Powerful Start to 2020s
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was written by Anatoly Karlin for Russian Reaction on January 2, 2020 .451 Comments
Anatoly Karlin is a transhumanist interested in psychometrics, life extension, UBI, crypto/network states, X risks, and ushering in the Biosingularity.
Inventor of Idiot’s Limbo, the Katechon Hypothesis, and Elite Human Capital.
Apart from writing books, reviews, travel writing, and sundry blogging, I Tweet at @powerfultakes and run a Substack newsletter.
If were government of Iran, I would start killing any American I could reach now. But the real government of Iran might have self-preservation instinct…
Make no mistake about it, this is a major test for Iran and its credibility as a regional power. If they let it slide, US will start killing Iranian officials inside Iranian territory.
I am sure that is what the Iranians will start doing (with full justification). Frankly the self-preservation problem would likely more acute if they restrained themselves.
The more interesting question is the extent to which outside Powers will be able to take advantage of this.
It is easy for us to be hawkish in this situation. Our asses are not on the line. Iranian leaders might want to preserve theirs… As I said, it’s a major test for Iran.
Oil prices are likely about to go up, good for Russia no?
Suileman’s last words, addressed to President Trump –
Why don’t you look at a bigger picture. The US shoots rockets at a country the US is occupying: Iraq. Once upon a time having American occupation force in your country made you a vassal, but ensured that the US won’t bomb or shell you. Not any more. Thus, the US destroyed the main advantage of being an American colony. Considering in how many countries there are American military installations, lots of people would note this simple thing. If that does not make them less inclined to allow imperial troops into their countries, they are hopeless.
As far as Iran goes, if it’s true that Americans killed Quds commander, they should not hesitate to kill American targets anywhere within reach. Not doing so makes them targets. So, their asses are on the line now, and the only way to defend them is to show the Empire that international banditry has a hefty price.
Only 3% up so far. The market thinks that killing Suleimani is a nothing-burger.
How do you think America – or Trump – would respond to that?
I am not so sure. It may be more prudent for Iran to use a more measured and less hasty response, such as attacking Saudi oil facilities with a drone again, as Korenchkin suggested previously. After all, the American elite is probably more concerned with their wallets than the lives of soldiers. Same goes for the Saudi one for that matter.
Oil prices will shoot up only if Iran closes Hormuz straits, which is anything but certain. I think Ayatollahs would try not to alienate Europeans in the hopes that the sanity lost in the US might be preserved in Europe. If the Iranians decide that Europe is too subservient to the Empire to promote its own interests, all bets are off.
‘How do you think America – or Trump – would respond to that?’
We would at last be able to please Master.
On the bright side, that will be the end of Master. It’ll take a few years to play out, but by 2030 — no Israel.
Hurry up and go home, Aaron. I wouldn’t want you to miss the finale.
America and Trump responded with unrestrained banditry to nothing at all. So, I don’t see how behaving in a sane manner can protect you from a mad gorilla in the room. The only hope for salvation is in killing or mortally wounding that gorilla.
It’s interesting that the assassination was timed so that the news will break in the Shi’a world on a Friday.
Given our apparent intent, a nice touch. We’ll wind up getting what we deserve, though.
Let us hope that they do Soleimani’s memory justice by acting wisely.
If Iran has the self-control and the ability, their best move would be to get Iraq to break off relations with the US and demand the immediate withdrawal of all US personnel.
Should the US refuse to comply, then the Iraq war restarts.
…but who will want to fight?
But that’s not quite true. Iran, and especially Suleiman, create a lot of mischief in the region. Iran supports a lot of militias that kill Americans.
I’m not saying Americans are innocent, but Iran isn’t a meek little lamb that is being bullied, it is an aggressive sizeable regional power that uses violence to advance its ambitions.
Although it isn’t related to America, Iran is for some strange reason in Syria orchestrating attacks against Israel, even though it has no direct connection to the Israeli conflict with the Palestinians. But it chooses to get involved, and trains and finances Hamas and Hezbollah.
Human nature being what it is, I regard this as quite natural. I don’t expect Iran, a sizeable regional power, to choose peace and amicable relations over aggressive ambitions, so I don’t regard it as “evil” – just normally human.
But Iran chose the path of aggressive ambition for regional dominance, when America sees itself in the same role. It could have avoided conflict, if it chose.
So it isn’t a fairy tale of plucky little country standing up for itself, but a a largeish power making an aggressive bid for regional dominance against the worlds hegemon.
This is logical, but this is not how a coward thinks. A coward will make up excuses to justify his inaction (see Putin in the Ukraine).
I’m not saying Iranian regime are cowards – that remains to be seen.
Iran could order Houthis to trash more Saudi Oil refineries, if a mass disruption is caused then this could be a bigger Oil boom then 2nd Iraq war
Are we seriously going to pretend that the Russian military wasn’t actively helping the Donbass rebels?
The US zogbots like to blame everything happening in Iraq on Iran, this is obviously classic projection because absolutely everything the US regime does is for Israel. The correct response is to start killing Israeli generals, Netanyahu and MBS. Massive civilian casualties of jews in Israel would be an added bonus.
Iran is a regional power being strangled by a Superpower economically and surrounded from all sides by it’s military bases
Iranian actions are out of desperate attempts to carve out it’s own little sphere, American actions are to crush all resistance to their hegemony
The Shia crescent is absolutely dwarfed by the Hemispheric zone of influence of the United States, and yet even that is too much for the US to tolerate
Iraq receives $3.7B in US aid every year. 80% of this is military aid, and 20% is humanitarian assistance. Only Afghanistan receives more money from Uncle Sam; even Israel receives less.
Simply put: Iraq is wholly dependent on US “assistance” and military support, and would probably collapse in short order were the US to fully disengage from the country. (To say nothing of war!) The chaos that would ensue would make ISIS’s forays into Iraqi territory look like child’s play. I don’t think that Iran is capable of convincing the Iraqi government, such as it is, to commit suicide.
It already has collapsed, unless you seriously think the state of Iraq of now can be considered stable???
‘…Iranian actions are out of desperate attempts to carve out it’s own little sphere, American actions are to crush all resistance to their hegemony.’
Almost.
‘… Iranian actions are out of desperate attempts to carve out it’s own little sphere, American actions are to crush all resistance to
theirIsrael’s hegemony.’There. We fight for Master, not ourselves.
‘… So it isn’t a fairy tale of plucky little country standing up for itself, but a a largeish power making an aggressive bid for regional dominance against the worlds hegemon.’
Your use of the term ‘hegemon’ just became obsolete; we’ve finally screwed the pooch with this one.
We’ll survive — we just won’t be global hegemon any more. Worse things have happened.
The interesting bit, though, is that we did it at Israel’s behest — but the change will be fatal for Israel.
Ironic, isn’t it?
As bad as things are now, they could be very much worse. Things are far more stable now than they were in 2015, when Mosul was in Isis’ hands and northern Iraq was a no-man’s land or contested territory. A total collapse would be worse still. And what you’d get with a US disengagement and Iranian meddling is, almost certainly, that total collapse.
The American attack is horrible and criminal, the likelihood of disastrous war has increased substantially, one of Trump’s selling points (he kept the USA out of war) may be gone, but these words by you, an immigrant to the USA, highlight why America should be more careful about whom it lets into the country.
This will probably be good for Russia though. More USA is preoccupied with war in the Middle East, less it will be in Europe. And oil price will go up. It makes sense for (anti-American) Russians to wish that Iran retaliates and that escalation by both sides will lead to an invasion.
Of course, there is a chance this will blow over.
Trump will exterminate the Iranians.
One question is, who convinced Trump to assassinate Soleimani? As usual these days, we have no idea how Trump makes decisions. The man has only the most tenuous grasp on what goes on outside the 10 yard circle around him. I don’t believe it was his idea. So who said, “We should kill Soleimani”?
And what is the assassination supposed to accomplish? Obviously not drive Iran towards negotiations. Egg them into responding in a way that would constitute a pretext for war? But last summer, we thought Trump didn’t want a war. Why would he want one now? Does he now think a war is good for his reelection? We know that Bibi wants a war, and it would likely help him as he tries to squirm out of his legal problems. Could Trump’s Jew funders and operatives have convinced him to do something that’s good for Israel’s leadership but actually bad for Trump?
These days, one can’t eliminate that possibility. We know that Trump has forced out senior advisors–McMaster, Rex Tillerson, and Jim Mattis–who were insufficiently aggressive in dealing with Iran. None of those three would have supported the path the Trump administration has followed to get us to where we are now. From whose perspective were those three insufficiently aggressive? Who is driving the foreign policy of the this country? Tump is intellectually incapable of it. Esper is corporate hack. Does he really have the ideas and the drive? Pompey is an evangelical stooge of the the Israel-firsters. The National Security Advisor is a second-tier guy.
So who the hell is in the driver’s seat, as we assassinate our way towards war for Israel?
‘Trump will exterminate the Iranians.’
Sorta like Hitler and the Jews, huh?
Yea, we know: Iran aggressively placed its borders next to the American military bases.
When was the last time Iran attacked any country? Compare and contrast with the US or Israel: the first does it several times a year, the second somewhat less often, but if we count Gaza, maybe just as often as the Empire. As the Bible says, “you will know them by their fruit”.
So, in your book only yes-men should be invited?
As Thomas Paine rightly said, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one”. He also said “the duty of a true patriot is to protect his country from government”. He meant an American government, in case you are wondering.
Here are my predictions:
1.) US will NOT invade Iran.
2.) Iran will NOT close the straight of Hormuz.
That said, I don’t know what the proper response is, for either side.
I’d like the US to get the hell out of the Middle East – to close all bases and diplomatic services. I mean what is the point of having them there – to facilitate immigration? To work business deals? Nothing we sell there is worth trillions, or being invaded.
But this is Globohomo, when you got the #1 MIC in the world, and isolationism is not globohomo.
https://twitter.com/AlSuraEnglish/status/1212916727186513921?s=20
Soleimani could be the Archduke Ferdinand of our time.
Well, well, I wondered where this conniving pro-Israel operative had been skulking recently
What “mischief” are you referring to? Compared to the Jew-inspired “mischief” the US has been engaged in–wrecking the Iraqi and Syrian states, destabilizing Lebanon and hastening the Israeli annexation of the final bits of its Lebensraum–it’s hard to imagine how significant Iranian “mischief” could be.
And what killing of Americans are you referring to exactly?
This is called a straw man. And the fairy tale is all yours, sweet one. Describe the “hegemony” you are talking about. What does it look like? How will it be achieved? Iran has supported the Shia in countries in which they have been oppressed or marginalized–Iraq (under Saddam), Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon. They have supported Hezbollah, founded to opposed the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. And they have supported Hamas and other groups resisting the final crushing of the Palestinians by the Judeosupremacist state. They have also supported the Syrian government since the 1980s when the two were both isolated diplomatically during the Iran-Iraq War and after Egypt and Jordan had become welfare recipients from the US and Saudi Arabia.
None of that adds up to anything like “hegemony.” The phrase “Iranian hegemony” is a bogeyman that disloyal Israel-firsters use to scare people into deferring to the Judeosupremacist line.
What the Iranian presence in Syria has done is prevent the jihadist takeover of that country–a takeover supported by Israel, the US, Turkey, Saudi and others. That presence also limits attempts by an Israeli state possessing a monopoly on nuclear weapons and ICBMs in the region and with limitless backing of the US to impose its hegemony by maneuvering to break up Syria into impotent statelets.
Iran can certainly be a regional leader of a sort in the future, but with Turkey, an increasingly powerful Sunni state whose ambitions must be accommodated and with Russia in a significant position of influence in Syria, just what kind of “hegemony” could Iran really expect to achieve? Those who bandy about the phrase “Iranian hegemony” are alway very reluctant to define what it actually could mean, for some strange reason.
The problem for our disloyal Israel-Firsters is that Iran constitutes a significant obstacle to Israeli military dominance in the region. Turkey is increasingly another serious obstacle, so both are being targeted. The fiction of “Iranian hegemony” had to be invented to justify an assault on Iran through destabilization, assassination, and starvation sanctions in order to promote the final imposition of the Judenreich on a thoroughly cowed region.
The probably price for all this is the long-term hostility of both Iran and Turkey and their gravitation towards Russia and China. This is the insane policy that the AaronB’s of the world are foisting on the US.
Agree. Used all my ‘agrees.’
Ayatollah Khamenei did. By mocking Trump yesterday: “There is nothing you can do”. He looks like a fool now.
Are we sure that’s what he said?
Here’s what Khamenei’s webpage dated 1 January says:
http://english.khamenei.ir/news/7269/The-U-S-is-taking-revenge-on-Hashd-al-Sha-bi-for-defeating-ISIS
Here’s Newseek with the same wording you are citing:
“Firstly, You can’t do anything and secondly, If you were logical—which you’re not—you’d see that your crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan… have made nations hate you.”
It wouldn’t be the first time an Iranian leader was deliberately misquoted.
That said, it’s sadly not outside the realm of possibility that the witless Trump would order an assassination based solely on some flippant words from a foreign leader. How pathetic is that?
Khamenei responds:
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/world/iran-supreme-leader-vows-severe-revenge-for-qasem-soleimani-killing-4782691.html
Now we wait to see what that “severe revenge” will be. And how Trump avenges that revenge. This is escalating so rapidly.
Interesting times lie ahead. I predict Putin will have to step in and calm things down. Maybe he will get a Nobel Peace Prize for that?
This is Trump’s master stroke that will drive a wedge between the Anti-US axis that just finished their three-nation naval exercise in the Persian Gulf only a few days ago. Trump would certainly like to see how real this alliance is, and I can’t think of anything more powerful and dazzling to accomplish this strategic objective. The response, not only from Iran, but also from China and Russian, will be telling.
As a real estate mogul, Trump’s timing is, more often than not, on the mark.
Only days ago, Putin called and thanked Trump for sharing intelligence on a planned terrorist attack in Russia, and in two weeks, he will be signing the trade pact with Xi. I can’t imagine a better time for him to do this, although doing this in the first few days of a new decade certainly doesn’t bode well for the world peace (small wonder that he admonished Melania for uttering world peace outloud as her new year wish a few days ago).
As a Trump supporter, my sympathy is acutally with the Iranians this time, and with the assasinated general in particular, a real warrior with a stern and manly face that elicits awe and admiration. While the act may be immoral, the underlying geopolitical struggle belongs to the realm of amorality. The simple fact is that the general shouldn’t have been on Iraqi soil, given that his organization was declared by the US (however wrongly) as a terrorist organization. Just this fact by itself will give the US all kinds of prapaganda advantage in the wake of this event. If nothing else, Iran, and more importantly, her two major allies, cannot really react forcefully as the Iranian territory has not been infringed or attacked. This is clearly a strategic blunder committeed by the Iranians, and Trump as usual took full advantage of it in a timely manner. All those years of dealing and wheeling in NYC real estate must have taught Trump something valuable, and perhaps even prepared him for such a moment.
Well, if Trump really wants to pick a fight with the Persians, I certainly hope he knows about Crassus, another real-estate-mogul-turn-statesman in the first Roman Triumvirate. With the nation’s debt at 22 trillions and counting, I am not sure our republic can survive a 21st-century battle of Carrhae. God bless the USA and the world !
One-comment wonder “Valley Forge,” fucking lol. Maybe I’m growing cynical, but fuck me if that doesn’t have made in Tel Aviv written all over it. (Some amateur hasbara nut’s conception of what matters to an American nationalist.)
Dude, your kippah is showing…
The stink of Hasbara talking points is overwhelming. You seriously think that your contrived bullshit is able to mask the fact that Trump is nothing but a brainless whore to Israel?
Sure, sure.
Russia Times says the same thing and they have no reason to misquote:
https://www.rt.com/news/477260-ayatollah-trump-threat-baghdad/
Why I read Karlin: to see which commenters are worthless human trash. You qualify. Good for you 🙂
I don’t think it’s a master stroke in the way you see it. First, the naval maneuvers conducted by China, Russia, and Iran were purely symbolic. They were a gesture made by Russia and China to show a certain level of support, but there is certainly no true alliance between them for Trump to fracture.
Significantly, events appear to have escalated from the 25 December killing of five PMF guys on the Syria-Iraq border by an unattributed drone or missile strike. Our media is doing its best to obscure this event as the probable starting point. Two days later on 27 December, the rocket fire near Kirkuk killed the US contractor. Then came the strike on KH troops back out in the West and now the assassination of Soleimani et al.
Israel probably launched the strike on Christmas Day while the US was doing Christmas. But that strike must have been permitted/facilitated in some way by the US. This has been going on for at least six months. Israel has been killing Iraqi PMU guys in Syria and Iraq trying to generate a response that could be escalated into a US-Iran war. In this case, it may finally have worked with KH, knowing that the US was allowing Israeli strikes, responding against T1. Whether Trump is complicit with this concerted drive to war or whether he is simply being played by the Israel-Firsters is hard to say.
So the trigger was the 25 December attack, and all the timing flows from that, not from any great real estate developer savvy. Frankly, in my view, you give Trump way to much credit for systematic thought. I don’t think he really does that at all.
Why do you live in Tennessee? Trump’s non-existent wall isn’t keeping people in. Surely you can move to a better region — perhaps Europe — we all love migration, don’t we?
Yeah, Khamenei’s twitter feed has that wording too–“can’t do anything” which is where RT and everyone else must have gotten it. Interesting discrepancy between Khameini.ir twitter and the Khameini.ir webpage.
Trump speaks very clearly.
Yes, it is very clear that he simply has no clue regarding history, world politics, statecraft and almost anything he should know about in his position.
Donald Trump:
‘To those many millions of people in Iraq who want freedom and who don’t want to be dominated and controlled by Iran, this is your time!’
Let’s fix that:
‘To those many millions of people in Iraq who want freedom and who don’t want to be dominated and controlled by
Iran, the US, this is your time!’All this doesn’t exactly make one proud to be an American.
‘Iran supports a lot of militias that kill Americans.’
Iran also supported the militias that defeated ISIS. As an Israeli, I imagine you found that frustrating.
Probably even more correct to replace US with Israel.
‘Probably even more correct to replace US with Israel.’
Agree.
My God — it’s Israelis all the way down!
Useful idea. Since the assassination was in Iraq keep the response in Iraq. Give the Americans 10 days to clear out of their embassy and the Green Zone. They had no business in Iraq in the first place.
Yes, because Israel has nothing to do with the middle east, US foreign policy and the bribing of US politicians…
I feel sorry for the US servicemen in Iraq, Once again they are cannon fodder and bait for the Zionists.
I certainly was not present at the NSC meeting in which this matter was discussed and (hopefully) debated. However, it is hard to miss Trump’s style over the past three years, a consistently unconventional approach to problems that often seems illogical and rushed at the first glance, but upon a closer examination, his approaches usually have their own logic and underlying motivation that, on occasions, could be construed as the result of a broader strategic and tactical consideration.
I would admit that I may have overstated and exaggerated Trump’s decision making process. However, I highly doubt that Putin or Xi’s staffs would take this as another boorish stunt by Trump. Trump must have thought he is now on good terms with Putin and Xi, and only a few days ago, I watched him on Fox News bragging about his good relationship with Xi. The general’s presence in Baghdad gave Trump the opportunity that he seized without hesitation. The Iranian general has no business in Iraq and he should have stayed in Iran or perhaps in Syria. In a single stroke (literally), Trump removed Iran’s most important asset in the region and created a thorny diplomatic situation for both Russia and China. This reminds me of the assassination (killing) of the Japanese admiral Yamamoto in the pacific theater in WWII as the admiral basically walked (flew) into the trap set by the Americans and his removal from the theater is often considered to be a major loss (although I don’t agree completely) of the imperial Japanese navy.
Perhaps Trump never thought about all these while he was making up his mind, but the fact of the matter is that his action has created a much broader impact both diplomatically and militarily that is no longer confined to the Iranian plateau. Trump may think that, even with this, he could still charm his way out of Putin and Xi and convince them to stay on the sideline. What are the Chinese and Russians going to do? Do you think Xi will postpone signing the pact? Highly doubtful. If Trump and Xi do sign the pact in two weeks, how real is this Eurasian alliance/project among the three nations? What is Putin going to do? Iran’s territory has not been invaded and Putin probably personally likes Trump. Without the backing of her two major allies, what could Iran do realistically?
I don’t know if Trump is in fact overplayed by the Israelis or, worst, being deceived and goaded by them. As a Trump supporter who thinks the USA should get the hell out of the Middle East altogether, I certainly hope he is just doing some relatively harmless probing to test the solidarity of this newly-formed anti-US axis and nothing more. While the loss of the general is regrettable, it is not a sufficient cause for starting the Armageddon, and fortunately, I believe the power brokers in Tehran, Moscow and Beijing know this well. It is to the detriment of Trump’s opponent/enemy to underestimate him. Emotions are running high at the moment, but hopefully at the end, nothing (too) destructive will take place because of this.
Agree, the Israelis want an overreaction. The response should and will be calculated, Iraq demanding the withdrawal of US forces is the right response.
Nice pop in the gold price.
https://twitter.com/thestevennabil/status/1212932088065716224?s=20
By /u/gonzolegend
By /u/gonzolegend
At what point does ignorance no longer become excuse though? I have no doubts that they are fed the usual propaganda, but it should be very clear to anyone with an IQ over 50 that they are serving an empire and not really “defending freedom” or US soil.
As a nationalist I take care of those of my brethren less intelligent and less informed than I.
Time to tune the fiddle, Nero!
Or Trump is just what he seems to be, an amateur blowhard outsider who too-readily listens to whatever (((fixers))) happen to have his ear on any particular day. Still better than Hillary, who would have the world in flames by now, but no way do I buy the 4d chessmaster stuff anymore.
Americans are war mongering scum who almost all support these sorts of wars, even the Iraq war is still celebrated by the majority of Americans while in the rest of the world it’s almost universally seen as a disaster and tragedy.
I hope the Iranians give Trump a bloody nose, the American scum have been inflicting their BLACK terror on the rest of the world for decades and it’s about time they got punished for it. Most Americans fully support the multi-racial dystopia that their country is, when it comes to it the average white American (if such a thing even exists any more) identifies far more with the all-American Negro than they do with whites in other countries. The British are no better either, you only have to read the wall of rabid comments on the DM today calling for Trump to obliterate Iran, the British proles are possibly even dumber and more aggressive than the American proles incredibly.
In fairness, there are plenty of native-born Americans with far more radical views.
Top voted post at /r/ChapoTrapHouse (probably biggest hard left forum): https://www.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/comments/ej7tyn/preemptive_warning_for_all_you_fucking_liberals/
Some of these people are at institutions like West Point: https://apnews.com/57a1fd1e2df84cfdb2fc51375815444f/Army-splits-with-West-Point-grad-who-touted-communist-revolt
One nice thing about the Great Awokening is that it will make it harder for the US to effectively fight imperialist wars.
The British Daily Mail’s current headline is “IRAN WAGES JIHAD ON U.S.”, U.S. is no doubt intended to be read as “us”, as in everyone.
The DM is truly the most insidious and nasty “news” outlet in the Western world, it is undoubtedly the PRAVDA of the Western globalist elite.
There is a big difference between agreeing or disagreeing with policy and actively hoping that the people of your adopted country get killed, as you do.
That’s true and it can’t be helped. Letting people into the country, who hope that Americans get attacked, is another matter. That can be helped.
it will make it harder for the US to effectively fight imperialist wars
Who are you calling an imperialist, you Tsarist running dog lackey?
In practical terms, has this attack damaged Iran, Iranians and long-term Iranian interests?
This was a display of force, absolute power and a warning to all non-nuclear opponents of USA.
The USA are above the law – had they started a New Year bombing campaign against Iran (“anti-terrorist”, “stop nuclear proliferation”) combined with ground campaign to eradicate all Iranian influence in Iraq – they could get away with it.
As if you people are forgetting that Mossad assassinated people inside Iran, and USA and their allies explicitly, publicly conspired to destroy countries around the world – through sanctions, subversion, coups or arming of insurgents and terrorists.
This is just a global hegemon flexing its muscles, trying to preserve its (smart and hard) earned position. Or do you think that UK of the Imperial past was a force of Good?
On the plus side – it’s funny going through Twitter and searching for Democrat Jew anti-Trump outbursts over Soleimani.
Internet Communists are painfully clueless. Their perverse take on Marx (where anti-racism and ethnic annihilation of whites >>>>>> class and economic exploitation) is the invention of and has been propagated totally through the actions of America’s ruling class. And so their grand plan to bring about global anti-racism (and sex pervert emancipation of course) is to destroy the single greatest party actively trying to force that onto other countries?
On one hand their desire to see their (nominal) countrymen get killed is sickening, so I’m glad they’re mostly useless and have got no clue what’s going on. But on the other, a few lone nuts can do a lot of damage to innocent people, and their existence is almost certainly a net benefit (at least short term) for the powers that be.
There’s a lot to be said about the ineptitude of WN’s, but Richard Spencer’s running a crack team of rocket surgeons compared to these total morons.
Your two comments are outstanding. Keep on commenting!
It’s a pretty big blow to their command in Iraq and Syria, but I guess they can find another guy to run the show there, still it will certainly delay any plans they had
They could get away with it but would they succeed?
Iran has it’s own options in this case, damaging Saudi Oil production and blocking Hormuz for instance, just these two would be major shakeups
Oil prices are set to go up either way, this will boost the economy of the main European adversary of the US, Russia (provided there isn’t some major shortage)
All of this the US could still survive, but would it be worth it in the long run? It will probably make their demise come sooner
You’re such a christcuck larper fag.
1st, wishing soldiers become brave martyrs is perfectly fine.
2, why the fuck any straight or white male still has loyalty to the regime is just proof that they’re neither of those things.
Total over six conservative years: (rape)
White on Black: 0
Black on White: 135,206
Black on Black: 148,380
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/661255407691366411/662667161428557825/proxy.png
You’re dumb and the american establishment is the enemy of all life on the planet!
Where is the quoted source from?
The US has been inflicting BLACK terror on the world for decades with their very non-white military and the average white American is proud of it. There are very few racially aware white Americans, they love the stereotype of the Alpha male Negro army commander shouting witty one liners and leading from the front, they practically worship the stereotype of the negro soldier, even the so called “right wing” white Americans.
Americans are very happy to use their negros as a weapon against other countries, and they’re proud of the fact. They are absolute scum for the most part.
This Suleimani sounds like a real creep – “war is man’s other true paradise…” – he is quoted as saying.
We need less people like this in the world.
Pointless grammar quibble but it does make me wonder – I would immediately think that “fewer” is more appropriate than “less” since persons is a countable quality, but there is a certain fluidic aspect to people.
I’ll still say that “fewer people” sounds more appropriate.
At any rate, the blind fondness of violence-avoidance is at least a significant contributor to much of the pathology of modernity. I think at least some of the effects of Pinker’s “Better Angels” should be questioned.
Lol, yes, fewer is probably better.
I am very far from being a violence-avoider. I firmly believe it is appropriate in the right contexts – there is even a side of me that shares Suleiman’s attitude.
I agree with you that those moderns who believe in avoiding violence at all costs actually, ironically, invite it.
But my mature, considered view would not be to glorify violence, and people who openly do so are probably not healthy for the world.
Note, Suleiman did not talk about achieving some sort of moral vision through the regrettable necessity of using violence, but simply that strife, death, and violence are “paradise”
The world could do with fewer such people, in the end.
Hiding under Iraq…pun intended…is not the answer to preservation, standing up for your country is.
https://twitter.com/Partisangirl/status/1213093950698872833
How about letting people into the country, who would use it as a vehicle in their own tribal crusade against Russia? 😉
Your posts all indicate that your hang-ups with Anglos are eating you up inside. Let it go. By letting it get to you are letting the Anglos win. lol
Iran is pro-Black Lives Matter. Iran claims blacks are oppressed in America and demanded justice for racism victim Trayvon Martin. (From what I can tell most Russians and Germans agree with Iran on that). Iran says Muslims are oppressed in Europe. Iran’s media is anti-white and anti-Christian – and, no, interviewing cranks like David Duke and his Catholic version, EMJ, doesn’t make up for it. The typical Iranian (IQ 84) believes the British are actually running the world. That’s even stupider than the American “stereotype of the Alpha male Negro” or Russians believing Poland is to blame for starting WW2.
Americans are very happy to use their negros as a weapon against other countries, and they’re proud of the fact. They are absolute scum for the most part.
And Europeans are happy to use alleged black suffering in America as a moral weapon against white Americans. Let’s face it, white people, in general, kind of suck these days.
If somebody leaves Russia and then wants to rail against it in their new country, that’s their prerogative. But if somebody emigrates to the US from Russia, like this abject loser, Profesor Tennessee Tuxedo, they shouldn’t get on the bandwagon with a speaker horn lambasting their new country. Guys like you and Karlin, who stay put in Russia and defend its policies are one thing, but carpetbaggers like Professor Tennessee Tuxedo are the bottom dregs of any society.
So does Saudi Arabia. So does Bahrain. So do ‘American’ multinationals corporations in the region. Do you actually have a cogent point, ever?
Frankly, I am sick and tired that whenever I say that I am from the US, people abroad treat me as if I am guilty of the crimes committed by the US government. One of my colleagues told me that his acquaintances abroad say that they are from Canada, to avoid being accused of those crimes. However, I believe that this is dishonest: Canada, like the EU and Australia, is an imperial cuck. I wish I could live and work in a country whose government is not committing heinous crimes abroad. I wish even more that the US government stops its criminal actions, so that I won’t be accused of anything.
First, on what happened.
If the lightning struck that car, it would have been a tragedy. Since human agency launched that missile, it was a crime. Criminals gave the order, criminals transmitted it to lower ranks, criminals followed that criminal order.
Second, on disposition around Iran.
American assets within Iranian reach are exclusively tools of aggression: military bases and Navy ships. Americans present at all of these have voluntarily signed up for a criminal organization: US Army, US Navy, or USAF. These criminal organizations recklessly endanger our country by openly engaging in international banditry.
Even if the immigrant may be mistaken, if his belief is sincere he may still provide valuable contact, intelligence, etc.
So this is very different from some guy actively hoping that his host country gets attacked and it’s people killed (which is what happens when “American targets” are attacked).
You are welcome to rally behind criminals. I refused to do so in the USSR and I refuse to do so in the US.
You like to think so, don’t you?
IMO such people are more insidious, which makes them more dangerous. Just look at what the Jews did to US foreign policy.
Actually, constantly seeking the approval of others — especially outside of your group over your group, which would be non-Americans if you are American — is pretty much the definition of being a cuck. I travel overseas quite a lot and certainly don’t hide my nationality. I do consider strong outgroup preference as a sign of susceptiblility to leftist propaganda, and you do seem to fit that pattern.
Thank you for clarifying. You initially wrote “American targets within reach” which could be anybody. If Iran has people in New York, regular Americans are in reach. American tourists are in reach in the Middle East and Europe.
So you came to this country and hope that if your neighbor’s kid enlisted in the military, he gets killed. You wish that some clerk in your local store who is in the reserves and deployed, gets killed. It’s one thing to admit that Iran has the right to defend itself and to lament the likely loss of American lives, it’s another to declare many of the people who invited you in and among whom you’ve settled to be criminals whose deaths you sincerely wish for.
Yeah, America really needs people like that in the country.
You haven’t heard? The U.S.S.R. went belly up 29 years ago. It’s a democracy now, and has a swell democratically elected leader. You can go back now, it needs patriots like you to make it even better!
Iran would be very stupid to respond to this in any way. Anything they do will just make Trump respond even more heavily and may lead to the end of the regime or the destruction of their country.
Sometimes you have to know the limits of your power.
Israel killed Imad Mugniyeh, Hezbollah’s second in command and chief bomb maker a few years ago. Hezbollah vowed revenge, but has not done anything.
Hezbollah understood the limits of its power.
Nothing is going to happen. Maybe Iran will commit to a reprisal in the near future on a high-ranking US official somewhere (like shooting up an ambassador in some eastern European shit hole).
Soleimani was a soldier and understood the risks. Another soldier bites the dust. Another will replace him.
Business as usual.
https://twitter.com/Seamus_Malek/status/1213039666519166976?s=20
Okay, but how is Iran’s effort to dominate its region different than America’s effort to dominate Iran.
It’s a question of scale. Iran’s ambitions are regional because that is how far its power reaches, America’s ambitions are global because its power is infinitely vaster.
It’s just one level up.
I am sure other countries in the region find it unfair that Iran is causing all sorts of mischief and trying to dominate them. Apparently Iraqis were celebrating today.
From a dispassionate power politics point of view, there seems little to complain about here from either side. Both are just doing what humans have always done.
From the moral point of view, the situation looks quite different, and I suppose we will each make our own choices.
I am sure Iran has its good points and I don’t indulge in the childish impulse to ascribe all “evil” to one side, but I know I would infinitely prefer to live under American hegemony than under Iranian.
Aren’t you already being dishonest by claiming to be from America rather than Russia? I think the latter would be more consistent with your Russia-firster social identity.
The responses of Jewish American MSM opinion makers and shakers to Bret Stephens’ piece that asserted that they were smarter than the average bear was a resounding and near unanimous — moi?
The overwhelming responses of those same opinion shapers to Trump’s air strike will be a severe outcry against Trump’s warmongering and a demand that he be immediately removed from office and imprisoned.
Wait.
What?
Oh, never mind.
Well, it’ll likely be almost unanimous at least.
Have you considered moving to and living in Russia? It seems to embody all of the attributes that you’re looking for?
Yes, I am so glad he made a beeline for Karlin’s blog literal hours after the event in order to make his first two posts ever on Unz.com
Czech President Milos Zeman on Friday (December 27) lashed out at Russia’s “insolence” for protesting against Prague’s decision to turn the anniversary of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of then-Czechoslovakia into a memorial day.
Czech lawmakers passed a bill earlier this month to designate Aug 21 as “a day commemorating the victims of the invasion and subsequent occupation by the Warsaw Pact armies”. Zeman signed the bill into law on December 13.
Zeman added that he could cancel his visit to Moscow on the 75th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War.
“Some time ago, I accepted the invitation of the President Putin to take part in the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the Victory, and now I’m thinking about whether to go there at all or, what I’ll most likely do, go there and say to the Russians: “What if you turned the page and stopped recalling this anniversary?”
Zeman slam’s Russia’s insolence over 1968
If Putin keeps this up maybe he’ll be alone with his best bud Bibi at next May’s 75th anniversary.
This reminds me of Clinton. Impeachment heating up? Attack the Hitler du jour – Iraq (and Serbia) in Clinton’s day, Iran in Trump’s.
Look, let’s try and be adults about this.
The situation can be analyzed on multiple levels. From the unsentimental point of view of power politics, there are no moral fairy tales here. The logic of national security dictates that you can never amass enough power. The feeling of insecurity, once allowed to dictate policy, knows no limits.
I believe Thucydides described this dynamic many centuries ago. Psychologists have shown that ironically, the more you seek absolute security, the more insecure you feel – it’s a vicious escalation.
No doubt Iran sees its actions as defensive – but so does everyone else in the region. From one point of view, Iran’s actions seem like imperialistic ambitions – from another, Israel’s do. But both countries are merely obeying the logic of national security, and every aggressive action can be described as self defense.
Many people in the region today, especially in Iraq, are celebrating the death of Suleiman, because they found Iran’s merely defensive actions oppressive.
That is the tragedy of the human predicament, and you can only escape if you have no serious competitors. Only China was in this extremely enviable state for several centuries, and it developed a marvelous way of life based on peace. But when the world became global and China faced serious competition for the first time, it responded by embracing the logic of national security, and is now as shitty as anywhere else.
What it comes down to, is not moral fairy tales, but which side you prefer morally. I would infinitely prefer to live in Israel or America than any other Middle Eastern country – and I am pretty sure 100% of the people here would likewise.
So maybe Iran feels that dominating the region and oppressing it, causing untold death, and destroying Israel are merely innocent defensive measures – I am quite prepared to accept this is their genuinely held belief, and they are not “evil”.
But it makes no difference.
You have many delusions. These are just a few more. Makes no difference.
So, you classify me as a leftist? You could have been even wider of the mark if you classified me as Martian.
I wonder what can possibly ail person’s mental ability so horribly as to make him/her/it see me as a Russia-firster. No matter: like all mental disorders, it is likely incurable.
It’s high time Americans turned on their brains and defended the country from the government, following good advice of Thomas Paine.
America is not a country, it’s a marketplace led by a psychopathic oligarchy that is religiously committed to spreading population replacement, destruction of traditional values and norms, and neoliberalism. America at this point has zero political or moral legitimacy, and the hostile foreigner who comes here to make a few bucks is infinitely more respectable than idiot proles who still have a shred of loyalty to this entity.
Some soldiers are good people, but the military is increasingly filled with degenerates and sociopaths that would have no problem putting American kulaks in death camps if it ever came to that. Either way, you lose your individuality when you sign up for any military and only represent the whole. The US getting bloodied and humiliated in one of their overseas adventures would be well deserved and I don’t have any sympathy for the people who volunteered to serve in it.
‘There is a big difference between agreeing or disagreeing with policy and actively hoping that the people of your adopted country get killed, as you do.’
What’s the distinction between hoping they get killed, and working to get them killed — as Zionists do?
Also — and this point seems to get lost — I don’t like being on the side of evil things: brute force, bad faith, and whatever it was.
We’re the bad guys here. I don’t like it. God will punish us.
…call me old-fashioned, I guess.
‘It’s high time Americans turned on their brains and defended the country from the government, following good advice of Thomas Paine.’
It’s high time we turned on our consciences. This is wrong.
Isn’t classifying all who disagree politically as mentally ill an old Soviet trick? It seems assimilation didn’t work with you.
I’m at a point that I’m thinking, hey, if f the “white genocide” ever gets to completion, it’s going to suck, there’s going to be an incompetent low-IQ mulatto world with millions of brown slaves tending to the Jew rulers “sitting like an Efendi”, but hey, there will be at least one bright side, no more white people fighting for status, virtue-signaling, fighting against each other and being utterly incapable of finding common ground even when set for extermination.
Why would any Russian leader wish to court Czechs and/or Slovaks?
They will readily align with the dominant contemporary power and do it’s bidding, no questions asked.
I only hope that Russians have finally learned the lesson – the only allies they have are Russian Army and Russian Navy.
I notice you have a very Manichean world view.
Do you actually think that is an argument? It is obvious to everyone who is really in charge, and it’s not Saudi Arabia or all those other ones.
The neocons have been spouting off about nuking Iran for decades.
What I see happening is Trump committing bigger and bigger crimes until Iran reacts in such a way as to give Trump a pretext to nuke Iran.
This should be obvious to Iranians; but it probably doesn’t matter, since if Iran doesn’t take the bait, the Saudis and their friends will attack the USA, and the politicians they own will blame Iran.
I expect at least 10,000 casualties in Iran by the end of 2020. It could be in the millions if the USA goes nuclear.
Wrong is a moral aspect of it – of course, banditry is wrong.
The other aspect is that these actions are dangerous for the US and all of its citizens, including those who would never approve such a criminal act. Being a citizen, I particularly resent that.
Disagree. The thing about the great awokening is that, the mantra of “invade, invite” remains unscathed by all of this, in some cases strenghthened (“we must invade iran to help out all of the strong independent women”). I suppose it’s not conducive to world dominaion in the very long term, but, in the short term, it’s riding on us’s current status which will take at least a couple of decades to erode. On top of that, European elites are more servile than ever. In the uk, Corbyn, got the le penn/putin/trump treatment from the establishment/media because of his anti-imperialism and economic leftism, despite being (or at least onowtowing to) as woke as it’s possible to be.
You might be right; but I think that the Saudis and their allies might not be willing to miss the opportunity to order a false flag attack on the USA while the USA is on high alert, and millions of people are foaming at the mouth with anti-Iran hysteria.
American involvement here does not benefit America or improve her national security. It might benefit Israel, military spending, or a number of individuals within that complex but by and large, it doesn’t benefit “America.” Its not akin to a wolf pack expanding its range, its more akin to a wolf pack endlessly attacking ant hills in its range. It doesn’t benefit the wolf pack, uses up significant resources, and gradually incurs ever escalating injuries.
And there are ways that individuals find security through withdrawal from stressful circumstances. There’s a saying of picking your battles – and that’s because of limitations in resources of time and energy.
I don’t know which China you’re referring to, but it is not one that I know of. The Qin was established through conquest, the Han fought a long and ultimately triumphant war with the Xiongnu, the Tang were at war with all borders, Song had their Jurchens and Mongols, Yuan were Mongols so it doesn’t even need to be said that they were continuing their Mongol great traditions, Ming fought over three hundred wars in three hundred years of existence and the Qing had their great campaigns which among other reasons, is why Xinjiang is Xinjiang. All of these wars sapped resources, often with dubious gain and may have contributed to collapse. Joseon Korea if anything were the only ones lucky enough to avoid most warfare, to their detriment when the Japanese invaded.
Israel and Iran may be locked in the existential struggle. Who knows. Its almost certainly not existential(or even beneficial) for the US to be involved to the extent it is.
On what authority? This is a coup.
The elite republicans are in control. They are the only ones standing in between trump and a modern day lynching that might actually leave him hanging from the end of a noose. Trump is completely beholden to them and is going to follow the script as long as the impeachment is hanging over his head.
You might think that the republicans would never impeach because they would surely lose the election if they did. This was my thought until I remembered that the parties do not actually differ on foreign policy or anything that actually matters. two wings of the same bird flying in the same direction. As long as the Plan for the New American Century is enacted, as it was under Bush and Obama, they will keep trump around. However, if he does as he promised and stop interventions and pointless Mideast wars, the republican elite in congress will hand trump over to an Antifa mob to beat to death.
Isn’t calling traitors and other words of this type all those who disagree with criminal acts of the government a very Soviet thing? You appear to be more Soviet than those who grew up in the USSR. LOL.
Ideally, Iran’s response would be to try to team up with the Groypers in some propaganda war.
A military response, even by proxy, seems pretty senseless. Don’t get me wrong – I think we all appreciate the practical demonstration of drones destroying Saudi refineries. It is just not likely to change the stance of the US in the region.
Anyway, I doubt this really changes Iran’s regional strategy.
‘I notice you have a very Manichean world view.’
Not really. However, sometimes evil really is there.
Some people just need a killing.
‘… What it comes down to, is not moral fairy tales, but which side you prefer morally. I would infinitely prefer to live in Israel or America than any other Middle Eastern country – and I am pretty sure 100% of the people here would likewise…’
You’re off by at least some fraction of a percent.
I would never live in the moral abomination that is Israel; you might as well invite me to be a Nazi colonist in the Ukraine in 1943.
On the other hand, my wife and I have been in Turkey; we idly contemplated buying property there. It would be perfectly agreeable — even if we finally plumped for Oregon instead.
Afghanistan was once nice; I’m pretty sure it’s been wrecked by now, but…
Iran I’m eager to at least visit (again); too bad the Zionists make it so cumbersome. I think about visiting Lebanon as well.
So you’re wrong. Turkey at least definitely outranks Israel — and I think I’d put up with whatever Iran and Lebanon would involve rather than support evil. Now Afghanistan or Israel — there’s a poser. Maybe I could move to Israel and cheat on my taxes or something. Would that absolve me from complicity in the evil that you’re part of?
Annual payments to Hamas?
It is not me but the Russian state that is constantly trying to play up the Russian role in defeating Germany and, on this occasion, inviting central European leaders to Moscow next year for the 75th anniversary. It is the Russian state that is expressing disapproval for the Czech decision to officially commemorate 1968. A few years ago it was Russian state media that was claiming the 1968 intervention saved Czechoslovakia from fascists. Last week it was the Russian president spinning the 1938 protocol with Germany and making accusations against Poland. Maybe it is generational – those like Putin with positive memories of the USSR as a world power – and soon Russians will stop caring about the Soviet image and legacy, but right now those actually running Russia are giving the impression that they do care what small central European states think about the USSR and seem eager to court them.
Every power will try to extend its power as far as it can because if it doesn’t, it knows that other powers will move into the vacuum, potentially denying it access to vital resources or improving its position for staging attacks. The only limitation is capacity.
The Middle East is a vital resource area, so America has no choice but to dominate it. What every country does in its backyard, America does across the entire world, following the same logic scaled up.
If America doesn’t dominate the ME, China or Russia, or some as yet unforeseen competitor, will, and America will be at a severe disadvantage.
If Iran acquires nukes, this will severely hamper America’s ability to dictate rules to the region, and America has a vital interest in preventing this.
The psychology of insecurity dictates that it is better to always be in control of situations and regions in order to prevent unforeseen threats from emerging and shape trends to your advantage.
I am not saying that I agree with this thinking, just that a cold, unsentimental analysis will reveal the underlying logic of patterns that may otherwise appear murky.
These patterns were masterfully analyzed by Thucydides millenia ago.
.
Yes, but trouble has a tendency to follow you – unless you are willing to give up the world and flee to the mountains like a Taoist sage.
America is not the only actor in the world stage – if American influence waned, other actors following the same logic will fill the vacuum, because it is the eternal logic of human strategy. There is a reason China is creating hundred dash lines and trying to seize seemingly insignificant islands in waters traditionally belonging to its neighbors.
Resource constraints might well impose limitations, but America has not reached that stage yet.
And the Middle East being a vital energy producer as well as home to unstable regimes, frequent violence, and a huge population, it surely deserves to be the focus of large amounts of American resources from the perspective of national security strategy.
A wise man might counsel restraint, but such otherworldly wisdom seldom appeals to men who grapple with the harsh realities of the world, who seem to prefer the logic of control and domination as the path to security.
China is the only country in the world that found it could dispense with a military aristocracy and downgrade the military progression to lower status.
China experienced conflict, and was even conquered by the Manchus, but it was evidently never threatened with the obliteration of its culture and identity in the manner of conquered peoples elsewhere in the world. Its culture was the only game in town, and the numbers involved were too small – China absorbed its conquerors.
Within this framework of reduced – but not nonexistent – conflict, China evolved an unusually balanced and harmonious way of life, as practically all Western visitors commented on, until a serious competitor emerged.
The tragic predicament of humanity is that the whole world is.
If the Iranians are really smart they will retaliate by attacking the Israelis.
“Running dog” is such a criminally underused adjective, although I have to admit I’m not sure what it even means! What’s the etymology?
“the 1968 intervention saved Czechoslovakia from fascists” – In Czechoslovakia there was this joke that the USSR received the letter sent to them in 1938 asking for help and they came in 1968 with 30 year delay.
This evil talk is rather childish – what Buddhists would call ignorance.
I think living in Turkey or Lebanon would involve certain opressions and a level of instability most people wouldn’t like, but there are some very pleasant and nice places in both countries.
Still, Turkey as hegemon would be very unpleasant for most people.
This is also the view of the Middle-East veterans over at Patrick Lang’s blog:
The protests at the American embassy, then, were over Iraqi servicemen murdered in American drone strikes …
… and now the Americans went one better and murdered an Iraqi general.
There is literally no way for this assertion to make any sense. I won’t be asking you for moral guidance any time soon.
Of the three who have responded to you, one is obviously a fool and the others are just going to try and incite you, so just ignore it. JMO.
This is the Realist theory of international relations, and Thucydides is indeed considered by many its “father.” I don’t know of him being associated with the psychological effect you mention, but there is a similar notion in realist theory called the “security dilemma.”
Basically, realists hold that since there is no supreme power that states can appeal to to resolve their differences (you can’t “call the cops” on a country), states are forced to fend for their own security the best way they know how, creating a condition that realists call anarchy. One aspect of this anarchy is that the measures a state takes to increase its security (amassing military power, generally) may cause other states, particularly potential rival states, to respond by taking steps to increase their own security; and the increase in tensions may result in war even though that was not the intention of either side.
Realism is only one theoretical framework among others, however. Realism and its more recent variants remain the most dominant theories, but contending theories like liberalism, the so-called “English school,” Marxism and constructivism have, imo, contributed important insights of their own (ie it’s not just libtard bullshit), and helped to account for what is probably realism’s most glaring theoretical defect – that there just doesn’t seem to be as much war as realism would appear to predict.
Rightly or wrongly, ever since the Islamic revolution, America has viewed Iran as a destabilizing influence in the region, and a threat to American oil interests. One can never afford to ignore the influence of Israeli interests in American foreign policy calculations, but the American relationship with Israel is not in every instance a one-way street. It’s crucial to understand that the American foreign policy establishment essentially behave like realists but strive to justify their actions in terms of liberalism. (That is, to justify their actions to their own people and to Europe; others don’t really matter.) And it’s here that standing up for Israel as “the only democracy in the Middle East” can serve as a useful cover.
I’m sure I’ve said before here that if Israel were overrun by the Arabs I’d more likely smile than cry; but at the same time, the nature of Israel’s scummy Islamic foes means Israel provides a useful model to confused and fearful westerners of how to deal with an internal problem demographic and perennial security threat. It’s easy to scoff at this analysis or to resent it given how much outrageous bullshit Israel-firsters smother us with, but when you consider what really matters most – destroying Israel or securing white racial interests? – it becomes easier to view Israel as providing the template that whites can demand for their own countries.
Thereby ensuring a full-scale American assault. Real smart.
This seems to me the wisest answer in the short term, unless they can pull off targeted assassinations of American officers or officials, which I doubt. (Maybe in a few months’ time, when the storm has calmed.) Attacks against civilians would be a PR disaster at best, and also immoral.
What does Russia have to gain from lecturing former Eastern Bloc peoples about how they were saved from the Fascist Danger in 1956 or 1968? Is it nothing, or is it actually negative?
When the Eastern Bloc was under Soviet rule, the local leaders sometimes played up the evil of American bombing in 1944-45. For example the East Germans talked a lot about the bombing of Dresden and the civilian casualties.
You know what the Americans did? Well, they just didn’t give a flying fuck. The East Germans were free to condemn the Anglo-American imperialist bombing of Dresden. On the other hand, the Americans made a big show about how the East Germans (and all other Eastern Bloc peoples) were oppressed by Russia.
Maybe there’s a lesson here about how Russia should react, if it actually wanted to promote its own interests in the region. For example, it could start not giving flying fucks about how those people are commemorating their years under Soviet oppression. Russia is not the USSR, so it can somewhat plausibly claim that it has very little if anything to do with all that.
I’m not so sure about the second part, making a big show about how those peoples are oppressed by the Americans and Brussels, but it’s not like they couldn’t do that either. They could mention how people are arrested for tweets in certain countries. How Brussels is planning to change the ethnic composition of Poland etc. by settling refugees. (It is trying to do the same in Germany, by the way.) But maybe it wouldn’t be beneficial to Russia, I’m not sure. It would certainly generate a lot of sympathy among right-wingers like us, but we are a small and powerless minority, so maybe Russia shouldn’t do that, because it would make it hated even more by the mainstream, and perhaps not just by committed liberals.
But the first point, not giving a flying fuck about how we commemorate the period of Soviet occupation, would certainly be beneficial.
What’s the etymology?
According to Wiki it is Chinese. I picked up from the Red Chinese and have always liked it and try to use it every chance I get.
Thanks for good advice! I’ll follow it. It’s psychologically hard not to respond to trolls, even though I know for sure that discussing things with trolls is about as profitable as having heart-to-heart conversation with a lamppost.
https://www.nix.ru/computer_hardware_news/hardware_news_viewer.html?id=199523
From karlin’s twitter.
Still, the most likely outcome is nothing. But the US keeps playing with fire. It will certainly result in some bad things later on.
The glorification of martyrdom & warriorship is strongest in Sikhi & then it seems Shia culture.
I think many Shias actually fought under Guru Gobind Singh and they will proly become Singhs one day.
Of course any sort of masculine, warrior culture offends the sensual feminine jew||
The Saif of Ali is kept in Anandpur Sahib, the fortress of Guru Gobind Singh||
Are you expecting finesse from Russians? You can’t because they see themselves as victims, butthurt victims, so they can’t be very rational. Partly they emulate Jews for whom constant whining and victimhood worked very well and partly it is typical pride and hubris in Turanian edition: my way or the highway.
Look at the disgusting Khohols shilling for ZOG because a few scraps are thrown to their borderland fake & gay country.
Morality comes before all else.
Immigrants move to a country for economics not to be part of ‘society’
Distances that immigrants move has varied with technology but not the purpose.
STFU about some Russian wanting America to be destroyed.
America is an anti-white homosexual empire and you two (hack & ap) need to stop larping as nominal christcucks if you’re going to speak in its favour.
—
It’s always the shitty, identity-less, literal vermin trash of society that try to play up colonial identities.
Scots & Ukrainians are real loyal to the USA/Canada because they’re a literal mutt people with no society (culture, language, tradition, religion) to speak of.
Why the fuck would you not move to an enemy country and pursue your own interests?
When the fuck has one tribe ever given quarter to another??
Do you enjoy deluding yourself into thinking you’re anything but useful slaves??
You work alongside your enemy to gain assets and rebel at the first opportunity.
Otherwise, he absorbs you.
I guess trying to explain Identity to a Ukrainian is like asking an American which European country his ancestors hail from..
LOL.
ALso, AaronB you’re a faggot.
How dare you compare Tehran & Turan dealing with their own assets vs USA interfering in the region.
They may be muslims but you only lend credence to the Khazar meme when you stand in the way of reversing the demographic changes the Turks have brought to C Asia/Balkans etc.
Like The Ayatollah said
Martyrdom is his reward for the service he has rendered all these years.
Respect bravery where you see it or you will lose sight of everything.
I think that there are people in Iran who are wishing for a full-scale assault, just as there were people among the Taliban who wished for exactly that. The Taliban hawks were wrong, and the Iranian hawks are likely wrong, too, but their thinking is that they have very little to lose, because Iran’s economy is collapsing anyway, and they also think that the US doesn’t have the capability to occupy the whole of Iran.
So their thinking might be that either the US will try to wage a war from the air (but the Serbs have shown that it’s not always as easy as it seems, and Iran is much larger and stronger than rump Yugoslavia was in 1999, and with more powerful friends), or they will need to enter Iran, and maybe a war doesn’t give the US very good options anyway.
I think the US could easily defeat Iran in some way, but the war would create a “rally around the flag” effect in Iran, and so temporarily stabilize the regime, and so maybe Iran could hold on even if most of its assets abroad (Syria, Iraq) were either cut off or outright destroyed. It’s also possible that Iran would have the ability to seriously harm some American assets in the region, which would be a humiliation to the US even if the the loss to kill ratio was just as lopsided as it always is in most such wars. It would be much larger than any previous US war since Vietnam, and as Stalin said, quantity has a quality of its own. So an Iraq War multiplied by three is not really an Iraq War times three, it’s something qualitatively different. And of course Iran is qualitatively better than Iraq was in 2003. (Though maybe not better than Iraq in 1991. But then again, in 1991 it was a vast coalition fighting against Iraq, now it’d be just the US and maybe a couple relatively weak allies, like maybe the UK and France.)
Having said that, I agree that attacking Israeli assets might not be the smartest thing to do.
I once believed this, but Michael Wolff’s books quickly dispelled that fantasy. Here’s what strategy meant during the campaign:
And here’s Trump readying himself for the notorious Helsinki summit with Putin back in 2018:
May God protect the people of Iran and give them strength against the Empire of Evil and the Synagogue of Satan.
I really liked the articles in the Daily Stormer, like the one titled “Qasem Soleimani was an Absolute Hero and His Death is Both a Travesty and a Tragedy”. Agree 100%. If one has a soul, it’s hard to read about his life story and not admire the man.
For his biography, there is a decent long article in The New Yorker of all places about him, it is from 2013 but it’s worth reading today as well.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/09/30/the-shadow-commander
I hope that some descendant of Ferdowsi writes an epic poem about this hero one day.
I could never live in a muzz country. Their rebarbative culture stretches my powers of forbearance to breaking point even where they’re only a minority. I’d rather surround myself with cult marx loons who believe in trans rights, fag marriage, diversity, racial equality – the whole caboodle – than attempt to make a go of it amid the followers of Mahound.
That said, I’ve been to Turkey and I thought they were generally a friendly bunch. The customer service was certainly a cut above the lamentable standards I encountered in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Serbia. But you can’t really tell much about what your quotidian experiences with them would be like when you’re just passing through.
Among Israelis, on the other hand, although there is no shortage of true believers in that sick supremacist cult, there is still enough of a liberal element that I could probably feel comfortable. I have not been at all reluctant to criticize and castigate Jews on this blog, but it’s a criticism born of frustration and disappointment rather than malice. Aside from the orthodox sickos, I still regard Jews as people pretty much like myself. The upshot is that if I lived in Israel, then in terms of international politics, I could probably feel genuinely elated by an Israeli victory (say, the Pallies get chased out of the West Bank) in a way that would never be true about a Turkish victory.
‘…Among Israelis, on the other hand, although there is no shortage of true believers in that sick supremacist cult, there is still enough of a liberal element that I could probably feel comfortable…’
It’s not a matter of feeling comfortable. I imagine I’d find the German officers’ club in 1942 Kiev more comfortable than running around in the woods with some partisans/bandits.
It’s a matter of which is least egregiously evil. I could never — however tacitly — participate so directly in something so utterly indefensible as Israel as to live there.
‘I once believed this, but Michael Wolff’s books quickly dispelled that fantasy…’
A look at Michael Wolff’s biography will dispel the notion that his book could be a credible source.
‘Still, Turkey as hegemon would be very unpleasant for most people.’
To put it mildly, that’s a hypothetical.
Greece as hegemon might also prove unpleasant for some — but it’s not likely to happen, and in the meantime, it’s certainly not an argument against visiting Crete.
We were discussing your confidence that 100% of the people here would rather live in Israel than any other Middle Eastern country. As we’ve seen, your confidence has turned out to be misplaced.
Israel’s hands aren’t clean, but then neither are any other country’s. Is England’s existence “utterly indefensible” because the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and who knows else, displaced the Britons (by, you know, killing some of them)? Or Bulgaria’s because of the Bulgars and the Slavs? Or Hungary’s because of the Magyars? The only real difference is that Israel’s founding violence occurred too recently in the past, at a time when “civilized” people weren’t supposed to behave that way anymore. If you ignore that aspect of it, then whether you approve of Israel’s existence or not comes down to your feelings about Jews. Jews fucked over white America, so you hate Jews, and so you hate Israel. Pretty simple. Pretty understandable.
If you think there’s any more to it than that, then just imagine that, contrary to what actually happened, Jews had been the staunchest defenders of white interests and white identity in America. WASPs wanted to pry open America’s borders and flood the country with non-whites, but Jews argued it would be a terrible idea and fought them all the way. WASPs wanted to desegregate the blacks but Jews took the lead in organizing ‘massive resistance.’ WASPs wanted to argue that all races were inherently equal, but Jews explained the science proved the exact opposite. WA…
… * Allow me to take a break and just enjoy this pleasant reverie for a moment *…
Okay, I’m back. WASPs wanted to… well, you get the picture. Now if that’s how it had all played out, would you honestly still regard Israel as “utterly indefensible”? I’ll go out on a limb and claim no, you wouldn’t.
Phewee, the cuck is strong in this one.
Can you seriously imagine any Iranians ever praying for Bulgaria?
Talk about projection lmao
Its Chinese, from “dog that runs alongside its master” for collaborators to invaders. The symbolic value was to indicate that they were both eager to please, in a fundamentally inferior position to those they were assisting, and really quite silly.
That’s a deeply ungenerous — not to say slanderous — reading of AnonFromTN’s quote, which went:
Nowhere here does he suggest any personal preference.
If the Iranians were wise, they would retaliate only against the Israelis and Saudis who have hijacked control of the US government, not against the innocent Americans whose government has been hijacked by the wicked Israelis and Saudis.
Of course. I can imagine people from all over the world praying for any country that is under economic siege, suffers acts of terrorism and is slandered daily by the satanic jews and their lackeys.
So yes, I hope they never pray for my country but I will pray for theirs. Call me a cuck for that if you will.
Not really. There’s an nigh infinite number of potential activities to be had which aren’t engaged on: terraforming mountains, stabilizing Africa, ending aging, colonizing the seabed, going into Mars, building in the Artic, etc – all which aren’t done because they don’t really have much return to it.
Likewise, power cliques have frequently engaged the resources of a nation into pointless endeavours – thus the huge amounts of waste in the Pentagon. The US itself has increasingly little reason to be as engaged in the Middle East as it does, being that it has become an energy exporter rather than an importer. Instability and oil price increases benefit the US, rather than hamper it at this point.
If China or Russia “dominate” the Middle East in such an extent, it’ll just suck them up into the same pointless waste of effort – which is why they won’t. This isn’t the same as local investment in regional domination; this is extensive involvement in a region that is fundamentally unstable and only really valuable for its oil resources.
At some point, the rational analysis is that its not worth it. Most modern nations don’t fight over farmlands or horses for the same reason; the importance of what is to be fought over changes.
There’s an infinite number of unforseen threats yet we’re not building asteroid defense yet.
In this case, it really matters far more to Israel than it is to the US and efforts to indicate otherwise are basically lobbying rather than realistic analysis of what benefits “Americans.”
When the Jacobins and Bolsheviks slaughtered the old monarchist officer corps, did that render France and Russia harmless to the rest of the world?
‘ …It’s crucial to understand that the American foreign policy establishment essentially behave like realists but strive to justify their actions in terms of liberalism…’
Let’s fix that.
‘…It’s crucial to understand that the American foreign policy establishment essentially
behave as realistsdo as Israel instructs but strive to justify their actions in terms of liberalism…’Our foreign policy has nothing to do with realism. It certainly doesn’t serve any realistic definition of our interests, and since Israel pursues an agenda formed by collective insanity, it doesn’t serve a realistic definition of her interests either.
Look at the evil nonsense going on at the moment. Should it all end as Israel wishes — with us mounting an attempt to overthrow the Iranian government and reduce that state to the sort of blood-soaked anarchy that Israel sought to bring about in first Lebanon and then Syria, it won’t benefit Israel in any material way, and it can only end with our ceasing to be global hegemon. Perhaps it won’t be forever, but we’ll certainly cease to aspire to rule all for a decade or two.
When we cease to be global hegemon, Israel is dead. So as far as she’s concerned, Israel’s wish here is not merely irrational but outright suicidal. And serving Israel does nothing for us.
In what sense is this ‘realistic’?
Simple, the US will do more damage then Iran
Well Bolshevik promotion of incompetent people to military leadership certainly helped Finland in the Winter war
‘If the Iranians were wise, they would retaliate only against the Israelis and Saudis who have hijacked control of the US government, not against the innocent Americans whose government has been hijacked by the wicked Israelis and Saudis.’
We’re not innocent. It is our own ignorance, bigotry, hypocrisy, and political cowardice that has led to us serving Israel as we do.
‘I am sure Iran has its good points and I don’t indulge in the childish impulse to ascribe all “evil” to one side, but I know I would infinitely prefer to live under American hegemony than under Iranian.’
You might as well assert that you would rather live under American hegemony than Congolese hegemony.
The comparison is meaningless in both cases. There’s not the least chance of the Congo becoming a hegemon — and ditto for Iran. Iran’s technologically backward, outside of a certain radius surrounded by populations hostile to its religious aspirations, and has no recent history of pursuing expansionist policies.
The Iranian Revolution is only exportable to Shi’ites. It’s not a dogma for establishing hegemony.
This is a very naive idea of how perceived “national interests” form. In real life, highly-motivated groups of immigrants will have an outsized influence on how their host country thinks of its interests in their regions of birth. This is basically a geopolitical example of Nassim Taleb’s minority rule.
United States is especially vulnerable to such subversion since much of its conception of itself and its place in the world centers on elastic and easily abused ideas like freedom and human rights.
His background is in the yellow press, true, but these books were based on insider interviews with nearly all the major players in the White House and beyond. What also adds to their credence is that Steve Bannon returned as a first-hand source in the second book after having seen how his words were represented in the first.
Beckow says that this “utu” person descended from Sudeten Deutch. That would explain his butthurt and psychosis.
Don’t blame the Gulf Arabs, it was the decision of certain people in Washington.
Their assets should be targeted.
https://twitter.com/yarbatman/status/1213069525115113473
Kennan wrote about this as well.
https://twitter.com/17cShyteposter/status/1202094866974547969
All because I got dubs calling for ww3 and later “jesus coming personally to nuke israel”
Oh well, end times confirmed!
It doesn’t serve any short-term interest, but America after 1989 set out to remake the world in her own liberal image, based on the idea that this was the surest long-term guarantee of safety and prosperity. Was it really necessary? Will it succeed? My answer is “probably not” on both counts. But I’m a nobody. To people with real power, real influence, and real money, it seemed the way to go. The plan seems to be faltering and yet they persist. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps they feel you don’t change horses in midstream.
How could such an extreme weakening of a regional rival not benefit Israel? Israel isn’t much worried about ragtag terrorists. It’s real states that can marshal real resources that are the main concern.
As for America, I don’t think a war with Iran would impact American military capability so much that American power would be substantially diminished. America will cease to be global hegemon in the not too distant future anyway, regardless of what happens with Iran. If you ask me, multipolarity cannot come too quickly. That seems the surest way to get America to retreat from its delusional dreams of global liberal hegemony. In the meantime, I’m not so bitterly opposed to the attempt at liberal hegemony to root for Iran. Sorry.
‘Israel’s hands aren’t clean, but then neither are any other country’s…’
I got tired of dispatching that a long time ago. Come up with a dog that will still hunt.
‘How could such an extreme weakening of a regional rival not benefit Israel? Israel isn’t much worried about ragtag terrorists. It’s real states that can marshal real resources that are the main concern…’
…and of course all other states are either Israel’s puppets, or Israel’s enemies.
Do you realize how disturbed that is? It’s Jewish tribalism at its worst, transmogrified into a national creed.
…and it’s a recipe for national suicide.
I didn’t call you a traitor — perhaps your own concience is bothering you. You do have no issue labeling entire other nations ‘cucks’, and then whined about being treated rudely by non-Americans. I pointed out, quite correctly, that it is your behavior itself that is that of a cuck. People — American born, that is — do emigrate from America to other lands because they do not like America. That is quite fine. It seems like you lack the will or discipline to do likewise, and you are not even native born.
As if that was the substance of that whole post. Why don’t you answer my question instead?
I’ll believe the Saudis are a force for peace after they discontinue their starvation blockade and terror bombing of Yemen.
I don’t think that’s really a consequence of tribalism per se. It’s a consequence of the unconventional way the state was created. Unlike the other states there, which “grew up” next to each other over long periods of time, Israel was kind of “plunked down” amid a host of states utterly inimical to its existence. Tensions between Israel and its neighbors were going to persist for a long, long time no matter what Israel did or didn’t do. So what exactly is “disturbed” about being wary that countries that attacked and tried to vanquish you once may try to do so again? What would you do if you were an Israeli?
‘As if that was the substance of that whole post. Why don’t you answer my question instead?’
Because I don’t play redirection games with Hasbarists.
This whole thing is a hypocritical attempt to bait a cornered victim into attacking us so that we can engage in an unnecessary war of aggression that can only bring suffering to millions and make the world a worse place while pretending that we are ‘defending ourselves.’
Our conduct lacks even the virtue of honesty.
‘…It’s a consequence of the unconventional way the state was created. Unlike the other states there, which “grew up” next to each other over long periods of time, Israel was kind of “plunked down” amid a host of states utterly inimical to its existence. Tensions between Israel and its neighbors were going to persist for a long, long time no matter what Israel did or didn’t do.’
This is just another way of saying Israel was a really bad, fundamentally unjust idea.
‘So what exactly is “disturbed” about being wary that countries that attacked and tried to vanquish you once may try to do so again?’
Hasbara talking point. A lie, too — but no redirection, now.
‘What would you do if you were an Israeli?’
Leave.
But let’s get back to the point. Whatever the problems Jews have created for themselves by dreaming up Israel (‘a land without a people for a people without a land’ in a land, where, as it happened, there were quite a few people), how does it justify our murdering a foreign leader in a grotesquely transparent attempt to start an evil, useless war?
So stick to the point, Zionist.
“Redirection games” my ass. Hypothetical questions are a time-honored method for gaining clarity about one’s values.
So I’m a Hasbarist now eh? That’s news to me and to anyone remotely familiar with my posting history. But okay, about now seems as good time as any to switch teams, and I’m shameless enough to do it. Can someone tell me when I start getting paid for this? (Anyone out there? Hell-lloooo, anyone hear me?)
Well, you know, I want to do you the honor of taking you at your word, that you really are moved by humanitarian concerns, but the truth is I find it hard to believe. I guess I’m too much of a Machiavellian. Raison d’etat has always made instinctive sense to me. Sure, innocents are going to suffer, but that’s the nature of the game. Getting unduly worked up over it is like taking moral umbrage at bluffing in poker. Why would you? It’s just the way the game is played.
Lastly, in brief: it’s not going to make the world a measurably worse place; millions might “suffer” some, but they’re not going to die; it’s about the legitimate pursuit of self-interest not “defending ourselves”; Iranians themselves aren’t angels and they’re ruled by a vile regime, so pardon me for not losing any sleep worrying about them.
‘So I’m a Hasbarist now eh? That’s news to me and to anyone remotely familiar with my posting history. But okay, about now seems as good time as any to switch teams, and I’m shameless enough to do it. Can someone tell me when I start getting paid for this?’
So. Sticking to the point…
‘so pardon me for not losing any sleep worrying about them…’
You could worry about us. We’re the ones who are about to eclipse Hitler.
…and for a cause that’s not even ours.
Just how many Iranians are going to die when we succeed in starting this evil war?
…and for what?
certainly helped Finland in the Winter war
And the lessons learned in that war greatly helped the Russians in the Great Patriotic War, not to mention adding to Hitler’s already lethal overconfidence in the Wehrmacht’s ability to make quick work of the Russians.
Bad for whom? It wasn’t bad for Israelis. It wasn’t truly bad for Europeans or Americans – it just seems that way because of all Israeli meddling in their politics, but if Israel had never meddled, what would be bad about it? Nothing. It would be completely harmless. It was certainly catastrophic for the Palestinians, and plenty bad for the neighboring Arabs. What can I say? It was a war. Vae victis.
Unjust? What’s just or unjust in world politics depends entirely on which side you sympathize with. Was it just that 15 million Germans were expelled from ancestral territories? If you sympathize more with Slavs, yes; if you sympathize more with Germans, no. Was it just that Arabs conquered and destroyed Christian civilization in North Africa and the Mid East? It was if you’re muslim; if you’re Christian, probably not.
All that aside, you’re entitled to your opinion that Israel was a really bad, fundamentally unjust idea. Believe it or not, I have said as much myself before: that if it were up to me in 1947, I would not have created an Israel. But that’s neither here nor there. Israel exists. It wants to continue to exist. Your demands that it cut its throats to satisfy some chimerical notion of “justice” you’ve dreamed up don’t amount to a bag of fart.
You’re the one who introduced Israel into this, claiming that it wouldn’t benefit from the destruction of the Iranian regime. You then proceeded to call it “disturbed” that Israel had either puppets or enemies. Now you refuse any explanation that this state of affairs is not necessarily all Israel’s fault. Yet, funnily enough, I’m the one being accused of playing games. Climb down from your high horse, please.
Yeah, of course you would.
It was already explained to you. Realpolitik. Flawed realpolitik, in my book. But that’s your answer.
Ridiculous hyperbole. You can do better than that. (I think.)
I really don’t care, to be brutally honest. But if it makes you feel better, it’s unlikely to be very many.
In fact, it’s not even certain there will be a war.
When you are a genius all of your thoughts are brilliant. It is a tautology!
Myself I am reminded of what Muhammad Ali said regarding the Vietnamese. The Iranians have never done anything to me. I am in favor of leaving them alone but alas I am not one of these geniuses who emits unvaryingly brilliant ideas.
I must disappoint you: not all Americans are as dumb as the elites want. Not a single person I know approves of banditry in general and of banditry of the US government in particular. The likes of you must work a lot harder to dumb down the US populace irreversibly.
As an American, I fully endorse this message:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgwD1E1ESQM
‘I must disappoint you: not all Americans are as dumb as the elites want. Not a single person I know approves of banditry in general and of banditry of the US government in particular. The likes of you must work a lot harder to dumb down the US populace irreversibly.’
We’ll see. My normally very responsive US Senator is apologizing on account of being deluged.
See what Trump’s next set of approval ratings are.
Welcome to modern democracy. On such considerations is it decided whether we are to be the greatest mass killers since Genghis Khan.
‘… I really don’t care, to be brutally honest…’
So much the worse for you.
It’s strongly implied given his comments about criminality. Although your interpretation is fair, it is probably not accurate and one I hadn’t thought of.
Apparently, AnoninTN hadn’t thought of your interpretation either. He took the time to to respond to me, and clarified that he meant American military targets.
But he did not correct my statement about his actively hoping that American targets get hit despite me saying that about his wishes more than once.
Maybe now you’ve given him an idea he previously didn’t have and he will safe some face 🙂
This can be said of any group, however, not only immigrants. People in whatever industries could conflate their industry’s interest (auto, tech, oil, whatever) with national interest perhaps to the detriment of national interest, social groups or social classes such as factory workers or public sector workers or farmers could do the same, regions within the country could also do this to the detriment of other regions, etc. Provided immigrant groups are sincerely loyal to their adopted nation how is this worse? Is a patriotic Irish-American who thinks to be anti-British is to be pro-American worse than a corporate guy who thinks to be pro-free trade is to be pro-American?
Seems Suileman didn’t “imagine” how near Trump was to him maybe? Which one’s still here? If Suileman had any clue think he would have let himself be blown away? You might say it was something back then he “can’t even imagine”, arrogance sometimes gets a nasty reward, but he was such a great “poet” obviously–as his “cheerleader” the Racist NYSlimes informed us after his untimely “unimagined” demise….
Oh, don’t feel bad, it’s not hard work at all. As an American, and combat veteran — or criminal, isn’t that your term? — being in my native land, among my own people, and pointing out how asinine your comments are is hardly taxing. I do wish you had the strength to solve your alienation issues, however. But keep up the good work: I beg — yes, beg — you to loudly and continuously let all your fellow Tennesseans know your true thoughts. I do believe many Americans are rather dumbed down regarding the quality and worth of immigrants to the American nation, and you indeed can be a valuable instructor in that.
The American military is mostly white. The percentages of different races reflect their percentage in the society. Blacks are slightly overrepresented. Hispanics underrepresented. Whites dominate the officer groups.
The soldiers come from the middle classes. Wealthy and poor are underrepresented. Officers have considerably more advanced degrees than civilians of the same age groups.
It is not the dregs of American society. Those with criminal records have a hard time enlisting. Those with minor criminal records might be admitted.
Women are about 18% of the services. There are a lot of black women who account for the overrepresentation of that race.
Our dear host got directly quoted on the Stormer today actually.
https://dailystormer.name/will-tucker-carlson-get-kicked-off-fox-news-for-not-supporting-trumps-war/
Yes. In the case of the Irishman, it is a question of identity. He’s a hyphenated American, not a real American who may have a particular political ideology.
War is different to what it was 100+ years ago. The days of major powers sending some Count or Duke with thousands of soldiers to line up in a field and shoot each other are over. Asymmetrical warfare is the hip new thing.
True, but they enjoy the system’s protection. And conservatives haven’t done much thinking about how to deplatform them.
Red Scare era laws are still often on the books, but no one is using them against these people.
A lot of people with criminal records were waivered in during the height of the Iraq War. If they ever had a manpower shortage again, I expect this to be increased, along with increased enlistment of foreigners.
Women/blacks tend to be found in higher proportions in so called “support” units.
I would chalk this up less to our abstract national ideas, than I would to the fact that we have an untouchable academic power structure.
A tenured professor is near impossible to fire, and their collective power can basically overrule any oversight by the legislature.
It has long been accepted that the military needs to be under “civilian control”, but the laws and constitutions were written long ago when the university was the habit of a few wealthy and clergymen. Now that it performs a key gatekeeping role in the economy, there needs to be a way to force them into hiring a quota of conservatives.
It’d be ridiculous that China/Russia wouldn’t want US hands tied down there esp. given the recklessness of US policy development. It is not as if everything will be just fine if Iran is simple let down.
That’s because wanton aggression will make other powers wary of you. No-one wants to be friends with a hyper-aggressive country, except if it’s stronger. Adolf Hitler discovered this, or would have discovered it, had he had a modicum of self-awareness, but instead he blamed the Jews for the overt hostility he received from everyone else.
So countries needed relatively good pretexts to start wars. The pretexts needed to be good enough to obscure naked aggression at least to some extent. One problem with the start of the First World War is that each country had good enough pretexts and so the war wasn’t started by naked aggression. Had the war been averted that time, there’s a chance it would never have happened (at least not between these two alliance systems), because countries would have needed to wait for the next pretext, and the constellation of alliances could have fallen apart by that time.
Calling German_Reader:
German_government is clearly in disagreement with German_reader.
German_government is clearly in disagreement with German_reader.
Of that I have no doubt. What has been the reaction of the Hungarian government? (I haven’t been able to find any in the English-speaking press).
I haven’t found any reaction anywhere, though I certainly didn’t read the majority of Hungarian news items. What I read never mentioned any official reactions, and the official government site doesn’t mention Soleimani in any way. The last news item on the foreign ministry website celebrates the development of economic relations between Hungary and Turkey, and it’s from late last year.
No-one wants to be friends with a hyper-aggressive country, except if it’s stronger.
Lots of people are going to miss Pax America, and not just here in America.
Neocons blaming Iran for 9/11 to justify war used to be a funny joke
https://twitter.com/Mike_Pence/status/1213189757708189699
Well, you cannot say it’s not a farce.
Trump has likely timed his warmongering to coincide with his impeachment trial and re-election, most Americans expect their president to become embroiled in a big war, both Republicans and Democrats alike expect it or else see the president as weak.
Americans are a warmongering bunch in general, if their country has not been actively at war for a while they start to become insecure and see their country as being in decline and losing its superpower status. Trump knows very well that starting a war will boost his popularity significantly and make it less likely that he will be impeached.
I find it ironic that the vehicle they used for his funeral procession is a Chevrolet truck imported from the US. I can’t think of a less appropriate vehicle than that, couldn’t they have found a suitable vehicle made in a country other than the US?
Ridiculous, it makes them look stupid actually and makes it look as if they are totally reliant on imported American vehicles when in reality American trucks like that are very rare in Europe and Asia. I can’t believe they would score such an own propaganda goal as that.
It was in Iraq, where I guess they mostly have American vehicles, probably many imported second-hand from the Gulf or Saudi Arabia.
A case could be made that the Iraq War has significantly diminished American power already. That’s because the American defense budget is not unlimited, and though it’s significantly increased during military adventures, some of the costs of these have to be paid for by reallocating other parts of the defense budget. Probably part of the reason why China could catch up so quickly (and even Russia is competitive in many areas) is that the US defense budget didn’t receive the necessary R&D funds, especially when taking into account the higher costs in the USA than in Russia or China.
There’s also the political price to be paid. The Americans had to implicitly bribe several countries into accepting the insane Iraqi democracy-building project. The Americans are to some extent still bogged down there due to the 2003 war (Soleimani couldn’t have caused problems in an Iraq ruled by Saddam or one of his sons), and since they cannot wage several wars in parallel, their enemies or rivals got emboldened from North Korea to Russia. US diplomats, government officials and politicians couldn’t focus on the rise of China much either, since they had their hands full of the disaster in Iraq.
Not necessarily a bad thing for us on the alt-right, but certainly contrary to your assertion that such a war would have no substantial effect on American power.
Not necessarily a bad thing for us on the alt-right
You and others can keep pointing out the disadvantages of these events, but I’m still not going to throw in with the totalitarian SJW mobs that are after you.
If war starts then Iranians will be killing Americans with F14’s and AR-15 copies
The SJW mobs are in power in America. It’s like when the Nazis were in power in Germany, you didn’t have to be a German-hater in order to wish for Germany to lose the war. Similarly, the diminishing of American power is not necessarily bad – it merely weakens the Globohomo cabal in power in DC.
So, in a sense, you can talk about how good it is that US power is weakening. On the other hand, I will keep pointing out that both Globohomo (transgender and POC woman soldiers, anyone?) and “U-S-A! U-S-A!” (war with Iran) policies objectively weaken US power.
I doubt those weapons will manage to kill a single American, but stranger things have happened in war, so of course not fully impossible.
Your colleague’s acquaintances should be shot.
I used to think nothing was lower than being Canadian, but imagine what a pathetic worm you must be to pretend to be Canadian.
Disgusting.
Thomas Paine was English and an unbalanced fanatic who went onto enthusiastically support the French Revolution.
His true country was Revolution. Anywhere, any time, any place.
Legitimist monarchical governments were right to regard lunatics like him as dangerous subversives.
I meant the F-14s, the rifles will kill some Americans for sure.
Hungary today condemned the attack… on the USA embassy in Baghdad. They called upon the Iraqi government to provide for the safety of the diplomatic buildings under all circumstances.
https://www.napi.hu/nemzetkozi_gazdasag/usa-irak-legitamadas-kovetkezmenyek.697847.html
https://hirado.hu/kulfold/cikk/2020/01/04/magyarorszag-eliteli-az-egyesult-allamok-bagdadi-nagykovetsege-elleni-tamadast#
Can’t say I am surprised, given that Orban is consistently so pro-Zionist. Do many (most?) Hungarians share his love for the Jewish State?
Nationalists a couple decades ago were strongly opposed to Israel, mostly because (otherwise liberal) Jews tended to support it, but probably also out of principled anti-Semitism. Orbán himself was pretty skeptical at the time of the Iraq War, he even mentioned that Israeli interests might be behind it. I don’t think his personal views changed much (though not totally impossible either), but he found a useful ally in Netanyahu recently, and he probably knows that he needs to be on good terms with at least some Jews. And we all know what kind of Jews are willing to ally with even moderately nationalist conservatives: rabid Zionists.
You have a pretty dim view of Americans. Let me tell you that many Americans are not as dumb as the imperial elites would like.
Now, I agree that the cucks of the Empire, like Canada or Australia, are even more disgusting than their suzerain.
That’s not the issue. By virtue of geography Canada doesn’t have any other choice.
The issue is that Canada is a fake and gay country, and everything about Canada is deeply pathetic and embarrassing. Its very existence is offensive, and Canadians are just emasculated Americans who react to every development with passive aggression.
Australia has more policy freedom, but opposing the Empire is also dangerous. Best to pay it lip service while avoiding direct participation in various “adventures”. And if you’re going to participate then make sure you get PAID, as South Korea did for its Vietnam War service.
I wish I could live and work in a country
Tell us again why you can’t pack up and leave?
I was in Canada twice (Canada proper and Quebec), and my impression was that, while it aspires to be both, it is not quite America and certainly not Europe. So, I agree that it’s a pathetic entity. BTW, even given the geography, it does not have to be so slavishly subservient to the Empire.
He left after he found out Anatoly Karlin thinks Russia should’ve won WW1 and taken the territory promised to it
you can talk about how good it is that US power is weakening
Not a good thing for you or me; wounded animal, relative strength miscalculations, miscalulations on the timing of relative strength declines and advances, etc.
Count me as one. Here’s another
https://www.yahoo.com/news/tucker-carlson-comes-against-trump-012924479.html
Canada already has immigration at three times the US rate, and Trudeau will triple it.
Demographically, this is a Pan-Asian country on the North American continent, barring econ collapse and Balkanization.
Would an invasion from Rus be easier before/after the ice caps are melted?
I don’t think any of the great powers involved should’ve increased their territories. I’m repulsed by the annexationist plans which would’ve included huge ethnically alien areas into the existing empires, usually already multi-ethnic.
Though I don’t like it for obvious reasons, at least Serbia and Romania had some ethnically defensible territorial claims. Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany… not so much. Even the French claims to Alsace were somewhat dubious (most of the inhabitants spoke a German dialect, and their identity was at least ambivalent, certainly not unambiguously French), and France tried to break up Germany and create a chain of puppet statelets in Western Germany.
I don’t think anyone can claim any of those annexationist plans were good even for those countries themselves. Russia arguably was already too multi-ethnic, it was big enough as it was before the war, the last thing it needed was another twenty million people belonging to disloyal ethnic minorities.
Subversives never do, funny that
Which is why we need an Anti-Subversion Act, upon conviction of which they are deported to a country of our choosing; or else to whatever second passport they hold.
So far, doing basic science is still better in the US than elsewhere. Although the US Congress and the succession of Presidents are doing their level best to destroy the American science.
In fact, as the US government is getting more and more deranged, it might come to packing and leaving. However, most of the American colleagues I know do not approve of banditry, including terrorist acts perpetrated by the US government. Besides, there is America I love: normal honest hard-working people who want their government to solve internal problems (education, infrastructure, healthcare, to name just a few of the most glaring ones), rather than engage in imperial banditry all over the world.
Why would Rus want Canada? Or why would anybody want Canada, for that matter? Let them drown in their own libtardism.
Heh. That’s the thing.
The 1918-1920 border drawing was anything but ethnic in case of Serbs.
Hundreds of thousands Serbs left outside of SHS/Yugoslavia abomination – in Hungary (Baranya and elsewhere), Romania (Banate/Temišvar), Albania (Skadar), northwest Bulgaria.
But for some “unexplainable” reason, it was really, absolutely, mandatory to include present north Serbia around Subotica (still Hungarian today), couple of Bulgarian border towns, Bulgarian inhabited eastern part of Northern Macedonia etc.
Not to mention going to great lengths to annex Austrian majority Marburg/Maribor,
annoy Entente and irritate Italians in coastal Croat Dalmatia, give Slovenian and Croat dogs statehood and liberate them from their well deserved serfdom and stableboy role.
Only to be repaid in blood, 20 years later. This wasn’t incompetence on Serbian part, it was a combination of sabotage and malevolence. Sacrificing relations with Entente Italy, pushing it to Fascism, for the benefit of Croat murderers in both WW2, not to mention crippling Austria and Hungary for the benefit of Slovenes and Croats, opening the way for revanchism aimed at Serbs later on.
1914-1920 doomed Serbs forever. Dysgenic disaster in war, Yugoslav and Freemason rule, worst enemies inducted in common state and empowered.
Congratulations! KGB and Gestapo would be proud of you.
It never fails to amaze me how similar are the ideas of this kind of persons in all countries. Those who disapproved of Hitler’s crimes in Germany in 1933-45 were advised to advertise their views, so that Gestapo would know who to pick up and send to concentration camps. Those who disapproved of Soviet stupidity and crimes were advised to do the same in the USSR, to make the work of KGB easier. Now, the same kind of people want those who disapprove of the US government terrorism to do the same, to help terrorists and their behind-the-scene masters eliminate thinking Americans and cement their grip of the country.
These people pretend not to know (or are paid to pretend that) that mass hysteria always ends in mass hangover.
In case of Central Powers defeat:
It would have been good of Russia to liberate Armenian-inhabited territories from the Ottoman Empire.
Greece wasn’t a great power but liberating Constantinople and annexing Greek-inhabited areas in Anatolia would have been a cool thing.
(basically, the Bolshevik revoluton meant the only possible good that could have come out of of the Central Powers defeat was not going to happen)
In case of Central Powers victory:
Can’t think of any positive territorial annexations in Europe. However, liberation of eastern Europe from Russia would have been a good thing (being a puppet or client state of Germany and Austria-Hungary sure beats being under the bloody Soviet Empire and was still better than being part of the Russian Empire for those peoples).
Also, overall Germany was a better colonial power than were the western powers, so expansion of the German colonial empire at the expense of the British, French and Belgians would have been a good thing. No need for German colonization of eastern Europe. Imagine if Namibia were like Australia, but German-speaking? And if West Africa would have become more civilized?
Vast mineral resources $$$$ (including offshore $$$$)
Control NW Passage
There are other reasons, of course, depending on who is annexing, but those are the big two.
Jeff Stryker has mentioned before on this site that many US citizens travelling abroad pass themselves off as Canadians, even when in the UK.
Should have been East Africa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_East_Africa
Germany developed an educational program for Africans that included elementary, secondary, and vocational schools.[citation needed] “Instructor qualifications, curricula, textbooks, teaching materials, all met standards unmatched anywhere in tropical Africa.”[19]:21 In 1924, ten years after the beginning of the First World War and six years into British rule, the visiting American Phelps-Stokes Commission reported, “In regards to schools, the Germans have accomplished marvels. Some time must elapse before education attains the standard it had reached under the Germans.
Sure, they are pathetic, but it depends on the circumstances. If you were a CIA employee who slipped out the back door of the embassy during the Iranian Revolution, and a Canadian safehouse was open, I daresay you’d play at kissing the Queen’s ass too.
Oh, please. What are you one of the WWI war-mongers like Teddy Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson?
If people like the Irish, Germans, or Italians had any influence, which is doubtful, it was isolationist, and therefore obviously positive. The US should have stayed out, and if it had, it is doubtful it would be in the Middle East today. The entire state department fit into one very modest-sized building before WWI.
War built the state. Made it monstrous.
Everyone else being UK, USA and France, others were client states of those. Since all three were already run by the jew the hostility was already there from the start.
Gotta admit I never expected Qasem Soleimani to be celebrated as a martyr by the alt-right. Interesting times.
https://www.rt.com/news/477478-explosion-baghad-green-zone/
You seem to be advising a passive and reactive foreign policy – a limited and defensive one – while most nations opt for a proactive and preemptive approach, according to how powerful they are.
I am not unsympathetic to your approach, and it looks good on paper, but the verdict of history – tragically – is that the best defense is offense.
This shows up in personal life as well. I’m sure you’ve found yourself in social environments where if you’re not constantly proactively promoting your values and interests and gaining ground, you’re losing ground to others who are actively and aggressively promoting theirs.
It’s a serious problem in human relations. To be merely on the defensive is to be at a disadvantage. You soon realize that to hold your ground, you often have to be on the offensive.
So a limited, reactive, defensive posture – unfortunately – is a sure recipe for losing ground. It is a desire for a stable equilibrium – but in a dynamic world equilibriums are rarely achieved, and don’t last.
I wish there was a way out of it, because I am really a live and let live kind of guy, but I am coming to realize the only way to avoid this dynamic is really to “give up the world”. But as long as you live in the world, you are in the power of its logic.
Your subsidiary point seems to be about allocation of resources – the US is doing in the ME nothing different than what it did in Europe, Asia, and South America, according to its resources.
I’m a bit skeptical there is such a thing as Pax America. I mean, how would you define it? If it is post-WW2, then millions have died in wars in Asia. And sometimes the US had a hand in it.
If it is freedom of the seas (from piracy and the aggression of small states) then I think China, or at least a coalition of states ought to be able to manage it. It will cost them, but should be worth it. That’s why it is sensible for China to build carriers – they will need to fill the shoes of the US, and part of that is having status symbols.
If it is Bush’s new world order, then who cares who in the Third World invades who? It would probably lower the kill-count if we stayed out, rather than arming the mujaheddin
I doubt it’s peace in Europe. There are demographic issues involved in that and nukes. And, anyway, they probably would have been better off in the long run, if Russia had invaded.
Thanks, you explain it better than I do. Realism is the school of thought here. I did not know about the security dilemma, but it makes sense it has a name, since its an observable phenomena across time and space. Just part of being human.
The psychological theory I alluded is not associated with Thucydides, but much more modern. Although the underlying idea does appear in some Eastern spiritual traditions.
Although Israel is a part of it, its so much larger than just Israel and involves long term strategic thinking that has guided America in its conflicts all over the world. America has troops in Asia and Europe, and fought the Vietnam and Korean wars, based on this larger strategic logic that has guided its actions for some time now. Arguably, we had less interest in Vietnam or Korea than the ME.
Unfortunately, people don’t place America’s actions in the ME in the context of its behavior all across the world, but seem to view it as some sort of isolated and inexplicable thing. A good knowledge of history, and an ability to use that history as context for current behavior, sheds a great deal of light. We bed to “zoom out” to get the larger, wider picture.
I can see how annoying Israel firsters can be – although they’re just being proactive like all states according to the logic we are examining – and how this can make some people not wish it well out of irritation. But I agree Israel is a good model for how to deal with a perennial security threat from Muslims, and correctly understood with its full nuance (culture and religion, not just race, and an attitude to identity that is flexible and humane but still favors the core group), Israel can be a great model for what Western countries might wish to be going forward.
The USA doesn’t promote its own interests by aggressively supporting al-Qaeda against Iran.
No one liked the Germans, not even their allies.
Are you saying that the French or the British had no reason to distrust the Germans after Hitler broke his word in March 1939?
I’m not sure I can defend every strategic choice the US makes, I’m just trying to explain the larger logic within which it is operating.
Regarding Hungary, I would be quite happy with the present borders, provided we managed to have a eugenic 2.1+ TFR and a healthy national consciousness, with little immigration (and all of that high quality Europeans who would assimilate quickly). (In such a case I wouldn’t mind some emigration, provided the emigration wouldn’t be dysgenic either, it wouldn’t push natural growth into negative territory, and that the emigrants would keep Hungarian consciousness for a few generations, supporting Hungary from wherever they are.)
I think that currently no European ethnic group has these basics, without which expansionism makes little sense. Probably it would be a good start for Serbs either.
Cowards.
a song of a nazi “oh fortuna ” have became trending in youtobe europe the last month
it seem people are starting to understand how slaved we are and they cant cope anymore with reality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5b7tgkdFH0
O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
ever waxing,
ever waning,
hateful life
first oppresses
and then soothes
as fancy takes it;
poverty
and power
it melts them like ice
fate – monstrous
and empty,
you whirling wheel,
you are malevolent,
well-being is vain
and always fades to nothing,
shadowed
and veiled
you plague me too;
now through the game
I bring my bare back
to your villainy
fate is against me
in health
and virtue,
driven on
and weighted down,
always enslaved.
so at this hour
without delay
pluck the vibrating strings;
since Fate
strikes down the strong man,
everyone weep with me!
bluepill<redpill<blackpill<ironpill(literally hitler)< whitepill (the return of kalki the last avatar )
the west soul is entering colectively in the third phase the crucial moments in where will be decided if this time we have enought will to persevere or end up devored by opiod like the previous generation or end up secluded in home playing games like the mayority of the joung people.
HAIL KALKI !
The Irish, Germans, and Italians voted for Roosevelt and Wilson in large numbers. The backbone of the Democrat party in those days were white southerners and Irish in the north. Wilson was popular among immigrant groups in general.
The Irish press launched a negative campaign against Wilson during his second election bid, calling his an “Ulster Orangeman,” but there is no evidence it had much electoral impact. In any case, the reasons for that negative press were that Wilson was perceived as not being sufficiently pro-Catholic or pro-Irish.
It’s also a bit of a joke to call the Irish Americans isolationists when they funded the IRA and continually tried to influence politics in a pro-Irish independence direction. That is not isolationism. Isolationism does not mean being against foreign interventions only when they suit your ethnic/religious interests.
In any case, most Americans were against intervening in the world wars, especially the first. The feelings of ordinary people are quite irrelevant on these matters. Talk
Are you new to American White Nationalist thought? Of course the British and French had no reason to distrust Hitler in the 1930s, or even in the 1940s. They also had no reason to distrust Germany in the 1910s. Like the Q crowd today the WNist view is that every state not German needed to just ‘trust the plan’ and obey Germany no matter what. That Britain, France, and others did not do so is the sole reason why the West is currently being invaded.
Serbia has a similar demographic situation as Hungary
Vučić attended the Budapest Demographics Summit that Orbán organizes
He has been very public about the desire to increase our birthrate, something which subhuman idiots here often mock
You ought to know, have the pro-Natalist politics shown any results in Hungary? When I try to look it up I get mixed answers, Globo Homo media which declares it has failed and calls for more Africans and right winger media which claims Hungary has had a baby boom.
For one, Napoleon invaded Russia as a defensive measure. And history voted for him, I suppose?
Japan invaded China in the 1930s maybe also as a defensive measure against white imperialists? History also voted for them I guess?
US jumped in South Vietnam largely as a defensive measure against communism? And history said “Cheers, USA!”
And there was this Hitler guy who really wanted no war. History comforted him with a lovely wife before he died!
Oh right you never thought Rush Limbaugh promoting Hilary Clinton?
There are no guarantees in life.
The Roman empire lasted a thousand years. It was expanding the whole time. When it stopped, it died.
I am not necessarily recommending this. I am merely describing the human world.
I’m actually interested if anyone who knows more history than me can provide am example of a state that adopted a defensive – static – posture and survived long term, in a region with credible competitors.
I can’t think of any. Even Byzantium, which is commonly thought of as the classical example of a static state consumed by inertia, was constantly waging offensive wars to extend its influence and security.
I would be interested in successful counterexamples.
Is the human predicament less dynamic than it seems to me? Is equilibrium in a dynamic world whose law is change possible?
It is interesting how Trump evoked the 52 hostages, making 52 potential targets. That is how the US-Iranian relationship is still defined over 40 years later.
Probably a pretty bad move to let your foreign policy be decided by radical college students. In 1979, it was a bad move to antagonize the US. Will it still be in 2079?
I doubt that Irish-Americans really had much of an effect on Irish independence – especially their political pressure. Even their fundraising probably did not have much of an effect. Britain wasn’t defeated militarily – they pulled out. It was really a purely political defeat. And I doubt the US really had much to do with it.
What happened was probably inevitable, for several reasons, including demographic changes, and suffrage being expanded to women. But I’m puzzled why you would object to it, if you think the Irish are a negative political influence. In your view, what would have been the ideal outcome? Do you think it was possible to maintain the empire?
The course I would have recommended would be to pull out of Africa and India, etc, overnight, without telling them. Grant Quebec independence. Stay out of continental wars, and try to hold on to the rest of Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. IMO, this would have required a significant outreach effort, and some level of isolationism.
I think the problems of the US were for the most part not due to the new whites, but incrementalist policies with additive effects. The main factor being simply the flow of time. There was a bit of an urban vs. rural dynamic, represented well by Wilson the academic, but that was just masked by immigration. Plenty of crazy WASPs – plenty of rot in the UK, the mother nation. The Civil War can hardly be blamed on immigrants. The two Roosevelts were 5th cousins, and they both got their power from familial wealth derived from New Amsterdam, before the English even showed up on the Hudson.
That’s a tall order.
‘I’m actually interested if anyone who knows more history than me can provide an example of a state that adopted a defensive – static – posture and survived long term, in a region with credible competitors…’
Switzerland. Korea. Sweden — for about three hundred years now. Iran — so far. Again, it’s been about three hundred years. Wars between the Latin American states have generally been for rather limited aims.
Now, the compulsively aggressive, on the other hand, can have very short life spans.
‘I’m actually interested if anyone who knows more history than me can provide an example of a state that adopted a defensive – static – posture and survived long term, in a region with credible competitors…’
Switzerland. Korea. Thailand. Sweden — for about three hundred years now. Iran — so far. Again, it’s been about three hundred years. Wars between the Latin American states have generally been for rather limited aims.
Now, the compulsively aggressive, on the other hand, can have very short life spans.
I don’t think it was so much that, as the utterly bone-headed and dishonest way in which it was argued.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wulkKEmpCF8
Again, more drivel and misdirection to avoid the issue: you live in a nation that is not your own, and you obviously despise, and are afraid overseas of being identified as a member of. That is apparent from your own words. All that KGB nonsense is word salad to make yourself feel better about your failure to improve conditions you whine about.
AK: Try to dox one more time and you’re banned.
In Australia, I never believe anyone who claims to be Canadian (if they’re white). When I’ve gotten to know some of them, they’ve confided they’re actually American but couldn’t be bothered with the questions and accusations they get as Americans (especially since Trump). People here can become quite uninhibited when it comes to unleashing a barrage of criticism to an American’s face – often the very same people who wouldn’t dream of offending a nagger or a muzz.
Sounds cool, but I just can’t get into it. The problem with all that Sanskrit philosophy is that blackassed hindoos have claimed it as their own for so long that it’s monumentally unappealing for the typical European as a source of spiritual uplift . Personally, as intellectually stimulating as reading about it can be, one glance at the ugly hindoo imagery associated with it turns me right off. (Notice I said I reading about it, rather than actually reading it, ie the direct source material. Much like the imagery, I can’t get past the ghastly alien names in Sanskrit lit.)
On a purely hypothetical note: If I were the Iranians, I would take out Barron. Trump is going to start a war anyway to derail the impeachment, so make him run a campaign with a few dozen body bags arriving every day. Sicko mode.
Korea has mostly been a tributary in the Chinese system. They would have been taken over by the Japanese without aid from the Ming dynasty. As the Ming dynasty was dying, Korea was taken by the Manchus but then the Manchus took over China as well and the new dynasty continued the relationship. As soon as the Qing dynasty fell, Korea was taken by the Japanese.
A powerful sponsor who doesn’t expect more than tribute is the best option for a small people but then you’re exposed whenever that sponsor is in trouble and you might get betrayed by the bigger sponsor (the empire might decide that it wants to replace cultures of the vassals or the empire might get taken over by some crazy new ideology like communism etc).
300?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Sweden
Sweden was clearly the aggressor in the last two 18th century wars against Russia. The war of 1808-1809 and the other conflicts of the time was in the chaos and alliance webs of the Napoleonic era so its hard to decide aggressors but Sweden was definitely eager to get into the war.
The list omits Sweden invading Finland in 1918 (and also engaging the Russian troops still stationed there, though the Russians mostly just surrendered) and trying to annex some islands:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_%C3%85land
This stab in the back by Swedes was disastrous for us as it led to the government of Finland inviting Germany to meddle and we’ve been stuck as a semi-puppet of Germany ever since. It was entirely optional opportunistic aggression by Sweden with a risk of war with Germany or Russia.
Sweden also poured support and “support” for the Whites in the Finnish Civil War. Sending a good part of your officer corps to participate in battles and mass executions in the country next door to bend it to your will (instead of becoming a Russia-backed Red Finland) isn’t static and defensive.
Diplomatically Sweden is very aggressive in pushing influence in Finland, Baltic states and Eastern Europe and it has been very active in trying to form a buffer between itself and Russia, they’re definitely not static isolationists even if their military strength has been broken.
That’s just ridiculous. Attacking Trump’s children would be one of the very few things that would certainly cause the entire American elite class to drop their anti-Trumpism and rally behind him to treat Iran like Genghis Khan treated Khwarezmia.
They would do it out of self-interest as they have their own children and they have to set the precedent that attacks on the families of America’s highest elites will not go unpunished.
To be clear, my original post was responding to a hypothetical AP presented. He was responding to Swedish Family who was making a point about how immigrant groups and their recent descendants will have an outsized influence on their host country’s policy towards the immigrant’s home country. AP responded by saying that Swedish Family’s point can apply to any group, not just immigrants. He gave an example of a business conflating its interest with the national interest. All of this is true.
But he also asked a hypothetical question about an Irishman who associates being pro-American with being anti-British. He asked if this were any worse than a corporate guy who thinks being pro free trade is pro-American. My position is that the hypothetical Irishman is worse, because he is conflating his Irish identity with American identity. He is a hyphenated American. Who one identifies with is more important than one’s views on particular political questions that do not have a necessary bearing on questions of identity/loyalty etc.
I say this because I do not have much to respond to in this post of yours, which I mostly agree with. I agree that the American Civil War was primarily a conflict between different groups of old stock Americans, and it was a mistake on both sides. I agree that bad [liberal] ideas have much to do with what’s wrong with both the U.S. and the U.K. I mostly agree that the U.K. should have abandoned parts of its Empire, although my opinion on this is not very firm. I do not agree with independence for Quebec, or for that matter any sort of good treatment of French Canadians as a group.
America’s elites are going to fall in line behind Trump anyway, once a war starts. If Trump is going to destroy your country, you take the USA and the whole world down with you.
“Swedes will fight Russia down to the last Finn”
🙂
Oh shut up XYZ…..He doesn’t like America’s satanic, deluded-messianic, wife-beating approach to foreign policy. US embassy around the world are full of nefarious scum……calling for attacks on them (that don’t involve huge collateral damage such as the despicable attacks done on embassys in Tanzania and Kenya)……is perfectly acceptable.
And what if he is only calling for US contractors, not regular US military to be shot or blown-up? That would not be unpatriotic
You’re not supposed to read source material in Kali Yuga without guidance by a Guru.
Half these Nazi larpers read english translations to pretend they’re Indra.
Go read manglacharan.com or the insta for Sikh one.
TLDR go bodybuild and get armed||
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/662773081604882446/663200833017610261/unknown.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/662773081604882446/662992106310336553/unknown.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/632135252994949139/663415076941725696/unknown.png
Thailand was also a mini-empire at constant war with Burma and Cambodia, and managed to avoid becoming a colony by completely capitulating to all Western demands and putting its entire trade in the hands of the British – it was a colony in all but name, and lost substantial territory to the French and British. Those two great powers also wanted a buffer zone between their empires.
The ancient temples can be beautiful.
Go bitch at Ron Unz. I will gladly, and consistently, point out some commenters here are ‘nefarious scum’. That includes you. Did you think this was your safe space? Deal with it.
The private contactors question is asisine. Mr. Tennessean Immigrant has already stated in his own damn words his extreme sensitivity to the feelings of foreigners over his supposedly adopted countrymen, and called honorable said countrymen criminals. That’s absolutely disgusting, quite cuckish (him using that idiotic word to describe others), and I’m certainly not the only one here who called him on that, thank God. And no, calling on American contractors to get blown up is not patriotic at all.
So an anti-American immigrant, who brings in other immigrants? Figures. But if that is true it explains a lot — ‘American’ academia is globalism par excellence, most devoid of any feelings (except negative) towards Americans in general.
I have always loved this song and I have seen many orchestra performances in front of a very large German audience who attended with great devotion and awe that I could not understand maybe its a way of collectively purifying their feelings by “blaming” their own fortune and understanding their fall from the throne as told by one of their own in a natural way rather than the desumarizing narrative imposed on them by the Jew.
And the interesting thing is that these same feelings are resounding in all Europeans, we know slaves but we can not even recognize it with all the narrative of the privilege of the white man, the rest is the magic of the collective unconscious leading us to this song and making it into trending.
SIEG HEIL AND HEIL HIS NEXT AVATAR THAT WILL BRING A NEW GOLDEN AGE
Iraq is officially asking US troops to leave the country.
https://twitter.com/AndrewBritani/status/1213823051512594432
Probably (if the Americans leave) this is the best option for everyone-America will avoid a new idiotic war, Iran will look like the winner (respectively, there will be no need for further vendetta)
If this information is true, then America is run by a rare scumbag by any standards
https://twitter.com/ejmalrai/status/1213833855754485762
https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2287/2045598216_04f90368aa.jpg?v=0
Excellent. This gives Iran and friends a way to proceed without straight-up warfare. Evicting the US from Iraq would be a much more severe blow than the destruction of individual American units or bases in the region.
The Americans may need a push to get out though, as they clearly do not respect Iraqi sovereignty at all, whatever they publically proclaim. Iran may need to intervene to make the American position there untenable. Hopefully, they’ll get through this.
Iraq is officially asking US troops to leave the country.
Kurdistan and Sunnistan here we come!
This is a substantial misrepresentation, on several levels.
Lol. I doubt it will come to that, for exactly that reason – forcing Americans to support the creation of friendly enclaves that will host their troops would be blindingly stupid on the part of the Iraqis.
It would also mean the complete domination of (what’s left of) Iraq by Iran. The reality is the Iraqis are very, very dependent on American troops.
This is just for show.
AnonFromTN certainly makes a well above average contribution to raising America’s performance on the Nature Index, even relative to other academics.
It would certainly be a good idea to pressure him to leave (for other countries, if not for the US and admittedly perhaps not for AnonFromTN himself, at least materially).
In this case, the Americans will have to urgently make Kowtow before Erdogan. It is impossible to keep troops against the will of Baghdad in Kurdistan / Sunnistan without licking everything below the belt of the Turk.
Show matters — and this is a very positive sign. It will be very hard for someone with the personality of President Trump to defend future American deaths in Iraq when the Iraqi parliament itself is asking the American military to leave. The fact that the American military is still in Iraq is a function of the fact it is costing on average one American death per month — and this is marketed as an ISIS mop up operation. Contrast that with the narrative of an Iraqi government that can’t even protect the American embassy telling the American government that the killing of certain enemy combatants isn’t allowed, and American military units have to leave. It’s much harder to justify the reason to be in Iraq, as it very well should be. It also puts Trump’s domestic opposition in a bind, because the general American population is not going to see leaving Iraq as a negative thing, regardless of any — perhaps temporary — advantage to Iran, and the spin on that.
Probably would have been a good idea to hold onto the Western Cape, but of course, this would have required completely keeping out the Bantu.
I could be wrong, but I believe that the original Canadian ethnic fissure helped lead to the heavy promotion of multiculturalism. Separatism, IMO, would have led to a stronger identity for everyone. There may have even been some positive carryover effect to the US, ie. “see how Canada split up along ethnic lines, we want to avoid that by having a sensible immigration policy.”
Which is a remarkably poor measurement of the value of an individual’s worth in general, and also in relation to a nation. America would be better off period without individuals like AnonFromTN — the country can create enough naturally, and they are my fellow countrymen, for better or worse. The idea of importing more because they somehow contribute value here is not very convincing to me.
The American population on the Internet after learning about the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq (if this event happens) will fight in convulsions of rage – ” Unthinkable, shameful surrender!”, “Trump betrayed the ideals of freedom!”etc., etc.
I just pointed out how to use the self provided info by him/her for likely successful doxxing. Are you telling me I am not supposed retain in my memory his/her comments and refrain from ability to connect the dots?
It would also mean the complete domination of (what’s left of) Iraq by Iran.
The Kurds and Sunnis can split the oil reserves and leave the Shia welfare class to Iran.
I think you shouldn’t publicly post how to put the dots together, even though this person (not you) carelessly placed all the dots there. Retain the info for yourself. I would hate to lose one of my favorite commenters.
In this case, the Americans will have to urgently make Kowtow before Erdogan.
Trump’s BFF, Putin, is getting ready to take care of the Turks in Libya and elsewhere.
What’s the use of Crimea and Sevastopol if you don’t control the Bosporus?
Neocons yes, most Americans and Trump’s base no. This could be a convenient way for America to get out of Iraq. “We killed a bad guy, we can and will kill many more if we have to, but we’re not wanted there we’ll bring our boys home. We don’t have to be there forever, because stupid Bush put us there.”
It will be interesting what, if anything, Trump does with the Kurds. IIRC Soleimani had been a Kurd-killer.
But the ‘stupidity‘ has already been unleashed. It was incredibly self-defeating to kill a government official in a foreign country and then boast about it. Let’s not play the political game of ‘terrorist’ etc, he was a high government leader by any standard and US is not officially at war with Iran.
Sophistication has its place, but common sense says that one has to fight ‘stupid with stupid’. That’s part of the harmony of the world. The current back-tracking by Trump and Pompeo is desperate. They could demolish Iran – yet it probably wouldn’t lead to a ‘regime’ change – but the consequences would be very bad for US in the long-run.
Nobody is lining up to join US in a war with Iran, and the country is just too big to subdue. That leaves random destruction that would backfire catastrophically around the world. US power is largely based on peoples’ affinities and sympathy (‘soft’ power), switching to unrestrained brute force would shatter that.
Trump is trapped. If he escalates, he will make it worse with consequences across multitude of areas. So he s trying to back down with his usual big mouth rhetoric, but he is on a defensive. This was simply stupid – one of the most stupid things since Obama thought that using ISIS would be a good idea in Syria. This is almost embarrassingly stupid. We will all live with the consequences for decades.
The rise of the PRC as we know it would not possible without Washington getting distracted again and again.
https://twitter.com/ArtyomLukin/status/1187216049952960513
https://twitter.com/ArtyomLukin/status/1187218520918122496
I get the impression you think America is in Iraq to help the Iraqis – that’s part of it, but its there for the same reason its in Europe and Asia. To exert regional.control. And to counter Iran.
If Iraqis ask America to leave seriously, I think we will find other allies in the region and support the splitting of Iraq, like the Kurds, or a Sunni enclave. The remaining Iraqi Shias will be dominated by Iran and we will take every oportunity to weaken them. Or maybe we will just support a revolution that installs a friendly leader.
The Iraqis are fearful of Iran and want to use American troops as a counterweight, so its unlikely this is anything other than show.
I think the public will support a continued presence in the region.
Obviously, Iran would want Iraq to split up, but I’m pretty confused as to why Israelis would have wanted to weaken Iraq, by toppling Saddam. It just doesn’t seem to make good strategic sense, IMO. I mean, why on Earth would Netanyahu promote it?
Was he counting on US bases forever? Or was it simply, short-sighted revenge?
But what if all I wanted to prove that his/her self-created legend for the purpose of his/her persona at UR is false? Is exposing lies doxxing as well?
AK: Yes, I consider it to be doxing, on which I have always taken a hard line regardless whom it came from (though I will admit that I will not be sorry to ban you in particular, as I consider you one of the more toxic commenters on this website). Not that it matters but your suppositions are incorrect anyway.
Well, you have this silly conspiracy theory of a hidden US-Iran alliance, explaining how every US move in the Middle East since invading Iraq has been de facto strengthening Iran. It is still silly, but one has to wonder: who decided it was a good idea to make a martyr of the Shia super star war hero par excellence?! We are talking about Iran and Shia Islam here, where Martyrdom is elevated and celebrated for centuries. A secular Iranian once remarked that Shia Islam was a bizarre apocalyptic religion for bitter people imagining themselves eternal victims and bearing grudges for centuries while feverishly worshipping dead martyrs through strange fetishistic-masochistic rites..
Saddam was an enemy of Israel, and supported all sorts of Palestinian terrorists. That’s the immediate reason.
The larger strategic reason is that small states are less of a threat than large ones, especially if they are disorganized and are embroiled in conflict. Large organized states are the ones likely to pursue nukes and other powerful weapons that pose a survival threat.
Every country has an interest in seeing its enemies fractured, divided, weakened, and fighting each other.
Strength comes from unity and organization, among other things – and Arab and Muslim states seriously struggle with these, because of certain cultural and moral deficits that are unlikely to be resolved.
The chaos that comes from the breakdown of a large state might create lots of terrorists, but they’re not an existential threat. Besides, Iraq was supporting terrorists anyways.
US power is mostly economic and military – soft power is important and plays a supporting role.
I don’t think Trump responding forcefully to Iranian aggression – escalating – will forfeit soft power. I am actually shocked at the sudden outpouring of support on Unz from people who I always thought were anti-American.
It seems that when Trump does something bold and worthy of admiration, people respond with pride.
I think most people around the world understand Iran is an aggressive, often vicious, regional power that is trying to bully its way around the region, and that is responsible for American troops dying. America haters will make noise, of course.
You can’t be a bully and retain soft power, but you also can’t be a spineless weakling. Soft power depends as much on willing to stand up and use force when its right. People admire and respect that, and want to be associated with winners. That’s as much a part of soft power as anything.
You also actually have to deter your enemies and make them fear you, and reassure your friends you’re not afraid to fight. Soft power is a consideration, but not the only one.
Definitely not — I do not believe American policy is altruistic at all. I also believe the benefit to the average American of our presence in the Middle East is minimal. The American military is in the Middle East for American elites, and Saudi elites, and Israeli elites, and ‘American’ multinationals with investments and facilities in the area, and some European elites also. All to guarantee some stability.
But I think rapid social changes in America itself will make continuing military operations in the Middle East much more difficult, and this will be just as important, or actually more important, than events in the Middle East itself. This isn’t 2003, or even 2014.
1) The election of President Trump and the continuous hysteria from many Americans — a lot of it vicious, and directed against conservative Americans and the white working class, both very Jacksonian groups — will not be quickly forgotten in the internet age. My own rather large extended family, who were bland Republicans (many did not vote for Trump, and do not read political blogs), have been radicalized into Trump voters solely based on the actions and statements of the mainstream media and Democratic Party. Needless to say, Trump’s views are not orthodox on many things. Trump took a lot of media heat for supposedly abandoning the Kurds in Syria, and it had absolutely zero impact on his popularity, and the Kurds are the most popular Middle Eastern group in America after Israelis. I highly doubt President Trump didn’t notice this — and neither the Sunnis nor Shias are popular at all in America.
2) The upcoming (re?) election of President Trump has Democratic opponents whose views on immigration, and the benefits and rights owed to illegal immigrants, that essentially devalue the idea of American citizenship. And both Democrats and Republicans in Congress refuse to secure our southern border, one of the most basic functions of government. Of course illegal immigration has been ongoing for decades, but even extreme left-wing Democratic elites of 10 years ago held immigration positions that would be considered right-wing today. I think this radical change is noticed by many more Americans than is assumed, and is an existential question that is much more serious to the average American than Iraq ever will be. It was a major factor in Trump’s election.
So I will make a strong prediction: isolationism will continue to lose whatever is left of its propaganda-induced negative connotations in America, and grow much more powerful as the Democrats (and Republican neoconservatives) double down on extreme positions regarding American domestic politics. American domestic politics will be the key.
Doesn’t a smaller Iraq necessitate a larger, more powerful Iran, with less checks on it? That’s why I have trouble understanding it. Iran seems much more formidable than Iraq, though it has the benefit of being further away.
Maybe, they take the view that major powers will not stand for annexation. I suppose that could be true.
Permanent US bases among the Kurds might have acted as a sufficient buffer, but the US is in decline, so I suspect that one day, it will have to finally pull out of the Middle East.
it will have to finally pull out of the Middle East.
Pulling out never works, that’s how you end up with Rosemary’s Baby.
Have you heard of the Iran-Iraq War? Reagan supported Saddam. The Israelis supported Iran, and made a killing selling Iranian oil. There was quite a bit of “daylight” between the USA and Israel back then.
Pulling out never works?
Have there been lots of Vietnamese terrorist attacks in the USA than Hannity isn’t telling us about?
You are hiding behind slogans without addressing my point: killing members of foreign governments (that’s who this guy was) in third countries is simply stupid. There is no place you can go with that. It either becomes the norm and we are back to pre-modern era, or it will be seen as breaking of international rules. Either one is bad, that’s why this was very stupid. And arguing with tribal slogans doesn’t solve anything.
Sure, and so is every other country in that region, plus a few outside countries. What are you trying to say? That Middle East is bloody contentious? That troops in wars are killed? Oh, the horror, the troops in Iraq were shot at, how could that be? Bush called them ‘peace-keepers’ or ‘peace-makers’, so how could they be targeted? Ri.ght.
Try to be serious: this was stupid and it will backfire. A simple question: who is better off today than a week ago? Is US better off with all its allies trying to bail as fast as they can and with Iraqi government asking them to leave? Or is Iran that had large anti-government demonstrations a month ago, and now it has even larger anti-US demonstrations?
You suggest that fear is enough to manage the world. I disagree. The idea that US can militarily dominate others no matter what they think or want is infantile. First of all, it is not even militarily true – US has a fatal weakness: an inability to sustain casualties. And economically, nobody is more vulnerable than a fiat money empire based on a myriad complex global arrangements. US is too far up the food chain, thus it has further down to go if the rules-based system is dismantled. And killing leaders of other countries is a step in this dismantling. This was stupidity, at best we will be lucky and it stops here – but the damage has been done.
Really?
Maidan and Arab spring were Washingtons own projects
I very much doubt an entire Government can get “distracted” away from a rising rival superpower by Arabs and Slavs chimping out, more likely their plans to sabotage it failed
This probably had something to do with it
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/15/botched-cia-communications-system-helped-blow-cover-chinese-agents-intelligence/
Hmm…good point. Proving that someone is not someone is obviously not doxxing. And no one actually there (yes I followed the links) matches the descriptions provided by him/her. So you were not doxxing the person posting here.
However, it could indeed be a spouse or relative of someone there, such people shouldn’t be exposed here either (and although all the info necessary for such exposure was carelessly provided by AnoninTN it was not done all at once by him/her).
Or those poor people at that institution might have no connection whatsoever to AnoninTN and could now be publicly and unfairly linked to that creature.
So even if it wasn’t doxxing, it shouldn’t have been done.
Don’t know details about Arab spring but about half the country loathed Yanukovich and idea of it being a Western “project” is very stupid, sorry. The West certainly facilitated it but the relationship was roughly analogous to, say, the French helping the anti-British uprising in the American colonies. Did that assistance make the American Revolution a “French project”?
Call it what you want, still not enough to “distract” them from a nation with a Billion people and 10% yearly GDP growth
The fact that China didn’t say anything about the Russian annexation of Crimea should’ve tipped them off that they need to stop a Russo-Chinese bloc from forming asap (if it wasn’t too late by that point already)
A general is surely a legitimate military target. This general was helping design and plant roadside bombs and missile attacks against American soldiers that killed thousands.
Also, the rules were being subverted and exploited by countries like China and Iran who were using them as a cloak to attack us in various underhanded ways and make us look like fools.
Iran took advantage of proxies to pretend they were still within the rules. Rules like that are not worth much.
When rules break down, it seems to the more powerful are in a better position.
I think everyone with a moral sense understands this isn’t lawless behavior, but perfectly in accord with natural justice and morality.
Ruling with fear alone is unwise, but no one will respect you or take you seriously without fear. Its essential. And our patience and forebearance was being taken for weakness. Machiavelli said it is better to be feared – respected – than liked.
What we gained was restoring the balance of fear and respect, and removing a genuinely dangerous enemy who was very skilled at his job. This also gave notice that our various enemies can no longer hide under cover of plausible deniability. I believe that among many people across the world, this increases our soft power as we demonstrated a willingness to defend our interests in accord with the moral law.
None of the “good guys” are worried that America will suddenly take out a political leader over a trade dispute, trust me.
jews showing their true face behind the democratic facade now that their lust for naked power cant be negated anymore .
hitler was unironically right about everything democracy,liberalism,jews ,indo european history….
today more than ever HEIL HITLER!
I love how you distinguish between Canada and Quebec.
Quebec is a lovely and beautiful place. It’s its own thing in terms of culture.
We should be very glad that they’re so stupid. If they were more careful they could have picked off Russia and China one at a time.
Yes, one of them. But there are other considerations, e.g. Trump’s seeming inability to carry out his stated policies. Today he is jumping all over himself to signal ‘no war!!!‘ and ‘never-mind the assassination‘. At the same time he is weakly trying to intimidate the other side from retaliating. It is obvious that short of wanton destruction he has no moves left. This matters because his core appeal was that he wouldn’t do this kind of neo-con stuff, that’s how he rolled over Bush, and beat that Clinton witch.
The left-wing hysteria just got a boost, it was pathetic, but as it was about to collapse because of internal incoherence and outright lying, Trump gifted them a new issue to coalesce around – this one a bit more real than ‘meddling on Facebook’ or having some say in his own administration foreign policy (illegal according to Democrats).
Trump incredible luck is that his opponents are a lot more unhinged and that among most normal people common sense still prevails. But he shot himself in the foot. He might walk away from this if he is lucky, but at this point his fate is in other people’s hands. It is a mistake to act in a way that leaves no good options.
but is entirely our fault , like they say
if you fool me once is your fault if you fool me 109 times we deserve the extinction
I suppose Pearl Harbor is legit in your mind.
That’s what generals do. Are they all a legitimate target now anywhere in the world?
And what do you think you look like right now? Like fools with initiative. You are stuck in the cul-de-sac of your own slogans. What you say are platitudes and tribal moralizing: ‘me good, he bad‘. It is meaningless, anyone can do it from their own point of view.
Actually, exactly the opposite: there is no balance any more, and definitely no respect around the world. But keep on projecting your deep insecurities and see how it plays out.
The problem with the West – Washington in particular – is that they are in a verbal tailspin thinking that creating narratives or ‘lawyering’ will keep them at the top. It won’t, those are empty words, this is not a seminar at Georgetown. You are in their f…ing front-yard and backyard, they outnumber you there 100 to 1, your allies are shifty, cowardly, and mostly dream of getting the hell out of there – there is no winning there.
Winning requires physical courage and not just wanton destruction of the enemy. They will stay, and sooner or later US will be forced out. It is not about your verbal constructs and self-esteem, this is a real place with real people who have never liked you that much, and fear will not make them like you. A losing battle. But if you prefer spouting silly slogans, be my guest.
Poor old Machiavelli didn’t end that well, did he? Look up his biography, fear and words only take you so far.
1950s’ Iran. 1970s’ Chile. And Turkey of yesteryear. People talk about Trump pushing the envelope or moving some kind of window. He really does that.
Actually, if USA is a small country and not having as glorious a development. On the other hand, there were way more than half of the colony population in support of that Revolution, so it was kind of different.
I think the idea was, first Iraq, then if Iran doesn’t learn its lesson, Iran. One thing at a time.
Anyways Iraq wasn’t doing too much to counter Iran, and both had plenty of time to focus on devising schemes and attacks against Israel. If Iran absorbed Iraq, it is no worse than before. Even then, the Sunni and other factions in Iraq would likely resist this, creating a full plate for Iran.
I don’t think Israel made America go to war, but I can see why they supported it and pushed for it.
In other arenas, Israel did do what you suggest and support one Arab power against another – Syria was once about to invade Jordan, and only stood down when Israel mobilized its forces and made clear it would not allow this.
But for this to make sense, at least one country has to be favorable to Israel, when Iraq and Iran were both hostile. The British were famous for playing this kind of balancing game, but they followed the same rule.
Surely, generals who are helping kill American soldiers are legitimate targets anywhere in the world. You’re acting like this is some random guy who had done nothing against America that we just took out gangster style to intimidate. That is not at all the case.
Okay, so you’re saying America simply doesn’t have the resources or staying power to prevail in the region. That would be an argument to withdraw entirely.
But if America is going to make a go of it, then it has to respond to attacks and create fear in its enemies. So within the logic of this situation, it wasn’t just the correct move, but an essential one.
If you’re arguing that the larger logic dictates withdrawal, that’s a different argument. America may not prevail, but trying to make a go of it while letting your enemies attack you with impunity is a sure recipe for failure.
all the middle eastern countries were in a process of complete secularization (mooroco ,syria,iran…) before america entered in the middle east to fight the wars of jews ,their common people and the elite viewed the west as the model to emulate ,not anymore .
america could have lead the world to the stars and the rest of the world would have happily emprace american leadership , you had everything after the ww2 to make it happen but you screwed it all.
now incapable of having any followers you try desperately to slave us all
you will get nothing
It was often believed that only a third supported it, a third opposed it and a third were neutral. This may have been wrong:
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/5641
This estimate is 20% Loyalists, and a “small” number of Patriots:
https://www.ushistory.org/us/11b.asp
I haven’t found an exact estimate but it wasn’t more than half. There were large Loyalist areas, such as New York, and after the American Revolution many Loyalists settled in Canada. In Ukraine it was about 40% support for Maidan, and 25% opposed, with the rest neutral.
And France played a much more active role in the American colonies than the West did in Ukraine at the time of Maidan. France actually sent soldiers and made a naval blockade.
“Helping’ is a weasel word, and by your standard any whacko politician could justify almost anything. Would you apply to same logic to others taking out your side leaders or generals visiting a third country? If you don’t see the slippery slope, I can’t help you. US is not in a state of war with Iran. US soldiers are in Iraq under false pretences (lying, really) and there is no legal justification for the occupation – everybody can play this game.
Withdrawal is the only viable long-term solution, staying in a hostile territory, cooped up in over-protected bases, surrounded by tens of millions hostile locals – this is madness, have you ever looked into colonial history and how that ended? The same will happen here.
Your point is that while in Iraq big balls have to be shown and heads knocked to get respect. That is not thought through – the locals are a lot more pissed today, and the killing and terror would have to be at least two orders of magnitude more brutal to have any effect. A few dozen here or there does nothing except inflames the locals.
Napoleon said that you can do a lot with bayonets, except sit on them. Well, Trump has just sat on a bayonet. He will either have to use it or experience some acute discomfort. By the way, the other side knows it – they have the initiative now. This was a strategic stupidity, a ‘feel-good‘, take a shit in the drawer on the way out immature act.
Tell me why my analysis is wrong and how this can play out to Washington benefit. All I see is a scared Trump, chastised Pompeo, and a very high level of quiet disapproval all around. No allies have jumped in, even the usual hyper-weasels are staying quiet. (Maybe Poles will join in, they love the whole bayonet up the wrong way theater…)
Correct. On the behest of Israel America did everything to stop secularization of the Muslim countries and supported all kinds of religious radical crazies. While the Yinon Plan was revealed in early 1980 it was in operation since 1950s when Muslin Brotherhood was supported by CIA in Egypt. I also believe that the destruction of Shah regime in Iran was part of it.
The USS Liberty is legit in his mind.
Private humiliation of the typical tourist (center-right, moderate, upper-middle class) has a way of weakning their moral foundations.
Create doubt in them that they are “bad people”, and the only way to redemption is voting Dem.
Even if the process doesn’t go to completion, it tends to create a spiral of silence.
To be honest, my personal preference would be to withdraw from the region, and only engage in punitive raids if necessary. I don’t really mind America becoming a poorer and weaker country – but still quite prosperous and powerful – and focus on a more equitable distribution of wealth and other domestic issues. Maybe we can focus more on art and literature for a while, and develop the arts of living well.
Such a defensive posture would come at a risk, though. I can imagine China or Russia moving into the vacuum and limiting our access to vital resources or making them available on bad terms, or the region unifying under someone extremely hostile to America, and then aggressively expanding to attacking American interests around the world (I do think Islam is inherently aggressive, and under a powerful unifying figure I see no reason why it wouldn’t revert to age old cultural patterns).
As I explained above, the logic of national security dictates that within the limits of your power, you try and shape trends to your advantage, and prevent threats from emerging. This is based on a cynical but realistic view of human nature – there are always people who will not share your live and let live attitude, and if you are not proactively on the offense, they will be, against you. Its the tragic view of politics.
Americas actions only appear unusual because it is unusually powerful, but it is doing what everyone does to the limits of their power.
Very simple. America has a vital interest in preventing Iran from getting nukes, because this will severely limit America’s ability to exert influence in the region. America also has an interest in preventing hostile countries like Iran from dominating the region.
At the moment, America is easily powerful enough to accomplish these goals. However, doing so means acting decisively to create deterrence.
Iran will either not respond and accept this check to its ambitions for regional dominance, or it will not – in which case America, as the vastly stronger power, will escalate, a competition that Iran has no hope of winning.
Once they realize America is serious – if America is serious – it is only a matter of time till they learn to scale back their ambitions.
Killing their most fearsome general who personally contributed to the death of thousands of Americans and mocked Trump, is the opening shot across the bow which reverses a series of weak American responses to Iranian attacks. Iran has the initiative to accept reality now, or at a later date – provided America follows through.
A bit dramatically stated, but I basically agree. It would be hard to think of another country or civilization that so quickly threw away all of its natural advantages and real appeal by stupid and badly thought out ethnic politics all over the world.
George Washington warned against it, and until WWII the rule to stay out of other people’s quarrels largely held with some exceptions. But since WWII it has been an accelerated ethnic-meddling-fest with ever more idiotic ethnic groups hijacking US to join their eternal fights. And now what’s left is to demand obedience or be droned, quite a place to be for a virtuous ‘city on the hill’.
If you’re trying to start a war, of course a naval base is a legitimate target.
The US Navy was not responsible for the deaths of thousands of Japanese soldiers, unlike Suleiman, who well understood his activities made him a legitimate target.
Still, one could argue that the American policy towards Japan was so aggressive that it created legitimate conditions for a war – and if you have to fight, might as well get the advantage of surprise.
It’s a bit of a gray area here, so even though its not as clear cut as the Suleiman case, Japan’s actions have enough extenuating factors that I don’t think the level of moral outrage Americans felt at the time is entirely justified.
Trump now threatens sanctions against Iraq. It seems that Iraq is not considered very independent: it can try to leave the USA sphere, but then sanctions are coming.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/trump-steps-rhetoric-iran-threatens-iraq-sanctions-200106034214732.html
“Iran supports a lot of militias that kill Americans. ”
What Americans have been killed since the US military destroyed Iraq? A million Iraqis and Syrians and every Christian in the destroyed nations are dead, but what Americans?
I have always found the idea that others will move ‘into the vacuum‘ slightly comical. There is no vacuum, people actually live in those places. The best way to get any region to become anti-something is to try to ‘move in its vacuum’, most locals will resent you.
I understand the logic of national security and the paranoid and irrational behaviour that comes with it. They always talk about vital resources, threats, interests, the above mentioned yawning ‘vacuums’, and how one has to ‘influence’ this or that. Well, in reality most of it translates into rather mundane things like exploding bombs, maimed soldiers, buffets at 5-star hotels, inane ‘opinion’ pieces, and endless deep ethnic hatreds inherited with mother’s milk. It is quite removed from real life.
The killed general mostly existed as a bugaboo caricature because there was no rational way to explain thousands of American and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives lost to accomplish very little. So they shot him. Great, he ‘mocked Trump’, now he is a martyr. The criteria ‘he personally contributed to the death...’ could be applied to literally thousands of people, and definitely most politicians on all sides. Point to anyone in the vicinity of this pointless war and he almost certainly ‘contributed’. Are they all targets now? Or just the ones you personally deem objectionable? I would remind you that US is not in a state of war with Iran and randomly killing people from hostile nations can easily get out of hand. That is the madness this has unleashed.
Even on tactical level this was a flop: it is hard to see how increased hostility among close to 100 million people can benefit US. You say they will be scared, or will know their limits, I actually think that US might have cut the last link to real influence in that part of the world, not the kind of influence under the threat of a drone killing, but actual influence when mutual interests can be discussed.
It will all from now be done out of spite: killing, marching, rhetoric. And spite is a powerful weapon, it always in the long run defeats guns. You can no longer get into peoples’ heads, and that only leaves killing them. And you will never kill enough of them to matter. At the end US will leave, I think it might be soon.
We agree on one thing: the art of living well should be cherished. And that hasn’t been centered in Mesopotamia for about 3,000 years. Going there was a distraction.
I think you meant to say (((we))).
‘…Very simple. America has a vital interest in preventing Iran from getting nukes, because this will severely limit America’s ability to exert influence in the region. ,,
Then it’s kind of a non-sequitur that we abrogated the agreement that halted Iran’s progress towards getting those nukes, isn’t it?
In any case, you’re being (as usual) disingenuous, because you it’s not America’s influence you’re concerned about, but Israel’s — and of course Israel had the US abrogate the nuclear agreement because she cannot content herself with merely ensuring Iran doesn’t get the bomb, but wishes to see her destroyed, as Israel arranged for Iraq to be destroyed, and attempted to arrange for Syria to be destroyed.
Actually, there is. There’s a third option: the world accepts that only one government on Earth is legitimate – that of the USA, and all the rest 200+ are illegitimate usurpers.
The USA has been operating with that assumption for decades already (e.g., kidnapping citizens of foreign countries on foreign soil just because they were charged with a crime in the USA), and the rest of the world swallowed it and kept quiet.
I see no reason why things would change now.
Agreed, that is why I support attacking jews the world over.
Used up all my ‘agrees.’ Agree.
Aaron always offers such nice starting points for these polemical excursions.
‘Agreed, that is why I support attacking jews the world over.’
Aaron should consider thinking of it that way.
Is he aware that Iraqis refer to American soldiers as ‘the Jews’? As in, ‘the Jews have a check point there.’ It’s quite casual.
He should consider the long-term implications of that.
What are Jews going to do?
Enslave the entire planet?
…or go back to being ‘____ians of the Mosaic Faith’?
They’d better decide quick. The choice won’t be there forever.
…
I think Aaron’s laboring under a misconception; he thinks we’re all obliged to demonstrate we love him.
We’re not. On the other hand, he might want to consider the wisdom of behaving in a fashion that ensures we don’t all hate him.
And if Israel manages to bring about this war between Iran and the US, and if it plays out as it very well may, what does he think his place will be in the US at the end of it?
Because Israel won’t be there.
This is real, Aaron. It’s not one of your fucking rhetorical games.
Those are their intentions, they have already enslaved America, Australia New Zealand, most of Europe, and some cuck Asian states such as South Korea and Japan. That is already a big chunk of the world being their thralls, the very obvious moves to make Russia, China and all of the middle east theirs means that the world will be one jew controlled hell.
The average Westerner is a moron. “What have we done to deserve terrorism?”, they protest while rabidly cheering on acts like Trump’s murder of the Iranian general, and Zionist murder of Palestinians, etc. Most seem to lack the intelligence to make the link between these acts and terrorism.
Well do us all a favor Epi and have 3.1 kids
https://twitter.com/mowzdef/status/1213947279645847554?s=20
The logic is that America saved Shiite Iraq from ISIS so the Shiites have to pay America back if they want America to leave. If not for the fact that Bush’s criminal invasion was responsible for ISIS, this argument would be reasonable.
The assassination was almost certainly a stupid and terrible thing to do. But whether it should have been done (most likely not) , and whether it was an act of terror (it was not), are two different issues.
The murdered general was not a monster as portrayed in the Western media. He seems to have been a genuine and decent Iranian patriot, he helped save Syria from ISIS, and the hundreds of Americans whose deaths he was responsible for were soldiers in a war in which his country was involved. Given the fact that he was a military man responsible for the deaths of many American military, it does not seem to be terrorism or some kind of evil act for the American military to kill this guy responsible for so many dead American soldiers. It might be very stupid given the repercussions, but painting it as some horrible crime seems to be as silly as demonizing the victim as some kind of evil monster. And it is not an excuse to murder civilians in retaliation (actually, nothing makes that acceptable). Civilians don’t “deserve terrorism” because a general with American military deaths on his hands was killed by the American military.
I wasn’t saying terrorism against civilians is ever justifiable, but rather that a lot of people in Western countries don’t seem to see Israeli and Western militaries bombing Muslim countries as an equivalent to terrorism in the West when in reality it’s exactly the same, innocent civilians die in both cases.
I’ve noticed in the comments on the Daily Mail and other outlets, many are actively cheering Trump’s actions and calling for him to go further and actually bomb Iran, etc, which would obviously cause a huge amount of civilian deaths. Yet most of these people don’t seem to understand that this would just result in a huge increase in terrorism in Western countries in retaliation. If people genuinely want to take action to reduce the level of Islamic terrorism then they should be demanding their governments to stay out of conflicts with Muslim countries, yet the average Westerner would see that as “appeasement” and “treacherous”.
It’s worth noting that conservatives in America during the culture wars adopted this limited, defensive strategy, avoiding aggressive action, where being liked took precedence over exercising power, a passive, non-proactive approach where they just wanted to defend their turf.
It ended in total defeat, as their enemies did not share their admirable live and let live attitude but took the opposite approach.
I have to admit I wish the world worked the way you want it to. You’re a European who lives in a continent sheltered from the realities of power for the past 50 years. Europe today is proverbial for producing naive people. All over the Third World, Europeans get taken advantage of by locals. America provided security.
This is charming and sympathetic, and its great that you had a few decades break from reality – probably coming to a close soon.
I guess your attitude to national security strategy will depend on your view of human nature, which will depend partially on your experiences. I get the sense you’ve never really met power hungry people at high levels, but only reasonable, mild middle class Europeans, ready to get along. Unfortunately, I’ve met too much of the other type.
the true is that the mayority of muslims(iranians may be different) now and in the past behave like absolute criminals here in the west, its hard to feel empaty for those people once you have known them.
also saudis and turks the two most important muslim countries are provoking wars all over the middle east and financing terrorism to try to assert their supremacy in the region.
sincerely iran is the only natural leader of the region and the only one capable of saving the autonomy of the middle east,they are the germans of the east while saudis are the british
You could interpret radical Islamism as some form of out of control immune system reaction against constant Foreign domination of the ME, violently lashing out against anyone perceived as a foe, including your fellow Arab/Kurd/Persian
Kinda like how Fascism and National Socialism were fueled by the threat of Communism or the Chinese Nationalist and Communist movements by the threat of the useless Qing leadership and encroaching Empires, the Radical Islamism was fueled by the threat of Westerners and Westernizing domestic “traitors”
Here’s a quote from an Iranian woman protesting in the run up to the revolution against the Shah:
Suppose the unlikely event that Iran is victorious and it pushes out all other powers and forms an Iranid Shia-Crescent Superstate from Beirut to Rawalpindi, would such a state survive without the constant threat of Great Satan to back up it’s ideology
Israel too was once a uniting point for Muslims, helping motivate the creation of the United Arab republic in reaction to it, though that unity ended up getting shattered after defeats on the battlefield.
Maybe they could try going after some lionized US veteran like Chris Kyle, but they better hurry before he commits suicide
You’re largely missing my point, which I can expand later but I don’t have the time right now. I’m not necessarily arguing for a “defensive position” but rather the very pedestrian observation that not all investment into efforts that are available are worthwhile.
There are plenty of examples of futile personal effort and being randomly aggressive/assertive in many social environments is a sure way to get grouped up upon as per game strategy(even to the extent of spiteful retaliation), there are quite a few business examples of the same thing(the rather pointless competitive efforts at wet toilet paper, for one, which each company engaged in because its rival was doing so, when there was no market), and the Chinese Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward are both examples of enormous, toxic, and futile efforts.
Just because something can be done doesn’t mean that it should be, or that it is beneficial to the actor. And special interest groups can further monopolize the host to execute actions that are beneficial to itself, but not to the larger host.
ISIS could mostly occupy majority Sunni areas, with a few smaller areas around it. I don’t think Iraq would’ve had trouble keeping Baghdad, and then destroying it with Iranian and Russian help.
Avoiding this was probably the major American motivation for going there. In other words, America went there to fight against ISIS for its own reasons. Iraq or Iraqi Shiites owe the USA nothing.
Seems to be an empty threat? Like his idea to bomb cultural sites. I will go on the record here: neither will happen.
But I wonder if it would be safe to say that this is a new level of bluster from the US. I suppose one would predict that a country in decline would go through a phase of increased bluster, as its capabilities decline. Trump touting the pricetag of the US military is pretty comical, and seems to be one indication of this.
I think Israel’s support for the invasion of Iraq was really based on the idea of permanent US bases there. The gibs that Israel perpetually gets from the US might distort their view of the long-term capabilities of the US, under demographic change.
Some say this is 4D chess, that Trump was looking to get kicked out of Iraq, as a way to thwart the MIC, and so that it would not be a retreat. I doubt it.
I guess it is also possible that they believed in the idea of nation-building, that a democracy could be built in Iraq that would keep the country together, and maybe make it stronger. A better buffer to Iran.
There were a lot of people on the Right who were seduced by the idea of nation-building. The idea being that this replacement migration might end by toppling dictators and turning countries into democracies. Or killing some dictators to spur others into reforms.
Some in Israel may have even been fooled by this vision of domino prosperity, as a way of decreasing tensions.
There are rules governing how and under what circumstances soldiers can legally kill other soldiers or be killed by them. For example, if German General von Reichenau visited Sweden on a diplomatic mission in February 1942, the Soviet military attaché in Stockholm couldn’t have just killed him based on the tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers and civilians killed by the troops under his command. It would have been murder. Killing him on the frontline, or at his command post would’ve been okay.
This analogy is imprecise (as analogies always are). For it to be a closer match, there would have had to have been Soviet troops stationed in Sweden at the time, and he was coordinating attacks on them, when he was killed while secretly meeting with Swedish military people.
If a Ukrainian general had been coordinating attacks against Russian troops in Chechnya and Syria, and gotten killed by the Russian government while on some official meeting with Syrian government officials, I doubt that a lot of the Russians here would be complaining about evil murder. Nor would I blame them for not complaining.
The US government has already broken more international rules than Hitler and Stalin put together. What’s more, Trump boasts of this latest crime and promises many more war crimes (like targeting cultural sites in Iran and Iranian civilians). The masks are off: the US engages in terrorism directly, not via Al Qaida or ISIS proxies. We entered a new era. International law was destroyed by the US before (e.g., aggression in Serbia, Iraq, Libya, or Syria was 100% illegal), but until now the US government pretended that this law exists. Not any more.
Putlet exploits Iranian crisis for self-promotion:
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1214136422975909888
The problem is, that this should be too obvious to have to explain. Tor does – or easily can – know this.
Which is why what it ultimately comes to, is whether one likes the US or Iran more.
“average Westerner” merely repeats the tropes that his national media tell him. This is manufactured consensus for pro-Israel foreign policy.
In that case I guess we disagree about whether this is an example of random bullying aggression, or whether this is worth the investment.
Before we look for special interests, I think we need to look and see if America is doing anything very different than it does – and has done – in Europe and Asia in terms of security, and whether this fits into the logic America has been using for security matters all over the world for the past century.
What are we doing in Taiwan? Why do have security pacts in the Philippines? Why did we fight the Vietnam?
I also think we should look at what China, Russia, Iran are doing, and whether there is a general logic states tend to follow – and whether this fits into that logic.
Of course, that doesn’t answer the question of whether its wise to be involved in the region at all. Personally, I am not sure I agree with the “realist” school – but my life experience has taught me to be understand their thinking, and why so many people across the world throughout history have found it so compelling. Its not crazy.
The other question is, if you are going to be involved, then you should do it right – and I guess we disagree here about the level of force and caution. I think Iran was attacking us with impunity and began thinking it would suffer no consequences. I think being too soft – because they might not like us – is the wrong way to go.
So o can see an argument for not being involved to begin with – but if you get involved, don’t be ineffectual and limp wristed about it.
You are arguing with points that I didn’t make, I am neither ‘sheltered‘ nor I have a high view of human nature. And the talk about ‘power-hungry‘ vs. reasonable middle-class is way off – an analogy that is not in play here.
I simply don’t dream of going around the world to achieve imaginary conquests and then justify them by made-up talk about ‘key resources’, ‘soft under-bellies‘ or similar sophomoric nonsense. But if you attack my home I will fight with all I have. Just try it.
One point you made:
Can you be specific? When? Who? What did they do? Is this post-WWII era, or possibly 911? Your argument borders on a totally upside-down history unless you can come up with some actual examples. There is a hint of persecution mania in it – a tribe that doesn’t see anything they do, but is constantly fearful that others are about to hurt it.
It is true that Europe is a basket-case of softness and a lot of different groups are taking advantage of it, not just Third Worlders. But not in my area, and I don’t share the charitable EU outlook. The stereotypical Brussels paper-pusher is in my view post-naive, they are dead-enders waiting for the end and rather blase about it all. They are actually more cynical than naive. But the cynicism has paralyzed them. On that we would probably agree.
I still maintain that killing a foreign leader with no declaration of war was a foolish act that will backfire – and that there is no place to take this other than leave. It is like taking a sh.t in a middle of a party, embarrassing, awkward, not very harmful – but people at that point simply expect the perpetrator to leave. And I see that Washington is asking to be ‘paid’ for leaving. Precious. Like a bad pirate movie.
As we know, good slaves must anticipate the desires of their masters in advance, and fulfill these desires without waiting for orders.
https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1214243816057835521
There is a qualitative difference here, a difference of realpolitik, which is what should concern us if we are evoking the morality or legality of the USSR.
Sweden is or was a real country. Iraq is not. It is a bunch of lines drawn on a map, propped up by artificial subsidy, by the US. Even though it is further removed, it is more of an extension of the US than nations like Poland or Hungary were of the USSR.
A better comparison would be this: would the Soviet Union have killed a military advisor from Saudi Arabia in Afghanistan, when it was occupying it? Well, you’d have a hell of a time convincing me that they would not have.
From a not always reliable blog in response to The Saker’s article on this subject:
Iran had a go at rerunning the glory days of the Carter Hostage crisis and the Benghazi attack, by attacking our embassy.
On January 1, Trump on twitter told the ruler of Iran to cut it out, “this is a threat”. the ruler of Iran. on twitter, taunted Trump, “You can’t do anything”
so, boom!
We saw the story unfold before our eyes on Twitter.
There is no “official story” It all happened in public.
Unz talks about the identity of the person killed that started this business. When the Iranians tried to re-run the hostage crisis and Benghazi, that did not matter any more.
Unz says the attack was illegal. Trump has congressional authority to target enemies in Iraq, which congress could withdraw at any time, but has not done.
The moment Soleimani’s entourage swept through customs, he was an enemy in a Congressionally declared combat zone, so Trump could legally kill him. Trump blew him up the instant it became legal to do so
When I first saw the Khamenei tweet I just assumed it was fake. No way would an Iranian leader be so retarded as to mock Trump for being impotent and losing face in such a serious situation, especially given the impact 1979 had on the American psyche and Carter’s presidency, along with Trump’s well known views on both 1979 and Benghazi. But, he did. So unless the Iranians themselves are playing 4D chess – pretty unlikely – they messed up big time.
When trying these far-fetched analogies, let’s have some basic similarity. Soleimani was there on an official visit of the Iraqi government and by any standard Iraq is a real country. A Saudi in Afghanistan – pre-Taleban – would be there as an ally of the rebels. Not the same at all.
I’m pretty much an isolationist, with some small caveats, but a fair argument can be made that it benefits the US to “own” the Pacific. To control trade, to bottle up scalar rivals China and Russia. To protect itself from others who may attempt to project power against the West Coast.
Can a similar argument be made about the ME?
I really don’t see any point in the US being there, at all. The US “has” the Panama Canal, as well as transcontinental rail. It does not need to “have” the Suez Canal, which is partly what I believe motivated Ike to take his stance.
The US doesn’t need the oil in the ME. American companies don’t really own it, so it is not a source of wealth to the US. Nor is it required for our energy or manufacturing needs. No doubt, other countries do, at least currently, including China. But would it in any circumstances, be sensible to attempt to cut China off? I think the answer is pretty clearly no.
What argument then holds? Status? I think the US loses status by being in the Middle East, as others see how it cannot fix the area and is bogged down.
That seems to dispense with our logical reasons regarding national security or interests. Of course, there are other motivations, as well. Such as lobbying by other countries, or companies, and military careerists looking for promotion.
Liking has nothing to do with it. Personally, I dislike theocracies, which includes Iran and Israel. But that’s beside the point. The real issue is, is there international law, or only the law of the jungle. In the first case what the US did amounts to terrorism. In fact, this was an act of war, so Iran has a perfect right to respond accordingly, at a time of their choosing. In the second case, Iran and everybody else has a perfect right to assassinate whoever they please, emulating the US behavior.
I doubt Soleimani went through customs. He was there on an official visit as the main de facto ally of the Iraqi current government. It would be akin to BoJo’s defense minister coming to Washington and being blown up by a foreign drone. If you deem that legal, well, then just about anything is and everyone becomes a target somewhere around the world.
The problem with that blog entry are false analogies and conflating unrelated events (Benghazi and Iran?). It also assumes that US is all powerful and has an implied global permission to destroy everything. That’s simply not the case, this is a big world, US can blow up things, but then it has to live with the consequences.
Geography and numbers still matter: we are looking at a few thousand soldiers in a region of hundred million people, probably fewer than 5% of people living there can be seen as US allies. When you bomb from distance, other then the killing and damage, nothing else happens. The 100 million (minus a dozen this time) are still there. You don’t ‘win’ wars in circumstances like this, you just piss off everyone. They use you for their own quarrels and then you have to leave. Is that ‘winning’? In what way?
Don’t make me laugh!
The USSR showed its respect for the government of Afghanistan by attacking the palace and shooting the people inside.
If you are saying it would have respected the government it installed, well I somewhat doubt it. Though I am not really an expert on the Soviet occupation. But, in any case, we are speaking in very loose analogies. Technically, what exists now is not the government that the US installed.
The worst thing Iranians could do hurt to America and Americans is convert to evangelical Protestantism very publicly and very aggressively, declare a crusade against gay liberal America, establish connections with every church and christian organization and MAGA idiot donor republican in the US government, and then apply for refugee in America on the invitation of these organizations.
Once in America, they can drop the pretense, unbutton their shirts, release their hairy chests, start grifting off gullible flyover whites, and if that fails, live on welfare and flirt/bang any white women they can get their hairy hands on.
I cannot think of anything that would bring down the American empire faster, or that would be more humiliating to Trump’s base.
The US doesn’t need the energy in the ME anymore and her rivals are not invested in the same way, even though they are more dependent.
The amount of investment far exceeds any gain for the host.
Sunk cost investment for the sake of sunk cost is usually a mistake.
https://twitter.com/NewsBreaking/status/1213982856852062209
https://twitter.com/i/status/1213983629342322694
That’s a reduction ad absurdum into pure tribal, blood-based thinking. Since you have no arguments on a higher plane, you appeal to the lowest emotion: do you like me or her more? What do you expect people to say: “sure, I like hamburgers, go ahead, bomb at will…”
West is built on a set of common rules, laws, and institutions. A large part of Western power and appeal comes out of others accepting them as their own. That means West has to also observe these rules – in its self-interest.
In the last decade or so, the ruling elite in Washington decided that the rules are for chumps and that they can get away with whatever they want. Or interpret things in any way it pleases them. It was tempting in the short-run, but it means we are lowering the importance of these rules and institutions and their very existence was one of the pillars West built its power on. You will see how exciting it gets once nobody pays any attention to common norms. Arresting Chinese CEO’s led to arresting Canadian CEO’s, for each ‘meddler’ in Washington prison there is a ‘spy’ arrested in Moscow, Kosovo led directly to Crimea, this drone adventure will also lead to something.
Be careful what the world with no common rules would look like. My guess is that fear of exploding drones won’t compensate for having a kind-of an imperfect, but still common civilisation.
The West was built on one pillar – demographics. This pillar has been much eroded to our detriment, so we cannot expect the same standard of rules going forward.
Having said that, the West was never good at following rules. Was Britain’s blockade of Germany in WWI legal? Was Wilson right to take the position that it was Germany with its submarines threatening international law about freedom of the seas and not Britain with its mine-fields? You are evoking standards of behavior that never existed. What has changed is primarily our technical capabilities.
Giraldi just wrote an article that explains that quite good, it is on this site…
When I first saw the Khamenei tweet I just assumed it was fake. No way would an Iranian leader be so retarded
Of course, there is also the possibility that Khamanei wanted rid of Soliemani. If he was the God that Iran pundits/experts are telling us he was to the Iranian people then maybe he was seen as a future threat to the supposedly unpopular regime. Perhaps that is ridiculous but it wouldn’t be unheard of.
Allegedly, the American army agreed to leave Iraq. If so, it’s a rare victory for common sense. I hope America and Iran can avoid an idiotic war
It’s winning in that it enriches the corrupt DC elite.
There’s no telling what might materialize, but this would be a huge coup for Trump if it meant a total withdrawl from Iraq. A few days ago I thought it was a huge blunder that would lead to terminal imperial overreach, now I’m not so sure.
If Trump did somehow leverage this into a general de-escalation in the ME, would the chronic black-pillers acknowledge that this was a genuinely great play that projected strength, saved face as well as countless Americans, while simultaneously weakening the project of America-as-globo-empire? I doubt it.
“In the uk, Corbyn, got the le penn/putin/trump treatment from the establishment/media because of his anti-imperialism and economic leftism, despite being (or at least onowtowing to) as woke as it’s possible to be.”
What really did serious damage was his relative neutrality vis a vis Israel and the Palestinians. This meant a concerted and well-organised stream, from both Jewish groups and the Blairites within his own party, of baseless “anti-semitism” allegations, which damaged him with low-information middle-class voters – working class voters were far more bothered by his 1970s support for Sinn Fein/IRA.
Naturally “the Tory press” amplified these allegations – the Mail used to run several stories a day – but the usually Labour-supporting Guardian and BBC, stuffed with Blairites, were notably lukewarm in his support, while a large section of his own party sought to undermine him (one shadow minister was secretly recorded saying he was a security risk).
In 2017, when Corbyn surprised everyone by converting a Tory Parliament to one with no overall majority, his policy was to implement Brexit as decided on in the 2016 referendum. But the Blairites, aided by a politically naive young Remain-voting membership, forced a second referendum into the 2019 Labour manifesto at the annual conference. This lost Labour a swathe of working class, Leave-voting seats in the North and Midlands – the sort of places of which it was said that they weighed Labour votes rather than counting them – including Tony Blair’s old constituency. As the Labour chair Ian Lavery said, the mood on the doorstep in working-class areas was “Labour want to stop Brexit”.
Anatoly,
Please submit new material before Ron drops you even further down the Bloggers listing!
Off-topic, but what’s your opinion of Sanna Marin, the Finnish prime minister who wants to institute a 24 hour work week?
I am confused, I saw the Iraqi team play at the World Cup, who were they? Even CIA shows them as a country. Is Germany with its disputed borders, US installed and monitored government, and US bases for the last 75 years a ‘real country’?
Iraq has a government that it elected for itself. The majority are Shias sympathetic in different degrees to Iran, the government naturally reflects that – US kind of missed that detail when they invaded in 2003, but the fireworks were amazing. Now Trump wants to be paid for the construction of the bases, this is literally priceless – almost like a privatised utility company asking for an exit fee. This will be fun, divorces alway are. For the observers.
Attacking the US boosts Trunp’s ratings for re-election. Attacking Trump branded buildings and companies sends Trump bankrupt and avoids confronting the American state. Trump going bankrupt will not have such strong electoral appeal. It will drive him crazy
That’s how I would retaliate. Hit Trump properties outside the US as a first step.
I’m not exactly an expert, but from what I know French (and to a lesser extent Dutch and Spanish) assistance was quite crucial to the Patriots’ victory.
The analogy doesn’t quite work though, as the American Revolution was the secession of a regional government from a central government, unlike the overthrow of Yanukovych.
Out of curiosity, do you have a source for that quote? It sounds like an interesting read.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Revolutionary_Iran.html?id=c0YSDAAAQBAJ
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Carter_Administration_and_the_Fall_o.html?id=vsLtCwAAQBAJ
Let me Google that for you
For the moment, I would classify Germany as a country with a treasonous government. I guess that makes it similar to many others.
In past editions, the CIA World Factbook showed Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and a somewhat-larger-than-current Sudan as real countries. They were countries in a way, but just not what I would call “real countries.”
Using the athletes of national teams to establish the reality of a country is a questionable practice, in my view. I wouldn’t want Africanized national teams to be used as the justification for replacism in non-African nations. Though I grant you the comparison between the Iraqi and Saudi teams is quite interesting. On a sports team basis, Iraq is probably more real than most countries in the West.
I concede Iraq is a “country.” It is just not what I would call a “real country”, meaning it has a questionable historo-ethnic basis and a questionable future. I think this effects the sort of things that can happen on Iraqi soil vs. a homogeneous, self-organized country.
Yes, this is quite funny. I think the rhetoric of Trump trying to get America’s “allies” to contribute more, has somehow bled out into this impotence in Iraq. Though, when he used the cost of the military as a threat to Iran that was even funnier.
The US is definitely past its peak as a superpower.
Welcome to Cuckoo Land
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHCQ7lKjGUk
There was always a strong and quite visible moral dimension. Ask any America loving Chinese or Russian, they will tell you so.
USA used to be called World Police, heh. When the police behaves like nothing more than the biggest badass, do you say that it shows signs of ’em being strong?
Correct.
French not only provided massive financial assistance, it also sent military advisers, thousands of soldiers on the ground, and the French Navy. The final treaty ending the American Revolutionary War was signed in Paris:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783)
French participation in the American Revolution dwarfed Western help for Maidan. Yet we don’t think of it as a French plot against Britain.
Russian help in Donbas also exceeds Western support for Maidan. Yet many of the same pro-Russians who claim that Maidan was simply a Western plot insist that Donbas is a Civil War, not a Russian plot.
No situation in history is exactly the same.
I know.
Who is ‘we’? Whoever ‘we’ is, their opinion probably has more to do with the fact that most people don’t have strong opinions about 18th-century politics. For comparison, there is a substantial portion of the English speaking world that believes that Trump’s election to the presidency in the United States was the product of a Russian plot, despite the total silliness of that claim. Whether or not it is popular to think about something as a “plot”, as you call it, obviously doesn’t determine whether it is one.
Anyways, Korenchkin’s original statement was that Maidan was a Washington project, which you interpreted uncharitably and called stupid. I think you are not naive enough to believe that the American government was not involved in promoting unrest. Whether or not this is a “project” is a question of semantics.
I wish. Unfortunately, French support for the American revolution did, in fact, dwarf Russia’s current support for the Donbas rebels. It is extremely sad to see how little support those brave people have received. Karlin is right, Russia should have simply intervened militarily at the beginning of the conflict, given that the Ukrainian government is clearly unworthy of governing them.
Karlin’s view is the correct one, this is a Russian civil war.
My nigga
I wish there were more immigrants like AnonFromTN, they would inject some sanity into the country
‘… Which is why what it ultimately comes to, is whether one likes the US or Iran more.’
This is sophistry — as usual. One does not determine who was in the right in the Spanish-American War by deciding whether 1898 America was more likable than 1898 Spain. Germany in 1939 was probably considerably more pleasant than 1939 Poland; that doesn’t mean Germany was in the right when she attacked Poland.
I don’t have to ‘like Iran more’ to be acutely aware of the injustice, folly, and dishonesty of our behavior here. In fact, who I ‘like more’ has no necessary connection to the rights and wrongs of the issue at all.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has been denied entrance into the U.S. to address the United Nations about the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-administration-denies-iran-foreign-minister-visa-attend-un-meeting-amid-rising-tensions-1480701
Maybe the UN flag should be flying over Zurich ?
Epstein moidered?
https://www.bitchute.com/video/5a3CJEyfBDEq/
In fact, who I ‘like more’ has no necessary connection to the rights and wrongs of the issue at all.
You don’t know anything about right or wrong so just quit babbling on the subject.
My country, right or wrong.
AK: As I already said, “utu”‘s and your suspicions/suppositions about AnonFromTN have no correlation with reality. Your dislike for him is ideologically driven and rapidly descending into Gerard levels of inanity (whom I actually have banned). I would extend the same advice I gave to Gerard – simply ignore him if he triggers you so much.
America has plenty of its own fine pundits and critics, some of which have blogs at this site, and doesn’t need any of the Russian variety. No, if the good professor was a real humanitarian and outstanding scholar and researcher like he so often claims ad nausea at this blog site, he would have stayed home in mother Russia and helped to develop its own scholarly institutions instead of chasing the all mighty US dollar, like any abject carpetbagger. This lout has no other reason to exist than to try and enhance his own pecuniary interests. I still strongly suspect that he’s really some sort of troll sitting in some factory in St. Petersburg working for a minimum wage that has a strong imagination, notwithstanding AP’s opinion that he is indeed a researcher here in the US. Now, I read at this blogsite that he’s really a woman imposter whose been “undressed” by another fine commenter at this blog whom Karlin has threatened with a ban at this site. And the world keeps spinning round and round.
And a very Merry Christmas to all who still celebrate according to the Julian calendar!
For those more knowledgeable than myself was there ever any serious discussion about moving the UN headquarters from New York to either Geneva or Zurich ?
This is getting misreported by foreign press. She gave one of those fairly meaningless party speeches about goals and dreams that are never going to be realized.
She’s sort of a puppet of the previous PM Antti Rinne who managed to destroy his government in a few months (by a badly handled postal worker strike) and had to resign. It’s customary for the party leader who ran in the elections to get the PM job and that was Rinne so Marin has an unusually weak mandate. But then this government is a bunch of professional female politicians in their thirties who’ve spent their whole lives lauded for being empowerment role models who can do nothing wrong, uh oh, it’s going to be the Marie Antoinette government.
The SocDems only got 17 % of the vote, the same as the True Finns who have skyrocketed in polls since then, so this country is becoming ungovernable because every coalition has to be built around keeping the largest party in the country from power and we’re heading towards SJW singularity with governments that literally can’t enact any other policy except those that signal that they hate nationalism.
In Russia related stuff, one of the dumb plans of the Rinne government was demanding apologies for Stalin’s great purge which killed much of the exiled Finnish communist party. Medvedev just seemed to find it laughable and the government collapsed before Rinne could take it up with Putin. I don’t know if the Marin government is going to push for Russia-must-apologize again but if it does it will be another disastrously divisive issue that elites mistakenly think is going to make this country more anti-Russia and pro-NATO.
I don’t think it’s 4D chess. They have been taunting the Americans for some time, probably because they don’t think a war could be much worse than what they have now. They also need to build some domestic support for a war, so just like the Americans, they cannot attack without a pretext. They probably think it’s better if their actions could be explained to both domestic and international audiences.
I also don’t think that it reflects well on Trump that he could be taunted so easily.
I didn’t claim it to be a precise analogy, only wanted to make the point and illustrate it with an example that killing a soldier who killed other soldiers (or even civilians, as in my example) could nevertheless still be considered murder.
Iraq is a sovereign state, according to the USA federal government, and there are some American troops on Iraqi soil with the permission of that government. Apparently these troops got into trouble with some legally operating Iraqi militia. It’s difficult to tell who started what, biased anti-American sites like the Moon of Alabama say that the Americans started it, while the American timeline conveniently starts with some militia attacks.
I’m not terribly interested in who started it. From a strategic viewpoint the Americans started it by breaking the previous multilateral agreement and trying to destroy the Iranian economy by waging economic warfare. Legally, the Americans could defend themselves against militia attacks, or withdraw from Iraq if they think that Iraq is not providing security to their forces there. Killing a general while on a diplomatic mission, and killing an Iraqi general accompanying him, is certainly not a legally justified course of action.
Given the strategic picture (aggressive American economic warfare) and the illegality of the action, I think it’s pretty clear that a war with Iran, should it happen, will be entirely a war of choice for America.
At a certain point a quantitative difference becomes a qualitative one. Was the Russian Revolution a German project? Overthrow of Commie regimes in Eastern Europe – American project? Cuba – Soviet project? Overthrow of Shah – Soviet project? Has there ever been a successful Revolution that did not involve some degree, in some cases such as American Revolution major, in other cases such as Iran minor, of foreign support?
No. About 10% of Donbas soldiers were Russian volunteers armed by Russia – and these volunteers, often seasoned Chechen war vets, were the best soldiers who played critical roles.* In contrast, although there were a few thousand French soldiers in the American Revolution they did not play as central a role. Russia poured in weapons and volunteers. Donbass still has plenty of Russian military advisers. First Donbas PM was a Russian guy from Moscow (there was never a Frenchman in charge of the USA). How much aid does Russia send Donbas every year?
One can quibble about maybe the French helping the Americans a little more than Russia helped the Donbas rebels, maybe a little less, but the magnitude of help was not much different.
OTOH French help for the Americans did dwarf Western aid to Maidan/Kiev.
Uh, sure. And all the Franco-German wars were Frankish civil wars. Serb-Albanian conflicts are Illyrian civil wars. Etc.
*Just because Ukrainian propagandists exaggerate the Russian role and falsely claim there are tens of thousands of Russian troops etc. doesn’t mean Russia role hasn’t been substantial
Agree.
Agree.
It seems, however, that both killed generals were specifically and directly involved in the recent attacks on the Americans (The Iraqi one killed led the militias who had attacked American bases) and first one has been a serial attacker of Americans, so it’s bit more complex of a case.
On this I agree also, primarily due to the fact that America initiated recent hostilities with its unilateral declaration of economic war against Iran. This was a terrible idea.
In terms of physical aggression, however – Iran had been attacking the Saudi oil fields, seizing ships, shot down an American drone, and finally was behind recent militia attacks that killed a US contractor and attack on a US embassy. It has been an escalation. Only after all of those things were done, did the Americans assassinate the Iranian general, and not a random one but one responsible for deaths of Americans.
The US doesn’t anymore need ME oil, but Europe and other countries do, including China. I don’t think you are bringing the right level of strategic depth to this.
Controlling ME oil is useful leverage with China and Europe. Europe will be more inclined to side with America and China will be less inclined to push its agenda too far.
Suppose the US withdrew, and China moved in – not with the same level of military involvement, but in its trademark style of financial aid plus military involvement, and becomes the dominant regional power.
Suddenly there there is a trade dispute between the US and China where Europe is called to take sides…
Or suppose Russia does, or a regional leader hostile to America unifies the region under his rule. Maybe this leader raises prices on oil to Europe unless it agrees to accept millions of immigrants…Europe refuses (lol) and hoes I to recession, impacting American economy and its policy against China..
We can sit here spinning scenarios, but the fact is it pays to control a vital resource that is crucial to any important world region, especially your closest allies – if you have the power.
The realist school isn’t crazy, even if we disagree with it. They have to think of these long term scenarios.
The correct level of strategic depth with the collary of infinite paranoia is to build asteroid defenses, but that’s not being done. There’s a point, as I indicated before, where the potential reward exceeds the cost.
The beneficiaries here are special interest groups with little in common with the population. This is pretty common – what benefitted the latifundias did not benefit Roman citizenry or the nation.
Its perhaps more realistic to think that the “realist school” is often less interested in realism and more into finding justifications for their next paycheck.
I don’t think it’s 4D chess. They have been taunting the Americans for some time…I also don’t think that it reflects well on Trump that he could be taunted so easily
Responding to an invasion of your territory is being easily taunted? If a state can have its territory invaded, then be mocked before all present and potential future enemies by those who did it, with the insinuation that they can do it again any time they feel like it, then that state has no credibility. Add in the unfinished business of the 1979 invasion and one has to wonder what the Iranians were thinking. Do they today think their little embassy show and the bragging afterwards were worth losing Qassem Soleimani? Hence my suggestion earlier that they may be more to it than we know because the Iranian actions were those of a bunch of rubes rather than experienced statesmen.
Sooner or later they have to run out of money.
Putin meets Assad in Damascus today.
https://ria.ru/20200107/1563167154.html
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/middle-east/putin-meets-assad-in-surprise-syria-visit
https://www.straitstimes.com/sites/default/files/styles/x_large/public/articles/2020/01/07/yq-syriabash2-07012020.jpg?itok=9uffv9Dk×tamp=1578408650
Seizing ships = response to Britain seizing an Iranian ship (captained by an Indian iirc). Perfectly proportional response to piracy. And the drone had strayed into Iranian territory.
By this logic, Russia would have had the right to assassinate Petraeus or Mattis to avenge the Wagnerites killed by Americans. Uniformed ones, not informally supported militias. “Attack” on US Embassy is really stretching it. Though certainly a breach of international norms, no Americans were killed, hurt, or seriously threatened. If some Russian nationalists or Communists were to occupy and protest in the lobby of the US Embassy in Moscow in response to one of their many provocations, would that constitute an “attack” on it?
The argument is that even in those terms, it was an unreasonable escalation. The Iraqi militia killed an American contractor, and the Americans killed some militia members. A mob at the funeral of the Iraqi militia members then stormed the American embassy, but without killing anyone. It was symbolic, but no-one died. This pointed to a de-escalation. The killing of the generals was a significant step up on the escalation ladder, or rather several steps up.
Anyway, I don’t think there’s much disagreement left here.
Well, it’s a disagreement of opinion. You may well be right. But it doesn’t seem to me a case where those you disagree with are indisputably wrong – its one of those cases where a reasonable man can appreciate that both sides make sense, but ultimately personally finds the arguments for one side more compelling.
I take your point about the limits of paranoia and the intelligent allocation of resources, but I am not convinced they apply here.
There are many who argue that the US is paranoid about Russia and China as well, using very similar arguments.
Some people say America should withdraw from everywhere and just defend itself, like Beckow, and others just prefer that America focus on one or another region, like songbird, and perhaps you. (What is chi a doing in Africa, then?)
I disagree with both. Withdrawing behind your castle walls never works, it just allows threats develop until they are too big to control – as Sun Tzu says, better to nip things in the bud than deal with them when they are too big to handle. Bitter human experience teaches this. If you simply watch as a coalition forms against you and wait till they attack till you defend yourself, you won’t survive long. And if you do, next time you’ll start appreciating the realist school a bit more and try and anticipate and forestall threats when they are small.
As for the idea that you should only invest in one or another theater, the only limitation here is power – you should invest in every theater you can. You want your hand in every pie. America fought both in Europe and Asia, two massive fronts, in WW2. Of course, if we suddenly find ourselves needing to confront China militarily, I would certainly favor reaocating resources to that theater, as its the larger immediate threat.
But the idea that it isn’t a strategic imperative to control a region that possess a resource vital to the world economy and particularly your closest allies – that its extreme paranoia to want to do so – seems to me misguided, at the very least.
Responding to a tweet. That’s what you wrote above. The Iranians fucked up by taunting Trump with a tweet.
Also, “invasion of your territory” is a misrepresentation of what happened. A mob of unarmed militia members participating in the funeral of their comrades stormed the lobby of the embassy. People on loudspeakers told them to leave, because “a message has already been delivered.” No one was killed, harmed, or endangered.
The Wagner guys were in Syria at the invitation of the internationally recognized government, while the Americans killing them were there fully illegally. So there would have been a lot of justification.
Thanks! However, it looks like sanity is becoming hopeless. The US is rapidly sliding down the slippery slope. The US government is showing former Iranians in no uncertain terms that they must support their old country against the US. Iranians, including US citizens of Iranian descent, are harassed at numerous border crossings:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/06/us/border-iranians-washington-patrol.html
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/07/customs-and-border-patrol-deny-reports-detained-iranian-americans/2830330001/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51011029
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/06/politics/iranian-american-border-questioning/index.html
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-01-06/la-na-iranians-questioned-canada-border
As the US government denies it, it must be true.
So, I am not sure there is hope for America. Some commenters here say that revolution can fix the country. Russians have vast experience with revolutions, so here is current Russian joke about it: “If there are problems in your country, make a revolution. Soon after its victory you’d see that you did not have serious problems before”. Maidan is a recent illustration for this joke.
My estimate is that sane people capable of thinking constitute less than 5% of the American population. Sane people with limited cognitive abilities (the people cackling hyena called “deplorables”) constitute maybe another 20-30%. Thus, the majority is either insane or too dumb to have their own opinion. This does not look good for the country.
The whole situation is comical – other than the killing. Like in an ugly divorce there are demands for retroactive ‘compensation‘, talk of betrayal, second thoughts and regrets, and refusal to follow basic norms.
The divorce is definitely coming; the bizarre ‘alliance’ – that never was real – between neo-cons and Iraq Shias is over. Without the Shias, US simply can’t stay in Iraq in the long run. If US shifts to be based only in the Kurdish mini-region, Turks will go ballistic (again). Leaving Iraq means also leaving north-eastern Syria – and the visual of US being forced out of that region will be moral-destroying. This is actually all due to Bush’s stupidity, but these kinds of disasters are cumulative.
Maybe Iraq will become a ‘real’ country after all.
I agree about the demographics, but that’s neither here nor there. It is hard to have and raise children, with accelerating laziness – because that’s what it is at its core! – people forgo it. It is hard to have kids, sitting in an ‘office’ fixing or cutting and pasting endless documents that nobody really needs is considered ‘work’. So we are where we are.
West was a lot more serious about following rules during the crucial 2nd half of the 20th century, they hesitated to cut corners. There was an element of discipline in it – or they were just scared by the 1st half of the 20th century. (Yes, there were exceptions.)
Since around late 90’s West has discarded its own rules and actively started to undermine the institutions that it controls. The original sin was the mindless 1999 attack by Nato on Serbia over ‘Kosovo must have independence‘. It has been downhill since then, 2003 attack on Iraq would had been impossible without 1999. The rules are gone and that is bad for West, because without rules anything goes and those who have most to protect (definitely West), need rules and restraints the most. Frankly, most of their rivals don’t have that much to loose.
By the way, most of the current targets actively cheered the 1999 attack on Serbia – it is their turn now.
Good advice. I felt a bit silly after I sent my comment, and you’re right, my dislike for him is mostly based along ideological grounds. So, Professor Tennessee, please accept my apologies for my nasty if not misspent rant, and I wish you a Very Merry Christmas too!
Anatole, it goes without saying, I wish you all of the best in the New Year!
(Nobody is perfect?). 🙂
Jan 1 is just jesus dick cutting ceremony!
I hope it is a total withdrawal.
It has been said that in the modern age that technology has effectively shortened distances, and we can no longer afford to be isolationist. Probably the exact opposite is closer to the truth. The more capabilities we have – the easier it is to become entangled in places, so it is more important to have rules.
I sincerely hope it will. The test will be time.
So, I am not sure there is hope for America.
The old Japanese internment camps are no longer being used. We could open them up if they are needed to deal with the Iranian problem.
Okay.
Perhaps, Americans claim differently but there is no reason to believe one side or the other.
Then there was the drone and missile attack on the Saudi oil facility.
And – the Iranian-organized militia drew first blood when the Iraqi base was attacked.
This was a one-time incident. Solemiani had been involved in Iraq for many years and has hundreds of American deaths on his hands. This does not make him a terrorist – those were military deaths, in a war. But it makes him an enemy with blood on his hands and not an illegitimate target for the American military. Note that I am not defending the decision to kill him. If it causes a chain of events that escalates into a major war than the killing is a horrible blunder. I’m just disagreeing with the act being considered an illegitimate crime or act of terrorism.
If Mattis had been behind many Russian deaths in Syria and Chechnya for many years Russia would have been justified in a missile strike taking him out. This would, of course, also be a very unwise and terrible move, but not some sort of evil act of terrorism by the Russians.
Sorry to reply to my own off-topic post but I can make it on-topic as our new Prime Minister opened her mouth on the actual thread subject. Apparently Finland condemns Iran’s actions but has nothing to say about American actions.
It’s almost as if all those years of denouncing Drumpf the orange Hitler were just show and all our leaders are actually just puppets who will only scream about Trump being evil whenever our masters in Brussels and/or the US state department say it’s OK.
I don’t anything about this general but I do know I have absolutely nothing to gain from taking America’s side. Our leaders of course will keep getting contacts, funding and favorable media coverage for our political class from the American establishment. Every American puppet state ends up working the same, with a political class with at least an outside front made up of women, homosexuals, ethnic minorities and if any man is admitted they have to spend first years proving their allegiance by visiting pride parades and so on.
And it works. Our leftists can’t oppose their pro-American leaders anymore because attacking the young female PM would be “punching down” and they’ll rationalize it all away since we’ll soon be back listening to the staged criticism of Trump for being misogynist or racist or transphobic or whatever.