US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6689

On January 29 2017 23:32 NukeD wrote:

Trump got money from Saudi Arabia?

On January 30 2017 01:04 TheTenthDoc wrote:
Is it really even necessary to destabilize the Middle East at this point? The region's about as stable as one of those dogs that spontaneously passes out.

On January 30 2017 01:26 ChristianS wrote:
Seems like good timing to bring this up. I recently learned about something that happened during the depression:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation

Mass deportation of Mexican Americans, including American citizens, in response to economic hardship and perceived drains on public resources. Racist? Sure. Illegal and unconstitutional? Absolutely. Small comfort for the people it happened to, though.

Any of the prognosticators in the thread care to estimate the likeliness of something like this happening again in the next four years? Or anybody wanna defend such a policy?

On January 30 2017 01:35 mustaju wrote:

I find that logic rather confusing. How would a construction project that is already a rather tempting target for terrorist attacks, benefit from the entire region being unstable? Especially considering that oil is already less and less relevant with the new forms of energy becoming more commonplace?

On January 30 2017 01:27 zlefin wrote:

there's also this related thing a couple decades later:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback
just adding it to the list.
haven't thought throguh the matters enough to give a decent prognostication.

On January 30 2017 01:41 NukeD wrote:

I dont know, really, i have no idea why they would want to destabilize it. It is probably not the reason why but I am clueless as to what the other reason could be so I just posted that one.

The paper set out a plan by which Israel would "shape its strategic environment", beginning with the removal of Saddam Hussein and the installation of a Hashemite monarchy in Baghdad.

With Saddam out of the way and Iraq thus brought under Jordanian Hashemite influence, Jordan and Turkey would form an axis along with Israel to weaken and "roll back" Syria. Jordan, it suggested, could also sort out Lebanon by "weaning" the Shia Muslim population away from Syria and Iran, and re-establishing their former ties with the Shia in the new Hashemite kingdom of Iraq. "Israel will not only contain its foes; it will transcend them", the paper concluded.

To succeed, the paper stressed, Israel would have to win broad American support for these new policies - and it advised Mr Netanyahu to formulate them "in language familiar to the Americans by tapping into themes of American administrations during the cold war which apply well to Israel".

On January 30 2017 01:53 xM(Z wrote:
if you go down the zionist rabbit hole you will find some answers. things starting with Yinon Plan then later A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm .
there are scattered articles about things here and there, like: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/sep/03/worlddispatch.iraq it talks about dividing Syria and Iraq then later Sudan and Somalia. the idea is to break those countries diminishing their influence within the arab world.

basically, the countries on the ban list will forever(or until they split up) be at war.

On January 30 2017 02:00 NukeD wrote:

Yes Israel did come to my mind but this isnt the forum for it. I dont know what to think of it. It also doesn't explain Russia's involvement in the middle east.

At first glance, there's not much to distinguish the 1996 "Clean Break" paper from the outpourings of other right-wing and ultra-Zionist thinktanks ... except for the names of its authors.

The leader of the "prominent opinion makers" who wrote it was Richard Perle - now chairman of the Defence Policy Board at the Pentagon.

Also among the eight-person team was Douglas Feith, a neo-conservative lawyer, who now holds one of the top four posts at the Pentagon as under-secretary of policy.

Mr Feith has objected to most of the peace deals made by Israel over the years, and views the Middle East in the same good-versus-evil terms that he previously viewed the cold war. He regarded the Oslo peace process as nothing more than a unilateral withdrawal which "raises life-and-death issues for the Jewish state".

Two other opinion-makers in the team were David Wurmser and his wife, Meyrav (see US thinktanks give lessons in foreign policy, August 19). Mrs Wurmser was co-founder of Memri, a Washington-based charity that distributes articles translated from Arabic newspapers portraying Arabs in a bad light. After working with Mr Perle at the American Enterprise Institute, David Wurmser is now at the State Department, as a special assistant to John Bolton, the under-secretary for arms control and international security.

A fifth member of the team was James Colbert, of the Washington-based Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa) - a bastion of neo-conservative hawkery whose advisory board was previously graced by Dick Cheney (now US vice-president), John Bolton and Douglas Feith.

On January 29 2017 22:12 Kipsate wrote:
Can someone explain to me what the commonalities between the banned countries are? They look like failed majority muslim states on paper(with the exception of EVIL IRAN WOOOOH) but Lebanon isn't on there.

On January 29 2017 22:43 Scarecrow wrote:
The timing of the 'muslim ban' and subsequent justified outrage seems like a smokescreen for the real news.

Stephen "Let's form a church militant"/"Destroy the State" Bannon now has a permanent spot on the NSC. Of course there'll be Putin's buddy Tillerson as SoS but notably Trump's decided that Tillerson's more experienced deputy is also no longer necessary for meetings. All of this whilst the head of US intelligence is somehow no longer worthy of an automatic invite, or the head of the military? The intelligence community need to get their act together and shut this shit down before it gets more dangerous. A guy like Bannon should NEVER have this much access/power.

On January 29 2017 22:43 Scarecrow wrote:
The timing of the 'muslim ban' and subsequent justified outrage seems like a smokescreen for the real news.

Stephen "Let's form a church militant"/"Destroy the State" Bannon now has a permanent spot on the NSC. Of course there'll be Putin's buddy Tillerson as SoS but notably Trump's decided that Tillerson's more experienced deputy is also no longer necessary for meetings. All of this whilst the head of US intelligence is somehow no longer worthy of an automatic invite, or the head of the military? The intelligence community need to get their act together and shut this shit down before it gets more dangerous. A guy like Bannon should NEVER have this much access/power.

On January 30 2017 02:38 ChristianS wrote:
Priebus says it's not a fuckup and they're not apologizing for anything, but also says it won't affect green card holders going forward.