Holger Stark

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Along with biotechnology, alternative energy and supercomputers, robotics is another sector America needs to win in a race with our fellow global power China.

Just wrote about the new Administration’s apparent obliviousness to the role robots currently play in manufacturing, a capacity which will only grow exponentially in the near future. While an obtuse policy of punitive tariffs might unintentionally jump-start domestic investment in robots, such a large-scale shift might work better if it was done via cohesive plan.

If U.S. investment in industrial robotics ends up producing more new jobs than expected, that’s great. If it leaves us without enough work for citizens, we really need to initiate a National Service program that would offer Americans living, stable wages in exchange for restoring and revitalizing our infrastructure and environment. As Holger Stark writes in Spiegel: “Today’s America is simultaneously the country of the iPhone and the country of potholes.” Fixing the latter would mean more could afford to enjoy the former.

In an excellent New York Times column, Farhad Manjoo advocates for the U.S. government to marshal a move toward developing automated machines, warning of the repercussions if we don’t. “Today, we buy a lot of stuff made in China by Chinese people,” he writes. “Tomorrow, we’ll buy stuff made in America — by Chinese robots.” The opening:

Factories play a central role in President Trump’s parade of American horrors. In his telling, globalization has left our factories “shuttered,” “rusted-out” and “scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation.”

Here’s what you might call an alternative fact: American factories still make a lot of stuff. In 2016, the United States hit a manufacturing record, producing more goods than ever. But you don’t hear much gloating about this because manufacturers made all this stuff without a lot of people. Thanks to automation, we now make 85 percent more goods than we did in 1987, but with only two-thirds the number of workers.

This suggests that while Mr. Trump can browbeat manufacturers into staying in America, he can’t force them to hire many people. Instead, companies will most likely invest in lots and lots of robots.

And there’s another wrinkle to this story: The robots won’t be made in America. They might be made in China. 

Industrial robots — which come in many shapes and perform a range of factory jobs, from huge, precisely controlled arms used to build cars to graceful machines that package delicate pastrieswere invented in the United States. But in the last few years the Chinese government has spent billions to turn China into the world’s robotic wonderland.

In 2013, China became the world’s largest market for industrial robots, according to the International Federation of Robotics, an industry trade group. Now China is working on another big goal: to become the largest producer of robots used for factories, agriculture and a range of other applications.

Robotics industry experts said that goal could be a decade away, but they see few impediments to China’s eventual dominance.

“If you look at the comparisons in investment between China and the U.S., we’re going to lose,” said Henrik Christensen, director of the Contextual Robotics Institute at the University of California, San Diego. “The investments in China are billions and billions. I’m not seeing that investment in the U.S. And without that investment, we are going to lose. No doubt.”•

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In some quarters of national political discourse, a theory holds that Americans elected Donald Trump not because they thought he would keep his promises but because they wanted to explode the status quo and burn down the house. This may be received wisdom.

If so, the citizens grossly undervalue the stability of the traditional state of affairs, which, for all its flaws, has served them better than they may accept. More likely, many Trump supporters are true believers, maybe not convinced he’ll build a gold-splattered wall to protect us from a nonexistent Mexican invasion but certain he would “drain the swamp” despite his long career as a creature from the black lagoon.

The thing is, some of the goods he swore he’d deliver (e.g., a return to manufacturing greatness) are all but impossible and others (say, tax breaks for billionaires, harassment of immigrants and the press) may lead to ugly consequences for all. Mix in the usual GOP voodoo that could now be realized (gutting Medicare, devastating labor unions, etc.), and it may soon be a bell-ringing hangover for those who got drunk at the Trump Winery. Further, a descent into actual autocracy is now on the table, the Constitution resting in the pocket of a careless man who may pretend to forget it’s there.

In the aftermath of the worst possible political outcome for the country, Holger Stark of Spiegel interviewed New Yorker Editor-in-Chief David Remnick, whose whole career has prepared him well for a moment he wished would never arrive. In addition to the ramifications of the appalling turn of events on Election Day, they discuss the failings of the Democrat Party, Putin’s use for Trump and the emergence of fake news. The opening:

Spiegel:

On the night of the election, you published a stunning warning that the election’s outcome was “surely the way fascism can begin.” It’s been three weeks now. Has fascism begun?

David Remnick:

No it has not and I want to be clear about what I wrote. The whole sentence, the complete thought is this: I don’t think there will be fascism in America, but we have to do everything we can to fight against it. As the Germans know better than we do, disaster can take a nation by surprise, slowly, and then all at once. My deep sense of alarm has to do with his seeming lack of fealty to constitutionalism. He seems to think it is within his rights to trample the First Amendment, to disdain the press, to punish protesters or flag-burners, to ban ethnic categories of immigrants, and so on. He has myriad conflicts of interest. He appoints people of low quality, to say the least. He lies with astonishing frequency and in stunning volume. His temperament and character is precisely what you would hate to see in your children, much less your president. We can wish all these things will magically change once he is in office, but will they?

I’ve lived through terrible presidents, we all have. I lived through the Nixon administration, which prolonged a horrific war for years and ran a criminal operation out of the White House, and I lived through the years with George W. Bush. And I lived for years in the Soviet Union and have seen the promise of democratic development turn, with Putin, into an authoritarian state. So yes, I think we should be alarmed, watchful, and, as journalists, rigorous and fearless. I think we should be alert.

Spiegel:

Similar developments have taken place in other countries as well.

David Remnick:

Trump’s election is part of an international trend that’s no less alarming, in Britain, in France, in Germany, in Austria. Vladimir Putin wanted to see this outcome no less than he would like to see nationalists and anti-Europeanists win in France. He wants to become the de facto head of an illiberal, xenophobic, hypernationalist trend in world politics.•

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If you want to know anything about American politics, a cable news TV personality may be the last person to ask.

Jake Tapper, who passes for a relatively serious passenger in Jeff Zucker’s clown car of infotainment known as CNN, sat for a Spiegel Q&A conducted by Gordon Repinski and Holger Stark. When Tapper acknowledges some in the U.S. media who’ve interviewed Donald Trump have let him get away with murder,” he could be speaking of anchors on his own network or Maureen Dowd or anyone with a microphone looking for low-cost content in a terrible advertising environment for media outlets.

It’s a very good, thoughtful interview, though I wish the Spiegel interlocutors had called out Tapper on his statement that “illegal immigration has a huge impact on the American economy.” The suggestion is that undocumented workers have somehow hurt U.S. citizens in the workforce, though most economists would disagree, believing this cheap labor force has actually boosted our economy.

An excerpt:

Spiegel:

What did the media and the political establishment miss over the last few years?

Jake Tapper:

A lot of substantive things that you have to give Trump his due for. On immigration, there is a degree of nativism involved in the demand to construct the wall, but I do think a lot of what’s driving Trump supporters on the issue of illegal immigration and building a wall is a basic duty of a government to keep the nation’s borders under control. Illegal immigration also has a huge impact on the American economy. And a lot of people think that the government has not taken this issue seriously.

Spiegel:

Which other topics are important?

Jake Tapper:

Terrorism and trade policy are clearly topics where Trump expresses the fears and concerns of many American people. There is a widespread feeling in this country that the government has been too willing to go into trade deals that sent American jobs to Mexico or to China. The affected communities feel left behind. This is what Trump’s supporters and Sanders’ supporters have in common. It is one of the reasons for Trump’s rise.

Spiegel:

It sounds as if people are finally putting their feet down.

Jake Tapper:

That’s part of it, though certainly there are parts of this campaign that have been ugly. I understand all that, and I’m not justifying any of the more offensive behavior this campaign season — I just want to make sure people also understand there are policy issues here as well, years of issues that have been ignored or at least not taken seriously enough by the Republican Party. The Republican Party was out of touch with a large plurality and ultimately a majority of their own voters.

Spiegel:

What kind of showdown between Clinton and Trump do you expect?

Jake Tapper:

Nasty, ugly, horrible.•

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trump-rally-twitter_v27vio

I asked this question last September: If Donald Trump grew a small, square mustache above his lip, would his poll numbers increase yet again?

We know the sad answer now. A candidacy that began with a bigoted proclamation accusing Mexicans of being rapists has grown into a full-fledged racist, nativist campaign that ejects African-Americans at stump speeches and vows to ban all 1.6 billion Muslims in the world from entering our immigrant country. It’s the ugliest, saddest face America has to show, and a surprising one since even those who doubted the election of President Obama signaled a post-racial nation never could have guessed that this many white citizens missed using ethnic slurs without consequence. Trump followers explain their adoration for the bully by exclaiming, “He says what I wish I could say,” and considering the words he’s chosen, it’s clear where their minds are at. Since his politics are often at odds with true conservatism, it’s revealed the GOP has long been about prejudice, not policy. “Make America Great Again” can easily be read as “Make America White Again.”

If Trump’s ascension marks the end of the modern Republican Party, it’s a death in the gutter. If he were to actually become President, America itself will have fallen from the curb.

From Holger Stark at Spiegel:

Trump’s unexpected success is part of a political revolt that has taken hold in America in recent months, and is shifting all known parameters. It is an uprising borne by the white lower and middle classes, and it is directed against the liberal establishment, President Barack Obama and the political correctness of the post-modern age — but also against a Republican Party, which the party rebels believe is part of the ailing system. Deeply religious Christians, the so-called Evangelicals, whose ancestors came from Europe and who helped create the United States, are the core of this uprising.

At the beginning of this election campaign, there were several things that were considered inalienable truths in political America. One of those was the recognition that the United States is a land of immigration, that its population is becoming more colorful, multicultural and multiethnic.

Bucking Convention

The lesson seemed clear: Those who hope to win elections must absolutely win the support of these groups of voters. The structure of the American population has changed radically. Blacks make up 12.9 percent of the population today and Hispanics more than 17 percent, with their share steadily increasing. Whites are predicted to become a minority by 2050. This democratic shift contributed significantly to President Barack Obama’s election victory in 2012. His challenger, Mitt Romney, managed to win just a quarter of Latino votes. A mere 6 percent of African-Americans voted for him.

Trump has studied these numbers carefully and drawn his conclusions, albeit against all the conventional rules of Washington political advisers. His campaign targets white, overwhelmingly Christian voters, who have felt marginalized and threatened for some time. Trump calls them “the silent majority.”

Some 70 percent of Americans are still Christians, and one in four US citizens, or about 80 million, are Evangelical Christians. However, only 27 million Evangelicals voted in the last presidential election, while the rest stayed home.

“Trump and Cruz both aim to energize this white, Christian core group, which is why they are not seeking compromise on issues, but have adopted harsh rhetoric instead,” says David Brody, chief Washington correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). “If one of them manages to convince only five to 10 million Evangelical non-voters to go to the polls, he’ll be able to take over the Republican Party and defeat the Democrats.”•

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What a difference a day makes. Just before the Iowa caucuses, Donald Trump was labeled by Spiegel the “world’s most dangerous man.” If he were to become President, you could make that argument since he is ridiculously unqualified for the job, but the first-in-nation voting put a crimp in his effort. New Hampshire could revise the script again, but on Tuesday morning he seems more Pat Buchanan with hair plugs than Pol Pot.

It’s deplorable that our new media equation used Trump as cheap entertainment, as if it were just one more tacky yet harmless reality show. Even worse are the supposedly serious journalists who depicted him as merely a somewhat irreverent entertainer when he was making fascistic noise in a very important arena. 

That being said, the Spiegel article by Markus Feldenkirchen, Veit Medick and Holger Stark is still really good. An excerpt:

‘It’s a Miracle Trump Didn’t Invent the Selfie’

Michael D’Antonio is sitting in an Applebee’s fast-food restaurant on Long Island, speaking quietly. He’s a cheerful, thoughtful man with a white beard, the polar opposite of Trump. D’Antonio has delved a lot deeper than most others into Donald Trump’s world.

D’Antonio recently wrote a biography of Trump, who was enthusiastic about the project and gave his cooperation — at least initially. Trump granted the author several interviews, which were usually held in his penthouse inside the Trump Tower, behind the kinds of double doors that would normally be used in castles. D’Antonio was granted free access to Trump’s family and associates, and spoke with his grown children and all three of his wives. But when Trump realized that D’Antonio was also one of his critics, he immediately canceled the project.

“What I noticed immediately in my first visit was that there were no books,” says D’Antonio. “A huge palace and not a single book.” He asked Trump whether there was a book that had influenced him. “I would love to read,” Trump replied. “I’ve had many best sellers, as you know, and The Art of the Deal was one of the biggest-selling books of all time.” Soon Trump was talking about The Apprentice. Trump called it “the No. 1 show on television,” a reality TV show in which, in 14 seasons, he played himself and humiliated candidates vying for the privilege of a job within his company. In the interview, Trump spent what seemed like an eternity talking about how fabulous and successful he is, but he didn’t name a single book that he hadn’t written.

“Trump doesn’t read,” D’Antonio says in the restaurant. “He hasn’t absorbed anything serious and profound about American society since his college days. And to be honest, I don’t even think he read in college.” When Trump was asked who his foreign policy advisers were, he replied: “Well, I watch the shows.” He was referring to political talk shows on TV.

In all of the conversations about his life, Trump seemed like a little boy, says D’Antonio. “Like a six-year-old boy who comes home from the playground and can hardly wait to announce that he shot the decisive goal.”

According to D’Antonio, American society revolves around two things: ambition and self-promotion. This is why Trump is one of the most appropriate heroes he can imagine for the country, he adds, noting that no one is more ambitious and narcissistic. “It’s a miracle Trump didn’t invent the selfie.”•

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Being great at one thing doesn’t necessarily mean you possess any general genius (e.g., Ben Carson, neurosurgeon). Michael Bloomberg believed the financial sector needed a certain type of information terminal and he created it with a ridiculous $10 million golden parachute he was handed after getting shitcanned by Salomon Brothers. About the terminals, he was right. It made him one of the richest people in the world, but his wealth should never have been taken as a sign of competence or rectitude.

As Mayor of New York, he did some great things and bungled major projects like Build It Back. He was tone deaf enough to want to proceed with the marathon in the wake of Hurricane Sandy turning New York City into a necropolis. Crime was kept low but policing got out of hand on his watch. The poorer people he claimed to champion often did worse. His paternalism knew no bounds, often seeming petty. He even scammed a third term, writing his own law in a back-office deal with another billionaire, voters be damned.

As a businessperson, Bloomberg is likewise a mixed bag. Unencumbered with the mayoralty, he’s returned to his namesake business, slicing and dicing his way through the journalistic side, an area for which he holds no great regard. All the while, those terminals keep updating, making general rightness or wrongness seem almost irrelevant on a large scale but often troubling on the micro one.

From Isabell Huelsen and Holger Stark at Spiegel:

Visitors to the building could be forgiven for thinking that the heyday of journalism was still ongoing. Staff exit the elevator into a light-filled foyer that feels like the lobby of a designer hotel. The eye is drawn to orange sofas and white lacquered counters, upon which rest bowls stuffed with apples, oranges and diced melon. There are carrot sticks and broccoli, as well as fresh roasted coffees that would put any Starbucks to shame. The employees scurrying by can help themselves free of charge. Bloomberg wants his people to be comfortable.

But his paternalism can at times seem condescending. The potato chip bags are free, but they’re only available in the smallest size possible. Bloomberg would like his people to eat healthily. And the elevators don’t stop on each of the building’s 25 floors — only on those marked with a white circle — forcing employees to take the stairs.

In nearly every Bloomberg bureau around the world there is at least one saltwater aquarium with purple and yellow fish and corals — to foster relaxation, Bloomberg says. Those who work for him should be proud of their job. One of his favorite sentences is: “The best for us.”

‘Scientology on Speed’

Those who jump ship, though, get a taste of his colder side. Bloomberg once confessed that he doesn’t attend going-away parties out of principle, saying that he couldn’t wish departing employees all the best. “That just wouldn’t be honest of me,” he said. Whoever turns his or her back on the company is no longer one of us, but one of “them.” Bloomberg’s employees must enter a binding contractual agreement to not divulge company secrets, including a clause that permits the company to scan an employee’s e-mails even after that person has left. The microcosm of Mike Bloomberg is a whimsical world of good and evil, one with its own unique — some might say sect-like — view of things. An insider jokingly refers to it as “Scientology on speed.”•

 

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Former Carter Administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose daughter, Mika, is a liberal Margaret Dumont employed to prevent Joe “Gummo” Scarborough from being absolutely the dumbest person in the room, spoke to Sebastian Fischer and Holger Stark of Spiegel about the contretemps with Russia. Brzezinski’s technically correct in labeling the West’s stalemate with Russia a new Cold War, but let’s not use that term as if had the same meaning as it did during the Soviet days. Russia is still nuked-up, sure, and Ukraine is of great concern, but the pre-Glasnost standoff was a completely different order of magnitude. The opening:

Spiegel:

Mr. Brzezinski, are we seeing the beginning of a new Cold War between Russia and the US?

Zbigniew Brzezinski:

We are already in a Cold War. Whether it will become hot is fortunately still less than likely.

Spiegel:

The last Cold War lasted more than 40 years. Will it last that long this time around?

Zbigniew Brzezinski:

I don’t think so. Things move much more rapidly. Pressures from the outside are more felt internally. If this continues, and if Ukraine doesn’t collapse, domestic pressures in Russia will force whoever is in charge to explore alternatives. Hopefully, Putin is smart enough to know that it’s better to explore alternatives ahead of time and not too late.

Spiegel:

Is he smart enough?

Zbigniew Brzezinski:

That’s very hard to say. He has what’s called “smarts” in American, which is a kind of instinctive smartness. He has a real sophistication. I wonder why he’s almost deliberately antagonizing more than 40 million people in a country next door which, until very recently, were not driven by any hostility towards Russia.

Spiegel:

Do you think it is right for the US to send heavy weaponry to Eastern Europe and the Baltic states?

Zbigniew Brzezinski:

Do you think it is right to send troops and weapons into a sovereign country and start up a limited war after having seized a larger portion of it?

Spiegel: 

You are talking about Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Zbigniew Brzezinski:

You have to see both sides.•

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Say what you will about Jill Abramson, but she gave the New York Times enduring gifts with the hires of Jake Silverstein and Deborah Needleman, editors respectively of the Magazine and the T Magazine. They’ve both done a lot of excellent work early in their tenures.

Her successor, Dean Baquet, amateur proctologist, is a talented person with a huge job ahead of him at the venerable and wobbly news organization, and he may yet call Mike Bloomberg boss because such a transaction makes a lot of sense financially. In a new Spiegel interview conducted by Isabell Hülsen and Holger Stark, Baquet addresses the technological “Space Race” he’s trying to win–or at least not lose. An excerpt:

Spiegel:

Digital competitors like BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post offer an extremely colorful mix of stories and have outperformed the New York Times website with a lot of buzz.

Dean Baquet:

Because they’re free. You’re always going to have more traffic if you’re a free website. But we’ve always admitted that we were behind other news organizations in making our stories available to people on the web. BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post are much better than we are at that, and I envy them for this. But I think the trick for the New York Times is to stick to what we are. That doesn’t mean: Don’t change. But I don’t want to be BuzzFeed. If we tried to be what they are, we would lose.

Spiegel:

In May, your internal innovation report was leaked along with its harsh conclusion that the New York Times’ “journalistic advantage” is shrinking. Did you underestimate your new digital competitors?

Dean Baquet:

Yes, I think we did. We assumed wrongly that these new competitors, whether it was BuzzFeed or others, were doing so well just because they were doing something journalistically that we chose not to do. We were arrogant, to be honest. We looked down on those new competitors, and I think we’ve come to realize that was wrong. They understood before we did how to make their stories available to people who are interested in them. We were too slow to do it.

Spiegel:

The report was disillusioning for many newspaper executives because the Times is widely seen as a role model when it comes to the question of making money on the web. The report, instead, pointed out that the Times lacks a digital strategy and the newsroom is far away from a “digital first” culture.

Dean Baquet:

First, the Times is and has always been a digital leader. The report only cited some areas where we fell down. Second: Half of the report is critical, and half of it has ideas for things you can do to fix the problem. A lot of things have been done already.

Spiegel:

What has changed?

Dean Baquet:

We have, for example, built a full-bodied audience development team that engages with our readers through social networks. The team has been in operation for three months now and we already have a pretty consistent 20 percent increase in traffic.

Spiegel:

How does this influence the work of your journalists?

Dean Baquet:

It used to be, if you were a reporter, you wrote a story and then you moved on to the next one. We were used to people coming to us. We waited for them to turn on our website or to pick up our print paper and see what we have. We now understand that we have to make our stories available to our readers. A lot of people get their news from Facebook or Twitter and we want to make sure that they see some of our best stories there, too. We do this more aggressively now than we did before.•

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Matthias Gebauer and Holger Stark of Spiegel conducted a sit-down about the Islamic State and the future of Iraq and Syria with General John Allen, who for the last four months has answered to the rather cumbersome title of “Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State.” While the IS is relatively small in numbers and is already buckling under the burden of governance, the task at hand in dealing with the terrorist state is still far from finished. From the Q&A:

Spiegel:

Who poses a greater threat to US interests — Assad or the IS?

General John Allen:

Assad is a menace to the region. What he has done to Syria has been the motivating factor for the rise of Daesh and Jabhat al-Nusra. So while Daesh carries its own threat to US interests, the political solution in Damascus and ultimately the departure of Assad and his ilk will be an important development for the region. That could help us return to a more stable environment in Syria. Again, if we’ve accomplished our objectives with respect to the political outcome, there will be a government that reflects the will of the Syrian people — and that will have the happy second and third order effect of assisting in the creation of stability more broadly in the region. Solving the political environment in Syria will go a long way towards eliminating or at least addressing some of the underlying causes.

Spiegel:

Assad’s regime seems to be more stable since the military campaign against the Islamic State. Is it possible that the political price you will pay for defeating IS will be a stronger regime?

General John Allen:

I don’t agree with the premise of your question. Assad has experienced significant difficulties in the field in a number of areas. Things are not going well for him in the south, and he continues to suffer under enormous sanctions internationally. And while he does have some support in the international arena, he is not more stable.

Spiegel:

Let’s take a look at the region’s future. Will Syria and Iraq exist in a few years as we know them today?

 

General John Allen:

I think we’ll see a territorially restored Iraq. The early indicators and performance of Prime Minister al-Abadi’s government are very positive. There’s a very interesting and positive trend in the region right now. The prime minister of Iraq was received by the Saudis, and the Saudis have called for the reopening their embassy in Baghdad. Abadi had a very good visit with the King of Jordan. Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan has been to Baghdad and Erbil. And Abadi has very strong relations with the Kuwaitis. The new government just agreed to the final oil deal with Kurdistan. It’s a remarkable development. People have been working on that for 10 years, and Abadi was able to do it since he came into office in September. Syria is more difficult to foresee right now, frankly. Whether we see a secular federalized Syria or something else remains to be determined.”

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All my condolences got to the family of photojournalist James Foley, who was executed by ISIS. What a brave and decent person he was, right down to the final harsh seconds of his life. If only all of us possessed such strength.

When you see such utter brutality of ISIS in Iraq, you’re reminded that such a group gained power only because we destabilized that region with a needless war, just one of the bad decisions we made in the wake of 9/11. Another was torture. We lowered ourselves to the level of our inhumane attackers. We never needed to carry out a holocaust to defeat Hitler, and we don’t have to turn ourselves into terrorists to overcome them. Let’s face it: The world has already overcome them, modernity rendering them merely a dangerous anachronism. We don’t need to head back to the 13th century ourselves to win this ever-shifting war.

One of the key figures in allowing waterboarding and renditions was CIA lawyer John Rizzo, who has written a book of his experiences, Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA. He just sat for an interview with Spiegel’s Holger Stark. An excerpt:

Spiegel:

Just days after 9/11, you also wrote up a list of possible covert actions. What did you suggest?

John Rizzo:

I actually wrote the first list the day of 9/11, literally two hours after the attack. Like everyone else, I was in a state of shock and bewilderment, but I knew that we were going to undertake counteractions that were unprecedented in my career. I scribbled down on my yellow legal pad conceivable options, including lethal operations against al-Qaida — not just the al-Qaida elements who carried out the 9/11 attack, but also those who would be planning future attacks. The list included, for the first time in the history of the CIA, a program to detain and interrogate senior al-Qaida leaders.

Spiegel:

Would you describe yourself as the architect of the renditions program through which suspected al-Qaida members were secretly kidnapped and abused?

John Rizzo:

I was certainly an architect of the interrogation program, even if I didn’t originally come up with it. I was the legal architect of the proposed list of techniques and played the lead role in obtaining legal approval for their use.

Spiegel: 

Who came up with the original idea?

John Rizzo:

Our people from the Counter Terrorism Center. One day they came to my office and listed all the enhanced interrogation techniques for me. I had never heard of waterboarding. Some techniques, such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation …

Spiegel:

… which kept those suspected by the CIA of terrorism awake for more than seven days non-stop …

John Rizzo:

… seemed harsh, even brutal to me. On the original list of proposed techniques was one which was even more chilling than waterboarding. It was never used.

Spiegel:

What technique was it?

John Rizzo: 

I’m not allowed to specify it; it is still classified. I had no preparation when the counterterrorism people came to me, and so my first reaction was one of being rather stunned by what was being proposed.”

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Two major questions about a potential Hillary Clinton White House:

  • Would she still be willing to do big and bold things as she tried to with heath-care reform during her husband’s administration, or has the price exacted from her during that time and from President Obama over the Affordable Care Act made her wary about attempting anything beyond incrementalism?
  • Would she be a neocon’s dream on foreign policy?

There are other questions regarding the undue influence of corporations in our democratic process, but I think those have been unfortunately answered already with the Clintons knee-deep in that kind of money.

From a new Spiegel interview with Clinton conducted by Marc Hujer and Holger Stark, some spying-related word association:

Spiegel:

Edward Snowden.

Hillary Clinton:

You know, I think he is a poor messenger for the message that he’s trying to take credit for. He came into the National Security Agency apparently with the purpose of trying to gather a lot of information, and most of what he gathered had nothing to do with surveillance in the United States, but obviously around the world. And I think he could have provoked the debate in our country without stealing and distributing material that was government property and was of some consequence. And then for him to go first to China and then to Russia raises a lot of questions, but he is going to have to make his own choices. If he returns to the United States, he will certainly stand trial, but he will have an opportunity to speak out and to make his case in both a legal way and a public fashion.

Spiegel: 

We actually wanted to talk about your book and not about the NSA, but since it became known on Friday that a member of the German intelligence agency was arrested who had admitted that he acted as a spy for a US intelligence service, the issue of the NSA has gained a new dimension. Given the tense political climate, do you believe the CIA could seriously come up with idea of infiltrating German intelligence?

Hillary Clinton:

Well, I know that your government is conducting a criminal investigation, and we will learn more as the facts are developed. And I know nothing other than what I read. But clearly, we have to do a much better job in working together between Germany and the United States to sort out what the appropriate lines of cooperation are on intelligence and security. I think the cooperation is necessary for our security, but we don’t want to undermine it by raising doubts again and again. Clearly, the surveillance on Chancellor Merkel’s phone was absolutely wrong. The president said that. I think that he made it very clear it was unacceptable. Where are the lines on both sides? That’s what we have to work out.”

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In a Spiegel interview by Marc Hujer and Holger Stark, former NSA director Michael Hayden addresses what he feels is the chilling effect the Snowden leaks have had on the Internet globally. I think, like it or not, the world is ultimately stuck with the Internet and a new normal in regards to privacy. An excerpt:

Spiegel:

On the one hand, the United States promotes the Internet as a tool of freedom. On the other hand, it now appears to many people to be a tool of surveillance.

Michael Hayden:

I am quite willing to have a discussion about what my country has or has not done, but it has to be based on facts. Let me first point out that the NSA doesn’t monitor what every American is doing on the Internet. The NSA doesn’t check who goes to what websites. But you’ve got these beliefs out there now.

Spiegel:

Your predecessor as head of the NSA, General Kenneth Minihan, compared the Internet with the invention of the atomic bomb. He said a new national effort should be dedicated to one single goal, ‘information superiority for America’ in cyberspace. It looks like you’ve gotten pretty close.

Michael Hayden:

We Americans think of military doctrine and ‘domains’ — land, sea, air, space. As part of our military thought, we now think of cyber as a domain. Let me define air dominance for you: Air dominance is the ability of the United States to use the air domain at times and places of its own choosing while denying its use to its adversaries at times and places when it is in our legitimate national interest to do so. It’s just a natural thing for him to transfer that to the cyber domain. I do not think it is a threat to world peace and commerce any more than the American Air Force is a threat to world peace and commerce.

Spiegel:

But do you understand if people in other countries are concerned about one country trying to gain “superiority” over something transnational like the Internet?

Michael Hayden:

I certainly do, and I thoroughly understand that. Now, other countries are creating cyber commands, but we were first, public, and very forceful in our language. We are now accused of militarizing cyberspace. Around the time US Cyber Command was created, McAfee did a survey of cyber security experts around the world. One of the questions they asked of them was, ‘Who do you fear most in cyberspace?’ The answer for the Americans was the Chinese. With the plurality of people around the world, it was the Americans.”

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