I rarely post in the Corral but tonight I find myself deeply troubled about the past few days, in part because I can't help but think about the parallels to history.
In the summer of 1961, another summit was held between leaders in Vienna. The freshly elected American Kennedy was underprepared and overwhelmed in discussions with Nikita Khruschev (Kennedy would say "he just beat the hell out of me.") Sensing weakness in his opponent, Khruschev gave the go ahead to build the Berlin Wall nearly immediately, and the following year, to install nuclear missiles in Cuba.
I say this because the past 24 hours really worry me. The press conference yesterday in which US institutions were thrown under a bus while standing flanked by Putin, only to be refuted today:
"I accept our intelligence community's conclusion that Russia's meddling in the 2016 election took place."
He caveated the statement that there was no collusion. Fine, I'm not here to argue collusion or not. The important thing to me is President Trump clearly stated Russia meddled in the 2016 election. Clearly and unambiguously.
So my question is, what is the response? Do we just accept that 'everyone does this, so don't sweat it?' Are we cool if Iran meddles? China? Terrorist groups? What is the threshold for which we will respond and defend ourselves, or even publicly criticize these actions?
We can publicly state that the PM of Canada has a special place in hell but our President won't even publicly reprimand a foreign government for interfering in our domestic affairs?
Am I supposed to blindly trust that the man that said it was not Russia yesterday has engaged in a proportional response to deter such activity in the future, not just by Russia but by any foreign government?
Does anyone even care?
In the summer of 1961, another summit was held between leaders in Vienna. The freshly elected American Kennedy was underprepared and overwhelmed in discussions with Nikita Khruschev (Kennedy would say "he just beat the hell out of me.") Sensing weakness in his opponent, Khruschev gave the go ahead to build the Berlin Wall nearly immediately, and the following year, to install nuclear missiles in Cuba.
I say this because the past 24 hours really worry me. The press conference yesterday in which US institutions were thrown under a bus while standing flanked by Putin, only to be refuted today:
"I accept our intelligence community's conclusion that Russia's meddling in the 2016 election took place."
He caveated the statement that there was no collusion. Fine, I'm not here to argue collusion or not. The important thing to me is President Trump clearly stated Russia meddled in the 2016 election. Clearly and unambiguously.
So my question is, what is the response? Do we just accept that 'everyone does this, so don't sweat it?' Are we cool if Iran meddles? China? Terrorist groups? What is the threshold for which we will respond and defend ourselves, or even publicly criticize these actions?
We can publicly state that the PM of Canada has a special place in hell but our President won't even publicly reprimand a foreign government for interfering in our domestic affairs?
Am I supposed to blindly trust that the man that said it was not Russia yesterday has engaged in a proportional response to deter such activity in the future, not just by Russia but by any foreign government?
Does anyone even care?
