Don’t Make the Same Mistake with Iran that Denialists Made with Russia
I read the book by Aaron Zebley, James Quarles, and Andrew Goldstein on the Mueller investigation. Regarding the investigation itself, there were no new details. Where the book does break new ground is in describing the discussions with Trump’s attorneys and DOJ officials, especially with regards to the debate about whether to subpoena Trump. I’ll return to those details in a follow-up.
But I want to point to something they said in their afterward. They describe that Barr’s treatment of the report helped sow doubt about the import of the Russian attack on US democracy in 2016.
Perhaps the most significant casualty of Barr’s handling of the report was the truth about Russia’s attack on the United States during the 2016 election. The Russian government interfered in our democracy in sweeping and systematic fashion. Those are the first substantive words of our report. This statement is beyond dispute, and yet many in America do not know that, and still others deny it.
As detailed in volume I of our report, Russian operatives working for the Internet Research Agency visited the United States in 2014 to gather intelligence for what they called “information warfare” against the United States. They returned to Russia and—sitting at their desks in Saint Petersburg—planned and advertised rallies to support Trump at specific US locations, invited Americans to attend, provided banners for Americans to wave, and then handed off logistical responsibilities for the events to real Americans. The goal of these activities, along with their yearslong campaign of false-name social media accounts, was to further divide Americans and cause them to think and behave in particular ways—including at the voting booth in 2016.
Meanwhile, Russian military intelligence hacked into email accounts belonging to the Democratic team supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016, and then dumped emails and other documents they had stolen at specific times during the campaign to harm Clinton and bolster Trump. The Russians also leveraged WikiLeaks to release the stolen information, and, like the Russians, WikiLeaks timed its releases to favor Trump’s candidacy.
While these operations were underway, Russian government officials and their proxies reached out to multiple Trump campaign officials. George Papadopoulos was one example. A month after Trump appointed him as a foreign policy adviser in March 2016, Papadopoulos received word about a Russian government offer to assist the Trump campaign through the anonymous release of information information damaging to Clinton—“dirt” in the form of “thousands of emails.” This offer coincided with the Russian military’s then secret hack-and-dump operation.
It is beyond dispute that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election to support Trump—that was no hoax. They worked to secure his win. Our investigation of this work was no witch hunt.
[snip]
It has not seemed to matter, for instance, that our hack-and-dump indictment, which was backed by financial, email, and other records, demonstrated irrefutably that the Russian military executed this operation. Three days after the indictment came out, Trump dismissed it all in a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, after Putin—standing a few feet to Trump’s left—told him, “It’s not Russia.” Trump and his advocates declared it all a hoax, taking Putin’s word over the plain facts. And millions of Americans have taken this as truth, siding with Kremlin propaganda over the US Department of Justice.
We are now heading into another election. Russia interfered before, Russia is emboldened, and Russia is interfering again. Bob described Russia’s actions as one of the most serious attacks on democracy he has seen in his career—chilling words from the person who helped lead America’s fight against terrorism following the 9/11 attacks. As he put it in his 2019 testimony, the Russians are interfering in our democracy “as we sit here, and they expect to do it during the next campaign.”
I’ve obviously written a lot about this. It’s the central focus of the Ball of Threads podcast that LOLGOP and I are doing.
I fear that, because of the polarization Trump has deliberately stoked, many lefties are doing the same thing that Trump’s MAGAts did with Russia: treat credible allegations that Iran is targeting him, both for hacking and assassination, as a hoax.
Regarding the hacking, as happened in 2016, it is not just the Intelligence Community (one, two) attributing the hack in real time. Both Microsoft and Google have described the operation. As I explained repeatedly regarding the 2016 Russian attack, big American tech companies have a similar kind of global reach as the NSA, and when someone uses their infrastructure to target someone, they have both the tools and an independent incentive to get the attribution right. There’s really no reason to doubt the attribution, from three of the entities with the best global reach in the world, that Iran targeted Trump’s campaign.
Regarding Iran’s attempt to assassinate Trump, there’s also no reason to doubt that. While the case against Asif Merchant, whom DOJ accused of trying to solicit a variety of operations targeting Trump, does rely on undercover FBI employees posing as wannabe hitmen, the underlying tip — from the guy Merchant allegedly asked for help recruiting a hit team — appears to be organic, just someone calling the cops. Plus, the effort bears certain resemblance to the effort to solicit assassins for John Bolton, arising from the same motive of revenge for the Qassem Soleimani killing.
According to court documents, on Oct. 22, 2021, Poursafi asked Individual A, a U.S. resident whom Poursafi previously met online, to take photographs of the former National Security Advisor, claiming the photographs were for a book Poursafi was writing. Individual A told Poursafi that he/she could introduce Poursafi to another person who would take the pictures for $5,000-$10,000. Individual A later introduced Poursafi to an associate (referred to in court documents as the confidential human source or CHS).
On Nov. 9, 2021, Poursafi contacted the CHS on an encrypted messaging application, and then directed the CHS to a second encrypted messaging application for further communications. Poursafi offered the CHS $250,000 to hire someone to “eliminate” the former National Security Advisor. This amount would later be negotiated up to $300,000. Poursafi added that he had an additional “job,” for which he would pay $1 million.
As I noted in my first post on the Merchant arrest, the Pakistani man took 20 minutes before he let the FBI in to arrest him, meaning he may have had time to destroy evidence. There’s no reason to assume Merchant’s efforts to hire assassins was limited to the NYC source who called the FBI, nor is there reason to assume that Merchant was the only one recruiting assassins.
Indeed, as I keep noting, we can’t rule out that Ryan Routh (who was indicted yesterday and will face trial before Aileen Cannon, and whose son was arrested Monday after the FBI found CSAM at his house while conducting a search presumably related to his father) was recruited by Iran. His sympathy for Iran and his antipathy for Trump were both public, he imagined himself a fighter, and he had international ties from his efforts to recruit fighters for Ukraine. Both the Bolton efforts and the Merchant plot relied on secure digital operational security, and the six phones Routh had in his truck indicate he was communicating in unusual ways, even for — especially for — a person with possible mental illness. And the timing of Routh’s movements — he left North Carolina August 14 and traveled to Florida, scoped out Trump events in August, September, and October, and conducted reconnaissance for much of the month leading up to his arrest — match the planned timing of the Merchant plot. For a variety of reasons (not least that Routh has due process rights and an incentive to flip, if he did have co-conspirators), if the FBI did suspect an Iranian tie, they wouldn’t say more than they already have done, including references to Iran in his detention memo.
In the wake of Routh’s indictment yesterday, the IC briefed Trump on ongoing assassination threats from Iran. And while his comments to Fox — suggesting that Kamala Harris was weak on Iran — were typical Trump garbage, Trump’s Xitter account posted something that — for him — is downright gracious, recognizing the bipartisan support to expand Secret Service funding.
It is perfectly reasonable to call out the double standards of Trump himself, in responding stupidly to the hacking attempt, in ignoring his own role in the stalking of Barack Obama and pretending he has faced unique threats, in media outlets refusing to publish stolen emails.
Trump’s narcissistic behavior is one reason it’s so easy for hostile countries like Russia and Iran to stoke division.
But that doesn’t mean you should make it easier for them, by doubting the word of neutral parties who attest the threat to Trump is real. The Russian attack continues to do real damage, to this day, because the investigation into it led to such polarization. If I’m right about the Steele dossier (Ball of Thread version), some of that was by design, while some of it was the auspicious upside (from the perspective of Russia) of targeting a narcissist. But the result is the same: By targeting Trump, you can elicit the tribalism that damages the US, regardless of Iran’s (or Russia’s) other efforts. A great deal of the polarization in the US, a great deal of the conspiracism on the part of Trump supporters, and therefore a great deal of the extremism, stems from the response to the Russian attack and investigation.
Whether a country backs Trump or wants revenge against him, the goal is the same: to end US hegemony and extend authoritarianism. There are public, rational reasons to believe that Iran really is targeting Trump. There are no good reasons to instead irrationally doubt those public attributions.
Update: In an appearance in North Carolina, Trump said there could be a tie to Iran, and complained that DOJ had not yet broken into the six phones found in Routh’s truck.
Thank you for this. This post right here is exactly why I have been at this site for seven years, and likely why seven years is chump change to many other regulars. No echo chamber, but no “both-sidesism”. Just the refreshing perspective that two things can be true. TFG can be a raging unstable narcissist-presenting jerk ready to engage in hyperbole at the drop of the hat for his next con. And Iran can imagine doing anything and everything to hurt American stability, with some clerics and others still in power who feel like we are “owed” a lost leader because of US interventions in the lead up to their revolution.
I heard the Zebley interview on NPR on my commute home yesterday. It really focused on Bill Barr and his role in twisting the Mueller Report into something it wasn’t. But, repeatedly, Zebley said there was no evidence to link Trump to the Russians. But, Zebley did say that the Russian Aristocracy wanted Trump in office.
I am not favoring the Russians by saying didn’t we mingle and mess with Russian elections and politics for decades? I think they learned this stuff from us.
Power, power and more power.
In Soviet Russia, elections meddle you!
Seriously though you might want to reconsider the assertion about meddling in Russian elections “for decades” given its current federal republic came into being in 1993.
I am talking post soviet era. It has been decades since. And, yup, we messed around in the soviet era.
Are you saying we didn’t meddle in their governance?
Tell me more about elections in the Soviet Era! Sound like an interesting fantasy.
Being too literal minded is a hobgoblin.
Yes, we meddled in domestic Russian and Russian satellite politics for decades, since the Second World War, just as we did in Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere in Europe. Unlike its successes in Latin America, Indonesia, Italy, and elsewhere, US attempts to meddle in the Soviet bloc were pathetically ineffective.
Yale chaplain and civil rights activist, William Sloane Coffin, was briefly in the CIA shortly after WWII. He recounts that lack of success in his memoirs. Others have analyzed them in more detail.
Coffin’s job at the CIA was rather more serious than meddling in an election. It was an act of war. The CIA did even worse in China.
Wouldn’t it be ironic that the man who saved the West from World War III was Kim Philby? That might even be true.
(I often cite Coffin’s encounter with Fred Lanoue in that book [“Once to Every Man”] when I want to needle self-satisfied liberals. Lanoue was a neighbor of ours and his sons were about my age. Coffin’s is a book that can be read many ways.)
Foreign influence predates us and Russia. Our time in history, unfortunately, includes online tools.
End goal? Power means you get to sleep in your own bed for another night.
While I’m definitely not a denialist when it comes to Russia, I AM fairly ignorant about Iran policy over the years. That ignorance is just the kind of thing that can make conspiracy theories about Routh seem plausible, especially given what a screwball the guy is, and how there are so many shady ways that various people are trying to prop support for Trump via the sympathy vote. And with those conspiracy theories, it’s a short step to thinking of an Iranian plot as a crazy hoax. But those theories really aren’t realistic once you have even a wee bit more knowledge about the past few years of policy toward Iran and what they may be thinking wrt to a 2nd Trump presidency.
If a person knew nothing other than that Trump ruined the Iran nuclear deal, you might think that his making it easier for them to have a nuclear weapon would endear Iranian leadership to him. But that totally misses his attempts to crater their economy and undermine their leadership via sanctions. And that making Iran potentially more dangerous, while simultaneously giving Bibi a free hand to fuck around, moving the embassy to inflame tensions in the region, and generally making a muck of things made us all less safe. Once you add the Soleimani assassination on top of that, well, it’s easy to see how Trump made HIMSELF less safe. Even without any knowledge of the Merchant plan, there’s ample reason to think Iran would want Trump dead. With that knowledge, a recruit of Routh is entirely plausible.
I don’t actually think Trump responded stupidly to the Iranian hacking, but rather reflexively, because he knows there very well could be something incriminating, and given his push to have people leak HRCs emails, he likely thought these would be leaked too. I highly doubt he thought that the media would have the restraint it has had. I AM surprised that the general consensus is that there was nothing of import in all the info that was accessed via the hack.
As this article comes full circle, I am always grateful for your research and explanations. My 2 cents, I totally agree with your conclusions.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the same username and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You’ve been reverting to your original username “tinao” which I have quietly fixed a few times recently including this comment. PLEASE check your browser’s cache and autofill. /~Rayne]
Was there any mention of Joel Zamel or Psy-Group in the book?
No.
TY. And thank you for this post!
Assassination of Trump or Harris in the run up to the election would result in destabilization, which is what hostile powers want.
You may well be correct but I have little sense of what would happen if a candidate were killed. Perhaps some foreigners are more confident, but, in general. I would not think that a destabilized USA works well for anyone, still less to be confident about who wins.
Last night, Trump posted “Big threats on my life by Iran. . . .”
Is this a stopped clock right twice, or could it be that he read your article?
I would be gobsmacked if Trump reads EW. I would be gobsmacked if Trump reads anything that’s not a social media post.
There are people around him who are telling them this to his face.
While I agree with everything you write, I think something is off about this story. Trump is correct that this is an act of war against the United States and I think many people don’t think Iran would be that stupid. I am sure that the Iranian government is angry about the death of Qassem Soleimani as well as the downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 by an Iranian missile.
It seems that there is another part of this story. If Iran is trying to elevate the news profile of the Soleimani’s killing, the amateur assassination attempt makes more sense.
What aren’t we being told? Does Iran intend to reveal it? Are they blackmailing Trump with it? Is it among the documents Trump stole?
I think we are owed more than the government, the press or Trump are willing to give.
“I think many people are thinking…” is a ridiculously sub-Trumpian fallacy.
“I think we are owed more than the government, the press or Trump are willing to give” is an opinion you have not supported in your post.
There has been and always will be sensitive information the government will not make public for various reasons—that’s why Trump is in hot water in Florida.
THe government has a legal case to win against Routh, and an investigation to conduct.
Those need to be the priorities for a while.
“There are public, rational reasons to believe that Iran really is targeting Trump. There are no good reasons to instead irrationally doubt those public attributions.”
A sound conclusion, Marcy, and very well-supported, as always.
My Democratic or leftist identification may bias my judgment, but is a conspiracy theory approach really “irrational”? There are additional facts, which undermine the warrant of “evidence”. Some facts are current, such as the context of escalation in Lebanon, Iran’s relationship to Hezbollah, the longstanding “Axis of Evil” monstering of Iran, as well the upcoming election. I think it’s justified to expect a black swan crisis with Iran would help Trump as well as Netanyahu’s position. An American attack on Iran would seem to support the Israeli right-wing’s view of Israel’s security interest, so there are very sophisticated groups which war with Iran would benefit.
Additionally, historical facts are also salient. Every twenty or thirty years, Americans are chided to “believe the news” and then we’re at war. Americans were chided it was irrational to doubt the Spanish were responsible for the explosion of the Maine. It was irrational to question what was in the hold of Lusitania and what happened in the Gulf of Tonkin. We were chided it was irrational to doubt whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Conspiracy theorizing may be irrational, premature, or unjustified, but doubt towards any news in this country strengthening the case for war is rational.
You could substitute Biden (or Obama) for trump. The mad mullahs really do wish us death. I think we should take their ideology as seriously as they do.
Imagine that!
Jack Smith’s legal bombshell will drop soon.
What if the biased Judge from Florida was in charge, she would have invoked the Special Counsel lie concocted by Judge Thomas and denied his request.
What other legal bullshit should we prepare for?
MT, I have no doubt your analysis is correct wrt to Iran’s desire to punish TFG…what I don’t fully understand is the double standard to Russia’s solicited interference in the Clinton 2016 campaign and the hacking of her emails including subsequent press coverage and what is going on with Iran’s hacking of what I understand is both campaigns and the lack of coverage by today’s mainstream press. It’s kind of a black hole’ noy much coverage at all. Am I missing something?
Any assassination of any President or candidate now is a disaster as the ensuing chaos is an opportunity for chaos agents.
I don’t have sympathy for Trump, but grave concern of further turmoil now.
So much hinges on our election.
Thankfully so many votes have already been cast and so many more are each day.
which is why slowdowns of USPS mail delivery in certain states are very concerning.
one of my children, in VA, reporting this.
“UH-OH: The slowest mail in the country is in key swing states, NBC investigations finds.”
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/slowest-mail-in-country-key-swing-states-nbc-investigation/5810571/
“The New Republic’s Alex Pareene argued in 2021 that Biden could break with norms and bypass the Board of Governors to fire DeJoy, but the president has not done so. Now the president’s lack of action could cause chaos in the coming presidential election.”
https://newrepublic.com/post/186179/one-2020s-biggest-villains-back
Folks could be contacting the Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Sen. Gary Peters, and ask him why he hasn’t called a hearing about this bullshit. If we’re supposed to believe the USPS is being run like a business and the business’s mission critical function is *still* failing after four-plus years, it’s long past time to fire the CEO, Louis DeJoy.
Excellent discussion, as always.
– – It’s not at all surprising to me that Russia has and apparently is currently trying to surreptitiously manipulate our elections to favor Donald Trump.
– – Nor is it surprising that Iran is targeting Donald Trump, given the history.
But what -is- surprising is that both are (apparently) happening at the same time. Aren’t Russia and Iran allies? Why would they move at cross purposes? I feel there is something missing here.
Just because countries are allies doesn’t mean that they have identical interests, goals, or methodology.
Of course Russia very badly wants to help Trump win re-election. Trump has clearly signalled to them that he will betray Ukraine and let Russia have an un-earned victory.
From politico.eu: Trump gives strongest signal yet he won’t back Ukraine and Zelenskyy against Putin
Appeasement of tyrants doesn’t work. The Ukraine war could end tomorrow if Putin would just stop illegally attacking a peaceful neigboring country. Out of personal bias or short-sighted self-interest, Trump is blaming the wrong world leader for the situation in Ukraine.
The U.S. is barely doing enough to help Ukraine as it is. If Trump is re-elected and allowed to completely betray a U.S. ally, it will have devastating effects on America’s global reputation and soft power, that might take decades to recover from (and that trust, once broken, might never be recovered at all).
Both efforts have the same result, chaos and division in America. Our foreign adversaries don’t care which one works.
Is it “lefties” or the media that are seemingly using the 10 foot barge pole? Scared off, afraid of ridicule, or ‘it serves them/him right’. Maybe all of the above?
It still matters that a foreign entity is emboldened. Read today about Russia targeting many Russian citizens who fled the war, in the countries they fled to.
Sorry, I cannot provide a link as I read gratis in Pressreader-
‘Putin is Hunting Down Ordinary Russians’
NYT September 25, 2024.
If anyone has access to this NYT article please share a GIFT link https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/23/opinion/russia-putin-kremlin.html
Here you go:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/23/opinion/russia-putin-kremlin.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NE4.4Fxc.AZtMiv6Ch2n7&smid=url-share
(h/t to the custom feed of Gift Links/Gift Articles on BlueSky). One of the best things about BlueSky (a replacement for Twitter) is people can build custom feeds that users can subscribe to. That one is incredibly useful.
Good piece, thanks for the link.
This is chilling: “Political asylum is routinely denied not only to draft dodgers but also to activists — sometimes “with monstrous arguments that the situation in Russia is normal and you can count on a fair trial,”…”
That folks here believe that the behavior described in the article by Ms. Yapparova would not be possible under a 45/47 administration may be fooling themselves.
Weaponization of the powers of the Executive branch under The Felon Guy is a certainty (see: Project 2025) – and not in the way of the fabled boiled frog apologue. I see a quick and inexorable turn to authorization within days if the Harris/Walz ticket is not elected by a decent margin.
Let’s not even kid ourselves about how it will play out – the Felon will claim victory the minute he thinks he can pull it off then trigger the frothers about ‘stolen election – cheating’ to jumpstart a possible (likely?) next insurrection.
RitaRita got it right – destabilization seems to be the ongoing track.
There are multiple reasons the left responded as it has to Iranian threats to Trump:
• He doesn’t treat other threats to his person rationally as other presidents/former POTUS/candidates have, ex. his immediate response as the Secret Service covered him wasn’t to cooperate but to stage resistance. The attempted assassination in Pennsylvania then turned into another opportunity to manipulate public opinion. Instead of transparency offering his medical records to assure the public he suffered no closed brain injury, the public is treated to bullshit about his “heroics” with prompts for gestures of loyalty like bandages worn by the faithful MAGA.
• He games everything so that everything about him is treated with suspicion; he may be doing part of this himself, and some of it may be the result of his campaign or other supporters’ machinations. But the left has been gaslighted repeatedly, is conscious of it, and understandably reluctant to accept anything about Trump at face value. When and where does his kayfabe stop?
• He’s created so many opportunities for threats against himself with his own language and behavior; the left can only wonder if karma will catch up with him sooner than the law does. If multiple special counsels haven’t nailed him for what appears so obviously criminal, why would foreign nationals get to him sooner?
In the case of threats by Iran, it was obvious from Week One of his term in office that he was going after Iran and other Muslim countries with shared religious affinity. His entire term in office was one provocation after another:
01/27/17 — Trump’s Muslim ban executive order targeted Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen which have substantive Shiite populations; the ban didn’t target countries with substantive/ majority Sunni populations;
01/29/17 — The first U.S. military action authorized by Trump was a raid on Yakla, Yemen, linked to Iran; Trump continued increasing attacks on Yemen into 2018;
04/18/17 — As of this date, Iran in compliance with JCPOA nuclear deal
04/19/17 — Trump admin reviewed policy on Iran
05/17/17 — Trump admin imposes sanctions on Iran, but kept nuclear deal
07/17/17 — Trump admin certified Iran’s compliance with nuclear deal, but imposed new sanctions
09/14/17 — Trump admin extended sanctions relief, but imposed new sanctions
09/19/17 — In speech to U.N., Trump called nuclear deal an embarrassment
09/26/17 — IAEA asked for clarification of a portion of JCPOA’s nuke deal
10/13/17 — Trump decertified nuclear deal, but declined to leave the agreement or re-impose sanction
01/12/18 — Trump kept nuclear deal in place; imposed new sanctions
01/14/18 — John Bolton advocated discussing regime change in Iran with other Middle Eastern leaders
04/09/18 — Trump ditched H.R. McMaster as NSA to select anti-Iran John Bolton, though even Bolton wasn’t aggressive enough for Trump’s taste;
04/30/18 — Pompeo discussed documents detailing Iran’s nuclear weapons program
05/08/18 — Trump announced U.S. to exit JCPOA nuclear deal
05/08/18 — Trump exited the P6+1 JCPOA with Iran and promised to enact new sanctions on Iran;
08/06/18 — Trump reimposed some of the sanctions lifted by the JCPOA
09/25/18 — Trump emphasized U.S. sovereignty in U.N. speech; criticized Iran nuclear deal
10/03/18 — U.S. ended 1955 Treaty of Amity with Iran; won’t comply with U.N. court’s ruling
11/04/18 — Trump re-imposed yet more of the sanctions lifted by the JCPOA;
05/19/19 — WaPo: “Trump tweeted: “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!””
05/24/19 — Trump ordered 1500 troops to middle east because of Iran
05/27/19 — Trump said he’s not pressing for regime change in Iran
08/30/19 — Trump unexpectedly declassified U.S. satellite capability with a fucking tweet after a failed missile test launch in Iran, taunting Iran about the failure;
09/10/19 — John Bolton exited Trump admin
01/03/20 — Trump assassinated Iran’s top military officer Qasem Soleimani by drone, for which Iran’s clerics issued a fatwa
This is not a comprehensive timeline of Trump’s statements and actions about/toward Iran, but it’s enough to show he acted with hostility from his first week in office toward Iran. The lone exception was his statement in late May 2019 that he wasn’t pressing for regime change, but this followed and preceded actions which clearly indicated otherwise. Soleimani’s assassination was the most obvious indication of Trump’s sentiment.
Is it really that the left acts as if Iranian-driven assassination attempts are a hoax, or is it that the left hasn’t figured out how to shrug and tell Trump, “FAFO”?
Yeah, it’s like ‘well it’s him and karma, fuck him’. That’s a shitty attitude even if he is a %$@&.
Iran is emboldened, as Russia is, and more. That is a world devoid of the rules based order we all agreed to post ww2. It’s chaos, not order. Foreign assassins in the UK, USA, Canada, Europe. No respect for sovereignty, laws – it’s become a free for all since 2016.
It’s not a coincidence.
Trump’s sponsors through Trump succeeded in demoralizing the US — we no longer know what’s real, and therefore run into difficulty knowing what is supposed to move us to commitment. What most of us know is that if you assassinate another country’s military leader without the consent of the American public while supported by a corrupt party, is that you shouldn’t be surprised when the targeted country comes after you. Recall this is the same person the US left tried unsuccessfully to remove from office twice during his presidency because of repeated abuses of office. Of fucking course we’re going to have a shitty attitude about his self-inflicted security crisis after what he’s done to us. Respect is earned and he hasn’t.
And then Iran in particular; it’s as if the decades-long fatwa against Salman Rushdie has been forgotten, for something far less politically egregious than the unilateral extra-judicial execution of a top defense minister. Iran’s clerics subsequently issued a fatwa against Trump. Of course there are going to be attempts. The really stupid part isn’t the American left’s response, but the fact the pudgy orange bastard decides NOW, five years after personally authorizing killing a man with a drone, that he’s going to get worried about retaliation, while spending more time on his golf course siphoning off Secret Service money by charging them for golf cart rentals and expecting us to pony up even more money to protect him across his entire golf course.
Sorry Rayne for some reason I’m only seeing your reply. My point is that the ‘left’ should not take an ‘I told you so’ attitude – it’s exactly expected while foes get away with it during the chaos/division they create.
Christ, India carried out an assination here on a Sikh activist, what made them think they could away with that? I see a direct line to the man trying to play the dictator strongman, sending those signals to the world, tearing down America’s rules – Trump.
I do not want to see the left, such as it is in America, to ignore Iran’s hack of Trump’s campaign – it is still an attack on the country.
I’m a supporter of my home country, it’s eventual unification, not loudly but quietly, someday, an aspiration I support – I do not expect to be assinated for my views, or my support of that. Yet it happened here to a citizen who has aspirations for his people in another country – India. Led by a strongman – Modi.
He was a family man, a speaker without violence in his speech.
This is how the world can shift when the US, sorry, but straddled with your own aspirations – throws them in the trash for a modern day Mussolini.
You send a signal.
It reverberates around the world. The world listens – those holding back their worst instincts, especially do.
Not only that, but they’re waiting for the little bombs they’ve planted to go off.
They already have, that man I mentioned is dead. A sovereign country is fighting an invasion, a so-called friend is taking advantage of US support, diminishing your sense of justice, and fair play.
I lay it all at the feet of the man who wants the US military to be paid mercenaries, because he has no aspirations beyond the next golf game.
Reply JanAnderson
September 26, 2024 at 1:14 am
If only Trump was someone who hadn’t tried to attack his own people and country, a president who hadn’t literally killed so many of his own countrymen. That’s a critical difference between the attacks on Sikh separatists living in exile and Trump.
If only Trump wasn’t a serial abuser and criminal who regularly scammed his countrymen. It’s difficult to feel sympathy for the devil, especially when he’s getting protection not afforded some of his past and current targets deserve, like judges and poll workers who are under attack even now.
India even. Assassins here in Canada, and the US. China working intimidation on the Chinese community in both. If “leftists” think it’s okay that Iran hacked Trump’s campaign etc – they’ve become the useful idiots too. Congrats!
No doubt Trump acted with hostility – has since 2016.
It’s no coincidence that Iran, Russia, India, China and more now feel emboldened to carry out intimidation, violence and even murder on foreign soil, entirely disrespectful of sovereign countries and Law, any rules based order at least.
There goes the rules based order we could count on – no more, and thanks Donold. /s
Turning a blind eye to Iran’s hack on Trump, for political purposes, only delivers the rewards of years of foreign interference. So yes, the payoff comes, slowly but surely in the long game.
The “left” are just one in a series of useful idiots, maybe not the most obvious. The media, MGATs and all played their parts.
The USA used to be counted on – today, not so much. That has bled into other countries, allies.
Trump threw a wrench into and continues to, make the job of US national security, not
to mention the State Department, diplomats, the Department of Defense and more – a whole lot more challenging. Look at the world since 2016. It’s as if he is a saboteur.
Is he?
He asks a question – are you better off today? It’s directed to the cost of living I presume (but even there, the world is coming out of this inflationary period, much to his chagrin).
I’ll turn the question back on him because inflation passes, recovers – is the US and the world better off today after you?
No, not recovered yet, maybe never.
As a leftie I don’t have any doubts that Iran would like to stick it to Trump. I simply don’t think there’s enough publicly available information to support such a charge against Routh specifically. I’ll happily change my mind if more evidence comes out.
Routh left a trail, he’s not exactly anyone’s mission impossible Tom Cruise vision. If it’s there, it’s there. The guy made a nuisance of himself in Ukraine, an ally. They’ll have intel on him too.
True. If it comes out it comes out. I’m not rejecting the idea, just don’t think there’s enough evidence yet.
A defect of being old is having experience. I repose zero credit in any statement from any of the security agencies. Not everything they reveal can be false, but anything they reveal could be, and how am I to tell which?
When Gen. Nakasone took over the NSA, he held an open meeting to which any NSA staff were invited. Someone who went told me that he laid down a marker: Every NSA operation would be vetted for legality. Good idea. I take Nakasone at his word. But that does not mean I think NSA is not running illegal operations that he never knew about.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/03/americas/canada-sikh-nijjar-assassination-suspects-intl-latam/index.html
Yeah, don’t make the same mistake.
Let’s be real: for most Americans, the news story with greater personal impact from the day Routh was spotted in the bushes was the death of Tito Jackson. And I don’t think that’s inappropriate!
Why not forget about fictional agents like Bond and Bourne dashing to save the world from disaster and forget about CIA and MI6 officers reclining on their couches dreaming up espionage scenarios to thrill you. Check out what a real MI6 and CIA secret agent does nowadays. Why not browse through TheBurlingtonFiles website and read about Bill Fairclough’s escapades when he was an active MI6 and CIA agent? The website is rather like an espionage museum without an admission fee … and no adverts. You will soon be immersed in a whole new world which you won’t want to exit.
After that experience you may not know who to trust so best read Beyond Enkription, the first novel in The Burlington Files series. It’s a noir fact based spy thriller that may shock you. What is interesting is that this book is apparently mandatory reading in some countries’ intelligence agencies’ induction programs. Why? Maybe because the book is not only realistic but has been heralded by those who should know as “being up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”. It is an enthralling read as long as you don’t expect fictional agents like Ian Fleming’s incredible 007 to save the world or John le Carré’s couch potato yet illustrious Smiley to send you to sleep with his delicate diction, sophisticated syntax and placid plots!
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the SAME USERNAME AND EMAIL ADDRESS each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You have now published four comments since September 2022 using the same email only two times, sharing a URL two times, by way of an overseas ISP all four times. Knock it off and stick to a single username and email address in compliance with this site’s comment policy. /~Rayne]
Marvelously unpersuasive. People tend to learn by using accessible analogies. Smiley and Bourne (Bond is bubblegum) make difficult topics accessible. They don’t displace factual histories.
One would need good background knowledge to consume Peter Wright, John Pilger, or Wilfred Burchett. One would need more of it to read Kim Philby, without being taken in by a master spy.
putin parking 20 ktons off of North European cities
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7kETRmWRb8
and thanks to his KGB, sea warfare, and all of warfare, are changing. Hope Zman is successful in convincing old Joe to end this thing. Fingers crossed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xuy3nPM4xak