US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1989

On January 05 2020 15:31 KwarK wrote:
The 52 thing is another example of the preening stupidity of this administration. He came up with a number and demanded a policy to fit it. If the military said it needed to be 60 sites to ensure victory then 52 is too few. If strategic necessity requires only 30 sites then he wants to commit American forces to 22 pointless extra strikes. It’s baffling that he thinks people will be impressed by this nonsense, and that the deplorables lap it up.

It’s foreign policy as a reality tv show. He’s trying to make the storyline more interesting by incorporating some kind of gotya into an actual fucking plan for war.

This is everything people who hate Trump have always said he would do. He only cares about the ratings for his presidency reality tv show because he’s too much of a narcissist to understand that the world is bigger than him.

On January 05 2020 15:31 KwarK wrote:
The 52 thing is another example of the preening stupidity of this administration. He came up with a number and demanded a policy to fit it. If the military said it needed to be 60 sites to ensure victory then 52 is too few. If strategic necessity requires only 30 sites then he wants to commit American forces to 22 pointless extra strikes. It’s baffling that he thinks people will be impressed by this nonsense, and that the deplorables lap it up.

It’s foreign policy as a reality tv show. He’s trying to make the storyline more interesting by incorporating some kind of gotya into an actual fucking plan for war.

This is everything people who hate Trump have always said he would do. He only cares about the ratings for his presidency reality tv show because he’s too much of a narcissist to understand that the world is bigger than him.

"Iran is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets as revenge," Trump tweeted. "Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level and important to Iran and the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!"

Observers were quick to point out that the deliberate destruction of cultural sites is a war crime under international law.

On January 05 2020 11:44 Wombat_NI wrote:

But yes they don’t fucking do anything tangible other than handwringing.

The entire EU saying fuck off we don’t support this measure and we’ll actually do something tangible actually means something.

What the Europeans do doesn’t tend to be anywhere near as forceful, which is a real shame.

On January 05 2020 16:54 RvB wrote:

Thanks for linking the article. Looks like Iran did all it could to provoke the US by targeting Anericans. I doubt soleimani suspected they would retaliate by killing him though.

targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago)

On January 05 2020 19:44 Archeon wrote:
I mean schoolyard level pettiness is precisely what everyone expects of him, isn't it? Maturity isn't exactly his thing.

Like it's been very easy to see from the start that he's a extremely self-centered and not exactly the smartest and most self-reflected person.

On a side note: People pretending the USA ever cared about war crimes and international law is almost funny, even the last two administrations continuously showed that they couldn't care less.

On January 05 2020 21:06 GreenHorizons wrote:


Turns out the assassination was a bit of a "whoopsie" by the military leaders dealing with Trump

https://twitter.com/KBAndersen/status/1213663996152340481

Probably not much of a consolation but the hand-wringing seems to be the go to strategy for Democrats and even the military too.

On January 06 2020 00:09 Sent. wrote:
Could also be NYTimes mirepresenting what they were told.

On January 05 2020 22:21 Wombat_NI wrote:

They did though, once upon a time.

Not that they were necessarily always living up to them mind, they were at least ostensibly there.

I wonder what percentage of the population at large and the military/foreign policy apparatus actually support what Trump’s been doing lately.

Best case scenario Trump doesn’t do anything catastrophically stupid and some of the executive’s power in this domain is reined I’m down the line. Not holding out hope for the latter but it’s one thing having a general ‘bad’ foreign policy that’s cohesive, quite another to seemingly not have a foreign policy beyond the whims of a man who has neither the expertise nor the impulse control to run things by diktat.

On January 06 2020 00:06 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:

It's a bit strange that the officials feel obliged to follow up on the orders and carry out the strike they never really wanted to do, out of some sort of honor duty to the chain of command, but have no honor issue with immediately telling the press about these sensitive decisions afterwards, because they were 'flabbergasted' and feel bad. How about they don't do the strike in the first place if it was an outlandish option.

On January 06 2020 00:42 Archeon wrote:

Considering that a hostile policy against Iran hasn't really been on Trumps agenda outside

On January 06 2020 00:44 Gorsameth wrote:
They don't want to resign basically. Because refusing to follow legitimate orders from the Commander in Chief isn't really an option in the military.

On January 06 2020 00:48 ImFromPortugal wrote:
https://twitter.com/ejmalrai/status/1213819662003257345

https://twitter.com/ejmalrai/status/1213833855754485762

Basically the guy was in Iraq on a diplomatic mission to mediate between Iran and Saudi Arabia.