From: muratlanne@gmail.com   
      
   "Richard Smith"  wrote in message news:m1ikh0xtpk.fsf@void.com...   
      
   Look - you can all relate to this in the USA, where many of you are.   
   The mistake of, whatever terms you apply (all pretty!) - going to war   
   with Russia was mistaken in concept and in general a questionable   
   idea...   
   How did the US powers-that-be get it so wrong?   
   Russia was supposed to collapse within about 3 weeks after "Pew-tin has   
   made his final mistake" - and the Russia economy sailed on just fine -   
   oil-tankers continued to sail; factories continued to produce;   
   newspapers printed new; people went to work - all no discernable change.   
   vvv   
   In Langley, Virginia, if the way to get ahead and switch from barely   
   making ends meet and having a 2 hour commute to work to a big office,   
   good salary, residence in a desirable area a short commute to work is to   
   *>say what the boss wants to hear<* and that has gone on for a couple of   
   generations - you are going to "press the magic button" and find your   
   supreme economic weapon - your secret "nuclear option" (sic.) - isn't   
   even seen by your opponent - you are in an empty room pressing a   
   brightly coloured button with a lurid label but it is a "placebo"   
   connected to nothing.  You pick it up and find it's just got a   
   flashlight-cell to make the button light-up - but that it and entirely   
   it...   
   --------------------------------------   
      
   We certainly aren't immune from bureaucracy's tendency to make their own job   
   security their main objective, and view the world through the selective   
   filter of how it supports that goal. Not having possibly hostile and   
   credible threats on our borders gives us an added luxury to view events as   
   we want to instead of realistically.   
      
   This has been especially true of the party composed of labor lawyers who   
   lack the skill to tie their shoelaces and argue like kindergarteners. In   
   international relations they tend to assume that whatever they want will be   
   the inevitable outcome and don't have a backup plan, like Obama's Line in   
   the Sand, which turned out to be a yellow piddle trail marking our retreat.   
   I don't claim that the other party is much better.   
      
   International power politics is a master class chess game clouded by random   
   events where even the best gambits sometimes fail, the leadups to WW1 and   
   WW2 being good examples. Trump isn't finished yet and shouldn't be judged   
   too hastily on incomplete evidence.   
      
   I purposely rejected an invitation into the Intelligence business. An   
   example of its politicized yes-man tendency is Curveball, the disgruntled   
   Iraqi who made up the chemical weapons scenario based on a personal grudge   
   and was amazed that we swallowed it so easily, mostly for lack of other   
   timely evidence. We tend to leave Humint, spying, up to Britain or Israel as   
   the better experts with more historical connections. Saddam himself   
   mistakenly believed that the CIA would see through his bluster that was   
   aimed at Iran, not us.   
      
   An example on your side is the German Nordpol operation in which they   
   captured and turned nearly all the agents sent to Holland without raising   
   British suspicion, even though an agent's code allowed telegraphing   
   caughtcaughtcaught in the encrypted message to alert his handlers. You had   
   done the same to their spies.   
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englandspiel   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)