Prelude to the Apocalypse

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Iran War. When.

2021
3
6%
2022-2025
15
28%
2026-2030
7
13%
2031-2040
3
6%
2041-2050
0
No votes
Never
25
47%
 
Total votes: 53

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Mischief Maker
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Mischief Maker »

BryanM, I was wrong. In the end Trump did fire John Kelly. In my defense, some of the things he said about Kelly sounded like a teenage girl gushing about her quarterback boyfriend.

I'm reasonably sure Donald Trump hasn't slept with his daughter Ivanka because he hasn't kicked her to the curb yet.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Specineff
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Specineff »

Seemingly Trump has caved in about shutting down the government if he didn't get the budget for his wall, and some of his fans aren't too happy about that.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/conser ... order-wall

Ann Coulter wrote:Trump will just have been a joke presidency who scammed the American people.
Sokath, her eyes uncovered!
Don't hold grudges. GET EVEN.
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Rob
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Rob »

Image
Historically speaking, the term "neoconservative" refers to those who made the ideological journey from the anti-Stalinist left to the camp of American conservatism during the 1960s and 1970s.[4] The movement had its intellectual roots in the Jewish monthly review magazine Commentary, edited by Norman Podhoretz and published by the American Jewish Committee.[5][6] They spoke out against the New Left and in that way helped define the movement.
Once more, the facts - neoconservatism was and is predominantly a Jewish movement. Neocons are really upset about a potential end to these forever wars (that they helped get America into) with Israel's enemies. This is not complex stuff. They are also some of the loudest critics of America protecting its own border. These people are not and never were conservatives or (American) nationalists.
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BryanM
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by BryanM »

Rob wrote:These people are not and never were conservatives or (American) nationalists.
Your fixation on bickering over pointless labels is truly amazing. Heads I win, tails you lose. If it's good, it's God. If it's bad, it's the Devil.

This grift isn't new or special. You get paid by someone, and then you do their bidding. This is what's called a "job".

If you think the conservative wing of Israel are the ones pushing for us to unleash another blood bath in South America for some reason, that's nice. Back in material land, we see a well paid middle man working on behest of a capitalist that wants to acquire more capital.

It is a little sad you think that a job is an "ideology" though. There is technically an ideology behind bureaucrats for aggressive foreign intervention: "I am a money whore and will bathe in a river of the blood of children to get more of it." Deeper still, that is it is acceptable and good to exploit others unto death to benefit oneself, even if that benefit is only slight.

This philosophy is what we traditionally call "conservatism" - protecting the established hierarchy from disruption. "Liberalism" is, in turn, a way to reduce the opposition to the established power bloc by making it seem nicer than it is. (Their primary function is, obviously, to defeat those damn socialists who think there should be less hierarchical exploitation in the world.)

Directly shooting employees in the head every time they asked for a raise obviously had some backlash. Outsourcing those jobs overseas and shooting them in the head when they ask for a raise proved much more effective. They can't vote and it's much harder for them to cross an ocean to complain about it.

Things are the way they are for a reason.

Defeating capitalism with capitalism is an astonishingly weird idea. This blatantly impossible to resolve paradox is why times like this always ends with either more socialism or fascism (maybe we'll have the nice kind this time) getting installed. People won't be satisfied until they get paid.
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Zen »

Making this into a semantic reductionist argument about labels, is disingenuous.

I think it is plain, that what Rob is saying, is the Neo-Conservatives, are neither Conservative nor, indeed, new and that further,
contained within the Neo-Con are ideologies which could and most probably should, be considered non-American.

Did you really need to wilfully misrepresent Rob's point, so that you could go on yet another, Socialist rant, BryanM?

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Ed Oscuro
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Ed Oscuro »

All I'm sayin is, if Mexico doesn't pay for my wall, I'm going to BURN THIS MOTHER DOWN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y63784JvYA

- Donald Jesus Confucius

but seriously, can you guys take the zero-effort image macros someplace that cares?

As to the point about neo-cons (I've obviously not read all the backlog since my last post), give me one reason to care. Trump's unwillingness to actually have views means that there are plenty of neo-cons in his administration. John Bolton clearly is one, and he didn't care enough about Trump's Syria indecision to quit yet. If Hillary was President, we'd not be having this discussion.
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Ed Oscuro »

Ed Oscuro wrote:
Rob wrote:
Ed Oscuro wrote:Us whites have always wanted to keep power on our own terms.
Why would we not want to maintain control of our own nation?
That's socialism
But to give you a 'proper' (expanded) response this time, you clearly didn't get it:

a.) "We" never get control of our country by handing power over to Trump and 'nationalists.' SS, DD.
b.) "We" do not have a democracy by shutting other participants in said democracy out of the equation - don't be coy and try to pretend that there's not an ongoing effort to shut out the blacks and Hispanics, including all of those who have been here since before the nation's founding. (Yes, believe it or not, there were Indians and Latinos in the Southwest before there was a Texas. :O! )
c.) "We" is not a very Thatcherite prescription: "There is no society - only individuals, and families," said the queen of mean.

You don't get to have a "nationalist" country without bringing along the ugly and self-defeating concepts of racial purity and social Darwinism. You don't have to be a bleeding heart to see that a worldview founded on such ideas will always tend towards Locke's state of nature.
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BryanM
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by BryanM »

Yeah, it's sad that Trump really might have been a lesser evil.
don't be coy and try to pretend that there's not an ongoing effort to shut out the blacks and Hispanics, including all of those who have been here since before the nation's founding.
The freaking holidays man.

Listening to my mother wax apologetic about the genocide of native americans, but in the same brain support continuing the genocide of native americans by agreeing with the "shoot mexicans at the border!" sentiment.

And then days later gets angry at a hunter for killing an albino deer. Murdering kids is fine, but murdering deer isn't apparently.
Zen wrote:I think it is plain, that what Rob is saying, is the Neo-Conservatives, are neither Conservative
Once again, this obsession with re-defining labels you guys have is tedious. It exists solely as a way to propagate tribalism.

If someone is against a war, just be against it. If they actually want to have any power to change this policy, and want to be more than a typical liberal that only feigns support of good things but doesn't actually actively support them, they're going to have to join hands with the dirty filthy hippies to do anything about it. (And the inverse of that is true as well.)

Someone wants to waste time with "no true scottsman" wankery and exclude some conservatives protecting and serving Mr.Burns with all their hearts and souls from their imaginary clubhouse, alrighty. It's disrespectful of their fine service to capitalism, but whatever. Only you and your god understands the motives behind why you guys protect the conservative liberals so much.

(Kidding, it's because you all think people with blue hair are gross and icky.)
(You'll never get to become pokemaster with that attitude Zen.)
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Ed Oscuro
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Ed Oscuro »

I know everybody likes to take shots at Clinton, but here's the thing: Trump didn't bother to even ask anybody about what was apparently Erdogan's request to pull US forces out of Syria. We just fucked the Kurds over, AGAIN, big time, because Turkey wants to roll in and slaughter the PKK (and basically anybody Kurdish). If this really is happening (and it seems that it is) we will be putting lots of people in mortal danger.

I guess it's fair to say that my comment about Hillary invites discussion of why we got into the mess there, and about the original goals, but some things we can part out from other discussions. The Kurds and various Syrian groups have been punching bags for the region's hard hitters for literally decades. It didn't seem to me that being a check on the murders going there has been a bad thing, and if he had some actual leadership we could have moved forward to better solutions that might let people save face, while also protect civilians.

More simply, we have to acknowledge "facts on the ground," you don't just decide to do a 180 and Cartman outta there, and fuck everybody over because you had a phone call.

As for who really shoulders blame in Syria? Some leaked recordings give an idea:
https://taskandpurpose.com/russian-merc ... ked-audio/

And the Ukraine is still fighting the "separatists" in its borders. Trump's whole shtick has been to just let China and Russia run rampant on everybody so long as he gets to be seen on TV in the big leagues, in what many people have charitably taken to calling a "transactional worldview."
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by ED-057 »

We just fucked the Kurds over, AGAIN
That's what arming a proxy group to do one's dirty work is all about. Maybe we should stop doing it.
we will be putting lots of people in mortal danger.
It didn't seem to me that being a check on the murders going there has been a bad thing
lolololololol

Even if the US was completely serious about being the world's benevolent police force, rather than that just being a BS story that they put out to justify themselves to the foolish and ignorant, it would take an eternity to make up for the death and destruction that they've already caused.
and if he had some actual leadership we could have moved forward to better solutions that might let people save face, while also protect civilians.
No. It's impossible for the US to save face. That would require them to stop lying.
And the Ukraine is still fighting the "separatists" in its borders.
Bringing up Ukraine and Syria at the same time is great for a laugh.

In Syria the US armed sunni jihadists to take down Assad, rebranded them as "freedom fighters" and cries about Assad "bombing his own people."

In Ukraine the US installed and armed some corrupt oligarch, and cheers him on while he bombs his own people.

Syria having its land stolen by Turkey, Israel, or KSA, and some other part handed over to US pawns is a "great idea!"

Ukraine having its land "stolen" by... the people that already live there, who weren't keen on being attacked and ruled by thugs, is a terrible tragedy, blah, blah blah.
Trump's whole shtick has been to just let China and Russia run rampant
Please stop lying.
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Ed Oscuro
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Ed Oscuro »

Russia annexing "the Crimea" (a part of the Ukraine) as a result of those events is just a coincidence, surely. As was the appearance of anti-air missile systems from Russia (including the system that shot down an airliner full of Dutch people and which immediately beat a hasty retreat back to Russia). And un-uniformed Russian military members posing as those "people who live there." And Russia annexing Georgia. Pretty much every country has disapproved of what was another blatant land grab by Russia. If you've been paying attention to the news, which seems doubtful, you'd also have noticed that Russia's navy has been blockading the Ukraine, all surely just on behalf of Putin's benevolent feelings towards "the people who live there." Truth is, Russia barely even considers its activities in the region worthy of a fig leaf at this point, and when they do say so, it is usually a lie.

On Syria...again, you can't be more wrong. Let's recap:

1) US body politic votes in George W. Bush, who goes to war in Iraq on untrue pretexts, and unwittingly unleashes a wave of anti-American resistance which is directly responsible for the explosion of Taliban/Al-Qaeda style copycat groups, and worldwide recruitment o all such groups.
2) Syria is the latest territory infested with ISIS and Assad uses the pretext to gas long-time domestic foes of his autocratic rule.

Your dismissal of the entire US-allied Syrian opposition as a "proxy army to do dirty work" ignores the fact that the Assad family have massacred their own people in the past, and that we are talking about groups of people who are targeted indiscriminately on the theory that they are dissidents in the making - publicly, the lie is put forward that they are all terrorists, which you obviously don't believe either. The international community has a commitment to stop attacks on civilians. It also ignores the fact that this has been, even in Trump's own words, a rather rare successful mission (which I detail more below). The situation, therefore, was stable enough to look for a resolution to the issue. Pulling out of there simply fucks everything up, and there's no other way to put it.

What exactly is your argument against a relatively bloodless intervention that has tamped down ISIS and kept all the parties respecting their lines? Even if Erdogan stands by his word and resists going right after the Kurds, the other players have made no such commitments. They have, however, brazenly lied about targeting civilians (Russian military and Assad both, and Turkey also has made lots of unbelievable claims about the Kurds too). We only saw the faintest fig leaf of plausible deniability when the Wagner Group mercenaries were sent to die on behalf of the Russian military, on the off chance that perhaps the US forces would just fold after a show of arms. Ironically, they died for nothing, because it only took a phone call to get Trump to pull everybody out.

There is a standing promise (made by the Pentagon last year) that when we leave we take the small and heavy arms back with us, just to prevent the sort of leakage into terrorist groups you are rightly concerned about. That will be lots of fun. Trump calling back all the soldiers doesn't fix that issue.

More news flashes for you: Trump has relied on drone strikes just as much as Obama did - for a period, overtaking Obama's use of drones. link.
When we leave, China is ready to step right in, on Assad's side: link

It's kind of frightening that somebody with your level of ignorance can vote. China is boxing its dissidents in camps and putting them to work sewing garments (well, the Uighur ones, anyway; other dissidents reportedly may just be sent on a vacation.) You really think that these guys are interested in the moral high ground in Syria? Are you seriously dumb enough / conspiracy-theory addled enough to think that these are the kind of loving guys who are going to care about civilians? That the Kurds are all simply dirty terrorists? Kurds getting pummeled by everybody is such an old story that it's even a minor plot point in the original Metal Gear Solid. That's 20 damn years ago - it was already public knowledge the Kurds were an endangered people.
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Rob
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Rob »

Ed Oscuro wrote:b.) "We" do not have a democracy by shutting other participants in said democracy out of the equation
Other participants that the government chooses for us? :lol: I'm open to alternative forms of government when "democracy" means swamping the existing voters with a new set of voters.
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Ed Oscuro »

I believe you're moving the goalposts there - I was referring to what I thought was an assertion that it was proper for "us whites" to have all the power. As you no doubt realize, the nation has never been exclusively white.

I'll be honest here, I'm not so keen on massive immigration because in my view the world is overpopulated (and I just moved someplace even more populated than where I had been). As far as culture, well, we already had that discussion; the people take care of culture, and we can't blame immigrants for the death of American culture. We can blame people's continued misplaced faith in Mark Zuckerberg for that, in part, and also for the people who let things like bad Star Wars films happen.

But at the same time I have met a lot of good folks who were refugees from one part of the globe or another, and I think they have assimilated just fine. Doesn't mean everybody will, etc., etc.

Bonus round: There are two good articles outlining why we should pull out of Kurdish Syria and/or Afghanistan:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... icy-223418
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ia/578755/

At the same time it has to be said that the mission in Syria seems hardly wasteful given its small size (2000 soldiers, mostly in a training capacity), and it also should be said that there is a real uncertainty as to what this move really entails.

It sure is funny to read people say "let's go kill ISIS" on one hand, and then sometimes the very same people now say "these Kurds are doing our dirty work." And the US-aligned forces there seem to mainly be involved in defensive activities; a far cry from going out and assassinating Bashar Al-Assad directly - which Trump wanted to do. Who's the overconfident dirty tricks player now?
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Zen »

BryanM wrote:The freaking holidays man.

Listening to my mother wax apologetic about the genocide of native americans, but in the same brain support continuing the genocide of native americans by agreeing with the "shoot mexicans at the border!" sentiment.

And then days later gets angry at a hunter for killing an albino deer. Murdering kids is fine, but murdering deer isn't apparently.
Well!

It would seem that your Mother, (long life and best wishes ma'am, on this Christmas season) appears to be a very grand lady indeed.
Intelligent and strong, with a higher understanding of intent, while rising above the base response to gross action. Most commendable.

Which raises the question, BryanM, where did she find you?!
BryanM wrote:Once again, this obsession with re-defining labels you guys have is tedious. It exists solely as a way to propagate tribalism.
And once again, you wilfully opt to misrepresent what was said.

Are we really going to go back, to the dark days of the Bush thread?

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(This "Macro image" - sponsored by; Ed Oscuro - "because he cares")

I understand the points you make about "neo-Conservatives". There is truth to what you say about them. But it was a very specific point about them, that was initially made.
A point that you abstractly used, to springboard into - fuck Capitalism, mode.

It seems to me, ByranM, that you are the one with the predilection for Shoehorning and Pigeonholing by way of political labels.
I fail to see, how I was making a "political" point?

It should be obvious by now, that I am not "political".

For the sake of temporal structure and strictly under protest, I am prepared to work with a "Right" - "Left" categorisation. But that's it!
I have never voted for a political party or candidate.
On Constitutional matters, on the off chance that the vote is not fixed, I vote on a basis of Nationalistic duty. That's the full extent of my "politics".
I see no Conservatives, Liberals, Democrats, Social Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Socialists, Fascists, Communists.

I only see "The Farm".
And on it, are two groups; Those who want out and set their lives to this end, for themselves and their people -

And those who want to "arrive at terms", with the Farmers, assuage their lot by fantasising about "a more fair Farm for all",
while swimming about in their contrite egalitarian sedation because misery loves company.

Your domesticated notion of "change", will be the end of you, my friend.
Last edited by Zen on Sat Dec 22, 2018 1:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ed Oscuro
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Ed Oscuro »

Seriously, image macros, enough, please. Learn to write arguments instead of trying to copy-paste slams to telegraph your whatever bleeding from wherever.
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by austere »

Ed Oscuro wrote:On Syria...again, you can't be more wrong. Let's recap:

1) US body politic votes in George W. Bush, who goes to war in Iraq on untrue pretexts, and unwittingly unleashes a wave of anti-American resistance which is directly responsible for the explosion of Taliban/Al-Qaeda style copycat groups, and worldwide recruitment o all such groups.
2) Syria is the latest territory infested with ISIS and Assad uses the pretext to gas long-time domestic foes of his autocratic rule.
1) Interesting you claim this since most of ISIS came out of US run prisons in Iraq, known to conduct torture, including Baghdadi.
Image
Of course Michelle Obama thinks the person who caused this has a lot of humanity or something. I'm sure you agree given that you're pretty much defending him...
2) A whole load of debunked BS and war propaganda that can be easily classified as crimes against peace.
Your dismissal of the entire US-allied Syrian opposition
They are and were terrorists and they're thankfully mostly fertiliser now. They're also FORMERLY US-allied, most of these terrorists are now controlled by Turkey and Qatar.
Assad family have massacred their own people
I'm really sick of hearing this from people who regularly massacre my own people. Just stop. Seriously. Stop.
They have, however, brazenly lied about targeting civilians (Russian military and Assad both, and Turkey also has made lots of unbelievable claims about the Kurds too).
Get off your high horse, the US alliance, after WWII, has a body count of over 20 million around the world through proxy wars and direct wars. The USAF levelled Raqqa and Mosul, killing 10s of thousands of civilians and then just let ISIS walk out. Your Kurds are threatening to release 3200 of these subhuman ISIS filth into the wild. You have absolutely NO LEG TO STAND ON.
<RegalSin> It does not matter, which programming language you use, you will be up your neck in math.
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Ed Oscuro
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Ed Oscuro »

So you hate Kurds. I get it, you want to get back to massacring them in peace, just like the old days. Well, it's not just the US that got involved - France and Britain are there too, and most of the rest of the world has been horrified by the Assad regime's abuse of civilians. So either the entirety of the Western and rebel media are fabricating with a level of sophistication never before seen, or - you're not exactly the humanitarian you always claimed to be.

You can be damn sure that if, say, my country was bombing American Latinos (reaching for some kind of parallel) I would not be sitting here saying "well, they were all a bunch of terrorists anyhow."

What is your rebuttal point 1) supposed to prove, other than that you don't know the difference between the George W. Bush and Obama administrations? Hint: The picture you're posting was made long before Obama was President. But thanks for agreeing with me, I guess?
austere wrote:Get off your high horse, the US alliance, after WWII, has a body count of over 20 million around the world through proxy wars and direct wars.
Totally irrelevant to this case, try again. Or are you a Wagner Group merc in your spare time?

I don't have to prove a damn thing about the US having its own house in order - I think I've made it clear enough times that I viewed the Iraq War as a lawless venture and I have never defended it. It doesn't absolve anybody else, anywhere, of responsibility for protecting and not bombing (or gassing) civilians. Kind of shameful that you, a supposed computer scientist, does not see the blatant logical fallacy there.
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by austere »

Ed Oscuro wrote:So you hate Kurds.
:mrgreen: You're not even worth arguing with to be honest, I don't know what I was thinking. I didn't bother reading the rest of your reply. Learn some respect and maybe I will.

And by the way, if Trump really does pull out and this isn't some kind of trick (99% chance it is), he's going to be the greatest US president of the 21st century so far no matter what else he does. The idiots perpetuating the Russian hysteria can't even see that pulling out of Syria contains both Russia and Iran in the region. Removing a problem that allowed them to spread, on Syria's expense, is always something that is to the US's advantage. Otherwise Turkey and the black sea (by extension) is lost. Syria is America's natural ally in the region and is very similar to Greece/Cyprus and the west of Turkey to an extent.

We all know what made Washington DC treat it like an enemy and try to destroy it with the terrorist war. Rob at least probably does, heh.
<RegalSin> It does not matter, which programming language you use, you will be up your neck in math.
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Ed Oscuro »

Sorry, but respect is not earned by dodging any attempts at a honest educational experience. I've asked you, when we previously had this rodeo to back up some of your claims, but it's all blah blah America inflicts Imperialism on other people so I get out of jail free card. ISIS is indeed partly a demonic sprout of American foreign policy, but it also persists because too many people seem to think pogroms and massacres are the proper way to deal with all problems.

Truth is 'we' are not actually going away so maybe Assad and the Russkies will have to find some "respectful" new way to deal with his failed state.

I am sorry that the US has caused so many colossal fuckups in the region and I know I am going to be paying for that, in a number of ways, for years to come, and I am sorry for all the Syrian people as well. But that is not a problem solved by demonizing the Kurds or other non-"legitimate" opposition forces (again, all these details you carefully avoid mentioning in the open, and my growing suspicion is that you view these things on purely sectarian or ethnic lines).

You're a shame to your people and that's the last I will have to say on it as well.
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by austere »

Ed Oscuro wrote:dodging any attempts at a honest educational experience
Ed Oscuro wrote:blah blah America inflicts Imperialism on other people
:lol:
Truth is we are not going away so maybe Assad and the Russkies will have to find some "respectful" new way to deal with his failed state.
:roll: Assad's government employees get paid on time unlike in the US. Who has a failed state now, Eddy? The Syrian government isn't shutting down. (For the record, I'm just teasing Eddy here)
I am sorry that the US has caused so many colossal fuckups
You say that like it's not part of the design. It's deliberate. The rise of ISIS is deliberate. Go read the DIA papers from 2012-2014. There's some sources (and for the record, unlike the very disgusting claim you make about me not sourcing evidence, I actually do. You never actually link anything in your posts).
I know I am going to be paying for that, in a number of ways, for years to come, and I am sorry for all the Syrian people as well.
For you it's free, you have NO IDEA how much it has cost Syrians. You have no idea how much it cost ME on a personal level and it was mostly my own choices to avoid the entire thing and sadly lose a lot of family which I never got to visit before they died of illness/sudden heart attacks. You just have no idea and to compare what you think you will suffer with what I've seen friends with is down right LAUGHABLE. No one in the north American continent outside WWII veterans have seen what a real war looks like.

Syrians don't take it personally unlike the constantly whinging people who cry out for reparations or whatever. War is a natural fact of life and eventually, with hard work and persistence, the remaining Syrians will rise above what the Syrians before the war could have achieved. That's why Syria's symbol is the phoenix. Hell, we've been at it for 7000 years and all the empires that tried to wipe us out no longer exist.
But that is not a problem solved by demonizing the Kurds
They do that fine on their own:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/worl ... trump.html
You may want to scream "RACIST" and close your ears while I present raw facts and evidence to you, but it's down right disrespectful in an argument which is why I didn't bother reading the rest of the post. If you want an argument with facts, I'm game. If it's rhetorical masturbation (ad hominems etc.), I'm out.
or other non-"legitimate" opposition forces
Oh you know just regular heart eaters or whatever.
You're a shame to your people and that's the last I will have to say on it as well.
Believe me, coming out of you that's a compliment. :wink: I don't know why I keep jumping at these arguments in shnupzfarm, it's like beating up a crippled old man with a broken down wheelchair.
<RegalSin> It does not matter, which programming language you use, you will be up your neck in math.
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Ed Oscuro »

All I can say is that I have to remind myself that you do have some skin in the game so it's expected you come out swinging like this. Apologiez for getting heated, but you kind of seem to have a thing for me. Big smooches.

Ahh, the fabled DIA papers. Just like the Elder Protocols of Zion, most likely, but if you want to educate me further I'd need a proper link.

I find this shady site which soon leads me to this...
https://twitter.com/MaxAbrahms/status/1 ... 4312766465
Note that guy on Twitter is also a guy "Levant Report" uses to make some strange claims. Also seems likely that

I will admit that if this charge is true - shades of Bay of Pigs, doesn't seem like something Obama was in on - it would be a great stain on US foreign policy.
Not to say that there are no other groups with a free hand in conducting their own "proxy wars" from Syrian soil.

Moving to today, though, we are in a different situation with respect to the Kurds and US support to them, or so it seems.

And yeah, we are on the verge of having a failed state, I'll agree with that.

But you know what? At the end of the day Trump will be gone and you'll still be believing the propaganda of the murderous thugs Assad and Putin, busy leading their countries nowhere.
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Jonathan Ingram
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Jonathan Ingram »

Ed Oscuro wrote:I am sorry that the US has caused so many colossal fuckups in the region and I know I am going to be paying for that
"Fuck up" means something going wrong, against the intended result. Starting wars, propping up religious fundamentalists, fascists and generally reactionaries of all strains and colors are the kind of "fuckups" that find their match and go together with the 'purely accidental' expansionist economic policies, seizure of raw materials, dumping of surplus monopoly capital into countries with dirt cheap labor and subsequently absorbing these countries into "free-trade" agreements of benefit to no one but developed capitalist nations and their comprador bourgeois lackeys. That all of these are not at all accidental nor are "fuckups" and constitute a system called imperialism(or monopoly capitalism) should be a self-evident truism to any leftist worth their salt, unless said leftist comes from the US in which case fits of righteous anger and indignation over the rise of nationalism and inequality at home peacefully co-exist in a totally self-consistent and non-contradictory manner with the whitewashing(or outright support) of their nation's imperialist policies abroad.
but it's all blah blah America inflicts Imperialism on other people
I like how nonchalant and dismissive you are about it. The US has been behind most fascist and military dictatorships in modern history, but "blah blah", right? Now that's some solid internationalist working class solidarity with the oppressed the world over, truly worthy of the anti-authoritarian, anti-totalitarian, democratic, election-obsessed, official US left.
I will admit that if this charge is true - shades of Bay of Pigs, doesn't seem like something Obama was in on - it would be a great stain on US foreign policy.
Effectively, this is just more apologia for your own home-grown imperialist crooks - starry, stripy, English-speaking and oh, so purdy. They may misbehave sometimes, but are good kids otherwise. Not like those scary foreign thugs Putin, Assad and whatnot. Very leftist of you, yes.
But you know what? At the end of the day Trump will be gone and you'll still be believing the propaganda of the murderous thugs Assad and Putin, busy leading their countries nowhere.
Capitalism is the rule of a class, not a person. Self-evident truism №2. Trump will be gone but the regime he represents will remain in the foreseeable future and so will the socioeconomic realities that made his election possible.
Russia annexing "the Crimea" (a part of the Ukraine) as a result of those events is just a coincidence, surely.
Crimea was transferred from Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954 on the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The series of the so-called "decommunization" laws put into action by the Ukrainian government in 2015 designate RSFSR and Ukrainian SSR(as well as all other constituent republics of the USSR) as "illegitimate terrorist states" and, among other things, establish glorification and/or justification of state policies during that time period as criminal offense. Now, I personally don't care whether Crimea is Russian, Ukrainian, Canadian or an independent state like in Vassily Aksyonov's book "The Island of Crimea", but would it be too much to ask of Ukrainian fascists and their left-wing US cheerleaders to be consistent with their own views and policies and admit that modern Ukraine cannot be entitled to the ownership of Crimea because an act of land transfer performed between illegitimate terrorist states under the yoke of an illegitimate terrorist government constitutes itself an illegitimate act.
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Durandal
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Durandal »

Two Guys Keep Arguing With Eachother While Repeatedly Telling The Other They Are Not Worth Arguing With
Ed Oscuro wrote: Your dismissal of the entire US-allied Syrian opposition as a "proxy army to do dirty work" ignores the fact that the Assad family have massacred their own people in the past, and that we are talking about groups of people who are targeted indiscriminately on the theory that they are dissidents in the making - publicly, the lie is put forward that they are all terrorists, which you obviously don't believe either. The international community has a commitment to stop attacks on civilians. It also ignores the fact that this has been, even in Trump's own words, a rather rare successful mission (which I detail more below). The situation, therefore, was stable enough to look for a resolution to the issue. Pulling out of there simply fucks everything up, and there's no other way to put it.

What exactly is your argument against a relatively bloodless intervention that has tamped down ISIS and kept all the parties respecting their lines? Even if Erdogan stands by his word and resists going right after the Kurds, the other players have made no such commitments. They have, however, brazenly lied about targeting civilians (Russian military and Assad both, and Turkey also has made lots of unbelievable claims about the Kurds too). We only saw the faintest fig leaf of plausible deniability when the Wagner Group mercenaries were sent to die on behalf of the Russian military, on the off chance that perhaps the US forces would just fold after a show of arms. Ironically, they died for nothing, because it only took a phone call to get Trump to pull everybody out.
That actually happens? US peacekeeping with no strings attached, no ulterior motives, and no puppet governments? Reading this thread and most sources on the Cold War, Iraq War, and the general history of US interventions had me believe differently.

At the same time I do wonder what the long-term goals were for this intervention. Keeping things in check just by being present would only create more dependency on your aid only for things to return to the status quo once you pull out. Stationing troops there for the sake of long-term stability is unrealistic not necessarily from a logistical standpoint, but you just don't know whether the president(s) after you will decide to pull out for whatever reason. Give a man a fishing rod each day etc.

Were they hoping that a decennia-long ethnic conflict would eventually resolve on its own, or something?
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chum wrote:the thing is that we actually go way back and have known each other on multiple websites, first clashing in a Naruto forum.
Liar. I've known you only from latexmachomen.com and pantysniffers.org forums.
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Ed Oscuro
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Ed Oscuro »

Public records of what happened are pretty thin here. All that I have been able to gather from seemingly reputable sources (i.e., not Zero Hedge, not Judicial Watch op-eds) is this:

https://www.judicialwatch.org/document- ... -14-812-2/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/milita ... i-to-syria
and possibly here as well: https://levantreport.com/2015/05/19/201 ... an-regime/

And a couple differing op-eds on the matter:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... syria-iraq
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence ... 9ad7a29092

First note: The DIA brief was released by Judicial Watch for the transparent purpose of showing the Obama Administration putting the Benghazi mission at risk, as seen in their press release here. This discredits the argument that Trump will be the "best President" as House Republican Mike Rodgers shut down a line of questioning by Devin Nunes (see the Fox News report), and Trump's obsession with jailing former Secretary of State Clinton is not based on a belief that Clinton sponsored the Libyan Al-Qaeda affiliates that killed members of her own staff, but rather based on some chickenshit narrative of "deleted emails" that did not prove or even assert such a claim. It is a dispute over what, in other circumstances, Trump defenders call "process crimes," and the worst it alleged was that official duties were not carried out properly (or competently).

As I said before, the treatment of other, non-state parties (like the Kurds) is one weak point in the argument that America intended to foster sectarian differences.

I will accept the argument that one can easily trace a path of meddling and weapons to the situation in Syria: We create a haven for anti-Gaddafi rebels / terrorists in the "no fly zones," leading to his ouster. In the chaos, the situation degrades against the stated aims of the US policy and the political establishment later deems the venture a failure. In the meantime, a cache of weapons travels from Libya, to Turkey, and from there to Syria. It is critical to note that Turkey has a stated apathy for the Kurds in the border region, are acknowledged to have received the weapons for shipment to Syria, and are obvious antagonists of the Syrian government.

In other words, a lack of foresight about the outcome of the Libyan rebellion (and a lack of concern about the terrorist members of that opposition), combined with a Turkish effort to leverage the chaos to its own ends, is a perfectly adequate explanation for how this happened. It is certainly not a proud achievement for America.

That leaves three points to discuss: Firstly, the Levant Report article refers to a number of "admissions" that I have yet to study, which certainly could change my understanding here.

The Judicial Watch-released DIA Information Report - which is clearly marked as not a briefing for policy makers - has a mildly schizophrenic nature which none of the commentators seem to notice, which radically changes the conclusions one can grasp from it. In fact the document is simply a prediction - it is not in any way a "smoking gun" of evidence that the US armed terrorists in Syria (though, as I said elsewhere, there may be real independent evidence of this). It only demonstrates an alarming coincidence of goals and a prediction with one part of the outcome.

First it lays out background stating, in so many words, that there are various groups of people living on the Iraqi-Syrian border. It argues (as I have) that people in that area are oppressed for sectarian (or ethnic, I surmise) reasons. This is, again, supporting dimensions of the conflict beyond the simple Syria vs. terrorists narrative. It also critically argues that the emergence of a "salafist" regime in Syria would lead to the re-introduction of terrorists to Iraq, and it uses verbiage like "unraveling," "development ... into proxy war" and "deterioration of the situation." The document is in no way supporting the establishment of ISIS which it warns is a situation which could incubate a return of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

But then the document takes its strange turn and says that it may be possible to create a "salafist principality." Unfortunately it doesn't make clear what the authors intend "salafist" to mean in this case, or what members of "the supporting powers" take it to mean. It doesn't show "the supporting powers" seeing this as anything but an opportunity "if the situation unravels," which casts it in the light of being a contingency plan. It is clear that Turkey and Sunni nations see this as a way to contain Shia expansion.

One thing that is immediately obvious is that Turkey has been involved in the move of armaments into Syria, and quite likely have designs not only on the endangered border populations, but also on the Syrian government itself. This doesn't change my argument that the US mission provided a needed physical spacer between these antagonistic elements. Even though we have been more nominally allied with Turkey, recent events should make it abundantly clear to all that Washington and Turkey are not aligned on these issues, at least without discarding Trump.

If there are details or analysis I'm missing here I'm open to corrections, of course. But the argument that Syria is an unintended joint consequence of Obama's Libya policy, and George W Bush's Iraqi War, seems still most plausible to me. It also begs the counterfactual: At the point the Libyan situation was unraveling, what could the US have done to prevent the flow of arms to Syria? There were clearly, as laid out in this information document, many parties which had differing reasons for wishing to provide arms and support to groups in Syria.

The US policy in Libya wasn't sufficiently sophisticated to forsee and prevent an attack on the mission there, and the idea that it was nevertheless sophisticated enough to direct the flow of arms out of the country to specific targets seems less plausible. Not far-fetched, perhaps.
Durandal wrote:Two Guys Keep Arguing With Eachother While Repeatedly Telling The Other They Are Not Worth Arguing With
I know, struck me as funny at the time too. You gotta let off some steam sometimes I guess. It's not often I get to enjoy austere's rants :mrgreen: Even if they are well-intentioned he certainly has a 'unique' way of getting his point across. By unique I mean utterly toxic, of course, but I can understand where he's coming from too.
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by system11 »

Occasionally the stars align, pigs fly, and I find myself agreeing with a Cenk Uygur tweet.

https://twitter.com/cenkuygur/status/10 ... 5588719616
System11's random blog, with things - and stuff!
http://blog.system11.org
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Ed Oscuro
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Ed Oscuro »

If fighting the military-industrial complex was the rationale for Trump withdrawing advisers from Syria, then why did he fire more missiles from drones than Obama and relax the criteria on preventing civilian deaths?

To say nothing of his quite public salivation over arms sales.
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by BryanM »

Only the most deranged of Trump fanboys would claim he's not a capitalist. Yeah, maybe it is a redirection of resources to go wreck some other place. Or empty bluster that doesn't actually happen. Guess we'll see.

Along with the clown car primary and a probable recession, 2019 promises another fun ride.
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by ED-057 »

Ed, I don't have time to respond everything you've written, but you are parroting the western corporate media version of events. I've heard all of this before and dismissed large portions of it, which is what you should also be doing.
1) US body politic votes in George W. Bush, who goes to war in Iraq on untrue pretexts,
You need to consider that the Iraq war was not an isolated incident. So-called journalists and US government officials failed to call out the misinformation that was being spread in support of the invasion. Many of them even promoted it, and lashed out childishly against critics of the war. And this was no accident.

The Iraq war narrative fell apart so completely that few people will even bother to try defending it as this point. Yet there has been no accountability. Many of the same people are still right there on the national stage, singing the same pro-war, interventionist tune. With that being the case, why should they be considered trustworthy now after they proved to be the opposite of that in '03?

You also need to look further back, and see the pattern of the US causing mayhem in other people's countries and making up BS stories. The first Iraq war (and the ambassador's niece's fabricated sob-story delivered to Congress), the Iran-contra scandal, Salvador Allende, Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the Iran coup, the bombing of North Korea, the (other) attempted Syrian coup, the USS Maine, heck even the genocide and displacement of the native Americans.
But the argument that Syria is an unintended joint consequence of Obama's Libya policy, and George W Bush's Iraqi War, seems still most plausible to me.
Why would you think it's unintended? The neocons have spelled out exactly what they planned. Iraq, Syria, and Libya are all on the list. "Seven countries in five years." It's right there.

The idea that a rise in violent Islamic extremism is an unfortunate side effect of these circumstances is also one that gives the US foreign policy establishment too much credit. The CIA used Al Qaeda for their own purposes both before and after 2001. David Petraeus and Thomas Friedman publicly advocated aiding them against the "greater evil" of Assad. And never forget that Trump's, Obama's, and Bush's best buddies the Sauds use their money to support these groups and to build the madrassas that spread their version of fundamentalist Islam.
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Ed Oscuro »

If so, the rational response is not to go and then accept the talking points from Assad's backers. We can say nobody has clean hands in this debate; I'm definitely not interested in whitewashing history.

Fair points still - but the whole rationale of the Obama Presidency was supposed to be "don't do it like W again." It is too simplistic to say "this happened in another case, therefore the exact same thing happened again," especially when it was stated US policy to avoid that. We need to look a bit further for explanations. The truth may still be related: Of course we ended up doing some of those same things again.

Anyhow, I think I've moved past that. I don't think it's the corporate media so much - it is hard to believe that jihadists pulled the wool so completely over the eyes of analysts just because they were hawks on Syria, Iran, and Russia, even if there was a lot of seeing what was wanted. Additionally, the conduct of Russian and Syrian forces against civilians also has largely shaped the perception of the war amongst media watchers.

Some interesting links for now -

https://twitter.com/MaxAbrahms/status/1 ... 1728959488 Professor tweeting about the hypocrisy of interest in Syria
https://www.thedailybeast.com/boltons-h ... to-get-out Trump had one good impulse here - restrain John Bolton from turning the Syrian War into another permanent US mission
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Jonathan Ingram
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Re: 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Post by Jonathan Ingram »

ED-057 wrote:Why would you think it's unintended? The neocons have spelled out exactly what they planned. Iraq, Syria, and Libya are all on the list. "Seven countries in five years." It's right there.
Because the "sensible and rational" left always invariably align themselves with the interests of their domestic elites on the issues of international politics despite the claims to the contrary. This has been the case since before the parties of the Second International lined up to support their states in World War I enthusiastically voting for war credits and ex-communicating those who were against. The complex logical thought processes Ed has resorted to in this thread to defend the nation-state he is so emotionally attached to are nothing in their inventiveness compared to the long-winded and "theoretically correct" arguments issued back then by leading social-democratic ideologists like Kautsky and Plekhanov with the explicit purpose of ramping up nationalist hysteria while using a deceptively socialist verbiage to do so.

Admitting that your own state is a malicious and exploitative entity is a hurdle that's too big to overcome for some, even on the left. Let's instead point fingers at other much worse imperialisms out there and spare ourselves the labels we attach to them(Assad is a "murderous thug", but Obama is not because reasons). It's both less intellectually demanding than working towards deconstructing the false consciousness created by decades of propaganda and conditioning at home and doesn't require you to go against the grain.
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