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United States41989 Posts
On October 08 2016 05:54 Wolfstan wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 05:40 KwarK wrote: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:
[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. 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.
Zero argument there. If, in 2001, Bush had said "you know what, fuck the Middle East, sending them an endless pipeline of dollars just empowers them to get all kinds of fucked up, I'm going to take a trillion dollars and instead of wasting it in Iraq we're just going to subsidize the oil production in places we like, clean energy, getting fusion worked out, and build a bunch of nuclear power plants with the infrastructure to make the country run on electricity" that would have worked out much, much better.
Instead he tried to undo 70 years of foreign policy mistakes through sheer effort.
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United States41989 Posts
On October 08 2016 05:59 Rebs wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 05:36 KwarK wrote: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:
[quote]
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.
Pretty much how it went down, casually explained
Britain: Hi Iran, it's the Second World War and we need to build a railway from Greater India to the Soviet Union. Also we need to secure all that oil for the Allies because, you know, war and shit. So we're just going to move a bunch of our soldiers into your country. You can call it an invasion if you like but we don't plan on shooting anyone unless you try to stop us, we cool?
Iran: I guess?
Britain: Cool. Well, now that we've defeated the Nazis and built all this oil infrastructure I guess we should just hang onto that.
Iran: Can we have some of our oil?
Britain: I mean like, I guess you can buy it off of us if you like.
Iran: But it's our oil.
Britain: You can't, like, own oil, man. Oil belongs to everyone. It's like air. But I'll tell you what we'll do, you can have 18% of the profits (not revenues) from the oil we extract from Iran.
Iran: ......
*later*
Iran: Yo, Britain, some people are saying that this deal is bullshit and we should get more of the money. Also can we look at the accounts because it feels a lot like you're giving us 18% of an amount which is very different from the actual profits?
Britain: You don't trust us? We would never rob you of your share of the oil! I am so offended right now!
Iran: So can we see the accounts? Just to verify that you're doing what you agreed upon. Because some of us feel like maybe you would rob us of our oil because of the whole way that you're taking all our oil.
Britain: Nope.
Iran: But we need that money for schools and healthcare and things. We're modernizing and hoping to use our natural resources wealth to fund education and higher wages for worker and to end forced labour. Look, we're gonna take this one to the international courts in The Hague.
Britain: See you in court, bitches.
*later*
Britain: I can't believe we just lost in court. What the fuck. I guess we'll impose an economic blockade. Nobody gets any oil and you don't get any money, or imports, or whatever the hell else you Iranians like.
Iran: Well I guess we'll just nationalize all the oil fields and refineries and at least we'll all have a lot of oil.
Britain: Hey, America, I heard on the grapevine that the Iranian government wants to use the money from the means of production to do government funded education and healthcare and better worker rights. You know who else thinks the means of production should benefit the workers? Communists, that's who!
USA: Shit, we better depose the democratic government and impose an anti-communist dictator. That's a good idea, right Britain?
Britain: Yeah, just make sure that you don't let any of them nationalize the oil. You know a lot of people think that privately owned industry is the opposite of nationally owned industry but you know what's even further from the Iranian government owning the oil than the Iranian people owning the oil?
USA: What?
Britain: Some British people owning the oil. That's like the least communist thing at all. Communists believe that the resources belong to the nation. What's less like that then believing that the oil belongs to a company in a different nation.
USA: You make a lot of sense Britain.
*enter Iranian Shah*
Iranian Shah: I think we should go back to the old 18% deal where we never check the books and all the oil is British.
Britain: Sounds good, now let's increase oil production sixfold and you can build a palace and we can do things with our 98% of the profits.
Iranian Shah: You mean 82% of the profits?
Britain: That's what I said.
Iranian people: I'm pretty sure that's not what they said.
British: Hey, that sounds a lot like communism. Shah dude, can we get some secret police up in here.
*later*
Iranian people: We're done with all this torture and secret police. We are like totally over it.
Iranian Shah: Sounds like someone needs more torture!
Iranian people: That's literally the opposite of what we said. You never listen. It's not working out. I think we should see other dictators.
Iranian Shah: Well I guess I'll go to America and sit on a giant pile of Iranian money.
Khomeni: Iranian people, we should probably blame America for all of this, what with the way they supported the Shah and helped him with his coup and are now shielding him from our justice. Why don't we take some Americans hostage? Oh, and let's nationalize all the oil.
Iranian people: We're on the rebound and this Khomeni guy promises it'll be totally different. We should go with him.
Britain: Fucking communists man.
USA: Wow, I have no idea what we could have done to deserve this. Fuck those ungrateful Iranians. We were just trying to protect them from communism like Britain said. Let's put crippling economic sanctions on them for like 40 years.
Britain: I heard about this Saddam guy and he doesn't like Iran either. I think if we give him a bunch of guns he'll take care of that for us.
USA: Wow Britain, you always have the best ideas.
Britain: But fuck that Saddam guy because his Bathists killed our Hashemite king friend. So we should probably arm Iran too. Let's make this interesting.
USA: Wait, what?
Iraq: Wow, that war against Iran was super pointless and bloody. But at least the Americans have our back. Now, let's invade Kuwait.
USA: Yeah, we're going to war against you now.
Iraq: Dude, I thought we were bros. Like what the fuck.
USA: Also we're going to shoot down an Iranian airliner for literally no fucking reason.
Iran: Dude, what the fuck.
Bush Sr: "I will never apologize for America, no matter what the facts are"
Iran: Seriously? Like your military just accidentally killed a bunch of civilians out of sheer incompetence while in uniform and being paid by you. Not even a sorry?
USA: Let's give the captain of the ship that killed all those people a medal.
Iran: Are you fucking with us right now?
USA: Look, he completed his tour honourably, he was generally good at his job and apart from the day in which he accidentally used American missiles on an American ship to kill 290 civilians while wearing American uniform on behalf of the US government he has a clean service record. We're not going to hold that one bad day against him.
Iran: We feel like maybe you should.
*later*
Iran: Wow, those attacks using planes were super shitty. Like we know what it feels like to have someone attack you like that. Is there anything we can do to help?
USA: Well you could assist in our invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban.
Iran: We'd be happy to. We should put this grudge behind us. Also we should end the sanctions.
USA: Also we're doing a thing called the Bush doctrine now. Basically instead of letting potentially hostile states fester we're basically going to invade them before they can hurt us.
Iran: Wait, what?
USA: We have a list of people we don't like.
Iran: Are... are we on that list?
USA: Well, I mean, you're not not on the list.
Iran: Super not cool.
*later*
USA: So basically the policy is that we're going to invade Iraq because they don't have nuclear weapons. Not invade North Korea because they do and that's a whole mess we don't want to get into. Oh, and then Iran.
Iran: But we don't have nuclear weapons.
USA: Exactly, so we can invade you without anyone getting nuked.
Iran: But you want to invade us to stop us getting nuclear weapons.
USA: That's right.
Iran: And the only way you'll not invade us is if we have nuclear weapons.
USA: I mean technically that's true.
Iran: So what you're saying is that we should get nuclear weapons or you'll invade us?
USA: See, they're trying to get nuclear weapons.
Iran: Jesus Christ. This fucking country man. Okay guys, I guess we need a nuclear program. Fucking hell.
*later*
USA: Wow, Iraq was way less fun than I thought it'd be. Like so much less fun. I don't know if we can even invade Iran.
Russia + China: Well we're super into non proliferation so something needs to be done.
USA: Why don't we all sanction the shit out of them to force them not to make nukes?
Russia + China: Sounds good I guess.
*later*
Iran: Guys, it looks like they're actually not going to invade us. We don't need to make nukes after all.
USA: No, we're absolutely going to invade you.
Iran: Are you trying to force us to make nukes.
USA: No, we'll totally invade you. Just not today. I'm busy right now.
*later*
Iran: No, really guys, I think they're actually not going to invade us. And if we don't even need the nukes then we can get the sanctions lifted. Someone talk to Russia and China.
Russia + China: We're totally into non proliferation of nuclear weapons. That's like our fetish. You do that and the sanctions should absolutely be lifted.
USA: Nah, we're going to invade Iran and stop them getting nukes that way.
Russia + China: Are you though? Because you said that before and then you didn't.
USA: Sure. We're definitely going to invade.
*later*
Iran: We're getting very close to completing this nuke. Is there any way we can work on this slower? Once it's done we're going to have sanctions forever and the USA will never invade us and life will just be generally shit. Someone call Russia + China again.
Russia + China: Yeah, this is ridiculous. You stop building a nuke and the sanctions are off.
USA: Fuck you, we'll invade before we lift the sanctions.
Russia + China: You told us we needed to sanction them to force them to the negotiating table so they'd stop building a nuke.
USA: Yes.
Russia + China: And they're at the negotiating table.
USA: Yes.
Russia + China: And they're saying if we lift the sanctions they'll stop.
USA: Yes.
Russia + China: So isn't this the plan working? Isn't this what we were trying to do? Can we lift the sanctions? Because we don't want them to get a nuke and they're about to get a nuke and that's what we were sanctioning them to stop so if they stop then the sanctions worked and if they keep going the sanctions failed.
USA: Fuck Iran, the sanctions stay on.
Russia + China: Are you actually trying to force them to get a nuke?
Iran: That's pretty much what it feels like, yes. We've wasted 10 years on this shit so far and they didn't even invade. If they'd told us they were just fucking with us 10 years ago we wouldn't have bothered.
Russia + China: Yeah, so we're gonna lift the sanctions, you do whatever you want to do but we're fucking tired of playing these bullshit fucking games with you America.
USA: Okay... I'm willing to work with you Russia and China, but only if you promise to be super supportive of whatever I want to do.
Russia: Jesus Christ. Is this guy fucking retarded? Like does he not get that stopping Iran getting nukes was his idea?
China: Just go with it man. Fuck. The Iranians said they can't work any slower. We need to get this deal done.
USA: So you all have to agree that if Iran tries to make a nuke again then we'll all sanction the shit out of them.
Russia + China: Sure.
USA: And they have to give up all their nuclear materials and processing plants.
Russia + China: Sure.
Iran: Can we get that money the Shah stole back?
USA: Fuck you Iran. Imma invade you!
Russia + China: .................
USA: fine
Iran: Here's all my nuclear shit. Fuck, I didn't even want any of that anyway. This whole conflict was retarded.
47 US Senators: Fuck you Iran. I'm going to invade you unless you have a nuke.
Iran: wow
Russia + China: I know, right? You see what we're working with here?
Iran: I'm just going to start treating America like it's got absolutely no idea what it's doing
Russia + China: That's pretty much what we do, yeah.
Iran: Hey, America, can I have that money you agreed to send us back?
USA: Fuck you, give us back all the Americans in Iran.
Iran: That wasn't a part of the deal.
USA: Fuck you. You think I won't blow up this entire fucking deal right now and go back to square 1?
Iran: But that'd be insane. No rational country would do that.
Russia + China: Just give them the prisoners.
USA: USA! USA! USA!
Trump: I'm going to sink some Iranian ships.
Iran: .......................
Trump: I'm going to cancel the Iran deal!
Iran: We already gave up all our nuclear shit.
American people: That Trump guy has some good ideas, he should be in charge.
Iran: .......................
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On October 08 2016 06:00 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 05:55 GreenHorizons wrote: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.
Do you think there's no influence at play? That perhaps lobbyists embolden the neocons? Generals, Admirals, etc... give the neocons the rhetorical ammo to deliver the real ammo to the poor people fighting those wealthy people's wars?
That it isn't as simple as mutual alignment, but potentially more of a synergistic feedback loop?
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Sometimes when I read KwarK's posts I want to marry his online persona.
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On October 08 2016 06:02 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 05:54 Wolfstan wrote:On October 08 2016 05:40 KwarK wrote: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:
[quote]
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. Zero argument there. If, in 2001, Bush had said "you know what, fuck the Middle East, sending them an endless pipeline of dollars just empowers them to get all kinds of fucked up, I'm going to take a trillion dollars and instead of wasting it in Iraq we're just going to subsidize the oil production in places we like, clean energy, getting fusion worked out, and build a bunch of nuclear power plants with the infrastructure to make the country run on electricity" that would have worked out much, much better. Instead he tried to undo 70 years of foreign policy mistakes through sheer effort.
Man, the argument of spending the money from the Iraq war on anything else sound so appealing. We could so much closer driving electric powered cars and powered are solar farms and the heat from the earth’s core.
Edit: LMAO - I want to hear Kwarks rendition of our mis-adventures in the middle east read by Paul Rud's Hispanic buddy in Ant Man.
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On October 08 2016 05:51 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Said audio:
Some of the WaPo comments are gold.
Pence: "Mr. Trump never said that. He was talking about grabbing that lady's cat..."
Giuliani: "It's really brilliant banter, and shows what a genius he is."
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On October 08 2016 06:04 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 06:00 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 05:55 GreenHorizons wrote: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. Do you think there's no influence at play? That perhaps lobbyists embolden the neocons? Generals, Admirals, etc... give the neocons the rhetorical ammo to deliver the real ammo to the poor people fighting those wealthy people's wars? That it isn't as simple as mutual alignment, but potentially more of a synergistic feedback loop?
Oh absolutely there's a lot of that going on. But to put it simply, war is more popular when you win, and getting owned within your own country (e.g. terrorism or invasion) is really, really unpopular. The leadership that has been most emboldened and empowered by the alignment of influencing factors (lobbying plus neoconservative philosophy) has not been particularly intelligent about the consequences of their actions, whereas business interests can very often be short-sighted. And the result of that arrangement is... well if you've ever been in an organization with smart workers but incompetent leadership, that's what happens to the intelligence wing when the president and his appointees are incompetent.
So basically yes, there are beneficiaries who help these conflicts to develop, but no, it isn't a deliberate effort. It really is a bunch of empowered blundering.
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On October 08 2016 06:17 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 06:04 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 08 2016 06:00 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 05:55 GreenHorizons wrote: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. Do you think there's no influence at play? That perhaps lobbyists embolden the neocons? Generals, Admirals, etc... give the neocons the rhetorical ammo to deliver the real ammo to the poor people fighting those wealthy people's wars? That it isn't as simple as mutual alignment, but potentially more of a synergistic feedback loop? Oh absolutely there's a lot of that going on. But to put it simply, war is more popular when you win, and getting owned within your own country (e.g. terrorism or invasion) is really, really unpopular. The leadership that has been most emboldened and empowered by the alignment of influencing factors (lobbying plus neoconservative philosophy) has not been particularly intelligent about the consequences of their actions, whereas business interests can very often be short-sighted. And the result of that arrangement is... well if you've ever been in an organization with smart workers but incompetent leadership, that's what happens to the intelligence wing when the president and his appointees are incompetent. So basically yes, there are beneficiaries who help these conflicts to develop, but no, it isn't a deliberate effort. It really is a bunch of empowered blundering.
Sounds quite deliberate on the side of the contractors, seems like you're making the "The government is an unwilling/incompetent participant" argument. Which I would probably accept if it wasn't so consistent and bi-partisan at this point.
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On October 08 2016 06:04 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 05:59 Rebs wrote:On October 08 2016 05:36 KwarK wrote: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:
[quote]
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. Pretty much how it went down, casually explained Britain: Hi Iran, it's the Second World War and we need to build a railway from Greater India to the Soviet Union. Also we need to secure all that oil for the Allies because, you know, war and shit. So we're just going to move a bunch of our soldiers into your country. You can call it an invasion if you like but we don't plan on shooting anyone unless you try to stop us, we cool? Iran: I guess? Britain: Cool. Well, now that we've defeated the Nazis and built all this oil infrastructure I guess we should just hang onto that. Iran: Can we have some of our oil? Britain: I mean like, I guess you can buy it off of us if you like. Iran: But it's our oil. Britain: You can't, like, own oil, man. Oil belongs to everyone. It's like air. But I'll tell you what we'll do, you can have 18% of the profits (not revenues) from the oil we extract from Iran. Iran: ...... *later* Iran: Yo, Britain, some people are saying that this deal is bullshit and we should get more of the money. Also can we look at the accounts because it feels a lot like you're giving us 18% of an amount which is very different from the actual profits? Britain: You don't trust us? We would never rob you of your share of the oil! I am so offended right now! Iran: So can we see the accounts? Just to verify that you're doing what you agreed upon. Because some of us feel like maybe you would rob us of our oil because of the whole way that you're taking all our oil. Britain: Nope. Iran: But we need that money for schools and healthcare and things. We're modernizing and hoping to use our natural resources wealth to fund education and higher wages for worker and to end forced labour. Look, we're gonna take this one to the international courts in The Hague. Britain: See you in court, bitches. *later* Britain: I can't believe we just lost in court. What the fuck. I guess we'll impose an economic blockade. Nobody gets any oil and you don't get any money, or imports, or whatever the hell else you Iranians like. Iran: Well I guess we'll just nationalize all the oil fields and refineries and at least we'll all have a lot of oil. Britain: Hey, America, I heard on the grapevine that the Iranian government wants to use the money from the means of production to do government funded education and healthcare and better worker rights. You know who else thinks the means of production should benefit the workers? Communists, that's who! USA: Shit, we better depose the democratic government and impose an anti-communist dictator. That's a good idea, right Britain? Britain: Yeah, just make sure that you don't let any of them nationalize the oil. You know a lot of people think that privately owned industry is the opposite of nationally owned industry but you know what's even further from the Iranian government owning the oil than the Iranian people owning the oil? USA: What? Britain: Some British people owning the oil. That's like the least communist thing at all. Communists believe that the resources belong to the nation. What's less like that then believing that the oil belongs to a company in a different nation. USA: You make a lot of sense Britain.
Yeah I know the story. This is the common narrative in those parts. Its just a surprise to people here.
But after Mosadeq had nationalized everything that was that. Britain could kick and scream all they wanted. The US didnt really need Britain to ask them to do it, more like tacit approval. Was more of a cold war freakout and a taste of that delicious oil.. twin pillars and all that good stuff. The relationship went far beyond what the anglo-Iran oil company was doing and they AOIC got kicked to the curb somewhat anyway because they lost their monopoly, (so really the net effect was pretty much what it would have been had they just been fair in the first place.
The US wasnt just going to let some British people own all that oil after doing all the work. I think your being slightly unfair to the British here (and thats coming from me) the US did what it did because they were greedier than you guys and Russia.
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On October 08 2016 06:14 kwizach wrote:Some of the WaPo comments are gold. Pence: "Mr. Trump never said that. He was talking about grabbing that lady's cat..." Giuliani: "It's really brilliant banter, and shows what a genius he is."
The instant the story broke about the audio broke the press traveling with Pence was “removed” from the restaurant. I bet Paul Ryan is PUMPED UP to campaign with Trump tomorrow.
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On October 08 2016 06:24 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 06:14 kwizach wrote:Some of the WaPo comments are gold. Pence: "Mr. Trump never said that. He was talking about grabbing that lady's cat..." Giuliani: "It's really brilliant banter, and shows what a genius he is." The instant the story broke about the audio broke the press traveling with Pence was “removed” from the restaurant. I bet Paul Ryan is PUMPED UP to campaign with Trump tomorrow.
My kingdom for a duo workout shoot like when he was running for VP.
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The Humane Society must have known about this leak ahead of time when they endorsed Clinton. I think they frown on pussy grabbing.
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Uh, holy shit. Also insane how he always brings up Bill Clinton. HE. IS. NOT. RUNNING. FOR. PRESIDENT.
Grabbing women by their...oh my. what in the fuck.
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On October 08 2016 06:25 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 06:24 Plansix wrote:On October 08 2016 06:14 kwizach wrote:Some of the WaPo comments are gold. Pence: "Mr. Trump never said that. He was talking about grabbing that lady's cat..." Giuliani: "It's really brilliant banter, and shows what a genius he is." The instant the story broke about the audio broke the press traveling with Pence was “removed” from the restaurant. I bet Paul Ryan is PUMPED UP to campaign with Trump tomorrow. My kingdom for a duo workout shoot like when he was running for VP.
The photoshop lords must find this and create the “It’s just lockroom talk” meme. Casually bragging about sexually assaulting women because you’re famous.
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On October 08 2016 06:27 Mohdoo wrote:Uh, holy shit. Also insane how he always brings up Bill Clinton. HE. IS. NOT. RUNNING. FOR. PRESIDENT. Grabbing women by their...oh my. what in the fuck.
It's like he's been at puberty for 60 years
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On October 08 2016 06:21 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 06:17 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 06:04 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 08 2016 06:00 LegalLord wrote:On October 08 2016 05:55 GreenHorizons wrote: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:
[quote]
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. Do you think there's no influence at play? That perhaps lobbyists embolden the neocons? Generals, Admirals, etc... give the neocons the rhetorical ammo to deliver the real ammo to the poor people fighting those wealthy people's wars? That it isn't as simple as mutual alignment, but potentially more of a synergistic feedback loop? Oh absolutely there's a lot of that going on. But to put it simply, war is more popular when you win, and getting owned within your own country (e.g. terrorism or invasion) is really, really unpopular. The leadership that has been most emboldened and empowered by the alignment of influencing factors (lobbying plus neoconservative philosophy) has not been particularly intelligent about the consequences of their actions, whereas business interests can very often be short-sighted. And the result of that arrangement is... well if you've ever been in an organization with smart workers but incompetent leadership, that's what happens to the intelligence wing when the president and his appointees are incompetent. So basically yes, there are beneficiaries who help these conflicts to develop, but no, it isn't a deliberate effort. It really is a bunch of empowered blundering. Sounds quite deliberate on the side of the contractors, seems like you're making the "The government is an unwilling/incompetent participant" argument. Which I would probably accept if it wasn't so consistent and bi-partisan at this point.
Their efforts are certainly deliberate, but their influence isn't enough alone to bring a country to war. Unless you have as much of a conflict of interest as being CEO of Halliburton before the Iraq war, that is. There have to be enough useful idiots among the voters who are willing to buy into a pro-war position, and foolish enough to elect neocons, to make that happen.
There are plenty of neoconservative Democrats as well. Hillary Clinton for example. There are also plenty of "I don't care about FP and don't care enough to learn the facts" Congresspeople who are easily swayed. The general tendency towards war certainly exists in both parties, that much is true. The incompetence part comes in when you note that the people who actually make the FP decisions don't really think through the consequences of their actions, because they are based on an aggressive and ineffective political philosophy. Most just fall in line unless the voters make an uncharacteristic effort to cockblock the military movement.
And to be fair, not all defense contractors stoke war to profit. Some make money off things like new aircraft, which the military makes whether or not you make a war to use them.
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On October 08 2016 06:27 Mohdoo wrote:Uh, holy shit. Also insane how he always brings up Bill Clinton. HE. IS. NOT. RUNNING. FOR. PRESIDENT. Grabbing women by their...oh my. what in the fuck.
The Trump Rule continues to hold true: If he accuses someone of something, it means Trump is guilty that same act.
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On October 08 2016 06:32 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2016 06:27 Mohdoo wrote:Uh, holy shit. Also insane how he always brings up Bill Clinton. HE. IS. NOT. RUNNING. FOR. PRESIDENT. Grabbing women by their...oh my. what in the fuck. It's like he's been at puberty for 60 years
He'd still have been like 60 in that clip which is insane to me. My dad just turned 60. He's a fun guy, he talks a lot of shit, certainly no prude. But I could never in a million years imagine him saying shit like that at his age.
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I feel like a lot of that could be brushed aside because of Trump's resilience to decency. And then he talks about grabbing women. This is a really big deal.
Well, everything Russia and any other hacker has will definitely come out, if it exists, Monday. This is clearly enough to sink Trump entirely. If the news cycle doesn't get overwhelmed by something else, this is the topic of the weekend.
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EPT
