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Post by jdredd on Sept 22, 2014 23:33:36 GMT -5
So now Mr. Policeman of the World is attacking the enemies of Bashar Assad. And we still call ourselves the "good guys". Yeah, right. Are you buying this, Millennials? Who am I kidding? Just like the generations before them, they will believe what they are told to believe.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 9, 2014 0:07:37 GMT -5
america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/10/7/turkey-kobane-intervention.html"Speaking Tuesday at one of Turkey’s several Syrian refugee camps in the southern city of Gaziantep, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told residents that Kobane was about to fall and seemed to name his terms for saving it. Turkey, he said, wants a more robust coalition strategy in Syria that includes empowering the moderate rebels and imposing a no-fly zone over Syria and buffer zone on the ground to help protect Turkey’s borders and stem the flow of refugees. The Obama administration has long rebuffed those demands, unwilling to directly engage an Assad regime that poses little direct threat to U.S. interests. But according to Aron Lund, editor of the Carnegie Syria in Crisis blog and an expert on the Syrian war, Turkey realizes momentum has shifted as the ISIL threat rises." God, I love the geopolitical fun and games. And at the head of it all is that big clueless dope, America.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 10, 2014 11:17:45 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/article/389985/erdogans-double-game-charles-krauthammer"During the 1944 Warsaw uprising, Stalin ordered the advancing Red Army to stop at the outskirts of the city while the Nazis, for 63 days, annihilated the non-Communist Polish partisans. Only then did Stalin take Warsaw. No one can match Stalin for merciless cynicism, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is offering a determined echo by ordering Turkish tanks massed on the Syrian border, within sight of the besieged Syrian town of Kobani, to sit and do nothing." "The vaunted coalition that President Obama touts remains mostly fictional. Yes, it puts a Sunni face on the war. Which is important for show. But everyone knows that in real terms the operation remains almost exclusively American." View from the right. Sorry if I'm not on board for our rebooted War on Islam Terrorism. Not that it matters what I think. But how about you, Millennials? You have to pay the price for endless war in the Middle East. Hmmm...all I hear is silence. So be it.
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Post by jdredd on Nov 14, 2014 17:15:49 GMT -5
online.wsj.com/articles/yes-america-should-be-the-worlds-policeman-1415984889?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsFifth"In other words, if the world’s leading liberal-democratic nation doesn’t assume its role as world policeman, the world’s rogues will try to fill the breach, often in league with one another. It could be a world very much like the 1930s, a decade in which economic turmoil, war weariness, Western self-doubt, American self-involvement and the rise of ambitious dictatorships combined to produce catastrophe. When President Franklin Roosevelt asked Winston rchill what World War II should be called, the British prime minister replied, “the unnecessary war”—because, rchill said, “never was a war more easy to stop than that which has just wrecked what was left of the world from the previous struggle.” That is an error we should not repeat. To say that the U.S. needs to be the world’s policeman isn’t to say that we need to be its preacher, spreading the gospel of the American way. Preachers are in the business of changing hearts and saving souls. Cops merely walk the beat, reassuring the good, deterring the tempted, punishing the wicked. Not everyone grows up wanting to be a cop. But who wants to live in a neighborhood, or a world, where there is no cop? Would you? Should an American president?" Well, we've pretty much been the "cop" for 70 years now for better or worse, and it doesn't look like it's going to change in the near future, no matter who is in the White House. The question is, as I mentioned earlier, is are we a crooked one? Have we also become judge, jury, and executioner-by-drone?
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Post by jdredd on Dec 7, 2014 13:39:42 GMT -5
Hmmmm...just contemplating where being world "policeman" ends and being world "bully" begins. I guess it's in the eye...
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Post by jdredd on Feb 1, 2015 2:27:45 GMT -5
So we had a parade of old fart ex-Secretaries of State testify to Congress this week. What was their advice? Keep meddling, or as they call it, "don't disengage", and of course the bottom line is spend more money on the military. As I have said in the past, you can have the most well funded military in history, but if you use it stupidly you have thrown your money away. Yet it appears we still have lots of money to burn, so why not?
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Post by jdredd on Mar 14, 2015 2:53:02 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2015/03/14/opinion/turkeys-drift-from-nato.html?_r=0"The website of Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledges that NATO has played a “central role” in the country’s security and insists that Turkey, which became a member in 1952, “attaches utmost importance” to it. Yet Turkey’s commitment to the alliance has never seemed more ambivalent than it does now. On crucial issues — from fighting the Islamic State to fielding integrated defense systems, which share information and operate together, to standing firm against Russian aggression in Ukraine — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government either are not cooperating fully or are acting in outright defiance of NATO’s priorities and interests. Add the fact that Turkey under Mr. Erdogan has become increasingly authoritarian, and it becomes apparent that the country is drifting away from an alliance whose treaty says it is “founded on the principles of democracy” as much as defense." Maybe Turkey is tired of the worn-out anti-Russian alliance. What's in it for them?
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Post by jdredd on Mar 25, 2015 2:02:43 GMT -5
america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/3/24/hezbollah-prepares-major-offensive-against-isil.html"TALIA, Lebanon — Hezbollah has for the past three years deployed troops as far afield as the Syrian cities of Damascus, Aleppo and Deraa to prop up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Now, as the region’s harsh winter draws to a close, the Lebanese Shia militia is making final preparations for a major offensive against Sunni armed groups dug into a barren mountain range spanning Lebanon’s eastern border with Syria. The focal point of the coming offensive will be Qalamoun, an area of mixed Christian and Sunni villages and towns set amid towering limestone mountains to the north of Damascus, along the Lebanese border. Hezbollah fighters are expecting a tough fight in mountainous terrain where units of Jabhat al-Nusra — Syria’s Al-Qaeda franchise — and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have survived the winter in caves, isolated farmsteads and positions fortified using bulldozers stolen from nearby Lebanese villages. "They are very well trained,” said Abu Ali, a veteran Hezbollah fighter who has served multiple tours in Syria. “Most of them are foreigners and they have fought in places like Somalia and Iraq where they gained experience." So, all you true believers in the "War on Terrorism", who are you going to root for in this one? Hezbollah or ISIL? Choose quickly now.
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Post by jdredd on May 16, 2015 17:11:55 GMT -5
america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/5/15/colombia-shelves-its-air-war-on-cocaine.html"The futility of Colombia’s two-decade air war on the cocaine trade was laid bare on Thursday when the government, following President Juan Manuel Santos’ recommendation, agreed to halt the aerial spraying of coca crops with the herbicide glyphosate — a pillar of Plan Colombia, the multibillion-dollar U.S. aid package to fight drug trafficking. Drug war opponents and environmentalists have long panned the use of aerial spraying in Colombia. Ironically, though, it’s the U.S. government that recently shed light on the policy’s impotence. The U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy announced last week that the cultivation of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine, had spiked 39 percent in 2014 over the previous year — despite the U.S.-funded aerial spraying program that has fumigated 4 million acres of crops at a cost of nearly $2 billion since it began in 1994." Looks like America the Bully is also America the Stupid, which learned nothing from the Agent Orange debacle. Maybe America is too arrogant to learn anything ever. But apparently Columbia is paying for America's cocaine habit. If America is so wonderful and free under it's "free market" Darwinism, why do so many Americans feel the need to do cocaine? Is this the glorious status quo so many are fighting to preserve? How long can America survive being a big stupid bully? Just asking, apathetic Millennials.
Your funeral.
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Post by jdredd on Jun 9, 2015 20:16:06 GMT -5
www.economist.com/news/leaders/21653612-why-america-must-stay-engaged-middle-east-entangled?spc=scode&spv=xm&ah=9d7f7ab945510a56fa6d37c30b6f1709"Terrorism in places like Libya or Syria sooner or later ends up striking at the West. IS’s successes in Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria attract money and fighters. Minimising the threat means doing more in places where jihadism flourishes. Then there is oil. Thanks to fracking, the United States has become the world’s swing producer, and within a decade or so the North American continent stands to produce as much energy as it consumes. But the oil price is global, and the Middle East still accounts for one in every three barrels of seaborne crude. Pricing power and self-sufficiency do not make America immune to upheaval in energy markets. If it cannot keep the oil flowing, its economy will suffer grievously and so will its claim to global leadership. Last is nuclear proliferation. America has sponsored a deal to prevent Iran from gaining the bomb for at least a decade. If the talks succeed, America will need to act as enforcer-in-chief. If they fail, it must be at the centre of efforts to prevent Iran crossing the nuclear threshold. Either way, it must be a brake on other regional powers who might think of launching weapons programmes of their own. This work is dogged and often thankless. America must accept that its relations with Arab countries will be pragmatic. Fighting alongside Iran in Iraq and opposing it in Syria is a contradiction. Get used to it: the region has not stopped shifting in unreconcilable ways. The Iraqi Kurds are useful allies even though—against American policy—they want their own homeland. America may need to deal with Mr Sisi to calm Libya. The idea has taken root that America no longer has what it takes to run the Middle East. That it ever could was an illusion. But America still has a vital part to play. If it continues to stand back, everyone will be worse off—including Americans." Here is the European economic Establishment making yet another plea for America to keep putting its blood and treasure down the Middle East rathole. When all else fails, always play the WMD card. Alas, I think we still have years of meddling to go. We will go broke before we wise up. Sorry, Millennials, your silence is approval.
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Post by jdredd on Jun 20, 2015 1:15:56 GMT -5
In some other threads I have called America a "big stupid bully". But things being in the eye of the beholder, I can see reasons why some nations might think of us as a policeman instead. A big stupid policeman perhaps.
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Post by jdredd on Dec 16, 2015 15:23:45 GMT -5
The flip side of being the world's "policeman", which implies a benevolent intent, is the idea of the "American Empire", a lot less benevolent. It's all about spin, as usual. It seems Americans are OK with the idea of America as policeman. So be it. But what interests me now is the prospect of a Trump or Cruz Presidency. If either of them end up not being the best thing that has ever happened to the Democratic Party, and actually get into the WH, I'm wondering if they might end up being the WORST thing that has ever happened to the American Empire, driving away allies with their lunatic and belligerent foreign policies and making America a pariah. Oh, probably not. I'm sure they are both just hot air, and their foreign policies will be indistinguishable from our previous three Presidents. But one can hope.
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Post by jdredd on Dec 23, 2015 2:44:45 GMT -5
The news that six American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in one incident the other day came and went without much comment that I saw. So what did they die for? I don't have a clue. Well, actually I do have a clue. I think they died to "preserve the American Way of Life", aka the status quo, depending on how you want to spin it. Heck, I had a chance to fight and perhaps die for that in 1970, but I chose not to. Don't regret it one bit. The war on Vietnam was a strategically, politically, and morally bankrupt way to "protect" America. The nature and value of "The American Way of Life" is in the eye of the beholder in any case.
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Post by jdredd on Jan 11, 2016 22:58:10 GMT -5
So now it's mid-January and Trumpenstein is still topping the polls of GOP candidates. The GOP establishment is complete failure at bringing him down (and they want to run the country?). But it's a win-win for me. As I've said before, either he will be the best thing that ever happened to the Democrats, or I think there is a good chance he would be the President who unwittingly puts the knife in the heart of the American Empire. I can't imagine any country would want to be an ally of an America run by a lunatic. And if the powers that actually run the world see it like me, I wonder how far they would go to keep The Donald out of the White House? I'd be scared sh*tless if I was him.
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Post by jdredd on Feb 15, 2016 21:51:25 GMT -5
america.aljazeera.com/articles/2016/2/15/airstrike-destroys-msf-supported-hospital-in-syria.html"At least 23 civilians were killed when missiles hit three hospitals and a school in rebel-held Syrian towns on Monday, residents said, as Russian-backed Syrian troops intensified their push toward the rebel stronghold of Aleppo. Fourteen people were killed in the town of Azaz near the Turkish border when missiles slammed into a school sheltering families fleeing the offensive and the children's hospital, two residents and a medic said. Bombs also hit another refugee shelter south of the town and a convoy of trucks, another resident said. "We have been moving scores of screaming children from the hospital," said medic Juma Rahal. At least two children were killed and scores of people injured, he said." Yep, airstrikes are all fun and games as long as it is America and it's allies are doing it. But those damn Russkies aren't doing it right! Don't they know America is the only true, official Policeman of the World?
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