re: WTF--House votes 419-3 on new Russia sanctions bill???

The issue is the constitutionality of it. If it is the House initiating a bill giving them power to conduct foreign policy, then I doubt its constitutionality.

If its the House saying we can inotiate sanctions on a foreign country, then that sounds like conducting foreign policy to me.

Separation of powers, and that should be Trump’s point as his DOJ refers it to SCOTUS.

There is not a reason to think Russia wants to work with America to fight Muslims. They just want to eff with America.

quote:

---

I'd vote in favor of Russia. They have actually always been a natural ally. It seems like more Russia, more winning.

---

So we should have as our ally in our war against Islamic extremism and terrorism a country that has Islam as on official heritage/traditional religion and that is growing rapidly.

I don't think so.

LINK


Islam is the second most widely professed religion in Russia. Islam is considered as one of Russia’s traditional religions, legally a part of Russian historical heritage. According to a poll by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center from June 2007, 6% of respondents considered themselves Muslims. Also, according to the Arena Atlas, the survey found that 6.5% or 9,400,000 were Muslims. Another survey by the Pew Research Center, in May 2017, found that 10% of Russia's population is Muslim. According to a news article of Russia Today, Muslim minorities make up approximately 15% of the total population of Russia.

quote:

---

There is not a reason to think Russia wants to work with America to fight Muslims. They just want to eff with America.

---

I'm not an islamaphobe, so my rejections to Russia is not on the grounds that they have a lot of them(though is 15% really a lot?) living there.

They do have a self interest in disposing of ISIS though. They back Assad and Isis is amongst(if not) the biggest threats to Assad's reign within Syria. No ISIS means a more stable country for Assad, which means a more stable puppet for Russia.

The idea that you need to cajole Putin to fight ISIS is absurd.

It's basically like someone showing up to the truck dealership, seeing the sticker price, and asking the salesman if he can give them another $10,000 for the truck, oh, and if the salesman can frick his daughter for him too. Only then will he buy the car.

quote:

---

-Saudi Arabia is invading and bombing Yemen in an attempt to overthrow the Houthi government.

---

Last I checked, they have not sought to annex territory. False equivalency #1

quote:

---

-The Saudi lobby has been doing this for decades. They own most of the members of Congress and have dictated White House policy for years.

---

Key word, lobby. Russia has those too. One met with Trump Jr in June even though he said no one else was present. Lobbying is not active cyber attacks with he purpose of damaging and harming our democratic institutions and spreading disinformation through those means to affect the outcome of an election. False equivalency #2.

quote:

---

That describes the Saudi's perfectly. Oh wait, the Russians let women drive and don't kill them for being gang raped.

---

This is fair criticism, but the problem is when you then try and claim criticism justifies appeasement. It doesn't.

It will be all but impossible to retract from the middle east as long as oil is a pivotal domestic commodity. You are gonna have bad bedfellows unless you want to take another shot at Neoconservatism and try and regime change at the barrel of a gun.

But the idea that we are better off morally by aligning with Assad, who has routinely committed mass genocide and whom Russia controls, is beyond absurd.

And basically to achieve this new arrangement your suggestion is to allow Russia to do whatever the frick they want without consequence in order to take down a regime that you are mad we don't do enough to reign in. That is some broken logic if I ever saw some. Bleeding your heart over the no good answers ME problems by allowing the super power with nukes to continue their geopolitical aims of expanding their power at our expense, through blatant geneva and international law violations, and at the expense of our allies when necessary.

quote:

---

We invaded Iraq in 2002,

---

2003

quote:

---

And what is the alternative in Syria? The country is majority Sunni. Jabhat Al-Nusra? Even if there are moderate rebels in Syria, do they remain in power without the country devolving into another civil war?

---

I'm speaking about larger geopolitical positioning in the ME. Trading SA for Assad and Russia. As someone arguing on moral principles it seems like a hypocritical angle.

Syria is a shite sandwich no matter what direction you go. I think both Obama and now Trump recognized that unless you are going to commit ground forces and commit to a long-term presence, Assad is probably going to remain in power. Or the other alternative is to force a power vacuum without any good alternatives in waiting strong enough and in line with our principles to take control. Like you hint at.

quote:

---

Russia invaded the Ukraine knowing they'd be sanctioned. They don't give a frick about sanctions. Europe is already pushing back at sanctions as well. Short of military invasion, what's going to stop them from breaking international law again? Why not talk to them, discuss common interests and go from there?

---

We already went over this, they clearly give a big shite about sanctions. It is one of the big motivating factors in their recent cyber activity and their lobbying efforts here.

When you throw a country into recession, piss off the mafia like oligarch class that can literally have you killed, you gotta find a way out. You were around 9 years ago, and ours was rather mild recession in comparison and yet the outrage was strong.

But follow your logic for a moment. You agree these actions are bad, you want them to stop, but because these actions in your mind aren't strong enough, we should instead do nothing? That makes no sense.

For sure this is a balance, after all, Russia has 4000 nuclear warheads. It changes the calculus tremendously. This isn't Saddam trying to take over Kuwait.

I think the fallacy is seeing Russia as anything but weakened and in desperation mode.

They had only a narrow set of options to respond to the sanctions,

One, do as the sanctions aimed to do and leave Crimea, reduce internal human rights violations and internal corruption that poisons the international economy.

Instead they chose option 2, they decided to attack the sanctions asymmetrically. Using diplomatic efforts, propaganda, corruption, and active cyber attacks in America and in other countries to try and ferment governments that would be amiable to lifting sanctions with no conciliatory actions that would look weak domestically for Putin.

What do you think appeasement signals for Putin if we lift sanctions simply to do something he is already interested in having done in ridding ISIS?

The scope of the sanctions we currently have against Russia include actions in Crimea.

I think that is where the cross talk is coming. You are speaking narrowly about sanctions pertaining to the cyber activities, he is speaking about the total sanction package with regards to Russia. Which includes sanctions stemming from the annexation of Crimea.

quote:

---

What expertise are you leaning on that makes you confident in disputing the position of the NSA, CIA, FBI, and Trump's own intelligence people that testified they agree with the consensus?

---

I wasn't disagreeing with the intel agencies' reports. I was pointing out how his belief likely depends upon the politics.

quote:

---

There is no cyber activity. Evidence?

---

Leave the Fox News bubble for a day and get some fresh air.



The intelligence community(FBI, CIA, NSA) both internally and outsourced externally - using three different cyber security firms - independently examined the evidence of the multitude of 2016 hacking incidents. All three private security firms(along with the internal assessments of those intelligence departments) came to the same conclusion of high certainty that the Podesta, DNC, DCCC, hacks on voting software companies, numerous other hacks on campaigns, and even an attempt at the RNC, all originated from Russian cyber intelligence arms with direct ties to the Kremlin.

On top of that you have London IC and German IC, in corroboration with London and German security experts, identifying identical malware markers that were present in Germany's own cyber attacks on parliament in 2015. Malware attacks that they as well(in fact very definitively) linked back to Russia.

All of which it should be noted Trump's own selected security and intelligence team has confirmed, under oath, in testimony to congress. that they share the consensus view of our IC about the 2016 hacks.

So to recap, you have identical malware markers that Germany linked back to Russia in 2015 being used in attacks in 2016 in America. Where at this point over half a dozen independent actors have came to the same conclusions. Trump's own people have looked at the evidence and come to the same conclusion.

But muh Seth Rich!

that's impressive for the House