Yesterday Angela Merkel stopped Trump technology war on China – the moral of the story is do not eavesdrop on ladies with high ethical standards

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Quid pro quo admitted by chief of staff. He says get over it it happens all the time.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/white-houses-mulvaney-admits-there-was-quid-pro-quo-ukraine/amp

 

Here is the conversation between Trump and the Ukrainian president. Read for yourself.

 

https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf

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On a side note it’s amazing a president can be that stupid to engage in illegal activities when he knows he is recorded, watched etc. Reagon/Contra, Nixion/watergate, Clinton/Monica, GW/mushroom clouds, Trump/many of his tweets. Lol

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5 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

If you have proof of your allegations, please provide it. Nobody else does!

Seems to be a big mess.  From MSNBC:

https://youtu.be/YsJRjF546wk

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

On 10/16/2019 at 11:49 PM, Douglas Buckland said:

Everybody spies on everybody else to the extent that their capabilities allow. To think otherwise is foolish.

In around 1921, there was this naval conference to attempt to set relative naval power, determined by ship tonnage, between the major powers of the time.  Intense discussions by telegraph cable ran back and forth between the Delegates and their governments back home.  The spy agencies all attempted to intercept the cables, and for the USA it was called the "Black Chamber," or secret decoding operation of espionage. 

When the code-breakers brought a de-coded cable to Henry Stimson, Secretary of State, he waved the courier away with a dismissal, declaring, with great umbrage, "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail."

Edited October 19, 2019 by Jan van Eck
corrected name of US Sec of State

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

On 10/16/2019 at 11:19 AM, SERWIN said:

but have never gotten a GOOD reason why they thought they had the right to spy on Germany.

There was no "right" to spy.  They did it anyway.  I suspect what happens is that the people delegated with the job of keeping an eye on foreign leaders, and potential rivals to the USA, end up losing their moral guides along the way.  The vision of someone running up to the US Secretary of State of the day with the exultant "Look at this!  We have tapped into Merkel's cell phone!" is just disgraceful.  I can assure you that if I were the President and I received such a Report, those responsible would be having breakfast the next morning with the mujaheddin in Guantanamo.

There is no excuse for bad behaviour anywhere, and in my business, I fire anyone who goes there. Out the door you go.  Mikhail and Svetlana, take careful note. 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Jan,

I’m not sure what you are trying to say here, so bear with me...

There is no ‘right’ to spy. Correct, the ability to collect information clandestinely has never, to my knowledge, been codified and expressed in legal terms. That said, historically nation/states have gathered intelligence on friends and foes alike, using whatever means available. I do not think anyone can debate this point.

That said, nation/states spend vast amount of resources defending against intelligence gathering activities directed against them from other nation/states, friend or foe.

Merkel’s handphone was a viable target for intrusion and possible intelligence gathering, and it was penetrated. The problem was getting caught or foolishly admitting that we had access to her personal handphone.

Remember, everyone is playing the game. I would be willing to bet that many foreign national intelligence services have attempted to, and likely been successful, in penetrating the handphones of US Congressmen, Senators, government employees, and so forth. Wouldn’t you say the attempt is just as disgraceful as a successful penetration?

The fact is, ‘wars’, whether they be force of arms, economic, political maneuvering, and so forth, are won by intelligence. ‘Knowing what your foe knows’ allows you to defeat them.

Whoever ‘tapped’ Merkel’s phone should be congratulated, not castigated. This person or agency was simply doing what they were paid to do.

There are no Marquis of Queensberry Rules (I think I have that right...) in the intelligence game. To act as if there are simply gives your opponent a distinct advantage.

I am not saying this is moral or correct, I am simply saying that this is the world we live in.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

3 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Remember, everyone is playing the game. I would be willing to bet that many foreign national intelligence services have attempted to, and likely been successful, in penetrating the handphones of US Congressmen, Senators, government employees, and so forth. Wouldn’t you say the attempt is just as disgraceful as a successful penetration?

Yes, I would, in the circumstances that pertain. Going after anything at all of an ally is very bad behaviour, what the British would call "poor form."

3 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Remember, everyone is playing the game. I would be willing to bet that many foreign national intelligence services have attempted to, and likely been successful, in penetrating the handphones of US Congressmen, Senators, government employees, and so forth. Wouldn’t you say the attempt is just as disgraceful as a successful penetration?

And then what you do is punish the offenders.  You cancel their airline landing rights in the USA.  You cancel their ships from doing business with the USA and entering US Ports.  You freeze their bank accounts in US Banks.  You cancel their diplomatic immunities and expel the ambassador, and close up the embassy.  That is how you deal with spies and offenders. 

 

3 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

To act as if there are simply gives your opponent a distinct advantage.

Not at all.  Not even close.  You run your government as an open and transparent government.  The potential rivals already know what you intend, as you have made it quite clear. Look at President Monroe; he enunciated the Monroe Doctrine and published it for all rivals to see. You send your gunboat into the Western Hemisphere, we will sink it.  Nothing like clarity.

Would you approve of spying on Prince Harry's cell phone?  Listen in on his calls to his bride?  Then what, go publish the transcripts? 

Either you respect the principles of decency and privacy or you don't, and the choice you make, as a Leader and as a Nation, spells out what sort of person and country you are.  To do otherwise is to make the choice to go live and rule like Idi Amin.  Or Robert Mugabe.  Who wants to hold that up as some beacon of liberty?  See, you cannot have it both ways:  claim a moral and ethical standard, and then let the twerps and jerks go tap other peoples' cell phones.  Those jerks get canned from govt service, and blacklisted, never to be hired again. 

[Guest]

Do we all agree atleast that Merkel doesn't have high ethical standards?  🤣

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

8 minutes ago, DayTrader said:

Do we all agree atleast that Merkel doesn't have high ethical standards?  🤣

She is not setting up explicit govt Orders to personnel to separate migrant families, deport the parents, and put the children in wire cages, now is she?  In all candor, the Americans have failed miserably in maintaining the USA as the Beacon of Liberty.  Just disgraceful.

If you wish to ponder high ethical standards, I invite you to view the personal and political conduct of the King of the Netherlands, King Willem Alexander.  Now, there is a Leader totally beyond reproach. 

Edited October 19, 2019 by Jan van Eck

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Okay, point taken.

Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US had essentially broken the Japanese naval encryption (the Purple Code, I believe it was called). At the time, the US was not at war with Japan although it was inevitable (hence the effort to break the code).

Should the US have attempted to break the code? Should the US have been transparent and informed the Japanese that the US was reading the Japanese naval signals traffic?

Roosevelt apparently was aware of the impending attack on Hawaii (keep in mind that Hawaii was not a State until 1959), but had to make the painful decision whether to defend Hawaii from the attack, which would have indicated that the US had broken the code, or let the attack proceed and utilize the intelligence to defeat the Japanese later, when the US was better equipped to do so.

There is alot more to this thread than ‘spying for the sake of spying’.

Are satellites which can read a newspaper from orbit a form of spying?

Do you believe that Prince Harry would be a valid intelligence target? I doubt it. Therefore do not waste resources hacking his phone.

Somewhat of a Devil’s Advocate reply, but food for thought.

 

 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

1 minute ago, Jan van Eck said:

She is not setting up explicit govt Orders to personnel to separate migrant families, deport the parents, and put the children in wire cages, now is she?  In all candor, the Americans have failed miserably in maintaining the USA as the Beacon of Liberty.  Just disgraceful.

You are comparing the historical need for immigration to the present reality.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

King of the Netherlands

LOL oh shocker

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

2 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Are satellites which can read a newspaper from orbit a form of spying?

Well, they sure are if they are photographing you having a frolicking sex time with your favorite woman out in the farm field!

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

3 minutes ago, DayTrader said:

LOL oh shocker

Do not dare to mock the King!  Remember the wrath of the Dutch. It is infinite.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 hour ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Roosevelt apparently was aware of the impending attack on Hawaii (keep in mind that Hawaii was not a State until 1959), but had to make the painful decision whether to defend Hawaii from the attack, which would have indicated that the US had broken the code, or let the attack proceed and utilize the intelligence to defeat the Japanese later, when the US was better equipped to do so.

I think you are reading a revisionist history.  First, there was strict radio silence on that Japanese attack fleet, all communications were only with flag signals and lights. Second, there is no real evidence that FDR had actual hard knowledge of an impending attack on Pearl; he would not have let the fleet get hammered.  Is is true that the British had de-coded some German transmissions and had intelligence of an air raid on Coventry, and did not warn the city authorities as it would have tipped the Germans, but that was an exception  (and also very British).  And Third, any movements of the US Fleet would have been unremarkable to the Japanese, as for example the US carriers were not in port, an unusual situation that did not spook the Japanese nor deter them from dropping bombs all over the place.  Cheers.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Jan van Eck
Corrected "Feet" to "Fleet," to mollify Day Trader below...

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Radio silence only after the attack was under way. Prior to that was the planning and logistics. It is a fact that the code was broken long before the actual attack.

My history may be revisionist....after more information was available.

To get back on topic, regardless of whether FDR had foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack or not, the ability to read Japanese naval signal traffic was a powerful weapon in 1942.

Was the US acting poorly by obtaining and utilizing this information. Keep in mind that the code had been broken BEFORE hostilities commenced.

[Guest]

45 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

And Third, any movements of the US Feet would have been unremarkable to the Japanese,

Haha sorry, forgive my pedantic comedy and a will to stop an argument ... but I don't think most nations are bothered about American's FEET. Certainly not their movement. I don't blame the Japanese ... 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

46 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Was the US acting poorly by obtaining and utilizing this information. Keep in mind that the code had been broken BEFORE hostilities commenced.

At that point the Japanese were no longer "gentlemen" in any cognizable sense of the world, the Rape of Nanking and the enslavement of the Koreans having taken place.  I would set forth the proposition that they had, by their own misconduct, waived any claims to privacy, or much of anything else.

I further point to the very next US-Japan military engagement.  That was the fighting for Wake Island.  The Japanese task force steamed up, with complete hubris, and were blasted away by the shore batteries, which sank a few ships and damaged others.  A second task force then attacked, landed several invasion forces, and shelled the place into oblivion.  The defenders surrendered, after which the Japanese had them all lined up on their knees on the runway and announced their sequential beheading by sword.  It only did not proceed when a specific message was received by the Emperor that there were to be no killings of prisoners.  Murdering POWs, whether by beheading, starvation, beatings, torture, or forced marches, makes the perpetrator an outlaw, who has vacated any claim to leniency or even decent treatment upon his capture or arrest. The Japanese did far worse, far worse than you can possibly imagine.  I note that the civilians at Wake Island, the contractors there to do runway work, and who had no guns, were equally lined up for ceremonial beheadings, and were not repatriated, instead treated as so much cow dung, to be starved to death and beaten to death along with the military prisoners. 

When dealing with people with that mentality, the only realistic solution is the mounting of the offender on a cross on the road to Damascus. Put one every fifty feet, just as a salient reminder of the costs of contempt.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Jan van Eck

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

23 minutes ago, DayTrader said:

Haha sorry, forgive my pedantic comedy and a will to stop an argument ... but I don't think most nations are bothered about American's FEET. Certainly not their movement. I don't blame the Japanese ... 

A Klingon would be offended by your .feebleness, and respond:         bIr jablu'DI' reH QaQqu' nay'   

Tremble before the Klingon battle wagons!

 

[Guest]

That's 2 random Klingon comments I've had now in just a few hours. 

You guys are weird. 

Edited October 19, 2019 by Guest

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

@Jan van EckAt that point the Japanese were no longer "gentlemen" in any cognizable sense of the world, the Rape of Nanking and the enslavement of the Koreans having taken place.  I would set forth the proposition that theyhad, by their own misconduct, waived any claims toprivacy, or much of anything else.

By this line of reasoning it is okay to ‘behave poorly’ against those who are behaving poorly towards other folks.

For example, since Turkey is now behaving poorly in Syria, it’s fine to spy on them now.

Since Israel is apparently misbehaving towards the Palestinians, we can spy on them. Conversely, the Palestinians are mistreating the Israelis, so we can spy on them as well.

Of course, the definition of ‘misbehaving’ is fluid depending on who you are asking.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 hour ago, DayTrader said:

That's 2 random Klingon comments I've had now in just a few hours. 

You guys are weird. 

Not at all.  We merely live on an elevated intellectual plane. Concededly, outsiders do not grasp the subtlety.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Jan van Eck

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

47 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Since Israel is apparently misbehaving towards the Palestinians

The Israeli government only acts the way they do towards the Palestinians because the USA lets them get away with it.  The reasons remain complex but in large part revolve around a peculiar US organization known as AIPAC.  Those folks have mobilized their resources to place a disproportionate number of Jews inside the US Government, currently at 12% of the government population as respects the Congress and the Ministries.  That is quite disproportional to Jewish numbers in the general population, which in the USA is running about 3.5 to 4.0%. Inevitably, policy is influenced by the persons working within the bodies that craft and shape those policies.

The other aspect is the peculiar trade relationship of the USA and Israel.  Long before the WTO and free-trade agreements, Israel enjoyed tariff-free entry of their exports to the USA.  So you had and have for example oranges grown in Israel being air-freighted to US markets in  competition with the ones from Florida. Creating captive markets, particularly in areas such as New York City, immensely boosted the Israeli economy and in turn paved the road for extra-legal acts such as land seizure and stripping of nationality. In military equipment, the chassis bodies of MRAP trucks, those with the V-bottom heavy-plated blast-proof bottoms, are manufactured in Israel and then shipped to the USA for finishing and outfitting, then sold to the US Army.  These are direct hidden subsidies that provide the funding for the State of Israel, quite outside the special treatment accorded to the sale of Israeli Bonds to US buyers. 

Edited October 19, 2019 by Jan van Eck

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

49 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

By this line of reasoning it is okay to ‘behave poorly’ against those who are behaving poorly towards other folks.

I would not go so far as to say that, because adversaries behave poorly, therefor you too can be a total pig.  For example, I am not promoting lining up POWs on their knees and then beheading by sword, just because the enemy does.  But it does mean that for example ISIS fighters have vacated their claim to Vienna Accords standards of treatment.  Basically, those are now outlaws, and as outlaws can have a price put on their heads, dead or alive.  An argument can be made that you demean your moral standards by taking that view (of the enemy having been declared an outlaw); then again, I rather doubt that anyone who is prepared to slit the throat of some journalist out in the desert and then continue to manually cut his head off in order to be sensational on the YouTube, has lost any claim to POW treatment, and is beyond rehabilitation, and thus is fair game to be shot dead on sight.  

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Are you suggesting that the US abandons it’s relationship with Israel? How would this compare with the recent supposed abandonment of the Syrian Kurds?

Are you further suggesting that the Palestinians are blameless?