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Which Campaign Truly Colluded With Russia?
Case 1:
A Hillary Clinton campaign cut-out hires the (former?) British intelligence agent Steele to pay money to (former?) Russian intelligence agents and high-level Kremlin employees for dirt about Donald Trump. They deliver some dirty fairy tales. The resulting dossier is peddled far and wide throughout Washington DC with the intent of damaging Trump.
Case 2:
Some lobbyist for Russian business interests contacts the Trump campaign with a promise to deliver some dirt on Hillary Clinton. She meets campaign officials but no dirt on Clinton is offered. Instead the lobbyist uses the time to lobby for the business’ cause. There is no follow up.
Question:
Which of the two cases stinks of “collusion with the Russians”?
We discussed a bit how people understand history. There is a nice book quoting North American students as they write term papers or answer exam questions. My absolute favorite is “Greeks also had a goddess of whine, Diana Isis”, indeed a perfect precursor and inspiration for the contemporary feminists. But what about the experts? E.g. “Dr. [Brad] Patty advised US Army units in Iraq on information operations as part of more than a decade’s involvements in America’s wars. His work has received formal commendations from the 30th Heavy Brigade, the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division, the 3rd Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division. Dr. Patty holds his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Georgia.” To illuminate the masses, Dr. Patty has a website.
On that website, a recent post explains what is “the West”, as the defense of the West was a topic discussed during Trump’s visit to Poland. For example, in the celebrated book and movie Wizard of Oz the little people of the West have troubles with Wicked Witch of the East, which apparently stands for the western farmers suffering from the effect of Gold Standards imposed by the wicked bankers from NYC, Philadelphia etc. Or more directly, we can watch How the West was Won. No, this is not what was discussed. We need to cite some older history:
This brief history will sketch how the idea (of the West) came to be.
After the fall of Rome, for a while the Germanic kings continued to style themselves in the manner of Roman emperors. This included the adoption of Christianity, which continued after they no longer bothered to claim to be emperors of Rome. It was Germanic kings of this sort that fell before the Islamic conquest of Spain. [This is seriously garbled story about the Germanic kingdoms established in the western Roman empire in 5th century, none of these kings aspired to imperial title after the western empire expired. Moreover, most Germanic kings of that time were converted to Christianity earlier, with the lamentable consequence that they followed Arianism, like the emperor of the time of their conversion, and not Nicean creed (Catholicism), except for Franks who converted after they conquered Gaul ca. 500 AD. The next 200-300 years are so-called Dark Age, with very diminished level or literacy, quite primitive pictorial arts etc. But there was some important economic and military progress. Nevertheless, around 700 AD when the Arabs entered Spain and later southern France, Sicily and some bits of Italy, they possessed more advanced culture than the “West” which was quite barbaric.]
It was another set of similar Germanic Kings, celebrated in the epic Song of Roland, who finally stopped that conquest and established what they called the Holy Roman Empire. The name honored not an ethnic or racial connection to Rome, but both a religious and a philosophical one. Charlemagne pursued education reform and supported scholarship along the Roman lines (increasingly being carried out chiefly by the Catholic Church). [This is less garbled, namely, Charlemagne’s father won a key battle with the ruler of Moor Spain, and got rid of the titular kings of Franks, creating new dynasty. Charlemagne created Spanish March which help preventing the Arabs from complete control of Spain. Charlemagne styled himself Roman Emperor, and as the empire fragmented, one part had the hold of the title, and the rulers that were not vassals of the emperor were kings as approved by the bishops of Rome rather than by tribal gatherings.]
Importantly, the explanation of Dr. Patty does not offer any reason for the “West”, however defined, to have joint policies and least of all, joint military actions. And what actions? And events during a barbaric period of European history are a dubious inspiration. Do we need some single institution to determine which rulers/government are legitimate, Dei gratia, and which are not? Is it really beneficial to extract sufficient military contingents from all the rulers/governments to enable … ??? Reconquest of Crimea??
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jul 13 2017 19:47 utc | 92
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