4 ms·

> Hillary put us in more danger than Snowden How so? (I would wager neither put us in danger.)

by jonknee 10y ago

adamnemecek 10y ago
If nothing else she took bribes in exchange for weapons sold to Middle East. This destabilizes the region even more (if that's possible). Edit: you can down vote me all you want, you know it's true http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapons-deals-hillary-clintons-state-department-1934187 http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapons...
- milesskorpen 10y ago
  I don't think there's much evidence that these fighter jets have destabilized the region further (there's plenty of instability as is) and the US has a very long history of providing advanced weapons to the Saudis — well before HRC came along. I don't think it is at all obvious that donations + arms deal = bribes for arms deal.
  - adamnemecek 10y ago
    > the US has a very long history of providing advanced weapons to the Saudis Well it was not always obvious that SA isn't exactly a US ally. On the contrary actually. > I don't think it is at all obvious that donations + arms deal = bribes for arms deal. So why exactly did they do it? There's a time table somewhere online which compares the dates of donation with dates of approval. Care to guess how quickly these things happened after one another?
    - jonknee 10y ago
      > So why exactly did they do it? There's a time table somewhere online which compares the dates of donation with dates of approval. Care to guess how quickly these things happened after one another? Because we don't have many friends in the Middle East and we desperately want some help combatting IS. It's not rocket science. We have sold arms to Saudi Arabia for generations. For example, Reagan approved a large deal in the early 1980s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_AWACS_Sale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_AWACS_...
      - adamnemecek 10y ago
        Why the donations then? Why is SA not really doing much about ISIS then? Also lol at bringing up Reagan. Does Iran Contra right a bell?
        jonknee 10y ago
        I imagine that SA donated to be seen as a player on the world stage, much like everyone else. The US is the largest arms exporter in the world by far, you don't have to grease the wheels to be able to purchase our weapons.
        adamnemecek 10y ago
        > The US is the largest arms exporter in the world by far, you don't have to grease the wheels to be able to purchase our weapons. It's my understanding that there are several factors that play into the decision of allowing the sales. One such factor is for example human rights violations. You know the thing SA is not exactly doing well in.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      Who would think that politics and international relations might be ... complicated. Saudi Arabia, along with much the rest of the Middle East, owes itself to a chain of events which I'll arbitrarily start with the Roman empire, its split into east and west, the fall of first the West (410 AD), the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, a/k/a Byzantine Empire (~330 BC - 1453 BC), when it was taken by the Ottoman Empire (1299 - 1923), whose region of control since 1683 included most of what little of the Arabian Peninsula supported what little population it had. The US helped Saudi Arabia emerge in the first place (though some guy named Lawrence had more to do with that), the Saudis not particularly caring for the British and finding them too near (an old and perhaps wise Arab doctrine encourages making distant allies -- they're less likely to cause trouble). Oil was found and developed beginning in the 1930s, largely with American assistance. 1945 saw the Quincy Agreement, between the US and KSA, establishing a long-term strategic alliance. The US needed oil, the house of Saud needed help developing that, money, and protection from other unhappy families (each unhappy in its own Tolstoian way). A fact which didn't preclude multiple attempts at oil embargoes against the US and Europe, including particularly over the Suez Crisis (1956) and Six Day War (1967), but coming to a head after the Yom Kippur War (1973), by which point the US had experienced peak oil extraction and various Arab states had more fully realised their pricing power. KSA tone changed quite markedly after a visit from US finance officials in 1974, and generally tightened with disruptions in Iran, Iraq, and internally with various sects of islam. The relationship, in a word, is distinctly complex. A mutual dependency, with fairly strong mutual levels of unhappiness at the dependency. By the 1950s, the US was beginning to import Saudi Oil, and
- nononosisisi 10y ago
  Actually no, it's not.
  - adamnemecek 10y ago
    I'll take your word for it then chief.
- jonknee 10y ago
  I thought we were talking about her handling of classified information? Regardless, for better or worse Saudi Arabia is a US ally and we have a pretty long track record of selling arms to our allies. We sold the Saudis arms before HRC was in the State Department and we have continued to sell them arms after she left.
  - adamnemecek 10y ago
    We are talking about her character. She does not fundamentally care about anyone's interests besides her own. SA is an US ally maybe on paper. Remind me, from what country were most of the 9/11 hijackers? Do you think that this is a coincidence?
    - sachingulaya 10y ago
      I can't comment on Hillary's character other than she seemed cold when I met her. I do have to say though that oftentimes there are larger strategic decisions to be made. "The united states has no permanent allies or enemies--only interests."
    - geofft 10y ago
      This conspiracy theory is getting pretty involved. Let me see if I can keep track: * Although Saudi Arabia is widely believed to be a US ally, and the US government reports that they are, it is well-known among the cabinet that they are not. * It is further well-known among the cabinet that they are such bad allies that they as a state were responsible for the greatest act of war on US soil since Pearl Harbor. * Hillary Clinton is so corrupt that she will use her office to sell warplanes to a country whose relationship with the US is in truth the same as Japan's in the early 1940s, and in appearance a friend. * Somehow, despite being known to Clinton, this information is lost on the previous and future Secretaries of State, who sell warplanes to this country because they are deceived by the pretense that they are allies. * However, it is not lost on the general public, because you have figured it out. * Clinton entered office with the intention to be corrupt, and chose to use a private email server to hide all of her emails from the rest of the government. * As part of that, she told the rest of her government to email her private email server, and never set up a state.gov email address. * However, she failed to remember that records of donations to the Clinton Foundation were public, and records of who the US sells military aircraft to are also public, thereby allowing a newspaper to notice the deals via public data and not via her email records. So, we have to imagine not only that she's corrupt, but that she is a traitor of the highest order (she's supporting a country that's secretly at war with her own) and also a complete idiot, and also that the previous and next Secretaries of State are complete idiots in a different way (but in the same way as each other). That's a much larger charge than "she has bad character".
- geofft 10y ago
  You're not being downvoted based on the accuracy of your comment, you're being downvoted based on the relevance. If she took bribes in exchange for weapons, sure, that's a crime, but that's a different crime from improper handling of classified material, and has absolutely nothing to do with the conversation we're having, which is about Snowden, not Clinton. Stay on topic; there are already enough internet fora for non-directed ranting about which politicians people hate more, and HN isn't and should not become one of them.
  - adamnemecek 10y ago
    Well odds are she setup the server to hide her tracks of her wrong doings.
    - geofft 10y ago
      Hm. That's not a theory that's ever occurred to me, because I can sympathize with setting up a server because your employer's IT department sucks, and that's a simpler hypothesis. For instance, if she really wanted to hide her wrongdoings, why not get a state.gov email account for most stuff, and use clintonemail.com for the sketchy stuff? Or why not just have conversations about the sketchy stuff over the phone? Every entry-level employee at a private-sector company that says they're monitoring email knows exactly how to have an off-the-record conversation if they need to. You can't tell me the United States Secretary of State, whose job literally involves the most secret things in the world, doesn't know how to have a private conversation. There's also the fact that she kept using her BlackBerry in 2008 despite being warned that even the NSA couldn't solve the security issues (which were about unauthorized parties breaking in, not about emails escaping government record). That's consistent with her wanting devices that were convenient and worked, and pretty inconsistent with her wanting to keep emails away from government archiving: she invited the cooperation of the NSA in solving her problem (until they said they couldn't), which she wouldn't want to do if the purpose of her using the BlackBerry was to hide emails. So - when you say "odds are", what's the evidence that causes you to favor that more complex hypothesis?
      - adamnemecek 10y ago

> Hillary put us in more danger than Snowden How so? (I would wager neither put us in danger.)

by jonknee 10y ago

> Hillary put us in more danger than Snowden How so? (I would wager neither put us in danger.)

If nothing else she took bribes in exchange for weapons sold to Middle East. This destabilizes the region even more (if that's possible). Edit: you can down vote me all you want, you know it's true http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapons-deals-hillary-clintons-state-department-1934187 http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapons...

milesskorpen 10y ago
I don't think there's much evidence that these fighter jets have destabilized the region further (there's plenty of instability as is) and the US has a very long history of providing advanced weapons to the Saudis — well before HRC came along. I don't think it is at all obvious that donations + arms deal = bribes for arms deal.
- adamnemecek 10y ago
  > the US has a very long history of providing advanced weapons to the Saudis Well it was not always obvious that SA isn't exactly a US ally. On the contrary actually. > I don't think it is at all obvious that donations + arms deal = bribes for arms deal. So why exactly did they do it? There's a time table somewhere online which compares the dates of donation with dates of approval. Care to guess how quickly these things happened after one another?
  - jonknee 10y ago
    > So why exactly did they do it? There's a time table somewhere online which compares the dates of donation with dates of approval. Care to guess how quickly these things happened after one another? Because we don't have many friends in the Middle East and we desperately want some help combatting IS. It's not rocket science. We have sold arms to Saudi Arabia for generations. For example, Reagan approved a large deal in the early 1980s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_AWACS_Sale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_AWACS_...
    - adamnemecek 10y ago
      Why the donations then? Why is SA not really doing much about ISIS then? Also lol at bringing up Reagan. Does Iran Contra right a bell?
      - jonknee 10y ago
        I imagine that SA donated to be seen as a player on the world stage, much like everyone else. The US is the largest arms exporter in the world by far, you don't have to grease the wheels to be able to purchase our weapons.
        adamnemecek 10y ago
        > The US is the largest arms exporter in the world by far, you don't have to grease the wheels to be able to purchase our weapons. It's my understanding that there are several factors that play into the decision of allowing the sales. One such factor is for example human rights violations. You know the thing SA is not exactly doing well in.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Who would think that politics and international relations might be ... complicated. Saudi Arabia, along with much the rest of the Middle East, owes itself to a chain of events which I'll arbitrarily start with the Roman empire, its split into east and west, the fall of first the West (410 AD), the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, a/k/a Byzantine Empire (~330 BC - 1453 BC), when it was taken by the Ottoman Empire (1299 - 1923), whose region of control since 1683 included most of what little of the Arabian Peninsula supported what little population it had. The US helped Saudi Arabia emerge in the first place (though some guy named Lawrence had more to do with that), the Saudis not particularly caring for the British and finding them too near (an old and perhaps wise Arab doctrine encourages making distant allies -- they're less likely to cause trouble). Oil was found and developed beginning in the 1930s, largely with American assistance. 1945 saw the Quincy Agreement, between the US and KSA, establishing a long-term strategic alliance. The US needed oil, the house of Saud needed help developing that, money, and protection from other unhappy families (each unhappy in its own Tolstoian way). A fact which didn't preclude multiple attempts at oil embargoes against the US and Europe, including particularly over the Suez Crisis (1956) and Six Day War (1967), but coming to a head after the Yom Kippur War (1973), by which point the US had experienced peak oil extraction and various Arab states had more fully realised their pricing power. KSA tone changed quite markedly after a visit from US finance officials in 1974, and generally tightened with disruptions in Iran, Iraq, and internally with various sects of islam. The relationship, in a word, is distinctly complex. A mutual dependency, with fairly strong mutual levels of unhappiness at the dependency. By the 1950s, the US was beginning to import Saudi Oil, and
nononosisisi 10y ago
Actually no, it's not.
- adamnemecek 10y ago
  I'll take your word for it then chief.
jonknee 10y ago
I thought we were talking about her handling of classified information? Regardless, for better or worse Saudi Arabia is a US ally and we have a pretty long track record of selling arms to our allies. We sold the Saudis arms before HRC was in the State Department and we have continued to sell them arms after she left.
- adamnemecek 10y ago
  We are talking about her character. She does not fundamentally care about anyone's interests besides her own. SA is an US ally maybe on paper. Remind me, from what country were most of the 9/11 hijackers? Do you think that this is a coincidence?
  - sachingulaya 10y ago
    I can't comment on Hillary's character other than she seemed cold when I met her. I do have to say though that oftentimes there are larger strategic decisions to be made. "The united states has no permanent allies or enemies--only interests."
  - geofft 10y ago
    This conspiracy theory is getting pretty involved. Let me see if I can keep track: * Although Saudi Arabia is widely believed to be a US ally, and the US government reports that they are, it is well-known among the cabinet that they are not. * It is further well-known among the cabinet that they are such bad allies that they as a state were responsible for the greatest act of war on US soil since Pearl Harbor. * Hillary Clinton is so corrupt that she will use her office to sell warplanes to a country whose relationship with the US is in truth the same as Japan's in the early 1940s, and in appearance a friend. * Somehow, despite being known to Clinton, this information is lost on the previous and future Secretaries of State, who sell warplanes to this country because they are deceived by the pretense that they are allies. * However, it is not lost on the general public, because you have figured it out. * Clinton entered office with the intention to be corrupt, and chose to use a private email server to hide all of her emails from the rest of the government. * As part of that, she told the rest of her government to email her private email server, and never set up a state.gov email address. * However, she failed to remember that records of donations to the Clinton Foundation were public, and records of who the US sells military aircraft to are also public, thereby allowing a newspaper to notice the deals via public data and not via her email records. So, we have to imagine not only that she's corrupt, but that she is a traitor of the highest order (she's supporting a country that's secretly at war with her own) and also a complete idiot, and also that the previous and next Secretaries of State are complete idiots in a different way (but in the same way as each other). That's a much larger charge than "she has bad character".
geofft 10y ago
You're not being downvoted based on the accuracy of your comment, you're being downvoted based on the relevance. If she took bribes in exchange for weapons, sure, that's a crime, but that's a different crime from improper handling of classified material, and has absolutely nothing to do with the conversation we're having, which is about Snowden, not Clinton. Stay on topic; there are already enough internet fora for non-directed ranting about which politicians people hate more, and HN isn't and should not become one of them.
- adamnemecek 10y ago
  Well odds are she setup the server to hide her tracks of her wrong doings.
  - geofft 10y ago
    Hm. That's not a theory that's ever occurred to me, because I can sympathize with setting up a server because your employer's IT department sucks, and that's a simpler hypothesis. For instance, if she really wanted to hide her wrongdoings, why not get a state.gov email account for most stuff, and use clintonemail.com for the sketchy stuff? Or why not just have conversations about the sketchy stuff over the phone? Every entry-level employee at a private-sector company that says they're monitoring email knows exactly how to have an off-the-record conversation if they need to. You can't tell me the United States Secretary of State, whose job literally involves the most secret things in the world, doesn't know how to have a private conversation. There's also the fact that she kept using her BlackBerry in 2008 despite being warned that even the NSA couldn't solve the security issues (which were about unauthorized parties breaking in, not about emails escaping government record). That's consistent with her wanting devices that were convenient and worked, and pretty inconsistent with her wanting to keep emails away from government archiving: she invited the cooperation of the NSA in solving her problem (until they said they couldn't), which she wouldn't want to do if the purpose of her using the BlackBerry was to hide emails. So - when you say "odds are", what's the evidence that causes you to favor that more complex hypothesis?
    - adamnemecek 10y ago