Ah, so US citizens who work at some DHHS facility processing food stamp applications can't have a pro-Russian foreign policy viewpoint? The US defense budget will be increased under Trump. You know who had a policy to decrease it over time? The gun slinging, WW3 enabling psychopath named Hillary Clinton.

Russia's election meddling was revealed to the world. You don't think Russian intelligence has the capability to know if our intelligence agencies are interfering in Russia or Ukraine? Why should we assume the CIA is behind every uprising in the world? If reading history gives you that paranoid viewpoint, you haven't read enough history.

It's really a pointless endeavor responding to you. You ignore my questions, I respond to your silly claims like "US overthrew the regime in Ukraine", and you just repeat the same talking points I've never even challenged.

No the CIA is not behind every uprising worldwide, never did i claim that. As i'v explained to you before, it is in our interests to get these satellite states around our serious adversaries and proverbially flip them to our camp. It's been happening for a very long time. Once the cold war ended we started inching eastward towards Russia. Now literally NATO is on Russia northern borders with Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and there is a renewed push for Finland to join the NATO as well. After we got Poland and Romania, the only other countries left on the eastern path to Russia's borders are Belarus and Ukraine. Belarus is too hard to flip at the moment, considering the their leader is very close to Russia but we saw an opening in Ukraine. Ukraine has a population of 45 million and Crimea hosts Russia's southern naval fleet. If we somehow managed to cleanly flip Ukraine, it would of been an astronomical blow to Russia's ambitions & regional clout. We kind of succeeded but not really since eastern Ukraine remains pro Russian and Crimea is now Russian land. You're seeing the same thing happening in East Asia, where Chinas fast growth is challenging our Hegemony. That's precisely why there was an "Asia Pivot", that's precisely why we are so close to the Japanese, South Koreans, Filipinos & are actively seeking to form more military alliances with other countries like India, Myanmar, etc. But you will continue to bury your head in the sand and pretend this isn't the global reality. Instead Russia hacked us because they are very very bad and we need to do something about it because how dare they do this meanwhile we have nuke capable weapon systems spitting distance from their borders.

edit: This is the same reason why China threatened us against military intervention in North Korea. In many ways it's a very similar scenario. If we topple the North Koreans and the South takes over (whom are our allies) the Chinese are looking at a strong adversary (a unified Korea + the US) right on their borders.

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So no Icemage the Russians exposing Hillary Clinton for being a corrupt piece of shit or trolling Twitter is no where near the same level of a threat that we have been posing to Russia for years.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Nov 25 2017 08:40pm

We could EMP them as well.

But the main point is that they have to get close enough to EMP us. It's still all equal, or the US is ahead. No matter how you slice it.

I can't help but laugh reading your posts... I challenge specific accusations and you make some long winded post filled with International Relations 101 material, as if anyone here doesn't understand that the US seeks to maximize our influence and minimize the influence of our global adversaries.

More strawmen. Russia's intervention in the 2016 election was an attack on our democracy and a serious violation of international norms. Whether it's a greater threat to us than our actions in their region is to them seems irrelevant.

This post was edited by IceMage on Nov 25 2017 09:38pm

What accusations? That i don't have proof that the CIA meddles around the globe and pushes for American interests?

They exposed a corrupt political party which is a net gain for democracy in our country. You would rather us be ignorant and let corrupt politicians win elections as long it's the side you want to win, pathetic display of democracy.

Do you even read what you're replying to? I have stated emphatically, twice now, that it is not a moral question. It's not about good or evil.
Don't you fucking talk down to me while you repeatedly dodge the question and spew conspiracy theories. It's like trying to argue with tard_sultan ffs. .

Do you believe, as most intelligence organisations seem to agree, Russia is involved in various propaganda campaigns to influence Western Democratic decisions? If so, how effective have those campaigns been, how can we protect ourselves from them in future and what should we do about decisions that may have been made apparently democratically but due to Russian influences?

I'm being about as clear as I can be here because you seem to be constantly misunderstanding the argument. Keep your playschool bullshit 'America does it too' bullshit out of your answer please. I don't care. I've already admitted they do and criticised American foreign policy on that basis quite often. Again - It's not about good and evil, it's about protecting our democracies from foreign, malicious influence.

If I have to spell this shit out to you a fourth time...

Those "campaigns" have had minimal at best of an impact on the average voter. This is an absolute smokescreen and essentially Neo-Mccarthyism and is being used by the losers as a way to delegitimize valid and democratic elections. The reason why so many voted for the leave campaign or the reason why people voted for Trump is not because of Russian propaganda. It's because politicians ignore the will and fears of the people.

And laugh...

>Believes Bush and the US lied about WMD's in Iraq to get a regime change

>Thinks the same people wouldn't do something similar in eastern Ukraine to get a western friendly gov't.

Derp.

Are you really so fucking dense that it takes me four times of explaining explicitly to you that I am not denying that the US wages similar wars of influence in other nations? I mean how many times do I have to fucking say it before it sinks in mate? I don't think 'the same people wouldn't do something similar'. In fact I think it's quite likely they did. Fuck me dude. It's like talking to a brick wall. A brick wall with downs.

Derp your fucking self.

As for the impact on voters - Thank you for finally actually expressing an opinion on the topic. I can't believe it took you so fucking long. So how do we know the Russian propaganda campaign had a minimal effect on voters? Even if it was minimal how can we know whether or not it was ineffective enough that it wasn't a contributing factor in the extremely close referendum result. Could it alone have had enough of an effect to swing the vote by 3% in favour of Brexit? Even if not, how is any propagandist influence an acceptable thing and why should we not be doing more to protect ourselves from the machinations of hostile foreign powers in the era of social media?

It's impossible to quantify what impact the so called Russian propaganda had but i still think it's a drop in the bucket in comparison to the weight some institutions threw behind the stay campaign for example. You had movie stars, foreign presidents, bankers & everyone and their mothers coming on the tele and telling you guys how the sky will fall if Britain voted leave. You don't view that as propaganda? I'm not saying don't protect yourself but it just seems to me that this protection only applies to interference from groups, countries or people that you disagree with like Russia. I just want an ounce of consistency. It annoys me to hear all of western media crying about how the evil Russians are meddling but ignores our own meddling in other parts of the world. It annoys me the double standards we have on human rights where we will publicly criticize and condemn places like Russia or Philippines for human rights but turn a blind eye to places like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan because they are our allies even though the human rights violations in the latter are infinitely more egregious.

Even this "interference" in the US. It bothers the fuck out of me that the story is that Russia "meddled" by exposing DNC collusion. Like what the fuck... Russia will most likely never impact my life, but scumbag domestic politicians that make a mockery of elections and decide behind closed doors who the nominee will be is an absolute threat to what we consider democracy. I don't hold Russia to any standards, corruption & cronyism is common there, but here i expect better.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Nov 26 2017 07:29pm

The Russian posts and tweets are way stronger than classic ads or events.
It's simple, faked pictures, totale misinformation , impersonation, racist provocations, are not that easy to do on broadcast medias.
Russian influence was very decisive, not to mention the current investigation...

The argument will be the same than climate change btw...
"since we aren't sure: it's not happening or the impact is too negligible"

K good luck with your lies

This post was edited by Saucisson6000 on Nov 26 2017 07:52pm