I honestly panicked reading this! At first I was under the impression that this was breaking news. And if true it has major implications. But that’s a really big if. It wasn’t until I read the article that it became obvious I was being manipulated to believe a narrative without evidence. The most disingenuous part of the article is that it starts with a bold claim presented as truth, and then immediately includes two sentences about the White House denying the claim before jumping into thousands of words of hearsay and a story presented as fact. As if to say, “what you’re about to read is a story, and you should know that, but you have to be smart enough to parse between the lines to see that — and I’m avoiding stating it directly so that I can get away with writing the story the way I want to write it on the chance it’s true.”
Substantiate the claims and I’ll rescind criticism. I like to believe I’m a thoughtful and relatively apolitical person, I just have a visceral reaction to being manipulated in this way (bold claim, no evidence) and I’d hope other people share the same standards.
Given who authored this, and who is referencing it, this is now a “thing.”
This being published is for sure going to have an impact on diplomatic relations. Removing it from HN doesn’t stop anyone of relevance in this from seeing it. Presidents, ministers, ambassadors, senators, etc. are probably being briefed on this. The White House is going to have to deal with this regardless of its truthiness.
I suspect countries are going to want answers. The U.S. saying “this is not true” probably isn’t going to cut it for the countries involved.
This story has relevance regardless of its truthiness.
After seeing how Germany handled the USA spying on Merkel (phone saga), I do not expect them countries involved asking further questions or taking appropriate actions.
Welp, maybe taking no action IS the appropriate action. The west must stay united and trade must flow.