Israel

[jimboston]

jim is the poster child for US propaganda being way more effective than Russian or Chinese propaganda.

I don’t deny US engages in “propaganda” to initiate/ influence the youth.
Every country does.

I would actually argue that US “propaganda” WAS pretty solid and effective until the 60’s when it started to fail, and that in the 90’s or 2000’s it completely broke down. Nowadays the message is ineffective and schizophrenic.

[jimboston]

We can’t turn back the clock… so the only option now is to show power and not pussy-foot around.

No, that's not the only option. We always have the option to simply disengage, withdraw, and ignore.

There has only been one politically-motivated attack by an Arab or Persian national on U.S. territory in the last 250 years that resulted in three or more fatalities (9/11) and the specific reasons given for that attack by the perpetrators were: (a) U.S. support for Israel, (b) U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, (c) U.S. sanctions on Iraq.

There's a reason they didn't attack Switzerland, Brazil, or Japan.

That’s potentially but unlikely to be correct.

They don’t hit Switzerland because they’re not an attractive target.

They don’t hit Japan because they could not ‘blend in’… whereas in the US we “open our dorms” to immigrants.

They don’t hit Brazil because half the time Brazil supports their causes in the UN.

Sure… they might not attack us on our soil so much… but they would attack our investments and people abroad. We have been saddled with being the “world’s police” and it is US Military Might that keeps International Commerce flowing.

The earliest attacks by Muslim nations on US assets were the Barbary “Pirates”… which were attacks, sanctioned by N. African Muslim nations, made against our ships on the open waters in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. These were unprovoked. We tried negotiating, we tried bribes, they only stopped when we sent Marines to ‘The Shores of Tripoli’.

Power.

Power stopped the attacks. Not negotiating. Not disengagement. Not bribes. Power.

[jimboston]

I mean seriously, the U.S.'s god-given talent at masterful over-reaction is one of our greatest strengths. From Japan, to Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan our wretched adversaries know that the price for screwing with us is the deliveryof mega-tons of whoop-ass.

If this were true they wouldn’t f*ck with us. The truth is we sometimes under-react, sometimes over-react… but most we just incorrectly react.

If we consistently over-reacted WITH DEVASTATING POWER we wouldn’t have to deal with these pissants.

That's why it makes me feel so sad to think that it is over 75 years since the U.S. droped any atomic/nuclear weapons in actual warfare. The pissant pittance of conventional warfare is looking more and more threadbare. Only the glorious of majesty of atomic nuclei fissioned and fused in the name of...of rightousness, can deliver America's tough-love message to the world.

Your humor fails. We don’t need or want to use nuclear weapons. If we have to spend the $$$ and blood to teach these animals a lesson we should (as was customary in war till the early 1900’s) claim compensation once they are defeated. It’s hard to claim territory or oil if it’s all irradiated. Our conventional munitions are fine. We just need to be smarter about how we use them, and more importantly smarter (and honest) about the goal. Which should be devastation and annexation. No more “nation building” BS.

[jimboston]

That's actually not true.

In the early days of WWII, with France dysfunctional and England's survival in doubt, Roosevelt and his mafia stooge Kennedy were sending U.S. agents to the Persian Gulf to undermine British client states there and replace them with OSS stooges, especially the freak Al-Saud and his Wasabi nutcases. The point was to position the U.S. as the new oil super-power, which essentially was accomplished. The unintended consequence was to destroy the cosmopolitan community of the Persian Gulf rulers (mostly sane, secular, Muslim-In-Name-Only rulers, allied to the Hasheamites {who were themselves 40% Christian and not particularly devout even among the 60% Muslim branches of the family}) and elevate the fundamentalist psychotics like Al-Saud.

While pretending to be England's best friend and waxing eloquent about Lend-Lease and the Arsenal of Democracy, you were busy stealing all the best eggs from the English basket.

The unintended consequence was to push the Arab world back into the Dark Ages.

The U.S.A. is the opposite of innocent when it comes to everything that has happened in the middle east since WWII.

1) The Middle East was fucked up by the British and French. The “soup” was already shit. Perhaps we could’ve taken different actions and either refused to play “chef” or moderated our interventions. We didn’t. Like most new ‘mangers’ we wanted to ‘make our mark’ and I’m sure a lot of these decisions were lead by industry with paid-off political support.

That said… even had we done nothing the Middle East would’ve still been a ducking mess post WW2.

2) “Pretending” to be England’s best friend? I’m sorry we had an Ocean between us and Germany and a population that was isolationist minded, and included a significant percentage of German born migrants. In fact in 1940 German born migrants were the second largest group of foreign born immigrants in the US.. second only to Italians.

The US saved England and France and frankly The entirety of Western Europe. I can’t say for sure we also saved Russia… but probably. Oh…don’t forget Australia and New Zealand. You all can whine about us “showing up late” or “taking advantage of the Post WW2 World”. Had we not shown up at all the Post WW2 World would look a list different for the Brits.

Alternate Reality Speculation…

You Canucks would’ve been fine… at least the ones that weren’t drafted to fight for the Brits. It’s likely, since the population of young men would’ve been greatly reduced due to the war, that many American men would’ve moved to Canada and taken up with Canadian lassies. Given that, Canucks would be more American-Minded than they are now… and highly possible that you’d have petitioned for acceptance into becoming the 51st-60th States.

Sure… it’s possible the Queen would’ve left England and try to take up rule and set up the Monarchy there. I personally don’t think Elizabeth would’ve done that… I think she would rather have died. That said, had she been convinced to do that I don’t think the population would support the Monarchy for long if the Monarchy wasn’t sitting in London.

It’s also possible Germany would be fine with England surrendering… and would’ve allowed the Monarchy to exist in a puppet realm. I don’t think Canada would remain a member of the Commonwealth under those conditions. I also don;t think US would stand for Germany trying to Annex Canada as part of some agreement with Germany.

Anyway… yeah… bitch more. The world is/was better off with our help and trying to minimize that help is very ungrateful in the least.

[bigtoughralf]

The US saved England and France and frankly The entirety of Western Europe. I can’t say for sure we also saved Russia…

Right. You can't, because the US didn't. Russia saved Russia, along with making the biggest contribution to liberating the rest of Europe.

The biggest contribution the US made was in the Pacific theatre, where tbf to the Yankee Doodles the US did go up the Japanese Devil Empire fairly alone given the Chinese had been largely squashed by the time the US got involved.

[saxitoxin]

They don’t hit Brazil because half the time Brazil supports their causes in the UN.

Yup.

USA: Kicks a hornet's nest. Gets stung. Kicks it harder next time. Gets stung harder. Kicks it even harder. Gets stung even harder. "Why do we keep getting stung?!" Kicks it again.

Brazil: Doesn't kick a hornet's nest. Doesn't get stung.

The US saved England and France and frankly The entirety of Western Europe.

The U.S. saved Britain and France from a problem it created.

If the U.S. had never got involved in WW1, there would have been a standstill and ceasefire in Europe, the Hohenzollern dynasty would have continued on the throne of Germany, Germany would have gone through the depression without crippling reparations piled on top of it, the Nazis would have never come to power, and there wouldn't be a WW2.

On a long enough timeline, the U.S. has lost every war it's been involved in. They've all resulted in bigger problems than the short-term benefits they've extracted (except the War with Mexico which was like winning the Showcase Showdown on the Price is Right).

[jusplay4fun]

They don’t hit Brazil because half the time Brazil supports their causes in the UN.

Yup.

USA: Kicks a hornet's nest. Gets stung. Kicks it harder next time. Gets stung harder. Kicks it even harder. Gets stung even harder. "Why do we keep getting stung?!" Kicks it again.

Brazil: Doesn't kick a hornet's nest. Doesn't get stung.

The US saved England and France and frankly The entirety of Western Europe.

The U.S. saved Britain and France from a problem it created.

This shows that saxi has a poor grasp of History, Europe has been engaged in warfare for a LONG time (2,000+ years, and likely much longer). These wars devastated Europe as numerous powers fought and/or aligned with other powers/nations. Take the Hundred Years War and the Franco-Prussia War as ONLY two such examples. The US did not create the European problem; Americans wanted to stay neutral and out of such wars and was very reluctant to enter BOTH WW1 and WW2. saxi needs to study the Wilson Presidency and the Lend-Lease Act to better understand such.

If the U.S. had never got involved in WW1, there would have been a standstill and ceasefire in Europe, the Hohenzollern dynasty would have continued on the throne of Germany, Germany would have gone through the depression without crippling reparations piled on top of it, the Nazis would have never come to power, and there wouldn't be a WW2.

On a long enough timeline, the U.S. has lost every war it's been involved in. They've all resulted in bigger problems than the short-term benefits they've extracted (except the War with Mexico which was like winning the Showcase Showdown on the Price is Right).

All this is mere speculation and is, in my view, a false narrative; saxi is good at such things.

We (the USA) did not defeat Germany, Italy, and Japan to rule them. We helped them become thriving nations with good economies and a democratically elected governments. I doubt saxi knows of the Marshall Plan, based on his wild ideas and poor grasp of History.

I think most of the nations viewed that they are BETTER off now after WW2 and after the US defeat of those nations. Look at the two (former) Germanies for more evidence of that.

[Votanic]

The U.S.A. is the opposite of innocent when it comes to everything that has happened in the middle east since WWII.

U.S.A. = Experienced Pro.

[Pack Rat]

The nation of Yemen pledged to take up the fight of the Palestinians and has officially declared war on Israel.

https://report.az/en/other-countries/ye ... on-israel/
https://odessa-journal.com/yemen-has-de ... -on-israel

Too funny! Yemen has it's own problem trying to care for it's own people.

"And apparently you have your own challenges distinguishing between "it's" and "its"."

Wow! Thanks Duk, being a spelling and grammar nazi is obvious your strength. We need more squirrel and tossing of shiny objects to side track these posts.

[Votanic]

Or maybe... Its owned people.
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/al-jazeera-world/2014/9/10/slavery-in-yemen

[Lonous]

Or maybe... Its owned people.
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/al-jazeera-world/2014/9/10/slavery-in-yemen

Probably a bad moment for the U.S. to try and take the moral high ground on that topic.

[jimboston]

The US saved England and France and frankly The entirety of Western Europe. I can’t say for sure we also saved Russia…

Right. You can't, because the US didn't. Russia saved Russia, along with making the biggest contribution to liberating the rest of Europe.

The biggest contribution the US made was in the Pacific theatre, where tbf to the Yankee Doodles the US did go up the Japanese Devil Empire fairly alone given the Chinese had been largely squashed by the time the US got involved.

IDK if Russia would’ve won had the US not…
a) supplied them
b) taken pressure off the Eastern Front by opening up other fronts

You don’t know this either. It is disputable and impossible to prove.

[jimboston]

The U.S. saved Britain and France from a problem it created.

If the U.S. had never got involved in WW1, there would have been a standstill and ceasefire in Europe, the Hohenzollern dynasty would have continued on the throne of Germany, Germany would have gone through the depression without crippling reparations piled on top of it, the Nazis would have never come to power, and there wouldn't be a WW2.

The US President Woodrow Wilson pushed for a Just Peace… England and France demanded extreme reparations.

[Dukasaur]

I started typing out a reply, to do a point-by-point refutation of j2p's post. Realized it involves hours of work that won't be rewarded in any way. Just not expending that much effort.

I'll just leave you with this quote:
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/04/06/lessons_from_the_tragedy_of_woodrow_wilsons_war_111118.html

The Aftermath of the War and Lessons Learned

President Wilson, having obtained his victory, thus also his seat at the Versailles conference, sought to pursue a peace grounded in a 14-point proposal that he hoped would form the basis for permanent international tranquility monitored through the League of Nations. But the American people quickly turned inward, rejected American participation in the League, and pulled out of Europe.

Meanwhile, the terms of the Versailles agreements were unduly harsh toward the loser countries, and the great British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted in his 1919 book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, that as a result, the war would resume in 20 years. In this, he was precisely correct, as Versailles set forth reparations amounts that the vanquished could never repay (and hence were eventually repudiated in any case), but they were harsh enough into the 1920s to ensure political and civil instability in Germany – that ushered in Hitler.

The participation in the war caused economic gyrations in the United States, too. First and foremost, 135,000 Americans died, and around 200,000 were wounded or maimed (more than half the war-dead died due to various sicknesses, including deadly influenza that swept the world in 1918-19 – Spanish Flu also claimed 500,000 lives inside the U.S.). Thanks to the exigencies of wartime finance and production, the U.S. economy experienced a jump in debt, inflation, and monetary gyrations, and then a punishing post-war recession in 1920-21 that saw unemployment quadruple to 12%, briefly, amidst much human suffering. Wartime regulatory oversight and taxes were challenging for American business, and only when deregulation and the Mellon tax cuts came under President Coolidge did the U.S. economy fully recover a vibrancy stolen in the post-war correction.

When seen especially against the outsized global panorama that was World War II, the First World War has receded in Americans’ collective memory; it is little-studied and even less-discussed. But in the fullness of time, armed with full information of subsequent history, analysts have begun to ask the ultimately uncomfortable questions: beyond the biggest one of why the war was fought at all, the late entry of the great power an ocean away in 1917 is also the subject of honest inquiry. Why did America go to war, and what was accomplished? In any analysis of costs and benefits of American intervention in a European war, was it the right decision?

Here, the answer is now clear: morally, strategically, and financially, the American entry was a disaster. The American effort clearly failed vis-à-vis President Wilson’s own stated war aim: ensuring the spread of democracy and an end to all wars. But the answer and the insights it confers goes deeper than this. While we cannot ever prove a counterfactual assertion, it is safe to say that had America not intervened; the belligerent nations would have likely fought to some draw and negotiated a truce, accepting a status quo according to the position of opposing armies in 1918. The German government would have remained in place and indeed captured additional French and Belgian territory, which is not a major development of import and certainly no threat. A stable German government and society would have meant a faster economic recovery and likely the forestalling of the Nazi regime 13 years later. It is likely Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and others would have recovered faster, too.

There still might well have been an aggressive Communist regime in place in Moscow, menacing western Europe, but here a coalition led by the natural Anglo-German alliance could have bolstered the collective defense. The Baltic states might never have suffered as they did. Moreover, who knows, perhaps across decades, had there been no kinetic war against the Soviet Union, perhaps the absence of American troops would have made the Soviets less paranoid, more accommodating, and more prone to open trade that in time would have liberalized them faster.

The lesson is clear, and similar to one that other wars would teach the American people if only they could be in an open-minded mode, and ready to see plainly what is before them: the secondary and unforeseen consequences attendant with any military or naval project thousands of miles away, done for no clear strategic aim, and/or involving no discernible existential threat, and/or done solely for the benefit of narrow special interests (that might include the “military-industrial-congressional complex,” to use President Eisenhower’s full appellation for the web of Beltway special interests who profit from American wars and might inexorably draw Americans into a war overseas, even if subconsciously), will likely be too untoward to ever suggest pursuit of such projects.

The uncomfortable truth about World War I from an American perspective is that it made absolutely no difference to most all Americans who won the war, short or long term. Had the flag of the Imperial German Reich eventually flown over Paris in 1920, it would have mattered little to most all of us. But it would have mattered a great deal to certain interests, primarily in Washington or New York, at the time. The bankers, industrialists, and power-seeking politicians all had their reasons to want American entry into the war, but of course, no American citizen will ever support the sending of our forces into battle for the sake of corporate profits. So, a fancier and loftier and more sublime war aim was developed by the great manipulator of public opinion, Woodrow Wilson: “Make the world safe for democracy.”

We have seen this political legerdemain several times in American history, before and since. Why did America fight the Spanish in 1898, especially since it is highly dubious that they had anything to do with the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine? Why did America fight in Vietnam? Especially since Communism collapsed 16 years later anyway. Why did America go to war in the Middle East in 1991 on behalf of two Arab dictatorships who were then being menaced by a third? And, similar to the flow of events following World War I, what if America had not fought in 1991: there’d have been no 1991-2003 No Fly Zone War that killed 500,000 Iraqi women and children, or stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia, that enraged Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda. Again, while not provable, it is at least quite possible that American intervention in Iraq in 1991 begat 9/11/2001, which in turn begat wars in the Muslim world in 2001 and 2003 – that continue to rage today.

It is imperative that in a dangerous world the United States possess an impregnable national defense, replete with a powerful quick-strike and mobile army, a navy sustained by carrier-borne air power and a global sub fleet, Force Recon Marines, and their lethality, and a modern air force able to project power globally within hours. All well and good. But based on our considerable history, and the primordial lesson unveiled beginning 100 years ago today, will we ever learn to be more circumspect in our deployment of combat power? Will we learn both the wisdom and humility of mission-capable defense that is second to none, but to be careful in attacking others for no good reason?

[Votanic]

Nevermind 'Too Long, Didn't Read' (TLDR).
We have now reached the age of 'Too Long, Didn't Write' (TLDW).

Thank you Dukasaur (and ChatGPT) for making it all possible.

[Dukasaur]

Nevermind 'Too Long, Didn't Read' (TLDR).
We have now reached the age of 'Too Long, Didn't Write' (TLDW).

Thank you Dukasaur (and ChatGPT) for making it all possible.

I had no trouble reading the article in a few minutes. And not just the part I quoted.

Maybe you need to do some yoga to calm the mind.

[Pack Rat]

Nevermind 'Too Long, Didn't Read' (TLDR).
We have now reached the age of 'Too Long, Didn't Write' (TLDW).

Thank you Dukasaur (and ChatGPT) for making it all possible.

I had no trouble reading the article in a few minutes. And not just the part I quoted.

Maybe you need to do some yoga to calm the mind.

Someone needs a nap.

[Votanic]

Nevermind 'Too Long, Didn't Read' (TLDR).
We have now reached the age of 'Too Long, Didn't Write' (TLDW).

Thank you Dukasaur (and ChatGPT) for making it all possible.

I had no trouble reading the article in a few minutes. And not just the part I quoted.

Maybe you need to do some yoga to calm the mind.

You read it? ...then why re-post it? Especially when it contains so many erroneous straw-men arguments. For examples:

Why did America fight the Spanish in 1898, especially since it is highly dubious that they had anything to do with the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine?
Because the Spanish-American War was NOT dependent on the sinking of the Maine, regardless of actual cause.

Why did America fight in Vietnam? Especially since Communism collapsed 16 years later anyway.
Even if that did matter, how would we have known sixteen years earlier? ...Crystal ball? ....Time machine?

Why did America go to war in the Middle East in 1991 on behalf of two Arab dictatorships who were then being menaced by a third?
You mean the other reasons besides just insuring that the world's oil supply wasn't disrupted... or rather, wasn't disrupted worse than it was.

P.S. I can only assume that Duk is the nap-needer.

[saxitoxin]

The U.S. saved Britain and France from a problem it created.

If the U.S. had never got involved in WW1, there would have been a standstill and ceasefire in Europe, the Hohenzollern dynasty would have continued on the throne of Germany, Germany would have gone through the depression without crippling reparations piled on top of it, the Nazis would have never come to power, and there wouldn't be a WW2.

The US President Woodrow Wilson pushed for a Just Peace… England and France demanded extreme reparations.

If you give a child a gun and it shoots someone, who is to blame: you or the child?

People less bloodthirsty and less motivated by an experimental theory than Wilson knew what was about to happen.

William Howard Taft: "No nation ever suffered but from a war of its own making. A war of nations, a war of peace and the protection of small nations—these are new catchwords. They have not been tried before, and we cannot be sure of what the result will be."

[Votanic]

You cleverly side-tracked me into an investigation of the etymology of 'catchword'.

catchword (n.)
1730, "the first word of the following page inserted at the lower right-hand corner of each page of a book," as a guide to the binders, from catch (v.) + word (n.); extended to "word caught up and repeated" (especially in the political sense) by 1795. The thing in the literal sense is extinct; the figurative sense thrives.

Okay, that's all, back to the bungling of history and politics.

[bigtoughralf]

If you give a child a gun and it shoots someone, who is to blame: you or the child?

By the age of 9 Tutankhamun was already ruling over ancient Egypt.

[Votanic]

If you give a child a gun and it shoots someone, who is to blame: you or the child?

By the age of 9 Tutankhamun was already ruling over ancient Egypt.

Tut was more F'ed-up than we ever imagined.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/100216-king-tut-malaria-bones-inbred-tutankhamun
Doubtlessly the Middle East is still paying today for the wretched legacy of this diseased child-tyrant.

[jimboston]

If you give a child a gun and it shoots someone, who is to blame: you or the child?

So Europe is a bunch of Children and the US is the Adult?

I agree.

[jusplay4fun]

September 13, 22 Home

I quake at the sight; my mighty nation has fallen into ruin. The collapse of this nation* under the current administration has caused the weakening of the world and the onslaught of evil into the world. I beg my children to pray for the upcoming elections. Pray for the right people to be put into office by the people of this nation, not those who seek power and control for evil’s ways. Go therefore and know who you put in office, vote for this country and its people not for some hidden agenda. Seek my ways and not man’s ways says the Lord God.

Go.

* U.S.A

This sounds too much like Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) to me. At one time Scripture refers to “my nation” as Israel.