US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by August

Ah I see, we're not the Worlds Policeman but apparently if we stop being the Worlds Policeman then we're allowing foreign children to be eaten.

That's the narrow view and you said it, not me.

By the way, the wall is not a new concept. Notice the ladder into Mexico for all that cheap migrant labor.

[Hawk66]

Originally Posted by August

Ah I see, we're not the Worlds Policeman but apparently if we stop being the Worlds Policeman then we're allowing foreign children to be eaten.

August, you should read the resignment letter of Mattis if not already done. Maybe then you understand the difference between acting as a World Police and a responsible super power.

I may remember you that the US choose to invade in Middle East and Afghanistan and in the latter Theater all major allies have contributed considerably...both with resources and blood. If you got out now, do you think in the next 100 years there will any trust remaining in those regions ? Especially if Trump supports the Saudis but not the Kurds, who struggle for their own sovereignty the last couple of decades ?

And I may remember you that even in the Middle East, countries which have not supported the invasion, have considerably shared the burden or do y think there is always only a military dimension to an issue ?. I may only point, as an example, you to the refugee stream and in which countries they go. Senator McCain has recognized that - but yeah he was a hidden liberal like Mattis, I know.

It is sad that supporters of populists do not see the root cause for the problems in their country. They will see it if final damage is done. But yeah, so are humans...a look at history books reveal that: Following a charismatic (??) leader until the end. The next generation have to deal with the created mess...

[Dowly]

Don't bother, this is the guy who thinks US won WW2 alone.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Don't bother, this is the guy who thinks US won WW2 alone.

Not alone, but it is hard to imagine how the Axis would not have won without the industrial output from the US.

Whether especially the Germans would have managed to keep what they had conquered - that is an entirely different question. Militarily alone that probaly would not have been managable. Only by "culturification" (my word) as well, like the Romans did. And even for them it did not last forever: in the end it was a foreign culture eroding and taking over the Roman from within that overwhelmed Rome.

Back to the main program.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Not alone, but it is hard to imagine how the Axis would not have won without the industrial output from the US.

Sure, I agree. Most of us know how WWII was won, August just isn't one of them.

[August]

Originally Posted by Hawk66

August, you should read the resignment letter of Mattis if not already done. Maybe then you understand the difference between acting as a World Police and a responsible super power.

I may remember you that the US choose to invade in Middle East and Afghanistan and in the latter Theater all major allies have contributed considerably...both with resources and blood. If you got out now, do you think in the next 100 years there will any trust remaining in those regions ? Especially if Trump supports the Saudis but not the Kurds, who struggle for their own sovereignty the last couple of decades ?

And I may remember you that even in the Middle East, countries which have not supported the invasion, have considerably shared the burden or do y think there is always only a military dimension to an issue ?. I may only point, as an example, you to the refugee stream and in which countries they go. Senator McCain has recognized that - but yeah he was a hidden liberal like Mattis, I know.

It is sad that supporters of populists do not see the root cause for the problems in their country. They will see it if final damage is done. But yeah, so are humans...a look at history books reveal that: Following a charismatic (??) leader until the end. The next generation have to deal with the created mess...

Trump is the next generation. You'll remember that it was his predecessor who sent our forces into Syria without Congressional approval. That is supposed to be limited to 90 days. How many years has it been now? He is dealing with the mess by pulling us out before we get more of our people killed.

Yes I have read Matthis' resignation and this is why I agree with the administrations move.

We have no clear military mission in Syria. We originally went into that county to help the rebels fight Assad. We failed in that mission. ISIS is certainly not going to regenerate with Assads forces poised to complete their reconquest of the country. We're not there to fight either the Syrians or the Russians, a possibility which becomes more likely the longer we keep our troops in close proximity with them. Especially such a small force that won't be able to defend themselves.

There has been plenty of hand-wringing on this forum ever since we put troops into Syria and there is even more hand wringing now that we are leaving. People who called us war mongers when we went there now accuse us of abandonment. Well it makes me think that nobody really cares if we are there or not but only complain because it's Trump that wants to do it.

Well yes he is going to do it, and he is also going to pull our people from that 14 year long failed experiment of nation building in Afghanistan too and God bless him for it. We have made no progress in either nation and it's time to cut our losses before we get more of our people killed and maimed. If this is a problem for Germany and the other NATO allies then let them fill the vacuum with their own troops. Maybe it can count in lieu of your unpaid alliance dues.

[August]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Don't bother, this is the guy who thinks US won WW2 alone.

I never said that we won WW2 alone and you know it so stop being a jerk you troll.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by August

People who called us war mongers when we went there now accuse us of abandonment.

Yeah, that's because that's what you've done since Vietnam.


EDIT:

Originally Posted by August

I never said that we won WW2 alone and you know it so stop being a jerk you troll.

Just recently you said that the Dutch people should be grateful for the US liberating them (paraphrasing). You were wrong.

And yes, you've made claims that the US "won the war" many times over the years, I've got a very good memory.

[August]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Yeah, that's because that's what you've done since Vietnam.


]Just recently you said that the Dutch people should be grateful for the US liberating them (paraphrasing). You were wrong.


And yes, you've made claims that the US "won the war" many times over the years, I've got a very good memory.

Well then maybe you should stop drinking so much because your memory isn't as good as you think it is. Of course we won the war, we were after all on the winning side, unlike nazi ally Finland. Show me where I said we won it alone like you claim.

As for the Dutch I can only go by my personal experience with them and they were quite grateful for the US Airborne liberating them when I was there last. I have personally marched through the streets of Nijmegen lined with cheering crowds throwing flowers in our path. They were cheering other nations too (although Germans were somewhat subdued as was the Englishes but for different reasons) but they really broke loose when the American contingent trooped by. Pretty girls running up and giving us kisses, little kids wanting to hold our hands. I have been bought drinks in Nijmegen bars by Dutch survivors of Market Garden just because I was wearing the uniform of a US soldier and those of us wearing Airborne wings were treated even better. Those are not the actions of a people who have your consistently dim view of us so you'll excuse me if I reject your theories.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

Trump is the next generation.

You got stuck in the mid-60s, maybe?



Trump is the figure head of the old caste of WASPs. Their relevance is declining rapidly. Thats why they are so angry. The next generation - that is the Middle and Southern Americans, the multiculturalists and socialists. And its only a question of time until they also take over the Republican party, like they did with the Democrats. At lats iof the Reopublicans want to win elections in the fture as well. Becasue the angry old whites are dying out, and get bred out, and the Latinos move and breed their way in, and both in numbers that cannot be beaten. America turns darker in skin colour, and with that it turns redder in colour (red internationally is the colour of the left/left, outside of America not the conservatives/Republicans).

[ikalugin]

Out of the identarianists there are plenty of the right wing types out there, so I am not really concerned with the GOP being overrun.

[August]

Pretty good article.

Trump is right to withdraw US troops from Syria. We've done our job by defeating ISIS.

Trump’s decision is a good one, even though it reflects poorly on his administration’s security decision-making process. With the defeat of ISIS, the risks of keeping U.S. troops in Syria badly outweigh any potential benefits. The rationales that administration officials recently offered for staying are really reasons to go.
No one knows exactly how an “enduring” defeat of ISIS differs from plain old defeat. That’s the point, presumably. Ensuring ISIS’s total extinction is a useful goal for keeping troops there forever, adding more, and adopting all manner of nation-building goals.
The idea that U.S. forces can compel Iran’s eviction makes little sense. Like Russia, Iran has long-standing interests in Syria that are stronger than ours, was invited by the regime to deploy forces, and is unlikely to pull them before the civil war is over. Leaving rivals the draining task of trying to stabilize Syria is hardly doing them a favor. Syria offers occupiers nothing that can vault them to greater power and lots of potential trouble. Keeping U.S. forces there until Iran decides to leave simply offers them the right to say how long we incur costs.
Nothing justifies the risks of staying in Syria

Chasing those nebulous benefits means running a massive risk of escalation, with the Assad regime, Russia, Iran or NATO-ally Turkey. U.S. forces protecting Kurdish allies have engaged in tense stand-offs with Turkish forces in northern Syria. Israel attacks on Iranian-backed forces in Syria risk wider war that could embroil U.S. forces.
Most worrying, given the nuclear stakes, is the potential for inadvertent war with Russia. In February, U.S. commandos and airstrikes killed scores of Russian “mercenaries” in a prolonged battle. Ambassador James Jeffrey later remarked of the incident that “this has occurred about a dozen times in one place or another in Syria,” and “there have been various engagements [with the Russians in Syria], some involving exchange of fire, some not.” This revelation somehow did not set off alarm bells in Congress, which never authorized the war in Syria, let alone conducted serious oversight of it.
The United State has nothing approaching the tremendous stakes needed to justify running these risks. This calculation should not turn on what one thinks of Russia’s actions in Europe or its relations with Donald Trump. The same goes for Iran. If you want to punish rivals for actions elsewhere, find a better way to do it than using 2,000 troops to manage the end of the Syrian civil war so that they do not do it for you.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...mn/2374266002/

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by August

Pretty good article.



https://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...mn/2374266002/

Thank god we have a policy director and a director of programs to tell us why a four-star USMC General with half a century of experience is wrong.

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

Thank god we have a policy director and a director of programs to tell us why a four-star USMC General with half a century of experience is wrong.

It wouldn't be the first time.




“This looks like the last straw,” a seething President Harry Truman scrawled in his diary on April 6, 1951. Once again the commander of U.S. forces in the Korean War, General Douglas MacArthur, had gone public with his differences with the commander in chief over the conduct of the war.


I fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the President. I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.






At the time of his death, Patton had been relegated to a desk job, overseeing the collection of Army records in Bavaria. That he had been an outspoken critic of Stalin and a vocal proponent of liberating Berlin and the German people from certain communist aggression triggered his sudden removal from the battlefield. In the aftermath of war, the Western powers sought to sideline the mercurial Patton and his incendiary views.
But Patton despised the politically driven circus and the media minions that carried out their dirty work. Still, he continued to speak out against the Russians as an American witness to their brutality during and after the war. As Stalin devoured Eastern Europe, Patton remarked, “I have no particular desire to understand them except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them… …the Russian has no regard for human life and they are all out sons-of-bitches, barbarians, and chronic drunks.”

[August]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

I fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the President. I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.

That's a great quote by Truman. Imagine the nerve of a former clerk questioning the great MacArthur!