right in a country that enshrines freedom of religion to treat people differently on that basis) but it seems hyperbolic to say a database has parallels with mass incarceration.

If the security concerns are so high the place to get tough is around vetting & immigration policy, but ongoing discrimination once you are in the country doesn't seem to be constitutional.

Unless it is by gender. All males, even male immigrant non-citizens are required by law to register for the draft within 30 days of their 18th birthday.

Only males have been required to register to be eligible for training, student-loans and naturalisation.

In some states a male cannot get a driving licence if he is not registered.

Legal challenges based on the constitution, which prohibits 'involuntary servitude', were thrown out by the Supreme Court.

In June a law was passed which will require all females turning 18 on or after January 1st 2017 to register.

I don't consider the constitution to be much of a protection of human rights.

I think what happened to Japanese-Americans is just one example of how the constitution has been routinely violated.

The Patriot Act was enacted in 2001 and has been renewed every time it ran out and will be law until 2019 and probably beyond.

 

 

 

[peterms]

2 hours ago, Awol said:

Thanks, watched it. Despite Hasan's attempts to put words in his mouth reference AQ & ISIS, it's clear Flynn opposed the  Team Obama view that arming other Jihadists groups was a good idea. 

No wonder they got rid of him.

I see you found it.  It's also on this page with some text of the most interesting bits, to save Snowy from having to listen to Mehdi. 

Quote

In Al Jazeera’s latest Head to Head episode, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Michael Flynn confirms to Mehdi Hasan that not only had he studied the DIA memo predicting the West’s backing of an Islamic State in Syria when it came across his desk in 2012, but even asserts that the White House’s sponsoring of radical jihadists (that would emerge as ISIL and Nusra) against the Syrian regime was “a willful decision.”

Amazingly, Flynn actually took issue with the way interviewer Mehdi Hasan posed the question—Flynn seemed to want to make it clear that the policies that led to the rise of ISIL were not merely the result of ignorance or looking the other way, but the result of conscious decision making:

Hasan: You are basically saying that even in government at the time you knew these groups were around, you saw this analysis, and you were arguing against it, but who wasn’t listening?
Flynn: I think the administration.
Hasan: So the administration turned a blind eye to your analysis?
Flynn: I don’t know that they turned a blind eye, I think it was a decision. I think it was a willful decision.
Hasan: A willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?
Flynn: It was a willful decision to do what they’re doing.

 

[Awol]

25 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Flynn co-authored a book with Michael Ledeen (not a good start) the thesis of which is that jihadists are working as part of a global anti-American alliance with countries like Russia, Cuba and North Korea. If you liked Rick Santorum's foreign policy, you'll love Michael Flynn's!

You've read Field of Fight? Interested to know what you thought of it? I've not got hold of a copy yet but probably should given his new job..

It's unusual for a 33 year career professional who led Defence Intelligence to be a paranoid conspiracy nut. Profiling and promotion normal weed out total lunatics in a professional military. Amazing no one noticed, isn't it? 

[Awol]

4 minutes ago, peterms said:

I see you found it.  It's also on this page with some text of the most interesting bits, to save Snowy from having to listen to Mehdi. 

 

Cheers. As you know when you watch the whole thing Flynn qualifies that the Administration is supporting salafist jihadis rather than AQ /ISIS specifically but Hasan (like Snowy I detest him) does his usual trick of trying to slip in his original contention later in the interview. The man is a revolting little snake.  

However it's no secret that the US and Europe have been supporting people in Syria who have exactly the same principles as AQ and ISIS. They are laughably described as the 'moderate opposition' by London and Washington, despite those guys being killed, pushed out or taken over by Jihadist groups during 2011/12.

Although I've not read his book yet Flynn views the problem of Islamic extremism much more holistically than the self deluding administrations in the west.

His appointment is a chance to turn around 15 years of failed group think. Bring it on I say. 

[HanoiVillan]

50 minutes ago, Awol said:

You've read Field of Fight? Interested to know what you thought of it? I've not got hold of a copy yet but probably should given his new job..

It's unusual for a 33 year career professional who led Defence Intelligence to be a paranoid conspiracy nut. Profiling and promotion normal weed out total lunatics in a professional military. Amazing no one noticed, isn't it? 

Sadly I haven't. It's reviewed here, containing quotes from Flynn:

General Flynn's All-Out War on Terror

A theme of President Barack Obama's counterterrorism policy has been a relentless narrowing of focus. Under his watch the U.S. has not been at war with terror or radical Islam. It has been in discrete conflicts with al Qaeda's core leadership and its affiliate in Yemen and the Islamic State. And while Obama's war has waxed and waned, he has never explained its disparate parts as a whole the way his predecessor did.

Michael Flynn, who served as Obama's second Defense Intelligence Agency director, takes the opposite view. "Field of Fight," a new book Flynn co-wrote with historian Michael Ledeen, argues that America is up against a global alliance between radical jihadis and anti-American nation states like Russia, Cuba and North Korea. They say this war will last at least a generation. And they say it will require outside ground forces to go after al Qaeda and the Islamic State as well as a sustained information campaign to discredit the ideology of radical Islam.  

One might think a big war is a quaint throwback to the era after 9/11 when George W. Bush delivered his speech about the "axis of evil." But Flynn is very much a man of the moment. Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported this former special operations officer and three-star general was Donald Trump's leading choice for vice president. At the very least he has the real-estate mogul's ear when it comes to national security.

In some ways this makes for an odd pairing. While Trump has promised to vaguely "knock the hell" out of the Islamic State, the candidate of "America First" has also promised to reach out to Russia's president Vladimir Putin to see if more cooperation is possible.

Flynn, who flew to Moscow last year to attend a conference sponsored by the state's propaganda outlet, RT, is nonetheless very critical of Putin. "When it is said that Russia would make an ideal partner for fighting Radical Islam, it behooves us to remember that the Russians haven't been very effective at fighting jihadis on their own territory, and are in cahoots with the Iranians. In Syria, the two allies have loudly proclaimed they are waging war against ISIS, but in reality the great bulk of their efforts are aimed at the opponents of the Assad regime," Flynn and Ledeen write.

But all of this raises questions about the central theme of "Field of Fight," that countries like Russia are in an alliance at all with radical Islam. If the Russians have fought ineffectively against jihadis, are we also to believe they are in an alliance with them? When I spoke with Flynn over the weekend, he said why he chose to call it an alliance: "It was a simpler way to explain the relationships." 

So what binds these countries and movements together, then? The authors say the countries and revolutionary movements in this alliance share a fondness for totalitarianism, and perceive America as their chief threat. In this sense it's similar to how Stalin and Hitler had a brief pact in World War II.

"The countries and movements that are trying to destroy us have worldviews that may seem to be in violent conflict with one another," they write. "But they are united by their hatred of the democratic West and their conviction that dictatorship is superior." 

To bolster this claim, Ledeen and Flynn focus primarily on the nexus between Iran and Russia and then later Iran and Sunni Muslim jihadis like al Qaeda. Some of this is familiar material. After its safe haven was smashed in Afghanistan in 2001, some of al Qaeda's leaders and their immediate families fled to Iran. Iran has supported al Qaeda's franchise in Syria at times and the first leader of al Qaeda's Iraq franchise traveled to Iraq through Iran. Flynn and Ledeen promise that more details about al Qaeda's relationship with Iran can be found in the documents captured in 2011 from Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan. But those documents remain classified by the Obama administration, Flynn says, for political reasons.

As far as Russia's relationship with Iran goes, they point to Russian arms sales to Iran and the aid Russian engineers have provided to Iran's Bushehr reactor. Left out of this though is Russia's cooperation with the West on sanctions against Iran's financial system and oil exports. Flynn himself allows that in some areas, it's possible for the U.S. to cooperate with Russia in the larger war against radical Islam.

In this sense, the authors are not really arguing that America should be in a shooting war with all of the countries that don't like America, and with radical Islam. Instead, they call for a kind of two-track approach. On the battlefield, they call for more tactical alliances with regional countries against the Islamic State and al Qaeda. But another component is a political war. Specifically, they say the next president should wage an ideological campaign to discredit both radical Islam, but also the dictatorships that oppose the west.

To the skeptical reader this broad campaign may sound like a recipe for endless war. But Obama's alternatively narrower and discrete war has landed in the same place. Despite Obama's best efforts to phase out Bush's war on terror, his successor will inherit it nonetheless. Flynn and Ledeen argue the next president should go big and try to win it.

EDIT: I should editorialise a little here, probably. I would like to read the book, and it will be interesting to see what his actual actions are on the job. However, I see little reason to hope that he is much more than a Bush dead-ender so far. Certainly this idea of 'a holistic approach to the War on Terror' is only of any use if it quickly separates jihadists and IS from governments in Iran and Russia. If he is opposed to torture at least, I will give him credit for that.

Edited November 19, 2016 by HanoiVillan

[snowychap]

25 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

If he is opposed to torture at least, I will give him credit for that.

Yep, if I got that wrong about him then I hold my hands up.

I did see it reported that he said something along the lines of wanting to 'keep all possible options on the table until the last minute' and it was suggested that this was somehow in response to comments about torture/waterboarding and so on. Perhaps that reporting wasn't unbiased on the topic, though.

[peterms]

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

Yep, if I got that wrong about him then I hold my hands up.

I did see it reported that he said something along the lines of wanting to 'keep all possible options on the table until the last minute' and it was suggested that this was somehow in response to comments about torture/waterboarding and so on. Perhaps that reporting wasn't unbiased on the topic, though.

Well, he said he's against torture, and I've not seen any more about it, not that I've looked.

I tend not to put too much faith in what senior military and intelligence people say though, given the number of lies they tell, presumably because they think they are in the service of a higher cause so that's ok.

He does at least explain that it's counterproductive, which gives his claim a little more credibility than just a simple denial.  I prefer to note his comment, rather than believe or disbelieve it.  But it's better that he made a comment against torture than one supporting it, so credit for that.