2018/06/05

From current occasion: That moron('s) ambassador

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The supposed ambassador of the U.S. managed to cross several lines that are unacceptable and justify an eviction (persona non grata status), and a stern lesson to U.S. senators to not send such a moron to Germany ever again, for no such overt moron would be accredited as ambassador (persona grata) ever again.

Here's what that moron did in the span of less than four weeks of supposedly being ambassador of the United States in Germany:

The ordinary offences that almost nobody cares about:
  1. lied about Germany in context of NATO and military spending
 The offences with at least minimal deniability due to the choice of words:
  1. threatened German corporations regarding business with Iran (right on his first days in Germany)
  2. lied about German democracy by supposing our top politicians decide who gets to win elections (reality: We don't have primaries, but our elections are proper.) 

The offences that are knockout criteria:
  1. lied about a nonexistent "silent majority" (he meant the so-called "alt right"*), thus disputing the legitimacy of the Merkel administration (the ruling CDU/SPD/CSU coalition).
  2. says that he wants to empower one specific political group in Germany.
Germany used to be one of the countries that were important enough to the U.S. government to not send political hacks and donors as ambassadors, but most experienced and knowledgeable career diplomats. People who knew and understood Europe for real (not some propaganda fantasy of it), knew and understood Germany, were able to fluently talk German on difficult topics. Now the moron and his enablers in the U.S. Senate sent an incompetent and lying (or delusional) political hack to Germany as "ambassador", and he's not welcome.

The knockout criteria leave IMO no reasonable choice other than to unofficially tell the "ambassador" to go home and to tell Trump that either there's going to arrive a non-moronic ambassador of the U.S. that's not a lying POS (as opposed to a fine representative of Trump) or we shall treat the "ambassador" as an ambassador from a hostile country**, give him a last chance but persona non grata him after his next public mouth fart.

I doubt that Merkel has the balls for any drastic action, though. She can only administrate the status quo and do about one political u-turn per about two years, not real active policy. A likely outcome is that the moron gets a gag order from the fatter moron and gets silently dispatched in 2021.

for reading on the issues:
theintercept.com/2018/06/04/trumps-ambassador-berlin-promises-help-far-right-nationalists-take-power/
www.politico.eu/article/richard-grenell-trump-germany-us-ambassador-recall/

S O

P.S.: I went to the original English language articles to check if the German reports about the choice of words was accurate and it was. I will not link to that fascist publication, of course.

*: fascists and neonazis and people who are too close to them to distinguish them from them. Their election potential is below 20%, far from a "silent majority".
**: As were the hostile ambassadors of Warsaw Pact states in NATO countries during the Cold War.
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15 comments:

  1. How you run your country is up to you, but I'd like to think he'd have been sent home with his tail between his legs long ago if he'd pulled that shit in the UK.

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    1. He's my country's ambassador and I'd agree. Kick him out.

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    2. He doesn't behave like his country's or his government's/Sstate's ambassador. He behaves like a Trump campaign official/surrogate.

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  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. Knock-out criteria point 1 is definetly right here in Germany. You are either living in a bubble or in a foreign country.
    Minimal deniability point 2 is not that far off. Our politicians try to influence as much as they can and elections are not that correct you might think.
    It´s still quod licet Jovi non licet bovi so stop complaining about your master`s diplomat. It´s still not the time to behave like an independent country. Maybe in 2-3 yeras from now. Divorce process from US is already in progress and Trump is very helpful for that! Think about! Best regards The Silent (and intimidated) Majority

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    1. The ruling coalition is a majority government and perfectly legal and legitimate according to our election system. I don't like them, I did not vote for them - but the federal government is legitimate.
      The three ruling parties of the coalition united more than 50% of the votes on themselves. Unlike Trump, who lost the popular vote clearly and tehn proceeded to lie about it.

      One could point out that there were about 23% non-voters and could add those to the opposition party, but the moron supposed that there's a silent majority of far right "conservatives" (AfD), which is utter bollocks. The AfD still is below 20% in polls, and got only 12.6% of the vote. You should seek to enlarge your social horizon if you have a majority of pro-AfD people in it.

      Our elections are correct, and I will push back against any import of the anti-democratic smear attacks that American fascists produce to udnermine elections (vote suppression efforts) fairnes in the U.S. through lies about non-existing frauds.

      Your idea of Germany as a U.S.-depedendent country is nonsense. You are mistaking the (crumbling) interest in cooperation with subservience.

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    2. Thank you for your reply. I´ll try to make a short "re-reply", although we`ll still disagree at the end.
      You say that the German government is legitimate since the voting results unite more than 50%. Trump`s vote is legitimate in USA, too. Popular vote is not the point to win legitimate! By doing so you are not fair towards me.
      I don`t doubt the voting results but the way the result has reached. Starting from google search result alteration, twitter shadow ban, over "nazi-reflex" if you dare to question certain dogmas and even the way elderly people are "helped" to vote correct in nursing or the fact that all votes for parties not able to reach 5% limit indirectly help reaching this "majority government". You should be old enough to having experienced that not long ago you could read different perspectives in serious big newspapers like FAZ, Sueddeutsche, etc. which is gone now. If you don`t want to see is a religious thing again and we should stop exchanging arguments.
      To your 2. paragraph please just have a look into Merkel`s speeches 10 years ago. You`ll find a lot of AfD content and way of expressions. Ask a foreigner living in Germany for years and back then having to get over quite a few immigration obstacles what they think about current situation. There is not more to say.
      Your 3. paragraph is what you think and I already have told you my thoughts before.
      Your 4.paragraph is interesting, because as far as I know you have a military background.
      Anybody in the western block is dependent on USA. Especially Germany with all the US infrastructure and headquarters e.g. AFRICOM is very closely watched and influenced from the very beginning. You surely know BND`s history. Do you think US already said goodbye in there? Spying between friends, that`s a no-go like Merkel said, but no consequences followed. Ever thought why? You should know UN charta and some definitions and when some action is legitimate or not. Ever thought about the cause of all the deficient equipment news from Bundeswehr? This is our politicians way of trying to avoid real action, because 60 years of pacifist educated voters. This behavior is not that of a independent country. In real life you have quite a few signs of Germany being subservient to U.S. or why do you think German police and Judges are not able to hold US military personnel responsible for even causing a car accident on German streets? You surely know how you get promotion in Bundeswehr after having training courses in USA if you please over there.
      We are introducing sanctions even if it damages German interests? It´s a fact, that we are being made to introduce it however our politicians try to keep damage low. Best evidence is North Stream pipeline where construction has been running all the time although this would have been the best way to sanction Russia. So, yes we are clearly dependent but our politicians try to do their best.

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    3. "Trump`s vote is legitimate in USA, too."
      Legal - but the legitimacy of a ruler who was opposed by the majority of voters in a direct election is debatable.
      The people are the origin of sovereignty, they are the origin of legitimate governance. The majority of votes was contra Trump. He's the legal president (albeit probably a criminal), but his legitimacy is weak.

      Meanwhile, that moron ambassador lied about a nonexisting majority, trying to delegitimise a government that actually united a majority of the votes in the last election.
      That's toxic American political culture, where political extremists routinely deny the legitimacy of the others' rule after the others won an election. Some of them went even so far as to make up a conspiracy theory claiming that Obama wouldn't even qualify for the office by birth.

      The German election system has room for improvement (and also some great features), and I wrote about that, especially in a 2008 series (see the "Political System" tag). But that moron doesn't want better media or better constitutional features.
      He wants his tribe to gain power, and is willing to lie about those who are legitimately in power. Such behaviour is disqualifying for just about everything, including ambassadorship.

      "Spying between friends, that`s a no-go like Merkel said, but no consequences followed. Ever thought why?"

      Yeah, and I wrote about it years before it happened:
      http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2009/05/utility-of-nato.html

      "Ever thought about the cause of all the deficient equipment news from Bundeswehr? This is our politicians way of trying to avoid real action"

      No, it's about a mismanagement pattern known as "hollow force", a bit of red tape (25 million rule) and a desire to achieve a balanced budget.
      See point 7:
      http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2014/08/not-top-10-persisting-challenges.html

      You should pay attention to how very much the U.S. is dependent on its allies; bases, UNSC votes, UNGC votes, intelligence, diplomacy, sanctions enforcement...


      The German government has been going on with North Stream projects for years despite stern American opposition to it. I do not understand why you bring that up in comment where you try to argue that Germany is dependent on the U.S.. It's quite an own goal.

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  4. Elections do have consequences and the amount of bull happening is quite amazing despite having assumed a lot.

    Specifically only in an moderate allied country could bull like that not result in an eviction. Actually it would be beneficial as the bully would be helped to see some lines clearer.

    Firn

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  5. I get a sense that German politicians have recognised where geo politics have been going for some time, but are aware of Machiavelli's lesson to not get ahead of the people.

    Do you think the above event along with the current rapid escalation in global politics will see an 'awakening' in the German people that will allow a series of previously planned counter actions to be enacted, or am I giving Merkel et al too much credit?

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    1. Merkel did on several occasions do an unexpected u-turn when she sensed that her party's position became indefensible. Conscription was one such example, energy policy another one.

      I don't think there's any such pressure level in regard to the handling of Trump. She might still decide to force a decisive battle with the AfD at one point or another, but I doubt the´at the Trump administration's actions will provide the occasion.

      Furthermore, the "Atlantiker" (150% friends of America and NATO) are a powerful faction in both her party and the newspapers.

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    2. Merkel's U-turn on nuclear power was indefensible either way. On the one hand she had Austria and Luxembourg breathing down her neck along with all the other anti-nuclear activists, citing FUD on concerns about nuclear safety when Germany's fleet is amongst one of the better run ones in Europe. The coal oil and gas industry also had much to gain from a nuclear shutdown. Germany is now bulldozing old villages to clear out for lignite mining along with importing more natural gas, ostensibly from Russia, although I hear the Belgians are building import terminals for an influx of fracked gas from across the Atlantic.

      The physicist background in her would recoil at having to turn Energiewende into Lignitewende and forsake effectively any leadership in climate talks without back-room sniggering at her hypocrisy, with emissions flat for nigh on a decade and an electric grid stuck on approx 450g CO2 / kWh despite record breaking buildout of wind and solar and burgeoning electricity exports into the European supergrid. As it stands, Germany's nuclear fleet has little in the way of safety threats to the people, but were worthy scapegoats to appease a population inland from any tsunami threat and nuclear plants proofed from any seismic threat.

      Personally I think Merkel is just trying to muddle through and not offend too many people. A diplomatic incident like this would ordinarily result in an embassy expulsion in a country where sovereignty had a greater priority. This is the kind of politics of compromise that I think the German political system was designed to produce.

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  6. 75,6 % of the people in germany voted. That means, that 24,4 % did not. If you include this non-voters, the CDU of Merkel would have only 24,9%. Only 24,9% of the germans therefore voted directly for merkel.

    And the majority of the spd voters which now is part of the gouvernment did not wanted merkel and did not vote for the spd to make merke chancelor again. To the opposite: Martin Schulz explicitly said before and right after the vote, that the spd will go into the opposition and will not be part of merkels gouvernment. It said it in the tv even right after the vote. So this voters did not voted for this gouvernment such at is now. They wanted a different gouvernment.

    Only 24,9 % of the german voters wanted merkel. How legitimate is that ?

    But even if you cut away the non voters, the majority of the spd voters did not want merkel. The voted for the spd as a vote against merkel to make schulz the chancelor. So one cannot claim that the majority of the german people wanted that gouvernment even if you exclude the non-voters because the spd voters did not want merkel as the voted for the spd.

    Therefore the german merkel gourvernment is right like trump: legal, but illegitimate. And i have even not spoken about some curiosities of the german voting system like Überhangmandate, Negatives Stimmgewicht, Zusatzmandate und die Koppelung der Anzahl der Mandate an die Wahlbeteiligung (bulge-mandates (?), negative weighting of the votes, additonal mandates, linkage of the number of mandates to the turnout of voters) and so on.

    In germany for example an party can loose an mandate if the candidate did not only get many votes for himself but also the party gets many votes. So more people vote for one candidate and his party and that leads to loosing a mandate. Or for example if many voters give their votes for small parties under 5 %, the parties above 5% get more mandates. etc.

    So if you are looking closer on the german vote system (as strange as the american), one cannot claim that the merkel gouvernment is truly legitimate according to the idea of democracy. It is a legal gouvernment, but not democratically legitimated.

    Buy the way: i voted for merkel.

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    1. No, it's not correct to claim that nonvoters oppose the government. In this particulaf case they even decided to NOT oppose a governance by an identical party coalition before and after the elections.

      Moreover, the moron lied about a far right majority that simply doesn't exist.

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  7. Trump, Erdoğan, Orbán, Kaczyński and Putin seem to be similar to each other in their political mindset and its bureaucratic realization with crony capitalism. The spread of democracy was associated with the assumption that democracies, correctly, a certain form of republics that are not democracies as in the theoretical concept thereof, would be less likely to resolve their mutual conflicts of interests with mutual violence. The common institutions should make them more likely to recognize each other as members of the same tribe with WWII Finland being considered the exception. These politicians succeeded or seem to try to enact a number of regime changes with political settings to secure a legal tenure of power, even with a minority of the voters. It's called gerrymandering in the US and dates a concept from the earliest days of voting districts. The new creation for this purpose is an illiberal version of a democracy derived republic with strong authoritarian characteristics. As such it's only natural for the US to support the next wave of regime changes among its allies and get them back into the new line from which they diverted through their inertia by keeping more antiquated political systems, from a new US point of view. There's a bet that Trump lasts shorter than 4 or longer than 8 years. My money is on longer than 8 and I bet this was just a small taste of things to come to Germany from the country that houses the companies that control most of our information exposure and interaction data.

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