This may turn in an informal series of diaries. This is a sequel of sorts to my diary of yesterday, and more loosely, the one from 17 Jan.
The theme is to focus on the Trump Nazis (Bannon being the major player) extremist, agenda to destabilize Western Europe and install far-right governments in power across the EU. While the Trump Nazis’ actions have been reasonably transparent, the steps being taken by the governments or the governmental agencies here to counter them are mostly shrouded in obscurity.
As I write this i am trying to get the permission from a well-placed source in the European aerospace industry to share some of the recent developments I was told in confidence; whether or not I'll get it, i don't know, and if i do, I'll post it here, but suffice it to say that the awareness that the US is no longer to be treated as an ally is seeping through and is being acted upon.
This article from Haaretz indicates a clear concern about intelligence-sharing and the worry that classified information shared with Americans may be leaked to Russia. The arrest by the Russians of yet another security service officer accused of being a U.S. spy is not going to help European intelligence agencies sleep easier, and if intelligence-sharing between the US and Europe is affected or compromised — which IMHO will soon be the case — consequences are potentially catastrophic.
Just today, Trump potentially invalidated a transcontinental data flow agreement between the US and EU which took years to negotiate.
Enforcing privacy policies that specifically "exclude persons who are not United States citizens or lawful permanent residents" opens the US to sanctions by the EU or more likely the suspension of the agreement outright (which is what the Trump Nazis want) :
@EU_Commission : If adequacy is no longer guaranteed, we will have to suspend the #PrivacyShield #cpdp2017 Tweet from Laura Kayali (@LauKaya) January 25, 2017
This is just another deliberate step in an all out assault on liberal-democratic regimes across Western Europe, orchestrated by Trump Nazis in concern with revanchist Russia and our own local fascist movements. After Marine Le Pen's recent visit to NYC, Austrian Extremists led by a Nazi partied at Trump Tower.
I encourage those who want to follow this topic to subscribe to the tweeter account of Jasmin Mujanović (@JasminMuj) a PhD in Political Science from York University active in Southeast European and International Affairs Research.
I'd like to drop two more, less recent, links to add to this ongoing
Trump Nazis's links to the Kremlin.
and one I posted yesterday about the man tipped to be Trump's ambassador to the EU.
Trump's efforts to destroy NATO have been discussed earlier and elsewhere, including in my first diary, so I won't bother reposting links here.
That Trump was going to lay waste to the US was understood; but this new undeclared “war on western democracies”, I think, is going much faster and is turning out much deadlier than anyone thought. Foreign Policy Magazine quotes General Stanley McChrystal, U.S. Army (Ret.) as saying (last December), “A European war is not unthinkable. People who want to believe that a war in Europe is not possible might be in for a surprise.” (full interview here). This wasn't news for Ukrainians, but it is still news in Paris and Berlin — but not for long.
A personal note: DailyKos was rebooted in mid-2003 so some of the “old” users had to rejoin; I was among the first users here along with Billmon, Steve Gilliard, etc. Even with the reboot, my User# is still 849. I think my credentials are known to long-time users. My wife and I left Los Angeles after GWB's second election in 2005 to relocate in the South of France, but I have kept my practice as an IP lawyer, which occasionally brings me in contact with clients from interesting walks of life; separately, my dad, who passed away in 2013, was a French General and I still talk to friends of the family. Despite what a “gadfly” posted in my previous diaries, I am not an alarmist and what I post here is, to the best of my knowledge and experience, true and reliable. This, now, today, is the most frightened I have been about the international situation in my life. (I was only 8 at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis so obviously that doesn't count.) The optimist in me believes we're not going towards an actual war, but even if the Trump Nazis’ efforts fail, the political map of the world is going to be changed irreversibly.
