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[US Foreign Policy] Iran Response: Missile strikes US Al-Assad, Kirbil base in Iraq pg 90
moniker
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A new thread to discuss what amounts to our supposed policies to foreign nations.
Previously on The Earth:
President Trump used the power of his office to extort a foreign power into helping his reelection campaign.
Saudi oil refineries blew up and we are blaming Iran for it
Bolton got fired from being NSA
Also: Tariffs? No war but the trade war. But also, maybe actual war.
What will happen next? Events, dear boy, events.
*************
Official prevention of cross contamination post.
*************
The Russian investigation, and related issues: Mueller Russian Investigation Thread
Sundry other corrupt practices: The numerous other Trump investigation and Impeachment threads.
General Middle East goings on: The Middle East Thread
Canada specific things and poutine : Canada Thread
BREXIT: Hiberno-Brittania thread
Venezuela? : South America Thread
Trump immigration policy, Muslim ban and beyond: Immigration Policy Thread
Firings and Hirings of Senior Government positions: Trump Cabinet Thread
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-Events-
On January 3rd, 2020 the President of the United States ordered an airstrike against Iranian General Qassem Soleimani at the Baghdad International Airport in Iraq. The head of the IRGC Quds forces and somewhat equivalent to DNI, Joint Chief, and shadowy Secretary of State rolled together. The assassination of Soleimani occurred without informing Congressional Leadership, which is required by law [ 50 U.S.C. § 3091(a)(1) ] due to Congress having sole warmaking powers under the Constitution. (though having granted the Executive a wide berth for exigencies under the War Powers Act, this was not an extraordinary circumstance) As of now Iran has condemned the assassination by our government, and has made threats of unspecified reprisals in response.
Previously on The Earth:
President Trump used the power of his office to extort a foreign power into helping his reelection campaign.
Saudi oil refineries blew up and we are blaming Iran for it
Bolton got fired from being NSA
Also: Tariffs? No war but the trade war. But also, maybe actual war.
What will happen next? Events, dear boy, events.
*************
Official prevention of cross contamination post.
*************
The Russian investigation, and related issues: Mueller Russian Investigation Thread
Sundry other corrupt practices: The numerous other Trump investigation and Impeachment threads.
General Middle East goings on: The Middle East Thread
Canada specific things and poutine : Canada Thread
BREXIT: Hiberno-Brittania thread
Venezuela? : South America Thread
Trump immigration policy, Muslim ban and beyond: Immigration Policy Thread
Firings and Hirings of Senior Government positions: Trump Cabinet Thread
*************
-Events-
On January 3rd, 2020 the President of the United States ordered an airstrike against Iranian General Qassem Soleimani at the Baghdad International Airport in Iraq. The head of the IRGC Quds forces and somewhat equivalent to DNI, Joint Chief, and shadowy Secretary of State rolled together. The assassination of Soleimani occurred without informing Congressional Leadership, which is required by law [ 50 U.S.C. § 3091(a)(1) ] due to Congress having sole warmaking powers under the Constitution. (though having granted the Executive a wide berth for exigencies under the War Powers Act, this was not an extraordinary circumstance) As of now Iran has condemned the assassination by our government, and has made threats of unspecified reprisals in response.
moniker on
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This discussion has been closed.
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It's pretty easy to forget, since even Ukraine does not tend to remain in the American news cycle for long, not to mention the Trump government's penchant for catastrophic levels of corruption, but to sum up: VP Biden told Kiev to fire a state procurator who happened at that time to be investigating Burisma, a Ukrainian LNG corporation for which Hunter Biden serves as a director on the board, or else. We know this because the former vice president not so discreetly bragged about it.
You'd have to be pretty naive not to think Viktor Shokin's (the procurator in question) replacement wasn't subject to the same corruption vulnerabilities as his predecessor, but had the very desirable quality of not investigating Burisma.
But this story is the right combination of foreign, boring, and complicated that it's not particularly memorable.
*Third, if you consider United States arms shipments to the Ukrainian military to combat Russian-backed separatists ending up in the hands of known neo-Nazi paramilitaries, but that doesn't really involve Joe Biden aside from him strongly advocating the shipments, and probably not his son at all.
Not sure if thats true or not.
...it really, really doesn't sound like it.
I'm not going to automatically assume malice, because NPR--god bless them--is full of humans who make mistakes. On top of the whole "international news coverage can be terrible because there are basically no consequences for fucking up compared to domestic stories" thing. Remember when the Washington Post said the Russians were trying to freeze all of Vermont to death by hacking the power grid, then proceeded to edit their story online without notice for the next day, more than doubling its length, before saying "Whoops, turns out we were wrong," after other news sites pointed out what they were doing? And they broke the Watergate Scandal! They are one of the finest publications in the country! International news coverage is...frequently not very good.
The NPR interview could simply have an innocent gaffe, or someone who genuinely doesn't know any better, both of which happen on NPR. Ironically, in the rather chaotic post-Party of Regions Kiev government, not investigating Burisma is probably one of the few things we can be confident Procurator Shokin wasn't fired for.
The official Ukrainian government line is that the prosecutor was not actively prosecuting cases, there were several he was sitting on without action for years. Being a ‘do nothing’ prosecutor essentially.
This is supported by his deputy Vitaly Kasko citing that specifically in his own resignation in 2016.
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/462716-nyt-publisher-us-didnt-step-in-to-protect-reporter-from-arrest-in-egypt-so That should be a huge scandal.
no, this -should- be a huge scandal. the gop hates the media and by extension so does their entire base
Well it’s getting a fair bit of traction over here in Ireland I can tell you. RTÉ News have already been reporting on it. Why the hell did the NYT say nothing about it at the time?!
I have to say that given this and given Trump’s recent love-fest with Saudi Arabia, up to and including sending US troops over there for their convenience, that this absolutely merits a full intelligence investigation into Khashoggi’s murder, and specifically what the White House knew about it in advance. I know there was mention that the US had intelligence that he was in danger and failed to warn him. Now I’m wondering just how complicit the Trump administration was in his murder.
Not sure why you insist on the bolded.
Per NPR:
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/24/763502822/what-were-the-bidens-doing-in-ukraine-5-questions-answered
I don't doubt hella nepotism got Hunter his position but there hasn't been any evidence I've seen that the Ukrainian government was investigating him for anything.
On the bolded: A generous interpretation could be that if they spoke up, they'd risk burning the one person who had their back, and may have it again in the future. It would be trivial for the admin to argue that these sort of warnings are unauthorized disclosures of classified information.
Coming forward with it now could be because that person is gone, or they feel like it's the ideal time to pile on charges of malfeasance for a looming impeachment inquiry.
Especially when currently dealing with the whole other level of nepotism that is seeing Ivanka Trump skipping around the G7 and Jared skipping around conferences in Saudi Arabia.
Nepotism on the Bidens' part seems likely, and some level of corrupt dealings doesn't seem implausible given the context, though no evidence of such seems available. But overall it seems like Biden's portrayal of events - that the prosecutor was sacked for being ineffective or himself corrupt - is accurate.
I would not be surprised if Biden"s actions had an ulterior motive, or that he were manipulated into it by his son.
But what's the best case scenario there for Hunter? His dad gets the guy who was trying to bury the investigation replaced with someone who would... what?
He was already in the clear thanks to the then-current prosecutor not giving a shit for whatever reason.
Does Joe have more kids?
His two sons, Beau and Hunter, were the only ones to survive the car crash that killed his wife and daughter. He then got remarried and had another 1 (or 2?) daughters.
Beau is the one that died of cancer a few years back. Hunter is still around.
Geez poor Joe
and his whole family =(
Beau Biden was his eldest who has, sadly, passed.
Banana-fana-Faux Biden is the one who, sadly, does not exist, but was probably his first choice for Hunter.
To the best of my knowledge the company Hunter was on the board of wasn't even the source of the inquiry, like they were involved because some millionaire involved with it had done some shady shit. But the whole thing is a mess of snakes and "what the fuck even is this?" that is modern corporations.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Correct me if I'm wrong but... The President doesn't have the authority to unilaterally withhold funds that Congress has appropriated, right? This is straight up illegal, right?
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/23/20879611/joe-biden-hunter-biden-ukraine-corruption-prosecutor-burisma-donald-trump-whistleblower-complaint
Hunter wasn't totally unrelated to Burisma before being hired (the law firm he worked for was owned by the same hugely corrupt dude), but it very clearly seems like the usual nepotism hire and it's not clear he did jack squat except get paid a lot of money. It's corrupt, but a pretty low level of corruption compared to... everything else.
Where the conspiracy breaks down is that Shokin, the guy Biden was pressuring to be canned, was BLOCKING the open corruption investigations, not pursuing them, and everybody, but especially Britain (for laundering stuff involving their banks) wanted him gone. Biden got a couple soundbites related to it, so he became essentially the face of getting the dude canned.
1. The US was going to give a bunch of loans to Ukraine, was concerned about corruption. Asks Ukraine to fire corrupt prosecutor (prosecutor corruption supported by other countries and Ukranian prosecutora working under him
2. Ukraine fires prosecutor, who was working on a corruption case involving company that Biden’s son was working for, except he wasn’t, because it had been largely abandoned several years prior.
3. Ukraine themselves notice this, investigate, find no connection or wrongdoing.
4. Trump concludes this is the wrong answer, withholds aid, strongly implies it will be released if the investigation is reopened and the right answer given.
I'm not sure about 3. I'm not sure (but could be mistaken) that there's been any significant investigation, but I also don't know that there's been any significant wrongdoing indicated in regards to Burisma other than being owned by a dude that was hugely corrupt, and Ukraine has a billion far more pressing and obvious corruption issues it's sorting out at the moment. My understanding (again, could be mistaken) is that Trump is using the lack of an investigation to say that there's corruption there to be discovered, while Ukraine's stated position is that there's no evidence of any wrongdoing by the Bidens, so what the fuck are we supposed to investigate?
Ah I took that statement as implying they had looked into it and couldn’t find anything.
It's not about the investigation. It's about trying to smear Joe Biden's family by making him look like his son had some hinky backroom dealings (something on which Donald is an expert) while in the Ukraine, so the GOP can use that to try and fuck Biden real good in election season.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
May have been a different mechanism, or maybe not, but reporting has briefly mentioned lawmakers were questioning if OMB had the legal authority to direct DoD and State to not release the money.
But that could have just been grumbling, and I haven't read more about it.
The fundamental of most forms of corruption is using perfectly legal authority with crooked intent. Mayor Bob has the discretion to give that cushy city contract to whoever, and it very well may be best if he gives it to his friend's company who has years of expertise and can offer their services at a competitive price. But he could also be grossly incompetent and pocket the money, which is why you recuse yourself from decisions like that, or just say your friend's stuff ain't under consideration at all, to prevent even the whiff of conflicts of interest.
Pressuring another country to enact policies you want (in this case, stamping down on corruption), is a pretty normal and humdrum thing. Pressuring another country to specifically create specific allegations against a specific person? When the 'evidence' is so scant? And specifically against a political rival? That's a very different beast.
Context matters, though. As a legitimate foreign policy concern, probably. As an extortion racket to help your reelection campaign, no. In the same way that remarking about how flammable a restaurant seems can either be viewed as recommending building renovations or conspiracy to commit arson depending
I think they meant to get the dirt much later on, like after the primaries. If this scandal takes down Biden and weakens Trump, the Democrats just got a big election advantage, because Biden is a very weak candidate.
So yeah, everything is still on course until a side blinks first.
Lifting sanctions is a condition, sorry to say, so that can be interpreted as Trump not demanding any further concessions from Iran before a meeting. It says nothing about Iran getting a concession from the US....which, yeah, not happening.
I don't put this in the same category as his praise for Duterte or even bin Salman, at the end of the day the U.S. economy remains completely intertwined with the Chinese one, so the countries remain pretty close despite whatever posturing and border skirmishes they conduct.
Basically, China has the shortest waiting lists on Earth for organ transplants, but no tradition of organ donation. Instead, organs are harvested from executed prisoners. That's yucky enough on its own. But that also seems to be insufficent to supply the organs needed. The horrific inference is that prisoners are being extrajudicially killed for their organs, usually dissidents or religious minorities.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/23/asia/china-organ-harvesting/index.html
So China may actually be worse than Duterte or bin Salman. After all, bin Salman only had one guy dismembered.
Last week, they were accused in front of the UN of harvesting from minority groups including the Uighurs who are in "re-education camps" right now, so yeah, they're kinda on a whole different level