Trump Dump: Foreign Policy (Thread I)

[Flagg]

Looking forward to digging up all the arguments advanced in 2016 for why lots of Patriotic American Voters (TM) think it's important that the president have a proven track record of being very careful and sensitive about handling classified information, and not recklessly leaving it around where people can get at it.

Although I have to admit my prediction was wrong. I predicted that Trump's first "classified intel revealed" scandal would take the form of the duty hooker in his New York penthouse(s) picking up a classified document and running it to the Russian embassy or $$$.

This turned out to be wrong for the following reasons:
1) Trump, being an enterprising Brilliant Businessman (TM), is the biggest, smartest... noun... ever, and cut out the middlewoman, giving the information directly to the Russian embassy in exchange for $$$ that the Russians already gave him.
2) The New York penthouse presumably contains no duty hookers; those would presumably be found at Mar-a-Lago.
3) The New York penthouse is occupied by the First Lady, who (sensibly) has made the decision that she cannot abide the sight of her husband in the White House. Would that all other Americans had followed her example...

Wrong. He clearly had his penis severed and sent to Vlad Barechest as a hostage.

[FireNexus]

It's just long pork stock. For viet soups you need star anus and fish sauce, though.

[Flagg]

It's just long pork stock. For viet soups you need star anus and fish sauce, though.

Hey, I'm shocked the hookers weren't doing scatalogical stuff. What else could explain all the pure shit coming from his mouth?

And frankly his cunt wife needs to start paying for her own fucking security and limousine service. She doesn't want to live in the WH, fine. Pay for it yourself, stuck up more silicone than flesh bitch.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm going to put the blame for that squarely on Trumpolini being an insufferable ass, not on her being 'stuck up' or whatever.

I mean, yeah, she knew what an utter ass he was when she married him, but I don't imagine they spent all their time living in the same place before, either.

[Flagg]

I'm going to put the blame for that squarely on Trumpolini being an insufferable ass, not on her being 'stuck up' or whatever.

I mean, yeah, she knew what an utter ass he was when she married him, but I don't imagine they spent all their time living in the same place before, either.

Then she can either have no government paid security and limousine service or get a fucking divorce. I'm sorry, but this is indefensible. Children in this country go hungry every fucking day and we're paying hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars for this bitch to live in the Trump Pussy Palace because the White House isn't up to her standards? Bull fucking shit. The White House is big enough that she never has to see President Pussygrabber. This is just about her wanting to stay in New York City.

[Thanas]

Well, the oversight committee of the german intelligence services is now considering Trump a security risk. link

Winning.

[Thanas]

So Trump's disclosure has endangered a spy placed inside ISIS.

Winning

The life of a spy placed by Israel inside ISIS is at risk tonight, according to current and former U.S. officials, after President Donald Trump reportedly disclosed classified information in a meeting with Russian officials last week.

The spy provided intelligence involving an active ISIS plot to bring down a passenger jet en route to the United States, with a bomb hidden in a laptop that U.S. officials believe can get through airport screening machines undetected. The information was reliable enough that the U.S. is considering a ban on laptops on all flights from Europe to the United States.

The sensitive intelligence was shared with the United States, officials say, on the condition that the source remain confidential.

[Flagg]

So Trump's disclosure has endangered a spy placed inside ISIS.

Winning

The life of a spy placed by Israel inside ISIS is at risk tonight, according to current and former U.S. officials, after President Donald Trump reportedly disclosed classified information in a meeting with Russian officials last week.

The spy provided intelligence involving an active ISIS plot to bring down a passenger jet en route to the United States, with a bomb hidden in a laptop that U.S. officials believe can get through airport screening machines undetected. The information was reliable enough that the U.S. is considering a ban on laptops on all flights from Europe to the United States.

The sensitive intelligence was shared with the United States, officials say, on the condition that the source remain confidential.

This is why the US Constitution's definition for the crime of treason is way too fucking narrow. Plus the whole idea of "well if the POTUS releases the information, then it's automatically declassified" is just the modern version of "If the President does it, it's not illegal."

[Simon_Jester]

As a practical matter, there has to be somebody who can decide "wait, just letting terrible shit happen because we're afraid to reveal what our government has been doing is stupid" and not get arrested for it. It's just fucking Kafkaesque if there's literally no one who has the power to declassify information in an emergency without going through a mountain of paperwork.

The problem isn't that the president has the authority to decide to share classified information.

The problem is that this president lacks the intelligence, responsibility, and independence of foreign influence that would permit him to exercise that authority responsibly.

[Terralthra]

Well, the other other problem is that the Russian Foreign Minister has about the same clearance level that I do. If the justification for why Mr. Trump's actions aren't just as bad as his supporters think Sec. Clinton's were is "he's the President, he can declassify anything he wants," well, that means I have just as much right to see that information as anyone else. I'm willing to bet a FOIA for it will not result in my being sent the intel, so the idea that he has "declassified" it is pure nonsense.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, the oversight committee of the german intelligence services is now considering Trump a security risk. link

Winning.

Starting to wonder if America will have any allies left by the time we flush this orange shit.

[Flagg]

As a practical matter, there has to be somebody who can decide "wait, just letting terrible shit happen because we're afraid to reveal what our government has been doing is stupid" and not get arrested for it. It's just fucking Kafkaesque if there's literally no one who has the power to declassify information in an emergency without going through a mountain of paperwork.

The problem isn't that the president has the authority to decide to share classified information.

The problem is that this president lacks the intelligence, responsibility, and independence of foreign influence that would permit him to exercise that authority responsibly.

It's who he shared it with without any reasonable (or any, that I'm aware of) justification given as to why that information was shared. Of course the POTUS should be able to declassify information, the position is that of head of state. The problem is what he shared and with whom without any (that I'm aware of) process of determining what benefit (if any) or harm (if any) would be done to the US and/or it's allies.

But was the information even declassified? As Terralthra said, could anyone (or at least those with the same clearance as the Russian Foreign Minister) submit a freedom of information request and be given anything (assuming a response) but the equivalent of a middle finger in the mail?

[Simon_Jester]

Fair point. Trump has clearly not "declassified" this information in the sense that "anyone can see it legally." He just decided to make an exception for the Russian ambassador.

This is in my opinion ALSO something the president should normally have the power to do... But it's pretty obvious that Trump was grossly abusing that power. Either because he is far more indifferent to the protection of state secrets than Clinton ever was, or because he is so much in the pockets of the Russians that withholding information from them isn't something he's willing to do.

Well, the oversight committee of the german intelligence services is now considering Trump a security risk. link

Winning.

Starting to wonder if America will have any allies left by the time we flush this orange shit.

To be fair, some of the trust will come back when Trump is gone. However, some of it will not. Previously, it was generally accepted that Bush the Younger was the 'floor' of how low-caliber an American president could be. And you could in fact work with the Dubya administration. There were people with meaningful intellectual caliber working for him, there were people with plenty of experience in areas like national security and foreign policy. Even if he didn't know how the game worked, he was sane/smart enough to listen to other people who DID know how the game worked, abstain from obviously self-destructive actions, and reliably pursue the interests of his friends.

Being Dubya's ally was generally better than being his enemy, in other words. So that was the 'floor' of presidential quality in America- it still made sense to ally with us.

Trump just blew up the the floor and dropped it through four layers of sub-basements. Because if we elected a bozo like him before, we could do it again.

[FireNexus]

So the swedes dropped the charges against Julian Assange today. How interesting that the charges Assange claimed were due to US pressure to backdoor extradite him disappear within 48 hours of the appointment of someone with the means and motive to offer him immunity from US prosecution.

Not saying the guy isn't a rapist. Just that the evidence was always a bit thin to get a conviction. I hate that smarmy fucker being right on this. But I can take solace in the fact that he's almost certain to be taking his tea with polonium in the next month. That'll learn him to get in bed with people who don't have a problem with political murder.

[Simon_Jester]

This is from a Slate Star Codex post dating back to before the election, but I thought it was interesting- and a bit more Trump related than the previous post, so there.

---

Dear Donald Trump:

You’re well-known for your boast that you “hire the best people”. And one of those best people is Steve Bannon, the CEO of your campaign. When Bannon took over on August 17th, 538 had you at only a 12% chance of winning; after he was running your campaign for a month, you were up to 40%. Although you’ve since crashed back down, a lot of political observers attribute what successes you’ve had to Bannon and what problems you’ve had to your own big mouth. You seem to recognize his utility, calling him one of “the best talents in politics, with the experience and expertise needed to defeat Hillary Clinton in November”.

Before he joined your campaign, Bannon was best known for his role leading far-right news website Breitbart. But he was actually involved in some pretty interesting stuff when he was younger. In particular, in 1993 Bannon was the acting director of the famous environmental science experiment Biosphere 2.

Biosphere 2 was an attempt to create a self-sustaining closed ecosystem capable of supporting human life, possibly with applications for future space travel. It was actually the first such attempt – it was called “Biosphere 2” because the first such self-sustaining biosphere was the Earth itself. Eight “crew members” entered the facility along with various plants and animals, the airlocks were sealed, and for a year everyone tried to do what they could to keep the various species and environmental parameters in balance.

It didn’t work; CO2 levels started fluctuating wildly, soil microbes surged out of control, ants and cockroaches overran the facility, oxygen dropped to worrying levels, and the experiment was stopped early out of concern for crew health. They decided to try a second mission, and that was when they had a change in management and brought on Mr. Bannon as director.

Unfortunately, a lot of the crew members really didn’t like Bannon and his team. Possibly some of it had to do with an incident where a crew member submitted a list of safety complaints and Bannon threatened to “shove it down her f**king throat”. It got so bad that some of the crew deliberately vandalized the Biosphere, causing gas exchange between the inside and the outside and ruining the scientific value of the experiment. Although they probably could have tried again, by that time lawsuits and financial mismanagement had sapped their funding, and they finally sold the whole thing off to Columbia University as a research campus.

So my question for you is: in all of history, there have only been two self-sufficient ecosystems capable of maintaining human life. Your team has already destroyed one of them. The other is Earth. How scared should we be?

[Exonerate]

So, I've been on travel and haven't been able to really follow this whole episode in detail, so let me recap my understanding... Trump disclosed intel to Russia (not exactly an Islamist extremist ally) regarding something ISIL could potentially do, which was promptly leaked to CNN. So we should be outraged by the potentially harmful act, instead of the actually harmful leak that put the fact that there's a HUMINT source in ISIL in the public sphere?

Also just read Schumer's call to publicly release unedited transcripts of the meeting, heh. "If this intel gets out It'll be a disaster, so Trump should publicly reveal it!" Pretty amusing piece of political theater.

[Well, the other other problem is that the Russian Foreign Minister has about the same clearance level that I do.

This is fatuous. The Russian Foreign Minister doesn't need a U.S clearance because he's Russian. Trump has disclosed it to the government of Russia, and since he's cleared by Russia, there hasn't been a breach of trust on Russia's side (as far as we know). This is not declassification.

I know many of you don't want to hear this, but nearly all classification authority (which includes declassification and foreign disclosure) flows down from the President to the various departments so Trump could quite literally decide to declassify a bunch of stuff that shouldn't be out there and it would be perfectly legal. Come to think of it, the President has pretty broad powers in determining foreign policy too, so if he decides Russia is now our best friend, that's still working within the system. There's a vetting process that's supposed to prevent this sort of thing from happening... It's called an election. I completely support impeaching Trump on the grounds that he's an incompetent clown and understand the need to build public support for it, but it sure would be nice to do it without further eroding media integrity. And as a longer term goal, America needs to closely examine why a orange monkey got elected instead one of the supposedly most qualified candidates in recent memory instead of a kneejerk "Blame Russia/Comey!" helped along by a sour grapes Clinton campaign.

[Terralthra]

Disclosing specifics of a piece of classified information given to us by an ally threatens that ally's HUMINT asset's safety, potentially compromising both that asset and future intelligence operations of that ally (revealed to be Israel). Because of the threat to both, it also means that ally is less likely to share intelligence with us in the future, because our government can't be trusted to safeguard assets.

If Mr. Trump had done this in a calculated fashion, to a particular end, that would be something, but from all reports, he blurted it out thoughtlessly.

Yes, the president can disclose classified information to the government of Russia. Doing so may or may not be wise, but either way, there are secure ways to do that. "Mentioning it in passing to the foreign minister, in front of the press" is not one of those ways.

[Simon_Jester]

Me, I don't think Trump is impeachable over this, but it's an excellent example of how utterly stupid the "Clinton's email behavior proves that she's unfit to be president compared to Trump" argument was.

Because Trump has just disclosed a piece of TS:SCI information directly to the Russian foreign minister in front of the press, and it is nearly impossible that this was in any way a considered or calculated decision on his part. In addition to keeping a private email server that I have no doubt at all does now or soon will contain classified information.

Clinton might have been careless about how she stored classified information as president, though there's not really any proof of that. But I'm pretty damn sure she wouldn't have just randomly started handing it to the Russians for shits and giggles in front of the press. Because she is, for lack of a better term, a normal politician with public policy experience and knowledge of how national security issues work. Instead of being a huckster who is utterly ignorant of how national security works. And because she has self-control, instead of being a narcissistic impulsive manchild.

And realistically this is going to happen many times. Trump will reveal classified information over and over to whoever he wants, because he has no regard for any secrets that don't impact his own personal reputation. Trump will seek (has sought) security clearances for random bozos who are tied into his personal nepotist clan, because he does not care about whether anyone can actually pass background checks and does not really value American security except insofar as it makes him feel like a tough winner.

Trump will do, repeatedly, in glaringly obvious ways, far more damage than Clinton ever did or would have done. Even on this, the issue where national security hawks most avidly criticized Clinton. It's time to admit that this is what is going to happen, and bluntly that this was predictably going to happen.

Because the "vetting process" Exonerate cites failed so abjectly that it elected, for the first time in American history, a man with literally zero character and literally zero qualifications to hold the office.

[Gandalf]

I thought the point of "election vetting" was that it got someone the voters wanted. No more, no less. It's not like Trump didn't have a demonstrable history of running his mouth or anything.

Apparently enough of the voting populace was cool with that to either vote for him, or sit home and say "whatever." From this I can assume that they have a weirdly nuanced view of how national secrets should be handled.

[The Romulan Republic]

In fairness, he wasn't who most of the voters wanted. Mathematically speaking. We just have a really, really shitty electoral system.

Not that that excuses the asshats who decided to stay home and not even vote.

[Flagg]

Me, I don't think Trump is impeachable over this, but it's an excellent example of how utterly stupid the "Clinton's email behavior proves that she's unfit to be president compared to Trump" argument was.

Because Trump has just disclosed a piece of TS:SCI information directly to the Russian foreign minister in front of the press, and it is nearly impossible that this was in any way a considered or calculated decision on his part. In addition to keeping a private email server that I have no doubt at all does now or soon will contain classified information.

Clinton might have been careless about how she stored classified information as president, though there's not really any proof of that. But I'm pretty damn sure she wouldn't have just randomly started handing it to the Russians for shits and giggles in front of the press. Because she is, for lack of a better term, a normal politician with public policy experience and knowledge of how national security issues work. Instead of being a huckster who is utterly ignorant of how national security works. And because she has self-control, instead of being a narcissistic impulsive manchild.

And realistically this is going to happen many times. Trump will reveal classified information over and over to whoever he wants, because he has no regard for any secrets that don't impact his own personal reputation. Trump will seek (has sought) security clearances for random bozos who are tied into his personal nepotist clan, because he does not care about whether anyone can actually pass background checks and does not really value American security except insofar as it makes him feel like a tough winner.

Trump will do, repeatedly, in glaringly obvious ways, far more damage than Clinton ever did or would have done. Even on this, the issue where national security hawks most avidly criticized Clinton. It's time to admit that this is what is going to happen, and bluntly that this was predictably going to happen.

Because the "vetting process" Exonerate cites failed so abjectly that it elected, for the first time in American history, a man with literally zero character and literally zero qualifications to hold the office.

TBH, I don't want Trump impeached. The process would likely take long enough to drag into the ever lengthening Presidential primary process and even the general election. I also don't think we'd fare any better under a President Pence. In fact we may fare far worse since he, unlike Trump, is a politician who does seem to know how to operate without shitting the bed over and over.

[Simon_Jester]

TBH, I don't want Trump impeached. The process would likely take long enough to drag into the ever lengthening Presidential primary process and even the general election. I also don't think we'd fare any better under a President Pence. In fact we may fare far worse since he, unlike Trump, is a politician who does seem to know how to operate without shitting the bed over and over.

The problem is that if Trump doesn't get impeached, then impeachment is basically a pointless procedure. Unless we are hilariously unlucky, we may never again have a president who commits crimes and acts of malfeasance in public office as recklessly, as casually, and as blatantly as Donald Trump. If not even he can get impeached, no one can.

Which basically nails down the transition we've had from having the executive branch run by a president, to having it be run by an elected dictator who serves four year term cycles.

I thought the point of "election vetting" was that it got someone the voters wanted. No more, no less. It's not like Trump didn't have a demonstrable history of running his mouth or anything.

Apparently enough of the voting populace was cool with that to either vote for him, or sit home and say "whatever." From this I can assume that they have a weirdly nuanced view of how national secrets should be handled.

Well, honestly I think that the problem is that a large number of right-leaning voters are very good at thinking that specific bad actions by center-left politicians are terrible crimes...

But that those same right-leaning voters are incredibly bad at recognizing when they're being cynically manipulated by evil assholes who have no idea how to run a country but very much want to maneuver their way into control of this one so they can run it into the ground.

As a result, they will predictably vote against any left-wing candidate who can semi-plausibly be accused of even minor infractions... And yet many of them will vote for Republicans who display incredible lack of character, not once, but over and over. Or, even if they do not do so, they will continue to insist that the persistent pattern of utterly character-less men being elected says nothing about the overall moral fiber of the party.

[The Romulan Republic]

Exactly. If Trump is not impeached (and ideally sent to prison), it sets a very clear precedent that the President is above the law, even when he is engaging in outright despotic actions.

[Flagg]

TBH, I don't want Trump impeached. The process would likely take long enough to drag into the ever lengthening Presidential primary process and even the general election. I also don't think we'd fare any better under a President Pence. In fact we may fare far worse since he, unlike Trump, is a politician who does seem to know how to operate without shitting the bed over and over.

The problem is that if Trump doesn't get impeached, then impeachment is basically a pointless procedure. Unless we are hilariously unlucky, we may never again have a president who commits crimes and acts of malfeasance in public office as recklessly, as casually, and as blatantly as Donald Trump. If not even he can get impeached, no one can.

Which basically nails down the transition we've had from having the executive branch run by a president, to having it be run by an elected dictator who serves four year term cycles.m

It's more about what I think is the swiftest way to get rid of the fucker and at the same time put the Presidency in the hands of someone competent and most importantly not corrupt. Frankly, the rubicon was crossed when even the gigantic Democratic congressional victory in 2006 led to no action to remove a Douchebag who authorized torture, was asleep at the switch on 9/11 and most of all, lied to gain support for his illegal war of aggression in Iraq.

I don't believe this congress will impeach Trump, and that leaves a hypothetical Democratic congress who will start in 2019 and with plenty of obstructionism would essentially try to impeach a bastard at roughly the same time as they are nominating and running a campaign to replace the guy they are trying to impeach. So you end up having one of my top 10 most hated phrases, "political capital" spent by one party (democrats) on 2 fronts and the other party (republicans) again playing the victim and pushing all of their energy towards one goal and using the impeachment against the democrats saying that "if they can't win by election they will try to win by congressional overreach".

Will it work? Hell if I know, but I never spent a day worrying about a President Trump. And this assumption that he'll get voted out in 4 years sounds to me just like the assumption that W would be a one term president. Not that I'm saying you share that assumption, but I've seen it a lot.

[Galvatron]

Yes, the president can disclose classified information to the government of Russia. Doing so may or may not be wise, but either way, there are secure ways to do that. "Mentioning it in passing to the foreign minister, in front of the press" is not one of those ways.

I keep seeing Trump apologists missing the point and focusing on the fact that POTUS has the legal authority to declassify anything he wants, as if that somehow excuses him for doing so. POTUS also has the authority to order a nuclear first strike on another country for no reason at all. Does that mean such an act would be remotely justifiable and that Trump shouldn't be held accountable for it, should he ever choose to do so?