US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1761

Greece’s leftwing prime minister Alexis Tsipras stood beside German leader Angela Merkel and demanded war reparations over Nazi atrocities in Greece on Monday night, even as the two leaders sought to bury the hatchet following weeks of worsening friction and mud-slinging.

“It’s not a material matter, it’s a moral issue,” said Tsipras, unusually insisting on raising the “shadows of the past” at the heart of German power in the gleaming new chancellery in Berlin. It was believed to be the first time a foreign leader had gone to the capital of the reunified Germany to make such a demand.

Merkel was uncompromising, while appearing uncomfortable and irritated. “In the view of the German government, the issue of reparations is politically and legally closed,” she said.

While the two leaders clashed over the second world war, there was no sign of any meeting of minds on the substance of their dispute over Greece’s bailout and what Tsipras has to deliver to secure fresh funding and avoid state insolvency within weeks.

When White House chief pastry chef Bill Yosses left the executive mansion last summer, the president publicly mourned the loss of “the crust master’s” mysteriously addictive pies. And when the first family’s personal chef and pal, Sam Kass, left in December, Michelle Obama heaped praise on Kass’s “extraordinary legacy of progress” in an official White House statement.

But the recent exit of head florist Laura Dowling, who’d been in the job since 2009, has been a much quieter affair. So hush hush, in fact, that most outside of 1600 Penn knew nothing about it. There’s still no official comment on why Dowling is no longer at the White House, but according to a source with close ties to current residence staffers, she was escorted from the building on Friday Feb. 13.

The East Wing initially confirmed via a very brief e-mail that “Laura left her position earlier this year” but provided no further details. Later, the first lady’s office (not quoting the first lady specifically, mind you) sent this enhanced statement:

“As Chief Florist, Laura Dowling and her team treated guests of the White House to their beautiful floral arrangements. Ms. Dowling’s creations were always lively and colorful, reflecting not only the season but the unique and historic rooms which they graced. No two arrangements were ever the same and each one left guests with a lasting impression of the elegance and history of the People’s House. We are grateful for her contribution over the years and wish her well”

According to a former residence staffer, Dowling’s exit “surprised a lot of people.” But the White House’s staff, continued this source, was discouraged from “trying to come up with their own conclusions.” Rumors, of course, have been flying ever since.

“I’m not sure what the reason is,” continued our source. “But I can think of a few.”

On March 24 2015 14:58 coverpunch wrote:
I'm hoping our German colleagues will be a bit more sympathetic to Japanese arguments about how much this is a political issue more than a moral one, given what Greece has been doing for the last week.


It covers up the fact that the Greeks are still refusing to stick to promised measures designed to achieve deficit balancing and antics like this make it appear as though they are not serious about structural reforms at all.

But the same thing often happens in China and Korea. China has a corruption scandal in the wake of Bo Xilai that enrages the public? Let's make a huge celebration for the Nanjing anniversary. Korea's President Park sees her approval ratings plummet amid a sluggish economy and some social issues? Time to bring up the comfort women again.

To be fair, Abe has been doing it in Japan too. Abenomics fails to achieve its goals and raising the sales tax in the middle of green shoots turns out to be a ridiculously stupid move? Let's complain about islands and troll Koreans that Japan was also a victim of their occupation. They're always good for a reaction that will rile up Japanese right-wingers.

On March 24 2015 14:11 KwarK wrote:

I wonder if Chinese students hear about that time that Jesus' younger brother made a heavenly kingdom devoted to opium and having sex with a bunch of women at the same time and how the Manchu Qing rulers were pretty much unable to do anything about it until Britain intervened to save the Chinese after they'd already killed 20,000,000 of their own people. I mean sure the Opium Wars don't make the Western powers look good but it's not like everything was fine in China before then either.

The Untied States has seemingly outgrown its childish paranoia against the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), but the encouraging development should not be allowed to go to the other extreme: a Machiavellian plot.

Signals have been beamed out of Washington of late that it is adopting a cooperative attitude toward the China-proposed initiative, which marks an apparent change of mind from its earlier suspicion and obstruction.

The U-turn of the world's sole superpower, which has developed an almost instinctive repulsion for whatever it images might turn into a threat to its hegemony, is overdue but still welcome, and also indicative of the attractiveness and all-win nature of the incipient institution.

But Washington needs to keep its AIIB epiphany pure and clean, and resist the temptation to load it with a Machiavellian ploy to convert the fledgling project into yet another tool for exerting its influence and getting its own way.

Signals have been beamed out of Washington of late

On March 24 2015 17:07 Shiragaku wrote:

Funnily enough, Mao and Sun Yat Sen held Hong Xiuquan up in high esteem.
And I would not go so far to flatter Britain by saying that "saving" the Qing Dynasty is equivalent of saving China given that both republicans and communists both believed that the destruction of the Qing Dynasty meant progress for China.

On March 24 2015 21:41 KwarK wrote:

Better than the civil war dragging on indefinitely.

On March 24 2015 21:58 Acrofales wrote:


Are you seriously trying to whitewash the British actions in S.E. Asia in the 1800s?

On March 24 2015 22:15 KwarK wrote:

Yeah, as seen by my positive description of the British during the Opium Wars above.

Or you could read my post and realize that what I was pointing out is that China's descent into chaos and ruin actually predated direct western intervention.

On March 24 2015 22:22 Lord Tolkien wrote:

First Opium War: 1839-1842
Second Opium War:1856-1860
Taiping: 1850-1864

Wouldn't quite say that.

On March 24 2015 22:23 oneofthem wrote:
it's not like the qing was some paradise before western colonialism

On March 24 2015 22:58 oneofthem wrote:
qing's economic and trade policies were pretty sensitive to the maintenance of the manchu ruling minority's position. notably self imposed limit on foreign trade. they caused quite a bit of damage culturally as well, basically forcing subservient confucianism onto everything and imposing harsh censorship.

the censorship and crippling social hierarchy is pretty bad. but it worked to maintain qing rule.

Washington has accused Israel of spying on closed-door international talks with Iran about its nuclear program and relaying information from the meetings to the U.S. Congress as a way to build a case against the deal, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Citing more than a dozen current and former U.S. and Israeli officials, the WSJ said Israel eavesdropped on the negotiations and gathered information from “confidential U.S. briefings,” “informants” and “diplomatic contacts in Europe.”

Israel has denied the charges and said it received information about the confidential Iran talks by monitoring Iranian leaders and discussions with French officials about the negotiations.

The White House discovered the alleged spying by intercepting communications among Israeli intelligence officials that “the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks,” the WSJ said, citing unnamed U.S. officials.

While the United States and Israel are longtime allies who tend to tolerate spying on each other, the White House was angered by Israel’s sharing of confidential details about negotiations with Iran with U.S. lawmakers in order to undercut support for the deal, the WSJ said.

“It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy,” an unnamed senior U.S. official who was briefed on the matter told the WSJ.

The report said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer sought to increase pressure on President Barack Obama and decided the best way to unravel the deal was to lobby Congress before any announcement about the talks was made.

Obama administration officials told the WSJ that they feel betrayed by Israel, and that the relationship between the two nations has changed as a result.

Soon after the U.S. and other major powers entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks.

The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former U.S. officials said. In addition to eavesdropping, Israel acquired information from confidential U.S. briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe, the officials said.

The espionage didn’t upset the White House as much as Israel’s sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program, current and former officials said.

“It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the matter.

The White House discovered the operation, in fact, when U.S. intelligence agencies spying on Israel intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks, officials briefed on the matter said.

Israeli officials denied spying directly on U.S. negotiators and said they received their information through other means, including close surveillance of Iranian leaders receiving the latest U.S. and European offers. European officials, particularly the French, also have been more transparent with Israel about the closed-door discussions than the Americans, Israeli and U.S. officials said...

Using levers of political influence unique to Israel, Messrs. Netanyahu and Dermer calculated that a lobbying campaign in Congress before an announcement was made would improve the chances of killing or reshaping any deal. They knew the intervention would damage relations with the White House, Israeli officials said, but decided that was an acceptable cost.

The campaign may not have worked as well as hoped, Israeli officials now say, because it ended up alienating many congressional Democrats whose support Israel was counting on to block a deal.

Obama administration officials, departing from their usual description of the unbreakable bond between the U.S. and Israel, have voiced sharp criticism of Messrs. Netanyahu and Dermer to describe how the relationship has changed.

“People feel personally sold out,” a senior administration official said. “That’s where the Israelis really better be careful because a lot of these people will not only be around for this administration but possibly the next one as well.”

This account of the Israeli campaign is based on interviews with more than a dozen current and former U.S. and Israeli diplomats, intelligence officials, policy makers and lawmakers.

Americans shouldn’t be surprised, said a person familiar with the Israeli practice, since U.S. intelligence agencies helped the Israelis build a system to listen in on high-level Iranian communications.

As secret talks with Iran progressed into 2013, U.S. intelligence agencies monitored Israel’s communications to see if the country knew of the negotiations. Mr. Obama didn’t tell Mr. Netanyahu until September 2013.

Israeli officials, who said they had already learned about the talks through their own channels, told their U.S. counterparts they were upset about being excluded. “ ‘Did the administration really believe we wouldn’t find out?’ ” Israeli officials said, according to a former U.S. official.