Political Ocean's 11

[Elerond]

 

 

 

So is Clinton being connected to not only the uranium deal with Russia but now the DNC bought a dossier on Trump that the FBI used as reason to investigate Russia connections to him?

Is this a bunch of hogwash from Fox news?

Because it has long since been debunked, it's the latter.

Where is the debunk part in the link?

 

 

Don't think it has been debunked as it's new information. Hillary denies it, but that's not surprising. I can't imagine too many people thought that she or the democrats weren't involved in the dossier creation at least.

 

Above link leads to patreon page of poadcast that did episode about issue and they present evidence why situation isn't what you would think by reading articles about it in media. You can find link to said poadcast from mentioned patreon page.

 

http://armscontrolwonk.libsyn.com/uranium-fever

[Zoraptor]

 

Iran hasn't done anything yet to my knowledge, other than being opposed to it.

 

Not directly, certainly. But the pro Iranian PUK were mostly in charge of defending Kirkuk and withdrew without firing a shot after making an agreement with the government brokered, almost certainly, by Iran. Iranian general Qassem Suleimani was in Sulaymaniya, the capital of PUK held Iraqi kurdistan, immediately before they made that agreement.

[Agiel]

 

 

So is Clinton being connected to not only the uranium deal with Russia but now the DNC bought a dossier on Trump that the FBI used as reason to investigate Russia connections to him?

Is this a bunch of hogwash from Fox news?

Because it has long since been debunked, it's the latter.

Where is the debunk part in the link?

 

 

Libsyn podcast link at the very top. The Lawfare blog goes further into this. But if you wanted to know the crux of the argument in short contrary to Trump's claims during the election the uranium, if it ever were to go to Russia (which it wouldn't, as Arms Control Wonk and Lawfare explains, the ore was for sale within US borders), was unlikely to be used in nuclear weapons in large part because growth of the Russian strategic arsenal are capped at current levels due to treaty obligations. Even its modernisation program would either use warheads or fissile materiel from older weapons (the focus of modernisation efforts are launch platforms and the mechanisms  surrounding the "pits" pf the weapons, which are generally quite stable; plutonium cores for instance are good for at least 80 years after processing). In fact, there was a time when Russia and the other former SSRs were selling HEU to the US like it was going out of style. All of it was blended down into LEU for use in nuclear reactors (as Jeffrey Lewis notes, during the Megatons to Megawatts program one in ten American lightbulbs was lit by power generated from former Soviet nuclear weapons).

 

Further, the fact that it was a Russian SOE that was purchasing ownership of the mine is not quite as alarming as some make it out to be. Yes, the company is a state-owned enterprise, but so is at least 70% of the entire Russian economy. Yes, because it is state owned it could bow to pressure from the Kremlin to limit output or send proceeds from sales into the Kremlin's coffers, but the operative word is that the mine represents 20% of US uranium _output_, which is different from total US _reserves_. As the US is similarly not growing its warhead count (unless Trump's "Let there be an arms race" bears out) and most power companies are switching over to natural gas for power plants rather than refurbishing old nuclear plants and bringing them up to modern safety standards there isn't a huge demand for uranium for nuclear power plants, so much of the United States' uranium supply is simply left untapped. Put another way the US is not in danger of suddenly having its uranium reserves severely limited if for some reason the demand for them were to skyrocket.

Edited October 28, 2017 by Agiel

[Katphood]

Can't see the US backing PJAK in Iran which is the only major Kurd rebel group as they/re KCK/ PKK affiliates and it would annoy Iraq and Turkey without having the anti ISIS fig leaf; they and their allies would far rather support the arab and baluchi minorities.

Well, why do people tend to forget about this pic:

 

 

Maybe it's because one of the guys in this pic(no, not McCain) turned out to be a baby snatcher.

 

and while we're at it, why not put this here, too:

 

 

 

 

Also, the Kurds live in a much bigger chunk of Turkey (roughly a quarter of the country) than they do Iran, so, Turkey seems more at risk of entering a civil war over the Kurds.

 

 

That's why Turkey -as angry as they are at the Kurds- prefers to let Iran deal with any sort of conflict whatsoever. In picture they are against an independent Kurdistan but in practice they tend to sweet talk Iran into any sort of military conflict.

 

Edited October 28, 2017 by Katphood

[Zoraptor]

I'd hardly forget that photo, it has given me endless amusement to see McCain posing with a bunch of dudes who ended up as ranking members of ISIS, even if the one in the background isn't Baghdadi (and it definitely isn't) as many claimed. Supporting the then FSA was easy though, as Jordan and Turkey could be used and at that time you had a broadly cohesive sunni support group as well. They have support available for the Baluchi and Arab minority areas, but Iran's Kurdish area cannot count on any outside support.

[Guard Dog]

As most of you know a lot of ink & airtime was used in the past two weeks railing against Trump's comments in a call to the widow of US Army Sgt. La David Johnson. But I wonder why none was spent asking WHY was she a widow to begin with? What the hell were US combat forces doing in Niger to begin with?

 

It turns out they have been there since 2007 supporting French troops who are supporting private Uranium mining. All to the chagrin of Niger's pro-democracy factions who want US & French troops out because they are supporting and propping up a brutal government and military that has a long a terrible record of human rights abuses. In 2011 the Obama Admins Security Government Initiative updated the weapons, equipment, and training of that army in the hopes of them being a force against Islamic insurgent groups like Jamaat Tawhid wal Jihad fi Gharb Afriqa in Mali. But that group and others like it are only a problem because of weapons a funding coming from Post-Ghaddafi Libya, another mess the US helped create. 

 

So the question is why are US troops supporting private French mining when there are already French troops doing that? It turns out there are US ground forces in combat operations in 138 different nations around the globe. When George W Bush left office that number was 60. Barack Obama doubled that to 120 over eight years. In just 9 months Trump has added 18 more. Everything from drug interdiction in Columbia (great job there by the way: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/a-side-effect-of-peace-in-colombia-a-cocaine-boom-in-the-us/2017/05/07/6fb5d468-294a-11e7-9081-f5405f56d3e4_story.html?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.f5e81a5d807d  now instead of drug kingpins the Colombian Government is selling cocaine) to hunting rebel leaders in Uganda. How many of these actions are authorized by Congress, in whom war powers ultimately rest in this country? 0. Zip. None. Lindsey Graham, the most powerful member of the Senate Arms Services committee knew nothing about combat troops in Niger. Either he's lying or we have a f-----g problem. 

 

Forget Afghanistan for a moment. Something had to be done there. Maybe not what was done but... But I think it's safe to say intervening in Syria, Libya, & Iraq has made a bad situation worse. And Niger whose updated military spends more time brutalizing it's own people than actually supporting resistance to jihad groups in Mali.

 

Prior to WWI the US had a long and dearly held tradition of non-intervention (beyond the western hemisphere at least). That is something we really need to get back to. It may be that cow is long out of the barn, especially since in this, like many other things, the Democrats & Republicans are doing the same things. And there is a price to pay for it. The lives of the people involved in it, the money it costs, and the damage to the fundamental founding principle of this country. And there is another kind of cost too, in the story of King Midas everything he touched turned to gold. Everything we're touching is turning into something else. It's common practice to wrap all this in the flag and say La David Johnson died defending our freedom. We need to reject that. Until someone can explain how my freedom got to Niger and why it was so important to French Uranium mining.

 

http://reason.com/archives/2017/10/25/presidents-are-reckless-with-soldiers-li

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/23/politics/dunford-niger-ambush-briefing/index.html

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/20/558757043/the-u-s-military-in-africa-a-discreet-presence-in-many-places

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/u-s-special-ops-deployed-to-138-countries-and-counting/

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2017/06/13/in-the-eye-of-the-storm-niger-and-its-unstable-neighbors/

[smjjames]

@Guard Dog: It can all (the stuff since George W. Bush anyway) be traced back to the vague AUMF that was made in 2001 or 2002 which hasn't been renewed since.

[213374U]

Why do you hate Freedom, Guard Dog?

[Hurlshort]

I would recommend everyone watch Timbuktu to understand more about the situation in Niger.

[smjjames]

Why do you hate Freedom, Guard Dog?

 

He's libertarian don't ya know?

Edited October 28, 2017 by smjjames

[smjjames]

'Guarding the uranium' wasn't even this particular units mission though, they were on an intel gathering mission when they got ambushed.

[Guard Dog]

@Guard Dog: It can all (the stuff since George W. Bush anyway) be traced back to the vague AUMF that was made in 2001 or 2002 which hasn't been renewed since.

Regrettably this is incorrect. There have been a number of attempts to end what Barbra Lee has correctly called a blank check to wage debate free war forever. Including one earlier this year that was quietly scuttled by the rules committee. We have had Democrat led Congresses and Republican led Congresses along with Democrat Administrations and Republican Administrations. But the same story, in every one. More money, men, hardware and escalations. And all of it in secret until someone gets killed. And even then there is far more angst expended over how condolences are offered than why the hell it happened to begin with.

 

Oh and Ben, that uranium and the private companies that are mining it are all French. To my thinking that equals "Not Our Problem". There is nothing, not one goddamned thing in Niger that was worth the lives of those four men.

[smjjames]

@Guard Dog: It can all (the stuff since George W. Bush anyway) be traced back to the vague AUMF that was made in 2001 or 2002 which hasn't been renewed since.

Regrettably this is incorrect. There have been a number of attempts to end what Barbra Lee has correctly called a blank check to wage debate free war forever. Including one earlier this year that was quietly scuttled by the rules committee. We have had Democrat led Congresses and Republican led Congresses along with Democrat Administrations and Republican Administrations. But the same story, in every one. More money, men, hardware and escalations. And all of it in secret until someone gets killed. And even then there is far more angst expended over how condolences are offered than why the hell it happened to begin with.

 

Oh and Ben, that uranium and the private companies that are mining it are all French. To my thinking that equals "Not Our Problem". There is nothing, not one goddamned thing in Niger that was worth the lives of those four men.

 

Again, that's not even why they were there, they were doing counterterrorism intel gathering. Maybe some of them are there to guard the uranium, but that's not what that unit was doing.

 

Regardless of why they were there, you're a former marine, right (saw someone mention that you are)? Even you would want to know what happened that led to, in military parlance, the massive Charlie Foxtrot.

Edited October 28, 2017 by smjjames

[Guard Dog]

Oh I have a big problem that it happened. I have a bigger problem that they were there for it to happen to them. That is the point I'm trying to make here. This never ending war BS that can't even be won because no one can even define what victory is has to stop. It's becoming very Orwellian. No, it actually passed that up a long time ago.

[smjjames]

Regardless of whether one views it in a libertarian or republican or democrat way, it IS a fact that our forces are spread pretty thinly. Some might say too thinly.

 

That's kind of the problem with counterterrorism, there's always going to be some terrorist group somewhere, so, you have to decide which ones are the threat.

 

The Green Berets are also supposedly a branch that trains foreign militaries, not go on intel gathering missions, so, I'm wondering about that as well.

 

Another thing, this unit was also apparently fresh to the area, deployed a week before, so, tons of questions and few answwers.

Edited October 28, 2017 by smjjames

[Guard Dog]

The **** is going on with Twitter? „White lives matter“?

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/national/white-lives-matter-organizers-cancel-second-rally-after-being-taunted-by-counterprotesters/2017/10/28/a6fee0d2-bc1f-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html

This kind of protest seems a bit worrying

 

"Some master race," he snickered. "Can't even show up on time."

 

  OMG, now that is funny! They said 100 people showed up? That's not a rally. It's not even a particularly well attended party. I wouldn't waste anytime worrying about that.

[redneckdevil]

The **** is going on with Twitter? „White lives matter“?

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/national/white-lives-matter-organizers-cancel-second-rally-after-being-taunted-by-counterprotesters/2017/10/28/a6fee0d2-bc1f-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html

This kind of protest seems a bit worrying

Why does this seem worrying? In a country of mostly white people, 100 of them are protesting? Nah, it's all part of the news process of keeping fear alive.

[smjjames]

The **** is going on with Twitter? „White lives matter“?

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/national/white-lives-matter-organizers-cancel-second-rally-after-being-taunted-by-counterprotesters/2017/10/28/a6fee0d2-bc1f-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html

This kind of protest seems a bit worrying

 

That 'white lives matter' and 'all lives matter' stuff has been going on since the 'black lives matter' movement started.

 

Personally, I prefer the term 'all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum lives matter', which is a sarcastic rebuke of the 'white lives matter' and 'all lives matter'.

Edited October 29, 2017 by smjjames

[Guard Dog]

The worrying part is not the number of Nazis, but how emboldened they seem recently. I’m not looking into US politics for that long, but it seems to me that the public existence Nazis being straight out and honestly Nazis has seen a sharp increase. And that I find worrying.

No I wouldn't say that. They have been around since I've been paying attention in one form or another. Skinheads, Aryan Nation, and others. They have always been pretty brazen. But there just are not a whole lot of them. As Redneck pointed out, 100 people at a rally is only in the news because the media is trying to make hay of it. But it's a thin crop indeed. It's barely even worth notice.

[Chilloutman]

Skinheads are not Nazis ffs :/

[redneckdevil]

The worrying part is not the number of Nazis, but how emboldened they seem recently. I’m not looking into US politics for that long, but it seems to me that the public existence Nazis being straight out and honestly Nazis has seen a sharp increase. And that I find worrying.

"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction."

When u get to a point where it's "okay" and pushed socially to call and treat someone who disagrees with you as a "Nazi"....well what do u expect? Think of the N word and how alot of Americans call themselves that even though it's a horrible word, they spun it around and tried to wear it with pride. You keep accusing your mate of cheating, eventually they ain't gonna give a **** and own it.

If ur wondering why there seems to be more "open" lately.

[Hurlshort]

I can't imagine becoming a cheater because my mates keep accusing me of that. You'd have to have super low self esteem to just become something because people say you are that.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

The beauty of the Aryan woman is a sight to behold.

Skinheads are not Nazis ffs :/

The reggae ones are dead and the oi! ones are just punks who don't like dyed hair.

[Guard Dog]

Well, all i know about skinheads comes from a movie called American History X. It's good if you ever get a chance to see it. It's got Avery Brooks (Captain Sisko) in it. But if all your knowledge comes from a movie you really don't have any. 

[Malcador]

Well, all i know about skinheads comes from a movie called American History X. It's good if you ever get a chance to see it. It's got Avery Brooks (Captain Sisko) in it. But if all your knowledge comes from a movie you really don't have any.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinhead

 

And the metalhead girl I knew are my sources. So 10% better