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On December 19 2017 06:23 RenSC2 wrote: The world powers appeased the Nazis in the 1930s because they didn’t want war. They ended up in a war with the Nazis anyways after the Nazis gained more strength and were harder to defeat. We should not make the same mistakes with terrorists and worry about how they will react. We should simply prepare for the response.
We’ll be attacked if we capitulate and we’ll be attacked if we don’t. The terrorists won’t be happy until we are all cleansed from the face of the earth. So we might as well draw some clear lines in the sand and defend those lines even if it means war. Don’t let them gain enough power to threaten our existence and force us into a war with an uncertain outcome.
As a Trump hater, I still agree with the decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It’s a start.
The lack of infrastructure spending is 99% on Trump and the Republicans though. I’m not going to be upset with the Democrats for their 1% responsibility on this one.
Are you suggesting that Palestinians are terrorists? Everywhere I try to discuss this i see Palestinians portrayed as a braying mob of anti American terrorists who want nothing more than to wage war against the West at all times.
Actually, as you'd know if you had met any, Palestinians are a fairly liberal bunch of people who just want to be able to let their kids go outside without them getting arrested and tortured for a few months.
AIPAC has been doing its best to dehumanize the Palestinians for decades; with folks like the Daunt and Ren eating out of their dirty hands, one can take their efforts as successful.
It's not about dehumanizing Palestinians. That's quite besides the point. The real question is in what universe will the Palestinians EVER be pro-American? The obvious answer is that they will never be, so we should unequivocally support Israel.
Israel is supported by the big christian population in the US mainly for religeous reasons, and therefore Israel can get away with everything. In other western countries, the Palestinians have more support, as they are the oppressed underdogs in the conflict.
Also, be careful about overestimating Trump's symbolic recognicion of Jerusalem. There is no international support for his action, and actually does not matter much
I don't really care about whether Trump has domestic support for the action or why. My only concern is what is good for the US. Israel is an ally and should be treated as such. The Palestinians will never be allies. For that reason alone, the US should dispense with this fiction of trying to be "fair" on the Israel/Palestine issue. Nor do I care what other Western countries think. They aren't going to throw the US overboard on account of Palestine for the same reasons that the Saudis and other Arab powers won't. The bottom line is that no one really cares about the Palestinians.
Might makes right is such a wonderful ethical framework. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
And it is so incredibly shortsighted. Do you really think that you are so isolated from anyone else in the world that pissing everyone off will never have negative consequences?
Like I have infamously argued before, ethics and morality aren't the ends of rational foreign policy. The self-interest of the nation is.
I don't get this tbh. Like I completely understand why someone would vote in their own self-interest with regard to national or local politics - for example, you could think that higher taxes would be a societal good but negative for yourself and then vote for lower taxes. I have 0 qualms with understanding voting in your own self-interest. But how is your life going to be impacted by what side the US picks in a regional conflict on the other side of the world? Like I get wanting good trade deals because they positively impact your economy. I could even get supporting Israel from a humanitarian perspective (although I'd disagree), but choosing foreign policy as a specific area that should not be influenced by ethics and morality? That seems completely backwards to me - foreign policy should be the area of politics where you to the greatest degree can allow yourself to be influenced by ethics and morality without it negatively impacting your own life in any way.
At first glance, it looked like Greg Perdue was stretching. The 58-year-old sat cross-legged on the matted wall-to-wall carpet in his Aberdeen, Maryland, apartment, a head of shaggy, graying hair bent toward his knees. But when medical examiners gingerly turned him over, they found his bloated face was a deep purple, his nose and mustache covered with crusted blood. Next to a pack of cigarettes on the kitchen table were three clear pill capsules: two empty, one containing an off-white powder that was later identified as heroin.
In a former life, Perdue was a mechanic, an avid hunter, a drinker, and a romantic who often drove to the tops of the hills nearby to watch the sunset. After being prescribed painkillers to treat a work injury, he started snorting heroin and became estranged from his friends and family. When the cops found him in April, they determined he’d likely been slumped in his apartment for a couple of days. His was the 113th overdose of the year in Harford County, a white, working-class suburb a half-hour up Interstate 95 from Baltimore. There was no funeral; his ashes sit uncollected at the morgue.
After Perdue’s quiet death, a lanky, affable 38-year-old cop named Brandon Underhill was assigned to investigate the dealer who had sold the fatal dose to Perdue. Underhill, a clean-cut churchgoer who grew out his wavy blond hair and got his ears pierced when he started doing undercover work 10 years ago, quickly zoomed in on a suspect: Zack Carter, a 35-year-old with a rap sheet including several drug charges and an attempted murder. As spring turned to humid summer, he tracked Carter’s cellphone data, talked to “friendlies,” or informants, and met Carter behind the yellow home in J&K Mobile Home Park in Aberdeen, where Carter, whose name I have changed, would lean into Underhill’s car window and exchange glass vials of heroin for cash.
Underhill was surprised to find that Carter was likable, whether he was confidently breaking up neighborhood tiffs or laying into his underlings, whom he paid in drugs or money, if they tried to steal business. After hiding a GPS tracker under the bumper of Carter’s BMW 750, Underhill was able to track the car on his iPad as it traveled to Baltimore a few times a week and then back to Harford to flit among a handful of homes in the county’s housing developments and trailer parks. Meanwhile, overdoses kept mounting: In the wake of Perdue’s death, cops traced 11 back to Carter, none of which were fatal.
The investigation came to a head in predawn darkness four months after Perdue’s overdose, when about 60 officers wearing body armor assembled in an elementary school parking lot for a briefing about the morning’s operation. The high beams of dozens of police cruisers cast an eerie light on the officers—nearly all men—who gathered around Underhill as he laid out the plan: Because Carter spent time in five homes nearby, there would be five simultaneous raids at 5:30 a.m. on the dot. “Everybody in the communities all know each other,” Underhill explained to me as we drove to one of the raid locations. “When noise starts happening, everybody knows.”
The operations that took place a half-hour later looked like a movie scene: the calm of early morning in the trailer parks was interrupted by flash-bang grenades, yelling, the ramming in of doors, cops in perfect V formations with guns drawn. Masked men woke up whoever was sleeping inside and led them out in handcuffs. One resident complained that it was the third time his home had been raided. A half-asleep Carter was hauled out of bed and booked in the Harford County Detention Center.
That morning’s raids were part of a Harford County Sheriff’s Office initiative to go after the dealers involved in every single overdose in its jurisdiction, fatal or nonfatal. In each case, the county sends a drug investigator, who treats the place of overdose—be it a car in the Home Depot parking lot or a bedroom in a million-dollar home—as a crime scene with a culprit to track down. The task is monumental: In the first 11 months of 2017, there were 78 fatal and 333 nonfatal overdoses in the county of just 250,000 people. “We’re gonna come at you with the full force of effective law and every resource we have available to us,” said the county’s lead narcotics officer, Lee Dunbar, in a Baltimore Sun video titled “Capt. Dunbar’s Message to Harford’s Drug Dealers.” The county, one of the first in the nation to investigate every overdose case, has served as “a model of what you can do and what you should do,” said Buck Hedrick, supervisor of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s intelligence team in Baltimore.
This approach contributes to the already steep price of the epidemic. The average fatal overdose takes more than 40 man-hours for the county’s narcotics team to investigate, though that number is highly variable: Underhill worked almost exclusively on the Carter case for more than two months. The cost to the Sheriff’s Office of investigating a typical fatal overdose runs between $10,000 and $15,000 once things like salaries, overtime, personal protective gear, and travel to interview witnesses are taken into account. But the spending doesn’t stop there: Transporting, cremating, and burying an unclaimed body costs about $700. Medical treatment runs $13,700 for the average inpatient visit after an overdose in Maryland. Add that to the cost of jail or prison for the dealers (about $81 per inmate per night at the Harford County Detention Center), lawyers representing the dealers (at any given time, roughly half of the county’s public defenders are working on drug possession or distribution cases), and lawyers representing the state (the state’s attorney’s office spends about $500,000 a year prosecuting drug cases). And then there’s the crime fueled by addiction: Harford County State’s Attorney Joseph Cassilly estimates that more than half of all thefts, robberies, and frauds in the county are related to efforts to acquire cash for drugs.
For all the time, energy, and money Harford cops spend cracking down on dealers, overdoses in Harford are skyrocketing. Then again, there’s no blueprint for cops to follow when it comes to an epidemic of these proportions, says David Kennedy, a criminologist who directs the National Network for Safe Communities. After decades of a failed war on drugs, many cops know that arresting users doesn’t work, so they’re focusing on dealers, he says. “The sheriffs are so desperate to try something. There are people dying every day, and they’re on the front lines, and we don’t have anything to offer them right now.”
The truth is that Harford—along with every other US county hit hard by the opioid epidemic—is winging it. “I’ll go anywhere to try and get best practices,” said Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler at a press conference announcing the opening of the “H.O.P.E. House,” a model of a drug user’s bedroom on wheels aimed at educating the public about telltale signs of drug abuse. “I don’t mind putting it in reverse if it doesn’t work and backing it up and trying again.”
Both the Obama and Trump administrations have repeatedly acknowledged the need for treatment for drug users. “We’re going to take all of these kids—and people, not just kids—that are totally addicted and they can’t break it,” Donald Trump promised at a Columbus, Ohio, town hall meeting just before the election. “We’re going to work with them, we’re going to spend the money, we’re gonna get that habit broken.” He also promised to declare a national emergency, which would free up federal money to support afflicted communities. Nothing of the sort has happened. Instead, in October Trump declared a public health state of emergency, which opened up a fund containing a grand total of $57,000—or about $1 per fatal overdose victim. As of this writing, neither the Department of Health and Human Services nor the Office of National Drug Control Policy have permanent leaders. Repealing Obamacare or enacting the proposed GOP tax bill would cause millions of Americans with substance abuse and mental health disorders to lose coverage. Meanwhile, the White House Council of Economic Advisers recently estimated that the epidemic cost the nation $504 billion in 2015.
In the absence of federal leadership and funding for social services, police have become the de facto responders, says Keith Humphreys, a Stanford psychiatry professor who advised the Obama administration on drug policy. “If you don’t have health care dollars, what else can you do? Put people in jail.”
Carter was released on bail three days after the raid, charged with 11 counts of drug offenses, and given a court date in December. The state is also considering charging two of his henchmen with second-degree manslaughter. Since the raid in August, there have been five more overdoses in the trailer parks where police suspect the men operated. The cops are, for the most part, used to this game of cat and mouse, but sometimes, Underhill confessed to me, the process can seem futile. “I feel like we’re just playing whack-a-mole,” he said, sounding exhausted. “Sometimes you feel like you’re just banging your head against a wall—because somebody else is going to pop up and take that business.”
On December 20 2017 05:33 Sermokala wrote: Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
You know there doesn't have to be one right side and one wrong side right? It's not a zero sum game.
At some point people in the US get sick of being blamed by EU members for everything while they happily enjoyed the longest era of peace Europe has ever known. Its like complaining about poor conditions in the Iphone factory while owning a shit load of Apple stock.
To be honest I can't imagine what's it must be like to be Russian, or more accurately been Russian back in the day, and get no credit for the 10-20 million people who died either (depending on how you count it).
I don’t think it’s a better or worse thing. Both nations fought a pretty heartless proxy war and neither side decided to clean up afterwards. We are experiencing the rewards of doing that right now in the Middle East. But bitching to people in this thread about the conduct of the US in the 1950-60-70 and 80s gets old fast. None of us were alive or able to impact those decisions. And there are no easy solutions for most of the problems left behind.
I think that's just a difference in perspective tbh.
All you get to see is people bitching about it. While the realitiy for us over here in the EU (in Germany at least) is that we have movies about the Berlin airlift (to bring back that specific example of yours from your post before that) that do constantly show the US in a good light etc. I'm not trying to say that the US should be portrayed in a bad way over that in any form and in fact I would be surprised if you can find someone who thinks that was a bad thing in Germany. It's just that the roles are kind of reversed for us: You tend to only get all the talk that criticizes the US because who the fuck cares about some random german guy who says something nice, while we only, at least for the longest time, have gotten the nice things in movies, news and whatever else so it's kind of a thing to go "buuuuut it wasn't all rainbow and sunshine, there's also [insert random whatever]" over here... it's just that you don't get anything except for that "buuuut [...]" part
I'm not going to be able to participate in a properly done version of this debate while I'm at work, but I will make the observation pretty much everyone I've ever met who makes the old American Imperialism argument is mostly ignorant of history other than a few choice examples of their worldview, and they usually find success because the person they're debating is somehow even more ignorant of history then they are.
On December 19 2017 17:50 mozoku wrote: Ehh, that's still not that close to what you said and the article is definitely trying to spin a narrative.
For example, it claims the PKI was openly working within the system and unarmed. And that Suharto "blamed" the coup on a PKI plot. In reality, the PKI was in power to begin with and lost power when a preemptive assassination of some alleged leaders of a suspected coup went badly wrong. That hardly rings of the "innocent victim portrayal in article. Not that that justifies anything on its own.
Here's a recent NYT article that covers the same cables, but with less innuendo.
The US involvement is limited to handing over some lists of known communists to be purged and aiding in media suppression. Not a shining star for the US, but not really an outlier by the standards of the time. I'm less sympathetic to some geopolitics-based justification for immorality in 2017, but the Cold War was a time when there were legitimate survival motives in play.
It's hardly comparable to, say, what the British Empire did--which is the impression you give when you accuse the US of supporting genocide, mass enslavement, and resource exploitation. For one, the US was primarily motivated by self-defense in the Cold War, rather than profit. Second, no enslavement actually happened. Third, Indonesia (voluntarily) welcomed US corporations because it felt the investment would simulate the economy--which it most certainly did. The US didn't show up with an army and enslave/massacre the locals for profit.
Moreover, it's much easier to say the US should have acted more in alignment with its stated principles on 2017 than it was in 1967. Given the uncertainty of the period, I can sympathize with US leaders at the time compromising on principles some to err on the side of keeping its citizens safe. I would expect Indonesians to do the same to Americans if the situation were reversed, and I wouldn't think any less of them for it.
So you're saying you would be ok with a million murdered Americans if it furthered Indonesian economic interests? Are you taking the piss?
There was no legitimate survival interest in this genocide, it was an economic coup, organized and supported by America and the UK, with the aim of stamping out an ideology that they didn't like and the secondary goal getting an infinite supply of cheap labour and cheap natural resources from a country that should be one of the richest in the world. A million people killed, with the full support of the US government. Minimize it all you want, its a disgrace.
Yes, the Cold War was an imperialist plot to exploit poor countries. There was no real threat. How could I forget?
That's a strawman if I've ever seen one. Nobody is saying there wasn't a "real threat" + Show Spoiler +
(although, if you care to, please do define that threat. Were they going to invade the US? Take over the world? What is it exactly that was so threatening? Was it the dark ominous music in the background that played on the TV whenever they mentioned the Soviets that was so threatening to you in the 70s or 80s? What was it, exactly? Did you read a textbook that said the Soviets were considered a threat by the US government and then just left your thoughts at accepting that as a fact rather than an assessment from a power that had the distinct interest to picture such a threat? Please, expand on this "real threat")
. It's just the way that this was handled was... less than optimal... in many cases.
On December 20 2017 04:57 Plansix wrote: The cold war was poor countries being used as pawn in a proxy war that no one ever bothered to clean up after. The US made the fate mistake of winning the cold war decisively, so they were the only country left to blame for the state of the middle east and other developing nations.
Haha. Yeah, nobody blames Russia for anything that's happened. Haha. It's just so funny, I can't stop laughing. Come on man, you're just feeling hurt (once again) for being confronted (once again) by the evils of your own nation that you so patriotically support.
Must be nice to live in a nation where everyone pays for your security and you get to heckle from the sidelines. You get all the rewards from those evils and get to assume none of the responsibility. One of the first nations to sign up to have America to fight the USSR for them. Complacent in every way but the moral high ground to spit on people from.
Every fucking time you pull that card.
Why do you always make this about my nationality, as if I'm only holding this position because I happened to be born in the Netherlands? My position is universal. Regardless of where I am. It is not based on unconditionally supporting one country over another. I oppose the United States in the same way I oppose Europe whenever they enact stupid harmful warmongering policies. Whether its Russia, Europe, China, or the United States. It matters not.
You're being nothing more than a condescending little piece of shit. I am hardly complacent. I have already argued in the EU thread that we cannot let the EUs desire for a unified fighting force (which I support, as a way to distance ourselves from the US) result in the same kind of shitty policies that your horrible nation enforces all over the world and that we must be ready to protest such actions should they be on the table. People in the thread basically mocked me for taking that position, suggesting it would never happen. How's your take on that, then, eh?
On December 20 2017 05:48 Logo wrote: To be honest I can't imagine what's it must be like to be Russian, or more accurately been Russian back in the day, and get no credit for the 10-20 million people who died either (depending on how you count it).
???
Is it baffling I can't imagine what it's like for your country to lose 13% of its population, and that the US' portrayal of that doesn't seem to paint a detailed portrayal of what that's like?
What are you even referring to? Stalin's purges? WW2?
Nobody is erasing either from the history books. Or is that still not what I'm supposed to feel bad for?
On December 20 2017 05:33 Sermokala wrote: Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
You know there doesn't have to be one right side and one wrong side right? It's not a zero sum game.
Theres one side that has Costco, aldi, and sams club while the other side has you waiting in line for a loaf of bread. One side advocating for famine and the other side advocating for plenty. Its not a 100% good 100% evil scoreboard but anyone whos up their own ass to say that the US wasn't clearly the better option for world domination is a sad joke.
Well I guess that's that debate settled fellas burn the literature and dismantle the historiographotrons it's over.
There isn’t much of a debate that the USSR was worse. But I’m not sure that matters when reflecting on the unforeseen cost of winning the cold war.
I don't think anyone WAS questioning whether the USSR was worse, or that they didn't 'suffer from constant suffering'.
We try not to debate it, but the discussion always gets dragged back to the classic good vs evil dynamic that makes it all easier to justify.
There is no good versus evil when it comes to nations. There is just evil and benign on a large scale with lots of space between the two.
On December 20 2017 05:33 Sermokala wrote: Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
You know there doesn't have to be one right side and one wrong side right? It's not a zero sum game.
At some point people in the US get sick of being blamed by EU members for everything while they happily enjoyed the longest era of peace Europe has ever known. Its like complaining about poor conditions in the Iphone factory while owning a shit load of Apple stock.
To be honest I can't imagine what's it must be like to be Russian, or more accurately been Russian back in the day, and get no credit for the 10-20 million people who died either (depending on how you count it).
I don’t think it’s a better or worse thing. Both nations fought a pretty heartless proxy war and neither side decided to clean up afterwards. We are experiencing the rewards of doing that right now in the Middle East. But bitching to people in this thread about the conduct of the US in the 1950-60-70 and 80s gets old fast. None of us were alive or able to impact those decisions. And there are no easy solutions for most of the problems left behind.
And in Syria the US basically continued the exact same policies from the 80s. So maybe it's not so outdated to have these views of the modern United States.
On December 19 2017 06:23 RenSC2 wrote: The world powers appeased the Nazis in the 1930s because they didn’t want war. They ended up in a war with the Nazis anyways after the Nazis gained more strength and were harder to defeat. We should not make the same mistakes with terrorists and worry about how they will react. We should simply prepare for the response.
We’ll be attacked if we capitulate and we’ll be attacked if we don’t. The terrorists won’t be happy until we are all cleansed from the face of the earth. So we might as well draw some clear lines in the sand and defend those lines even if it means war. Don’t let them gain enough power to threaten our existence and force us into a war with an uncertain outcome.
As a Trump hater, I still agree with the decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It’s a start.
The lack of infrastructure spending is 99% on Trump and the Republicans though. I’m not going to be upset with the Democrats for their 1% responsibility on this one.
Are you suggesting that Palestinians are terrorists? Everywhere I try to discuss this i see Palestinians portrayed as a braying mob of anti American terrorists who want nothing more than to wage war against the West at all times.
Actually, as you'd know if you had met any, Palestinians are a fairly liberal bunch of people who just want to be able to let their kids go outside without them getting arrested and tortured for a few months.
AIPAC has been doing its best to dehumanize the Palestinians for decades; with folks like the Daunt and Ren eating out of their dirty hands, one can take their efforts as successful.
It's not about dehumanizing Palestinians. That's quite besides the point. The real question is in what universe will the Palestinians EVER be pro-American? The obvious answer is that they will never be, so we should unequivocally support Israel.
Israel is supported by the big christian population in the US mainly for religeous reasons, and therefore Israel can get away with everything. In other western countries, the Palestinians have more support, as they are the oppressed underdogs in the conflict.
Also, be careful about overestimating Trump's symbolic recognicion of Jerusalem. There is no international support for his action, and actually does not matter much
I don't really care about whether Trump has domestic support for the action or why. My only concern is what is good for the US. Israel is an ally and should be treated as such. The Palestinians will never be allies. For that reason alone, the US should dispense with this fiction of trying to be "fair" on the Israel/Palestine issue. Nor do I care what other Western countries think. They aren't going to throw the US overboard on account of Palestine for the same reasons that the Saudis and other Arab powers won't. The bottom line is that no one really cares about the Palestinians.
Might makes right is such a wonderful ethical framework. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
And it is so incredibly shortsighted. Do you really think that you are so isolated from anyone else in the world that pissing everyone off will never have negative consequences?
Like I have infamously argued before, ethics and morality aren't the ends of rational foreign policy. The self-interest of the nation is.
I don't get this tbh. Like I completely understand why someone would vote in their own self-interest with regard to national or local politics - for example, you could think that higher taxes would be a societal good but negative for yourself and then vote for lower taxes. I have 0 qualms with understanding voting in your own self-interest. But how is your life going to be impacted by what side the US picks in a regional conflict on the other side of the world? Like I get wanting good trade deals because they positively impact your economy. I could even get supporting Israel from a humanitarian perspective (although I'd disagree), but choosing foreign policy as a specific area that should not be influenced by ethics and morality? That seems completely backwards to me - foreign policy should be the area of politics where you to the greatest degree can allow yourself to be influenced by ethics and morality without it negatively impacting your own life in any way.
I don't even see ethics and self-interest as more than very occasionally divergent. Acting in a rational, if completely self-interested manner, is a quick route to the sort of zero-sum nationalism that starts major worldwide conflicts.
On December 19 2017 06:23 RenSC2 wrote: The world powers appeased the Nazis in the 1930s because they didn’t want war. They ended up in a war with the Nazis anyways after the Nazis gained more strength and were harder to defeat. We should not make the same mistakes with terrorists and worry about how they will react. We should simply prepare for the response.
We’ll be attacked if we capitulate and we’ll be attacked if we don’t. The terrorists won’t be happy until we are all cleansed from the face of the earth. So we might as well draw some clear lines in the sand and defend those lines even if it means war. Don’t let them gain enough power to threaten our existence and force us into a war with an uncertain outcome.
As a Trump hater, I still agree with the decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It’s a start.
The lack of infrastructure spending is 99% on Trump and the Republicans though. I’m not going to be upset with the Democrats for their 1% responsibility on this one.
Are you suggesting that Palestinians are terrorists? Everywhere I try to discuss this i see Palestinians portrayed as a braying mob of anti American terrorists who want nothing more than to wage war against the West at all times.
Actually, as you'd know if you had met any, Palestinians are a fairly liberal bunch of people who just want to be able to let their kids go outside without them getting arrested and tortured for a few months.
AIPAC has been doing its best to dehumanize the Palestinians for decades; with folks like the Daunt and Ren eating out of their dirty hands, one can take their efforts as successful.
It's not about dehumanizing Palestinians. That's quite besides the point. The real question is in what universe will the Palestinians EVER be pro-American? The obvious answer is that they will never be, so we should unequivocally support Israel.
Israel is supported by the big christian population in the US mainly for religeous reasons, and therefore Israel can get away with everything. In other western countries, the Palestinians have more support, as they are the oppressed underdogs in the conflict.
Also, be careful about overestimating Trump's symbolic recognicion of Jerusalem. There is no international support for his action, and actually does not matter much
I don't really care about whether Trump has domestic support for the action or why. My only concern is what is good for the US. Israel is an ally and should be treated as such. The Palestinians will never be allies. For that reason alone, the US should dispense with this fiction of trying to be "fair" on the Israel/Palestine issue. Nor do I care what other Western countries think. They aren't going to throw the US overboard on account of Palestine for the same reasons that the Saudis and other Arab powers won't. The bottom line is that no one really cares about the Palestinians.
Might makes right is such a wonderful ethical framework. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
And it is so incredibly shortsighted. Do you really think that you are so isolated from anyone else in the world that pissing everyone off will never have negative consequences?
Like I have infamously argued before, ethics and morality aren't the ends of rational foreign policy. The self-interest of the nation is.
I don't get this tbh. Like I completely understand why someone would vote in their own self-interest with regard to national or local politics - for example, you could think that higher taxes would be a societal good but negative for yourself and then vote for lower taxes. I have 0 qualms with understanding voting in your own self-interest. But how is your life going to be impacted by what side the US picks in a regional conflict on the other side of the world? Like I get wanting good trade deals because they positively impact your economy. I could even get supporting Israel from a humanitarian perspective (although I'd disagree), but choosing foreign policy as a specific area that should not be influenced by ethics and morality? That seems completely backwards to me - foreign policy should be the area of politics where you to the greatest degree can allow yourself to be influenced by ethics and morality without it negatively impacting your own life in any way.
What are you arguing against, the principle or the application of the principle in this instance?
On December 19 2017 06:23 RenSC2 wrote: The world powers appeased the Nazis in the 1930s because they didn’t want war. They ended up in a war with the Nazis anyways after the Nazis gained more strength and were harder to defeat. We should not make the same mistakes with terrorists and worry about how they will react. We should simply prepare for the response.
We’ll be attacked if we capitulate and we’ll be attacked if we don’t. The terrorists won’t be happy until we are all cleansed from the face of the earth. So we might as well draw some clear lines in the sand and defend those lines even if it means war. Don’t let them gain enough power to threaten our existence and force us into a war with an uncertain outcome.
As a Trump hater, I still agree with the decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It’s a start.
The lack of infrastructure spending is 99% on Trump and the Republicans though. I’m not going to be upset with the Democrats for their 1% responsibility on this one.
Are you suggesting that Palestinians are terrorists? Everywhere I try to discuss this i see Palestinians portrayed as a braying mob of anti American terrorists who want nothing more than to wage war against the West at all times.
Actually, as you'd know if you had met any, Palestinians are a fairly liberal bunch of people who just want to be able to let their kids go outside without them getting arrested and tortured for a few months.
AIPAC has been doing its best to dehumanize the Palestinians for decades; with folks like the Daunt and Ren eating out of their dirty hands, one can take their efforts as successful.
It's not about dehumanizing Palestinians. That's quite besides the point. The real question is in what universe will the Palestinians EVER be pro-American? The obvious answer is that they will never be, so we should unequivocally support Israel.
Israel is supported by the big christian population in the US mainly for religeous reasons, and therefore Israel can get away with everything. In other western countries, the Palestinians have more support, as they are the oppressed underdogs in the conflict.
Also, be careful about overestimating Trump's symbolic recognicion of Jerusalem. There is no international support for his action, and actually does not matter much
I don't really care about whether Trump has domestic support for the action or why. My only concern is what is good for the US. Israel is an ally and should be treated as such. The Palestinians will never be allies. For that reason alone, the US should dispense with this fiction of trying to be "fair" on the Israel/Palestine issue. Nor do I care what other Western countries think. They aren't going to throw the US overboard on account of Palestine for the same reasons that the Saudis and other Arab powers won't. The bottom line is that no one really cares about the Palestinians.
Might makes right is such a wonderful ethical framework. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
And it is so incredibly shortsighted. Do you really think that you are so isolated from anyone else in the world that pissing everyone off will never have negative consequences?
Like I have infamously argued before, ethics and morality aren't the ends of rational foreign policy. The self-interest of the nation is.
I don't get this tbh. Like I completely understand why someone would vote in their own self-interest with regard to national or local politics - for example, you could think that higher taxes would be a societal good but negative for yourself and then vote for lower taxes. I have 0 qualms with understanding voting in your own self-interest. But how is your life going to be impacted by what side the US picks in a regional conflict on the other side of the world? Like I get wanting good trade deals because they positively impact your economy. I could even get supporting Israel from a humanitarian perspective (although I'd disagree), but choosing foreign policy as a specific area that should not be influenced by ethics and morality? That seems completely backwards to me - foreign policy should be the area of politics where you to the greatest degree can allow yourself to be influenced by ethics and morality without it negatively impacting your own life in any way.
I don't even see ethics and self-interest as more than very occasionally divergent. Acting in a rational, if completely self-interested manner, is a quick route to the sort of zero-sum nationalism that starts major worldwide conflicts.
Ehh, that really depends on how forward-looking your calculations are.
On December 19 2017 06:23 RenSC2 wrote: The world powers appeased the Nazis in the 1930s because they didn’t want war. They ended up in a war with the Nazis anyways after the Nazis gained more strength and were harder to defeat. We should not make the same mistakes with terrorists and worry about how they will react. We should simply prepare for the response.
We’ll be attacked if we capitulate and we’ll be attacked if we don’t. The terrorists won’t be happy until we are all cleansed from the face of the earth. So we might as well draw some clear lines in the sand and defend those lines even if it means war. Don’t let them gain enough power to threaten our existence and force us into a war with an uncertain outcome.
As a Trump hater, I still agree with the decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It’s a start.
The lack of infrastructure spending is 99% on Trump and the Republicans though. I’m not going to be upset with the Democrats for their 1% responsibility on this one.
Are you suggesting that Palestinians are terrorists? Everywhere I try to discuss this i see Palestinians portrayed as a braying mob of anti American terrorists who want nothing more than to wage war against the West at all times.
Actually, as you'd know if you had met any, Palestinians are a fairly liberal bunch of people who just want to be able to let their kids go outside without them getting arrested and tortured for a few months.
AIPAC has been doing its best to dehumanize the Palestinians for decades; with folks like the Daunt and Ren eating out of their dirty hands, one can take their efforts as successful.
It's not about dehumanizing Palestinians. That's quite besides the point. The real question is in what universe will the Palestinians EVER be pro-American? The obvious answer is that they will never be, so we should unequivocally support Israel.
Israel is supported by the big christian population in the US mainly for religeous reasons, and therefore Israel can get away with everything. In other western countries, the Palestinians have more support, as they are the oppressed underdogs in the conflict.
Also, be careful about overestimating Trump's symbolic recognicion of Jerusalem. There is no international support for his action, and actually does not matter much
I don't really care about whether Trump has domestic support for the action or why. My only concern is what is good for the US. Israel is an ally and should be treated as such. The Palestinians will never be allies. For that reason alone, the US should dispense with this fiction of trying to be "fair" on the Israel/Palestine issue. Nor do I care what other Western countries think. They aren't going to throw the US overboard on account of Palestine for the same reasons that the Saudis and other Arab powers won't. The bottom line is that no one really cares about the Palestinians.
Might makes right is such a wonderful ethical framework. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
And it is so incredibly shortsighted. Do you really think that you are so isolated from anyone else in the world that pissing everyone off will never have negative consequences?
Like I have infamously argued before, ethics and morality aren't the ends of rational foreign policy. The self-interest of the nation is.
I don't get this tbh. Like I completely understand why someone would vote in their own self-interest with regard to national or local politics - for example, you could think that higher taxes would be a societal good but negative for yourself and then vote for lower taxes. I have 0 qualms with understanding voting in your own self-interest. But how is your life going to be impacted by what side the US picks in a regional conflict on the other side of the world? Like I get wanting good trade deals because they positively impact your economy. I could even get supporting Israel from a humanitarian perspective (although I'd disagree), but choosing foreign policy as a specific area that should not be influenced by ethics and morality? That seems completely backwards to me - foreign policy should be the area of politics where you to the greatest degree can allow yourself to be influenced by ethics and morality without it negatively impacting your own life in any way.
What are you arguing against, the principle or the application of the principle in this instance?
Here, it's the application. I understand acting out of rational self-interest and I don't object to that, I just don't see how you think your life is going to be directly impacted in any way whatsoever based on to what degree the US supports Israel or Palestine. Unlike political decisions where you yourself will be directly impacted, I think it should here be easy to choose the one where the humanitarian benefit is the greatest, because you won't actually be impacted either way, except emotionally.
On December 19 2017 06:23 RenSC2 wrote: The world powers appeased the Nazis in the 1930s because they didn’t want war. They ended up in a war with the Nazis anyways after the Nazis gained more strength and were harder to defeat. We should not make the same mistakes with terrorists and worry about how they will react. We should simply prepare for the response.
We’ll be attacked if we capitulate and we’ll be attacked if we don’t. The terrorists won’t be happy until we are all cleansed from the face of the earth. So we might as well draw some clear lines in the sand and defend those lines even if it means war. Don’t let them gain enough power to threaten our existence and force us into a war with an uncertain outcome.
As a Trump hater, I still agree with the decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It’s a start.
The lack of infrastructure spending is 99% on Trump and the Republicans though. I’m not going to be upset with the Democrats for their 1% responsibility on this one.
Are you suggesting that Palestinians are terrorists? Everywhere I try to discuss this i see Palestinians portrayed as a braying mob of anti American terrorists who want nothing more than to wage war against the West at all times.
Actually, as you'd know if you had met any, Palestinians are a fairly liberal bunch of people who just want to be able to let their kids go outside without them getting arrested and tortured for a few months.
AIPAC has been doing its best to dehumanize the Palestinians for decades; with folks like the Daunt and Ren eating out of their dirty hands, one can take their efforts as successful.
It's not about dehumanizing Palestinians. That's quite besides the point. The real question is in what universe will the Palestinians EVER be pro-American? The obvious answer is that they will never be, so we should unequivocally support Israel.
Israel is supported by the big christian population in the US mainly for religeous reasons, and therefore Israel can get away with everything. In other western countries, the Palestinians have more support, as they are the oppressed underdogs in the conflict.
Also, be careful about overestimating Trump's symbolic recognicion of Jerusalem. There is no international support for his action, and actually does not matter much
I don't really care about whether Trump has domestic support for the action or why. My only concern is what is good for the US. Israel is an ally and should be treated as such. The Palestinians will never be allies. For that reason alone, the US should dispense with this fiction of trying to be "fair" on the Israel/Palestine issue. Nor do I care what other Western countries think. They aren't going to throw the US overboard on account of Palestine for the same reasons that the Saudis and other Arab powers won't. The bottom line is that no one really cares about the Palestinians.
Might makes right is such a wonderful ethical framework. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
And it is so incredibly shortsighted. Do you really think that you are so isolated from anyone else in the world that pissing everyone off will never have negative consequences?
Like I have infamously argued before, ethics and morality aren't the ends of rational foreign policy. The self-interest of the nation is.
I don't get this tbh. Like I completely understand why someone would vote in their own self-interest with regard to national or local politics - for example, you could think that higher taxes would be a societal good but negative for yourself and then vote for lower taxes. I have 0 qualms with understanding voting in your own self-interest. But how is your life going to be impacted by what side the US picks in a regional conflict on the other side of the world? Like I get wanting good trade deals because they positively impact your economy. I could even get supporting Israel from a humanitarian perspective (although I'd disagree), but choosing foreign policy as a specific area that should not be influenced by ethics and morality? That seems completely backwards to me - foreign policy should be the area of politics where you to the greatest degree can allow yourself to be influenced by ethics and morality without it negatively impacting your own life in any way.
I don't even see ethics and self-interest as more than very occasionally divergent. Acting in a rational, if completely self-interested manner, is a quick route to the sort of zero-sum nationalism that starts major worldwide conflicts.
I agree with this also, but that's a different argument.
On December 19 2017 17:50 mozoku wrote: Ehh, that's still not that close to what you said and the article is definitely trying to spin a narrative.
For example, it claims the PKI was openly working within the system and unarmed. And that Suharto "blamed" the coup on a PKI plot. In reality, the PKI was in power to begin with and lost power when a preemptive assassination of some alleged leaders of a suspected coup went badly wrong. That hardly rings of the "innocent victim portrayal in article. Not that that justifies anything on its own.
Here's a recent NYT article that covers the same cables, but with less innuendo.
The US involvement is limited to handing over some lists of known communists to be purged and aiding in media suppression. Not a shining star for the US, but not really an outlier by the standards of the time. I'm less sympathetic to some geopolitics-based justification for immorality in 2017, but the Cold War was a time when there were legitimate survival motives in play.
It's hardly comparable to, say, what the British Empire did--which is the impression you give when you accuse the US of supporting genocide, mass enslavement, and resource exploitation. For one, the US was primarily motivated by self-defense in the Cold War, rather than profit. Second, no enslavement actually happened. Third, Indonesia (voluntarily) welcomed US corporations because it felt the investment would simulate the economy--which it most certainly did. The US didn't show up with an army and enslave/massacre the locals for profit.
Moreover, it's much easier to say the US should have acted more in alignment with its stated principles on 2017 than it was in 1967. Given the uncertainty of the period, I can sympathize with US leaders at the time compromising on principles some to err on the side of keeping its citizens safe. I would expect Indonesians to do the same to Americans if the situation were reversed, and I wouldn't think any less of them for it.
So you're saying you would be ok with a million murdered Americans if it furthered Indonesian economic interests? Are you taking the piss?
There was no legitimate survival interest in this genocide, it was an economic coup, organized and supported by America and the UK, with the aim of stamping out an ideology that they didn't like and the secondary goal getting an infinite supply of cheap labour and cheap natural resources from a country that should be one of the richest in the world. A million people killed, with the full support of the US government. Minimize it all you want, its a disgrace.
Yes, the Cold War was an imperialist plot to exploit poor countries. There was no real threat. How could I forget?
That's a strawman if I've ever seen one. Nobody is saying there wasn't a "real threat" + Show Spoiler +
(although, if you care to, please do define that threat. Were they going to invade the US? Take over the world? What is it exactly that was so threatening? Was it the dark ominous music in the background that played on the TV whenever they mentioned the Soviets that was so threatening to you in the 70s or 80s? What was it, exactly? Did you read a textbook that said the Soviets were considered a threat by the US government and then just left your thoughts at accepting that as a fact rather than an assessment from a power that had the distinct interest to picture such a threat? Please, expand on this "real threat")
. It's just the way that this was handled was... less than optimal... in many cases.
On December 20 2017 04:57 Plansix wrote: The cold war was poor countries being used as pawn in a proxy war that no one ever bothered to clean up after. The US made the fate mistake of winning the cold war decisively, so they were the only country left to blame for the state of the middle east and other developing nations.
Haha. Yeah, nobody blames Russia for anything that's happened. Haha. It's just so funny, I can't stop laughing. Come on man, you're just feeling hurt (once again) for being confronted (once again) by the evils of your own nation that you so patriotically support.
Must be nice to live in a nation where everyone pays for your security and you get to heckle from the sidelines. You get all the rewards from those evils and get to assume none of the responsibility. One of the first nations to sign up to have America to fight the USSR for them. Complacent in every way but the moral high ground to spit on people from.
Every fucking time you pull that card.
Why do you always make this about my nationality, as if I'm only holding this position because I happened to be born in the Netherlands? My position is universal. Regardless of where I am. It is not based on unconditionally supporting one country over another. I oppose the United States in the same way I oppose Europe whenever they enact stupid harmful warmongering policies. Whether its Russia, Europe, China, or the United States. It matters not.
You're being nothing more than a condescending little piece of shit. I am hardly complacent. I have already argued in the EU thread that we cannot let the EUs desire for a unified fighting force (which I support, as a way to distance ourselves from the US) result in the same kind of shitty policies that your horrible nation enforces all over the world. People in the thread basically mocked me for taking that position, suggesting it would never happen. How's your take on that, then, eh?
You have no idea how long I wait to drop that card on your head. The there is a 30 to 1 ratio of deleted posts to me dropping that line. And your compliancy is only rivaled by your inability to accept it. You sit on the unearned moral high ground of growing up in a generation that didn’t experience war or strife, safe under the protection of others.
And you know what, I wouldn’t really give a fuck because I’m critical of my nation. But you are such a fucking asshole about it that I feel the need to point out you are a NATO member.
On December 19 2017 06:25 Jockmcplop wrote: [quote]
Are you suggesting that Palestinians are terrorists? Everywhere I try to discuss this i see Palestinians portrayed as a braying mob of anti American terrorists who want nothing more than to wage war against the West at all times.
Actually, as you'd know if you had met any, Palestinians are a fairly liberal bunch of people who just want to be able to let their kids go outside without them getting arrested and tortured for a few months.
AIPAC has been doing its best to dehumanize the Palestinians for decades; with folks like the Daunt and Ren eating out of their dirty hands, one can take their efforts as successful.
It's not about dehumanizing Palestinians. That's quite besides the point. The real question is in what universe will the Palestinians EVER be pro-American? The obvious answer is that they will never be, so we should unequivocally support Israel.
Israel is supported by the big christian population in the US mainly for religeous reasons, and therefore Israel can get away with everything. In other western countries, the Palestinians have more support, as they are the oppressed underdogs in the conflict.
Also, be careful about overestimating Trump's symbolic recognicion of Jerusalem. There is no international support for his action, and actually does not matter much
I don't really care about whether Trump has domestic support for the action or why. My only concern is what is good for the US. Israel is an ally and should be treated as such. The Palestinians will never be allies. For that reason alone, the US should dispense with this fiction of trying to be "fair" on the Israel/Palestine issue. Nor do I care what other Western countries think. They aren't going to throw the US overboard on account of Palestine for the same reasons that the Saudis and other Arab powers won't. The bottom line is that no one really cares about the Palestinians.
Might makes right is such a wonderful ethical framework. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
And it is so incredibly shortsighted. Do you really think that you are so isolated from anyone else in the world that pissing everyone off will never have negative consequences?
Like I have infamously argued before, ethics and morality aren't the ends of rational foreign policy. The self-interest of the nation is.
I don't get this tbh. Like I completely understand why someone would vote in their own self-interest with regard to national or local politics - for example, you could think that higher taxes would be a societal good but negative for yourself and then vote for lower taxes. I have 0 qualms with understanding voting in your own self-interest. But how is your life going to be impacted by what side the US picks in a regional conflict on the other side of the world? Like I get wanting good trade deals because they positively impact your economy. I could even get supporting Israel from a humanitarian perspective (although I'd disagree), but choosing foreign policy as a specific area that should not be influenced by ethics and morality? That seems completely backwards to me - foreign policy should be the area of politics where you to the greatest degree can allow yourself to be influenced by ethics and morality without it negatively impacting your own life in any way.
What are you arguing against, the principle or the application of the principle in this instance?
Here, it's the application. I understand acting out of rational self-interest and I don't object to that, I just don't see how you think your life is going to be directly impacted in any way whatsoever based on to what degree the US supports Israel or Palestine. Unlike political decisions where you yourself will be directly impacted, I think it should here be easy to choose the one where the humanitarian benefit is the greatest, because you won't actually be impacted either way, except emotionally.
There's no immediate direct impact. This is all about long term strategic thinking. I want a strong Western presence and ally in the Middle East.
On December 19 2017 17:50 mozoku wrote: Ehh, that's still not that close to what you said and the article is definitely trying to spin a narrative.
For example, it claims the PKI was openly working within the system and unarmed. And that Suharto "blamed" the coup on a PKI plot. In reality, the PKI was in power to begin with and lost power when a preemptive assassination of some alleged leaders of a suspected coup went badly wrong. That hardly rings of the "innocent victim portrayal in article. Not that that justifies anything on its own.
Here's a recent NYT article that covers the same cables, but with less innuendo.
The US involvement is limited to handing over some lists of known communists to be purged and aiding in media suppression. Not a shining star for the US, but not really an outlier by the standards of the time. I'm less sympathetic to some geopolitics-based justification for immorality in 2017, but the Cold War was a time when there were legitimate survival motives in play.
It's hardly comparable to, say, what the British Empire did--which is the impression you give when you accuse the US of supporting genocide, mass enslavement, and resource exploitation. For one, the US was primarily motivated by self-defense in the Cold War, rather than profit. Second, no enslavement actually happened. Third, Indonesia (voluntarily) welcomed US corporations because it felt the investment would simulate the economy--which it most certainly did. The US didn't show up with an army and enslave/massacre the locals for profit.
Moreover, it's much easier to say the US should have acted more in alignment with its stated principles on 2017 than it was in 1967. Given the uncertainty of the period, I can sympathize with US leaders at the time compromising on principles some to err on the side of keeping its citizens safe. I would expect Indonesians to do the same to Americans if the situation were reversed, and I wouldn't think any less of them for it.
So you're saying you would be ok with a million murdered Americans if it furthered Indonesian economic interests? Are you taking the piss?
There was no legitimate survival interest in this genocide, it was an economic coup, organized and supported by America and the UK, with the aim of stamping out an ideology that they didn't like and the secondary goal getting an infinite supply of cheap labour and cheap natural resources from a country that should be one of the richest in the world. A million people killed, with the full support of the US government. Minimize it all you want, its a disgrace.
Yes, the Cold War was an imperialist plot to exploit poor countries. There was no real threat. How could I forget?
That's a strawman if I've ever seen one. Nobody is saying there wasn't a "real threat" + Show Spoiler +
(although, if you care to, please do define that threat. Were they going to invade the US? Take over the world? What is it exactly that was so threatening? Was it the dark ominous music in the background that played on the TV whenever they mentioned the Soviets that was so threatening to you in the 70s or 80s? What was it, exactly? Did you read a textbook that said the Soviets were considered a threat by the US government and then just left your thoughts at accepting that as a fact rather than an assessment from a power that had the distinct interest to picture such a threat? Please, expand on this "real threat")
. It's just the way that this was handled was... less than optimal... in many cases.
On December 20 2017 04:57 Plansix wrote: The cold war was poor countries being used as pawn in a proxy war that no one ever bothered to clean up after. The US made the fate mistake of winning the cold war decisively, so they were the only country left to blame for the state of the middle east and other developing nations.
Haha. Yeah, nobody blames Russia for anything that's happened. Haha. It's just so funny, I can't stop laughing. Come on man, you're just feeling hurt (once again) for being confronted (once again) by the evils of your own nation that you so patriotically support.
Must be nice to live in a nation where everyone pays for your security and you get to heckle from the sidelines. You get all the rewards from those evils and get to assume none of the responsibility. One of the first nations to sign up to have America to fight the USSR for them. Complacent in every way but the moral high ground to spit on people from.
Every fucking time you pull that card.
Why do you always make this about my nationality, as if I'm only holding this position because I happened to be born in the Netherlands? My position is universal. Regardless of where I am. It is not based on unconditionally supporting one country over another. I oppose the United States in the same way I oppose Europe whenever they enact stupid harmful warmongering policies. Whether its Russia, Europe, China, or the United States. It matters not.
You're being nothing more than a condescending little piece of shit. I am hardly complacent. I have already argued in the EU thread that we cannot let the EUs desire for a unified fighting force (which I support, as a way to distance ourselves from the US) result in the same kind of shitty policies that your horrible nation enforces all over the world. People in the thread basically mocked me for taking that position, suggesting it would never happen. How's your take on that, then, eh?
You have no idea how long I wait to drop that card on your head. The there is a 30 to 1 ratio of deleted posts to me dropping that line. And your compliancy is only rivaled by your inability to accept it. You sit on the unearned moral high ground of growing up in a generation that didn’t experience war or strife, safe under the protection of others.
And you know what, I wouldn’t really give a fuck because I’m critical of my nation. But you are such a fucking asshole about it that I feel the need to point out you are a NATO member.
Maybe don't take criticism of your nation so personally that you feel the need to attack me personally 30 times in response to that.
Edit: Any notion of my position being based on 'sitting on an unearned moral high ground' is purely in your own perception. Europe's history and modern day wealth is steeped in centuries of imperialism. We need to give back our stolen wealth to the world, rather than collaborate with the modern version of imperialism to continue draining resources from the rest of the world. I can rage against that shit too, but this is the US politics thread, is it not?
On December 19 2017 06:28 farvacola wrote: [quote] AIPAC has been doing its best to dehumanize the Palestinians for decades; with folks like the Daunt and Ren eating out of their dirty hands, one can take their efforts as successful.
It's not about dehumanizing Palestinians. That's quite besides the point. The real question is in what universe will the Palestinians EVER be pro-American? The obvious answer is that they will never be, so we should unequivocally support Israel.
Israel is supported by the big christian population in the US mainly for religeous reasons, and therefore Israel can get away with everything. In other western countries, the Palestinians have more support, as they are the oppressed underdogs in the conflict.
Also, be careful about overestimating Trump's symbolic recognicion of Jerusalem. There is no international support for his action, and actually does not matter much
I don't really care about whether Trump has domestic support for the action or why. My only concern is what is good for the US. Israel is an ally and should be treated as such. The Palestinians will never be allies. For that reason alone, the US should dispense with this fiction of trying to be "fair" on the Israel/Palestine issue. Nor do I care what other Western countries think. They aren't going to throw the US overboard on account of Palestine for the same reasons that the Saudis and other Arab powers won't. The bottom line is that no one really cares about the Palestinians.
Might makes right is such a wonderful ethical framework. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
And it is so incredibly shortsighted. Do you really think that you are so isolated from anyone else in the world that pissing everyone off will never have negative consequences?
Like I have infamously argued before, ethics and morality aren't the ends of rational foreign policy. The self-interest of the nation is.
I don't get this tbh. Like I completely understand why someone would vote in their own self-interest with regard to national or local politics - for example, you could think that higher taxes would be a societal good but negative for yourself and then vote for lower taxes. I have 0 qualms with understanding voting in your own self-interest. But how is your life going to be impacted by what side the US picks in a regional conflict on the other side of the world? Like I get wanting good trade deals because they positively impact your economy. I could even get supporting Israel from a humanitarian perspective (although I'd disagree), but choosing foreign policy as a specific area that should not be influenced by ethics and morality? That seems completely backwards to me - foreign policy should be the area of politics where you to the greatest degree can allow yourself to be influenced by ethics and morality without it negatively impacting your own life in any way.
What are you arguing against, the principle or the application of the principle in this instance?
Here, it's the application. I understand acting out of rational self-interest and I don't object to that, I just don't see how you think your life is going to be directly impacted in any way whatsoever based on to what degree the US supports Israel or Palestine. Unlike political decisions where you yourself will be directly impacted, I think it should here be easy to choose the one where the humanitarian benefit is the greatest, because you won't actually be impacted either way, except emotionally.
There's no immediate direct impact. This is all about long term strategic thinking. I want a strong Western presence and ally in the Middle East.
But why? Do you think your life will be different either way, or do you think more lives will be better off in the long run? Do you think future American lives (so not current ones that might directly influence your life) have more value than future Arab lives?
I'm basically saying there are two principles that are sometimes in conflict with each other; humanitarianism and self-interest. I can't really fault people for choosing self-interest when these two conflict, even if I think it's not ideal. I also think I might disagree on when or where they conflict, but it's largely irrelevant.
But I can't get behind the rationale for supporting the less humanitarian actor in a conflict where your own personal self-interests aren't affected either way. I don't see how life in Colorado will be altered in any way through Israel ending the settlement and apartheid followup-policy. I get isolationism, I get saying fuck development aid, I get america first. I don't get how Israel second follows.
On December 19 2017 06:25 Jockmcplop wrote: [quote]
Are you suggesting that Palestinians are terrorists? Everywhere I try to discuss this i see Palestinians portrayed as a braying mob of anti American terrorists who want nothing more than to wage war against the West at all times.
Actually, as you'd know if you had met any, Palestinians are a fairly liberal bunch of people who just want to be able to let their kids go outside without them getting arrested and tortured for a few months.
AIPAC has been doing its best to dehumanize the Palestinians for decades; with folks like the Daunt and Ren eating out of their dirty hands, one can take their efforts as successful.
It's not about dehumanizing Palestinians. That's quite besides the point. The real question is in what universe will the Palestinians EVER be pro-American? The obvious answer is that they will never be, so we should unequivocally support Israel.
Israel is supported by the big christian population in the US mainly for religeous reasons, and therefore Israel can get away with everything. In other western countries, the Palestinians have more support, as they are the oppressed underdogs in the conflict.
Also, be careful about overestimating Trump's symbolic recognicion of Jerusalem. There is no international support for his action, and actually does not matter much
I don't really care about whether Trump has domestic support for the action or why. My only concern is what is good for the US. Israel is an ally and should be treated as such. The Palestinians will never be allies. For that reason alone, the US should dispense with this fiction of trying to be "fair" on the Israel/Palestine issue. Nor do I care what other Western countries think. They aren't going to throw the US overboard on account of Palestine for the same reasons that the Saudis and other Arab powers won't. The bottom line is that no one really cares about the Palestinians.
Might makes right is such a wonderful ethical framework. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
And it is so incredibly shortsighted. Do you really think that you are so isolated from anyone else in the world that pissing everyone off will never have negative consequences?
Like I have infamously argued before, ethics and morality aren't the ends of rational foreign policy. The self-interest of the nation is.
I don't get this tbh. Like I completely understand why someone would vote in their own self-interest with regard to national or local politics - for example, you could think that higher taxes would be a societal good but negative for yourself and then vote for lower taxes. I have 0 qualms with understanding voting in your own self-interest. But how is your life going to be impacted by what side the US picks in a regional conflict on the other side of the world? Like I get wanting good trade deals because they positively impact your economy. I could even get supporting Israel from a humanitarian perspective (although I'd disagree), but choosing foreign policy as a specific area that should not be influenced by ethics and morality? That seems completely backwards to me - foreign policy should be the area of politics where you to the greatest degree can allow yourself to be influenced by ethics and morality without it negatively impacting your own life in any way.
What are you arguing against, the principle or the application of the principle in this instance?
Here, it's the application. I understand acting out of rational self-interest and I don't object to that, I just don't see how you think your life is going to be directly impacted in any way whatsoever based on to what degree the US supports Israel or Palestine. Unlike political decisions where you yourself will be directly impacted, I think it should here be easy to choose the one where the humanitarian benefit is the greatest, because you won't actually be impacted either way, except emotionally.
Maybe the long-term humanitarian benefit and the US's national interest are aligned in this regard. I don't think xDaunt ever revealed that he thinks this action stands obviously against humanitarian interests in the region, just that it shouldn't be a deciding issue in US foreign policy.
On December 19 2017 06:28 farvacola wrote: [quote] AIPAC has been doing its best to dehumanize the Palestinians for decades; with folks like the Daunt and Ren eating out of their dirty hands, one can take their efforts as successful.
It's not about dehumanizing Palestinians. That's quite besides the point. The real question is in what universe will the Palestinians EVER be pro-American? The obvious answer is that they will never be, so we should unequivocally support Israel.
Israel is supported by the big christian population in the US mainly for religeous reasons, and therefore Israel can get away with everything. In other western countries, the Palestinians have more support, as they are the oppressed underdogs in the conflict.
Also, be careful about overestimating Trump's symbolic recognicion of Jerusalem. There is no international support for his action, and actually does not matter much
I don't really care about whether Trump has domestic support for the action or why. My only concern is what is good for the US. Israel is an ally and should be treated as such. The Palestinians will never be allies. For that reason alone, the US should dispense with this fiction of trying to be "fair" on the Israel/Palestine issue. Nor do I care what other Western countries think. They aren't going to throw the US overboard on account of Palestine for the same reasons that the Saudis and other Arab powers won't. The bottom line is that no one really cares about the Palestinians.
Might makes right is such a wonderful ethical framework. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
And it is so incredibly shortsighted. Do you really think that you are so isolated from anyone else in the world that pissing everyone off will never have negative consequences?
Like I have infamously argued before, ethics and morality aren't the ends of rational foreign policy. The self-interest of the nation is.
I don't get this tbh. Like I completely understand why someone would vote in their own self-interest with regard to national or local politics - for example, you could think that higher taxes would be a societal good but negative for yourself and then vote for lower taxes. I have 0 qualms with understanding voting in your own self-interest. But how is your life going to be impacted by what side the US picks in a regional conflict on the other side of the world? Like I get wanting good trade deals because they positively impact your economy. I could even get supporting Israel from a humanitarian perspective (although I'd disagree), but choosing foreign policy as a specific area that should not be influenced by ethics and morality? That seems completely backwards to me - foreign policy should be the area of politics where you to the greatest degree can allow yourself to be influenced by ethics and morality without it negatively impacting your own life in any way.
What are you arguing against, the principle or the application of the principle in this instance?
Here, it's the application. I understand acting out of rational self-interest and I don't object to that, I just don't see how you think your life is going to be directly impacted in any way whatsoever based on to what degree the US supports Israel or Palestine. Unlike political decisions where you yourself will be directly impacted, I think it should here be easy to choose the one where the humanitarian benefit is the greatest, because you won't actually be impacted either way, except emotionally.
Maybe the long-term humanitarian benefit and the US's national interest are aligned in this regard. I don't think xDaunt ever revealed that he thinks this action stands obviously against humanitarian interests in the region, just that it shouldn't be a deciding issue in US foreign policy.
If those things are not aligned... doesn't that make us the bad guys?
On December 19 2017 06:30 xDaunt wrote: [quote] It's not about dehumanizing Palestinians. That's quite besides the point. The real question is in what universe will the Palestinians EVER be pro-American? The obvious answer is that they will never be, so we should unequivocally support Israel.
Israel is supported by the big christian population in the US mainly for religeous reasons, and therefore Israel can get away with everything. In other western countries, the Palestinians have more support, as they are the oppressed underdogs in the conflict.
Also, be careful about overestimating Trump's symbolic recognicion of Jerusalem. There is no international support for his action, and actually does not matter much
I don't really care about whether Trump has domestic support for the action or why. My only concern is what is good for the US. Israel is an ally and should be treated as such. The Palestinians will never be allies. For that reason alone, the US should dispense with this fiction of trying to be "fair" on the Israel/Palestine issue. Nor do I care what other Western countries think. They aren't going to throw the US overboard on account of Palestine for the same reasons that the Saudis and other Arab powers won't. The bottom line is that no one really cares about the Palestinians.
Might makes right is such a wonderful ethical framework. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
And it is so incredibly shortsighted. Do you really think that you are so isolated from anyone else in the world that pissing everyone off will never have negative consequences?
Like I have infamously argued before, ethics and morality aren't the ends of rational foreign policy. The self-interest of the nation is.
I don't get this tbh. Like I completely understand why someone would vote in their own self-interest with regard to national or local politics - for example, you could think that higher taxes would be a societal good but negative for yourself and then vote for lower taxes. I have 0 qualms with understanding voting in your own self-interest. But how is your life going to be impacted by what side the US picks in a regional conflict on the other side of the world? Like I get wanting good trade deals because they positively impact your economy. I could even get supporting Israel from a humanitarian perspective (although I'd disagree), but choosing foreign policy as a specific area that should not be influenced by ethics and morality? That seems completely backwards to me - foreign policy should be the area of politics where you to the greatest degree can allow yourself to be influenced by ethics and morality without it negatively impacting your own life in any way.
What are you arguing against, the principle or the application of the principle in this instance?
Here, it's the application. I understand acting out of rational self-interest and I don't object to that, I just don't see how you think your life is going to be directly impacted in any way whatsoever based on to what degree the US supports Israel or Palestine. Unlike political decisions where you yourself will be directly impacted, I think it should here be easy to choose the one where the humanitarian benefit is the greatest, because you won't actually be impacted either way, except emotionally.
Maybe the long-term humanitarian benefit and the US's national interest are aligned in this regard. I don't think xDaunt ever revealed that he thinks this action stands obviously against humanitarian interests in the region, just that it shouldn't be a deciding issue in US foreign policy.
If those things are not aligned... doesn't that make us the bad guys?
I think we've had several pages recently on just that question, and why it's so obviously one way or the other
On December 19 2017 06:30 xDaunt wrote: [quote] It's not about dehumanizing Palestinians. That's quite besides the point. The real question is in what universe will the Palestinians EVER be pro-American? The obvious answer is that they will never be, so we should unequivocally support Israel.
Israel is supported by the big christian population in the US mainly for religeous reasons, and therefore Israel can get away with everything. In other western countries, the Palestinians have more support, as they are the oppressed underdogs in the conflict.
Also, be careful about overestimating Trump's symbolic recognicion of Jerusalem. There is no international support for his action, and actually does not matter much
I don't really care about whether Trump has domestic support for the action or why. My only concern is what is good for the US. Israel is an ally and should be treated as such. The Palestinians will never be allies. For that reason alone, the US should dispense with this fiction of trying to be "fair" on the Israel/Palestine issue. Nor do I care what other Western countries think. They aren't going to throw the US overboard on account of Palestine for the same reasons that the Saudis and other Arab powers won't. The bottom line is that no one really cares about the Palestinians.
Might makes right is such a wonderful ethical framework. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
And it is so incredibly shortsighted. Do you really think that you are so isolated from anyone else in the world that pissing everyone off will never have negative consequences?
Like I have infamously argued before, ethics and morality aren't the ends of rational foreign policy. The self-interest of the nation is.
I don't get this tbh. Like I completely understand why someone would vote in their own self-interest with regard to national or local politics - for example, you could think that higher taxes would be a societal good but negative for yourself and then vote for lower taxes. I have 0 qualms with understanding voting in your own self-interest. But how is your life going to be impacted by what side the US picks in a regional conflict on the other side of the world? Like I get wanting good trade deals because they positively impact your economy. I could even get supporting Israel from a humanitarian perspective (although I'd disagree), but choosing foreign policy as a specific area that should not be influenced by ethics and morality? That seems completely backwards to me - foreign policy should be the area of politics where you to the greatest degree can allow yourself to be influenced by ethics and morality without it negatively impacting your own life in any way.
What are you arguing against, the principle or the application of the principle in this instance?
Here, it's the application. I understand acting out of rational self-interest and I don't object to that, I just don't see how you think your life is going to be directly impacted in any way whatsoever based on to what degree the US supports Israel or Palestine. Unlike political decisions where you yourself will be directly impacted, I think it should here be easy to choose the one where the humanitarian benefit is the greatest, because you won't actually be impacted either way, except emotionally.
Maybe the long-term humanitarian benefit and the US's national interest are aligned in this regard. I don't think xDaunt ever revealed that he thinks this action stands obviously against humanitarian interests in the region, just that it shouldn't be a deciding issue in US foreign policy.
If those things are not aligned... doesn't that make us the bad guys?
It makes us complacent. We think their suffering is bad, but we just don’t care enough to compromise our relationship with a long term ally to stop it. We will just watch and tell them we feel bad, but there is nothing we can do. And we won’t accept refugees or anything like that because, you know, they hate America.
Israel is supported by the big christian population in the US mainly for religeous reasons, and therefore Israel can get away with everything. In other western countries, the Palestinians have more support, as they are the oppressed underdogs in the conflict.
Also, be careful about overestimating Trump's symbolic recognicion of Jerusalem. There is no international support for his action, and actually does not matter much
I don't really care about whether Trump has domestic support for the action or why. My only concern is what is good for the US. Israel is an ally and should be treated as such. The Palestinians will never be allies. For that reason alone, the US should dispense with this fiction of trying to be "fair" on the Israel/Palestine issue. Nor do I care what other Western countries think. They aren't going to throw the US overboard on account of Palestine for the same reasons that the Saudis and other Arab powers won't. The bottom line is that no one really cares about the Palestinians.
Might makes right is such a wonderful ethical framework. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
And it is so incredibly shortsighted. Do you really think that you are so isolated from anyone else in the world that pissing everyone off will never have negative consequences?
Like I have infamously argued before, ethics and morality aren't the ends of rational foreign policy. The self-interest of the nation is.
I don't get this tbh. Like I completely understand why someone would vote in their own self-interest with regard to national or local politics - for example, you could think that higher taxes would be a societal good but negative for yourself and then vote for lower taxes. I have 0 qualms with understanding voting in your own self-interest. But how is your life going to be impacted by what side the US picks in a regional conflict on the other side of the world? Like I get wanting good trade deals because they positively impact your economy. I could even get supporting Israel from a humanitarian perspective (although I'd disagree), but choosing foreign policy as a specific area that should not be influenced by ethics and morality? That seems completely backwards to me - foreign policy should be the area of politics where you to the greatest degree can allow yourself to be influenced by ethics and morality without it negatively impacting your own life in any way.
What are you arguing against, the principle or the application of the principle in this instance?
Here, it's the application. I understand acting out of rational self-interest and I don't object to that, I just don't see how you think your life is going to be directly impacted in any way whatsoever based on to what degree the US supports Israel or Palestine. Unlike political decisions where you yourself will be directly impacted, I think it should here be easy to choose the one where the humanitarian benefit is the greatest, because you won't actually be impacted either way, except emotionally.
Maybe the long-term humanitarian benefit and the US's national interest are aligned in this regard. I don't think xDaunt ever revealed that he thinks this action stands obviously against humanitarian interests in the region, just that it shouldn't be a deciding issue in US foreign policy.
If those things are not aligned... doesn't that make us the bad guys?
I think we've had several pages recently on just that question, and why it's so obviously one way or the other
I would hope the several pages has revealed that it is not so obviously any way at all, and reductionist thinking along these lines is just that.
EPT
