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On June 21 2016 15:51 JW_DTLA wrote: I don't buy the argument that HRC is more of an interventionist than the Bush2 admin. Sure, more than Obama. But HRC won't have the Republican congress signing off on Trillion Dollar Wars anytime soon. There is a significant middle ground between Bush2-style unlimited occupations that take the whole USA military and the light touch drone+special warfare operations of Obama. Light touch?
Funding subversive campaigns and groups in countries you want to destabilize is horrible. When Bush left office the only countries with active military/insurgent conflicts in the area were Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Libya is now a Mad Max style wasteland cut up into fiefdoms where groups of bandits go on raids into neighboring countries to get food. - Syria is in a black-hole civil war against hordes of Islamists - Iraq lost half its population centers to Islamists - Afghanistan/Pakistan has their old friends the Taliban fucking shit up - Tunisia has an Islamist insurgency - Egypt would be an Islamist state right now if there wasn't a military coup to overthrow Hilaries friends, the Muslim Brotherhood. - Yemen is fighting the entire World and still holding on. Catastrophic loss of human life but Saudi Arabian money ensures that you will never hear about any of it from Western Media.
Saying Clinton has foreign policy experience is like saying your local drug dealer has pharmaceutical experience
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On June 21 2016 16:16 SK.Testie wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2016 16:10 JW_DTLA wrote: EDIT: the real question is Syria and Assad. Obama has held his fire, wisely, and against the protestations of the Republican peanut gallery. Would HRC reverse this? Someone should ask her. I think this is a question mark, not a definitive either way. Why in your view is that wise? (I don't mean to come off and say that it's unwise or assert that it's not, just curious). What are the advantages to Obama holding his fire there and allowing Russia to intervene on US interests in the ME?
Easy, our intervention would have lead to a terrible slaughter of the many minorities under the shield of the Syrian state government by the victorious Sunni Jihadists (aka moderate rebels) we helped. See, treatment of minorities after Sunni Jihadists takeover in: Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan ... everywhere else. That slaughter would have then been our fault (see, Iraq 2006 Shia-lead ethnic cleansing of Iraq). Sunni Jihadists have committed ethnic cleaning every time they have ever won a battle in all of history. Sunni jihadists have historically been some of the worst monsters in history and serving as their airforce is pure foolishness.
Also consider just war theory. It helps when we try to at least attempt to make a moral case for killing. What makes you think the Sunni Jihadists (aka moderate rebels) would be worth killing people over? Have the Syrian state forces and nearby civilians done anything to the USA to make it justified for us to murder them for the benefit of the Sunni Jihadists? When Obama sends in SOF/Drones to murder jihadists, I am fine with that. Jihadists make car bombs and suicide bombs that kill innocents. Nothing but hellfire will stop jihadists brutes (see, every jihadist movement ever). But these Syrian state soldiers aren't at war with the USA. We should need to cough up a reason to hit them. Enforcing the chemical weapons ban was a dogshit reason to commit state murder, and Obama balked on doing it.
It is worth considering the national ego. Old, weak, impotent man latch onto hawk fantasies of wars to show the strength of the national will. Russia looks strong by "flexing its muscle" in Syria. Who cares. Why do we really care that Russia has some kind of puppet foreign policy with dickbag regimes? Russia expending its best forces to prop up Assad isn't hurting us. Sure, idiot hawks will see any use of force by any other country as diminishing the fragile national ego, but they are insecure and impotent old men and should be ignored (McCain). Grand strategy needs a firm sense of self that comes with an acceptance of other actors taking costly actions.
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On June 21 2016 16:24 zeo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2016 15:51 JW_DTLA wrote: I don't buy the argument that HRC is more of an interventionist than the Bush2 admin. Sure, more than Obama. But HRC won't have the Republican congress signing off on Trillion Dollar Wars anytime soon. There is a significant middle ground between Bush2-style unlimited occupations that take the whole USA military and the light touch drone+special warfare operations of Obama. Light touch? Funding subversive campaigns and groups in countries you want to destabilize is horrible. When Bush left office the only countries with active military/insurgent conflicts in the area were Iraq and Afghanistan. - Libya is now a Mad Max style wasteland cut up into fiefdoms where groups of bandits go on raids into neighboring countries to get food. - Syria is in a black-hole civil war against hordes of Islamists - Iraq lost half its population centers to Islamists - Afghanistan/Pakistan has their old friends the Taliban fucking shit up - Tunisia has an Islamist insurgency - Egypt would be an Islamist state right now if there wasn't a military coup to overthrow Hilaries friends, the Muslim Brotherhood. - Yemen is fighting the entire World and still holding on. Catastrophic loss of human life but Saudi Arabian money ensures that you will never hear about any of it from Western Media. Saying Clinton has foreign policy experience is like saying your local drug dealer has pharmaceutical experience
What do you expect the USA Military to do about the global Sunni revolt against 1960s era legacy dictatorships? How many Sunni Jihadists insurgencies do you think we should be fighting? Yes, the Arab world has gone to crap and is wracked with Sunni Jihadist insurgencies. Arab governance simply failed, and the only alternative to arise has been jihadism. This sucks. But committing the military to fight and die against every one of these jihadist insurgencies would have been ridiculous. The military is about at its sustainable deployment limit just fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can't be occupying Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, and Egypt. Unless you are ready to bring back the draft and another 5% GDP in taxes, we won't be waging a World War to rebuild a bunch of corrupt legacy Arab dictatorships.
EDIT: note on Yemen, USA Military under Obama only ever bombed Al Queda (Sunni) groups. We never bombed the Houthis (roughly Shia). The Saudies are using the AQ groups as proxies against the Houthis. It would be nice if the Saudis stopped making Yemen worse (and Syria). But do note, Bush2 literally kissed the Saudi king on the lips. Obama signed the Iran deal in the face of vehement Saudi objections. Obama also wouldn't bomb Assad even after the Saudis asked. So I regard this situation as progress towards eventual divorce from the execrable Saudis.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
zeo needs more cia brainwashing
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On June 21 2016 16:37 JW_DTLA wrote: It is worth considering the national ego. Old, weak, impotent man latch onto hawk fantasies of wars to show the strength of the national will. Russia looks strong by "flexing its muscle" in Syria. Who cares. Why do we really care that Russia has some kind of puppet foreign policy with dickbag regimes? Russia expending its best forces to prop up Assad isn't hurting us. Sure, idiot hawks will see any use of force by any other country as diminishing the fragile national ego, but they are insecure and impotent old men and should be ignored (McCain). Grand strategy needs a firm sense of self that comes with an acceptance of other actors taking costly actions. Russia "propping up" Assad IS actually hurting US interests. Oil interests. This whole conflict is about the oil pipeline that was supposed to go from Quatar, across Saudi Arabia and Syria into Turkey, and from there to the rest of the world. Unfortunatelly for the US, Assad refused to have the pipeline go across Syria, as he refused to backstab his friends the Russians, which basically made the whole pipeline impossible. Ofcourse then to solve this problem you need Assad out of the picture so you then make up that he is a ruthless dictator as you do with Gadafi, make up a holy civil-rights fighting agenda, then you send troops after him. Or even better, arm the terrorist groups that are wanting to overthrow him anyway (Isis and "moderate fighters"). And all is swell untill another superpower (Russia) decides to intervene. what sort of propaganda is needed to demonize Russia now (and they are trying so hard even here in Croatia) is beyond me because the plan kinda backfired as Russia started to actually kill Isis so it made people wonder what the west was actually doing the whole time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar-Turkey_pipeline
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On June 21 2016 16:49 JW_DTLA wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2016 16:24 zeo wrote:On June 21 2016 15:51 JW_DTLA wrote: I don't buy the argument that HRC is more of an interventionist than the Bush2 admin. Sure, more than Obama. But HRC won't have the Republican congress signing off on Trillion Dollar Wars anytime soon. There is a significant middle ground between Bush2-style unlimited occupations that take the whole USA military and the light touch drone+special warfare operations of Obama. Light touch? Funding subversive campaigns and groups in countries you want to destabilize is horrible. When Bush left office the only countries with active military/insurgent conflicts in the area were Iraq and Afghanistan. - Libya is now a Mad Max style wasteland cut up into fiefdoms where groups of bandits go on raids into neighboring countries to get food. - Syria is in a black-hole civil war against hordes of Islamists - Iraq lost half its population centers to Islamists - Afghanistan/Pakistan has their old friends the Taliban fucking shit up - Tunisia has an Islamist insurgency - Egypt would be an Islamist state right now if there wasn't a military coup to overthrow Hilaries friends, the Muslim Brotherhood. - Yemen is fighting the entire World and still holding on. Catastrophic loss of human life but Saudi Arabian money ensures that you will never hear about any of it from Western Media. Saying Clinton has foreign policy experience is like saying your local drug dealer has pharmaceutical experience What do you expect the USA Military to do about the global Sunni revolt against 1960s era legacy dictatorships? How many Sunni Jihadists insurgencies do you think we should be fighting? Yes, the Arab world has gone to crap and is wracked with Sunni Jihadist insurgencies. Arab governance simply failed, and the only alternative to arise has been jihadism. This sucks. But committing the military to fight and die against every one of these jihadist insurgencies would have been ridiculous. The military is about at its sustainable deployment limit just fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can't be occupying Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, and Egypt. Unless you are ready to bring back the draft and another 5% GDP in taxes, we won't be waging a World War to rebuild a bunch of corrupt legacy Arab dictatorships. EDIT: note on Yemen, USA Military under Obama only ever bombed Al Queda (Sunni) groups. We never bombed the Houthis (roughly Shia). The Saudies are using the AQ groups as proxies against the Houthis. It would be nice if the Saudis stopped making Yemen worse (and Syria). But do note, Bush2 literally kissed the Saudi king on the lips. Obama signed the Iran deal in the face of vehement Saudi objections. Obama also wouldn't bomb Assad even after the Saudis asked. So I regard this situation as progress towards eventual divorce from the execrable Saudis. The Clinton State Department was instrumental in funding, training and empowering radical groups with the intent of regime change in Syria, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt under the guise of 'democracy'. There is no way the Clinton SD didn't know that bringing elections to countries where 80% of the population is for Sharia Law, where over 50% are in a 'death to non-believers' mindset... would bring chaos. The point is there wouldn't be a Sunni revolt against secular governments in these countries if it wasn't for Obama/Clinton.
There needs to be an international investigation by the Hague into the Clinton Foundation and why she went on a democracy spree in the Middle East after receiving over 30 million dollars from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
edit: For the record I think McCain is maybe even more dangerous than Clinton because he did it for free.
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Dunno if Trump really needs much of a budget. Say a few controversial things on twitter or facebook. Costs nothing. Insane publicity. The old model is dying.
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Internet publicity =/= real world publicly.
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On June 21 2016 19:37 Plansix wrote: Internet publicity =/= real world publicly. MSM repeats everything he says.The man is hardly short on publicity.
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Yeah, that's not winning him votes in the general electorate.
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Donald Trump is agreeing to remove the remaining confidentiality restrictions on a pair of depositions he gave in class-action lawsuits over his Trump University real estate seminar program.
Lawyers for Trump told a federal judge Monday night that they will not oppose a media motion to lift the confidential designation on three pages of testimony, along with some additional financial figures, goals and statistics.
"Defendants now withdraw the remaining designations related to Mr. Trump’s deposition testimony," Trump attorneys Daniel Petrocelli, David Kirman and Jill Martin wrote in a filing submitted to U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel. However, Trump's lawyers were adamant that the videos of Trump's deposition should not be made public.
"The video files Media Intervenors seek are duplicative of the deposition transcripts of Mr. Trump’s testimony, none of which remains designated 'Confidential.' Public disclosure of the video files — which may never be used at trial — serves only to harass and unfairly prejudice Mr. Trump," the Trump attorneys wrote.
Last week, Trump's legal team asked Curiel to impose an order blocking release of all videotaped depositions in the Trump University cases. Trump's team said it was certain the videos would be used in the presidential campaign and their disclosure would fuel "sensationalism," as well as allowing for publication out-of-context "soundbites."
A coalition of media organizations have asked the judge to lift the confidential designations on parts of the deposition transcripts and to make public video clips the lawyers pressing the suits have attempted to file with the court.
Trump's new filing says that the media is not asking to lift confidential designations for exhibits used in depositions in the case — and that he does not agree to removing those designations.
Source
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On June 21 2016 19:41 Plansix wrote: Yeah, that's not winning him votes in the general electorate. Well he's tied with Clinton regarding unpopularity.Both 57% disapproval.Seems the more she spends the more unpopular she gets.Give it a couple more months we will see Trump leading consistently.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/opinion/why-is-clinton-disliked.html?_r=0
In the New York Times/CBS News poll, 60 percent of respondents said Clinton does not share their values. Sixty-four percent said she is not honest or trustworthy. Clinton has plummeted so completely down to Trump’s level that she is now statistically tied with him in some of the presidential horse race polls.
There are two paradoxes to her unpopularity. First, she was popular not long ago. As secretary of state she had a 66 percent approval rating. Even as recently as March 2015 her approval rating was at 50 and her disapproval rating was at 39.
It’s only since she launched a multimillion-dollar campaign to impress the American people that she has made herself so strongly disliked.
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That poll is a month old and from before the two week melt down of Trump.
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On June 21 2016 20:32 Plansix wrote: That poll is a month old and from before the two week melt down of Trump. Meh, they haven't even debated yet. So these polls are kind of useless.
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On June 21 2016 16:05 SK.Testie wrote:The only reason Hillary won't do that is because of how expensive it is and because of how badly the public will look upon it. She literally can't be an interventionist now. The way the public is now.. would they ever support another war again without some massive attack or Israeli false flag like the Lavon Affair?? It's interesting that females can now be drafted for the war but it seems unlikely to ever be used the way the left is pushing things. I suppose she could send X amount of troops, but nothing to the levels that Bush sent. Though, that many aren't needed today for what the USA's current perceived goals are I think. If she were in Bushes shoes after 911, she would have jumped all over Iraq. They were supposed to take out multiple countries in the region and have the conflicts spill over to make the mess we see today. Iran was supposed to be the last one to fall because it's the hardest to strike due to it's high population and mountainous terrain. Hillary wants to flatten pretty much everything that is not Israel and to make it clear that Iran, SA, and Egypt should not be going for nuclear capabilities. Well, not flatten. But control. A decade or so ago they were beating the war drum for Iran and tested out how the public would feel about it with Ahmadinejad but the public didn't bite hard enough. I know Iran was supposed to be the last of the countries to fall on the list though. - Protection of the petrodollar - Israel must retain it's nuclear monopoly - The Qatar - Iraq - Turkey Pipeline wants to be built/secured. This will undercut Russias oil market within the EU. Hence why Russia was all, "lulz gonna bring in a badass ship and S-400's to ruin everyone's plans" - US is happy to fund Islamic extremists to cause problems for Assad SA wants to prop up a Wahabbi regime in Syria and Turkey wants the Syrian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood to take Assads place. + Show Spoiler +And to the above as much as I like peppering the countries with a bit of nationalism and anti-PC, I find it hard to believe Donald will be elected. There are just so many uninformed people that are just blurting, 'omg racism hitler sexist'. The media has him branded and people who align themselves with him are now evil, thus they can be attacked.
The end goal is still iran i think,but that seems impossible short term. Iran is the last price to get in the middle east,one of the very few if not the only remaining independent state in the region. But just like with Syria,rusia is in the way. Maybe Syria is a test case. If the west can wrestle control over Syria from rusia then they could feel confident to go a similar route in iran.
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Jesus. I knew he had limited infrastructure, but I didn't think it was zero.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the primaries should have already highlighted the importance of alternative realities through social media. like-minded people receive their news, uncritically, from sources that confirm their leanings.
hillary ads will penetrate the suburban moderate republicans. the leftist teenagers are a lost cause.
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On June 21 2016 21:58 Plansix wrote: Jesus. I knew he had limited infrastructure, but I didn't think it was zero.
he's down to 28 paid staffers. i have seen mcdonald's with better infrastructure and staffing.
hilariously, he's paying himself a salary. as in, he's on payroll in addition to reimbursing himself and paying himself for use of trump hotels and facilities.
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