Thread: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

  1. #5461
    Vanoi's Avatar Dux Limitis
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    https://www.yahoo.com/news/protester...033533051.html

    So protesters including the right-wing group Patriot Prayer vandalized the Oregon State Capital building and attempted to break inside of it.

    There's still anti-covid restriction protests going on? Thought most people wised up by now.

  2. #5462

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    On the contrary, conservatives are getting more deranged as Biden's inauguration draws closer.

  3. #5463

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    In other news, Trump yesterday pardoned the 4 Blackwater mercenaries that were still imprisoned for their role in the Nisour Square massacre in Iraq. One of them had received a life sentence for first-degree murder. In the massacre, several civilians and Iraqi police officers were murdered, because, as the prosecution established, the private contractors were not capable of maintaining discipline in tense situations. In all probability, not a single insurgent was involved in the incident, but the mercenaries ran amok nonetheless. The negative publicity, mainly stemming from that particular incident, convinced Blackwater to rename itself into Academi, for public image purposes.
    Last edited by Abdülmecid I; December 23, 2020 at 06:39 AM. Reason: Oops.

  4. #5464

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    One of the most puzzling defenses of Trump is that unlike the alleged 'warmongers' Bush and Obama, Trump is supposed to be some sort of peace dove.

    I didn't know pardoning and celebrating war criminals was anti-war.
    Last edited by Prodromos; December 23, 2020 at 06:15 AM.
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  5. #5465

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    I suppose pardoning a handful of defence contractors really does invalidate Trump’s achievement of being the first president in forty years not to have embroiled the US in any new conflicts. Perhaps, after all, he should have harkened to the respected constitutionalist John Bolton, who, being unsatisfied with his performance as a “prime mover of the Iraq WMD fiasco”, sought to convince the White House to abuse its executive powers by launching pre-emptive strikes against mainland Iran. Nothing says decency quite like a neoconservative Middle Eastern bloodbath.



  6. #5466
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cope View Post
    I suppose pardoning a handful of defence contractors really does invalidate Trump’s achievement of being the first president in forty years not to have embroiled the US in any new conflicts.
    Thats not much of an achievement at all. Its pure luck that Trump didn't start a new conflict when Trump was actively trying to start a new conflict with Iran.

    Perhaps, after all, he should have harkened to the respected constitutionalist John Bolton, who, being unsatisfied with his performance as a “prime mover of the Iraq WMD fiasco”, sought to convince the White House to abuse its executive powers by launching pre-emptive strikes against mainland Iran. Nothing says decency quite like a neoconservative Middle Eastern bloodbath.
    The same Trump who ordered strikes on Iran in June 2019 and only called them off at the last minute?

    The same Trump who ordered the assassination of an Iranian general in Iraq? Did Bolton tell him to do that too?

    Bolton is definitely a hawk, no doubt about that. But your portrayal of Trump is complete . He is as much of a hawk as Bolton is.

  7. #5467

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    Even if Trump was a dove, pardoning Blackwater murderers is a travesty. But sure. Let's white wash it.

  8. #5468

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    It's not just the pardons. Trump also radically stepped up drone strikes, assassinated an Iranian government official, bombed regime targets in Libya and Syria, and expanded the US' role in Yemen.

    He also wanted to target and kill terrorists' families, use the military to maim and kill migrants crossing the southern border, and invade Venezuela.

    Bolton book: Trump said it would be 'cool' to invade Venezuela - Business Insider

    President Donald Trump claimed that it would be "cool" to invade Venezuela because the nation was "really part of the United States," according to a new book by former national security adviser John Bolton.

    In 2019, Trump expressed he would consider an outright quarantine or blockade of Venezuela in an effort to dispose of President Nicolas Maduro's authoritarian reign over the country.

    In a separate meeting at the Oval Office in 2018, Trump reportedly asked aides why the US could not invade Venezuela, according to senior officials. National security adviser H.R. McMaster, who immediately preceeded Bolton's tenure, was reportedly present in the meeting. McMaster and other officials attempted to convince Trump that military action was tenuous and unpredictable.
    Shoot Migrants’ Legs, Build Alligator Moat: Behind Trump’s Ideas for Border - The New York Times

    Privately, the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in a meeting, aides recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That’s not allowed either, they told him.
    Donald Trump on terrorists: 'Take out their families'

    (CNN) — Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would kill the families of terrorists in order to win the fight against ISIS.

    The billionaire businessman was asked by the hosts of Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” how to fight ISIS but also minimize civilian causalities when terrorists often use human shields.

    “The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. When they say they don’t care about their lives, you have to take out their families,” Trump said.

    Trump said he would “knock the hell out of” ISIS, and criticized the U.S. for “fighting a very politically correct war.”
    Trump may have bombed Yemen more than Bush and Obama combined - Business Insider

    President Donald Trump may have ordered more attacks in Yemen than all previous US presidents combined, according to a report from the monitoring group Airwars.

    While campaigning against "forever wars," Trump has loosened rules of engagement in the global war on terror, dramatically escalating airstrikes and ground raids in Yemen and elsewhere.

    The most intense period of US strikes came in 2017, Trump's first year in office, beginning with a commando raid that left an 8-year-old girl dead.

    "Earlier on in his presidency, we saw record numbers of both airstrikes and reported civilian harm in multiple theaters, fueled by Trump's stated intent to 'take the gloves off' against terror groups," Chris Woods, director of Airwars, told Business Insider.
    The fact is there's no objective standard under which Bush and Obama are bloodthirsty warmongers while Trump is some kind of anti-war pacifist concerned for the lives of foreigners.
    Last edited by Prodromos; December 24, 2020 at 12:39 AM.
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  9. #5469

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    It is not claimed that the president is an “anti-war pacifist concerned for the lives of foreigners”. It is argued that his administration oversaw the most successful American foreign policy this century. This includes, but is not limited to, Trump's refusal to embroil the US in any new conflicts (an achievement by the standards of recent US presidents).

    These are some of the WH’s most notable foreign policy accomplishments: destroying the ISIS caliphate; killing Al Baghdadi; instituting a travel ban from high risk countries; improving southern border security; ending the arming of Syrian rebels via the Timber Sycamore program; moving the US embassy to Jerusalem; contributing to the normalization of relations between Israel and a number of Arab states; withdrawing from the JCPOA; neutralizing Qassem Soleimani; brokering a preliminary peace deal with the Taliban; restoring the US military budget; openly confronting the CCP; and standing up to European countries refusing to meet their NATO obligations.

    Comparing the proportional and justified precision strikes against Syrian government positions and a meddling Al Quds combatant with the catastrophic failures in Crimea, the Donbass, Syria, Libya and Iraq of the Bush/Obama eras is at best ill-informed. And that’s to to say nothing of the short-sighted appeasement of the Iranian regime, the scaling down of military spending or the naïve underestimation of the Kremlin.

    Of the four sourced complaints, the only substantive one is the accusation that Trump has been too accommodating of Saudi Arabia, though it should be noted that the Obama administration also sold over a hundred billion dollars worth of armaments to the kingdom.
    Last edited by Cope; December 24, 2020 at 03:14 AM.



  10. #5470

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cope View Post
    It is not claimed that the president is an “anti-war pacifist concerned for the lives of foreigners”. It is argued that his administration oversaw the most successful American foreign policy this century. This includes, but is not limited to, Trump's refusal to embroil the US in any new conflicts (an achievement by the standards of recent US presidents).

    These are some of the WH’s most notable foreign policy accomplishments: destroying the ISIS caliphate; killing Al Baghdadi; instituting a travel ban from high risk countries; improving southern border security; ending the arming of Syrian rebels via the Timber Sycamore program; moving the US embassy to Jerusalem; contributing to the normalization of relations between Israel and a number of Arab states; withdrawing from the JCPOA; neutralizing Qassem Soleimani; brokering a preliminary peace deal with the Taliban; restoring the US military budget; openly confronting the CCP; and standing up to European countries refusing to meet their NATO obligations.
    Withdrawing from the JCPOA is not an accomplishment. Nor is it laudable to negotiate with the Taliban or entering a disastrous trade war with China which has yielded very few tangible effects. Finally, sowing discord among our closest NATO allies is the opposite of an accomplishment. It is a detriment.

    Comparing the proportional and justified precision strikes against Syrian government positions and a meddling Al Quds combatant with the catastrophic failures in Crimea, the Donbass, Syria, Libya and Iraq of the Bush/Obama eras is at best ill-informed. And that’s to to say nothing of the short-sighted appeasement of the Iranian regime, the scaling down of military spending or the naïve underestimation of the Kremlin.
    The JCPOA was not appeasement, regardless of how badly neo-conservative hawks want to spin it. It was strictly limited to the nuclear sphere. It is also laughable that Trump gets accolades for "no new wars", when it is very clear that Obama made and accomplished the same thing. In fact, troop numbers deployed overseas started declining under Obama, rather than Trump. It's quite obvious that Obama made a significant effort to avoid involving United States in any new conflict that would entangle large numbers of troops and equipment. Moreover, the much lauded Trumpian effort to "confront the CCP" started under Obama during his "pivot to Asia".

  11. #5471

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    Most of Cope's points are purely subjective, anyway. Why is the illegal assassination of Iranian and Iraqi officials necessarily a good thing? Some are also contradictory. If Russia and Iran should be confronted, then why should Trump be praised for phasing out the Timber Sycamore program, responsible for creating so many problems for Moscow, Tehran and Damascus? Finally, a couple of them also defy the rules of the English language. Appeasement means acceding to the demands of your opponent, something the nuclear deal objectively didn't project, as it included bilateral concessions from both sides. Given who was the rogue actor that eventually withdrew from the agreement, despite having previously recognized that the other side respected it clauses, we can probably argue that Iran tried and failed to appease its more aggressive, greedy and hostile adversary. For an example of appeasement to the detriment of the US, I would look at the peace negotiations with the Taliban, where the sovereign Afghan government was not invited and where the US agreed to withdraw from Afghanistan, in exchange for the pledge of the Taliban to end their relations with al-Qaeda and find a compromise with Kabul. Last but not least, military operations against terrorist leaders are not part of a country's foreign policy, which is normally defined as the sum of interactions, usually diplomatic, between other foreign actors.

  12. #5472

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cope View Post
    These are some of the WH’s most notable foreign policy accomplishments
    I wasn't saying Trump has no accomplishments, just that he hasn't been anti-war or anti-interventionist, and he doesn't seem to have any qualms about ordering bloodbaths either. Whether these are good or bad policies is beside the point.
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  13. #5473

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    Quote Originally Posted by Abdülmecid I View Post
    Why is the illegal assassination of Iranian and Iraqi officials necessarily a good thing?
    It was not argued that the “illegal* assassination of Iranian and Iraqi officials [is] necessarily a good thing”; it was claimed that the neutralization of Qassem Soleimani was a foreign policy success for the US. For more details, see the dedicated thread.

    *The irony of the Iranian regime appealing to international law is, if nothing else, amusing.

    Some are also contradictory. If Russia and Iran should be confronted, then why should Trump be praised for phasing out the Timber Sycamore program, responsible for creating so many problems for Moscow, Tehran and Damascus?
    The arming of Syrian rebels minus any strategy – much less a commitment - to combat Russian interference became an act of counterproductive destabilization, particularly given the ideological interests of some of the rebel factions. It should be a statement of the obvious to claim that there is no contradiction in wanting petty dictatorships to be confronted responsibly (i.e. in a way which minimizes civilian suffering and the facilitation of extremist pretenders).

    Finally, a couple of them also defy the rules of the English language. Appeasement means acceding to the demands of your opponent, something the nuclear deal objectively didn't project, as it included bilateral concessions from both sides. Given who was the rogue actor that eventually withdrew from the agreement, despite having previously recognized that the other side respected it clauses, we can probably argue that Iran tried and failed to appease its more aggressive, greedy and hostile adversary.
    The semantics aside, the JCPOA was an act of submission in the face of Iran’s nuclear blackmail. The deal lifted sanctions against the regime while it continued to undermine regional stability via its support for various militias, terrorist groups and the Assad government, all of whom opposed American, British and Israeli interests.

    Of course the best evidence for how abysmal the agreement was is how desperately the regime’s apologists want it back.

    For an example of appeasement to the detriment of the US, I would look at the peace negotiations with the Taliban, where the sovereign Afghan government was not invited and where the US agreed to withdraw from Afghanistan, in exchange for the pledge of the Taliban to end their relations with al-Qaeda and find a compromise with Kabul.
    After eighteen year of strategic incoherence a preliminary agreement, imperfect though it is, is a breakthrough in what was otherwise a never-ending conflict. As the saying goes, we only make peace with our enemies.

    Last but not least, military operations against terrorist leaders are not part of a country's foreign policy, which is normally defined as the sum of interactions, usually diplomatic, between other foreign actors.
    Dull pedantry.



  14. #5474
    Vanoi's Avatar Dux Limitis
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cope View Post

    The arming of Syrian rebels minus any strategy – much less a commitment - to combat Russian interference became an act of counterproductive destabilization, particularly given the ideological interests of some of the rebel factions. It should be a statement of the obvious to claim that there is no contradiction in wanting petty dictatorships to be confronted responsibly (i.e. in a way which minimizes civilian suffering and the facilitation of extremist pretenders).
    Thats not true though. The US still arms a rebel group on the Iraqi border to prevent it from falling into Syrian hands. You also have the Syrian rebels who fight the SDF the US also continues to arm.

    The US continues to support the SDF primarily to counter Russian, Syrian, and Iranian influence in Syria. Nothing much has changed. Just the actors the US supports.

  15. #5475

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cope View Post
    It was not argued that the “illegal* assassination of Iranian and Iraqi officials [is] necessarily a good thing”; it was claimed that the neutralization of Qassem Soleimani was a foreign policy success for the US. For more details, see the dedicated thread.
    For the record, I'm not the Iranian regime. Abstract references to nowhere are not solid arguments, so you need to elaborate further. So, let me repeat the question, how did the illegal assassination of Iranian and Iraqi officials contributed to the American foreign policy? Has Iranian influence declined in Iraq? Not really.
    Quote Originally Posted by Cope View Post
    The arming of Syrian rebels minus any strategy – much less a commitment - to combat Russian interference became an act of counterproductive destabilization, particularly given the ideological interests of some of the rebel factions. It should be a statement of the obvious to claim that there is no contradiction in wanting petty dictatorships to be confronted responsibly (i.e. in a way which minimizes civilian suffering and the facilitation of extremist pretenders).
    That's like your opinion, though. Meanwhile, Syria is much weaker than in 2011 and has still failed to control significant portions of her territory. In the meantime, Iran has wasted countless financial and human resources, just for the sake of restoring her ally to the pre-war situation. Not to mention the fact that Timber Sycamore reinforced the cooperation between the Gulf Monarchies, Israel and the US, in the face of a common enemy. And all this achieved with a minimal cost, without even having to set boots on the ground. Your appeal on the civilian dimension is contradictory and unconvincing, as long as you praise Trump for withdrawing from the deal.
    Quote Originally Posted by Cope View Post
    The semantics aside, the JCPOA was an act of submission in the face of Iran’s nuclear blackmail. The deal lifted sanctions against the regime while it continued to undermine regional stability via its support for various militias, terrorist groups and the Assad government, all of whom opposed American, British and Israeli interests.
    Rejecting empty rhetoric and misleading verbalisms is nowadays considered semantics? Sounds like a post-modernist dystopia. You still have failed to explain how the Iranian government blackmailed its partners. By the way, the rest of the response is also subjective and incoherent. By your logic it can be easily argued that Iran contributed to the stability of the region, by supporting sovereign governments, encouraging the popular struggle against dictatorships and fighting off terrorists and expansionist powers of any kind. It's just empty rhetoric and completely meaningless in a debate about foreign policy. The last sentence is more relevant, but a compromise between Iran and the US can benefit the US, as well. That's less certain for Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and etc., but why should their interests be a priority for the White House at the expense of American goals? After 35 years of strategic incoherence, a preliminary agreement, imperfect though it is, is a breakthrough in what was otherwise a never-ending confrontation.
    *Not sure how the UK is relevant, Britain has been a non-factor since the 1950s, even Oman and Qatar are more important than London these days.
    Quote Originally Posted by Cope View Post
    Of course the best evidence for how abysmal the agreement was is how desperately the regime’s apologists want it back.
    Nice jab, but I was never actually a supporter of the deal, because the unreliability of one of the signatories had already been well-established, given its previous history of rogue behaviour.
    Quote Originally Posted by Cope View Post
    Dull pedantry.
    Correction that leads to the complete dismissal of your example is not pedantry.

  16. #5476

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    This is the thread that was being referred to; substantive arguments on the points being discussed were addressed there. I'll try to offer a more thorough response to the rest after Christmas.



  17. #5477

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    Quote Originally Posted by Abdülmecid I View Post
    For the record, I'm not the Iranian regime. Abstract references to nowhere are not solid arguments, so you need to elaborate further. So, let me repeat the question, how did the illegal assassination of Iranian and Iraqi officials contributed to the American foreign policy? Has Iranian influence declined in Iraq? Not really.

    That's like your opinion, though. Meanwhile, Syria is much weaker than in 2011 and has still failed to control significant portions of her territory. In the meantime, Iran has wasted countless financial and human resources, just for the sake of restoring her ally to the pre-war situation. Not to mention the fact that Timber Sycamore reinforced the cooperation between the Gulf Monarchies, Israel and the US, in the face of a common enemy. And all this achieved with a minimal cost, without even having to set boots on the ground. Your appeal on the civilian dimension is contradictory and unconvincing, as long as you praise Trump for withdrawing from the deal.

    Rejecting empty rhetoric and misleading verbalisms is nowadays considered semantics? Sounds like a post-modernist dystopia. You still have failed to explain how the Iranian government blackmailed its partners. By the way, the rest of the response is also subjective and incoherent. By your logic it can be easily argued that Iran contributed to the stability of the region, by supporting sovereign governments, encouraging the popular struggle against dictatorships and fighting off terrorists and expansionist powers of any kind. It's just empty rhetoric and completely meaningless in a debate about foreign policy. The last sentence is more relevant, but a compromise between Iran and the US can benefit the US, as well. That's less certain for Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and etc., but why should their interests be a priority for the White House at the expense of American goals? After 35 years of strategic incoherence, a preliminary agreement, imperfect though it is, is a breakthrough in what was otherwise a never-ending confrontation.
    *Not sure how the UK is relevant, Britain has been a non-factor since the 1950s, even Oman and Qatar are more important than London these days.

    Nice jab, but I was never actually a supporter of the deal, because the unreliability of one of the signatories had already been well-established, given its previous history of rogue behaviour.

    Correction that leads to the complete dismissal of your example is not pedantry.
    1. The repeated references to "subjectivity" are fatuous; it is self-evident that the content of an achievement is a matter of perspective.

    2. The neutralization of Soleimani (and Muhandis) was a proportional response to a series of Iranian/Iranian sponsored provocations, including the downing of a US drone, an attack on Saudi oil fields, the storming of the American embassy in Baghdad by Kata'ib Hezbollah and the murder of a US contractor in Kirkuk.

    Soleimani was an experienced, capable general who was a significant asset to Tehran; the purpose of the strike was to deprive the Iranian leadership of his talents and to decisively answer the regime's aggressive bluffing (itself designed to extract concessions and falsely project strength, particularly internally). The move hurt the regime whilst minimizing civilian casualties and avoiding an assault against Iran proper.

    3. The claim regarding the so-called successes of Timber Sycamore assumes that the US should have been attempting to facilitate regime change in Syria in the first place (which, given the lack of an obvious successor, it should not).

    Even so, by 2016 Russian interference had undone the program's successes. Its continuation thereafter served no purpose minus further commitments to remove Assad, most of which risked bringing the US into direct conflict with Russia (e.g. Clinton's proposed no-fly zone).

    4. As far as the nuclear deal is concerned, it seems we are in agreement despite "the empty rhetoric and misleading verbalisms" regarding the US's alleged imperialism and "rogue behaviour".

    5. ISIL and al-Baghdadi were foreign "actors" operating in foreign countries with whom the US "interacted"; even according the offered definition, the US's strategy for destroying the group - which included the neutralization of its leader - falls under umbrella of foreign policy, particularly since it involved(s) extensive diplomacy with third parties.
    Last edited by Cope; December 28, 2020 at 09:59 AM.



  18. #5478

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    The remains of 14 children, shot in 1974 in Cyprus, were finally buried. They were massacred by a EOKA, a terrorist group, whose aim was initially to expel the British from Cyprus and then unite the island with Greece, but which also had a long history of murdering civilians (British, Turkish-Cypriots but also Greek-Cypriots, mainly leftist trade-unionists and activists). The children were the victims of a general massacre, where the inhabitants of several Turkish-Cypriot villages were indiscriminately shot. The conflict was marked by atrocities from both sides, but neither the Turkish nor the Greek authorities have yet apologised for the crimes, which are generally kept hidden under the rug, despite hypocritical calls for the other side to recognize its mistakes. In my opinion, if the Cypriot society is ever to reconcile, the governments need to face their responsibilities, even if that causes the ire of easily-triggered nationalists.

  19. #5479

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    For those that don't know, there is a committee called Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP), established in 1981, formed by an agreement between Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, sanctioned by the UN. They first started working on compiling a list of missing people from the 1974 conflict. Excavations started in 2006. Their forensic teams are supervised by Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team. So far, they have identified 993 people from the missing list of 2002 people in the graves they have exhumed. Vast majority of the funding comes from European Union.
    The Armenian Issue

  20. #5480
    swabian's Avatar igni ferroque
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    Ohhh, whatever. I like you people, when i'm drunk.

    I sincerely wish a happy new year to everybody. I think you're an interesting bunch. Nobody can say otherwise.


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