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German Intelligence Spying On Allies, Recorded Kerry, Clinton, and Kofi Annan
cold fjord writes: According to Foreign Policy, "The revelation that Germany spies on Turkey, a NATO member, should dispel any notion that spying on allies violates the unwritten rules of international espionage. ... For nearly a year, the extent of NSA surveillance on German leaders ... has drawn stern rebuke from the German political and media establishment. ... Merkel went so far as to publicly oust the CIA station chief in Berlin. 'Spying among friends is not at all acceptable,' Merkel said. ... [C]alls made by Secretary of State John Kerry and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were accidentally recorded. ... 'It's a kind of delightful revelation given the fact that the Germans have been on their high horse.' Christian Whiton, a former ... State Department senior advisor, added that the report on German spying is a perfect example of why rifts over intelligence among allies should be handled quietly and privately." The Wall Street Journal adds, "Cem Özdemir, the head of the Green party and a leading German politician of Turkish descent, told Spiegel Online it would be 'irresponsible' for German spies not to target Turkey given its location as a transit country for Islamic State militants from Europe." Further details at Spiegel Online and The Wall Street Journal."
Anyone who thought that Germany's protests over surveillance was anything other than hypocritical bullshit is an idiot. All countries spy on all other countries. They always have and they always will.
The Speigel article states that the person responsible for making the call recordings of Clinton/Kerry and Kofi Annan was the same person the BND now believes to be a double-agent working for the US. The headline here makes it seem like the German government ordered the BND to do it, but it doesn't seem to be the case here.
the guy who screams loudest about (insert issue here) is hiding their own little sin pad of the same.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The germans keep coming into World of Warcraft as your allies only to look at your gear then they suddenly stop aiding in the battle... They switch sides and use the intel against you... Worst of all they only play gnomes for maximum humiliation. Damn you German Gnomes! Damn You!
" If men were angels, no government would be necessary." - James Madison, Federalist Papers #51
doveryai no proveryai
Life is not for the lazy.
...nation states are always a bunch of hypocritical jerks.
Oh please, don't be disingenuous. It's been well known by everybody for decades that every state in the world spies on all the other statse, and that to a certain extent, every state spies on every one of its citizens too.
The real problem comes when a certain state is outed, and flat out lies about its domestic and international spying activities to the representants of its own people.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
'Spying among friends is not at all acceptable,' Merkel said
And I doubt very much Turkey is a true friend of Germany: it's a economical, immigration and to a certain extent, religious threat to Germany - or at least perceived as such by a sizeable part of the German population. It's also a liability, as it's capable of singlehandedly dragging Germany into the huge Iraqi and middle-eastern quagmire if it starts to get involved and calls on NATO members to provide help.
Turkey just happens to be a member of NATO like Germany, is all. That doesn't make the two friends.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
ob. Joker:
"Spy on entire nations and nobody bats an eye - spy on a few government officials, and suddenly everybody loses their shit."
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Hell, if people could actually trust each other, we wouldn't *need* nation states in the first place.
Nation states killed 350 million people in the last century alone.
The onus is on nation states' defenders to show that neighborly spats and other small disputes would do worse than that. It's not like private conflict-resolution services don't already exist (and are always preferred in business contracts). Every lack-of-imagination excuse people have for "needing" nation states must be justified vis-a-vis the demonstrated body count (and that's only taking the utilitarian stance, not even the moral one).
If somebody showed up today promising peace in exchange for executing a tenth of the world's population, they'd be locked up in the psychopath ward and the religious people would call him an antichrist.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Your explanation is extreme, but Turkey is very much a wild card in the current scheme of things.
Erdogan's Islamist politics alone make Western powers nervous after years of dependable pro-Western/anti-Islamist governments, enforced as needed by the Turkish military.
Throw in Turkey's desire to play a leadership role in the Middle East coupled with the fact that what we call "the Middle East" was basically territory of the Ottoman Empire through about the end of the 19th century and it's not hard to see the guys who move around chess pieces on maps get a little curious as to what's happening there.
Spying serves a valuable purpose. It allows a country to ascertain whether another country's pols are lying or telling the truth. It can also help prevent surprise attacks, and it can help explain another country's behavior. We should want countries to spy on each other, then there are fewer secrets.
Nation states arose not because of mistrust, but from shared language, culture, and so on. Trust has almost nothing to do with it.
That's exactly the point. The problem with anarchists is that there is no such as anarchy. Humans naturally create social circles and tribes. Removing "governments" or "nation-states" would only result in tribalism. Hatfields vs McCoys, etc.
It's been well known by everybody for decades that every state in the world spies on all the other states
On balance, that is a GOOD THING. Exactly 100 years ago, the German Army was marching through Belgium, the Russians were preparing to invade East Prussia, and millions of men were being mobilized all over Europe. World War One was a result of a series of diplomatic blunders, secret treaties, and severe misjudgements by many leaders of the intentions of both enemies and allies. It is quite likely that it could have been avoided if better intelligence had been available. Voluntary mutual transparency would be best, but spying is still better than secrecy.
Much as with credit ratings. All voluntary transactions include a mutually agreeable arbitrator in case of contract dispute. If you fail to fulfill your contract, the arbitrator marks it as such on your contract fulfillment rating. Fail to abide by the arbitrator's corrective directives, and your contract rating falls more severely, to the point you have to accept very bad terms on future contracts until you repair your rating. That's the anarcho-capitalist, totally government-free version of the solution.
This scenario doesn't do much for the party injured, however. If your roofer caused your house to collapse, the fact that it's going to be a black mark in his book, and make it harder to get contracts going forward, doesn't help you keep the rain out of your living room.
More to the point, dead former customers can't seek arbitration. So a sufficiently failed roof (i.e., lethally collapsed) is a guaranteed win for the roofer.
Every system is gamed. The system described by GPP is optimized for the gamer, to the fundamental detriment of anyone "playing fair".
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Courts and police do not predate the concept of a government. Even the Greek city-states were states. The alternative to states were tribes. Not all state's are nations and not all nations have states. Germany is a nation state, but the USA is not. Nor are most if not all African countries and other countries created by colonial or other imperial powers. The Kurds are a nation that has no state. Israel is an attempt to create a nation state by reassembling the nation into a geographic area and declaring a state. The 50 US states are part of a federal system. We tried a confederacy (in 1783-9) but found it didn't work well so we strengthened the central government. So are you saying that you don't like Germany, but you like the USA? How well are the African states working out? The problem with international institutions is that they are not democratic. Totalitarian and authoritarian governments end up with as much say as those with more representative democracies.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok