Politics 2017 Part 3

[Valsuelm]

Well, adios Flynn. Talk radio here he comes?

Meh.. .Good riddance (maybe (because we don't know who we're getting next)).

 

Here's a much more interesting Flynn:

[Agiel]

I believe Petraeus was on his way to the White House this week for... something.

 

Idle thought, but it'd be something if through the rest of Trump's cabinet being embroiled in scandals that lead to further "resignations" Mattis gets Gerald Forded into Oval Office.

Edited February 14, 2017 by Agiel

[BruceVC]

Well, adios Flynn. Talk radio here he comes?

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-flynn-idUSKBN15S0BR

 

 

This is potentially a very big development and raises the whole issue of  election promises,  " post-truth " comments, hyperbole and general controversial views that some of the Trump staff have made

 

Flynn misled Pence and  I'm glad he resigned, this is good news. Russia is not the friend of the USA  despite what Putin was hoping would be the outcome of the Trump victory. Sanctions wont be changed unless Putin changes Russia's strategy on issues like interference in Ukraine and the illegal annexation of Crimea 

 

The path to Russian economic recovery lies firmly in the hands of Putin becoming a more reasonable player and contributor  in the arena of global politics, its incredulous to think Putin believes you can behave in such a belligerent way and not find yourself the target of Western sanctions

 

Trump needs to navigate a difficult political reality, he has some  populist views  in his staff who played an important role in ensuring his victory but now he needs prudence and reasonable outcomes and comments  to deliver on some of the campaign promises. And he does have a some good people working for him like Mattis and Rex Tillerson who understand the  importance of the  role the US plays in the global world 

Edited February 14, 2017 by BruceVC

[BruceVC]

 

 

 

It is not the West throwing gays off of buildings in the ME. It is not the West throwing stones at women for being raped or forcing them to marry their rapists. It is not the West strapping bombs on their chest and walking into ME places of worship and blowing it up because the Muslims there are the 'wrong kind' of Muslims.

That's true. But te question has to be WHY such things can happen and are accepted. Which brings us pretty quickly to failed interventions.

Bennie I want to you ask you a simple but relevant question, all that is required is an answer ...no real debate

 

Do you agree that Russia and Putin are responsible both directly and indirectly for real human rights abuses and more than likely war crimes in Syria and places like Aleppo?

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/25/russia-accused-war-crimes-syria-un-security-council-aleppo

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/07/syria-russia-war-crimes-inquiry-john-kerry

 

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/syria-un-pressures-russia-over-war-crime-of-aleppo-attacks-1.2805158

Yes of course.

 

My turn: do. you agree that failed western interventions is one of the big causes that lead to the rise of fundamentalism and religious extremism?

 

If you want to have a meaningful debate around the rise of Islamic extremism and how much blame the West has and how this has destabilized the ME, and many parts in the world,  then we need to go back to when Islamic extremism was first seen and this can become fairly subjective but for me the rise of Al-Qaeda is the most reasonable and accurate benchmark for this 

 

ISIS came after AQ but in the  last 30 years or so we need to look the reasons for the creation and growth of groups like AQ. Based on this and  next few points I dont believe the West is largely responsible. So ask yourself these questions because the real question needs to be " how did AQ come into existence " ...so the main  points  are 

 

• Is the West responsible for the USSR  invasion of Afghanistan : At the end of this war Bin Laden believed in a world where his interpretation of Islam was the most effective, he believed in what later was known as Islamic extremism
• Is the West responsible for the First Gulf War :  This was the invasion of Kuwait from Iraq and the failure of the ME countries to follow Bin Laden's flawed advice to not invite Western countries to help the ME. Bin Laden felt his ideological objective was being undermined when the West intervened 
• 9/11 and the war on terror : Who do you think committed 9/11 
• The reasons for the Arab Spring:  Do you think the West was behind this ?

[Pidesco]

Miller appears to be a totally nice guy.

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/king-stephen-miller-latest-liar-bigot-team-trump-article-1.2971639

[BruceVC]

Miller appears to be a totally nice guy.

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/king-stephen-miller-latest-liar-bigot-team-trump-article-1.2971639

I was watching an interview around him, he was very arrogant and repeatedly made comments like  " of course there is wide spread voting fraud that impacts the election results ....everyone knows this in states like New Hampshire. The Democrats bring busloads of people into NH to skew the voting results ".  This is despite the fact no evidence has been produced about these apparent " busloads of illegal voters " 

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/12/politics/stephen-miller-trump-voter-fraud/index.html

[Namutree]

 Rex Tillerson 

 

Such an epic name. I'm still not over it.

[Zoraptor]

 

My turn: do. you agree that failed western interventions is one of the big causes that lead to the rise of fundamentalism and religious extremism?

 

 

Nah, it's still Saudi Arabia.

 

Plenty of incompetent/ malign/ ignorant western interventions outside the ME which haven't resulted in religious extremism. Rwanda, Vietnam, Guatemala etc may have been negatively effected by interventions, but they haven't ended up with the blight of a wahhabi extremism equivalent.

[BruceVC]

 

 

My turn: do. you agree that failed western interventions is one of the big causes that lead to the rise of fundamentalism and religious extremism?

 

 

Nah, it's still Saudi Arabia.

 

Plenty of incompetent/ malign/ ignorant western interventions outside the ME which haven't resulted in religious extremism. Rwanda, Vietnam, Guatemala etc may have been negatively effected by interventions, but they haven't ended up with the blight of a wahhabi extremism equivalent.

 

Nah its not Saudi Arabia, its some Saudi citizens who have certain extreme  ideological views that have made a major contribution towards extremism

 

We need to stop generalizing about the entire country of Saudi Arabia as if they are some monolithic entity, they not and its unhelpful to the general debate   " where do we equate blame to the rise of Islamic extremism " 

[Elerond]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F3tKTvaLT4

[Wrath of Dagon]

I believe Petraeus was on his way to the White House this week for... something.

 

Idle thought, but it'd be something if through the rest of Trump's cabinet being embroiled in scandals that lead to further "resignations" Mattis gets Gerald Forded into Oval Office.

Paul Ryan is ahead of him. Then President pro tempore of the Senate, whoever that is.

[Guard Dog]

Apparently Trump has stormtroopers now: http://nypost.com/2017/02/13/now-the-left-is-going-nuts-again-over-trumps-nonexistent-storm-troopers/

 

[Malcador]

Ah whining about whining, references to nebulous groups..must be a Murdoch paper

[Gromnir]

Apparently Trump has stormtroopers now: http://nypost.com/2017/02/13/now-the-left-is-going-nuts-again-over-trumps-nonexistent-storm-troopers/

 

(image)

 

Presidents get too much credit and blame.  our President doesn't have the kinda power most folks thinks he does.  Presidents who is blamed for economic woes or economic improvements is often being targeted for blame/credit which is more appropriate directed at Congress or a past administration.  'course we has rare seen a President take so much credit for stuff he didn't do. it is hard to sympathize.  f-35 cost reduction negotiated long before trump were elected?  takes credit for keeping a ford plant in the US, a plant which ford were never planning to move? has made similar claims regarding intel, sprint and general motors. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[213374U]

For the same exact reason they made up 'weapons of mass destruction' and propped up Nayirah al-Ṣabaḥ to spout the lies she did.

 

Gotta have a good casus belli to sell to the masses when you wanna invade and conquer. Making them up happens at least as often as it doesn't.

 

History is replete with them, modern times seemingly even more so.

 

It also helps to blame atrocities committed by one's own armies or that of one's allies upon the designated enemy. Which is very probably the case with the 'Halabja chemical attack'. Whoever was responsible (Iraq, Iran, or someone else), the allegations that Saddam did this didn't even occur until the late 90s in the western world, when the talking heads in the U.S./U.K. et al were constantly trying to drum up public support for a re-invasion of Iraq (even more than they try to drum up public support against Russia or Iran today).

 

No, I understand how it was useful in 2002-2003, just not in 1988 when it happened. That'd require some serious foresight in planning for a war there was no apparent reason to launch back then.

 

I'm not totally clear on what you're suggesting. Are you saying that it didn't happen or that it did happen but Iraq wasn't the perpetrator?

[Guard Dog]

 

Apparently Trump has stormtroopers now: http://nypost.com/2017/02/13/now-the-left-is-going-nuts-again-over-trumps-nonexistent-storm-troopers/

 

(image)

 

Presidents get too much credit and blame.  our President doesn't have the kinda power most folks thinks he does.  Presidents who is blamed for economic woes or economic improvements is often being targeted for blame/credit which is more appropriate directed at Congress or a past administration.  'course we has rare seen a President take so much credit for stuff he didn't do. it is hard to sympathize.  f-35 cost reduction negotiated long before trump were elected?  takes credit for keeping a ford plant in the US, a plant which ford were never planning to move? has made similar claims regarding intel, sprint and general motors. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

You dedicated entirely too much thought to a news story I was mocking!

[Hurlshort]

To be fair to Trump, he thinks he does have the kinda power most people thinks he does.  

[HoonDing]

 

Very professional.

[Gfted1]

Trump was invited and Abe went along to party.

[Valsuelm]

 

For the same exact reason they made up 'weapons of mass destruction' and propped up Nayirah al-Ṣabaḥ to spout the lies she did.

 

Gotta have a good casus belli to sell to the masses when you wanna invade and conquer. Making them up happens at least as often as it doesn't.

 

History is replete with them, modern times seemingly even more so.

 

It also helps to blame atrocities committed by one's own armies or that of one's allies upon the designated enemy. Which is very probably the case with the 'Halabja chemical attack'. Whoever was responsible (Iraq, Iran, or someone else), the allegations that Saddam did this didn't even occur until the late 90s in the western world, when the talking heads in the U.S./U.K. et al were constantly trying to drum up public support for a re-invasion of Iraq (even more than they try to drum up public support against Russia or Iran today).

 

No, I understand how it was useful in 2002-2003, just not in 1988 when it happened. That'd require some serious foresight in planning for a war there was no apparent reason to launch back then.

 

I'm not totally clear on what you're suggesting. Are you saying that it didn't happen or that it did happen but Iraq wasn't the perpetrator?

 

 

I'm saying what I said:

 

 

Err... not across the board. Saddam was gassing Kurds even before Kuwait.

Not one bit of evidence has ever emerged this is the case, and when people attempted to fact check those making this accusation once upon a time, they met a brick wall.

 

There's never been any good evidence made public that Saddam did what he is alleged to have done. When people inquired for some back in the '90s and through the mid '00s they met a brick wall. While I personally haven't looked into this issue in ~10+ years at this point I doubt any new credible information has made the light of day. Good luck finding some if you go looking, you're very like to need it.

 

What happened exactly? I don't know. At this point there's likely few honest people on the planet who do. I do know that the folks making the accusations have one helluva history of lying about all sorts of things, including Saddam and Iraq (as I previously mentioned two somewhat infamous examples).

[Gorth]

If you want to have a meaningful debate around the rise of Islamic extremism and how much blame the West has and how this has destabilized the ME, and many parts in the world,  then we need to go back to when Islamic extremism was first seen and this can become fairly subjective but for me the rise of Al-Qaeda is the most reasonable and accurate benchmark for this

Sorry Bruce, but in this case you missed the target by a few light years. AQ (and ISIS by extension) is rooted in Saudi history, or rather in the history of the house of Saud and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The founder of modern extremist Islam was Sayyid Qutb. I'll leave it to you to study the history of those people, it's quite enlightening and leads directly to the modern day conflicts

[BruceVC]

 

If you want to have a meaningful debate around the rise of Islamic extremism and how much blame the West has and how this has destabilized the ME, and many parts in the world,  then we need to go back to when Islamic extremism was first seen and this can become fairly subjective but for me the rise of Al-Qaeda is the most reasonable and accurate benchmark for this

Sorry Bruce, but in this case you missed the target by a few light years. AQ (and ISIS by extension) is rooted in Saudi history, or rather in the history of the house of Saud and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The founder of modern extremist Islam was Sayyid Qutb. I'll leave it to you to study the history of those people, it's quite enlightening and leads directly to the modern day conflicts

 

I appreciate your input on this topic but we may be misunderstanding each other. I am interested in your view 

 

AQ  the specific terrorist organization came into existence because of the USSR Afghanistan War, check this timelines

 

 http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/03/17/al-qaeda-core-a-short-history/

 

Its quite possible if the USSR  had not invaded Afghanistan another extremist group supported primarily by ideologues in Saudi Arabia could have been born but AQ under the leadership of Bin Laden was an extension of the USSR  invasion

 

If you disagree what is your view on how AQ  was formed ?

[Gorth]

If you disagree what is your view on how AQ  was formed ?

I do disagree, because looking at most things in complete isolation misses the point *for me*. Causes and effects is what interests me (hence my interest in history in general). Bin Laden was already a militant person looking for a cause before Soviet presence, which wasn't an "invasion" btw (Western bias shining through) but an intervention requested by the Afghan government. Before that he was being a good, rabid Sunni slaughtering civilians in Shia villages as the pawn of the Pakistani intelligence service. Finding a new cause more interesting than butchering villagers in Afghanistan he fought there with the mujahedeen indeed and used the Saudi and US funds to build Al-Qaeda. What turned Al-Qaeda into the "terrorist" organisation (because until then they had been "heroic freedom fighters") was the fallout between him and King Fahd over who should protect Saudi Arabia after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Fahd decided to invite the US Troops (Bin Laden was adamant his Arab fighters from the Afghan war could do the job) and the result was an undying hatred of both the Saudi monarchy and the US for daring to set foot on the land of Mecca and Medina. Killing Americans (and westerners in general) became priority no. 1, even more important than killing Shia Muslims. If you want to look for a cause for the "Terror organisation" Al-Qaeda, the first Gulf war is a good place to look.

And yes, Bin Laden was an avid follower of "Qutbism" (see previous post) and Al-Qaeda had many members from radical Egyptians, not just disgruntled Saudis.

Without his leadership, it fragmented and reverted to its "base nature", killing Shia's again became a priority (leading to a break between groups like Al-Qaeda who wants to kill westerners and ISIS who wants to kill Shias).

[Katphood]

Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.(NY Times)

 

 

 

 

 

WOW...

[Gorth]

Somehow I just got this image in my mind now that I can't unsee... Trump sitting in his tower with a Palantir in his lap, listening to his Masters words, knowing nothing escapes the all-seeing eye of Putin