On Thursday, 25 November 2021 at 11:44:51 UTC+2, jzfre...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, November 25, 2021 at 7:14:05 PM UTC+10, Rodney Ulyate wrote:
> > > That's the nature of intelligence reports. Often they're only proven correct years/decades later.
> > By your own admission, then, you subscribe to this theory -- this conspiracy theory -- on the basis of nothing. You like the vibes. It *feels* right to you. Yours is the touching faith that you'll be vindicated in a few decades.
> How does any one of us ordinary folk know? We don't. I don't.
> You don't.

How can anyone know anything?

It's not about "knowing." It's about weighing up the evidence, and recognising that the burden of proof falls on those who make positive claims about the world. And the more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidential standard.

That standard is not met by this:

> I believe most of the SD is true based on Steele's reputation, Trump's reputation, Trump's actions, Russian tactics.

Like I said, "vibes."

Note what you don't cite. You don't cite any positive, affirmative evidence for a single claim. Didn't you say you were going to?

> Also, as I've said, some things in the SD have been proven true.

Which things are those? Most of the provably true things in the Steele Dossier were proven true *before* it was written. From the left-liberal Nation magazine, whose reporter Aaron Maté won an Izzy for his coverage of Russiage:

"Despite his supposed high-level sources inside the Kremlin, it was only after Wikileaks published the DNC e-mails in July 2016 that Steele first mentioned them. When Steele made the headline-consuming claim that 'the TRUMP team had agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue' in exchange for Russian help, he did so only after a meaningless Ukraine-related platform change at the RNC was reported (and mischaracterized) in The Washington Post. When Steele claimed that former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was offered up to a 19 percent stake in the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft if he could get Trump to lift Western sanctions, it was only after the media had reported Page’s visit to Moscow.

"In short, far from having access to high-level intelligence, Steele and his 'sources' only had access to news outlets and their own imaginations. It is for this reason that Russiagate’s key figures and incidents make no appearance in Steele’s dossier. Absent are George Papadapolous and Joseph Mifsud, whose conversations triggered the FBI’s collusion probe. Also MIA is the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russian nationals about potential 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton. The reason is obvious: These events did not get publicly reported until after Steele wrote his final, secret 'intelligence report.'"

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-russiagate-steele-dossier/

> Not a single thing has been proven incorrect.

What about the prosecution of Danchenko? Have you even looked into it? Have you read the indictment? Have you forgotten that you undertook to do so?

You're right, of course, to say that the Steele Dossier hasn't been refuted.. Nor has 9/11 Truth, nor the fake moon landings, nor the international Jewish conspiracy, nor David Icke's saurians, nor Bertrand Russell's orbiting teacup.

It's funny how I keep having to invoke that last example. It's funnier still how deaf are the ears it falls upon. I might as well be composing mandalas in the sand.

> > > Yes, it was lovely of Obama to take a different tack, but anti-Russian rhetoric was and is commonplace by both sides in the USA.
> > And openly mocked by the President who immediately preceded Russiagate. And before him, George W. Bush famously gushed about looking into Putin's eyes and seeing a good Christian. And Bill Clinton, before Bush, was so besotted with *his* opposite number that he openly intervened in a Russian election to get him elected. (Far more evidence for that one, incidentally, than anything produced in support of Russiagate.)
> 2017, James Clapper (former Director of many US intel agencies starting in 1991 under Bush Snr) said "the Russians are not our friends", because it is in their "genes to be opposed, diametrically opposed, to the United States and western democracies".
> We can play this game all day.

You play it badly. Clapper was speaking in June 2017 -- six months *after* the publication of the Steele Dossier and the rise of Russiagate. You cite him to prove a pre-Russiagate hostility. Do you have any idea how daft this makes you look?

Actually, it makes you look even dafter than that. Clapper made no threat of force, so his remarks aren't analogous to Clinton's. That's the case you were suppose to be making.

> The US political class, and the public majority, are opposed to Russia and have been since the early 1900s.

And now you remember part of that case. But you still think you've proven it with a remark from 2017!

> > But you want me to believe that these three post-Cold War administrations were also threatening to nuke the country
> More intellectual dishonesty.

Oh, really? Explain. And then give me an honest explanation for the gymnastics I've just cited. The only honest one I can think of would be pretty unflattering. I think I was too generous in casting it as daft.

> > > It's a Strawman as you seem to be the only person on the planet who took Hillary's words as a credible threat.
> > You can't even keep track of your own arguments. It was, as you point out, an articulation of existing US policy:
> Hillary's remarks were very early. And wrong. In hindsight, the email hacking was NOT enough to be considered an act of war (that justified a military response).
> Her threat was election bluster, that you have swallowed.

Make up your mind. Was it a simple articulation of existing US policy, or was Clinton idly blustering?

I note in passing that she's never seen a war she didn't like, so her bluster feels a lot less idle than most. See my earlier point (which you affected not to understand) about sabre usage.

> > > The UN charter allows for military response when attacked.
> > > It's perfectly ok for the USA to say "we consider some types of cyberattacks as acts of war, and we'll kick your teeth in if you do them to us".
> > No. It's not "perfectly okay." You're allowed under the UN Charter to respond with force to force. You're not allowed to respond with force when your emails are hacked, or when you don't like the Facebook advertising you're seeing.
> You misunderstand the Charter.
> Almost all countries, especially those with nukes, clearly threaten when they'll use such weapons.
> It's always in the form "you do X, we'll do Y".
> This is perfectly fine and normal.

You do realise that the onus is on you to explain misunderstandings when you allege them? Where does mine lie?

Here's the relevant provision (since we both know you haven't read it):

"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations." - Article 2(4)

What does this mean, and how do you square it with the reading you've put forward? What, specifically, does "threat" mean? Does it mean anything at all? If not, why not? And how do you square *that* with the views of the leading scholars in the field? I find no support for your position, and plenty for mine, in the likes of Romana Sadurska, Francis Grimal, Marc Weller, Ian Brownlie, Aidan O'Neill and Nikolas Stürchler, who have written at length on this topic.

> > > > > I would say China sabre-rattles more than anyone today.
> > > > And I would say they don't.
> > > > I'd also observe that they're a good deal more responsible in the far more important question of their sabre-usage. They haven't been to war in my lifetime. I've lost count of American wars in the same period.
> > > Haven't been to war in your lifetime? Perhaps you don't understand what I meant by sabre-rattling.
> > Perhaps you ought to clear your mind next time you approach one of my ripostes.
> China invasion count has zero to do with China's sabre-rattling count.

I explained what sabre rattling had to do with sabre usage -- astonishing that I had to -- but you've slyly snipped that out. You do that with a great many points you find unanswerable. Don't think I haven't noticed. It's hard not to, since I've diligently answered everything you put to me.

> The latter is the opposite of the former.

A known murder approaches JZ, armed to the teeth, and threatens to blow him to pieces.

Saith JZ: "Your record of murder has nothing to do with your threat of murder. The latter is the opposite of the former."

JZ is murdered.

Poor JZ.

> > > Ending the INF benefited Russia.
> > I ask again: How does it benefit Russia to enter an arms race with the United States?
> There are other threats than just the USA. Russia wanted out of the INF, they got it, thanks to Trump.

Stop. You're embarrassing yourself. Again you've snipped out the bits you find unanswerable (in this case, the bits where I point out that what Putin wanted was a *tightening* of the INF regime to include other nuclear states).

A friendly reminder that you've accused *me* of "intellectual dishonesty."

Rodney