France is whinging cos they can't sell nuclear submarines to Australia, to which I say big fucking deal, noone cares
A lot of people apparently care. The French, just to name one group.
And the French aren't complaining that they can't seel subs to AU, it's that they had a contract that AU unilaterally broke by going behind the French's backs and over their heads.
My understanding is that it would be wrong to say that nuclear subs are strictly better; they're more easily detected but can stay submerged for longer and (I believe) have greater effective range vs diesel subs that are nigh undetectible unless the crew start singing their national anthem, but have to snorkle every day or two and have shorter effective range.
France is whinging cos they can't sell nuclear submarines to Australia, to which I say big fucking deal, noone cares
A lot of people apparently care. The French, just to name one group.
And the French aren't complaining that they can't seel subs to AU, it's that they had a contract that AU unilaterally broke by going behind the French's backs and over their heads.
Sure and I just say so what? I don't really care. They'll get over it.
France is whinging cos they can't sell nuclear submarines to Australia, to which I say big fucking deal, noone cares
A lot of people apparently care. The French, just to name one group.
And the French aren't complaining that they can't seel subs to AU, it's that they had a contract that AU unilaterally broke by going behind the French's backs and over their heads.
Sure and I just say so what? I don't really care. They'll get over it.
I'm sure you don't, and hopefully they will (time heals all wounds and all that).
I probably woulnd't have phrased it "noone cares" if I meant "I don't care", though.
Ed: Also, it is a big fucking deal, AU$ 66,000,000 is not pocked change.
France is whinging cos they can't sell nuclear submarines to Australia, to which I say big fucking deal, noone cares
A lot of people apparently care. The French, just to name one group.
And the French aren't complaining that they can't seel subs to AU, it's that they had a contract that AU unilaterally broke by going behind the French's backs and over their heads.
Sure and I just say so what? I don't really care. They'll get over it.
I'm sure you don't, and hopefully they will (time heals all wounds and all that).
I probably woulnd't have phrased it "noone cares" if I meant "I don't care", though.
Ed: Also, it is a big fucking deal, AU$ 66,000,000 is not pocked change.
You're not wrong but if you fuck up a AU$ 66,000,000 as badly as it appears France did I have a hard time summoning anything other than the world's tiniest violin.
And no, I don't give a shit that the US ended up with the contract.
This isn't a "RAH RAH USA!" thing.
There are few things I like less about my country than the arms dealing we do.
This is a "You fucked up and/or around too long and you lost the contract. Fuck off with your histrionics" thing.
France is whinging cos they can't sell nuclear submarines to Australia, to which I say big fucking deal, noone cares
A lot of people apparently care. The French, just to name one group.
And the French aren't complaining that they can't seel subs to AU, it's that they had a contract that AU unilaterally broke by going behind the French's backs and over their heads.
Sure and I just say so what? I don't really care. They'll get over it.
I'm sure you don't, and hopefully they will (time heals all wounds and all that).
I probably woulnd't have phrased it "noone cares" if I meant "I don't care", though.
Ed: Also, it is a big fucking deal, AU$ 66,000,000 is not pocked change.
You're not wrong but if you fuck up a AU$ 66,000,000 as badly as it appears France did I have a hard time summoning anything other than the world's tiniest violin.
And no, I don't give a shit that the US ended up with the contract.
This isn't a "RAH RAH USA!" thing.
There are few things I like less about my country than the arms dealing we do.
This is a "You fucked up and/or around too long and you lost the contract. Fuck off with your histrionics" thing.
It entirely possible that the French fucked up. Or that the Australians fucked up the original contract. Or both. Or something else. I don't feel we have enough details to conclude.
The way the contract breaking happened appears to have been… poorly handled, at least, apparently mostly on the side of the Anglophones.
France is whinging cos they can't sell nuclear submarines to Australia, to which I say big fucking deal, noone cares
A lot of people apparently care. The French, just to name one group.
And the French aren't complaining that they can't seel subs to AU, it's that they had a contract that AU unilaterally broke by going behind the French's backs and over their heads.
Sure and I just say so what? I don't really care. They'll get over it.
I'm sure you don't, and hopefully they will (time heals all wounds and all that).
I probably woulnd't have phrased it "noone cares" if I meant "I don't care", though.
Ed: Also, it is a big fucking deal, AU$ 66,000,000 is not pocked change.
You're not wrong but if you fuck up a AU$ 66,000,000 as badly as it appears France did I have a hard time summoning anything other than the world's tiniest violin.
And no, I don't give a shit that the US ended up with the contract.
This isn't a "RAH RAH USA!" thing.
There are few things I like less about my country than the arms dealing we do.
This is a "You fucked up and/or around too long and you lost the contract. Fuck off with your histrionics" thing.
It entirely possible that the French fucked up. Or that the Australians fucked up the original contract. Or both. Or something else. I don't feel we have enough details to conclude.
The way the contract breaking happened appears to have been… poorly handled, at least, apparently mostly on the side of the Anglophones.
I will admit I have had a very dim view of France's government for a number of reasons for quite awhile now so seeing them fail so spectacularly on something is pretty satisfying.
But doing my best to set that aside given the circumstances as we know them I'm more inclined to believe Australia's account than France's of the situation.
I have to think France knew this was coming and massive performative outrage was their plan for if / when Australia decided to go with the US. If they didn't it's just another sign of Frances massive fuckup with this whole thing and another sign Australia probably made the right choice.
Agreements and contracts like this have criteria for if one party wants to withdraw. With France doing so poorly I'm sure Australia executed them and while France can be disappointed, the lesson should be do better next time.
France is in a kind of weird place where they aren't really a superpower but they do punch above their weight. They are a legit nuclear power and are one of the few nations with a navy that can project force anywhere in the world and get real mad when they aren't treated as one of the big boys and equals.
While this is definitely a blow to national pride it was self inflicted. I'm sure there are long term strategic implications with France losing this deal but it's business and maybe don't take your deals and partners for granted?
The French Navy is good and effective (less than the Royal Navy mind you) but hadn't shown that SEA is a priority for it, and neither has the French government. If the Australian government is concerned with security in the region then the US and UK are much more aligned with that in both current deployments and future spending.
One would think that France would put more effort on meeting deadlines and not having costs balloon out of control if it was so important to them.
EDIT: And is not about "the best subs". Is about having any subs, and the French were failing on that.
To be fair the problem of delays and cost overruns is far from unique to this French project; the F-35 suffered from similar issues despite being considered very important by Washington.
I dislike French stereotypes, but I think France's reaction to this incident being a greatest hits of French stereotypes isn't going to help their standing.
I think the attempts you see to pin this on some specific french character reeks of Freedom Fries.
IMO, the US and France both have enormous national egos. I can very easily see us going down the same "we used to be an empire, you WILL pay us our due respect!" path in our own decline from the peak of our power and influence, which now seems much closer than it used to.
Once I dared to hope that we might handle it with the same relative dignity as England, but well, they haven't exactly been a model lately either.
...is there any reason for any French person who isn't a death merchant to give a rat's ass about this?
I think the issue more than just losing an arms contract is the French are seeing one of their worst foreign policy fears come true. Three anglophone nations negotiating in secret a deal to redefine the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific and they found out about it on twitter.
You have to see this from the French perspective. They aggressively seek to defend the existence of French culture and the status of France as a power that influences global politics. Being ganged up on and excluded by the English speaking world is one of their worst fears and that is why you're seeing this scale of reaction.
The French are trying to make it as clear as possible that the cost of excluding them isn't worth paying.
This explains the scale of the French reaction better than the money.
This hits at their image of themselves as still a world power, still a player on the stage who has to be treated with respect.
Oh and as far as my foreign policy advice for the Biden administration (not that they will ever read it or if they were google searching and it came up follow it).
Do a big apologia tour, offer to bring the French into the alliance, make sure you try to consult them as much as possible, make them feel important, offer to get them involved as much as possible, try to get them tied into the alliance as much as possible and if anything try to get them to broaden their commitment to the alliance if you can even bring them on in the first place.
And never completely trust them again. Niccolo was right when he said people remember injuries for longer than they remember honors. You kind of put a big fucking spike in the relationship and it might take a generation or two, or even three to even out.
I can understand if the deal with the French about the submarines had to go, it sounds like the contractor they were using was Blue Origining the shit out of it. But telling the French 2 hours before the big announcement? That was clumsily handled and it will come back to bite you in the ass.
Surely France has an intelligence agency to get heads up about this kind of thing, right? I mean yeah, we could have told them a week ago or a month ago, but they should have known on their own after the US and AUS started negotiating and spoken up.
Surely France has an intelligence agency to get heads up about this kind of thing, right? I mean yeah, we could have told them a week ago or a month ago, but they should have known on their own after the US and AUS started negotiating and spoken up.
According to the (European) reporting I’m reading, France had an inkling and approached Australia earlier this year asking if they would rather have nuke subs. Australia was not interested.
Surely France has an intelligence agency to get heads up about this kind of thing, right? I mean yeah, we could have told them a week ago or a month ago, but they should have known on their own after the US and AUS started negotiating and spoken up.
According to the (European) reporting I’m reading, France had an inkling and approached Australia earlier this year asking if they would rather have nuke subs. Australia was not interested.
In other words, it's not and the power plant but the process.
Australia is under no obligation to pay tithe to some French contractor just for funsies.
Or it's entirely about more closely aligning themselves with the US and become part of a broader plan to check Chinese expansion in east asia/south-east asia. And so the specific subs matter less then what they represent.
Surely France has an intelligence agency to get heads up about this kind of thing, right? I mean yeah, we could have told them a week ago or a month ago, but they should have known on their own after the US and AUS started negotiating and spoken up.
According to the (European) reporting I’m reading, France had an inkling and approached Australia earlier this year asking if they would rather have nuke subs. Australia was not interested.
In other words, it's not and the power plant but the process.
Australia is under no obligation to pay tithe to some French contractor just for funsies.
I mean, Australia definitely agreed to an obligation to pay a French contractor for equipment, and specified that equipment. They almost certainly have a requirement to pay the French contractor for deciding to break that agreement, and considering the size of it, that is likely to be a not insignificant amount of money on its own.
Surely France has an intelligence agency to get heads up about this kind of thing, right? I mean yeah, we could have told them a week ago or a month ago, but they should have known on their own after the US and AUS started negotiating and spoken up.
They would have had 5Eyes on their side...if Brexit hadn't been a thing, and the UK one of the involved parties.
So yes, excellent spies until it was relevant right now.
Surely France has an intelligence agency to get heads up about this kind of thing, right? I mean yeah, we could have told them a week ago or a month ago, but they should have known on their own after the US and AUS started negotiating and spoken up.
According to the (European) reporting I’m reading, France had an inkling and approached Australia earlier this year asking if they would rather have nuke subs. Australia was not interested.
In other words, it's not and the power plant but the process.
Australia is under no obligation to pay tithe to some French contractor just for funsies.
I mean, Australia definitely agreed to an obligation to pay a French contractor for equipment, and specified that equipment. They almost certainly have a requirement to pay the French contractor for deciding to break that agreement, and considering the size of it, that is likely to be a not insignificant amount of money on its own.
Yep, Australia is paying the fee from contract disolution. That much was on one of the articles from The Guardian. There's no actual confirmation, but the best guesses are around 2 billion.
That makes french anger even less justified. Contractor work has exit clauses on the contract, and the australians decided to trigger theirs and they are paying the fee. All of this is a clearly defined process. There should be no major issue from this.
Surely France has an intelligence agency to get heads up about this kind of thing, right? I mean yeah, we could have told them a week ago or a month ago, but they should have known on their own after the US and AUS started negotiating and spoken up.
According to the (European) reporting I’m reading, France had an inkling and approached Australia earlier this year asking if they would rather have nuke subs. Australia was not interested.
In other words, it's not and the power plant but the process.
Australia is under no obligation to pay tithe to some French contractor just for funsies.
I mean, Australia definitely agreed to an obligation to pay a French contractor for equipment, and specified that equipment. They almost certainly have a requirement to pay the French contractor for deciding to break that agreement, and considering the size of it, that is likely to be a not insignificant amount of money on its own.
Yep, Australia is paying the fee from contract disolution. That much was on one of the articles from The Guardian. There's no actual confirmation, but the best guesses are around 2 billion.
That makes french anger even less justified. Contractor work has exit clauses on the contract, and the australians decided to trigger theirs and they are paying the fee. All of this is a clearly defined process. There should be no major issue from this.
Whereas, looking at the exact thing written there, and the apparent lack of communication by Aus in this case... I'm seeing the opposite? It's the kind of situation I'd entirely expect to generate anger and ill-feeling in a private contracting arrangement, and even more so given it's both extremely public and extremely direct?
Surely France has an intelligence agency to get heads up about this kind of thing, right? I mean yeah, we could have told them a week ago or a month ago, but they should have known on their own after the US and AUS started negotiating and spoken up.
According to the (European) reporting I’m reading, France had an inkling and approached Australia earlier this year asking if they would rather have nuke subs. Australia was not interested.
In other words, it's not and the power plant but the process.
Australia is under no obligation to pay tithe to some French contractor just for funsies.
I mean, Australia definitely agreed to an obligation to pay a French contractor for equipment, and specified that equipment. They almost certainly have a requirement to pay the French contractor for deciding to break that agreement, and considering the size of it, that is likely to be a not insignificant amount of money on its own.
Yep, Australia is paying the fee from contract disolution. That much was on one of the articles from The Guardian. There's no actual confirmation, but the best guesses are around 2 billion.
That makes french anger even less justified. Contractor work has exit clauses on the contract, and the australians decided to trigger theirs and they are paying the fee. All of this is a clearly defined process. There should be no major issue from this.
Whereas, looking at the exact thing written there, and the apparent lack of communication by Aus in this case... I'm seeing the opposite? It's the kind of situation I'd entirely expect to generate anger and ill-feeling in a private contracting arrangement, and even more so given it's both extremely public and extremely direct?
I'm open to the theory that there's no "good" way to announce "we are calling it out". Australia seems to be working on that theory.
Plus, is anyone but France making a public stink about it? Did anyone else not even know they had a deal for subs? Just me? This is looking kind of like a Streisand Effect situation, with France making things worse for themselves the more they bleat about it.
Plus, is anyone but France making a public stink about it? Did anyone else not even know they had a deal for subs? Just me? This is looking kind of like a Streisand Effect situation, with France making things worse for themselves the more they bleat about it.
Indonesia appears to have abruptly cancelled a planned visit by Morrison. I'd assume that Australia's attempts at an EU free trade deal are going to be outright blocked by the French, and it's very likely additional issues will continue to occur. As to China's response, so far not a great deal, though I wouldn't expect their ban on Aus thermal coal to be lifted.
Edit:
Sorry, to clarify some of this, currently despite exports of one of Aus major mining industries being effectively banned, and high tariffs introduced earlier this year on Barley and Wine , China still remains, by far, Australia's largest trading partner. It's not even close. With those tarrifs, and an outright ban on Coal, we're still talking ~40% of their exports. The US is around ~10%, Japan around ~4%.
Plus, is anyone but France making a public stink about it? Did anyone else not even know they had a deal for subs? Just me? This is looking kind of like a Streisand Effect situation, with France making things worse for themselves the more they bleat about it.
Indonesia appears to have abruptly cancelled a planned visit by Morrison. I'd assume that Australia's attempts at an EU free trade deal are going to be outright blocked by the French, and it's very likely additional issues will continue to occur. As to China's response, so far not a great deal, though I wouldn't expect their ban on Aus thermal coal to be lifted.
Edit:
Sorry, to clarify some of this, currently despite exports of one of Aus major mining industries being effectively banned, and high tariffs introduced earlier this year on Barley and Wine , China still remains, by far, Australia's largest trading partner. It's not even close. With those tarrifs, and an outright ban on Coal, we're still talking ~40% of their exports. The US is around ~10%, Japan around ~4%.
As an Australian I would be very willing to bet on France getting into trouble upsetting Germany and other EU members over free trade deals because of this. France was already generally opposed to them because our agricultural exports compete directly with their farmers: they were extremely likely to create trouble anyway.
The reality of this deal is that the value is in getting US hardware and US resources to maintain it: amongst other things, France doesn't have a conveniently located state with military ports in the pacific ocean, not to mention an ongoing history of local docking rights in country.
In 2017, as Julian Assange began his fifth year holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London, the CIA plotted to kidnap the WikiLeaks founder, spurring heated debate among Trump administration officials over the legality and practicality of such an operation.
Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request “sketches” or “options” for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.”
There is no indication that the most extreme measures targeting Assange were ever approved, in part because of objections from White House lawyers, but the agency’s WikiLeaks proposals so worried some administration officials that they quietly reached out to staffers and members of Congress on the House and Senate intelligence committees to alert them to what Pompeo was suggesting. “There were serious intel oversight concerns that were being raised through this escapade,” said a Trump national security official.
Let's abduct and maybe murder Assange!
- Hmmm, maybe we should check first if murder is legal?
In 2017, as Julian Assange began his fifth year holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London, the CIA plotted to kidnap the WikiLeaks founder, spurring heated debate among Trump administration officials over the legality and practicality of such an operation.
Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request “sketches” or “options” for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.”
There is no indication that the most extreme measures targeting Assange were ever approved, in part because of objections from White House lawyers, but the agency’s WikiLeaks proposals so worried some administration officials that they quietly reached out to staffers and members of Congress on the House and Senate intelligence committees to alert them to what Pompeo was suggesting. “There were serious intel oversight concerns that were being raised through this escapade,” said a Trump national security official.
Let's abduct and maybe murder Assange!
- Hmmm, maybe we should check first if murder is legal?
I think the US has already established that it's legal for them to murder anyone they want anywhere in the world. But maybe Assange is too white for that to apply to him?
In 2017, as Julian Assange began his fifth year holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London, the CIA plotted to kidnap the WikiLeaks founder, spurring heated debate among Trump administration officials over the legality and practicality of such an operation.
Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request “sketches” or “options” for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.”
There is no indication that the most extreme measures targeting Assange were ever approved, in part because of objections from White House lawyers, but the agency’s WikiLeaks proposals so worried some administration officials that they quietly reached out to staffers and members of Congress on the House and Senate intelligence committees to alert them to what Pompeo was suggesting. “There were serious intel oversight concerns that were being raised through this escapade,” said a Trump national security official.
Let's abduct and maybe murder Assange!
- Hmmm, maybe we should check first if murder is legal?
I think the US has already established that it's legal for them to murder anyone they want anywhere in the world. But maybe Assange is too white for that to apply to him?
Assange is too white for a color chart. His HTML color code is #GGGGGG.
+3
HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Assange should thank his lucky stars Trumps "criminal lawyers" were nowhere near as good as W's.
Otherwise he's a ghost.
I don’t see this, Trump was friends with Wikileaks (=Assange). He wouldn’t have approved killing him.
And a sane President wouldn’t have either.
CIA gonna CIA.
The discussions occurred at “the highest levels” of the Trump administration and “there seemed to be no boundaries” and the admin “requested sketches on how it would be done”
Which is to say: Trump wanted him dead. Trump isn’t his friend. Trump doesn’t have friends. Assange would be just one more person to shove under the bus.
And: the only reason they didn’t do it is because the White House lawyers convinced him that there was no “out” of that one. Killing a foreign National of a friendly nation we are not at war with in an embassy of a second friendly nation to a third friendly nation will have consequences worse than whatever Assange can tell the FBI.
The CIA may be immoral but they aren’t going to draw plans for that and present it to the White House without the White House asking first.
+10
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Posts
A lot of people apparently care. The French, just to name one group.
And the French aren't complaining that they can't seel subs to AU, it's that they had a contract that AU unilaterally broke by going behind the French's backs and over their heads.
My understanding is that it would be wrong to say that nuclear subs are strictly better; they're more easily detected but can stay submerged for longer and (I believe) have greater effective range vs diesel subs that are nigh undetectible unless the crew start singing their national anthem, but have to snorkle every day or two and have shorter effective range.
Sure and I just say so what? I don't really care. They'll get over it.
I'm sure you don't, and hopefully they will (time heals all wounds and all that).
I probably woulnd't have phrased it "noone cares" if I meant "I don't care", though.
Ed: Also, it is a big fucking deal, AU$ 66,000,000 is not pocked change.
You're not wrong but if you fuck up a AU$ 66,000,000 as badly as it appears France did I have a hard time summoning anything other than the world's tiniest violin.
And no, I don't give a shit that the US ended up with the contract.
This isn't a "RAH RAH USA!" thing.
There are few things I like less about my country than the arms dealing we do.
This is a "You fucked up and/or around too long and you lost the contract. Fuck off with your histrionics" thing.
It entirely possible that the French fucked up. Or that the Australians fucked up the original contract. Or both. Or something else. I don't feel we have enough details to conclude.
The way the contract breaking happened appears to have been… poorly handled, at least, apparently mostly on the side of the Anglophones.
I will admit I have had a very dim view of France's government for a number of reasons for quite awhile now so seeing them fail so spectacularly on something is pretty satisfying.
But doing my best to set that aside given the circumstances as we know them I'm more inclined to believe Australia's account than France's of the situation.
Agreements and contracts like this have criteria for if one party wants to withdraw. With France doing so poorly I'm sure Australia executed them and while France can be disappointed, the lesson should be do better next time.
France is in a kind of weird place where they aren't really a superpower but they do punch above their weight. They are a legit nuclear power and are one of the few nations with a navy that can project force anywhere in the world and get real mad when they aren't treated as one of the big boys and equals.
While this is definitely a blow to national pride it was self inflicted. I'm sure there are long term strategic implications with France losing this deal but it's business and maybe don't take your deals and partners for granted?
IMO, the US and France both have enormous national egos. I can very easily see us going down the same "we used to be an empire, you WILL pay us our due respect!" path in our own decline from the peak of our power and influence, which now seems much closer than it used to.
Once I dared to hope that we might handle it with the same relative dignity as England, but well, they haven't exactly been a model lately either.
I realize it's an unrealistic hypothetical, but ignoring that, I suspect Washington would be pretty mad.
This explains the scale of the French reaction better than the money.
This hits at their image of themselves as still a world power, still a player on the stage who has to be treated with respect.
Do a big apologia tour, offer to bring the French into the alliance, make sure you try to consult them as much as possible, make them feel important, offer to get them involved as much as possible, try to get them tied into the alliance as much as possible and if anything try to get them to broaden their commitment to the alliance if you can even bring them on in the first place.
I can understand if the deal with the French about the submarines had to go, it sounds like the contractor they were using was Blue Origining the shit out of it. But telling the French 2 hours before the big announcement? That was clumsily handled and it will come back to bite you in the ass.
They probably would. I'd bring out the same "world's tiniest violin" for them.
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According to the (European) reporting I’m reading, France had an inkling and approached Australia earlier this year asking if they would rather have nuke subs. Australia was not interested.
In other words, it's not and the power plant but the process.
Australia is under no obligation to pay tithe to some French contractor just for funsies.
I mean, Australia definitely agreed to an obligation to pay a French contractor for equipment, and specified that equipment. They almost certainly have a requirement to pay the French contractor for deciding to break that agreement, and considering the size of it, that is likely to be a not insignificant amount of money on its own.
So yes, excellent spies until it was relevant right now.
Yep, Australia is paying the fee from contract disolution. That much was on one of the articles from The Guardian. There's no actual confirmation, but the best guesses are around 2 billion.
That makes french anger even less justified. Contractor work has exit clauses on the contract, and the australians decided to trigger theirs and they are paying the fee. All of this is a clearly defined process. There should be no major issue from this.
Even beyond the hilariously incestuous US military industrial complex.
And as dirty as the US gets with bribes and 'pressure' DGSE has a reputaton for being subtle but replacing people who wont take their bribes.
Whereas, looking at the exact thing written there, and the apparent lack of communication by Aus in this case... I'm seeing the opposite? It's the kind of situation I'd entirely expect to generate anger and ill-feeling in a private contracting arrangement, and even more so given it's both extremely public and extremely direct?
I'm open to the theory that there's no "good" way to announce "we are calling it out". Australia seems to be working on that theory.
Indonesia appears to have abruptly cancelled a planned visit by Morrison. I'd assume that Australia's attempts at an EU free trade deal are going to be outright blocked by the French, and it's very likely additional issues will continue to occur. As to China's response, so far not a great deal, though I wouldn't expect their ban on Aus thermal coal to be lifted.
Edit:
Sorry, to clarify some of this, currently despite exports of one of Aus major mining industries being effectively banned, and high tariffs introduced earlier this year on Barley and Wine , China still remains, by far, Australia's largest trading partner. It's not even close. With those tarrifs, and an outright ban on Coal, we're still talking ~40% of their exports. The US is around ~10%, Japan around ~4%.
As an Australian I would be very willing to bet on France getting into trouble upsetting Germany and other EU members over free trade deals because of this. France was already generally opposed to them because our agricultural exports compete directly with their farmers: they were extremely likely to create trouble anyway.
The reality of this deal is that the value is in getting US hardware and US resources to maintain it: amongst other things, France doesn't have a conveniently located state with military ports in the pacific ocean, not to mention an ongoing history of local docking rights in country.
Let's abduct and maybe murder Assange!
- Hmmm, maybe we should check first if murder is legal?
Otherwise he's a ghost.
I think the US has already established that it's legal for them to murder anyone they want anywhere in the world. But maybe Assange is too white for that to apply to him?
Assange is too white for a color chart. His HTML color code is #GGGGGG.
I don’t see this, Trump was friends with Wikileaks (=Assange). He wouldn’t have approved killing him.
And a sane President wouldn’t have either.
CIA gonna CIA.
The discussions occurred at “the highest levels” of the Trump administration and “there seemed to be no boundaries” and the admin “requested sketches on how it would be done”
Which is to say: Trump wanted him dead. Trump isn’t his friend. Trump doesn’t have friends. Assange would be just one more person to shove under the bus.
And: the only reason they didn’t do it is because the White House lawyers convinced him that there was no “out” of that one. Killing a foreign National of a friendly nation we are not at war with in an embassy of a second friendly nation to a third friendly nation will have consequences worse than whatever Assange can tell the FBI.
The CIA may be immoral but they aren’t going to draw plans for that and present it to the White House without the White House asking first.
Because that's who he is, has always been, and always will be.