This article seems on topic, but I haven't finished it.
That slate one about the "secret server" (that might have been a big nothing) was pretty breathless.
But the headline wasn't breathless and nobody could be expected to read an article that long.
This which I linked in the other thread isn't breathless but is appropriately alarmed. Very niche media though.
Lead story on the Groan website at the moment. The takeaway ought to be that security agencies should be concentrating on potentially hostile agencies, not on politicians' employees' friends' emails.
2: This one? The headline is okay, the first few paragraphs all make it seem like all threats are hypothetical and not imminent and not necessarily cause for panic.
The headline is a question. The Clinton headlines are statements. The equivalent would be something like "Trump computer links to Russia say researchers."
Right. And there are no worst-case scenarios speculated front and center.
Of course, if we judge all the headlines from this election against the Platonic form of an ideal headline ("Headless Body in Topless Bar"), none of them are worth a shit.
It's total bullshit. News becomes entertainment because reality is boring. Then when reality becomes a Tom Clancy novel the news industry is so used to embellishing non-news that it can't even recognize real news.
There was a real murder somewhere near a real topless bar.
If what I heard from someone fairly knowledgeable is true, part of the problem is that there's a faction at the FBI, and a crew that's particularly willing to leak things to the media, that honestly does care more about the Clinton emails than the Russian government influencing the election. Which is bizarre since the basic purpose of the FBI was (more or less) to stop the Russian government from influencing US elections.
That before Russia switched from Team Commie to Team White People.
I sort of wonder what will happen to the New York Times during the next 4/8 years. It seems like a 2nd Clinton presidency might trigger some kind of full scale melt down.
Also, I think stopping bank robbers was a big part of the FBI's origin.
Vox reckons that Slate is (unsurprisingly) full of it:
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/1/13484340/trump-russia-secret-server
when reality becomes a Tom Clancy novel the news industry is so used to embellishing non-news that it can't even recognize real news.
As in 1998, for example.
THE WORLD: "Hey, a multi-millionaire international terrorist just blew up two US embassies and has promised to destroy America! And the President just ordered a retaliatory strike with cruise missiles on his remote mountain lair guarded by thousands of fanatical mujahedin!"
THE NEW YORK TIMES: "Hmm, clearly the important part of this story is how it relates to the blowjob thing."
The leaky FBI was a big problem during the Starr years, iirc.
It's no surprise, of course, that an outfit like that would attract a bunch of conservative authoritarians.
17.2 They all dream of being played by Robert Redford. Maybe now someone younger . . .
Slatepitch: the Watergate scandal was the worst possible thing that could happen for government accountability in the US. The burglary attempt was a pathetic nothing of a crime that harmed no one, but the Woodward/Bernstein expose set a norm that only cover-ups that got exposed could bring presidents down. Calling for Nixon's impeachment over the bombing of Cambodia was wild hippie nonsense. The rule became that you could do whatever you wanted as long as you didn't try to hide it.
Similarly, Nixon ranting about Jews was only newsworthy because he did it in private. If he'd come out in public and said something like "hey, the Waffen-SS were good guys who just got into an unfortunate situation and we should mourn their deaths!" no one would have cared.
17: I remember the "Wag the Dog" bullshit from that era. I'm almost convinced that had Gore been president 9/11 would not have happened. The Clinton team took Bin Laden seriously and there's every reason to believe Gore would have continued that. Certainly retasking intelligence assets from Al Qaeda to Iraq made 9/11 much harder to stop. Clinton did a fantastic job of keeping his eye on the ball despite the impeachment nonsense. Hopefully Clinton II will be as good.
That reminds me, if Clinton wins she should try to take the "Reagan" off "Reagan National." It's not like anybody who cares will vote for her regardless.
that there's a faction at the FBI, and a crew that's particularly willing to leak things to the media
Who are these people, and why do they have jobs? If only there was some agency tasked with investigating this kind of thing...
and why do they have jobs?
Because neoliberalism compels people to work for a living.
If he'd come out in public and said something like "hey, the Waffen-SS were good guys who just got into an unfortunate situation and we should mourn their deaths!" no one would have cared.
Maybe even do something as outrageous as to go and lay a wreath on their graves. It could happen!
On November 9, I'd like to see Obama appoint a special prosecutor to look into this shit. Its not ok for civil servants at the FBI to attempt to influence upcoming elections by means of leaking selected details regarding ongoing investigations. People should be fired, if not jailed.
You know who else mourned dead SS men?
I assume everybody is googling to find the answer.
You know who else mourned dead SS men?
Me!
Pencils down. Pass your papers to the left for checking. Ready?
The answer was "Hitler".
I'd be interested to know whether I'm missing relevant facts.
Russian hackers, almost definitely state sponsored from the sophistication of the code, copied lots of material from DNC servers, and released these via wikileaks.
One of Trump's guys, Manafort, has received colossal amounts of money from Yanukhovich and has current business dealings with Deripaska. Manafort is reported to have strongly influenced Trump to choose Pence instead of Christie. Trump's military guy, Flynn, has accepted money from Russian broadcasters for giving a speech-- a lower level of entanglement than Manafort.
There was a huge scammy business entity, Bayrock that financed Trump projects (mainly Trump SoHo) with Russian oligarch money. I don't know how important Trump SoHo is to DJT financially-- possibly it is a scam that he lent his name to.
Other definite connections?
Did Hitler really mourn them? Or did he think, "Those assholes let me down again!"
20- Certainly Trump has shown that's the case for dogwhistle vs. siren vs. LRAD. Politicians still feel the need to deny/apologize for calling for violence against their opponents, that's probably the next wall to fall- "Damn right I called for murdering that piece of shit, it would be patriotic to take out such threat to the country!" (Although the media might still get all het up about the profanity.)
33: You could ask the same question about Reagan.
32.2 understates the case. It is certainly two Russian intelligence units, one associated with GRU, the other probably FSB. In other words, not Russian-sponsored but actually Russian, and sanctioned by Putin himself.
32-
And when Trump built a tower in Panama, his clients were wealthy Russians, the Washington Post reported. "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia," Trump's son, Donald Jr., said at a real estate conference in 2008, according to a trade publication, eTurboNews.
34: I think it will. There's no element of revelation there, you see. That's what I mean about the expose' element.
If it was a leaked tape of Trump talking to a supporter about how Hillary supporters needed beating up, that would be a story. But if he said it at a rally - as he did - well, where do you go from there? For the story to work, he has to be embarrassed about what he said becoming known. But he just repeats the horrible statements and/or denies he ever said them. And the media's constitutionally incapable of simply saying "this is disgusting and wrong" because they love the idea of being impartial. With a coverup, you see, you can report on the behaviour without having to take a stance on whether burglary (or torture or whatever) is wrong.
One of the points made in that podcast is that the Russians might see this election as a uniquely good opportunity because Clinton is already perceived as untrustworthy. More work of the soap opera journalism industry there.
there's a faction at the FBI, and a crew that's particularly willing to leak things to the media, that honestly does care more about the Clinton emails than the Russian government influencing the election
I certainly hope that Clinton goes into presidency with the determination to clean that agency out. This has been a very timely reminder, if her resolve was flagging. I also hope that she has no patience for "norms of the Senate" and other crap that supports the filibuster.
My favorite irresponsible rumor is that the FSB is blackmailing Trump. Allegedly they have footage of him attending an orgy in Moscow.
Although, really, it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
The claim is that underlying all of this there's a sex tape the FSB made while Trump was visiting Moscow and partaking of the local wares. They probably provided the girls and the penthouse suite too (with multiple hidden camera angles and high quality audio).
This also explains why Peter Thiel is so involved in the campaign.
There's been a lot of talk lately about the republicans simply refusing to vote on any of Clinton's court nominees. I'm wondering 1) If this is just standard liberal doom mongering, and 2) What happens if it's true? I assume Clinton's people must have some contingency plan for facing a full blown constitutional crisis.
I can't believe that's what I get pwned on.
44: I think McCain just flat out said that and then walked it back a bit.
I'm not actually going to want to watch a Trump sex tape.
44- They have three R Senators on record (Burr, Cruz, McCain) saying that's what they'll do, although McCain partly walked it back.
At some point recess appointments come into play, although there's the pro forma session bullshit. But if I remember correctly it was SCOTUS itself that upheld the pro forma sessions as valid so not sure what would happen if the issue was whether an appointment to SCOTUS was valid.
If all you assholes would write more than 6 words...
Trump would just come out and own an orgy at this point. At least he would, if he had been able to get it up.
You have knowledge to the contrary?
At least he would, if he had been able to get it up.
That's my theory. He would be fine with a sex tape, but would very much want to bury a sex tape on which he underperformed.
36. I believe this, but I don't think there is evidence. The one group, Fancy Bear, tried taking down a French TV station in 2014 and has hacked Soros' organization. Obviously it would be crazy to do that inside Russia without approval.
But in contrast to completely unambiguous evidence about Chinese hackers (which building they work from, their facebook logins), the Russian hackers are linked to state service by their choice of targets and sophistication of the code rather than being individually or institutionally identifiable.
If there was a whole orgy full of women and none of them were dressed as Nazis, I think Trump voters would find it hard to get past.
Following ajay's theory, this guy should just own it because that explanation is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever read.
that explanation is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever read.
No, the stupidest fucking thing is following up the terrible explanation with "The Jews run the country anyway."
That's the dumbest thing I ever saw and I've seen Waterworld.
37. I agree that these appalling consequences suggest that something is seriously wrong.
My question is whether there is public unambiguous evidence that a prosecutor might use if the responsible people were on US soil. For example, there's a 19-year old hacker, Jevgenij Nikulin, now in custody in Prague because the FBI wants him for the LinkedIn breakin. The CZ authorities have not yet decided whether to give the guy back to the Russians or turn him over. I expect that there are behind the scenes discussions of a price to be paid for him.
Basically, I am more interested in learning what the russians are doing, or of clear evidence being ignored by the FBI, than in more intimations that DJT is greedy and short-sighted.
My mother's Finnish Republican boyfriend is totally demoralized by the whole embrace of Russia by mainstream Republicans. Last I heard he's not planning on voting at all. There's a really key demographic lost to the Republican party in this election.
Also, this is a pedantic side point, but it boggles me that Russians have embraced neo-Nazism. How on earth do they spin "Slavs are the untermensch" into something even vaguely supportive of Russian ethnic superiority?
If only there was some agency tasked with investigating this kind of thing...
One of the problems is that there are so many agencies, and none of them clearly has a mandate to deal with this particular set of circumstances. The attribution report was issued by the DNI, so all of them agree that it is the Russians, but following through and investigating a presidential nominee demands that some agency actually step out and risk getting crucified.
56: From the stories on the sidebar there, I'm delighted to learn that Trump isn't paying his pollster.
60: I dunno, how did they do it last time when they embraced actual no-kidding Nazism? I imagine they just do a search and replace. A limited one; all the stuff about Jews and so on can stay as is.
Or they may actually agree that they're untermenschen, and hence need a strong Little Father to protect them in their childlike holy innocence from the machinations of the encircling evil outside their borders.
62: I think you might have missed a joke on that.
That is, after all, how North Korea does it. No one infantilises the Korean people more thoroughly than the DPRK government.
totally demoralized by the whole embrace of Russia by mainstream Republicans.
Its totally weird. Like, don't people remember that whole 50+ year period when a huge part of the Republican Party's brand was built around hating Russians more than the Democrats did?
At least he would, if he had been able to get it up.
That's my theory. He would be fine with a sex tape, but would very much want to bury a sex tape on which he underperformed.
Alternatively, and it really would be irresponsible not to speculate, this is the same tape as the N-word tape.
64
Right, it seems so weirdly self-hating. Like, if you're going to start a ethnic/racial supremacist movement, wouldn't you want to not borrow heavily from the one that declared you stupider than animals and barely fit to be slaves? Or the one that killed your grandparents? I get the Nazis had good design sensibilities, but you could probably come up with some "Russian" alternative to the swastika that still looked snazzy on an armband.
last time when they embraced actual no-kidding Nazism
Is there some whole additional era of the 20th-century nightmare I have somehow missed?
71
The uneasy alliance between Hitler and Stalin while Hitler was preparing an attack and Stalin was preparing for a defense against a German attack can hardly be described as an ideological embrace of actual Nazism by either the Russian leaders or the general populace.
47: That's what they said about Hulk Hogan.
72: Maybe, but other people faced by the strong likelihood of Nazi attack did much better.
1. The Nazis hadn't killed 30 million Soviets at that point and 2. The Central Committee declaring that we have always been friends with Germany isn't the same as random Russian people spontaneously declaring themselves Nazis and lynching yellow people on Hitler's birthday.
Maybe I should rethink watching the sex tape. I really don't want to see Trump in the buff, but one has to think that the women the FSB recruited to entrap him would be absolutely slamming hot 10/10 Slavic beauties. Which I understand are plentiful east of the Danube.
Buttercup pwnage is the best kind of pwnage.
Right, it seems so weirdly self-hating.
Hey, this is Russia we're talking about. "Weirdly self-hating" is practically the national mission statement.
On the broader topic, I think the problem is that people have spent too much time talking about how evil the Nazis (and indeed the Confederates) were, and not enough time talking about how they totally lost. Because being brutal and evil is kind of exciting to a certain sort of person. They'll see pictures of smirking guards massacring civilians or beating slaves and think "hey, those guys look like they're on top of the world! I want to be them!" What they should be seeing, over and over again, is pictures of pathetic surrendered German soldiers being herded away into POW camps. A certain sort of person wants to be Amon Goeth. And why not? He thought of himself as a god, with absolute power of life and death over thousands. No one wants to be some ragged Obergefreiter with no boots and his hands up being rooted out of his slit trench.
78 is a great point. One of the best scenes in Band of Brothers .
78.2: I used to occasionally browse military history discussion boards, and the attitude you describe was weirdly prevalent. To hear those folks tell it, the Nazis were continuously kicking everybody's ass until all of sudden allied armies were somehow occupying Germany.
can hardly be described as an ideological embrace of actual Nazism by either the Russian leaders or the general populace.
Yes, it's not as though Russian leaders then embarked on a concerted programme of expansion through territorial conquest, ultra-nationalist propaganda, repression, forced transfer and wholesale imprisonment of ethnic minorities, deliberate extermination of the intelligentsia of conquered countries in order to render the population less likely to resist, anti-Semitic paranoia, and actual parades of goose-stepping soldiers.
What annoys me is when the Wehrmacht is given a pass on evil because of various military talents and not being directly under the Nazi Party at some point or whatever. "They weren't like those horrible SS, they were fighting for their country!"
Which is bullshit. They were waging aggressive war against other countries, and committing plenty additional war crimes in the process.
81: Ok, embrace of actual fascism. But fascism isn't Nazism. Don't mind me, my hairs just split a lot.
83
Right, that's why it's a pedantic point. Like, it's not weird that Russians are fascist, racist, xenophobic, antisemitic, etc. It's weird that they've picked *Nazism* as the vehicle to channel it through. Like, "oh, you know those people who would have hated us as much as the Jews except they thought we were too stupid to be worthy of hate, that ideology would be a great model for our own nationalist supremacist movement."
Also, harking back to the Tooze group, Nazi Germany and the USSR were very much both insurgent powers in the 1930s. They both felt they had something to gain from the violent overthrow of the pre-war order, inasmuch as it had survived WW1 and the Depression, and they acted to achieve it. Both, for example, wanted an end to the intolerable irritation of there being bits of eastern Europe which thought they could be independent. (Russia continues to be irritated by this to this day.)
Germany too! Or at least they will be when Poland or somewhere needs a bailout.
Boy, good thing Russia doesn't feel like they have anything to gain from the overthrow of the current world order. What with their GDP currently hovering between that of Spain and Italy.
85
They were both brutal regimes, but Stalin had a very different motivation for wanting control of Eastern Europe than Hitler. Pan-Slavism with a giant Slavic empire is a different ideology than Nazism, which promoted eventual total annihilation of Slavic peoples and the area resettled by Germanic settler colonists.
And being eroded by oil exports from North Dakota.
That's because the capital of North Dakota was named "Bismarck".
Anyways, I'm being pedantic.
87 is why Russia scares me so much. I also think 78 is an overlooked important point. We've let the Nazis be evil and sexy, when they really need to be shown as pathetic losers in all respects.
I thought that (far right skinheads aside) the Putin-right synthesis in Russia depended heavily still on being authoritarian but anti-Nazi. E.g., linking the insurgents in Ukraine (with some plausibility in some cases, but, of course, being Eastern Europe, it's complicated) to neo-Nazi or crypto-Nazi Ukranian movements.
Their only chance would be to try to break up Europe - to stop it functioning as a unified economic opponent by destroying the EU, and to stop it functioning as a unified military opponent by destroying NATO.
Oh, look.
Although for Putin-supported Europe, the current beef with Germany seems to be in large part that the Germans are too fond of brown people, thus allowing Putin to position himself as both anti-German and pro-racist.
92: the Putin government definitely still uses "Nazi" as an insult. So the Germans are Nazis, the Maidan protestors are Nazis, everyone in Ukraine is a Nazi, etc etc. They're never actually going to come out and say "hey everyone we are Nazis now". That would damage the branding.
Oh hey, look what the FBI just happened to decide should be released today from an investigation that concluded in 2005. Maybe it's a huge coincidence and FBI rules require release after exactly 4000 days.
Speaking of Tooze, this podcast of a talk he gave on looking back at his book "The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi War Economy" at the New York Military Affairs Symposium last year is excellent. (2nd from the top)
You'll note that there's absolutely no information in the document linked in 96, as everything except form text is redacted. But I'm sure we'll see news stories about how documents from another Clinton investigation were released today.
92/95: Yes, the Great Patriotic War is still being fought but at the same time Putin's security state is blithely ignoring gangs of neo-Nazis. The authoritarianism and incoherence ar of all of a piece, built like BC says, it's really striking that normal Russians, raised on three generations of anti-Nazi propaganda, are turning out Nazi.
97: Thanks!
s/b 'are all of a piece, but'
82 - one of the oddest features of the post-war was Churchill's and Basil Liddel-Hart's (totally bullshit) defense of von Manstein on war crimes charges, which led to the myth of the "clean" Wehrmacht that held sway until like the 90s or so. I mean von Manstein was a legit military genius who, partly by getting pretty lucky, beat France and turned the war into the cataclysm that it was, but I have no idea why Churchill and respectable Brits put themselves on the line for the guy.
I have no idea why Churchill and respectable Brits put themselves on the line for the guy
Basically we needed him, or rather we needed people like him, to rebuild the Bundeswehr and make NATO into a semi-credible force rather than simply a speedbump for the Group of Soviet Forces Germany on its way to Brest.
Brest is best.
I won't believe Russia has a tape of Trump until he starts claiming they have one of Clinton.
103 is true. Also Western and American historiography of the Eastern Front at that time was heavily shaded by Wehrmacht accounts. Also puffing up the German reputation takes some heat off the British for their often very dubious performance in the war. Also Liddell Hart was claiming throughout to have invented blitzkrieg, so German mythology would reflect back on him.
106: indeed. It's good for everyone to puff up the reputation of the enemy you took so much trouble to beat. I'd add Russia to that; if the Germans weren't so super-terrific, then how come they managed to tear the Red Army apart in five weeks and drive all the way to the Volga?
Because Stalin was a shitty military commander and bottle-fed as a baby.
Yes absolutely to 78. Abe and the Nippon Kaigi rightwingers in Japan basically want to create a romantic ideal of what Japan might have been like if it hadn't lost WWII.
then how come they managed to tear the Red Army apart in five weeks and drive all the way to the Volga?
103 - sure, to some extent there needed to be some settlement that allowed trained German soldiers to serve in a NATO force, but (especially in retrospect) it's not totally clear why the line had to be Wehrmacht/non-Wehrmacht vs. German soldiers who were actively war criminals vs. those who weren't. Some weren't!
I think 106/107 may have had more to do with it, especially with members of the allied forces who liked to think of themselves as masters of strategy.
I don't know how practical 111 would have been. Pretty much ever senior officer was complicit at best. Also Manstein was absolutely the MVP for defensive warfare against the Red Army.
Yes. Harder to work against than a cast-iron bra.
96 appears to be an in relation to Bill Clinton's pardoning of Marc Rich on the last day of his Presidency, which was corrupt as hell and is totally fair game for discussing as part of the election. I'm actually kind of annoyed it wasn't brought up before, because that kind of sleaziness bothers me a lot more than email servers.
But, the FBI timing the release of these documents for a week before the election: also super questionable. The special prosecutor should look into that too.
A couple speculative ideas on the whitewashing (ahem) of the Wehrmacht:
A. The Americans, at least, would have had (probably some bullshit Dunningesque version of) Lee's surrender to Grant in mind, and the underlying premise that, if you want to end hostility, then you need a way to forgive and even valorise your opponent. RT's point is that it was Brits working the "innocent Wehrmacht" angle, but I can't help but think that a good chunk of Americans would have been nodding along.
B. Surely the experience with the dismantling of the Iraqi Army gives us a pretty good idea of the alternative. Sure, it would be nice to actually pluck out the criminals, but that's an endless task, one that massively threatens cohesion and invites endless replaying of old, war-foggy disagreements. Point being, even aside from the threat of the Red Army, the Allies were 100% correct to recognize that the entire Germany military couldn't be disbanded or demonized. And I don't actually think you can do that on a case-by-case basis.
C. To follow up the last bit: Let's stipulate that, among absolute top-level commanders (theater level? Somewhere up there. People whose only superiors were the political Nazis), you could select out the war criminals. But once you go even a little bit below that level, it's absolute poison, because you're going to have privates who've done far worse than officers that you're going to want to strike from eligibility. That is, once you start adjudicating anyone below top commanders, you basically have to put every soldier in the whole army on trial.
I sure hope OSTC/LC becomes a regular. Anyone know where the fruit basket is?
It's entirely possible I am a regular who was making a bad pun and then decided to run it into the ground.
116: Book recs anyone? I know nothing about the reconstruction of Germany. Tooze says incidentally that it was profound, and deliberately imposed by the Allies. Interesting that it worked and I'd really like to know how.
Was Tooze just speaking of the economy? You'd want something about Bretton Woods and something about the Marshall Plan for that. Looking at de-Nazification would be different.
the Allies were 100% correct to recognize that the entire Germany military couldn't be disbanded or demonized
But the Allies did completely disband the German military, for 10 years, until it was re-launched (in the West) in 1955. Before then it had completely ceased to exist.
That is, once you start adjudicating anyone below top commanders, you basically have to put every soldier in the whole army on trial.
Not really. The question is did you command, or have command responsibility for, war crimes. Or did you in fact execute war crimes. Fairly large chunks of the Wehrmacht fell into neither category, and so weren't actually war criminals (and were never thought to be). Von Manstein wasn't one of them.
I'm actually broadly sympathetic with the idea that there needed to be some kind of settlement in the 50s that provided some kind of absolution, even if not justified, for the "ordinary" German soldier as part of the creation of a modern democratic German army. But ISTM that the "clean Wehrmacht" myth went fairly far beyond that and in particular seems to have been enthusiastically greeted by allied populations amd people like Churchill in ways that weren't necessary at all.
The Marriage of Maria Braun, film not book.
116 B & C: Thinking about this makes the epic fail in Iraq even more striking. "De-baathification" was directly inspired by de-Nazification, and if the people in charge had bothered to learn anything about history, they would have known that de-Nazification was basically abandoned as a hopeless task (except for the major leaders) early on.
120.1: No, whole of society.
123: And if they had studied history instead of name-checking it, they would have known they needed an army of occupation numbering hundreds of thousands, that would remain for years. Which is what the Army told Rumsfeld, and what Rumsfeld didn't want to hear. He would chase out of his office anyone who even said the word 'occupation'. He forbade planning for it: the military invaded Iraq literally without a occupation plan.
125: All we really need to know about WWII is that the Germans bombed Pear Harbor because of Neville Chamberlain appeasement at Munich.
126: And the Democrat Party will make us do it again!
I don't really know enough to have this be anything other than trolling, but didn't the "de-Baathification" part of the US adventure in Iraq work out pretty well? There's no substantial movement to restore Sadaam's lieutenants or the Baath party to power. To be clear disbanding the Iraqi army was a huge mistake and plenty of ex-soldiers were happy to fight for equally horrible causes and 125 is totally correct but the no more Baath party thing specifically kinda worked. So, yay, but not yay.
Actually I decided a long time ago that the hardliners in the Bush administration were right that we should have just put Chalabi in charge and left asap. Not that things would have worked out well, but I don't think it could have worked out any worse for the Iraqis, and many less Americans would have died.
The talk in 97 is excellent. Around 1:30 there's some discussion of German mythos - British historians basically Hannibal Lectered by Speer and others.
My understanding is that the de-Baathified people went on to lead the Sunni insurgency and, eventually, ISIS. Just because they weren't Baathists anymore doesn't mean they weren't outside the tent, pissing in.
128: There kind of is such a movement in that ISIL and AQ in Iraq before it were formed and led by ex-Baathist officers. But they're also hardline jihadis so they would have been fighting regardless of American policy.
That's my (not very deep) understanding too. Or, more precisely, they weren't the origin or core of either the Sunni insurgency or ISIS but that a lot of ex-Iraqi-army troops ended up in the insurgency or ISIS. I was making a super narrow point about getting rid of the Baath party/ideology, which is kind of ultimately a who gives a shit, but this is the internet.
131: Something I only learned recently: those Baathist jihadis were jihadis long before the invasion. In the 1990s Saddam 'Islamized' and Salafist ideology starting spreading through the regime. Which is why the biggest problems the Americans had in 2003 was suicide bombers and suicidally brave militias. Almost all of those fighters were Iraqi, government sanctioned.
I vaguely remember the Isalmisation of the Iraqi government being used as a talking point by neocons in support of the invasion and dismissing it at the time as part of the general Bush administration effort to blur Sadaam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. But maybe they were right.
133: ex-regime elements were and are the core of AQI/ISIS, but they were never ideologically Baathists. By 2003 Baathism was long dead as an ideology, witness the mostly secular army deserting en masse while the Islamist militias fought to the death. Whereas in 1945 Nazis were absolutely fighting to the death, in the name of Nazism.
WHEN did everyone get so into Nazis??? My (Jewish) dad and brother were getting like, very jazzed about Rommel the other night at dinner, like, "oh he was a slightly better Nazi." Is that consensus now? That we have slightly better Nazis?
135: I had assumed it was just BS posturing following Gulf War I, but turns out no.
It's a spectrum, Stabby. It's starts with grey (Wehrmacht) and passes by stages to black (Totenkopf SS).
Rommel did try to kill Hitler. Or at least not get in the way when people tried to kill Hitler. On the other hand, a very dedicated Nazi did kill Hitler.
I think the Nazis that fought in North Africa ended up looking slightly better than the others. But that's probably because out in the middle of the desert there were no Jews, gypsies or communists to murder.
There were Muslims, if they had ambition.
I just... feel no compulsion to decide which Nazis were the worst Nazis.
I note, incidentally, the brilliance with which FSB-sponsored neo-Nazis have diverted our attention from the OP.
141: there were still opportunities for atrocities. The Italians manages to behave quite horribly to the native populations of Libya and Tunisia.
Anyway the OP is totally correct and the "200 lb pumpkin takes blue ribbon at state fair; Russian spies actively meddling with US election" has thrown me for a real loop this year.
I'm a winner. I win all the time.
The Italians manages to behave quite horribly to the native populations of Libya and Tunisia.
Old habits die hard. Delenda est Carthago, what?
Ok but was there a recent article or something? No one liked Nazis two weeks ago and then I woke up one day and everyone was all "let me tell you about Rommel tho."
Not sure that mild Rommel equivocation at dinner parties is enough of a trend to make it into even a NY Times style section piece.
Haven't people been willing to say mildly nice things about Rommel for a while?
Growing up a neighbor had a vicious German Shepherd named Rommel.
I read a biography of Rommel in HS, and I have no idea how accurate it was, but there were a number of fascinating stories. He was decorated in the first WW (fighting Italians) as well as his success in the second. He seems to have been fairly apolitical (other than having a generally right-wing attitude) and turned against Hitler at the end -- and was a notable military commander.
This isn't to defend him, just to say that he's the sort of historic figure that people who like tactical board games really appreciate.
This may be too late, but I wonder is there any reason I shouldn't take this as the last word on the topic?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/fbi-russia-election-donald-trump.html
158: The FBI apparently leaks like a sieve and there's no way to tell which anonymous leaks are accurate?
I missed this when it came out, but to the OP: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/the-mystery-of-trumps-man-in-moscow-214283
Strongly implies this guy described as the suspicious Russia conduit is actually a relative nobody trying to cash in on unearned prominence.
158: Also there's apparently a contingent of Trumpite FBI agents pressuring Comey with leaks or the threat thereof. Note also the FBI archive thing that came out today.
And the Times article itself says the investigation is continuing. No last word on anything.
160.2: You mean somebody like that other than the candidate.
159- Yeah I am really hoping that HRC comes into office motivated and able to conduct a purge of many of those people in the FBI.
164: Agreed. The past few days have been fucking ridiculous.
Rommel fits the puffing-the-enemy's-reputation-thing well, since opposite him was Montgomery, massively puffing up his own.
And Patton, another puffer-upper.
Also, "lacation"? Am I missing something?
You think it's easy to spell in a T-34 while two Panzers are bearing down on you and an infant won't latch?
вперед, За родину!
Thanks to whoever linked this:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/10/trump-putin-alt-right-comintern/506015/
It was surprisingly rational.
For a major American publication.
"What we learned even in the 90s--there are never, ever any standards for a journalist writing about Russia. Ever. The more bigoted and fantastical, the better. And when your hack crap is completely 100% debunked by other revelations, no editor will ever, ever discipline you. The only way you can have problems with Russia journalism is if you step away from the herd. No editor will ever forgive you for it."
-Mark Ames
This has the distinction of being the most despicable thing I've read this election season, or maybe ever:
http://theweek.com/articles/658636/hillary-clintons-presidency-inevitable-also-over
I had to stop reading that. They don't know the difference between pulling at threads and picking at lint.
IANAL, but didn't they use to call pulling at threads; fishing expeditions? And weren't they considered a violation of someones' rights?
167: nitpick - Patton never fought Rommel. He fought the French in Tunisia, then Rommel was moved out of theatre. Then Patton was sacked in Sickly for slapping wounded soldiers. By the time Patton arrived in Normandy Rommel had been killed.
179 I know, but the fact that that myth persists shows what a perfect puffer-upper he was.
'Sickly' is a singularly appropriate typo.
As others have noted, the framing of Rommel as an "honorable" opponent, as opposed to, you know, those other dastardly Nazis, started even before he died and has never really gone away.
In that he's fared better than Albert Speer, who managed to dupe a lot of people into thinking that he was a slightly better sort of Nazi for a while, but it didn't last.
182.2 Tooze in that talk I linked at 97 in calling him an early proponent of the PowerPoint slide may have put the final nail in the coffin of Speer's reputation.
||
This is possibly the dumbest thing Rod Dreher has ever written. Which is saying something.
>
Patton never fought Rommel.
Don King wanted too big of a percentage.
44
There's been a lot of talk lately about the republicans simply refusing to vote on any of Clinton's court nominees. I'm wondering 1) If this is just standard liberal doom mongering, and 2) What happens if it's true? I assume Clinton's people must have some contingency plan for facing a full blown constitutional crisis.
I think there are four possibilities.
1. It's all bluster, they give in when actually faced with another 4 years of a Democratic president and confirm Merrick Garland or someone similar.
2. Clinton goes all Third Way and nominates someone even more appealing to Republicans than that.
3. Recess appointment. As 48 said, whether it could be done on the Supreme Court is an open question. Presumably her nominee would recuse themselves from ruling on their own fitness to hold office.
4. The court persists with a 4-4 split until the next Republican president and the world doesn't end. I don't have a link handy but I've read that this would be good or neutral at worst for the left (until, of course, that Republican president comes along), because there happen to be more Democrats or Democratic appointees on the courts immediately below the SC.
If 4 is correct, then presumably Republicans are stonewalling on a nominee based on the appearance of it and fear of getting primaried, not because they actually think the status quo is good for their causes. Or because they think they can deal with 4 years of decisions not going their way and the Democrats won't stonewall like they have. If 4 isn't right, then I have no idea how I'd rate the likelihood of the other 3 possibilities. I hope for 1 but I know better than to hope.
The problem with option 4 is that we've got three strong candidates for justices who won't make it another four years. Ginsberg, Kennedy, and Breyer are all quite old.
And two of those possibilities would swing the court back to a conservative majority, thus providing incentive not to fill the seat.
I personally wonder if any of Clinton's appointments at all will be approved if the Dems don't retake the Senate.
If the Dems do take the Senate, the filibuster is dead. I'm not sure I'm happy about that, but I don't see any other option that allows the country to function.
I certainly hope the Dems take the Senate and abolish the filibuster. Since I'm in a state that was nigh-broken by Republican unwillingness to govern, which was overcome by force, I can tell you from experience that it is quite nice when governing returns.
I was thinking this morning. Yes, of course conservatives will want to de-legitimize any next Dem candidate. But is there anyone else in the wings that they've spent twenty years calling a crook? I can't think of anyone else that they've poured the energy and hatred into like Clinton. I've heard that the Dems nationwide don't have a deep bench, which is weird to me, since we have a handful of good gubernatorial candidates, but we're not going to get this same dynamic of "everyone always already know she's corrupt" the next time. They haven't prepared the ground for that with any other Dem politician.
When this election is over and the bedwetters have calmed down, remember that another perspective is that we won with what the other side would consider our worst possible candidate. And we still won. Fuck worrying. They're out for a generation unless they change a whole lot.
I don't mind the bedwetters. They help people remember to actually go vote.
Also, I don't think the other side spent 20 years calling Clinton a crook because they honestly thought she was our worst possible candidate.
191.2: Honesty had nothing to do with it. They made her our worst possible candidate by lying about her for 20 years.
I don't actually agree with that -- the fact that she has actually handled an impossible situation amazingly well, has to make her at least not the worst possible candidate.
But then not again, maybe my perception is all wrong - maybe if she had behaved worse from my perspective, the infinitely wise American people would have liked her better.
I think she should have stabbed a white man wearing a business suit on stage during a campaign event while shouting "Anybody says the word 'email' and I castrate everybody." But nobody listens to me.
I'm not sure I conveyed my opinion right. I don't think she is our worst possible candidate. Maybe I should say: we will have won this with our most-handicapped contender. In the next rounds, we won't have to deal with that, because they aren't spending the time now hanging weights on anyone else the way they have done to her. At least, I can't think of anyone else who is getting that treatment.
It doesn't matter who it is. The ads will mention X is Clinton's friend and then run the same shit they ran on Clinton.
"X tolerates women of ambition, minorities, and homosexuality of the non-lesbian porn kind. This is all against The Constitution as far as you know. Vote Republican."
Concur with 196. Conspiracy theory and a glib shouting televised face are enough, the details are not important.
Trumpism today, trumpism tomorrow, trumpism until the crackers stop voting. The demographic question is whether asismilated immigrants will buy into Trumpism in numbers, or only the angriest among them will. I don't know the answer, and don't know that anyone else does either-- I'd guess that it will vary by county actually.
Speaking of Nazism, LGM posted a nakedly antisemitic Trump ad put out by some alt right organization.
I'm sure they will try, but I don't see them grooming their people to believe the Two Minutes Hate against any other specific person the way they have Clinton for twenty-five years. I mean, had the candidate been Jerry Brown, he'd have been properly accused of being illegitimate-'cause-liberal, but I don't think half the country would believe there MUST be something corrupt in his emails, if only more searching would find it.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/11/the-plot-against-america
202 I think I misinterpreted your original point.
The best thing about the Two Minutes Hate, as someone pointed out on Twitter the other day, is that it only lasted two minutes.
My on-call statistician sent me this poll which asks, among other things "is Hillary Clinton an actual demon?" First, I love it because "actual demon" sounds like something I'd say except I'd probably say it "Ok BUT, is Hillary Clinton an actual demon tho ???"
But ALSO I am into the 2% of the Clinton base who also believe she is an actual demon.
Rommel had been killed.
Forced to commit suicide by taking cyanide for what it's worth.
Later we learned that the car had halted a few hundred yards up the hill from our house in an open space at the edge of the wood. Gestapo men, who had appeared in force from Berlin that morning, were watching the area with instructions to shoot my father down and storm the house if he offered resistance. Maisel and the driver got out of the car, leaving my father and Burgdorf inside. When the driver was permitted to return ten minutes or so later, he saw my father sunk forward with his cap off and the marshal's baton fallen from his hand
204 - I always end up wondering about the 2-3% who end up on the opposite end of those one-sided questions - who is that one Muslim guy who supports Trump, anyway?
206: Probably one of the Shah's kids or something.
206- When you have idiosyncratic view the questions/and or answers make unwarranted assumptions that mean you are forced to check a box that doesn't fit sometimes.
208 - I think the Shah's kids are pretty liberal. Current queen-in-exile what's-her-face was a civil rights lawyer for kids.
Then maybe some Nazi's kid converted.
211- Could be. Or I thought of a possibility; you could be convinced that if Trump is elected he will be assassinated and be a Pence supporter.
And on second thought I know a Muslim Trump supporter. He is a convert and most people in this state are Trump supporters. He is also a big fan of Ramsay Snow from Game of Thrones. I asked him if he liked them both for the same reason, but he didn't answer me for some reason.
He's a lot younger and fitter than I am.
You have a constitutional right to the Great Equalizer.
I don't think you can buy a gun big enough to switch this state from Trump.
I'm not asking you to murder the whole state. I'm not a psychopath. I'm only asking you to murder one person.
I'm not claiming to be too good to murder someone, but I don't see what it would accomplish.
He's a Trump supporter who's a fan of Ramsey Snow. He's probably mutilating animals as we speak.
I'm not sure worship of alpha males means you are a sadist. It seems just as likely to mean you are a masochist.
Excellent point. I concede that you may not have sufficient cause to murder him.
I knew the woman who had the chair to the left of the ex-shahess in Paris for weekly hair upkeep. I vaguely recall something about the lapdogs being a bit aggro with each other, which, hey you be you lapdogs! Lovely lovely scenarios deroule from the premise ...
ALSO I am into the 2% of the Clinton base who also believe she is an actual demon
The Buffy fans!
I mean I should have emphasized that I am into the 2% of the Clinton base who also believe she is an actual demon because I didn't know there were so *many* of us.
I always meant to watch Buffy. I just never started.
Oh I wasn't that into Buffy I'm just pro-demon.
I was super into Buffy and very much pro-vengeance demon. I hope that's Hillary's kind.