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 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


In many respects, the USA has little to fear from a war or limited conflict with China as things stand. Due to geographical proximity and the high number of US bases and allies in the region, the USA can hurt China more than China can hurt the USA. US carrier fleets could lay waste to Chinese coastal cities. Chinese carrier fleets (and I'm aware they have none) could not do the same to Los Angeles or San Francisco.

I'm not pushing for a pillow fight, never mind a war, but any US president, be they FDR, be they Trump, has to protect the nation first and foremost...

Even if doing so burns a good part of South Korea and Japan to the ground? Because China and NK may not be able to hurt the US militarily, but they can certainly inflict a lot of damage on our regional allies.

I know it isn't fashionable among Trump supporters to consider America's allies, but if we don't think of how our actions can negatively impact them, we may find we don't have them any more when we need them most.

Well... confirmed that McConnell scheduled some nukage on Thursday...

Well done folks.


...

Also... looks like there were a WMD attack in Syria:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/04/middleeast/idlib-syria-attack/index.html

Geezo!

He wanted to nuke as soon as he could, so it's no surprise to anyone. Since the filibuster was already gone, the democrats might as well make a public spectacle of it.

 whembly wrote:


Also... looks like there were a WMD attack in Syria:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/04/middleeast/idlib-syria-attack/index.html

fething monsters.

At least 70 people, including at least 10 children, have been killed in what is suspected to be one of the deadliest chemical attacks in Syria in years, activist groups say.
Airstrikes hit the rebel-held city of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province on Tuesday morning, giving off a "poisonous gas," according to Anas al-Diab, an activist with the Aleppo Media Center.

The White House already said his was Obama's fault, and I am sure any second we will have a comprehensive plan on how to deal with the issue. I'm guessing Trump is briefing the generals on his plans as we speak.

Switching to North Korea for a sec, TBH if Trump decided to act on NK that would be the right move. The failure to contain them is one of the biggest foreign policy blunders of previous administrations - there is only so long you can allow a nation to threaten nuclear war against you while developing the means to do so without a response.


So far as Syria, it's terrible but I'm not sure why a few dozen people killed with gas is worse than a half a million killed with bullets and explosions.

 Ouze wrote:
Switching to North Korea for a sec, TBH if Trump decided to act on NK that would be the right move. The failure to contain them is one of the biggest foreign policy blunders of previous administrations - there is only so long you can allow a nation to threaten nuclear war against you while developing the means to do so without a response.

IMHO, a mark of someone who knows what they are doing would mean we could deal with NK and keep China out, or at least, get them to agree with us/our aims.

I agree. I think it's impossible to get anything done without China, though - but who knows. Maybe we can work something out with them.

 d-usa wrote:
The White House already said his was Obama's fault, and I am sure any second we will have a comprehensive plan on how to deal with the issue. I'm guessing Trump is briefing the generals on his plans as we speak.

The White House said this is a consequence of Obama's weakness. It is assigning blame to Obama but it's hardly outright saying "this was his fault." I think a reasonable argument could be made that Obama did not act effectively to prevent this, so there is a grain of Truth to the White House's sentiment. It's still a false statement but I feel it's important at this point to distinguish what is false due to bias, and what is just a straight-out lie (like the wiretapping). Or in other words, they stated a falsehood but it was more of a par-for-the-course level of political BS rather than a uniquely Trump one.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Switching to North Korea for a sec, TBH if Trump decided to act on NK that would be the right move. The failure to contain them is one of the biggest foreign policy blunders of previous administrations - there is only so long you can allow a nation to threaten nuclear war against you while developing the means to do so without a response.

IMHO, a mark of someone who knows what they are doing would mean we could deal with NK and keep China out, or at least, get them to agree with us/our aims.

It's certainly a mess, and I don't even pretend to have an idea on how to deal with NK.

Any solution driven by economics seems pointless without China, because they can just supply resources to NK as they please. And an economic solution with China on board also seems pointless, because NK seems to beat even WW2 Level Russia on the "I don't give a feth if my population dies, bring it bitches" meter.

Any military strike has the very real potential of unleashing hell on South Korea, and I don't think we could take out anything fast enough to stop that. And a flat out war, without China on board, could easily become Iraq III - East Asia Edition. Even with China on board it would still be a lot of lives lost and a humanitarian disaster.

So what do we do?

 Ouze wrote:
I agree. I think it's impossible to get anything done without China, though - but who knows. Maybe we can work something out with them.

Pretty much anything that is going to happen, to be successful, has to have the full cooperation of both China and RoK. Even if DPRK willingly laid down their arms, you will still need both for communication and to make sure effort goes to the right places. Especially if you consider having to secure their nuclear devices and other WMDs. And China would definitely have a duty to help deal with the massive humanitarian crisis that DPRK is without a war, much less with one, considering the are a large part of why it exists.

 Frazzled wrote:
A nice deal would be Gorsuch now and when one of the liberal justices retire then El Pres and Senate leaders quietly agree to nominate a moderate replacement at that time that would be amenable to moderate Democrats.

So your idea of a deal is that a strict constructionist should be replaced by a strict constructionist, and later on a liberal just should be replaced my a moderate.

And people wonder why dealmaking is dead in Washington.

Obama shouldn't have nominated Garland to replace Scalia.

You are right that a Democratic president and a Republican senate would necessitate a centrist nominee. You are absolutely, completely wrong in thinking that Garland was not that centrist nominee.

Having said that, Trump was elected to maintain a 5-4 conservative vote. If he didn't nominate a decently hard core candidate to replace Scalia he would have been run out of town on a rail.

Trump was also nominated to drain the swamp and take the special interests out of Washington, to repeal ACA and bring in a new healthcare system that gives better coverage to more people for less money, to bring back coal jobs, to put up protectionist walls, and defeat ISIS. He hasn't been run on a rail for any of those things. Actually assessing Trump as he really is, for the promises he's failed to keep and the promises he made that no-one could ever keep... well that would require a healthier, more honest Republican party than the one you have.


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 Frazzled wrote:
Your opinions are based on a partisan perspective. To those of us who aren't partisans, both sides are equally at fault for this mudbath.

The centrist myth, that you can just splash blame across everyone whether they did anything wrong or not, is one of the persistant myths of US politics, and one that gives permission to bad acts because somehow blame gets spread to everyone, not just the people who did the wrong thing.

It's a particularly ridiculous claim when it comes from a conservative who makes a show of claiming impartiality because Republicans don't happen to be the exact kind of conservatives he'd most like them to be.

If the Democrats fight this they will lose. Then the Republicans will run serious hardcores. Then the Democrats will run serious hardcores when they are in power.

This argument basically amounts to 'okay, we hit you, but don't hit us back because if you do then we'll keep hitting, and then you'll keep hitting, and we'll both keep hitting forever.' It's an utterly broken argument, because it places responsibility for ending the violence on the side that got hit.


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 Frazzled wrote:
That was a thumb in the eye by Obama considering nominations by Sotamayor etc went without difficulty.

Sotamayor and Kagan were both appointed when Democrats had a filibuster proof majority in the senate. The argument that Republicans didn't fight those nominations out of good will is a bit silly.

So the House is holding talks about the AHCA again, and it sounds like coverage for preexisting conditions may be on the chopping block.

Two things:

Have they identified the chemical weapon used in the attack yet? It might go strides towards identifying a guilty party.


And:


In Indiana we have a pizza chain called Pizza King. It is hands down the best pizza I've had in three different quadrispheres. That seems right. Or would it be quadraspheres? Whatever, it's ridiculously good pizza

 Ouze wrote:
Switching to North Korea for a sec, TBH if Trump decided to act on NK that would be the right move. The failure to contain them is one of the biggest foreign policy blunders of previous administrations - there is only so long you can allow a nation to threaten nuclear war against you while developing the means to do so without a response.

I don't think we should ignore NK either. I just don't think a first strike is going to end well for anyone who happens to live in that neighborhood. Now, if we got China to finally wake up and see that NK was as much an albatross around their neck as it was a legitimate threat to our allies, we might be able to get some action on the matter. We can't do anything about NK without China working with us in some capacity. Either they take an active role (I dunno... taking over the reigns of NK government and absorbing it as some kind of probationary province, maybe?) or they take a deliberately passive role (ie; they agree to stand out of the way while we deal with NK militarily... but I don't see that realistically happening). But any solution to the threat NK poses to the region only comes with China's help.

 d-usa wrote:
The White House already said his was Obama's fault, and I am sure any second we will have a comprehensive plan on how to deal with the issue. I'm guessing Trump is briefing the generals on his plans as we speak.

I hope there's a plan to deal with this.

Oh... and for crying out loud Trump... it wasn't a good look when Obama blamed Bush for things... just as it isn't a good look when Trump blames Obama for things.

You won. You're the President. Step up.

<grumble grumble>


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 Ouze wrote:
Switching to North Korea for a sec, TBH if Trump decided to act on NK that would be the right move. The failure to contain them is one of the biggest foreign policy blunders of previous administrations - there is only so long you can allow a nation to threaten nuclear war against you while developing the means to do so without a response.

O.o

Dude... going to war in NK is going to be fugly... like, 100x worst than both Gulf Wars combined.

Only way to mitigate this is maybe, MAYBE, have the special ops go on a decapitating mission to take out the leaderships...


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 Ouze wrote:
I agree. I think it's impossible to get anything done without China, though - but who knows. Maybe we can work something out with them.

I think China would be willing to let the "West" take out NK... and then only to sweep in afterwards with humanitarian aids and influence.


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 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The White House already said his was Obama's fault, and I am sure any second we will have a comprehensive plan on how to deal with the issue. I'm guessing Trump is briefing the generals on his plans as we speak.

The White House said this is a consequence of Obama's weakness. It is assigning blame to Obama but it's hardly outright saying "this was his fault." I think a reasonable argument could be made that Obama did not act effectively to prevent this, so there is a grain of Truth to the White House's sentiment. It's still a false statement but I feel it's important at this point to distinguish what is false due to bias, and what is just a straight-out lie (like the wiretapping). Or in other words, they stated a falsehood but it was more of a par-for-the-course level of political BS rather than a uniquely Trump one.

...eh... Obama made a deal with Russia for them to "handle" the Chemical weapons in Syrian.

Right now, the egg is on Russia's face moreso than Obama's. Even though, playing 20-20 Obama should've handled this differently.

 whembly wrote:
Now that's some serious sky-is-falling fearmongering Seb.

No, it isn't. fething read, please. What I did was give examples of countries with truly broken government practices, to show that your claim that people in politics in the US just do as they please with no regard for accepted standards of governance was completely wrong.

My comment was actually 'your claim that the sky hasn't fallen is wrong, but if you keep pretending it has you might just end up dragging it down'.

I actually wrote out a larger answer to all this, and have now deleted it. A few posters have made some good points about filling up this thread with this same nonsense again.

 feeder wrote:
If Cali doesn't want to cooperate with the feds regarding immigration then there isn't a whole lot the feds can do, apart from withholding funds. (Isn't Cali a "give" state rather than "take" when it comes to the flow of money?)

California is a give state, however that doesn't really change the fiscal Sword of Damocles the federal government wields. Because the Fed can withhold lots of funding, while still collecting all that revenue.


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 Frazzled wrote:
But do not trouble thineself. That would require a President with Iron. Trump fashions himself Putin but is far more like Alfred E Newman. A lot of tweets, maybe some minor federal spending holdbacks. They are not going to go full Genghis Connie on Cali.

Yep. Look at Trump's rage and fury against the Freedom Caucus for stopping his healthcare bill even leaving the House. In response Trump punished them... by letting them write their own healthcare bill with Trump's support.


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 NinthMusketeer wrote:
The feds are limited in what they can do to California because of the state's economic clout, not to mention a sizeable portion of the overall population. Sending Cali, a net contributor of federal funds, to a grinding halt would have tremendous negative impact on the nation as a whole. Added to the fact that Californians are overwhelmingly against Trump and it just becomes a bad move to take a heavy-handed approach.

It's more that Republicans still fashion themselves as protectors of state's rights. They ignore those values all the time, but not so much that the whole party would engage in open fiscal punishment of a state that chose not to act as the federal government commanded. That kind of thing is going to play really badly with large parts of the Republican base. It'd be starting up an internal dispute in a party that's already full of them. It'd be disastrous politics.

Not saying it won't happen, because we're talking about Trump here, but I'd put it down as very unlikely, even for him.

More likely is the threat of penalty, and maybe some single security related funding blocks that Cali would miss out on. Then a few years from now, maybe under Trump, maybe under some other president, everyone will make nice by California agreeing to do some things, but not some others.


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 whembly wrote:

he thing to bear in mind is that the White House does not do investigations. Not criminal investigations, not intelligence investigations. Remember that. Why is that so important in the context of explosive revelations that Susan Rice, President Obama’s national-security adviser, confidant, and chief dissembler, called for the “unmasking” of Trump campaign and transition officials whose identities and communications were captured in the collection of U.S. intelligence on foreign targets?

Yes, why would the National Security Advisor need to know the names of Americans who were talking to Russian officials, or possibly were mentioned in conversations between Russian officials? What an outrageous breach of the office of National Security Advisor to establish which Americans politicians and future goverment officials were in contact with the Russia government, or being discussed by Russian government officials.

To summarize: At a high level, officials like Susan Rice had names unmasked that would not ordinarily be unmasked. That information was then being pushed widely throughout the intelligence community in unmasked form . . . particularly after Obama, toward the end of his presidency, suddenly — and seemingly apropos of nothing — changed the rules so that all of the intelligence agencies (not just the collecting agencies) could have access to raw intelligence information. As we know, the community of intelligence agencies leaks like a sieve, and the more access there is to juicy information, the more leaks there are.

And this is where, to put it in direct terms, the Republicans are just plain fething lying. Unmasking is a routine thing. Imagine how fething bizarre it would be if a Russian government official was recorded talking to a US government official, and let's say giving out state secrets, and no-one ever established the identity of the US official and acted to prevent the crime.

This whole thing remains a cheap con. First it is a con to put some kind of cover on Trump's absurd claim about being wiretapped during the campaign (for those still bothering to keep score, this wasn't a wiretap, it wasn't of Trump or his staff, and it happened after the campaign). Second it is a con to distract from the real issue of connections between Trump officials and Russian officials, an attempt to scream nonsense loud enough that people get distracted from the connections Russian officials had with Trump staff.

 sebster wrote:

said stuff...

 whembly wrote:

said stuff back...

EDIT: deleted it as Seb deleted some stuff. We're at an impasse.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Frazzled doesn't take the discussion very seriously be he is consistent with that. I find his point of view interesting and worth responding to even if I disagree. He tends not to tangent into outright silliness until someone makes a hyperbolic statement like accusing Texas of trying to drag us back to the middle ages.

Nah, fraz switches from serious in to goofy all the time, and it's rarely because of hyperbole on the other side. Normally it just happens when his argument falls apart, or leads him in to defending something he realises he doesnt' want to defend. Rather than admit error, he starts talking about wiener dogs and tex mex.


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 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The White House already said his was Obama's fault, and I am sure any second we will have a comprehensive plan on how to deal with the issue. I'm guessing Trump is briefing the generals on his plans as we speak.

The White House said this is a consequence of Obama's weakness. It is assigning blame to Obama but it's hardly outright saying "this was his fault." I think a reasonable argument could be made that Obama did not act effectively to prevent this, so there is a grain of Truth to the White House's sentiment. It's still a false statement but I feel it's important at this point to distinguish what is false due to bias, and what is just a straight-out lie (like the wiretapping). Or in other words, they stated a falsehood but it was more of a par-for-the-course level of political BS rather than a uniquely Trump one.

It's certainly true that under Obama the issue of North Korea was allowed to drift. What's missing is that under Bush the issue was allowed to drift (Bush even backed out of a a previous agreement to provide non-nuclear power). Before that, under Clinton, there was the deal made as mentioned above, but the deal was far from permanent or conclusive, it really just kicked the issue down the road.

The reality is that despite his bluster, there is no good option on North Korea. Between a range of horrible options with big problems, people choose to kick the issue down the road. Trump is having a crack at the issue because he's assumed that it is simple and just requires bravado, just as he's done with everything else so far. Like everything else, Trump will soon learn it's actually very complicated and has a lot of real world consequences. He'll back off soon as he realises that. And so the issue will be left to linger once again.

Sebster: I think you're mingling issues. Ninth (and Spicer) was responding to Syria, and I made an abrupt segue to NK.

 whembly wrote:
The arcane Senate rules is whatever standard they wish it to be.

The point was never just about senate rules. It was about the concept of governance, and whether a person in an elected position is doing enough merely by fulfilling constitutional and legal obligations, or if there are greater obligations established by culture and history.

The point being that it is the latter, and if you want to see what happens when you dismiss the latter, go read about governance in Azerbaijan or one of dozens of other countries that are nominally democratic, but are actually just kleptocracies.

No, it's your opinion. Doesn't make it reality.

Sure, my opinion isn't reality, but it is based in reality. In contrast, what you did in your response to me, by not actually finding any point of disagreement but just broadly saying 'I disagree with your premise', was an act of rejecting reality in favour of what you would like to believe.

Anyhow, we've been back and forth on this so many times. I deleted my earlier response, just not before you responded


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 Ouze wrote:
Sebster: I think you're mingling issues. Ninth (and Spicer) was responding to Syria, and I made an abrupt segue to NK.

Ah, I see. My mistake. Still, ignore the bit about what Spicer is blaming on Obama, and I think it otherwise holds. Trump thinks you can just 'solve' North Korea, probably with yet more bluffs. He'll soon realise the issue is really complex and with no good solutions, and he'll back off.

I am not sure anything can be done about North Korea.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I am not sure anything can be done about North Korea.

Well, lots can be done. Its just a question of is it worth it? As long as NK does nothing more than blow hot air, nothing will likely be done, and North Korea will continue to carry on as they do now at least for the foreseeable future.

But there are a lot of things that could happen to topple this status quo and result in an explosive situation. At which point we'd probably see NK get invaded and occupied, and unlike the Korean War China would probably not do anything since at this point NK is a liability to them and they couldn't afford armed conflict with the US.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I am not sure anything can be done about North Korea.

Short of some sort of decapiation strike against NK's leadership... I don't see it either.

 whembly wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I am not sure anything can be done about North Korea.

Short of some sort of decapiation strike against NK's leadership... I don't see it either.

Not sure that would be a good idea. The problem is the lower on the chain of command you get in North Korea, the more indoctrinated they become. You might end up with some Kim worshipping nut taking over in NK, and looking for vengeance for his fallen leader.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I am not sure anything can be done about North Korea.

Short of some sort of decapiation strike against NK's leadership... I don't see it either.

Not sure that would be a good idea. The problem is the lower on the chain of command you get in North Korea, the more indoctrinated they become. You might end up with some Kim worshipping nut taking over in NK, and looking for vengeance for his fallen leader.

Probably so...

I'm just trying to spit ball on a toy wargaming forum to avoid thinking up scenarios where we go to War. This is going to be like the 2nd Gulf War... only 100x worst (especially as how vulnerable SK and Japan will be).

Only real way you'd really want to take out North Korea would be to do a similar thing that happened with Panama. Total and overwhelming surprise. Simultaneous strikes to neutralize all their nukes, while also destroying their artillery capable of attacking South Korea's population centers, while also simultaneously taking out their chain of command. Maybe try and take Kim alive to avoid him becoming a martyr. And even then, we'd still probably be looking at a lot of casualties in South Korean cities from shelling.

That's if you are preemptively striking them. Otherwise, we're talking hundreds of thousands of people dead within the first few days.

 d-usa wrote:
So the House is holding talks about the AHCA again, and it sounds like coverage for preexisting conditions may be on the chopping block.

It would never pass the Senate if they started gutting things like that. The last debacle proves quite clearly, that there needs to be a bipartisan solution. Anything that the Freedom Caucasus approves of, would likely never pass the Senate because it is going to be to extreme. They need to find a solution that both the Dems and the moderate republicans agree on, since the teabaggers want to take all of the good things in the ACA. Sadly, to the detriment of America I don't foresee it happening.

This is Rex Tillerson's official response to the NK missile strike;


No, I don't get it either.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
At which point we'd probably see NK get invaded and occupied, and unlike the Korean War China would probably not do anything since at this point NK is a liability to them and they couldn't afford armed conflict with the US.

Yeah, that's not a thing. China 'doing nothing' isn't actually an option for them. They have a porous border with NK, and in the event of open war you'd see millions of refugees crossing that border. So they will at the very least be mobilising hundreds of thousands of troops to control the border situation.

On top of that you have China's growing commitment to regional dominance. The idea that China might just sit back while a nominal ally on their border is invaded and occupied is a non-starter.

This doesn't mean China must be oppose US invasion. If engaged early in the process and given the right assurances China could be left aside, or even made part of the process. But the US acting unilaterally and just hoping China will remain passive is madness.


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 Sasori wrote:
It would never pass the Senate if they started gutting things like that. The last debacle proves quite clearly, that there needs to be a bipartisan solution. Anything that the Freedom Caucasus approves of, would likely never pass the Senate because it is going to be to extreme.

There was a narrative going around after the AHCA debacle that it was all due to the Freedom Caucus rejecting it. But while they were the guys making the public rejection, the story behind the scenes is that many moderates in the House were waving, particularly over the loss of coverage for 24m people. At the end, as things were being offered up to the Freedom Caucus the maths was going the wrong way, each new offer cost more moderates than it gained in Freedom Caucus members.

They need to find a solution that both the Dems and the moderate republicans agree on, since the teabaggers want to take all of the good things in the ACA. Sadly, to the detriment of America I don't foresee it happening.

I'm not sure of the logic here. Democrats want an expanded ACA, if they don't get that then the status quo is good enough. Even the most moderate Republicans want a much reduced ACA, and most of them have made electoral promises to repeal it. What deal can be made between them?

I wonder if something as simple as giving half of NK to China and half to SK would work.