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Germany expels CIA official in US spy row

Leo said:
LOL, a lot would depend upon the place frequented by many people - I suspect the quadrangle at Oxford University might result in a near 100% recognition of Kant, Schiller, etc. A bronx ghetto - possibly less so. I am however, not quite sure what either result would tell us.

I know that Alisa Rosenbaum was born in Russia, but she moved to the United States in 1926, became a US citizen, and published Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead as American novelist Ayn Rand.
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Alisa Rosenbaum would certainly not have been able to publish in Russia, and likely not Germany at the time either. This odd bit of trivia seems only a desire on your part to point out her Jewishness.
 
Andalublue said:
BBC News - Germany expels CIA official in US spy row

I'm guessing that US-German relations aren't in such a good state at the moment. The idea that spying on your friends is just business as usual came as a surprise to Angela Merkel.

What should be Germany's next step?

What should the US reaction to this expulsion be? An apology? Or reprisal?
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I'm wondering why A) why Germany would spy ,and B) what they wanted or were looking for.
 
Grant said:
Their occupier?
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Yes. To preface, I am not interested in rehashing world war 2. The war and the subsequent 70 years of continual propaganda about it has created a minefield of memes. This is outside my interest and frankly beyond my ability to untangle. I will offer a link which explains how the USA still is occupying Germany below.

World War II Never Ended for Germany – It remains occupied to this day (Part 1)
Posted on 07/22/2013 by justice4germans

We have all been conditioned to believe that WWII ended with the defeat of Germany and surrender on May 7th/8th of 1945, and that Germany as “liberated”. But is that really the case? NO. The victors (the ALL LIES) and the colonial government of the occupiers merely pretend that this is the case and have promoted and sold it as such. In the absence of formal recognition for the German Reich and any peace treaties, some 50+ countries which declared war against the German Reich are officially STILL at war with Germany today. They could simply resume hostilities against Germany at any moment, without any new declaration, or permission from the UN Security Council.
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World War II Never Ended for Germany – It remains occupied to this day (Part 1) | Justice for Germans
 
Dibbler said:
Yes. To preface, I am not interested in rehashing world war 2. The war and the subsequent 70 years of continual propaganda about it has created a minefield of memes. This is outside my interest and frankly beyond my ability to untangle. I will offer a link which explains how the USA still is occupying Germany below.
World War II Never Ended for Germany – It remains occupied to this day (Part 1) | Justice for Germans
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If the German government wants the Americans to leave it is not a problem. Military Bases in Germany - NYTimes.com
 
Dibbler said:
Perhaps if we had normalized relations with Germany, instead of the role of occupier, they would actually be our friends and we wouldn't need spies there.
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Germany is spying on us.
 
Andalublue said:
BBC News - Germany expels CIA official in US spy row

I'm guessing that US-German relations aren't in such a good state at the moment. The idea that spying on your friends is just business as usual came as a surprise to Angela Merkel.
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I find that..... extremely difficult to believe. It is like saying that Merkel would be astonished to learn that the United States has spy satellites. Far more likely she felt she had to take this step to save face.

What should be Germany's next step?

What should the US reaction to this expulsion be? An apology? Or reprisal?
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Both countries should continue to work with each other and both IC's will continue to collect on each other in order to best inform their decision-makers. Because that is their job.

If Germany wants to make too much noise about it, I would like an answer about why they lied to us about Curveball, given the rather disastrous consequences of that little deception.
 
OldWorldOrder said:
Do you think that Europe is superior to the US, Leo?
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Europe and the USA are not easily comparable entities - the one is a vast collection of disparate and sovereign nations, employing many different languages, cultures, and social mores, while the other is an essentially homogenous socio-political entity with a common language, common values, and little meaningful social variety (although both the language and cultural issues are changing with the influx of Hispanic influence).

A direct comparison wherein it is possibly to judge the one superior in all respects is not possible. As human societies both operate very differently, but each do some things well and others less so. I am an European, with European values, so I know in which society I would choose to live, but an US citizen could easily (and very likely would) hold the opposite view.

Sorry for the seeming equivocation, but that's the only objective answer possible.
 
cpwill said:
If Germany wants to make too much noise about it, I would like an answer about why they lied to us about Curveball, given the rather disastrous consequences of that little deception.
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Whoa there, cowboy.
As I understand it, both German and British intelligence had grave doubts about curveball's veracity.
We ignored any concerns about the guy's credibility.
 
Leo said:
Europe and the USA are not easily comparable entities - the one is a vast collection of disparate and sovereign nations, employing many different languages, cultures, and social mores, while the other is an essentially homogenous socio-political entity with a common language, common values, and little meaningful social variety (although both the language and cultural issues are changing with the influx of Hispanic influence).

A direct comparison wherein it is possibly to judge the one superior in all respects is not possible. As human societies both operate very differently, but each do some things well and others less so. I am an European, with European values, so I know in which society I would choose to live, but an US citizen could easily (and very likely would) hold the opposite view.

Sorry for the seeming equivocation, but that's the only objective answer possible.
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So that's a yes?
 
radioman said:
Whoa there, cowboy.
As I understand it, both German and British intelligence had grave doubts about curveball's veracity.
We ignored any concerns about the guy's credibility.
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We wanted to vet the guy ourselves. Germany told us he was virulently anti-American, and so we couldn't talk to him. It was a lie. So we took the Germans at their word, and accepted their information.


LATER German intel officials made sure to tell reporters that they "couldn't verify his reporting", which is basically a way of telling a lie with the truth - in the intelligence world, that only means that you don't have any other reporting string corroborating the claim, not that it is inherently untrustworthy, however, the latter is the common parlance.


So, if Germany wants to get upset with us for doing the same thing to them that they do, then I think we ought to demand a public explanation for why they lied to us about Curveball :)
 
Leo said:
Europe and the USA are not easily comparable entities - the one is a vast collection of disparate and sovereign nations, employing many different languages, cultures, and social mores, while the other is an essentially homogenous socio-political entity with a common language, common values, and little meaningful social variety (although both the language and cultural issues are changing with the influx of Hispanic influence).

A direct comparison wherein it is possibly to judge the one superior in all respects is not possible. As human societies both operate very differently, but each do some things well and others less so. I am an European, with European values, so I know in which society I would choose to live, but an US citizen could easily (and very likely would) hold the opposite view.

Sorry for the seeming equivocation, but that's the only objective answer possible.
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It's not that complicated. We can look at how many Europeans have fled to America for their lives and how many Americans have fled to Europe for similar reasons. Or how many times Americans have had to save Europeans from themselves. Those would be interesting statistics.
 
Grant said:
Alisa Rosenbaum would certainly not have been able to publish in Russia, and likely not Germany at the time either. This odd bit of trivia seems only a desire on your part to point out her Jewishness.
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LOL, 'the lady doth protest too much, methinks'! I made no mention of her Jewishness, as it had no relevance to the discussion at hand.

This 'odd bit of trivia' was a response to the seeming claim by Prometeus that Rosenbaum, aka Ayn Rand, was a Russian not an American. She was in fact a Russian born American, and I suspect her extreme right wing ideology was a direct (and perhaps understandable) reaction to the extreme left wing ideology of her upbringing in the Communist Soviet Union. She left Russia at the age of 21, to become an American citizen, and there are few more devout adherents than recent converts.
 
Leo said:
LOL, 'the lady doth protest too much, methinks'! I made no mention of her Jewishness, as it had no relevance to the discussion at hand.

This 'odd bit of trivia' was a response to the seeming claim by Prometeus that Rosenbaum, aka Ayn Rand, was a Russian not an American. She was in fact a Russian born American, and I suspect her extreme right wing ideology was a direct (and perhaps understandable) reaction to the extreme left wing ideology of her upbringing in the Communist Soviet Union. She left Russia at the age of 21, to become an American citizen, and there are few more devout adherents than recent converts.
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Objectivism is a weird thing. She kept all the soullessness of the USSR, and simply changed all of the decorations. Like an x-ray, it can be accurate, without demonstrating the Truth of a thing.
 
Grant said:
It's not that complicated. We can look at how many Europeans have fled to America for their lives and how many Americans have fled to Europe for similar reasons. Or how many times Americans have had to save Europeans from themselves. Those would be interesting statistics.
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We could indeed, and those are valid points, but they apply at varying periods of history and to varying societies. Many of the same claims could be made in respect of all Anglo-Saxon migrant societies, such as Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The vast majority of people 'fleeing to the USA' have been, and still are, economic refugees - exactly the same may be said of Australia, Canada, and Western Europe.

None of this has anything to do with what you, or I, may consider to be 'superior' societies, and sorry, but I am afraid I am not going to buy into your fantasies about Americans saving Europeans from themselves. :)
 
Leo said:
LOL, 'the lady doth protest too much, methinks'! I made no mention of her Jewishness, as it had no relevance to the discussion at hand.

This 'odd bit of trivia' was a response to the seeming claim by Prometeus that Rosenbaum, aka Ayn Rand, was a Russian not an American. She was in fact a Russian born American, and I suspect her extreme right wing ideology was a direct (and perhaps understandable) reaction to the extreme left wing ideology of her upbringing in the Communist Soviet Union. She left Russia at the age of 21, to become an American citizen, and there are few more devout adherents than recent converts.
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You are correct. My apologies.
 
OldWorldOrder said:
So that's a yes?
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LOL, sorry if multisyllabic words confuse you, but had I wished to write 'yes' - three letters involve less effort than three paragraphs. :)
 
Leo said:
We could indeed, and those are valid points, but they apply at varying periods of history and to varying societies. Many of the same claims could be made in respect of all Anglo-Saxon migrant societies, such as Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The vast majority of people 'fleeing to the USA' have been, and still are, economic refugees - exactly the same may be said of Australia, Canada, and Western Europe.
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No, they were not all economic refugees, though that would have been sufficient reason as well, with America offering a better chance of freedom and success than anywhere in Europe. A lot of it was religious persecution, ethnic persecution and the class systems so commonplace in Europe.

None of this has anything to do with what you, or I, may consider to be 'superior' societies, and sorry, but I am afraid I am not going to buy into your fantasies about Americans saving Europeans from themselves. :)
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You must be aware of the many wars Europeans have inflicted upon each other through the centuries but America had to become involved in WWI, WWII and the Cold War in order, indeed, to save Europeans from themselves. How can it be otherwise? As well, all the main inhumanities suffered by man against man, such as Nazism, Fascism and Communism during the last century, have all been European in origin.

As an aside, their constant anti Americanism is one of their most tiresome features.
 
prometeus said:
In the context you raised in your post I thought Times Square would be the place...
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No doubt, but I was approaching your question from an international perspective, and a socio-economic one.

prometeus said:
The current understanding of Western civilization and its origins by the average American...
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Fair point - but as above, I was extending it to encompass more than Americans.

prometeus said:
I had no doubt, but have you accounted for the fact that she was raised in Russia and educated there, factors that leave undeniable traits on a person?
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Of course, and as I have indicated elsewhere, I consider her right wing extremism to be a reaction to the extreme socialist environment of the then Soviet Union. I was in no way suggesting that her views were typically American, but they are embraced today by more Americans than Europeans, which is why I made mention of Atlas Shrugged.
 
Grant said:
No, they were not all economic refugees, though that would have been sufficient reason as well, with America offering a better chance of freedom and success than anywhere in Europe. A lot of it was religious persecution, ethnic persecution and the class systems so commonplace in Europe.
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You are correct that not all were economic refugees, but certainly the vast majority were, and still are. The reasons for people fleeing various places change depending upon the era, as does their destination.

Grant said:
You must be aware of the many wars Europeans have inflicted upon each other through the centuries but America had to become involved in WWI, WWII and the Cold War in order, indeed, to save Europeans from themselves. How can it be otherwise? As well, all the main inhumanities suffered by man against man, such as Nazism, Fascism and Communism during the last century, have all been European in origin.
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Yes, I have read history, and I am aware of the many wars in Europe's past, and I am also aware that the USA became involved in the two world wars. It is readily apparent that the USA became involved in WW2 because Hitler declared war upon it, and the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. It did not enter that war, or World War 1 to 'save' anyone from themselves - it was the sinking of the Lusitania, and the Zimmerman telegram which were the triggers for US involvement (which came at the very last minute in the conflict). The Cold War was a battle for hegemony by two national ideologies, and was about control - nothing else. As I indicated before, do not expect an European to subscribe to US flag waving.

Grant said:
As an aside, their constant anti Americanism is one of their most tiresome features.
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LOL, I can understand your reaction, but has it occurred to you that the constant US anti-Europeanism (as evinced by this thread) might be equally tiresome to Europeans? We are none of us inherently superior to the other - we simply have different societal and value systems. :)
 
Leo said:
LOL, sorry if multisyllabic words confuse you, but had I wished to write 'yes' - three letters involve less effort than three paragraphs. :)
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What made you think I was confused? I asked you a yes or no question.

Did my bluntness confuse you? I asked a very straightforward question.
 
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