USA Politics

Well, I assure you that I will stay criticial in everything Trump and his people are doing. I can't predict the future but I like how something else is tried in this conflict.
Not angering the Russians hasn't brought anyone further. It didn't stop the stream of refugees one bit. Not fearing them all the time seems important. The US is not intimidated by Turkey's anger over the use of Kurdish warriors who are doing a lot of fighting on the ground vs ISIL. Let that be a good example. There are always going to be people who do not like to see the war ended.

You mentioned all these other groups but when you remove their common enemy, you also remove some ground for (counter) terrorism. Who knows people turn into civilians again. I am sure there are some examples where that happened.
 
I can see that we won't find common ground on this.

Forostar said:
You mentioned all these other groups but when you remove their common enemy, you also remove some ground for (counter) terrorism.
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Or you will remove the single common ground they had and can watch how they turn on each other. It's happened before in Afghanistan after the Soviets left, in Somalia after Barre was ousted, in the Congo after Mobutu was overthrown, in Iraq after Saddam was executed, and in Libya after Gadaffi was killed.

I can tell you that I do not trust Trump, a man who advocated killing civilians and using torture in the past, one bit and think that allowing this person to command someone firing even one shot is testament to the limitlessness of human stupidity.
 
We'll see about that.
Perun said:
I do not agree that this is Rex Tillerson's business. I do not agree that the US has any business here if what they are doing is using Syria as a battlefield for a proxy war against Russia. I do not agree that the Trump administration should be applauded for this, and I am frankly deeply disturbed by the fact that it is finding approval for this from people who otherwise like to say they're huge critics of Trump's. He is playing a game with you. He is trying to get your approval on something, he wants to hear from everybody on some issue that he is the right man for the job. This is where it would be appropriate to compare it to the rise of Hitler. This is exactly what Hitler did - draw everyone in on something.
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Then what if I say this.

I hope Russia will abandon its support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad because actions such as last week's chemical attack have stripped him of all legitimacy.

I hope that the Russian government concludes that they have aligned themselves with an unreliable partner in (Syrian President) Bashar Al-Assad.

Do you agree with me?

What would you like to see Russia do?

They bombed the shit out East Aleppo. Yes, that was cruel. That was outright evil.
I was the only one here who showed his disgust about it. I can't believe that some out here are more concerned with legality of this minor US response. I am really doubting about what you guys really hope for. How can you have hope if you leave Assad and Putin having their ways.
 
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Forostar said:
We'll see about that.

Then what if I say this.

I hope Russia will abandon its support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad because actions such as last week's chemical attack have stripped him of all legitimacy.

I hope that the Russian government concludes that they have aligned themselves with an unreliable partner in (Syrian President) Bashar Al-Assad.

Do you agree with me?
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I don't know how things would develop without Assad. See my post above on examples in which countries collapsed after their heinous dictators were gone.
 
Shall we get rid of NATO?

Shall we get rid of the U.N.?

Shall we get rid of all our armies, and everything will be alright in the world?

The idea of no meddling at all in any other sovereign nation, despite any circumstances, how long can that stand? How many more victims? How many more refugees?

What is worth living, when everything is tolerated.
 
It's useless to have a discussion when the emotions flare up this much, so I'm not going to continue it for now. Calm down, have a cup of tea and a good night's sleep, and we'll try to get back to rationality tomorrow.
 
LooseCannon said:
Putin must be having some serious buyer's remorse right now.
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I can't help but wonder if the Trump Administration's decision to bomb Syria would have been different absent a pending investigation into Russian meddling in his election, or absent accusations that Trump or his staff may have had improper contacts with Russian officials during the campaign. I, for one, don't think so. The prevailing view among my (primarily liberal, for what that's worth) friends is that the U.S.'s response was reasonable -- maybe even the bare minimum of what Trump should or would have been expected to do. If Putin/Assad thought Trump would do nothing in response, they definitely miscalculated. Trump's foreign policy is becoming fairly predictable: he will respond to crises or provocations in ways that he thinks will make him appear strong, or at least not weak.
 
I don't know if the Russia scandal influenced the decision at all, but they will definitely use it as supposed evidence that nothing happened.
 
What are your thoughts on the US sending ships to North Korea as well as China sending 150,000 troops to the border? I feel this is a good move since we definitely need to try and send a message to Kim. Also, I think it's a good thing that China is backing us up on this considering it was a concern of how they would react if we were to attack NK.
 
Good. The CBG is strong enough to take down ICBMs in initial phase and use air groups to retaliate against infrastructure. 150k soldiers on the Chinese border should be a guarantee for S.Korea, Kim can't entrench million soldiers on the other side of the DMZ if the other land border isn't secure.
 
The DEFCON Warning System has changed the DEFCON level to 4. Go here for the details and reasons for the change: http://defconwarningsystem.com/2017/04/12/defcon-warning-system-update-41117/

The DEFCON Warning System is a private intelligence organization which has monitored and assessed nuclear threats against the United States by national entities for over 33 years. It is not affiliated with any government agency and does not represent the alert status of any military branch. The public should make their own evaluations and not rely on the DEFCON Warning System for any strategic planning. At all times, citizens are urged to learn what steps to take in the event of a nuclear attack.
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Re: Syria. I'll say this, getting into a proxy war with the Russia ... or at least any more than we have been for the last several years there is not something we should do.

If the strike was "no gas weapons and this is what happens when you use them" ... I am fine with that. For various reasons, many that do not make sense and some that do, killing people with gas is worse than killing them with munitions in the international community ... that seems to be a line most countries draw.

But, if the goal is to destabilize and weaken Russia, which has traditionally been a good goal with leaders from the Tsars, Lenin, Stalin, et al though now Putin ... the way to do it is economically , and the way to do that is lower energy prices and the US exporting natural gas to markets Russia has a corner on. Russia has a crap economy, it always has and it is and always has been based on a ton of people and natural resources and right now, most of their eggs are in the petrochemical basket.

Articles like this show what we need to do

http://uk.reuters.com/article/usa-lng-pipelines-idUKL1N1HK1DT

Spoiler alert .. LNG ports.
 
Why is nobody mentioning the fact that Trump used an interview on his command to launch the missiles on Syria as an opportunity to plug the chocolate cake at his privately owned resort?
 
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