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I was wondering if the recent falling out with France had something to do with it. Maybe this is a cheap way to earn some points with Macron after NSO was caugh

I was wondering if the recent falling out with France had something to do with it. Maybe this is a cheap way to earn some points with Macron after NSO was caught potentially? spying on him/his government.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> wondering if the recent falling out with France had something to do with it Forgot about that. Almost certainly. I doubt it was an explicit deal. NSO was protected, to a degree, because State didn't want to piss off Israel. (I don't think the IC ever came to bat for them.) But systematically screwing with American allies, democracies at that, and then getting undeniably caught, makes one difficult to defend. The French part not only contributed to this erosion of their defensibility, but may have made throwing them under the bus diplomatically advantageous.
- alwayseasy 5y ago
  Actually, 2 days ago Macron said the NSO incidents were behind them and France would strengthen cooperation with Israel. Source: https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1455178005500805120 https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1455178005500805120
  - r00fus 5y ago
    As long as NSO is defanged, I’m sure Macron is happy to bury the hatchet.
- sneak 5y ago
  Since when does the US federal government care about democracy?
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > Since when does the US federal government care about democracy? The U.S. government doesn't care about anything. The people who join, make it to and remain at the Foreign Service, the 13,000-odd professionals who make up the bulk of the State Department, tend to care deeply about it. That doesn't trump national interest. And at the end of the day, a political appointee is in charge. But it's a human factor that can tip issues on the knife's edge.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      Not just the foreign service, of course. > The U.S. government doesn't care about anything. An essential point. Below excerpts a great article that addresses it, by Jeremy Shapiro of the State Department, Brookings, and elsewhere: http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/05/how_the_us_saw_syrias_war http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/05/how_the_us... People often talk about the government as if it were a human being. It 'thinks,' it 'believes,' and sometimes it even 'knows' -- or 'should know.' Critics frequently demand that the government should understand and learn certain key facts or lessons of history. But of course the government is not an individual. It is rather a vast constellation of people and institutions, and as such it learns information and processes knowledge quite differently than do individuals. Most importantly, government 'knowledge' about foreign policy issues is not learned or deduced. Rather, it is formed through a process of bureaucratic or political compromise between often conflicting theories or goals. The result is that the government does not think and learn in clear and consistent ways. First, the government often lacks logical consistency. As a collection of people and institutions, the government is much more capable than individuals of holding deeply inconsistent beliefs. If, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, '[t]he test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function,' then the government is a genius. The U.S. government can 'know,' for example, that it is simultaneously both the leading global advocate for Internet freedom and the leading violator of privacy on the Internet. Second, the government often relies on old information or disproven ideas. Changes in conditions on the ground or new academic insights are less likely to affect government thinking than personnel changes or domestic political developments. The U.S. government can therefore continue to know that nuclear weapons threaten to spread like a virus even if it has continually over-predicted the spread of such weapons. Third, the government often lacks forward thinking. An important rule of governance holds that once agreement is reached on step one of the policy process, stop arguing over future questions until they are posed. This means even deep divisions over next moves are papered over until they become immediately relevant, often causing inconsistent behavior or long delays to work through internal disputes. Accordingly, the U.S. government can decide to invade Iraq without really discussing whether the goal is democratization or simple regime change.
      - 5y ago

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> wondering if the recent falling out with France had something to do with it Forgot about that. Almost certainly. I doubt it was an explicit deal. NSO was protected, to a degree, because State didn't want to piss off Israel. (I don't think the IC ever came to bat for them.) But systematically screwing with American allies, democracies at that, and then getting undeniably caught, makes one difficult to defend. The French part not only contributed to this erosion of their defensibility, but may have made throwing them under the bus diplomatically advantageous.

alwayseasy 5y ago
Actually, 2 days ago Macron said the NSO incidents were behind them and France would strengthen cooperation with Israel. Source: https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1455178005500805120 https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1455178005500805120
- r00fus 5y ago
  As long as NSO is defanged, I’m sure Macron is happy to bury the hatchet.
sneak 5y ago
Since when does the US federal government care about democracy?
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > Since when does the US federal government care about democracy? The U.S. government doesn't care about anything. The people who join, make it to and remain at the Foreign Service, the 13,000-odd professionals who make up the bulk of the State Department, tend to care deeply about it. That doesn't trump national interest. And at the end of the day, a political appointee is in charge. But it's a human factor that can tip issues on the knife's edge.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    Not just the foreign service, of course. > The U.S. government doesn't care about anything. An essential point. Below excerpts a great article that addresses it, by Jeremy Shapiro of the State Department, Brookings, and elsewhere: http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/05/how_the_us_saw_syrias_war http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/05/how_the_us... People often talk about the government as if it were a human being. It 'thinks,' it 'believes,' and sometimes it even 'knows' -- or 'should know.' Critics frequently demand that the government should understand and learn certain key facts or lessons of history. But of course the government is not an individual. It is rather a vast constellation of people and institutions, and as such it learns information and processes knowledge quite differently than do individuals. Most importantly, government 'knowledge' about foreign policy issues is not learned or deduced. Rather, it is formed through a process of bureaucratic or political compromise between often conflicting theories or goals. The result is that the government does not think and learn in clear and consistent ways. First, the government often lacks logical consistency. As a collection of people and institutions, the government is much more capable than individuals of holding deeply inconsistent beliefs. If, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, '[t]he test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function,' then the government is a genius. The U.S. government can 'know,' for example, that it is simultaneously both the leading global advocate for Internet freedom and the leading violator of privacy on the Internet. Second, the government often relies on old information or disproven ideas. Changes in conditions on the ground or new academic insights are less likely to affect government thinking than personnel changes or domestic political developments. The U.S. government can therefore continue to know that nuclear weapons threaten to spread like a virus even if it has continually over-predicted the spread of such weapons. Third, the government often lacks forward thinking. An important rule of governance holds that once agreement is reached on step one of the policy process, stop arguing over future questions until they are posed. This means even deep divisions over next moves are papered over until they become immediately relevant, often causing inconsistent behavior or long delays to work through internal disputes. Accordingly, the U.S. government can decide to invade Iraq without really discussing whether the goal is democratization or simple regime change.
    - 5y ago