Some here have suggested that Putin is undertaking a reappraisal of his relationship with Trump and the Republicans, because Trump is so manifestly incompetent.
No.
What other plausible president would singlehandedly kneecap NATO (the weakening of NATO being the Kremlin’s top foreign policy goal since 1949), damage our Pacific Rim alliances, give Russia undisputed preeminence as the foremost outside power in the Middle East (something Russia has desired since the Tsars), and make the world safe for dictators (now Putin & Co. won’t face any criticism for running a corrupt oligarchy, and Russian dissidents won’t find a sympathetic ear in the US government).
Oh, and a bonus: Putin can send GRU hit squads all over the world with much greater impunity: Trump has said he believes the Kremlin denials of being behind the attempted assassination of Skripal).
Our hands are not so clean either.
We shot down Iran flight 655, an Airbus A300 with 290 people on board. Sixty six of the passengers were children. We were in Iranian waters and shot it down in Iranian airspace. It was on its regular flight path and transmitting a civilian aircraft signal. We paid $213,103.45 per passenger, in compensation to the families of the Iranian victims while denying culpability.
So the popular question is “what if Donald loses the election but refuses to leave office?” Easy question for arm-chair quarterbacks.
Suppose Donald loses, and lo and behold friend Vladimir tells him somebody – Canada, France? – tampered with one tally – more than one? Donald and Barr call the election invalid. Now, what do we do?
Agreed. And let us remember that neither Putin nor Trump expected him to win. The goal was to weaken Clinton, and sow chaos.
The chaos-making continues.
What this call also tells us is that Trump is utterly, utterly willing to follow Putin’s orders–or even to guess at Putin’s desires, in order to proactively fulfill them.
A true story. I was talking to a Navy vet about the incident. He was still in service at the time of the incident, and I suggested that there must have been hell to pay if you were involved in this FUBAR in any way. No, he said, it’s just standard procedure to see the aircraft on a radar scope, require identification, and shoot if the reply is unsatisfactory. According to him, all “our guys” did was ask for an ID and push a little button when they didn’t get an answer. No regrets, no remorse; pilot error, I guess. 290 dead. What’s for dinner?
I don’t believe it’s ever been shown that Putin ordered that strike, it was more likely a bungled shot ordered closer to the front. There was no strategic reason to take down the plane, and it produced disastrous PR for Russia.
“Counterterrorism” is the new “orphanages.” What it actually means, I have no doubt, is an agreement that Russia and the USA will cooperate on cyber attacks by the former on the latter.
I’m curious how the cutout crew in the intelligence community works, so far as facilitating all the illegal IT work and raw data Parscale needs for the campaign.
Pretty good set of details about the Flight MH17 incident including a simulated Buk missile explosion over the cockpit of the plane here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48691488
They have charged 3 Russians and one Ukrainian in the incident. I suspect it will be a trial without suspects in custody. The Buk missile does not actually hit the plane. It explodes very near the plane and sends fragments into it. There were Buk missile fragments in the three bodies that were in the cockpit.
