5 ms·
Is there a country that doesn't do this?
by michaeljhg 2y ago
Is there a country that doesn't do this?
- some-guy 2y agoNot the point here: Israel is our "greatest ally" and the target is our lawmakers.
- tptacek 2y agoI think you would be surprised by the list of countries the US IC believes are our most important intelligence "adversaries"; the list includes many of our allies.
- rcpt 2y agoAs far as I can tell "greatest ally" is just something these accounts say. Jordan seems to be a much stronger friend to us in the region.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y agoJordan never sunk a US Navy ship and then machine-gunned the sailors trying to escape in lifeboats. But if they did, they wouldn't have painted over the jet's markings first.
- jjtheblunt 2y ago"greatest ally" according to whose claim? that reads like propaganda, just plain nonsense. perhaps a contender for greatest external funding liability? not sure how the hard data would rank such numerically.
- CorrectingYou 2y agoI believe this was sarcarsm, since American politicians like to always pitch Israel as "America's Greatest Ally", thus making it a common target of sarcasm
- jjtheblunt 2y agoahhh....that makes sense then. as i think of it, it's strange that the US supposedly has a separation of religion from state, in the constitution+amendments, yet funds an external country based on a religion. i wonder what fraction of donations to Israel come back as lobbyists paying politicians to fund the next round of donations. there must be datasets recorded somewhere, but i have no idea where to look.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> American politicians like to always pitch Israel as "America's Greatest Ally" In the Middle East. Which is sort of true. (Cairo, Riyadh and Doha aren’t as reliable.) Our traditional greatest ally is the U.K.
- jjtheblunt 2y agoFrance and Poland from the revolutionary war, too, perhaps.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> France and Poland from the revolutionary war France is our oldest ally. But it (and Poland) are weaker and have been less reliably at our side than Britain has been.
- silisili 2y agoYeah, AIPAC really opened my eyes to how deep the ties go. They spend tons of money to put their preferred lawmakers in place, and openly brag on Twitter about how much they spend and their extremely successful track record. It just -feels- like it should be illegal, seeing as it's a foreign country.
- kergonath 2y agoSo, enlighten us: is there? Any example of this sort of things between allies? Or is this just an extreme case of both-sides? Spying and keeping tabs on your friends is one thing. Influence campaigns among close allies are generally not the way it works.
- gmarx 2y agobefore the US entered WWII the british had an office of propaganda with offices in New York that was dedicated to getting the US to enter the war.
- neves 2y agoUSA censor Social Networks that don't allow them to do it.
- Maxatar 2y agoI don't know of any government department in Canada, Mexico, the UK, France, Germany, Australia that target U.S. law makers with fake social media accounts. Do you know of any? Can you cite them?
- cooper_ganglia 2y agoI don't know of them, that's why I'm sure it's happening. I'd assume that the US is doing this to our allied nations, too.
- dylan604 2y agoI'm not saying it's not happening, however, the US has a much bigger stick to use by withholding funds/arms/aid before stooping to this level of influence*. Pretty much no other country has the reciprocal influence to the US, so these kinds of machinations is kind of expected. *Historical examples of other forms of US meddling/interference is not being ignored, and paves the way to why I would not say not being done.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y agoI have a question of my own. Is there another country whose citizens are regularly elected to Congress? Dual citizens are not barred from holding office in Congress, and certainly there are more than a few English Americans and French Americans who hold citizens in both respective countries, but I have never heard of any winning office (or even running, for that matter).
- burkaman 2y agoIt is relatively common for people born outside the US to be elected to Congress (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foreign-born_United_States_politicians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foreign-born_United_St..., https://www.senate.gov/senators/Foreign_born.htm https://www.senate.gov/senators/Foreign_born.htm), but there is no requirement to publicly disclose dual citizenship. Ted Cruz and Michelle Bachmann are the most famous examples of holding dual citizenship during a congressional career, there may be more examples that I'm not aware of.
- seydor 2y agoIt's not common at all in liberal countries. Perhaps azerbaijan or china do it
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]