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 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
I had a history professor that wanted to teach WWI but students rarely signed up for it but classes on WWII always filled.

I've yet to attend a college with a WW1 course even on the books. One school had a single history professor, and his degree focus was on the Vietnam era. At my current school, none of the history faculty specialize in 20th century anything. (well, my advisor, aside from being Early Modern Europe, is the "history of technology" guy as well, so thats sorta 20th century)

Which is a damn shame because the history of WWI is fascinating and complex. I'm currently reading a book called The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War and it's fantastic if a little dense.

 Frazzled wrote:
Ah, I see we've returned to the usual "USA BAD!" spiel again. I almost miss the weekly "Guns bad!" and "Religion Bad!" threads.

Yeah stop hurting Frazzled's precious feeling by speaking of all the terrible things the USA did! Please be considerate and let him pretend the USA are a beacon of freedom and justi… ahah sorry this is too ridiculous I can't even!
Also religion is good and guns are a necessity but only in the USA.

Well, looks like we just launched 50 Tomahawk misses into Syria.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Well, looks like we just launched 50 Tomahawk misses into Syria.

But hey, at least it wasn't Hillary doing it right?

"Hillary will get us into a war, Trump is going to get us out of the middle east."

Welp, there we go again..

Lets radically change stances, and take unilateral military action in a place we have no real interest in and are not really wanted, within the space of a couple of weeks on a sadly yet amusingly familiar "WMD/Chemical weapons" justification. That's the ticket...we're geniuses...

 Vaktathi wrote:
Welp, there we go again..

Lets radically change stances, and take unilateral military action in a place we have no real interest in and are not really wanted, within the space of a couple of weeks on a sadly yet amusingly familiar "WMD/Chemical weapons" justification. That's the ticket...we're geniuses...

What I am about to say, I say not to defend Trump, but to illustrate politics at work.

My guess is, he's actually listening to the Joint Chiefs, McMaster, Mattis and that type of advisor for one thing. Another, yes, actual confirmed use of chemical weapons does change things for me. Finally, for those who are old enough, GW Bush ran in 1999 on a platform of "end the US being the global police" and was somewhat poised to follow through on that promise when 9/11 happened.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 sebster wrote:
There's stories going around that Trump's issue with Bannon is how Bannon has been portrayed as the real power in the Whitehouse. Trump was furious that Bannon was credited with setting the Whitehouse agenda, and apparently got angry that liberals were calling him President Bannon. It seems you can do anything in the Trump presidency but steal kudos away from the great orange one.

If this is true… then we should use that to manipulate Trump, shouldn't we ?

Who should we manipulate Trump in to firing next? "President Kushner"?

Well as of 30 min ago it looks like we just struck Syria with cruise missiles. Hmm. Makes me wanna not retire tomorrow.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Welp, there we go again..

Lets radically change stances, and take unilateral military action in a place we have no real interest in and are not really wanted, within the space of a couple of weeks on a sadly yet amusingly familiar "WMD/Chemical weapons" justification. That's the ticket...we're geniuses...

What I am about to say, I say not to defend Trump, but to illustrate politics at work.

My guess is, he's actually listening to the Joint Chiefs, McMaster, Mattis and that type of advisor for one thing.

I pray to the Emprah that is the case... and I think I agree with that assessment.

Another, yes, actual confirmed use of chemical weapons does change things for me.

Me too. But... there doesn't seem to be a whole lotta good options though.

Rex Tillerson: US organizing coalition to remove Assad

Geez... hope they applies lesson learned from Iraq and Libya.

Finally, for those who are old enough, GW Bush ran in 1999 on a platform of "end the US being the global police" and was somewhat poised to follow through on that promise when 9/11 happened.

Yeah, I remember that.

Seems true that early in a President's tenure, something*big* happens that'll dictate a President's Policy. It was LAST week that Tillerson & Trump was saying Assad can stay. So this isn't a flip flop as much as simply reacting to a provocative event.

Remember when Tillerson and Trump pretty much gave Assad the go ahead to do this when they said its not our problem?

 whembly wrote:
So this isn't a flip flop as much as simply reacting to a provocative event.

Of course, it's taken all of 3 hours for my fb feed to start blowing up with numerous articles about "false flag" and other silly BS like that. I ain't saying that Assad is guilty, I ain't sayin' he's innocent of using chemical weapons. I'm saying that chemical weapons were used, and that's something I don't think we can really let slide.

In other news, it seems that Bannon is literally /pol/ come to life

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/war-breaks-between-steve-bannon-195211471.html

As White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon stepped down from the National Security Council this week, tensions between him and senior adviser Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law, burst into the open.

Several reports in recent days have detailed the brewing conflict. The Daily Beast reported Thursday that Bannon had called Kushner a "cuck" behind his back.

Bannon also told his associates, "I love a gunfight," according to an Axios report, which said that "the hatred between the two wings" in the White House was "intense and irreconcilable."

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 whembly wrote:
So this isn't a flip flop as much as simply reacting to a provocative event.

Of course, it's taken all of 3 hours for my fb feed to start blowing up with numerous articles about "false flag" and other silly BS like that. I ain't saying that Assad is guilty, I ain't sayin' he's innocent of using chemical weapons. I'm saying that chemical weapons were used, and that's something I don't think we can really let slide.

Indeed.

Question... who wrote this speech?

Abby D. Phillip‏Verified account
@abbydphillip

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Trump: "Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children." Full transcript:

Did Rubio write this? o.O

 whembly wrote:

Did Rubio write this? o.O

I dunno, maybe Rubio-bot, or Cruz.... But I think we don't really need to look that far: Pence is fairly well "in" on the religious crowd, so he could've written it.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Did Rubio write this? o.O

I dunno, maybe Rubio-bot, or Cruz.... But I think we don't really need to look that far: Pence is fairly well "in" on the religious crowd, so he could've written it.

I'm an idiot... you're absolutely right. That's got Pence all over that statement.

Also... just had a thought.

The donkey-cave cynic in me is thinking that since Trump is sitting at 30% approval rating, he's doing this as a "Wag the Dog" distraction (ala, Clinton's Serbian wars).

Right? RIGHT?!?

 Frazzled wrote:
Dead babies are sad. You can see them all over. That doesn't mean the US should let every man woman and child into the US. We're already letting in hundreds of thousands of refugees from Latin America every year.

Completely fething wrong. The US refugee intake from latin america last year was 2,050. That's 97,950 short of the bare minimum for your 'hundreds of thousands of refugees from Latin America' claim. You were wrong by a factor of 48 times. You're even more wrong if we look at total US refugee intake, which was 69,933, which is still 30,000 short of your claim from just Latin America. And just because we're on a roll, lets see how many years of intake from Latin America it takes to reach 100,000... 1980. 36 years of published data. What you claim happened just last year is actually the last 36 years worth.

That's pretty fething wrong, dude. And thing is, these are just numbers, and they're publicly available, and can be looked up in less than a minute.

https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/prm/releases/statistics/251288.htm

Good thing the Russians hacked the US election so that a sympathetic US President was elected, who would then go on to attack Russia's ally in Syria.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Good thing the Russians hacked the US election so that a sympathetic US President was elected, who would then go on to attack Russia's ally in Syria.

EDIT: bet ya'll "heard" Morgan's voice as you read that.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Good thing the Russians hacked the US election so that a sympathetic US President was elected, who would then go on to attack Russia's ally in Syria.

Yeah those darn pesky russians using a fake news system to discredit a candidate and try and put in power one that was more favorable to them

 Frazzled wrote:
This is why the US should stay out of it. We'll be hated regardless.

The argument that the US should refrain from doing the right thing* because people will moan about them either way is an unbelievable thing to hear from a grown adult. It's the kind of self-absorbed martyrdom you get from the most insufferable teenagers.



*Whether action in Syria is the right thing or not is a whole other question.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
Nope... Slope was accelerated by Reid, with Schumer standy by him in support, in 2013.

The slope had been underway since before Bork. Really it had been underway since Democrats and Republicans began to form clear ideological distinctions on social issues that were decided by the courts, really it goes back to the Southern Strategy. Hell, you could argue that the Southern Strategy itself is the natural consequence of those ideological divides forming in the first place, which puts the starting point at the civil rights movement.

Picking out Reid alone for his response to a Republican strategy which was itself part of the slippery slope is a ridiculous claim. Effectively what you've argued is that in the situation of;

A hits B
C hits A
D hits C
E hits D
F hits E
G hits F

That you think the person responsible for everything is E.

Believing that Democrats would keep it when they're in power, and holds < 59 seats, is foolhardy.

No-one ever believed that. Ever. I don't know how you've even managed to make that up. Reid did it because continuing the filibuster under the Republican obstruction strategy was impossible, Republicans had no interest in negotiating (and expected a heavy electoral toll in primaries if they did), and so dropping the filibuster was the remaining option in order to keep the appointment process functioning.

US official are apparently reporting that Russians were present on the airbase that our military struck. Hopefully no escalation with the Russians will ensue.

 jasper76 wrote:
US official are apparently reporting that Russians were present on the airbase that our military struck. Hopefully no escalation with the Russians will ensue.

Well I mean Trump showed no qualms about killing 200+ civilians in Mosul in the past week or so. So it is to be expected that the consequences be damned

 Ustrello wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
US official are apparently reporting that Russians were present on the airbase that our military struck. Hopefully no escalation with the Russians will ensue.

Well I mean Trump showed no qualms about killing 200+ civilians in Mosul in the past week or so. So it is to be expected that the consequences be damned

I'm not suggesting it will come to this, but the consequence of all out war with the Russians is nuclear armageddon. I seriously hope our leadership is currently in close communication with their leadership.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ustrello wrote:
In other news, it seems that Bannon is literally /pol/ come to life

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/war-breaks-between-steve-bannon-195211471.html

As White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon stepped down from the National Security Council this week, tensions between him and senior adviser Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law, burst into the open.

Several reports in recent days have detailed the brewing conflict. The Daily Beast reported Thursday that Bannon had called Kushner a "cuck" behind his back.

Bannon also told his associates, "I love a gunfight," according to an Axios report, which said that "the hatred between the two wings" in the White House was "intense and irreconcilable."

Start the countdown for Bannon getting the axe.

World War 3 begins?

 Freakazoitt wrote:
World War 3 begins?

It's scary. If the Russian mlitary bombed the hell out of an airbase with US personnel inside, what would the US do? Let's hope no-one has forgotten the concept of mutually assured destruction.

I really, really hope that the leadership of these two countries are talking things out as we speak.

 Frazzled wrote:
By the way, the Chinese are lining up to play Pacific War II and if we're not careful we're going to play the part of the Japanese in this one.

First up, your argument that China is pursuing war is miles from reality. They want things that are in conflict with US national interests, which is a point of conflict between the two countries, which may potentially lead to war. This doesn't mean either side actually wants war.

Even if were true, your analogy is way off. China is the secondary power, looking to establish itself as a top tier power through war, in order to make Asian territorial expansion. The US is looking to contain that. This means China is taking the role of Japan, and the US is taking the role of, err, the US. So if we had to make a comparison to WWII it would be to say that China is looking at an operation of 'just like Japan except this time it will work because we know we have to target the carriers' or something.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ahtman wrote:
Apparently our military isn't really a military but the new Peace Corp and all they do is humanitarian work. I'm sure they gave up all the missiles, mortars, firearms, tanks, combat aircraft, et al so as to not confuse anyone. No, they are corporate thugs out to enforce American corporate interests at all times and help no one at any time.

Or maybe it isn't as simple as that and this thread is veering into spicy areas that is not the purview of a US politics thread.

Well said. Thing is, the US military is deployed to geo-political, humanitarian and US economic interests. Generally it is serving all three at once, or at least two of the three. The argument attempted in this thread, that its deployments are purely economic, is as silly as the response attempted by some that there is no economic angle at all. Both sides need to take a step back and stop reducing everything down to simple slogans.

It typically takes 90 days at a job to get benefits. Only took Trump 76 days in office to get a good war vibe going. Now that is the kind of efficiency we can rely on.

Trump makes good on Obama's empty "red-line" warning to the Syrians. If Obama never made that epic blunder, I wonder if Trump would have authorized this attack.

Should I be more or less worried compared to the 1000s of bombs dropped under Obama's presidency?