Tracey: Media's Encouraging Trump to be more Belligerent

[SteveRogers]

lol Michael Tracey

Tracey is basically a Kremlin mouthpiece

-Funny thing to say when you have nothing to refute his eminently convincing case.

His "case" is based around the false dichotomy that when it comes to Russia our only two choices are nuclear war or coddling Putin at every turn.

[SteveRogers]

lol Michael Tracey

Tracey is basically a Kremlin mouthpiece

-Funny thing to say when you have nothing to refute his eminently convincing case.

His "case" is based around the false dichotomy that when it comes to Russia our only two choices are nuclear war or coddling Putin at every turn.

-Where does he say that? Nowhere. Don't make stuff up, please. And "coddling Putin at every turn" is a phrase meant to obscure, not describe.

I read Tracey's piece. His whole argument is that the media should not focus on berating Trump for his stance on Russia. Tracey says, "So just to reiterate: the press is taking fault with Trumps reluctance to engage in antagonistic rhetoric with nuclear-armed foreign powers." Tracey believes the media should encourage Trump's softer stance towards Russia because encouraging a more aggressive stance by Trump "could well lead to some kind of disastrous diplomatic blow-up or lame-brained military confrontation." So yes, Tracey is saying that any more aggressive action towards Russia risks some sort of calamity. In order to argue that there is no cause to criticize Trump's current position, Tracey wants you to ignore the possibility that there might be some middle ground between Trump's current stance and a "belligerent" stance towards Russia.

And what exactly is Trump's current stance towards Russia. Oh, I'll describe it to you: Trump's position on Russia is that there should never be any negative repercussions towards Russia even when Vladmir Putin orders crimes to be committed against American citizens. That's not hyperbole. That has literally been Trump's policy since before he even took office.

[SteveRogers]

Everyone spies on everyone; every country hacks every other. I can hardly consider that a "crime", as there are almost never any negative reprecussions for such.

"that there might be some middle ground between Trump's current stance and a "belligerent" stance towards Russia."

-Everyone's idea of what a "middle ground" is is different. And what would be the purpose of such a "middle ground"? None that I can see.

Yes, hacking into someone's email is a crime. There's no debate to be had there. It is illegal under any country's laws. What Putin did was not spy on the U.S. No, he hacked into the email of American political entities and then deliberately and selectively leaked the resulting information in order to influence our election. And before you try, no, you don't get to excuse a crime because you think the victim (the DNC) "deserved it."

The purpose of responding to what Russia did would be to show other country's that there are consequences for committing acts of cyber-terrorism against American nationals. Call it "aggression" or "hostility," but in this case it would be warranted. That doesn't mean I think we should throw diplomatic relations with Russia into the gutter, but we should have done something. You can say we should work towards a more cooperative relationship with Russia without doing what Trump is doing which is to make a mockery of our country on the international stage by turning a blind eye towards crimes committed against our country.

[SteveRogers]

If what was leaked was so damaging to HRC as to constitute "cyber-terrorism", it is HRC that should be locked up, and we should be greatful the relevant material was leaked. Hacking into email is a crime, but, since it's done so often, hardly anyone responds to it at all, for good reason. Why "Russia" should be punished for (supposedly) doing something every hacker does, both state-sponsored and not? Also, the leaking was notoriously non-selective.

Again, what's "something"? What purpose would it serve? Not to keep Americans safe from hacking, obviously, since they would be just as vulnerable as before. The DNC and Podesta are not "our country", in any case.

Your whole case is very weak.

Again, you don't get to excuse a crime because you disagree politically with the victim or think that they somehow deserved it. And there's no "supposedly" about it. Even Trump finally admitted that all the evidence points to Russia being behind the hacks. Of course all he did about it was mutter some nonsense about how he's "pretty sure Putin won't do it again." And of course hackers of all stripes should be punished. We are a society of laws. Are you really taking the position that no hackers should ever be punished?

At a bare minimum, the appropriate response was the retaliation against Russian diplomats and the proportionate sanctions that Obama enacted. And what did Trump do about that? He bent over backwards apologizing to Putin for the sanctions. WTF is that?

None of this is about the well-being of Podesta or Hillary or the DNC. It's about the ability of our President to stand up to bullies on the world stage when they attack American citizens.