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On May 20 2019 06:08 JimmiC wrote:
He might be the only President in US history to get vastly broker instead of richer. He has completely destroyed the myth about himself that he built up over 50+ years. His name as a Brand is toxic as hell. And he has put a spotlight on his own corruption that it is fairly unlikely that he doesn't end up in some sort of legal trouble afterwards.
I mean he already lost his charity and his "university".
Which brings up a good question to the Trump defenders. Do you think that he deserved to lose the charity for how he was using it? And if you do, was it him or was this another case of bad people around him doing things he was not aware of?
I don't know. He's quite possibly reshaped the face of American politics permanently. At this point it seems hard to see how the GOP comes back from the Trump era; the base have embraced him wholeheartedly.
There's a looooooot of money to make from that.
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On May 20 2019 07:03 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2019 06:08 JimmiC wrote:
He might be the only President in US history to get vastly broker instead of richer. He has completely destroyed the myth about himself that he built up over 50+ years. His name as a Brand is toxic as hell. And he has put a spotlight on his own corruption that it is fairly unlikely that he doesn't end up in some sort of legal trouble afterwards.
I mean he already lost his charity and his "university".
Which brings up a good question to the Trump defenders. Do you think that he deserved to lose the charity for how he was using it? And if you do, was it him or was this another case of bad people around him doing things he was not aware of? I don't know. He's quite possibly reshaped the face of American politics permanently. At this point it seems hard to see how the GOP comes back from the Trump era; the base have embraced him wholeheartedly. There's a looooooot of money to make from that. There is indeed a lot of money to be made. Just go on Twitter or YouTube and you will see any number of grifters focused on the Trump base already.
I guess the other question to ask is whether or not Trump himself will ever be one of the ones making that money, or whether his goose is truly cooked the second he's not president anymore. If the documents Cohen provided are any indication of how blatantly clear it was Trump was committing massive amounts of tax fraud, I can't see him somehow being able to escape that stuff catching up to him. Cohen said under oath that Trump had a history of messing with property values for tax purposes and he provided names of others who could back up what he said, as well as provided documents showing a sample of it. I don't see why we wouldn't believe his claim at this point. Right now it looks like at the very least Trump has committed bank fraud and insurance fraud, and likely evaded taxes. They even mentioned in that article I posted about Deutsche Bank that Trump had inflated his personal value by more than 3x what they had assessed him at when he applied for a loan.
It's pretty clear at this point that he's terrified of Congress getting his financial statements and tax returns. There has to be a significant reason for it otherwise it would make no sense for him to be trying to block them as much as he is.
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Will be interesting to see if trump goes through with pardoning this war criminal. I'm not even sure if his base would support his most recent pardons. Maybe he figures it builds more of a case to pardon the people charged in the Russia investigation after the DOJ IG & whatever other reports come out.
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Why does Iran talk like they are remotely capable of handling even the slightest flick of the US' giant military dick? This whole thing is so weird to me. Trump is a moron, but Iran is what I would describe as "the tallest midget" when it comes to military strength. Countries could wipe them out, but choose not to. Its like talking shit when you're in a wheel chair because you know no one would attack a cripple.
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You chant Death to America enough with nothing happening, and people start to think America won’t ever bomb or invade. It’s weapons are used to kill our servicemen in Iraq. I don’t fully blame them.
One of their clients, Hamas, has shown particular success against Western democracies by packing their missile launch sites with kids. Retaliatory strikes on the launch sites have dropped. How many civilian casualties will we tolerate in a war against a lesser power?
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On May 20 2019 10:30 Danglars wrote:
You chant Death to America enough with nothing happening, and people start to think America won’t ever bomb or invade. It’s weapons are used to kill our servicemen in Iraq. I don’t fully blame them.
One of their clients, Hamas, has shown particular success against Western democracies by packing their missile launch sites with kids. Retaliatory strikes on the launch sites have dropped. How many civilian casualties will we tolerate in a war against a lesser power?
Our weapons are used to kill US service men, and civilians all over the world and no one is planning on invading or bombing us either. For example, here's a recent report on bombing civilians in Somalia (I'd bet a lot of people didn't even know we were bombing Somalia?).
Three farmers were sleeping under a tree when they were fatally hit by US airstrikes near the rural town of Darusalam, Somalia, in November 2017, according to a new report by Amnesty International.
...Amnesty has argued that overly broad strike criteria are putting young Somali men — some who are farmers living in remote areas — at risk of being indiscriminately targeted by airstrikes.
Under a shroud of secrecy, US military counterterrorism operations in Somalia have surged under Trump administration, along with a lack of transparency in terms of civilian casualties.
The new report by Amnesty says the US military could be guilty of war crimes for killing civilians during airstrikes in Somalia. They documented 14 civilian casualties from just five airstrikes conducted between 2017 and 2018. These casualties were not reported by AFRICOM.
They denied any civilian deaths until April 5, when AFRICOM acknowledged at least two civilian casualties in an April 2018 strike after conducting an internal review last month.
"US Africa Command is committed to transparency in its reporting of civilian casualties. While believed to be an isolated occurrence, the reporting error is being addressed," AFRICOM said in the statement.
In an executive order earlier this month, President Donald Trump revoked an Obama-era policy requiring the government to publish statistics on civilian casualties.
www.pri.org
We also had a presidential nominee sing a song about bombing Iran and we are constantly trying to replace governments around the world with ones that allow us to exploit their people more thoroughly.
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United States42259 Posts
On May 20 2019 10:05 Mohdoo wrote:
Why does Iran talk like they are remotely capable of handling even the slightest flick of the US' giant military dick? This whole thing is so weird to me. Trump is a moron, but Iran is what I would describe as "the tallest midget" when it comes to military strength. Countries could wipe them out, but choose not to. Its like talking shit when you're in a wheel chair because you know no one would attack a cripple.
They'd have a nuclear deterrent by now and could talk all the shit they want but Obama talked them out of doing that. Also they could bog America down for a while. It's not like the US is winning in Afghanistan after all.
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On May 20 2019 10:04 Doodsmack wrote:Will be interesting to see if trump goes through with pardoning this war criminal. I'm not even sure if his base would support his most recent pardons. Maybe he figures it builds more of a case to pardon the people charged in the Russia investigation after the DOJ IG & whatever other reports come out. https://twitter.com/KaivanShroff/status/1130173042712285186
Pardoning war criminals for political points might be the best illustration of the Trump presidency yet. Expect the pardons to be announced in some grand tweet on memorial day. Tho it will make a pretty damning debate question for him to have to answer come next year.
Also, be ready to lower the bar for president a few more inches after the conservatives say little to nothing about it.
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On May 20 2019 10:04 Doodsmack wrote:Will be interesting to see if trump goes through with pardoning this war criminal. I'm not even sure if his base would support his most recent pardons. Maybe he figures it builds more of a case to pardon the people charged in the Russia investigation after the DOJ IG & whatever other reports come out. https://twitter.com/KaivanShroff/status/1130173042712285186 I read about this earlier today. There's an article in the New York Times about it. It's absolutely disgusting that they are even thinking of pardoning this man.
One of the most troubling things about this is the willingness of the administration and Fox News to completely overlook why this guy was charged with war crimes and has beat the drum to get him pardoned anyway. If the other SEALs he was in charge of are to be believed (and given all of the evidence that corroborates what they said, which was mostly text messages, emails, and social media posts the guy did, they certainly should be believed), the things he did are literally indefensible unless you are a massive fucking racist who thinks wanton murdering of people is fine. He shot innocent civilians walking down the street from a sniper post, including a young woman out for a walk by the river with her friends and an unarmed elderly man walking down the street, shot a heavy machine-gun into a neighbourhood with no regard for hitting people, gave other soldiers recklessly dangerous assignments, blew buildings and other things up for fun even with people likely being in them, and stabbed a 15 year-old ISIS militant who a US medic was giving medical care to to death and had his picture taken with the body so he could send it to his friend and brag about his new knife. The other SEALs referred to him as a mass murderer. They tried to report him multiple times but someone up the chain of command was friends with him and always stopped it from getting through, and he somehow would find out and then threaten the other SEALs.
I can't even wrap my head around how Trump and his people think this would be a good idea politically, or just in general. He was turned in by other military people for being a monster. Like are they really banking on nobody bothering to look into why this guy was charged? And what message does this send? That it's ok for US troops to be murderous psychopaths when overseas as long as it's for "our side"?
I really want to know who suggested this to Trump. This whole thing screams Stephen Miller to me.
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On May 20 2019 13:23 On_Slaught wrote:
Pardoning war criminals for political points might be the best illustration of the Trump presidency yet. Expect the pardons to be announced in some grand tweet on memorial day. Tho it will make a pretty damning debate question for him to have to answer come next year. I fully expect him to not participate in debates. There's no way he could answer questions about this pardon stuff, the child separation policy, or things like the aftermath of Hurricane Maria/Puerto Rico without him getting completely embarrassed. He would have to lie, and if he's against a sharp opponent they will tear him apart over it.
Hillary Clinton stunted on him in the debates in 2016, and that was before all the events of the last couple years have happened. It will be so much worse for him next year if he does participate in the debates now that there's all this extra baggage to go along.
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The right wing propagandists act like it was Hillary who brought these claims against these soldiers and not, in the case of Gallagher, a bunch of other Navy SEALs. The cognitive dissonance between "we have to support him because he is a soldier" and "soldiers are the ones who are accusing him of war crimes" is pretty shocking, even from hacks like those on Fox.
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On May 20 2019 10:30 Danglars wrote:
You chant Death to America enough with nothing happening, and people start to think America won’t ever bomb or invade. It’s weapons are used to kill our servicemen in Iraq. I don’t fully blame them.
One of their clients, Hamas, has shown particular success against Western democracies by packing their missile launch sites with kids. Retaliatory strikes on the launch sites have dropped. How many civilian casualties will we tolerate in a war against a lesser power?
If chanting « death to X » is a motive for bombing a country, I guess the whole muslim world should bomb the shit out of America considering how many idiots spend their day claiming « islam is a cancer » and so on and so forth.
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On May 20 2019 16:33 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2019 10:30 Danglars wrote:
You chant Death to America enough with nothing happening, and people start to think America won’t ever bomb or invade. It’s weapons are used to kill our servicemen in Iraq. I don’t fully blame them.
One of their clients, Hamas, has shown particular success against Western democracies by packing their missile launch sites with kids. Retaliatory strikes on the launch sites have dropped. How many civilian casualties will we tolerate in a war against a lesser power? If chanting « death to X » is a motive for bombing a country, I guess the whole muslim world should bomb the shit out of America considering how many idiots spend their day claiming « islam is a cancer » and so on and so forth.
In the minds of the people that want to bomb a country for chants, muslims allready constantly attack the USA.
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On May 20 2019 10:05 Mohdoo wrote:
Why does Iran talk like they are remotely capable of handling even the slightest flick of the US' giant military dick? This whole thing is so weird to me. Trump is a moron, but Iran is what I would describe as "the tallest midget" when it comes to military strength. Countries could wipe them out, but choose not to. Its like talking shit when you're in a wheel chair because you know no one would attack a cripple.
This topic came up on the board a good while ago, and people were saying that the US's military strategists think an invasion of Iran would end badly for America. Not that they'd 'lose' as such, but that the geography would make an actual invasion logistically unsustainable and might force a withdrawal.
Also I believe it's assumed that we'd have no significant allies in the area for that fight.
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The US military can beat any opponent on the globe. The question is "but at what cost?!"
Iran is 4x the area of Iraq with a lot of mountainous territory and a pretty modern military with fighting experience. And don't forget at least the revolutionary guard (~125k personnel) would likely fight a guerilla war similar to Afghanistan.
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On May 20 2019 21:31 schaf wrote:
The US military can beat any opponent on the globe. The question is "but at what cost?!"
Iran is 4x the area of Iraq with a lot of mountainous territory and a pretty modern military with fighting experience. And don't forget at least the revolutionary guard (~125k personnel) would likely fight a guerilla war similar to Afghanistan.
Sure, but if we decided "entirely destroy the entirety of Iran" while Iran decides the same thing of the US, Iran would be wiped out in probably less than a week. The only thing preventing the complete wipe out of Iran is ethics. Guerilla doesn't do much when you decide to eliminate the country. You just kill the entire thing. But we don't because that would be grossly inhumane.
So if we decide nothing will actually ever happen, why not just be as nice as possible? It is pretty cowardly that Iran always just tries to do as much as it can without being worth the cost of wiping out.
But my understanding is that according to their brand of Islam, they still believe that Muslims will conquer the world some day. So they've got their eyes on the prize and are only being allowed to do so because it would cost too much to wipe them out. So they've got this ridiculous fantasy that only continues because they are so benign.
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Military power is a political tool. Can the US throw bombs on Iran? Yes. Can the US achieve anything in Iran by using military power: no.
The US can declare war on Iran, unleash a whole bunch of violence and kill many people. But what is their political goal and how can they achieve it? The US still hasn't won in Afghanistan. The US is not winning in Yemen either.
What does the US want? They can bomb the shit out of Iran and then tell Saudi Arabia to try to invade Iran. But that doesn't work either. The US wants a weaker Iran because they want a weaker Iran. But they forgot about the 'why'.
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On May 20 2019 22:40 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2019 21:31 schaf wrote:
The US military can beat any opponent on the globe. The question is "but at what cost?!"
Iran is 4x the area of Iraq with a lot of mountainous territory and a pretty modern military with fighting experience. And don't forget at least the revolutionary guard (~125k personnel) would likely fight a guerilla war similar to Afghanistan. Sure, but if we decided "entirely destroy the entirety of Iran" while Iran decides the same thing of the US, Iran would be wiped out in probably less than a week. The only thing preventing the complete wipe out of Iran is ethics. Guerilla doesn't do much when you decide to eliminate the country. You just kill the entire thing. But we don't because that would be grossly inhumane. So if we decide nothing will actually ever happen, why not just be as nice as possible? It is pretty cowardly that Iran always just tries to do as much as it can without being worth the cost of wiping out. But my understanding is that according to their brand of Islam, they still believe that Muslims will conquer the world some day. So they've got their eyes on the prize and are only being allowed to do so because it would cost too much to wipe them out. So they've got this ridiculous fantasy that only continues because they are so benign.
Your understanding is lacking if that is what you think is going on in Iran. There are a great deal of expat Iranians in many countries (usually extremely well integrated) and if you would bother to talk to any of them you would know that the vast majority of Iranians are not particularly devout nor do they have any real interest of conquering the world. They happen to have a pretty crappy leadership (thanks to the US) that says some inflammatory things (just like the US) and sometimes do some questionable geopolitical things (just like the US).
But yeah, sure the US could wipe out Iran (would take longer than a week though) if they wanted. We are talking about the deaths of 10s of millions of people (the vast majority of them innocent) and the largest refuge wave in modern history. So it would put the US president somewhere in the top 3 of worst people of all time next to Genghis Khan and Stalin, comfortably ahead of Hitler.
But that's just ethics right?
Also no way the world would react to this? I would assume a global anti-american defensive would form almost instantly.
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On May 20 2019 23:04 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
But yeah, sure the US could wipe out Iran (would take longer than a week though) if they wanted. We are talking about the deaths of 10s of millions of people (the vast majority of them innocent) and the largest refuge wave in modern history. So it would put the US president somewhere in the top 3 of worst people of all time next to Genghis Khan and Stalin, comfortably ahead of Hitler.
But that's just ethics right?
Also no way the world would react to this? I would assume a global anti-american defensive would form almost instantly.
Well, half of Europe supported Bush in invading Iraq.
And after it happened almost everyone was "Ok, this is now the political reality and we need the US. So let us help rebuild Iraq."
Iran of course is a lot stronger. They went after Iraq because Saddam Hussein wasn't even in control of his own country. And Iran is a lot bigger and has a very challenging geography. Iraq is almost he perfect country to invade.
So maybe I am too cynical, but I don't really see how the world can stop the US if Trump decides it is good for the polls to bomb Iran. It is basically up the the US generals to stop Trump. Congress won't. Mueller didn't. The voters can't. He doesn't have any advisors, secretaries or ministers. So it will be the generals.
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On May 20 2019 23:11 Rasalased wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2019 23:04 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
But yeah, sure the US could wipe out Iran (would take longer than a week though) if they wanted. We are talking about the deaths of 10s of millions of people (the vast majority of them innocent) and the largest refuge wave in modern history. So it would put the US president somewhere in the top 3 of worst people of all time next to Genghis Khan and Stalin, comfortably ahead of Hitler.
But that's just ethics right?
Also no way the world would react to this? I would assume a global anti-american defensive would form almost instantly.
Well, half of Europe supported Bush in invading Iraq. And after it happened almost everyone was "Ok, this is now the political reality and we need the US. So let us help rebuild Iraq." Iran of course is a lot stronger. They went after Iraq because Saddam Hussein wasn't even in control of his own country. And Iran is a lot bigger and has a very challenging geography. Iraq is almost he perfect country to invade. So maybe I am too cynical, but I don't really see how the world can stop the US if Trump decides it is good for the polls to bomb Iran. It is basically up the the US generals to stop Trump. Congress won't. Mueller didn't. The voters can't. He doesn't have any advisors, secretaries or ministers. So it will be the generals.
Nobody can stop the US if they decide to bomb Iran. Iran will get bombed if the US decides they want to do that.
It's a bit like how nobody could stop Germany from invading Poland, tho. Do you really want to do that?
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I think it is more important to point out that Bush and Blair faced zero consequences. Saddam Hussein was hanged.
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EPT
