Discussion and Debate Community Thread

[Condottiere 40K]

Actually, the way to figure out what's really going on is to follow the money.

We know most politicians are corrupt, and that they follow the dictates of their corporate masters, and a lot of cultural wars are really distractions and hot button issues to excite the base of voters the politicians have selected that they want their support from.

As regards Forty Five's coup attempts, he didn't succeed because he didn't manage to either coopt or replace the people with loyalists that held the guard rails towards the end of his term in office; even Barr thought he was going too far, which is why he pulled the parachute cord.

[Heathen Hammer]

Corporations figured out that identity politics is a great way to neuter left, whose politically immature base bought hook, line and sinker, abandoning interests of working class in their entirety, while providing unconditional support to neolib corporations because they are now diverse and inclusive.
Of course, 1/6 protests were not a coup attempt, even though corporate propaganda outlets pretended it to be.
The elephant in the room is that Trump himself didn't ask them to do that (and even told them not to do it specifically, which was promptly censored by bug tech), while it was capitol police which basically opened the doors for protesters to go in. Having said that Capitol protest was rather peaceful compared to what Democrat protesters did in other cities, where they burned and looted buildings.
I think the point is that if Republicans were authoritarian, they'd simply get rid of opposition the old-fashioned way. American conservatives still have not learned that compromises don't work when its only them who are compromising.

[Condottiere 40K]

1. I'd say trying to stuff the Supreme Court with their nominees, and preventing Obama's from even being considered, seems somewhat of a coup.

2. But that's somewhat within the rules, though not the spirit.

3. Forty Five certainly didn't feel restrained by any tradition, custom, or rule; luckily, he's a day trader.

[Lord Thesaurian]

With thousands of US troops sprinting back to Afghanistan on the heels of those that left, billions of dollars in military assets being left in the hands of Islamist enemies, and costs of reorienting US security interests rising by the day, the myth that the withdrawal would “free up” a windfall of resources for the East Asia pivot has been exposed as a complete fraud. Our allies and enemies alike have seen what American support is worth when pressured. China especially is all the more convinced that the US military is a paper tiger, and has wasted no time boasting as much to would-be conquests.

It’s too early to know the wider strategic fallout from America’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal. But there’s strong reason to doubt convenient claims that the retreat will help the U.S. balance a revisionist China. Beijing is more likely to see the display of fecklessness as an opening to exploit.

Put aside that, because of the Taliban triumph, the U.S. now has more attention and troops devoted to Afghanistan than it did before the exit. Beijing is already using the debacle to taunt Taiwan and the U.S.

Beijing’s propagandists will take any opportunity to denigrate the U.S. But its strategic opportunities from the Afghanistan withdrawal are real. The U.S. abandoned its air base at Bagram for nothing, sacrificing some of its ability to project power in Central Asia. Afghanistan under Taliban rule may also be a fruitful source for China’s development of strategic rare-earth minerals.

One clear loser from the regime change in Afghanistan is India, whose ambassador fled Kabul amid the Taliban takeover. India’s northern border was the site of deadly clashes with Chinese troops last year, and New Delhi is part of the “Quad” coalition for checking China in the Indo-Pacific. But if India needs to manage renewed security threats from jihadists, it will have less capacity to resist China’s bullying.

If China’s Communist Party perceives that the U.S. won’t “interfere” to protect its allies in the Pacific, the world will soon be a far more dangerous place.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-a...al-11629236906

You know who isn’t frantically evacuating people out of Afghanistan? Russia and China, the Taliban’s new business partners.

[Infidel144]

Our allies and enemies alike have seen what American support is worth when pressured. China especially is all the more convinced that the US military is a paper tiger, and has wasted no time boasting as much to would-be conquests.

Global Times
@globaltimesnews
·
Aug 16


China state-affiliated media
#环球时报Editorial: From what happened in Afghanistan, those in Taiwan should perceive that once a war breaks out in the Straits, the island’s defense will collapse in hours and US military won’t come to help. As a result, the DPP will quickly surrender. https://globaltimes.cn/page/202108/1231636.shtml

The DPP authorities need to keep a sober head, and the secessionist forces should reserve the ability to wake up from their dreams. From what happened in Afghanistan, they should perceive that once a war breaks out in the Straits, the island's defense will collapse in hours and the US military won't come to help. As a result, the DPP authorities will quickly surrender, while some high-level officials may flee by plane.

The best choice for the DPP authorities is to avoid pushing the situation to that position. They need to change their course of bonding themselves to the anti-Chinese mainland chariot of the US. They should keep cross-Straits peace with political means, rather than acting as strategic pawns of the US and bear the bitter fruits of a war.

https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/...67130467119104

[Lord Thesaurian]

Biden’s Suez moment reverberates around the world. #Impeach46

Afghanistan shows need for U.S. to give S.Korea control of troops, lawmaker says

President Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan has triggered a globe-spanning rethink of America’s role in the world

Britain asks: Is America back or has it turned its back?

Afghanistan’s collapse leaves allies questioning US resolve on other fronts.

Hezbollah Calls Afghanistan a Lesson for Israel About U.S. Support

[irontaino]

America leaves, and China comes to fill in the job of exploiting Afghanistan for it's resources.

[Lord Thesaurian]

America leaves, and China comes to fill in the job of exploiting Afghanistan for it's resources.

Lol. The US didn’t “exploit Afghanistan for its resources.” You know who did? Afghans. You know who helped them? The US

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Afghanistan

The U.S. was 100% net import reliant on rare-earth elements in 2018, importing an estimated 11,130 metric tons of compounds and metals valued at $160 million. Eighty percent of those imports were sourced from China, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
https://www.marketplace.org/2021/04/...-earth-mantle/

[Heathen Hammer]

I'm sure that Afghans can be proud of all the mansions, exotic cars and yachts their former democratic government officials now own in the Gulf states they escaped to. They'll always know it wouldn't be possible without America's Help.

[Lord Thesaurian]

The Journal news scoop Thursday that Vladimir Putin said nyet to President Biden’s request for the U.S. to conduct counterterrorism operations from a base in Central Asia is another strike against Mr. Biden’s ill-thought Afghanistan withdrawal. Having abandoned multiple bases in Afghanistan, including Bagram near Kabul and one in Kandahar, the U.S. is now left scrambling for the antiterror “over-the-horizon capabilities” that Mr. Biden has implied would be plentiful.

So far Mr. Biden has been shut out. The U.S. used bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in the early years of the Afghan conflict, but those relationships ended as Russia and China pushed those countries not to cooperate with the U.S. Why did Mr. Biden think now would be different? A burst of Kremlin compassion?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/so-much...an-11629409749

Sometimes I would wonder if Trump could possibly do a more effective job of sabotaging US foreign policy if he tried it on purpose. Never thought I’d have to wonder that about Biden, yet here I am.

A widely retweeted article this week in the Intercept claims that the 20-year Afghanistan war, far from being a failure, was an “extraordinary success” for the top five U.S. defense contractors.

This is spurious, to say the least. Yes, there is a military-industrial complex, and yes, defense companies have performed better than many (but far from all) other sectors of the economy since the century began. But the growth of the five largest companies—Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics—has had almost nothing to do with Afghanistan.

In other words, if the United States had never gone to war in Afghanistan, the profit sheets of these companies would be pretty much unchanged.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...l-complex.html

Seems like every tankie’s favorite boogieman couldn’t even come out ahead on this one. Almost like the US was there for national security that now has a huge hole in it thanks to Biden. “Muh over the horizon” indeed.

[Cope]

Sometimes I would wonder if Trump could possibly do a more effective job of sabotaging US foreign policy if he tried it on purpose. Never thought I’d have to wonder that about Biden, yet here I am.

US foreign policy under Trump was the best it's been in the 21st century by some margin.

Seems like every tankie’s favorite boogieman couldn’t even come out ahead on this one. Almost like the US was there for national security that now has a huge hole in it thanks to Biden. “Muh over the horizon” indeed.

It certainly seems odd to blame alleged collusion between the establishment and defence contractors for the war in Afghanistan when Mr. Establishment-in-Chief (who was a keen advocate for OEF) has just finalized the withdrawal.

[Lord Thesaurian]

The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials.

Though federal officials have arrested more than 570 alleged participants, the FBI at this point believes the violence was not centrally coordinated by far-right groups or prominent supporters of then-President Donald Trump, according to the sources, who have been either directly involved in or briefed regularly on the wide-ranging investigations.

"Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases," said a former senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. "Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages."

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exc...es-2021-08-20/

Looks like it was just another fiery but mostly peaceful protest after all. I’m sure Democrats and the media will issue a heartfelt apology for misleading the public.

[Infidel144]

Looks like it was just another fiery but mostly peaceful protest after all. I’m sure Democrats and the media will issue a heartfelt apology for misleading the public.

I've been reliably informed that Trump directly organized the whole thing and personally recruited and sent heavily armed battalions to murder Pence (and, no doubt, many members of Congress).
I'm not sure why I should give any credence to far-right Trumpist organs like (al-)Reuters and the FBI, over (randos spouting) reliable information...

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Isn't it ironic?

Trump's border wall is destroyed in Arizona by heavy monsoon rain. ^^

https://gizmodo.com/trumps-border-wa...ins-1847535174

[Lord Thesaurian]

God hates border walls and George Floyd murals. Maybe He’s a Reagan conservative after all.

[Heathen Hammer]

The only walls globalist politicians like are the ones around their mansions to protect them from their own people. Hence why they support gun control, but do not rush to disarm their own security detail for some reason.

[Sir Adrian]

Hypothetical here: If I was a shady party known for shady dealings and my puppet candidate just won the elections through fraud, I would benefit a lot from organizing a false flag operation on the Capitol to kill the credibility of the people accusing me of electoral fraud.

[Cope]

Hypothetical here: If I was a shady party known for shady dealings and my puppet candidate just won the elections through fraud, I would benefit a lot from organizing a false flag operation on the Capitol to kill the credibility of the people accusing me of electoral fraud.

These conspiracies assume a degree of deviousness and competence that the Democratic Party lacks. It is plausible, though unproven, that intel operatives acted as agitators.

[Heathen Hammer]

These conspiracies assume a degree of deviousness and competence that the Democratic Party lacks. It is plausible, though unproven, that intel operatives acted as agitators.

Actually it would make sense, because it clearly has backfired. The most glaring example was globalist establishment's almost schizophrenic overreaction to a bunch of smiling polite boomers walking around capitol building tasking selfies being labeled as second 911 attack, all while 2020 BLM/antifa riots that actually killed people and caused billions of worth of damages were called peaceful and acceptable.

[Sir Adrian]

A better future with Putin indeed.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: