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On October 08 2016 03:40 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 03:25 Wolfstan wrote:On October 08 2016 03:13 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:49 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:40 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:34 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:31 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:25 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:23 xDaunt wrote:On October 08 2016 02:18 LegalLord wrote:
[quote]
The US paid a lot of money (trillions) for the direct consequences of that strategy a few decades down the road, so it's surprising to me that anyone would want to repeat that. I'd much prefer that Assad retain power in Syria to the other available options. A factor many miss when talking about how bad and evil Assad is. I don't think anyone misses that. Its just that supporting him or allowing him to remain in power is a short term solution. The people who suffer under him will grow up and blame someone. And I bet it won't be Russia. So I ask once more: what is the viable alternative? As of now the only options seem to be Assad and worse. And heavy-handed dictatorship is far superior to perpetual civil war, as many who have lived under both situations will tell you. There isn't one at this time. But the keep Assad in power is a reductive and simplistic solution. Even if we go completely hands off, we will have to deal with the political ramifications of letting Syria go to Assad. All the refugees in the EU and Turkey, many can't can't go home. Assad will need to strike some sort of peace deal with ISIS or purge them, both which have unpredictable long term outcomes. Syria could easily become the next hosting ground for terrorists for the next 15 years, since it boarders Turkey, who is our ally. Any solution will have to involve the destruction of the terrorist movements, the end of the civil war, and the restoration of government control over Syria. This will likely involve Assad because the other options don't lead to this outcome. What happens next, happens at the negotiating table. The issue here is that once the war is over the willingness of each side to negotiate is diminished so there are multiple parties which want to push for the war to end on their favorable terms. So the war goes on. The problem with your solution is that is requires us to back a violent, genocidal dictator for the sole purpose that the instability in the region is a problem for us. So all the people that Assad has and will abuse in the future will blame the US. And our fear of what is going on in the region isn’t supported by any act of terror directly from a Syrian citizen or refugee. The solution only provides short term relief and creates a long term problem for the US and Europe. And the issues with the refugees will persist as well. I'm pretty isolationist but I think we should leave that shithole part of the world to themselves for a generation or two. I think the blame would rightly go to Assad and not the west when perpetuating civil wars longer than they would be otherwise. It's not that simple. Back in the 1920s there were two competing families for pan-Arab leadership after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in WW1. The British backed the Hashemite family who did business with Anglo-Persian oil (BP), the Americans backed the house of Saud who did business with Standard Oil. The Hashemites were basically a traditional colonial elite who were happy to get palaces in exchange for letting white guys exploit all their natural resources, they're still running Jordan, oddly enough, which is noted for its neutrality towards Israel and general stability. The House of Saud were religious extremists who were pretty out there, even in the 1920s. The British, having been in the empire game for a while, knew that you kill people like the Sauds, replace them with people like the Hashemites and then give the Hashemites so much money and so many guns that the Sauds never came back. The Americans, being new to the game, just saw the money. And so they gave the Wahhabi Sauds insane amounts of money and that money spread tendrils across the entire region and Standard Oil got very rich and moderate Islam got pushed to the fringes. Nobody was ever going to be isolationist in the region where all the oil came from in the 20th Century. That's a fantasy. The security and stability of that region was always going to be a geopolitical priority for a dominant superpower, for the Americans as it was for the British before them. But even if isolationism was possible you can't divorce the rise of militant Islam from American imperial policy. Standard Oil's interests in the region provided an aegis under which Wahhabism was able to grow, Standard Oil's interests were American interests and since the 30s they received full diplomatic protection from Washington, including immunity from the British.
Thanks for giving me some history I was not aware of. My argument is what we should do now, not debating our choices in the 20th century. Just shows that we have been using this region for proxy reasons for longer than a couple generations. Maybe we can try something new. Take this opinion with a grain of salt though as its most likely based on my ideology that people and capital should be able to cross borders easily but ideologies and government reach shouldn't.
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On October 08 2016 05:21 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 04:03 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 03:35 zlefin wrote:On October 08 2016 03:00 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:56 zlefin wrote:On October 08 2016 02:54 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:43 ticklishmusic wrote:On October 08 2016 02:42 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:39 Nyxisto wrote:
Assad's a genocidal maniac. The question whether heavy handed dictatorship is superior to civil war isn't relevant because Syria is experiencing both. I actually think now that Obama should not have tolerated the red line cross and that Assad should have been replaced when the US had the chance.
Could have arranged some kind of interim government made up by the different rebel factions under international supervision or something along those lines. Bring Al Qaeda, ISIS, the Kurds, and a few moderate factions that are really just ISIS by any other name to the negotiating table and I'm sure we could make an arrangement that is mutually beneficial to everyone. Maybe I'm bad at Middle Eastern politics, but I can't tell if you're being sarcastic  I think Assad will have to stay (for better or worse) but hopefully some of the moderate factions can be brought into the government. I'm only partially joking. Obviously I don't mean what I said literally, but there has been a definite tendency for the US to define "ISIS by any other name" rebels as moderates, and give them aid. Many such parties have explicitly folded into ISIS, many others stay separate to acquire US aid. The obvious reason is to remove Assad, costs be damned (the costs of supporting terrorist factions is small in the short term and only significant many years later), which has ended badly enough times that I start to wonder why the US still does it. Some concessions to some rebel factions will have to be made for peace, that much is likely. can you provide some citations for the groups in question? Hard to do because there is a lot of groups with a lot of different specific circumstances, but this article describes some of the happenings there in some generality. The short version is that groups the US trained and armed to further its own interests eventually came to aid their enemies in the terrorist conflicts. i'd say that doesn't entirely support the claims of yours I was responding to. It doesn't establish them as isis by any other name. It says that a lot of them ended up joining isis later on. also, the us recognizes some of the other rebel groups as terrorists. so it feels like a moderate misrepresentation of the situation. I also don't think the US has provided that much overall aid. (at least not through the official channels, who knows what the cia does) I don't mean "ISIS by any other name literally" because it isn't literally true, but only effectively true. That these "moderate rebels" the US tends to back in conflicts all over the world tend to later join terrorist movements is a well known reality of the blundering nature of US involvement in those conflicts. The direct costs are probably not very high and that is the whole appeal. It looks very enticing: spend a tiny sum of money propping up a group that will fight zealously for your interests. The cost comes many years later when they turn out to have their own interests in mind (no shit) and they are now the enemy. See: Mujahideen in Afghanistan leading to Al Qaeda in Iraq, and how cheap that conflict was. I dislike misuse of the term "literally" :D also, i'd say they're not effectively true either, as the actual supported groups are markedly more moderate (usually at least); the problem is a failure ot account for the trend of morality degradation in long conflicts, and that the allies supported tend to come back to be a problem later, and that some of them will later join terror groups. which is a very different thing than what you said. iirc there was a report in the past couple of years about the success rates of rebel supporting, and they were not good. PS found the thing I was talking about: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/us/politics/cia-study-says-arming-rebels-seldom-works.html?_r=0
Definition of literally
1
: in a literal sense or manner : actually <took the remark literally> <was literally insane>
2
: in effect : virtually <will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice — Norman Cousins>
No misuse here.
That Islamic fundamentalist groups have a tendency to co-opt militant rebellions into their own is a well-studied fact. I've seen the pattern many times: rebels rebel, they're desperate and outgunned and in need of assistance, the Islamists come and offer significant military aid, and slowly but surely the original movement is forgotten and it just becomes another Jihadist venture. Said Islamists inherit the material aid and training the US may have provided along the way. Here is a pretty long but informative study about how that happened in a distinct, but similar conflict (Chechnya) in a pattern that is quite familiar. It is effectively true because the effect of the US arming of rebels and giving them the means to fight is that organizations like Al Qaeda and ISIS become the benefactors of that aid, one way or another.
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On October 08 2016 04:55 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 04:43 Yoav wrote:On October 07 2016 21:17 farvacola wrote:
Libertarians aren't really "liberal" relative to social issues in the first place; though "hands off" government lines up with some socially liberal policies, namely drug policy and church/state separation, it definitely doesn't line up with others, such as abortion access, welfare programs, and housing regulation/oversight. Kinda depends on the flavoring of libertarian, but ideological libertarianism is fine with abortion. Unlikely to government fund it (or much of anything else) though. Welfare and housing regulation are properly economic policies, not social. Libertarians and healthcare is a weird issue. Because they don’t want the government to provide or mandate healthcare, but won’t go full Charles Dickens and have people be kicked out of emergency rooms if they can’t pay. So it isn’t a free market in any way, but the government shouldn’t be involved(unless people can’t pay and will die, then its fine).
I see government Healthcare as a transaction, money for services. Same thing as other government services/infrastructure too.
Re intelligence success: about a month or 2 ago the FBI gave the Canadians intel on a suicide bomber that we got as he was leaving the house, no casualties except the bomber.
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United States43350 Posts
On October 08 2016 05:17 Rebs wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 04:58 BallinWitStalin wrote:On October 08 2016 03:40 KwarK wrote:On October 08 2016 03:25 Wolfstan wrote:On October 08 2016 03:13 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:49 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:40 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:34 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:31 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:25 LegalLord wrote:
[quote]
A factor many miss when talking about how bad and evil Assad is. I don't think anyone misses that. Its just that supporting him or allowing him to remain in power is a short term solution. The people who suffer under him will grow up and blame someone. And I bet it won't be Russia. So I ask once more: what is the viable alternative? As of now the only options seem to be Assad and worse. And heavy-handed dictatorship is far superior to perpetual civil war, as many who have lived under both situations will tell you. There isn't one at this time. But the keep Assad in power is a reductive and simplistic solution. Even if we go completely hands off, we will have to deal with the political ramifications of letting Syria go to Assad. All the refugees in the EU and Turkey, many can't can't go home. Assad will need to strike some sort of peace deal with ISIS or purge them, both which have unpredictable long term outcomes. Syria could easily become the next hosting ground for terrorists for the next 15 years, since it boarders Turkey, who is our ally. Any solution will have to involve the destruction of the terrorist movements, the end of the civil war, and the restoration of government control over Syria. This will likely involve Assad because the other options don't lead to this outcome. What happens next, happens at the negotiating table. The issue here is that once the war is over the willingness of each side to negotiate is diminished so there are multiple parties which want to push for the war to end on their favorable terms. So the war goes on. The problem with your solution is that is requires us to back a violent, genocidal dictator for the sole purpose that the instability in the region is a problem for us. So all the people that Assad has and will abuse in the future will blame the US. And our fear of what is going on in the region isn’t supported by any act of terror directly from a Syrian citizen or refugee. The solution only provides short term relief and creates a long term problem for the US and Europe. And the issues with the refugees will persist as well. I'm pretty isolationist but I think we should leave that shithole part of the world to themselves for a generation or two. I think the blame would rightly go to Assad and not the west when perpetuating civil wars longer than they would be otherwise. It's not that simple. Back in the 1920s there were two competing families for pan-Arab leadership after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in WW1. The British backed the Hashemite family who did business with Anglo-Persian oil (BP), the Americans backed the house of Saud who did business with Standard Oil. The Hashemites were basically a traditional colonial elite who were happy to get palaces in exchange for letting white guys exploit all their natural resources, they're still running Jordan, oddly enough, which is noted for its neutrality towards Israel and general stability. The House of Saud were religious extremists who were pretty out there, even in the 1920s. The British, having been in the empire game for a while, knew that you kill people like the Sauds, replace them with people like the Hashemites and then give the Hashemites so much money and so many guns that the Sauds never came back. The Americans, being new to the game, just saw the money. And so they gave the Wahhabi Sauds insane amounts of money and that money spread tendrils across the entire region and Standard Oil got very rich and moderate Islam got pushed to the fringes. Nobody was ever going to be isolationist in the region where all the oil came from in the 20th Century. That's a fantasy. The security and stability of that region was always going to be a geopolitical priority for a dominant superpower, for the Americans as it was for the British before them. But even if isolationism was possible you can't divorce the rise of militant Islam from American imperial policy. Standard Oil's interests in the region provided an aegis under which Wahhabism was able to grow, Standard Oil's interests were American interests and since the 30s they received full diplomatic protection from Washington, including immunity from the British. Haha, one of these days I need to compile a bunch of your posts together and create a "colonialism as explained by Kwark" blog or something.... They're usually pretty good! This isnt really colonialism though, its what they went with after they had their fill of generic colonialism. The Americans tried to do the same thing that the British tried earlier in Iran but Iran was already on the democracy ladder so after 20 odd years of a puppet dictator people got fed up and it backfired so hard we got the Ayatollahs.
Not exactly. Before Iran we had Suez and in the Suez Crisis the British and French immediately intervened militarily (using Israel as a proxy) and got bitched out by the United States for it because apparently that's not cool and everything has to be done under a veil of shadows. It's not that you couldn't intervene, it's that you needed plausible deniability that you were intervening. Which meant that when the Iranian government started demanding to audit the books of Anglo-Persian oil we couldn't just show up with some aircraft carriers because there were new rules about that. So we told the CIA that Iran was turning into a Soviet ally and the US took care of it for us.
The latter half of the 20th Century was somewhat defined by America's insistence that it totally isn't running a global empire which very much got in the way of the global empire that the United States is absolutely running.
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Not really on topic, but literally should mean literally. There are a lot of intensifiers you can use without sinning against clarity. Common usage at low levels of education may change dictionary definitions, but it does not and should not change the use of terms in educated discussion unless there is a reason to do so. For example, in my field, the word "cult" has an accepted definition. This definition is older than the popularly used one, but it is far less used by the populace. However, the way people talk about cults in popular culture are basically useless to intellectual discussion, which is why you end up with nonsense questions like "what is the difference between a cult and a religion?"
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I prefer to use literally to mean it in the first sense;
also, I still dispute that it applies in the second sense for this instance.
we're mostly quibbling over proper terminology, not disputing what happens.
It's just that rhetoric has a power of its own, and I don't like to see things spread that are an inaccurate descriptor, as doing that taints the perceptions of others and leads to too many misjudging things. I value precision.
And while some bad groups end up getting some of that aid later on, is different from the aid being given to them, or of most of the aid going to them.
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On October 08 2016 05:36 Yoav wrote:
Not really on topic, but literally should mean literally. There are a lot of intensifiers you can use without sinning against clarity. Common usage at low levels of education may change dictionary definitions, but it does not and should not change the use of terms in educated discussion unless there is a reason to do so. For example, in my field, the word "cult" has an accepted definition. This definition is older than the popularly used one, but it is far less used by the populace. However, the way people talk about cults in popular culture are basically useless to intellectual discussion, which is why you end up with nonsense questions like "what is the difference between a cult and a religion?"
I don't think there was any misuse of the term in the first place - I meant it by the original and intended definition where I used it. I just enjoy pointing the definition out to people who complain about its misuse.
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United States43350 Posts
On October 08 2016 05:25 Wolfstan wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 03:40 KwarK wrote:On October 08 2016 03:25 Wolfstan wrote:On October 08 2016 03:13 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:49 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:40 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:34 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:31 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:25 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:23 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
I'd much prefer that Assad retain power in Syria to the other available options. A factor many miss when talking about how bad and evil Assad is. I don't think anyone misses that. Its just that supporting him or allowing him to remain in power is a short term solution. The people who suffer under him will grow up and blame someone. And I bet it won't be Russia. So I ask once more: what is the viable alternative? As of now the only options seem to be Assad and worse. And heavy-handed dictatorship is far superior to perpetual civil war, as many who have lived under both situations will tell you. There isn't one at this time. But the keep Assad in power is a reductive and simplistic solution. Even if we go completely hands off, we will have to deal with the political ramifications of letting Syria go to Assad. All the refugees in the EU and Turkey, many can't can't go home. Assad will need to strike some sort of peace deal with ISIS or purge them, both which have unpredictable long term outcomes. Syria could easily become the next hosting ground for terrorists for the next 15 years, since it boarders Turkey, who is our ally. Any solution will have to involve the destruction of the terrorist movements, the end of the civil war, and the restoration of government control over Syria. This will likely involve Assad because the other options don't lead to this outcome. What happens next, happens at the negotiating table. The issue here is that once the war is over the willingness of each side to negotiate is diminished so there are multiple parties which want to push for the war to end on their favorable terms. So the war goes on. The problem with your solution is that is requires us to back a violent, genocidal dictator for the sole purpose that the instability in the region is a problem for us. So all the people that Assad has and will abuse in the future will blame the US. And our fear of what is going on in the region isn’t supported by any act of terror directly from a Syrian citizen or refugee. The solution only provides short term relief and creates a long term problem for the US and Europe. And the issues with the refugees will persist as well. I'm pretty isolationist but I think we should leave that shithole part of the world to themselves for a generation or two. I think the blame would rightly go to Assad and not the west when perpetuating civil wars longer than they would be otherwise. It's not that simple. Back in the 1920s there were two competing families for pan-Arab leadership after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in WW1. The British backed the Hashemite family who did business with Anglo-Persian oil (BP), the Americans backed the house of Saud who did business with Standard Oil. The Hashemites were basically a traditional colonial elite who were happy to get palaces in exchange for letting white guys exploit all their natural resources, they're still running Jordan, oddly enough, which is noted for its neutrality towards Israel and general stability. The House of Saud were religious extremists who were pretty out there, even in the 1920s. The British, having been in the empire game for a while, knew that you kill people like the Sauds, replace them with people like the Hashemites and then give the Hashemites so much money and so many guns that the Sauds never came back. The Americans, being new to the game, just saw the money. And so they gave the Wahhabi Sauds insane amounts of money and that money spread tendrils across the entire region and Standard Oil got very rich and moderate Islam got pushed to the fringes. Nobody was ever going to be isolationist in the region where all the oil came from in the 20th Century. That's a fantasy. The security and stability of that region was always going to be a geopolitical priority for a dominant superpower, for the Americans as it was for the British before them. But even if isolationism was possible you can't divorce the rise of militant Islam from American imperial policy. Standard Oil's interests in the region provided an aegis under which Wahhabism was able to grow, Standard Oil's interests were American interests and since the 30s they received full diplomatic protection from Washington, including immunity from the British. Thanks for giving me some history I was not aware of. My argument is what we should do now, not debating our choices in the 20th century. Just shows that we have been using this region for proxy reasons for longer than a couple generations. Maybe we can try something new. Take this opinion with a grain of salt though as its most likely based on my ideology that people and capital should be able to cross borders easily but ideologies and government reach shouldn't.
The most powerful imperial power isn't leaving the Middle East until the oil runs out or the economy stops needing oil. Not realistic. The United States also cannot deny responsibility for the Saudi brand of extremist Islam it spent 70 years shielding and empowering. If the US quit they wouldn't escape blame, they'd only leave themselves vulnerable to a single power attempting to seize the Gulf ports and refineries, nationalizing the assets of American multinationals as they went.
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On October 08 2016 05:35 Wolfstan wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 04:55 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 04:43 Yoav wrote:On October 07 2016 21:17 farvacola wrote:
Libertarians aren't really "liberal" relative to social issues in the first place; though "hands off" government lines up with some socially liberal policies, namely drug policy and church/state separation, it definitely doesn't line up with others, such as abortion access, welfare programs, and housing regulation/oversight. Kinda depends on the flavoring of libertarian, but ideological libertarianism is fine with abortion. Unlikely to government fund it (or much of anything else) though. Welfare and housing regulation are properly economic policies, not social. Libertarians and healthcare is a weird issue. Because they don’t want the government to provide or mandate healthcare, but won’t go full Charles Dickens and have people be kicked out of emergency rooms if they can’t pay. So it isn’t a free market in any way, but the government shouldn’t be involved(unless people can’t pay and will die, then its fine). I see government Healthcare as a transaction, money for services. Same thing as other government services/infrastructure too. Re intelligence success: about a month or 2 ago the FBI gave the Canadians intel on a suicide bomber that we got as he was leaving the house, no casualties except the bomber.
I don't know the details of the case you're talking about, but often these "catches" are the agency finding someone on the internet who says obscene things, convincing them they could do more, then telling them they can help them get weapons, giving them the weapons, then arresting them when they try to use them. Has a disturbing sort of pre-cog policing feel to it. But I was generally thinking about slightly larger scale endeavors.
Guess we'll have to go with total moron, instead of intentionally throwing the election.
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On October 08 2016 05:40 zlefin wrote:
I prefer to use literally to mean it in the first sense;
also, I still dispute that it applies in the second sense for this instance.
we're mostly quibbling over proper terminology, not disputing what happens.
It's just that rhetoric has a power of its own, and I don't like to see things spread that are an inaccurate descriptor, as doing that taints the perceptions of others and leads to too many misjudging things. I value precision.
And while some bad groups end up getting some of that aid later on, is different from the aid being given to them, or of most of the aid going to them.
Indeed the "ISIS by any other name" quip is a rhetorical injection for the tendency of rebel movements, including those with US aid, to either become or become co-opted by Islamic terrorist movements. I'd say it that way if I wanted to make a sound bite out of it. And in the context of my first use of the term, it was used to reply to a similarly rhetorically charged post, so that's all there is to that. We don't really disagree on the content.
On October 08 2016 04:58 BallinWitStalin wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 03:40 KwarK wrote:On October 08 2016 03:25 Wolfstan wrote:On October 08 2016 03:13 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:49 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:40 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:34 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:31 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:25 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:23 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
I'd much prefer that Assad retain power in Syria to the other available options. A factor many miss when talking about how bad and evil Assad is. I don't think anyone misses that. Its just that supporting him or allowing him to remain in power is a short term solution. The people who suffer under him will grow up and blame someone. And I bet it won't be Russia. So I ask once more: what is the viable alternative? As of now the only options seem to be Assad and worse. And heavy-handed dictatorship is far superior to perpetual civil war, as many who have lived under both situations will tell you. There isn't one at this time. But the keep Assad in power is a reductive and simplistic solution. Even if we go completely hands off, we will have to deal with the political ramifications of letting Syria go to Assad. All the refugees in the EU and Turkey, many can't can't go home. Assad will need to strike some sort of peace deal with ISIS or purge them, both which have unpredictable long term outcomes. Syria could easily become the next hosting ground for terrorists for the next 15 years, since it boarders Turkey, who is our ally. Any solution will have to involve the destruction of the terrorist movements, the end of the civil war, and the restoration of government control over Syria. This will likely involve Assad because the other options don't lead to this outcome. What happens next, happens at the negotiating table. The issue here is that once the war is over the willingness of each side to negotiate is diminished so there are multiple parties which want to push for the war to end on their favorable terms. So the war goes on. The problem with your solution is that is requires us to back a violent, genocidal dictator for the sole purpose that the instability in the region is a problem for us. So all the people that Assad has and will abuse in the future will blame the US. And our fear of what is going on in the region isn’t supported by any act of terror directly from a Syrian citizen or refugee. The solution only provides short term relief and creates a long term problem for the US and Europe. And the issues with the refugees will persist as well. I'm pretty isolationist but I think we should leave that shithole part of the world to themselves for a generation or two. I think the blame would rightly go to Assad and not the west when perpetuating civil wars longer than they would be otherwise. It's not that simple. Back in the 1920s there were two competing families for pan-Arab leadership after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in WW1. The British backed the Hashemite family who did business with Anglo-Persian oil (BP), the Americans backed the house of Saud who did business with Standard Oil. The Hashemites were basically a traditional colonial elite who were happy to get palaces in exchange for letting white guys exploit all their natural resources, they're still running Jordan, oddly enough, which is noted for its neutrality towards Israel and general stability. The House of Saud were religious extremists who were pretty out there, even in the 1920s. The British, having been in the empire game for a while, knew that you kill people like the Sauds, replace them with people like the Hashemites and then give the Hashemites so much money and so many guns that the Sauds never came back. The Americans, being new to the game, just saw the money. And so they gave the Wahhabi Sauds insane amounts of money and that money spread tendrils across the entire region and Standard Oil got very rich and moderate Islam got pushed to the fringes. Nobody was ever going to be isolationist in the region where all the oil came from in the 20th Century. That's a fantasy. The security and stability of that region was always going to be a geopolitical priority for a dominant superpower, for the Americans as it was for the British before them. But even if isolationism was possible you can't divorce the rise of militant Islam from American imperial policy. Standard Oil's interests in the region provided an aegis under which Wahhabism was able to grow, Standard Oil's interests were American interests and since the 30s they received full diplomatic protection from Washington, including immunity from the British. Haha, one of these days I need to compile a bunch of your posts together and create a "colonialism as explained by Kwark" blog or something.... They're usually pretty good!
His posts are very good for providing general descriptions, and if you understand nothing about a topic they are very helpful. You usually have to have quite a bit of knowledge about a topic to call out bias when you see it, though, and that's where his "basic history" descriptions start to falter. Given that he usually makes those posts for providing a very general understanding of the topic, though, they do what they intend to do.
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On October 08 2016 05:46 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 05:35 Wolfstan wrote:On October 08 2016 04:55 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 04:43 Yoav wrote:On October 07 2016 21:17 farvacola wrote:
Libertarians aren't really "liberal" relative to social issues in the first place; though "hands off" government lines up with some socially liberal policies, namely drug policy and church/state separation, it definitely doesn't line up with others, such as abortion access, welfare programs, and housing regulation/oversight. Kinda depends on the flavoring of libertarian, but ideological libertarianism is fine with abortion. Unlikely to government fund it (or much of anything else) though. Welfare and housing regulation are properly economic policies, not social. Libertarians and healthcare is a weird issue. Because they don’t want the government to provide or mandate healthcare, but won’t go full Charles Dickens and have people be kicked out of emergency rooms if they can’t pay. So it isn’t a free market in any way, but the government shouldn’t be involved(unless people can’t pay and will die, then its fine). I see government Healthcare as a transaction, money for services. Same thing as other government services/infrastructure too. Re intelligence success: about a month or 2 ago the FBI gave the Canadians intel on a suicide bomber that we got as he was leaving the house, no casualties except the bomber. I don't know the details of the case you're talking about, but often these "catches" are the agency finding someone on the internet who says obscene things, convincing them they could do more, then telling them they can help them get weapons, giving them the weapons, then arresting them when they try to use them. Has a disturbing sort of pre-cog policing feel to it. But I was generally thinking about slightly larger scale endeavors.
No amount of intelligence info can make up for terrible decision makers. Bush and his neocon cabinet were. Obama isn't bad but he isn't an FP president, and he had Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a pretty bad decision-maker. And that's the real problem and real explanation for why "large scale endeavors" tend to end badly.
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On October 08 2016 05:40 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 05:25 Wolfstan wrote:On October 08 2016 03:40 KwarK wrote:On October 08 2016 03:25 Wolfstan wrote:On October 08 2016 03:13 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:49 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:40 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:34 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:31 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:25 LegalLord wrote:
[quote]
A factor many miss when talking about how bad and evil Assad is. I don't think anyone misses that. Its just that supporting him or allowing him to remain in power is a short term solution. The people who suffer under him will grow up and blame someone. And I bet it won't be Russia. So I ask once more: what is the viable alternative? As of now the only options seem to be Assad and worse. And heavy-handed dictatorship is far superior to perpetual civil war, as many who have lived under both situations will tell you. There isn't one at this time. But the keep Assad in power is a reductive and simplistic solution. Even if we go completely hands off, we will have to deal with the political ramifications of letting Syria go to Assad. All the refugees in the EU and Turkey, many can't can't go home. Assad will need to strike some sort of peace deal with ISIS or purge them, both which have unpredictable long term outcomes. Syria could easily become the next hosting ground for terrorists for the next 15 years, since it boarders Turkey, who is our ally. Any solution will have to involve the destruction of the terrorist movements, the end of the civil war, and the restoration of government control over Syria. This will likely involve Assad because the other options don't lead to this outcome. What happens next, happens at the negotiating table. The issue here is that once the war is over the willingness of each side to negotiate is diminished so there are multiple parties which want to push for the war to end on their favorable terms. So the war goes on. The problem with your solution is that is requires us to back a violent, genocidal dictator for the sole purpose that the instability in the region is a problem for us. So all the people that Assad has and will abuse in the future will blame the US. And our fear of what is going on in the region isn’t supported by any act of terror directly from a Syrian citizen or refugee. The solution only provides short term relief and creates a long term problem for the US and Europe. And the issues with the refugees will persist as well. I'm pretty isolationist but I think we should leave that shithole part of the world to themselves for a generation or two. I think the blame would rightly go to Assad and not the west when perpetuating civil wars longer than they would be otherwise. It's not that simple. Back in the 1920s there were two competing families for pan-Arab leadership after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in WW1. The British backed the Hashemite family who did business with Anglo-Persian oil (BP), the Americans backed the house of Saud who did business with Standard Oil. The Hashemites were basically a traditional colonial elite who were happy to get palaces in exchange for letting white guys exploit all their natural resources, they're still running Jordan, oddly enough, which is noted for its neutrality towards Israel and general stability. The House of Saud were religious extremists who were pretty out there, even in the 1920s. The British, having been in the empire game for a while, knew that you kill people like the Sauds, replace them with people like the Hashemites and then give the Hashemites so much money and so many guns that the Sauds never came back. The Americans, being new to the game, just saw the money. And so they gave the Wahhabi Sauds insane amounts of money and that money spread tendrils across the entire region and Standard Oil got very rich and moderate Islam got pushed to the fringes. Nobody was ever going to be isolationist in the region where all the oil came from in the 20th Century. That's a fantasy. The security and stability of that region was always going to be a geopolitical priority for a dominant superpower, for the Americans as it was for the British before them. But even if isolationism was possible you can't divorce the rise of militant Islam from American imperial policy. Standard Oil's interests in the region provided an aegis under which Wahhabism was able to grow, Standard Oil's interests were American interests and since the 30s they received full diplomatic protection from Washington, including immunity from the British. Thanks for giving me some history I was not aware of. My argument is what we should do now, not debating our choices in the 20th century. Just shows that we have been using this region for proxy reasons for longer than a couple generations. Maybe we can try something new. Take this opinion with a grain of salt though as its most likely based on my ideology that people and capital should be able to cross borders easily but ideologies and government reach shouldn't. The most powerful imperial power isn't leaving the Middle East until the oil runs out or the economy stops needing oil. Not realistic. The United States also cannot deny responsibility for the Saudi brand of extremist Islam it spent 70 years shielding and empowering. If the US quit they wouldn't escape blame, they'd only leave themselves vulnerable to a single power attempting to seize the Gulf ports and refineries, nationalizing the assets of American multinationals as they went.
Bias here but I'd rather have energy independence through fracking and oilsands rather than FP adventures. Help your multinationals through diplomacy rather overt/covert influence. You keep the environmental and humanitarian costs regulated at home rather than offloading the costs onto a region that can't deal with it. Multinationals should make the partnerships work with investments in the region not our taxpayers and young soldiers.
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On October 08 2016 05:36 Yoav wrote:
Not really on topic, but literally should mean literally.
I won't write another post cause that's a tangent, but there's no such thing as a word that "should" mean something, that's not how language works. Everything that is in usage is linguistically valid.
Even if the word ends up meaning 1. "literally" and 2. "not literally". Which I find quite awesome, to be honest.
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On October 08 2016 05:53 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 05:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 08 2016 05:35 Wolfstan wrote:On October 08 2016 04:55 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 04:43 Yoav wrote:On October 07 2016 21:17 farvacola wrote:
Libertarians aren't really "liberal" relative to social issues in the first place; though "hands off" government lines up with some socially liberal policies, namely drug policy and church/state separation, it definitely doesn't line up with others, such as abortion access, welfare programs, and housing regulation/oversight. Kinda depends on the flavoring of libertarian, but ideological libertarianism is fine with abortion. Unlikely to government fund it (or much of anything else) though. Welfare and housing regulation are properly economic policies, not social. Libertarians and healthcare is a weird issue. Because they don’t want the government to provide or mandate healthcare, but won’t go full Charles Dickens and have people be kicked out of emergency rooms if they can’t pay. So it isn’t a free market in any way, but the government shouldn’t be involved(unless people can’t pay and will die, then its fine). I see government Healthcare as a transaction, money for services. Same thing as other government services/infrastructure too. Re intelligence success: about a month or 2 ago the FBI gave the Canadians intel on a suicide bomber that we got as he was leaving the house, no casualties except the bomber. I don't know the details of the case you're talking about, but often these "catches" are the agency finding someone on the internet who says obscene things, convincing them they could do more, then telling them they can help them get weapons, giving them the weapons, then arresting them when they try to use them. Has a disturbing sort of pre-cog policing feel to it. But I was generally thinking about slightly larger scale endeavors. No amount of intelligence info can make up for terrible decision makers. Bush and his neocon cabinet were. Obama isn't bad but he isn't an FP president, and he had Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a pretty bad decision-maker. And that's the real problem and real explanation for why "large scale endeavors" tend to end badly.
Would it be fair to say they didn't end badly for everyone? Some people did very well, specifically because of those FP "failures" or "bad decisions"?
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On October 08 2016 05:36 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 05:17 Rebs wrote:On October 08 2016 04:58 BallinWitStalin wrote:On October 08 2016 03:40 KwarK wrote:On October 08 2016 03:25 Wolfstan wrote:On October 08 2016 03:13 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:49 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:40 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 02:34 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 02:31 Plansix wrote:
[quote]
I don't think anyone misses that. Its just that supporting him or allowing him to remain in power is a short term solution. The people who suffer under him will grow up and blame someone. And I bet it won't be Russia. So I ask once more: what is the viable alternative? As of now the only options seem to be Assad and worse. And heavy-handed dictatorship is far superior to perpetual civil war, as many who have lived under both situations will tell you. There isn't one at this time. But the keep Assad in power is a reductive and simplistic solution. Even if we go completely hands off, we will have to deal with the political ramifications of letting Syria go to Assad. All the refugees in the EU and Turkey, many can't can't go home. Assad will need to strike some sort of peace deal with ISIS or purge them, both which have unpredictable long term outcomes. Syria could easily become the next hosting ground for terrorists for the next 15 years, since it boarders Turkey, who is our ally. Any solution will have to involve the destruction of the terrorist movements, the end of the civil war, and the restoration of government control over Syria. This will likely involve Assad because the other options don't lead to this outcome. What happens next, happens at the negotiating table. The issue here is that once the war is over the willingness of each side to negotiate is diminished so there are multiple parties which want to push for the war to end on their favorable terms. So the war goes on. The problem with your solution is that is requires us to back a violent, genocidal dictator for the sole purpose that the instability in the region is a problem for us. So all the people that Assad has and will abuse in the future will blame the US. And our fear of what is going on in the region isn’t supported by any act of terror directly from a Syrian citizen or refugee. The solution only provides short term relief and creates a long term problem for the US and Europe. And the issues with the refugees will persist as well. I'm pretty isolationist but I think we should leave that shithole part of the world to themselves for a generation or two. I think the blame would rightly go to Assad and not the west when perpetuating civil wars longer than they would be otherwise. It's not that simple. Back in the 1920s there were two competing families for pan-Arab leadership after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in WW1. The British backed the Hashemite family who did business with Anglo-Persian oil (BP), the Americans backed the house of Saud who did business with Standard Oil. The Hashemites were basically a traditional colonial elite who were happy to get palaces in exchange for letting white guys exploit all their natural resources, they're still running Jordan, oddly enough, which is noted for its neutrality towards Israel and general stability. The House of Saud were religious extremists who were pretty out there, even in the 1920s. The British, having been in the empire game for a while, knew that you kill people like the Sauds, replace them with people like the Hashemites and then give the Hashemites so much money and so many guns that the Sauds never came back. The Americans, being new to the game, just saw the money. And so they gave the Wahhabi Sauds insane amounts of money and that money spread tendrils across the entire region and Standard Oil got very rich and moderate Islam got pushed to the fringes. Nobody was ever going to be isolationist in the region where all the oil came from in the 20th Century. That's a fantasy. The security and stability of that region was always going to be a geopolitical priority for a dominant superpower, for the Americans as it was for the British before them. But even if isolationism was possible you can't divorce the rise of militant Islam from American imperial policy. Standard Oil's interests in the region provided an aegis under which Wahhabism was able to grow, Standard Oil's interests were American interests and since the 30s they received full diplomatic protection from Washington, including immunity from the British. Haha, one of these days I need to compile a bunch of your posts together and create a "colonialism as explained by Kwark" blog or something.... They're usually pretty good! This isnt really colonialism though, its what they went with after they had their fill of generic colonialism. The Americans tried to do the same thing that the British tried earlier in Iran but Iran was already on the democracy ladder so after 20 odd years of a puppet dictator people got fed up and it backfired so hard we got the Ayatollahs. Not exactly. Before Iran we had Suez and in the Suez Crisis the British and French immediately intervened militarily (using Israel as a proxy) and got bitched out by the United States for it because apparently that's not cool and everything has to be done under a veil of shadows. It's not that you couldn't intervene, it's that you needed plausible deniability that you were intervening. Which meant that when the Iranian government started demanding to audit the books of Anglo-Persian oil we couldn't just show up with some aircraft carriers because there were new rules about that. So we told the CIA that Iran was turning into a Soviet ally and the US took care of it for us. The latter half of the 20th Century was somewhat defined by America's insistence that it totally isn't running a global empire which very much got in the way of the global empire that the United States is absolutely running.
yeah but they didnt just take care of it for you. They decided they were big dog there also cuz Cold War.
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wow that's some crazy stuff even by Trump standards.
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On October 08 2016 05:55 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 05:53 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 05:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 08 2016 05:35 Wolfstan wrote:On October 08 2016 04:55 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 04:43 Yoav wrote:On October 07 2016 21:17 farvacola wrote:
Libertarians aren't really "liberal" relative to social issues in the first place; though "hands off" government lines up with some socially liberal policies, namely drug policy and church/state separation, it definitely doesn't line up with others, such as abortion access, welfare programs, and housing regulation/oversight. Kinda depends on the flavoring of libertarian, but ideological libertarianism is fine with abortion. Unlikely to government fund it (or much of anything else) though. Welfare and housing regulation are properly economic policies, not social. Libertarians and healthcare is a weird issue. Because they don’t want the government to provide or mandate healthcare, but won’t go full Charles Dickens and have people be kicked out of emergency rooms if they can’t pay. So it isn’t a free market in any way, but the government shouldn’t be involved(unless people can’t pay and will die, then its fine). I see government Healthcare as a transaction, money for services. Same thing as other government services/infrastructure too. Re intelligence success: about a month or 2 ago the FBI gave the Canadians intel on a suicide bomber that we got as he was leaving the house, no casualties except the bomber. I don't know the details of the case you're talking about, but often these "catches" are the agency finding someone on the internet who says obscene things, convincing them they could do more, then telling them they can help them get weapons, giving them the weapons, then arresting them when they try to use them. Has a disturbing sort of pre-cog policing feel to it. But I was generally thinking about slightly larger scale endeavors. No amount of intelligence info can make up for terrible decision makers. Bush and his neocon cabinet were. Obama isn't bad but he isn't an FP president, and he had Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a pretty bad decision-maker. And that's the real problem and real explanation for why "large scale endeavors" tend to end badly. Would it be fair to say they didn't end badly for everyone? Some people did very well, specifically because of those FP "failures" or "bad decisions"?
Obviously some people always benefit from war and the plight of others, but that policy is not a result of the "defense contractor lobby" as much as it is a neocon outlook on military intervention (see my long NATO post earlier). The military profiteers do their part but they're not in control because of lobbying money. Their profit goals and neocon arrogance just very conveniently align.
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On October 08 2016 05:54 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 05:36 Yoav wrote:
Not really on topic, but literally should mean literally. I won't write another post cause that's a tangent, but there's no such thing as a word that "should" mean something, that's not how language works. Everything that is in usage is linguistically valid. Even if the word ends up meaning 1. "literally" and 2. "not literally". Which I find quite awesome, to be honest.
See: Origins of the word "Awful"
Also, apparently the only way to get billionaires to pay shit is to have them investigated after they run for office (probably not something people outside of this my region really care much about, WV governor's race) :
Justice got served this morning. Jim Justice, that is.
In an extensive investigation published by NPR early Friday, the billionaire coal magnate and Democratic nominee for Governor of West Virginia was reported to owe $15 million to six states through his various mining companies, which have accrued a litany of unpaid fines and taxes. The article also called Justice “the nation’s top mine safety delinquent.”
In an email sent Friday afternoon, a lawyer for Justice Companies disputed the investigation’s findings: “The Justice Companies are taking the proper steps to make good on all [Mine Safety and Health Administration] commitments. To imply anything beyond that is purely for political reasons and ignores the facts.”
The report comes on the heels of a successful stretch for the Justice campaign, which currently holds a commanding double-digit lead in the four-candidate gubernatorial race. As Election Day approaches, polling shows him with the support of 46% of likely West Virginia voters.
Justice, a former registered Republican, has dealt with similar allegations in the past. In 2014, a joint analysis by NPR and Mine Safety and Health News concluded that the billionaire’s mining companies owed $2 million for unpaid safety violations, even though he had individually donated or invested upwards of $200 million since 2009. (At the time, a representative for Justice contested the $2 million figure, noting that $500,000 had since been paid off.) The current report makes similar claims. NPR purports that Justice’s mines have accumulated thousands of citations and millions of dollars in liabilities in recent years, while he has personally contributed $2.9 million to his campaign for governor.
The outstanding obligations, if true, may be more reflective of disorganization than of Justice’s inability to pay. At present, he is worth an estimated $1.56 billion, according to FORBES’ real-time rankings of the world’s billionaires. Much of that fortune stems from mining interests, as well as his real estate holdings and ownership of the renowned Greenbrier resort in West Virginia.
Justice, who appeared on FORBES’ list of the World’s Billionaires in March with a $1.6 billion fortune, has watched his net worth decline in the face of a weak coal market. This year, he was one of 153 American billionaires who did not make The Forbes 400 list. (The last time he appeared on The Forbes 400 was in 2014.)
As for the gubernatorial race? With one month until voting day, the people of West Virginia will have the final say on whether Justice’s track record is fit for the governorship.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2016/10/07/jim-justice-governor-millions-owed-six-states/#45f0a18f1828
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EPT
