The All Things Political Topic - SNAFU edition

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, Hurlshort said:

This administration is afraid of accountability.

3 more years of this bull****, too.

[Gromnir]

7 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

The guy wasn't really a foriegn actor. He spent 10 years working for the CIA. This administration loves to point fingers at other people, but this is our problem and the CIA is the responsible party for turning him into an unstable individual.

 

hmmm

why do you suggest the shooter is "unstable"? am sure not going so far as to suggest that the cia were the responsible party for claimed instability. am not certain o' the shooter's background and motivations such that am comfortable making such an observation. the shooter's actions were vile and unforgivable, but is too easy to dismiss him as unstable and somehow blame the cia appears knee-jerk at best. sans info, could just as easily imagine that the taliban, or the shooter's parents were responsible for shaping rahmanullah lakanwal. also, is too easy to dismiss bad actions as the result o' instability.

@Guard Dog claimed he would shoot cops if they came onto his property to take his rusty chainsaw. unstable? maybe, but gd had convinced himself that shooting otherwise innocent people doing their duty were worth the human cost 'cause there were a greater principle involved. crackpot? wingnut? maybe, but we don't see gd as particular monstrous or unhinged even if a few o' his beliefs is fodder for the lunatic fringe. nevertheless, if gd had shot a cop in defense o' his chainsaw, it would be convenient and popular to dismiss his actions as monstrous and insane. too easy. label as unstable and monstrous means it is safe for average americans to dismiss an act or actor as unique and exceptional. 

am always warning people to wait after these situations where what we do not know far outweighs what we do know. almost nobody looks foolish by waiting a week. waiting means that a few yahoos get the chance to set the narrative, which is maybe important if you are a politician, but for anybody else is there an excuse? how many times has we seen on this board where Gromnir has been able to i told you so the folks who got out in front of facts and came to bad conclusions based on paucity o' information?

am not certain o' the shooter's motivations and what in his mind justified a husband and father o' five children to travel thousands of miles so that he could shoot national guardsman in dc. most murders is impulsive. in spite o' lack o' certainty, am willing to concede this shooting does not appear impulsive, so the shooter likely had reasons. better or worse than gd's rusty chainsaw defense? dunno. 

tps for afghanistani refugees were ended earlier this year. our government transformed many thousands o' documented immigrants into undocumented immigrants... 'cause. the reality is that ending tps o' people who had aided US efforts in afghanistan means that the US government is knowing murdering many people by sending them back to the tender mercies o' the taliban. is not a "well, maybe... " kinda situation. send many back to afghanistan is a f'ing death sentence.

D.C. police to begin patrolling with National Guard after fatal attack

contrary to trump claims o' no dc murders post deployment, there has been more than 60 homicides in dc since the national guard were deployed-- troops didn't eliminate violent crime. now, post shooting, dc cops is gonna be tasked with protecting the national guard troops. 

what?

am suspecting the point o' the deployments in la, chicago and dc were to provoke a violent response, and that hasn't happened... unless you are bruce and you have been watching only fox and right-wing sources o' news. 

the wh has been waiting for violence, but instead o' summer 2020 protests, which were never as widespread or bad as they were depicted on fox, we got months o' images o' protesters wearing inflatable frog costumes, pastors being shot in the head with pepper balls and hundreds o' living banksy memes.

given the reality, the wh has become desperate for a violent response they could seize on to amplify one o' their narratives o' fear, which is no doubt why they tried to prosecute sandwich guy and other stoopid. yeah, a fully vetted afghani refugee who had worked with the cia is not an ideal target for anti-immigrant ire, but that don't matter 'cause facts has never been particular important to the maga base. what is most terrible is that the wh narrative might work in part 'cause o' how @Hurlshotportrays the situation. if you are selling fear, then root causes become far less important than is is practical safety concerns.

example:  those cigarette boats hegseth ordered destroyed weren't anywhere near the US when they were attacked by US forces, and if they were carrying drugs it were likely cocaine 'cause venezuela don't send fentanyl to the US. the mere possibility o' cocaine shipments, as likely to be heading to europe as the US, became the justification for US  murder on the high seas? believe it or not, one o' the few things trump is doing that americans approve of is the murder o' "narco-terrorists." 

an "unstable" and violent immigrant killing national guardsman on the streets o' dc is gonna make steven miller and trump efforts to end non european immigration and to possible expel non-white immigrants more or less likely? 

the only thing which surprises us is that it has taken this long for somebody to provide the excuse the wh has been looking for since they first sent troops to la in june.

HA! Good Fun!

Edited 16 hours ago by Gromnir

[Gorgon]

It's hard to see the real world gain from ambushing two national guardsmen. We are at a point now where political violence is normalized to an extent. Similar i suppose to the 60's and 70s. The impact wont last more than a week or two. So, what's the calculated payoff in doing something like this ?

To me it does kinda point to someone who isn't thinking straight. 

[Malcador]

Now the US double tapping the "drug boats". REMF Hegseth saying to kill everyone. 

The dangers of an insecure male.

[rjshae]

5 hours ago, Gorgon said:

It's hard to see the real world gain from ambushing two national guardsmen. We are at a point now where political violence is normalized to an extent. Similar i suppose to the 60's and 70s. The impact wont last more than a week or two. So, what's the calculated payoff in doing something like this ?

To me it does kinda point to someone who isn't thinking straight. 

Not just that, he drove across the US to do it. Plus he has a wife and children. The only (bizarre) conspiracy that occurs to me is he's a Taliban sleeper agent who was activated to get Trump to react the way he did, forcing Afgan refugees to return home and face revenge. But that's too MAGA/Q-anon-think. Maybe he has family members in Afghanistan who weren't extracted, and faced retaliation for his actions? Or perhaps he's just triggered by military deployments into cities. *shrug*

[Gromnir]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

Now the US double tapping the "drug boats". REMF Hegseth saying to kill everyone. 

The dangers of an insecure male.

gonna suggest it were likely less insecurity than incompetence. no survivors meant that there were nobody alive to contradict the dangerous narco-terrorist narrative concocted by the trump administration. is no 4-d chess being played by trump and his lackeys. general incompetence is the main thing holding this administration back from far more terrible outcomes, not that the current reality is benign. even so, we don't even wanna imagine how bad the situation might be if william barr were still running doj and if a competent secdef were in place at the pentagon.

am guessing steven miller and trump wanted images o' dead venezuelan narco terrorists, and hegseth made it happen sans any genuine consideration o' legalities or consequences.  a legal memo rationalizing the attacks weren't created until after the first murders happened. hegseth, being the wünderb00b that he is, decided on the following plan: caedite eos. novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius... 'cause he likely saw on a t-shirt or has it tattooed somewhere on his body.  the reasons and explanations for the boat attacks were cobbled together after the fact by people smarter than hegseth.

however, once a half dozen boats were hit, and a couple dozen people were murdered, the trump administration realized that there weren't a need to coverup evidence 'cause americans didn't f'ing care. multiple media outlets reported that there were no chance fantanyl were being smuggled on the boats being sunk and that as often as not, the people on the boats were ordinary local fishermen who were transporting cocaine to supplement their meager incomes. but nobody cared. as such, people with actual firing neurons realized that as long as the US didn't arrest and put survivors o' boat attacks on trial, the survivors could be sent home to venezuela and the trump narrative could be perpetuated on fox news w/o any counter-factual to muddy their propaganda efforts. is no need to murder survivors. 

incompetence v. insecurity... recognizing that they ain't mutual exclusive.

HA! Good Fun!

  

Edited 30 minutes ago by Gromnir