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   From: soetoro@excite.com   
      
   The average life span for male Americans born 70 years-ago is 72, so   
   there's a good chance that if trump wins, he won't last out his first   
   term.  Trump's a sick old speed addict who is hiding health and financial   
   issues.  Doing business with Muslims and Americas other enemies like North   
   Korea and Russia.   That's why he refuses to release information and his   
   supporters are notorious radical rightwing subversivie America haters.   
      
      
   For those who are baffled by recent developments in the West, Donald   
   Trump's Russia connections are a new addition to the story. Donald Trump,   
   with full press conference coverage, called on Russian intelligence and   
   hackers to share Hillary Clinton's emails. Before anyone claims that it   
   was an off the cuff remark and that he was sarcastic or joking, within   
   hours he'd tweeted that same question, almost verbatim. In a year where   
   unprecedented is an overused word, a nominee of the party traditionally   
   considered hawkish on foreign policy is asking a foreign government to   
   hack and notify the media of the contents of emails of his rival from   
   another party. Not only has this never happened before, it is a nightmare   
   situation for everyone in the U.S., including the Republicans.   
      
   So, is Trump a Siberian candidate, (a play on the word Manchurian   
   candidate) as termed by Paul Krugman? Is he on Putin's pay roll? The   
   answer is no. First of all, that's not how intelligence operations work in   
   real life, whatever you may have been led to believe from books and   
   movies. There are so many uncertainties and risks that no intelligence   
   agency will undertake that operation.   
      
   Which brings us to the second and more serious point. Trump has funnily   
   enough shown considerable consistency in his position towards Russia. He   
   said he won't honor NATO and might even break away from it as well as from   
   the WTO - two pillars of Western order, one security and one economic. He   
   rejected U.S. criticism of Russian human rights record and Russian actions   
   against media and intelligentsia, saying that the U.S. doesn't have the   
   moral high ground to dictate anyone on internal governance. Trump also   
   said he won't critique Russian revanchism and interventionism, as the U.S.   
   also intervenes abroad. He said recently that he would legalize the   
   Crimean annexation and end sanctions on Russia. And he ripped up his own   
   party's strong platform against Russia during the Republican convention.   
   Finally, he invited hackers to attack Hilary.   
      
   This is curious, and his favor of Russia is almost as consistent as   
   Trump's opposition to China. The reasons for this could be various. It   
   might be that Trump genuinely believes that Russia is a civilizational   
   ally and that he can carve out interest zones with its help. Or his aides,   
   including Paul Manafort and Carter Page, two notoriously pro-Putin think   
   tankers, are influencing him. Trump might be just a reckless nihilistic   
   man who doesn't believe in anything he says, as long as it gets him in   
   news cycles, but the fact is that as a Republican nominee, he will get   
   intelligence briefings, including secrets about China, India, EU, etc,   
   which he will pass onto his dubious aides. This is a cause of concern not   
   only for Americans but for every sane person on this planet.   
      
   Blaming Putin or Russia will only obfuscate the real problems. Every   
   country and great power commits espionage, and only naive people believe   
   that international politics is an arena for good innocent people. Even if   
   it is established that Russia committed this DNC hack, and all evidence   
   points in that direction, it won't be out of the blue. It is completely   
   within the established behavioral norms of a great power.   
      
   The rise of Trump and nativist populism is a more structural problem of   
   Western liberal democracies. It is the glorification of a culture of   
   celebrity and conspiracy theorizing and hyper media partisanship in a   
   post-fact world that gives rise to phenomena like Trump or Brexit. Blaming   
   Russia won't solve this basic problem.   
      
   Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For   
      
   http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2016-07/29/content_38983078.htm   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)