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god_from_celegans  6mo ago (text post)   Edited 6mo ago   2311 thread views

What did you learn from leaked documents?

We seek to understand the world, but it's made harder when part of it is hidden from us.

Leaked documents, represent a kind of ground truth, showing how the world really works. Telling us what's for sale, what the real agendas are, how powerful spies are, and how coordinated governments are. They are almost the opposite to conspiracy theories, as they present observations that can prune conspiracy theories.

But there are too many documents to read, so let's compare notes. What surprised you and caused you to update your view of the world?

Feel free to give a low effort reply, it's better than nothing.

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Wikileaks Hillary emails from 2016 showed that Tim Kaine had been selected as VP well before the election itself. It wasn't spelled out exactly why, but it was clear from the tone that Hillary's staff knew he was the pick a year in advance of the official announcement. The plausible working theory is that, since Tim Kaine had been chairman of the DNC, he selected Debbie Wasserman Schultz as his replacement in exchange for Hillary picking him for the VP slot. DWS was famously a Clinton acolyte and, if she didn't outright rig the primary for Clinton, at least did everything within her power to ensure the same.

This dynamic was barley-reported on: the mainstream media covered the emails but tried as little as possible to cover the content of the emails, or else focused on Goldman Sachs soundbites; social media preferred juicy coverage about John Podesta and "spirit cooking". But Hillary trading her VP slot for an arranged primary was right there in the data and largely ignored. And it was much more plausible and revealing of how power today works than any of the other angles.

Wow, that is interesting and I totally missed it. It's nice to see the dynamics of mundane corruption.

I agree there was little reporting on the contents. I remember one spreadsheet that detailed "what they have given me" and "what position I have given them" but I can't for the life of me find it again. However, it showed that you can buy an ambassadorial position for ~$100k

I vaguely remember that Ambassador expose and am not convinced it came from the Hillary Clinton emails -- it might have been a different wikileaks dump or a different dump altogether. I'm fairly convinced Ambassadorships have been for sale for a long time. If you start running down the list of different ambassadors, any to countries that aren't especially important are basically all patronage jobs. It's one of those things.

not a secret the nice-but-unimportant ambassadorships go to politically favored people (donors mostly, but not required).

See this list of current US ambassadors, and compare which ones have type column of "Career" (career diplomats, rising up through the Foreign Service usually), and which ones are "other" (usually cushier locales, usually countries US already has good relations with, does not require an experienced foreign service careerist to head because there is no work or work is handled fine by others).

For example, Ted Kennedy's widow is the ambassador to Austria, while JFK's daughter Caroline Kennedy is the ambassador to Australia (previously to Japan as well). Both of these would be politically favored IMO, and campaigned for Obama/Biden.

Donor example would be Denise Bauer, current ambassador to France (and Monaco). Previously Ambassador to Belgium. Donated 4.3 million to Obama, and other money to Democrats in general. I'm surprised it only takes 4.3 million TBH? But probably is fun to hang out in Paris and send your kids to American School of Paris there.

Compare with the resume of the current ambassador to China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Nicholas_Burns)

Ehhh..sort of a nothing burger, in my opinion.

This has been known for a long time. There's a great clip of John McCain asking questions to some Ambassador nominees. Well, he asks the same question to each of them - "Have you ever been to the country you are to be the ambassador of?" They all say "No," McCain replies, "I have no more questions for these highly qualified candidates." It's hilarious.

It also doesn't matter because 1) The ambassadorships that matter always go to career no-bullshit diplomats or politicians who are still very qualified (see Rahm Emanuel as Ambo to Japan at present) and 2) For the donor-Ambo's .... they still have the full, career diplomat staff behind them. If anything, it kind of frees up the State Department staff to actually get shit done with their counterparts while the multi-millionaire donor/ambassador gladly spends all of his/her time going to dinners and galas and what not. The last thing you want is that person actually trying to run the diplomat staff and setting and agenda.

oh yeah, I don't think we're in disagreement here. I'm just showing with the State Dept link that this isn't a secret.

re: McCain, that's funny, but also I'm surprised if Denise Bauer or whomever was trying to be the Ambassador to France had not been to France. Maybe makes sense if it's to Sweden or Luxembourg?

I think, and maybe also your point, that ambassadors to smaller-but-potentially-important countries might also not have been there previously. E.g. Jonathan Pratt was the last US Ambassador to Djibouti, and had postings from Pakistan, DR Congo, R. of Congo, Jordan, Sudan... but I highly doubt he'd have ever been to, or needed to have been to, Djibouti prior to taking up the post there.

Even below those positions (i.e. less known professional staff that support the Ambassadors and Consulate Generals), career Foreign Service folks are rotated around frequently in my experience (grew up abroad, had a lot of interaction with local consulate folks). For example someone who was the business/economy attache was moved to a post in South East Asia after 5 years at the consulate in my hometown. They got 6 months of essentially full-time language learning before moving over there to begin the new post, and of you go! Again, no reason they would've needed to have been to e.g. Hanoi or Phnom Penh before getting a post there.

Good point regarding necessity of a previous visit.

Furthermore, I (think) I found the McCain clip I referenced. It's actually more substantive than I remember, and only with one nominee. Still ends with the great punchline though.

oh this guy! lol. Wasn't this hearing so bad that he withdrew from the nomination to Norway?

Anyway, he's the current Ambassador to Greece, which given his Greek-background seems much more appropriate.

In Canada there was a high level bureaucrat who didn't like the incoming government. He basically did nothing but attend meetings then leak the contents of those meetings to the press with negative spin.

Of course at that level he was impossible to fire.

So they put him in charge of one of the less important Mexican consulates.

There are certain jobs that you can only get by making powerful people very happy or very unhappy.

Indian Administrative Service officers, a brutally meritocratic branch of the government existing as a leftover from colonial days, have a reputation for being highly competent, and if not incorruptible, markedly less so than the norm.

When one of them offends a politician, for whatever reason, be it political or just being a PITA when it comes to corruption and associated bribery, the preferred method of dealing with them is shunting them off to oversee a backwater since they're almost impossible to fire. Some poor bastards have been kicked about all over the country on a nigh monthly basis.

Oh... that might be why I couldn't find it. I'll have another look.

I think, even if something is widely suspected, it's still nice to have written evidence and details like the prices. It helps with debates and economics papers if nothing else.

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