1y ago

Putin bromance has US intelligence officials fearing second Trump term

www.theguardian.com

Ex-president’s support for the Russian strongman has experts fretting over American interests and security sources overseas

Donald Trump’s continuing lavish praise and support for Russian president Vladimir Putin are fueling alarm among former intelligence officials and other experts who fear another Trump presidency would benefit Moscow and harm American democracy and interests overseas.

Trump praised Putin as a “genius” and “pretty savvy” when Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, and has boasted he would end the war in a “day”, sparking critics’ fears that if he’s elected again Trump would help Russia achieve a favorable peace deal by cutting off aid to Kyiv. Trump also recently greenlit Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to Nato members who don’t pay enough to the alliance.

“Trump views Putin as a strongman,” said Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution and a national security official in the first two years of Trump’s administration. “In a way they’re working in parallel because they’re both trying to weaken the US, but for very different reasons.”

More recently, instead of criticizing Putin for the death of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s leading opposition figure, who the Kremlin once tried to kill with poison, and who died suddenly last month in an Arctic penal colony, Trump weirdly equated the four criminal prosecutions he faces with Navalny’s fate as political prisoners.

42 comments

So how on earth is it possible to elect a well known and blatantly obvious national security risk as president? I guess national security is only important when it comes to persecuting people who question the system.
- This is literally the reason the electoral college is a thing...
  In case a con man and convicted fraudster like Trump won, the electoral college is supposed to over rule the voters.
  That's why it's not a straight popular vote.
  Instead the convicted fraudster is able to use the system to override the popular vote.
  Our political system is inherently fucked and better systems have become common in the last 200 years. But no one with power in the current system would change it and risk losing power.
  
  The electoral college was created so the slaver states could get political representation for the slaves without giving them the vote. Everything else is after the fact rationalisation.
- Because some of those who work forces are the same that burn crosses.
"Bromance?" What kind of headline is that? Not an appropriate word at all. They're not hanging out knocking back some brews. This is geo politics, and Trump has sold out intelligence sources and methods to the Russians and likely other countries, and has worked to undermine American interests in favor of Russia and Putin. How about sycophant, minion, lackey, henchman, or potentially compromised by?
- This is the corproate news media showing how fascism is possible.
  Because they're not required to tell it in terms that would help us. And calling treasonous action "a bromance" means 43% of registered voters will still click on the link and make them money from their shamwow ads.
  They cannot do this again. Scream at them. Everyone has to scream at the corporate news media when they fuck up like this.
  
  "You getting this camera guy?"
Our "intelligence community" is infested with conservatives. This is why they did absolutely nothing to stop him last time. They are not worried he will win. Most of them will vote for him.
Conservatism is a mental illness and should be a disqualifier for positions of authority over others.
- Which is odd considering he got a few American spies killed when he revealed classified info to the Russians as POTUS.
  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/17/russian-sources-disappeared-after-trump-declassified-ex-spys-evidence-uk-court-told
Putin will either own Europe or turn it into a WWI-level wasteland if Trump would have his way.
- Fortunately or not, both the UK and France have thermonuclear teeth to bite back if the totally-not-a-Tsar tries. And as far as the UK goes, it's the same thermonuclear warheads, missiles and submarines as the USA, using the same procedures and with the same capabilities.
  
  I would call that the worst possible scenario and I would also call that terrifyingly plausible under a Trump regime assisting Putin.
- Look, no one wants to help trump win because he would do exactly that, as you say. The problem is an entirely different country on the other side of the world is stepping way over the line, and Biden is stubbornly honoring political alignments and so we have to denounce him loudly to help trump win so trump can utterly destroy all known cooperative agreements in order to enrich himself personally. And if you disagree, you're a centrist who hates poor people and women. I mean - we can't just not help trump win, obvs.
  
  Okay? I never said otherwise.
Would these be the same "intelligence officials" who did sweet fuckall for four straight years last time? Those "intelligence officials"? Well, I guess we're double screwed then huh because they failed to bring him down for his OBVIOUS AND PROVEN ties to russia and a crooked election, then they grabbed their pensions and ran. Thanks a lot "intelligence officials".
- Maybe this announcement is pretty much all they're willing to do. Inform, somewhat.
I’m sure intelligence officials have had plenty reason to fear a second term without this.
Godspeed, Americans…
- Despite having a legendarily complete collection of audio and video of every damning conversation anyone's ever had, they did absolutely nothing to hinder or remove trump last time, so I'm not holding out a lot of hope that they're actually here to keep the country from splitting into a horrifying fascist-lite hellscape.
  Y'know, because of the utter failures and refusal to act and so on.
  Serve billionaires and oil companies, keep the women and minorities down, same as it ever was.
I think of it like this.
The First Nations used to hunt the buffalo. They'd hunt every day, but the buffalo herds remained. Then the Europeans came. They didn't much like to eat buffalo, but pretty soon all the buffalo were dead.
The CIA and FBI have hated Progressives for a long time, but never actually wiped them out.
- The buffalo weren't killed because settlers were wasteful.
  It was an official policy where they'd kill as many as possible to wipe out the Natives food source in the area.
  Remaining buffalo were forced west, and the Natives had to follow. Which put them in conflict with Natives who had always been there.
  And the push never stopped.
  
  I agree, so I'll just clarify my analogy.
  The buffalo could survive with the Native People in charge. They did much worse with the Europeans. In this case, the FBI/CIA are the Natives, and the MAGoos are the settlers.
- I don't know that this is the best way of looking at things. There's a lot of evidence that a great deal of North American megafauna that we have good reason to believe that humans at least contributed to the extinction of after arriving in North America many thousands of years ago. And, considering the buffalo jump, the indigenous of those areas would probably have had no ecological issue with wiping them out if they could have.
  Cahokia was a massive North American city near modern St. Louis. It had the largest pre-Columbian population of any city north of the Rio Grande and was probably comparable in population to London and Paris at the same time period. It is believed that the massive deforestation that would have been required to burn enough fuel to support its population was part of the reason it was eventually abandoned. This was actually a huge crisis in Europe in the late middle ages as well and was why the Jamestown Colony's original purview was to send back lumber.
  If the indigenous people of North America had discovered gunpowder, there is no reason to believe they wouldn't have shot every buffalo in sight, not to mention each other when tensions between groups arose.
  Indigenous Americans had a wide array of cultures and beliefs and art. But they were not all gentle farmers and nomads who lived in harmony with the land. They were just normal human beings, with all the amazing and terrible things that go along with that.
  Obviously that doesn't make them any lesser as peoples or as cultures and it doesn't justify anything they have suffered since.
  
  If the indigenous people of North America had discovered gunpowder, there is no reason to believe they wouldn't have shot every buffalo in sight, not to mention each other when tensions between groups arose.
  Indigenous Americans had a wide array of cultures and beliefs and art. But they were not all gentle farmers and nomads who lived in harmony with the land. They were just normal human beings, with all the amazing and terrible things that go along with that.
  That goes against my understanding of native culture
  
  If the indigenous people of North America had discovered gunpowder, there is no reason to believe they wouldn't have shot every buffalo in sight, not to mention each other when tensions between groups arose.
  I agree with your larger point, but not this one - because they did "discover" gunpowder and guns when they were traded them and they didn't shoot every buffalo. Yes, they did sometimes shoot each other. (Humans gonna human.) But respect for the earth is a foundational understanding that colonizing Europeans chose to ignore entirely for hundreds of years, up until this very day.
- So what you're saying is that they would buffalo the buffalo towards Buffalo?
  
  No. They would buffalo the buffalo that were too close to Buffalo farther away from Buffalo. Pretty sure I learned that from Mark Ruffalo.
  
  See you and raise you.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo
That headline is straight outta 2020. Hell, if not for the "second term" part, it could have been from 2015!
Youcan tell from the photo which one is the top and which one is the bottom

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