US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[Rockstar]

Still though "cordial and productive", "frank and honest" may not say much but it keeps everyone guessing and it's certainly better than making ultimatums then tucking tail when someone crosses that red line you laid out for the world to see.

[August]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Still though "cordial and productive", "frank and honest" may not say much but it keeps everyone guessing and it's certainly better than making ultimatums then tucking tail when someone crosses that red line you laid out for the world to see.

Dig it.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

But yea, I see the core points of their narrative:
- democrats are idiots who failed to disarm Assad.
- Assad eats babies.
- Trump looks strong for using force, both at home and abroad.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

So what happened? As in, what is your take on this story?

I think someone put together a poll asking Americans what their subjective opinion is on a news story.

Asking the average American about what happened in Syria is like asking me what my opinions are concerning brain surgery techniques.

What you will get will be a totally uniformed, subjective, perhaps emotional, opinion from a position of ignorance about the topic.

Such opinions may be entertaining perhaps to read, but not at all useful.

We need facts and we need logical analysis. That will take time and an intention to discover the truth. Is there such a motivation to find out the truth?

I am sure there was a poll that indicated that the majority of Americans supported the Gulf of Tonkin story, just as there were polls that showed Americans believing "nurse" Nayirah al-Ṣabaḥ, in 1990.

Since I am in an annoyingly pompous mood to quote Latin, an argumentum ad populum concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it.

When that "most people" includes a population that has no or limited insight into the issue, it becomes an egregious logical fallacy.

Whether 100% of Americans believe something or only 50% believe it does not reduce the uncertainty whether it is or is not true.

Until we have the facts and the appropriate analysis on those facts, we may never know what happened at that Syrian village.

Unfortunately, there may be parties that would rather that the facts/evidence not be discoverable.

[mapuc]

Don't want to start a new thread, It's about American foreign politics

If everything should go really bad-USA could be involved in two wars

In Syria(against Assad/Iran and if it goes really really bad Russia
And
Against North Korea.

Markus

[Rockstar]

For all we know as Trump knocks on the front door. Xi Jinping could be just sending troops to North Korea's border to keep them from spilling out the back door into China.

Maybe we are working togther to finally put an end to the Korean war.

Then again... If we end the war and unite the Korean peninsula we really dont have a reason to be over there anymore and be a thorn in China's side. Its better to have two Koreas.

[Bilge_Rat]

another poll:

Voters support the initial U.S. airstrikes in Syria ordered last week by President Donald Trump, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll — but there is less backing for an escalation of hostilities that includes ground forces.

Nearly two-thirds of voters, 66 percent, support last week’s airstrikes on a Syrian air field, the poll shows. That includes 35 percent who strongly support the strikes, and another 31 percent who somewhat support them. Only 24 percent oppose the strikes, and 10 percent don’t have an opinion.

Support for the strikes is fairly bipartisan, the poll shows. While 82 percent of Republicans back the strikes, so do 57 percent of Democratic voters and 59 percent of independents.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/0...strikes-237133

[ikalugin]

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-a7679641.html

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-a7679641.html

mountain out of a mole hill. 24 hour news cycle at work.

what he meant and was pretty obvious from his answers is that unlike WW1, where all sides used gas as a weapon, in WW2, none of the belligerents dropped gas on military or civilian targets, even though all belligerents had stockpiles ready and waiting.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

... in WW2, none of the belligerents dropped gas on military or civilian targets, even though all belligerents had stockpiles ready and waiting.

Not entirely accurate

There are reports that the Germans used asphyxiating gas to clear out heavily embedded troops in the 1942 Battle of the Kerch Peninsula. This is still debatable.

However, the Japanese used various types of chemical weapons quite regularly in 1937-9 against Chinese troops. Mostly Mustard and Lewsite were used during the Battle of Wuhan and the Battle of Changde.

If one wants to push the limits of WWII, in 1935-6 the Italians used Mustard gas in Ethiopia. But traditionally that is not considered WWII, but pretty close!

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Still though "cordial and productive", "frank and honest" may not say much but it keeps everyone guessing and it's certainly better than making ultimatums then tucking tail when someone crosses that red line you laid out for the world to see.

President Obama (although he is by far not the only one) evidently forgot his quotes by famous dead guys

One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent

- Napoleon Bonaparte

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by mapuc

Don't want to start a new thread, It's about American foreign politics

If everything should go really bad-USA could be involved in two wars

In Syria(against Assad/Iran and if it goes really really bad Russia
And
Against North Korea.

Markus

Just in time to justify increasing military spending necessitating the cutting of non war projects. This sounds like 1990 all over again.

[ikalugin]

Allies used napalm and other incindiery substances to kill infantry in underground structures not through fire but through asphyxiation.

For example petrol would be poured through ventilation and set on fire.

[Catfish]

^ But it was the Allies who did it, so all is good and fair

[Catfish]

Now i read some news about how Trump ordered the TLAM strike during dinner with Xi, and that they discussed the North Korea situation.
Trump has used some harsh words, and China now has threatened N. Korea not to cross the bottom line.
So of course what we read in the media is not reality, but it looks like we the onlooking customers are being prepared for a war