Posted on 07/12/2014 1:22:29 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
“political temper tantrum” after ordering the CIA station chief to leave the country over allegations the U.S. had recruited two government officials to spy.
“It just doesn't seem like a very adult reaction to expel the CIA chief from Germany,” Rogers said in an interview with CNN. “And it's concerning and it's a political temper tantrum like I've never seen before that I think is not productive, it is jeopardizing both intelligence cooperation and relationships with beyond the intelligence relationship between America and Germany.”
Rogers said the expulsion, announced earlier this week, was “a huge deal,” and said he was very concerned Germany was “going to jeopardize” collaborative intelligence efforts “over this alleged incident.”
“This is something that we would expect from the Russians. We would expect from the Iranians. We would expect from the North Koreans. We don't expect from our allies, the Germans where they know of this really important intelligence relationship,” Rogers said.
The Michigan Republican suggested German Chancellor Angela Merkel had taken “a political knee-jerk reaction” to the allegations. Surveillance is a particularly potent political issue in Germany, where many citizens lived under Soviet rule for decades. Merkel’s family was targeted by the East German secret police while she was growing up, and has previously expressed personal outrage over revelations the NSA was monitoring her cell phone conversations.
But Rogers said Germany was guilty of spying on the U.S. as well.
“As the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I feel very confident in telling you and your viewers, listen, the German Intelligence Services, they're engaged in espionage including against the U.S. persons,” Rogers said. “And so I'm a little surprised by this whole reaction.”
On Saturday, Merkel said she didn’t think the U.S. would stop spying on Germany, despite the diplomatic flap.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
“But blackmail is a serious crime, regardless of the motive. “
A crime that would be prosecuted by The Justice Department which is under...Eric Holder...who is under...Obama. So, who would order it prosecuted? The Founders, who envisioned and planned for everything they could think of never once thought the president could be the enemy of his own country.
I think it’s just the term I tend to disagree with. I guess I need to learn politics is just another criminal enterprise.
While America fought The Cold War and we plowed billions into our own defense and the NATO partnership, German steel and automakers pretty much crowded us out of the market. It has been my experience over the last forty years to have known some Germans, here as students and while they are proper, respectful largely in moments of candor they reveal themselves. They don’t like us. It isn’t just that we beat them in two world wars, they resent our constant pointing to their past, to be fair a past that at least three generations of Germans had nothing to do with. They also resent our hubris in world affairs that I think is perhaps a latent insecurity that there has been in history a ‘’Pax Britannia’’ or an “American Century’’ but there has never really been a ‘’Deutchland Uber Alles’’ in the true sense of the word. That being an imperial power with a two ocean navy and much larger share of territories and colonies around the world than a few colonies they once had in East Africa. In my years of looking and reading so much WW1 and WW2 history Germany seems to be this great powerhouse of energy and power and promise but no real constructive and peaceful way of achieving. Sort of ‘’all dressed up and no where to go’’ if you will. And while I’d be more than willing to bet that the days of “Drang Nach Osten’’ won’t return and neither will the jackboots I think that some Germans might still struggle with the “Weltenshunning’’(sp?) or “World View’’ of themselves as a nation and a people. Goethe did observe of his fellow Germans as being ‘’noble in the individual and wretched in the collective’’. But we’re a long way from his days and I think the great majority of the German people don’t want a war of any kind. And as long as they keep competing in and winning World Cups in soccer they won’t be thinking about marching around again.
Witt replied, "I came up with that in Russia."
The Russian said, "Oh? When were you in Russia?"
Witt replied, "When I was in the Wehrmacht."
IMO -
That relationship was seriously damaged when the Senator Church and his committee caused techniques and individuals to be revealed to the public, including enemies. Their actions not only seriously hampered our intelligence gathering, but caused a distrust of the US intel agencies, not the individuals but the politicians. It also caused the death and disappearance of a number of our operatives in the field. Subsequent flareups in Congress caused other revelations which have damaged levels of trust. I understand they do share, but because of these other experiences, they are circumspect.
IMO, it is only a matter of time when Germany, which is already the dominate power in EU, turns it into the EG - the European states of Germany. They are brilliant in the steady turning of that massive mass of BS called the EU into, what I believe is their goal, that is, one similar to Hitler’s but without bloodshed - a dominate world power.It is in their DNA!
I have only received shrugged shoulders when I have said this for the past 10 years.
LOL!
Germany is a major industrial power and not the kind of country the fading US can alienate. Germany is much more important in the EU than the UK. Washington is truly drunk with hubris.
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