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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On March 12 2016 02:45 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2016 02:40 Mohdoo wrote:On March 12 2016 02:37 lord_nibbler wrote:
What you guys do not realize is that the EU (except UK) would like you to pull back just as much!
You just have to live with the consequences. Like Russia becoming a much bigger 'partner' to European countries than you were ever comfortable with in the last 150 years... Yeah, partner. They partner well with their neighbors. I'm sure you'll have a great time with that. Client/ satellite states ftw. Not to mention that the US military plays a critical role in responding to emergencies, keeping the lid on a lot of tensions and maintaining safe sea lanes. It's definitely in the US's interest to keep the world safer and more peaceful than it would be otherwise, but don't pretend for a moment the rest of the world doesn't benefit a lot. (mostly responding to the Euros)
One thing I will concede is that the general American perspective/worldview must make it absolutely maddening for us to be the ones doing it. We are not modest and we are very proud of our dominance. Another country doing the good that we do would clearly be preferred.
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Speaking of Libya, I'm sure that Hillary does not appreciate Obama's calling it a "shit show."
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It is a shitshow now, but I think the initial decision to intervene and prevent genocide was pretty ok.
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On March 12 2016 02:45 Yoav wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2016 02:37 lord_nibbler wrote:
What you guys do not realize is that the EU (except UK) would like you to pull back just as much!
You just have to live with the consequences. Like Russia becoming a much bigger 'partner' to European countries than you were ever comfortable with in the last 150 years... Honestly, at this point I think we should just make a public letter that Russia is welcome to take any European country that misses its NATO military spending benchmarks next year without any fuss from us. Sure, lots of Europe is too invested in the silly world they've invented where war is "obsolete" so I think the threat wouldn't be taken seriously by lots of people, but it could be hilarious to see what happens to them. We might even arrange safe passage for the Russian troops through Poland as long as they behaved themselves on the way. As for the Arab world, I kinda think we just leave the miserable mess to sort itself out. Maybe give the Kurds some tanks on the way out.
You do realize that the EU military budget is at least double the russian one, right? In fact, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures , France, the UK and Germany together already spend more than double as much as the Russians. So i doubt that even with every US soldier suddenly and instantly disappearing, we would suddenly have russian Tanks in Paris within seconds.
Americans greatly overestimate how much good their military does for the world (as opposed to for the US). and greatly underestimate how much they fuck stuff up from time to time. Just take a look at iraq. Of course Saddam wasn't really a good guy. But in comparison to what is going on there and in neighbor countries (like syria) now, the status before the US invasion was amazingly better. The US has a tendency to get bored after a few years without a war, and if there is no good cause to start one, they will start one for a bad cause. You haven't managed to be at peace for a whole decade at a time since WW2.
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On March 12 2016 02:55 ticklishmusic wrote:
It is a shitshow now, but I think the initial decision to intervene and prevent genocide was pretty ok.
Genocide? That was a civil war based on political differences, nothing to do with a genocide.
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I'll say one last thing and leave it at that.
A good portion of your own people think your last vice-president should be tried for war crimes. Despite that, it is wrong for us to criticize anything the US did, because WW2.
There is something wrong with that picture. And it's not our gratitude.
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On March 12 2016 03:05 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2016 02:45 Yoav wrote:On March 12 2016 02:37 lord_nibbler wrote:
What you guys do not realize is that the EU (except UK) would like you to pull back just as much!
You just have to live with the consequences. Like Russia becoming a much bigger 'partner' to European countries than you were ever comfortable with in the last 150 years... Honestly, at this point I think we should just make a public letter that Russia is welcome to take any European country that misses its NATO military spending benchmarks next year without any fuss from us. Sure, lots of Europe is too invested in the silly world they've invented where war is "obsolete" so I think the threat wouldn't be taken seriously by lots of people, but it could be hilarious to see what happens to them. We might even arrange safe passage for the Russian troops through Poland as long as they behaved themselves on the way. As for the Arab world, I kinda think we just leave the miserable mess to sort itself out. Maybe give the Kurds some tanks on the way out. You do realize that the EU military budget is at least double the russian one, right? In fact, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures , France, the UK and Germany together already spend more than double as much as the Russians. So i doubt that even with every US soldier suddenly and instantly disappearing, we would suddenly have russian Tanks in Paris within seconds. Americans greatly overestimate how much good their military does for the world (as opposed to for the US). and greatly underestimate how much they fuck stuff up from time to time. Just take a look at iraq. Of course Saddam wasn't really a good guy. But in comparison to what is going on there and in neighbor countries (like syria) now, the status before the US invasion was amazingly better. The US has a tendency to get bored after a few years without a war, and if there is no good cause to start one, they will start one for a bad cause. You haven't managed to be at peace for a whole decade at a time since WW2.
When you're producing and selling a lot of military armament, it is essential to often go to war. When you go into war, your current products get showed and promoted to potential buyers, and the experience gained helps you to develop new products to be ahead of the guys you just sold weapons to. Then you can sell the new products once you go to war once again, and the cycle continues.
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Marco Rubio’s campaign says supporters of the Florida senator should back John Kasich in Ohio on Tuesday if they want to stop Donald Trump.
Republican presidential candidates have each called on voters to consolidate and unite behind their campaigns, but the Rubio campaign’s suggestion appears to be the fiercest example yet of the anti-Trump movement, aimed at doing whatever it takes to bar the New York billionaire from accruing the 1,237 delegates necessary to secure the Republican nomination outright.
Alex Conant, Rubio’s communications director, acknowledged that Kasich is the only candidate who can defeat Trump in Ohio, which awards all of its 66 delegates to the winner. “If you are a Republican primary voter in Ohio and you want to defeat Donald Trump, your best chance in Ohio is John Kasich,” Conant told CNN on Friday.
“The same is true here in Florida,” Conant said, emphasizing that Rubio is the candidate best positioned to beat the real-estate mogul in the state’s primary Tuesday for its 99 winner-take-all delegates.
“If you’re a voter and Marco Rubio is not necessarily your first choice — if you like John Kasich or you like Ted Cruz and you’re here in Florida, you need to vote for Marco Rubio because he’s the only one who can deprive Donald Trump of those 99 delegates,” he said. “And if we stop Donald Trump here in Florida, we can stop him in Cleveland. He will not be the Republican nominee.”
During a rally later Friday in West Palm Beach, Florida, Rubio said he never spoke to Kasich about such a strategy to deny Trump a victory in either delegate-rich state, but doubled down on Conant's stance. “Clearly, John Kasich has a better chance of winning Ohio than I do, and if a voter concludes that voting for John Kasich is our best chance of stopping Donald Trump, that's what they'll do,” he said.
A recent poll shows Kasich with a narrow lead over Trump in Ohio, while a series of Florida surveys show Rubio trailing the business magnate.
Source
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
all this conspiratorial circlejerk
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The american perspective on this is naturally diffrent from the European one... You guys live on the other side of the Planet, embargoing Ruissia is actually hurting european countries. Playing the strong man when it has next to no effect on yourself is pretty easy (last i checked refugees aren't swimming a cross the atlantic), that the EU is looking horribly weak is another story but fighting a real war over Ukraine/Crimea would have been madness.
Dealing with Syria/Iran/Iraq/Pakistan/that whole region and trying to not work together with Russia was stupid and futile from the get go. You don't have to "like" them or anything, you just have to aknowledge that this is clearly in their sphere of influence and having them on board is therefore important (and logical).
I mean, how did you like it when Russia was funding/sponsoring regimes in south america/cuba and so on?
Lybia is/was clearly a european problem and honestly, the whole plan just sucked from the get go because, well.. Was there ever a plan for the time after Ghadaffi?
Btw:
What was that stab at France? Last i checked they went into Mali when the Islamists tried/did overtake the north and actually did a decent job at stabilising the situation. Comparing interventions is obviously not easy or smart to do, but the constant bitching at the french is just dumb.
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On March 12 2016 03:05 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2016 02:45 Yoav wrote:On March 12 2016 02:37 lord_nibbler wrote:
What you guys do not realize is that the EU (except UK) would like you to pull back just as much!
You just have to live with the consequences. Like Russia becoming a much bigger 'partner' to European countries than you were ever comfortable with in the last 150 years... Honestly, at this point I think we should just make a public letter that Russia is welcome to take any European country that misses its NATO military spending benchmarks next year without any fuss from us. Sure, lots of Europe is too invested in the silly world they've invented where war is "obsolete" so I think the threat wouldn't be taken seriously by lots of people, but it could be hilarious to see what happens to them. We might even arrange safe passage for the Russian troops through Poland as long as they behaved themselves on the way. As for the Arab world, I kinda think we just leave the miserable mess to sort itself out. Maybe give the Kurds some tanks on the way out. You do realize that the EU military budget is at least double the russian one, right? In fact, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures , France, the UK and Germany together already spend more than double as much as the Russians. So i doubt that even with every US soldier suddenly and instantly disappearing, we would suddenly have russian Tanks in Paris within seconds.
Assuming Russia actually wants to invade the rest of the world, which really isn't the case despite how strongly Cold War propaganda has tried to make it so. Soft power is more feasible and much more likely to be the goal, especially since nuclear weapons exist.
On March 12 2016 03:07 Nebuchad wrote:
I'll say one last thing and leave it at that.
A good portion of your own people think your last vice-president should be tried for war crimes. Despite that, it is wrong for us to criticize anything the US did, because WW2.
There is something wrong with that picture. And it's not our gratitude.
That's exactly what someone who has never experienced good old American freedom would say. God bless the USA.
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It's pretty obvious that France foreign policy has recently be a catastrophe. We certainly don't have the power to do a fuck up as major as invading Irak, but the mix of blindness, ambitious stated objectives, absence of strategic reflexion and lack of means has brought up little good. That being said, it's pretty clear that we're totally unable to intervene anywhere without American concrete help in some area of expertise (the most obvious being intelligence, where any ambition has been surrendered after the Rainbow Warrior idiocy), and therefore benediction. That situation is not only a consequence of France's inner policy situation, even if it certainly has something to do with it, but also a consequence of the American positions during the Cold War. Now whether one like it or not, France is totally unable to intervene in Lybia for more than a few weeks without pulling off somewhere else. As often, the blame game tends to be ahistorical and frankly quite stupid.
Also France's military industry might be more toxic than the US' (don't believe oneofthem when he states technocrates don't fuck up, and French are worse) which means that our armed forces are even less adapted to the threats we face than one could imagine.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
California Gov. Jerry Brown signed landmark legislation last October that would allow terminally ill people to request life-ending medication from their physicians. But no one knew when the law would take effect, because of the unusual way in which the law was passed — in a legislative "extraordinary session" called by Brown. The bill could not go into effect until 90 days after that session adjourned. The session closed Thursday, which means the End of Life Option Act will go into effect June 9. "We're glad to finally have arrived at this day where we have a date certain," says Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel. "It's a historic achievement for California, and for a limited universe of people dealing with a terminal illness," Monning says. "It could indeed be a transformative way of giving them the option of a compassionate end-of-life process." Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/10/469970753/californias-law-on-medically-assisted-suicide-to-take-effect-june-9
YES!
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TBH I think on both sides the feeling is who cares? Europe seems to get away with a lot of shit bashing the US but expecting the US to do everything in terms of Defense etc.
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On March 12 2016 04:32 Souma wrote:Show nested quote +California Gov. Jerry Brown signed landmark legislation last October that would allow terminally ill people to request life-ending medication from their physicians. But no one knew when the law would take effect, because of the unusual way in which the law was passed — in a legislative "extraordinary session" called by Brown. The bill could not go into effect until 90 days after that session adjourned. The session closed Thursday, which means the End of Life Option Act will go into effect June 9. "We're glad to finally have arrived at this day where we have a date certain," says Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel. "It's a historic achievement for California, and for a limited universe of people dealing with a terminal illness," Monning says. "It could indeed be a transformative way of giving them the option of a compassionate end-of-life process." Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/10/469970753/californias-law-on-medically-assisted-suicide-to-take-effect-june-9 YES!
Does anyone have any research on how allowing life-ending medication affects the amount of money spent on end-of-life care? That is apparently a large portion of the Medicare expenditure that could possibly be reduced.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
lol i've never stated technocrats don't fuck up. just that legitimate viewpoints need to be heard and given proper interpretive charity.
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Donald Trump on Friday defended supporters who hit back at protesters at his events, saying that's "what we need a little bit more of."
During a press conference in which he announced the endorsement of former rival Ben Carson, Trump was pressed about his comments during a February rally in Las Vegas in which he said of a protester, "I'd like to punch him right in the face, I tell ya."
“It’s politics. And it’s fact. Let me tell you, we’ve had some violent people as protesters. These are people that punch. These are people that are violent people," Trump said.
Alluding to the incident in Las Vegas, Trump said it was "a guy who was swinging, very loud, and then started swinging at the audience."
"And you know what? The audience swung back. And I thought it was very, very appropriate. He was swinging. He was hitting people. And the audience hit back. And that's what we need a little bit more of," he declared.
"Now I’m not talking about just a protester, this was a guy who should not have been allowed to do what he did. And frankly, if you want to know the truth, the police were very, very restrained. The police have been amazing. But the police were very, very restrained.”
The latest remarks come as the Republican presidential candidate prepared to travel to St. Louis in the afternoon and Chicago later in the evening, where thousands of fans and throngs of protesters in both cities were ready to greet him. It also happens to be a day after a North Carolina man was charged with assaulting a protester being led out of a Wednesday night Trump rally.
Source
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On March 12 2016 03:07 Nebuchad wrote:
I'll say one last thing and leave it at that.
A good portion of your own people think your last vice-president should be tried for war crimes. Despite that, it is wrong for us to criticize anything the US did, because WW2.
There is something wrong with that picture. And it's not our gratitude.
Saving the world from hitler and/or stalin is worth a lot of gratitude. Also wheres our money from the marshall plan?
Ironically Dick "The guy I shot I made apologize to me" was for gay marriage a lot sooner then other politicians.
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As foreign policy is my pet subject, and what I've studied extensively, there is a great deal of truth to past criticisms of US foreign policy, most notably through the Cold War era. Though it should be noted many of the underlying problems we're dealing today in the Middle East, Maghreb, and Africa have much more to do with the aftermaths of decolonization and European imperialism as to any form of American bellicosity, for instance.
Really, one of the chief foreign policy errors of the United States in the past 70 years was a failure to adhere to our past anti-imperialist policies in favor of indigenous communities in the face of "communism". The long history of conflicts in Indochina and Vietnam for instance was Eisenhower's failure to recognize the anti-imperialist and, initially, pro-American outlook of Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese communists, and instead siding with the French as opposed to the Vietnamese. From that point onwards, we had essentially fashioned ourselves as the defenders of the old, European empires and spheres of influences, and set indigenous communist and socialist movements as the primary mover for "liberation", which of course we had to contain, even at the expense of liberal democracies abroad. The failure to differentiate between Soviet-controlled movements and more explicitly anti-imperial "socialist" or other liberation movements is the hallmark of our Cold War policies in Guatemala, Chile, Iran, Argentina, and Vietnam, to name a few.
In regards to the intervention in Libya, I maintain the intervention there was absolutely necessary and warranted (as was a full intervention in Syria at the onset), even with its current woes, as without going to hell in a hand-basket. The failure in Libya was one of insufficient post-intervention institution-building: new democracies are especially fragile, especially in states where no such legacy exists: where civil society is weak and disorganized after decades of repression and state control, the government had been staffed by appointees of the old autocracy, and political parties entirely nascent. Without adequate support, such regimes are torn apart by internal political forces.
The other option would be to have supported the Gaddafis or Assads on the onset as the best means of keeping the region stable (as Russia contends, and which with the state of the conflict and the consistent weakening of the liberal rebel groups in Syria we may have to do there given our earlier failure to intervene), or to have tacitly accept their victories in crushing their oppositions. This is unappealing for obvious reasons.
And as some Europeans in this thread have mentioned Russia: make no mistake. From a policy perspective, what happens in Ukraine does not really affect the United States in any tangible fashion, and indeed our current focus on it makes things very, very awkward for us, given we've been trying to pivot our strategic focus onto East Asia for some time (to manage the myriad crises surrounding China's ascent as a major regional actor). The primary reason we're involved is due to Eastern Europeans in NATO raising alarm bells (the Ukraine situation is solid evidence for their two-decade-long argument that NATO must focus on Russia first as opposed to overseas expeditions), and moreover, our NATO allies in Europe having consistently cut their defense budgets (with Poland being one of the few exceptions), and widening the capabilities gap (and putting even more of the burden on us).
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EPT
