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 A Town Called Malus wrote:
To be honest, the people I'm more annoyed at isn't the true Trump believers or even those who voted Republican in 2016.

No, I'm more annoyed at all those people who supported the actions of the Republican party but then didn't vote for Trump and seem to think that absolves them of blame for Trump. Trump is the inevitable endgame of the politics that they supported. He is the inevitable outcome of a party pushing facts aside.

You couldn't have got to Trump without the anti-reality stances of the Republican party on issues such as climate change, economics, etc. pushing the party into the position where it cannot use facts or legitimate research anymore as nobody worth their salt in an academic field can support their arguments as the evidence shows they don't work.

The Republican party adopting positions in stark contrast to the evidence, and their membership and voters willingly going along with it rather than calling them out on it are the cause of Trump. That primed people to be willing to eat up Trumps bs as it was only a step from the bs the Republican party had been pushing for years.

We got a populist demagogue because our 2 party duopoly has pushed our politics away from the majority of the populace so they pushed back. We have 2 parties that do the math and campaign for their base knowing that the majority of the people that aren't a part of that base have been convinced that there are only 2 options to vote for so they can either pick the lesser of two evils or stay home. Trump had enough populist appeal and enough Republicans were convinced Trump was the lesser of two evils that it swung enough states to give him the electoral victory. If the Democratic party paid more attention to the middle class instead of writing them off as either unnecessary to their coalition or a guaranteed vote because they have no where else to go and pushed a candidate that didn't come across as a calculating uncharismatic rules flaunting elitist we wouldn't have Trump as president. The people who voted for Trump came from the same places and backgrounds as the voters who had kept the Democrats in the majority in Congress for decades until the mid 90s.

While Bush43 and Obama were flawed presidents at least they had the ability to connect with or at least understand the problems middle class America was facing.
I wanted to comment on this back when Sebster posted this Obama quote:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.
And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

At least Obama understood and empathized with this glaring problem. When coal mines in West Virginia shut down and it devastates entire towns that's a problem and it's a recurring problem across Appalachia and the Rust Belt but it's one that is often ignored because there's tens of millions of Americans that don't live in Appalachia or the Rust Belt. What happens to those communities? Of course people in them will become bitter, desperate, and angry and they'll turn towards the support networks they know: their families, their church congregations, their neighborhoods, the guns that still empower them to protect and provide for their families to some extent. How do our politicians deal with this problem? Hillary appeared to write them off, she didn't need West Virginia, campaigning on ending the coal industry helped with her base and the Greens, and really who were West Virginian Democrats going to vote for a Democrat or a slick talking self promoting real estate mogul from New York City? Besides Hillary threw them a bone, she offered "job retraining." What is job retraining? Who qualifies for it? Just the coal miners? What about all the businesses that depend on the coal miners patronage to exist do they get assistance or are they just screwed? Even if coal miners are successfully retrained they're still going to have to compete against candidates half their age who are just as qualified or more so for jobs that will require the coal miners to relocated to different states. How do the retrained coal miners pay for the relocation, can they take their extended family with them? How much time and help do they get with their training? How many of us could suddenly become fully qualified miners in a few months? All of these questions and concerns get swept aside because we're progressing past coal so coal miners are inevitably casualties of that progress and we're throwing them a bone with the job retraining so that eases our conscience and hey it's really just a problem for THEM and they're not US. So unionized middle class coal mining democrats end up voting for this guy:


Because even fake empathy is more appealing than the cold political calculus of Hillary Clinton.

Look at the self driving car thread and all the arguments over minutiae in it. The big question that isn't coming up, because there's no easy answer, is that automated cars/trucks are going to trigger massive job loss for big gains with profits and minor gains in productivity. Automated trucks are going to have the same fuel economy as manually driven trucks, will have to stop at the same weigh stations as manually driven trucks, will have to obey the same speed limits, and the increased hours of operation will be slightly offset by the increase in down for maintenance as mileage piles up faster. The amount of money saved by eliminating human drivers will be vastly larger than the increase in delivery speeds. Short of some kind of punitive automation tax that makes automated trucks as expensive or more expensive than manually driven trucks for companies in order to discourage their use are there other solutions?

The 2 party duopoly gets to set the narrative for political discourse in the country with the help of a fully complicit media so we're left with terrible candidates that ignore glaring problems in favor of partisan conflict that keeps people voting for whichever side they convince themselves is less evil than the other. Garbage in and garbage out because the system itself is the problem.

One thing Obama got right, at least on paper; was the 50 state strategy. The execution was not always great, but the concept was sound.

For the record, I brought up the loss of jobs to automation in that thread, but it was pretty much passed over. To me that is the much bigger and more interesting political question, becasue to me it is clear that our politics/society/culture is not ready to handle it yet.

 Easy E wrote:
One thing Obama got right, at least on paper; was the 50 state strategy. The execution was not always great, but the concept was sound.

For the record, I brought up the loss of jobs to automation in that thread, but it was pretty much passed over. To me that is the much bigger and more interesting political question, becasue to me it is clear that our politics/society/culture is not ready to handle it yet.

To reply to this, and keep it relevant to this thread, I think it's largely because you have an entire party who (mistakenly) views anyone on "handouts" as being inherently lazy, and "bootstraps" theories abound. At the policy level, that simply does not work as a new technology gains momentum and sweeps out hundreds of thousands of jobs.

I'd read somewhere that in the McDonald's locations that have successfully brought in automated ordering systems, they found that the level of employment stayed the same. This is because they "freed up" more people to work the stoves/fryers, etc. that used to man the till. Now, they'll have the manager managing, and helping with ordering as needed, with everyone who used to be at the counter now in the back, which speeds up turnaround on orders (as in, lowers the time from order/payment to delivery of food)

I don't really see the same necessarily happening in all industries as people are made "obsolete" as not all obsolescence is equal. Without regulation, we'll undoubtedly see some people forced to the welfare lines while they figure out what the feth they are gonna do next, and in our current setting, many will feel at odds with their own political beliefs.

The automation question is a good one, but I think the bigger issue is Complexity. I have a lot of thoughts on that subject but need to work on a more coherent expression to really flesh that out, and there is a lot of Deep Future stuff in that realm.

Ultimately however, issues with automation forcing people out of work is not a new issue, it has affected major political events since at least the French Revolution and has been a theme of many Marxist strains of thought going back to the 1848 revolutions.

The big current issue with automation is that *all* the productivity gains are captured by Capital. Despite producing more work, and at a higher quality level, than ever before, Labor's share of the profit has not moved and in most cases has decreased, while management and the board now sit loftier than ever, with average CEO compensation now almost 40,000% (400x) more than the average employee, with much of that coming from lower-taxed Capital Gains, meant to spur investment, as opposed to wages. Addressing that issue however is instantly slammed as "evil socialism", even by those this reality hurts most.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It does seem as though modern day USA is doomed to have a gun massacre every few months, so the issue will rarely be out of the news.

The political aspect of the Sante Fe mass shooting is that it will inject more fire into the bellies of the student protests against guns. I think demographically the situation is moving away from the hardline NRA position.

Indeed, and I think the NRA itself is acting as the catalyst for that, theyre doubling down on *really* stupid sound bytes filled with classic partisan dogwhistles in ads and features that are Goebbellian in nature that turn off most people under 60, and largely failed to deliver anything on a Federal level to the gun rights expansion people even when a perfect vehicle presented itself (such as the WH petition on repealing the NFA getting six digits worth of signatures before Trump shut the page down), and just broadly pushing a very partisan political message instead of attempting to expand and incorporate younger groups and different ethnic and social demographics.

Basically theyre acting like an attack wing of the Republican party and not a civil rights and education organization.

I've mentioned this before, but as somebody who enjoys military history/wargaming as a hobby, I occasionally watch youtube gun channels to see old muskets getting blasted.

Now, a lot of those gun channels are political for obvious reasons and I tend not to watch that stuff myself.

But I'm actually surprised how many of them loathe and despise the NRA. They absolutely hate the NRA and most of them prefer the Gun Owners of America and their no compromise stance.

They see the NRA as working hand in hand with gun control groups.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It does seem as though modern day USA is doomed to have a gun massacre every few months, so the issue will rarely be out of the news.

The political aspect of the Sante Fe mass shooting is that it will inject more fire into the bellies of the student protests against guns. I think demographically the situation is moving away from the hardline NRA position.

Indeed, and I think the NRA itself is acting as the catalyst for that, theyre doubling down on *really* stupid sound bytes filled with classic partisan dogwhistles in ads and features that are Goebbellian in nature that turn off most people under 60, and largely failed to deliver anything on a Federal level to the gun rights expansion people even when a perfect vehicle presented itself (such as the WH petition on repealing the NFA getting six digits worth of signatures before Trump shut the page down), and just broadly pushing a very partisan political message instead of attempting to expand and incorporate younger groups and different ethnic and social demographics.

Basically theyre acting like an attack wing of the Republican party and not a civil rights and education organization.

I've mentioned this before, but as somebody who enjoys military history/wargaming as a hobby, I occasionally watch youtube gun channels to see old muskets getting blasted.

Now, a lot of those gun channels are political for obvious reasons and I tend not to watch that stuff myself.

But I'm actually surprised how many of them loathe and despise the NRA. They absolutely hate the NRA and most of them prefer the Gun Owners of America and their no compromise stance.

They see the NRA as working hand in hand with gun control groups.

...I need to see this. Last I checked, the NRA loves saying "from our cold, dead, hands" a little to often to be working with gun control groups. And that is part of the problem. They stopped being about education and safety, and so in their primitive chest-thumping about no compromise, they leave themselves open for more damage. Gun rights groups need to be able to sit down and come up with realistic compromises in order to sit down and discuss issues with the other side, or else we risk losing more of our rights than we should. The NRA has become a sinking ship, and risk dragging us responsible gun owners down with them. The thought of anyone being further right than they are is kinda scary.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It does seem as though modern day USA is doomed to have a gun massacre every few months, so the issue will rarely be out of the news.

The political aspect of the Sante Fe mass shooting is that it will inject more fire into the bellies of the student protests against guns. I think demographically the situation is moving away from the hardline NRA position.

Indeed, and I think the NRA itself is acting as the catalyst for that, theyre doubling down on *really* stupid sound bytes filled with classic partisan dogwhistles in ads and features that are Goebbellian in nature that turn off most people under 60, and largely failed to deliver anything on a Federal level to the gun rights expansion people even when a perfect vehicle presented itself (such as the WH petition on repealing the NFA getting six digits worth of signatures before Trump shut the page down), and just broadly pushing a very partisan political message instead of attempting to expand and incorporate younger groups and different ethnic and social demographics.

Basically theyre acting like an attack wing of the Republican party and not a civil rights and education organization.

I've mentioned this before, but as somebody who enjoys military history/wargaming as a hobby, I occasionally watch youtube gun channels to see old muskets getting blasted.

Now, a lot of those gun channels are political for obvious reasons and I tend not to watch that stuff myself.

But I'm actually surprised how many of them loathe and despise the NRA. They absolutely hate the NRA and most of them prefer the Gun Owners of America and their no compromise stance.

They see the NRA as working hand in hand with gun control groups.

Essentially, as theyve become a culture war wing of the GOP, theyve given up on advancing firearms freedom as a civil right in the eyes of some, their support of the "no fly no buy" concept, bans on bump stocks, not taking up the call to repeal the NFA, etc.

There is a perception that they just want to use gun issues as a fundeaising mechanism, rather than being active advocates. In some respects, that's not an unfounded claim, but at the same time, while something like the GOA is more earnest, its also just as fiercly partisan and comes off to the average person as far too extreme to be taken seriously, and they lack the reach and depth of the NRA.




EDIT: Farm bill dead, along with SNAP working requirements. Discharge on immigration increasingly likely.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/388302-house-rejects-farm-bill-as-conservatives-revolt

 Easy E wrote:
One thing Obama got right, at least on paper; was the 50 state strategy. The execution was not always great, but the concept was sound.

For the record, I brought up the loss of jobs to automation in that thread, but it was pretty much passed over. To me that is the much bigger and more interesting political question, becasue to me it is clear that our politics/society/culture is not ready to handle it yet.

Yes... Obama and his campaigned are rock stars in campaigning. Not so much in ensuring the "obama coalition", but the fundamental campaign strategies across the 50 states.

He and his campaign leadership really don't get enough credit for it and every campaign out to look at the successes of that strategy and apply to their own.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/388178-china-buys-record-amount-of-russian-soybeans-amid-halt-on-us-imports

China has purchased record amounts of soybeans from Russia in recent months amid trade tensions with the U.S., Bloomberg reported.

The world's biggest soybean importer, China has nearly tripled its imports from Russia, according to Bloomberg. Russian trade data show the country sold 850,000 metric tons of soybeans to China between July 2017 and mid-May this year.

The record sales represent more than twice the 340,000 tons sold during the previous growing period.

The move comes amid China's halt on purchases from the U.S., the world's largest producer of soybeans.

China has cancelled multiple U.S. shipments in recent weeks ahead of tariffs, including a 62,690-ton purchase on April 19, Bloomberg reported earlier this month.

China included soybeans on a list of tariffs on U.S. products last month totaling $50 billion, a direct response to the Trump administration's announcement of $150 billion of tariffs against Chinese imports.

China is the second-largest market for U.S. agricultural exports.

While Russia's soybean production makes up less than 1 percent of the amount China imports, the size of soybean plantings in eastern Russia could reportedly expand up to 20 percent in the next two to three years.

apparently
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/2140340/donald-trump-faces-farmers-wrath-chinas-tariffs-put-us-soybean-exports

and similar the USA normally exports US$14 billion annually to China.

This and the collapse of the Farm Bill does not bode well for rural voters, as farmers are the most politically active group (outside of Evangelicals) in rural areas.

this follows on from Russian companies stepping in to fill the orders for planes in Iran as well after the nuclear deal was torn up by Trump.

 reds8n wrote:

Spoiler:

this follows on from Russian companies stepping in to fill the orders for planes in Iran as well after the nuclear deal was torn up by Trump.

That, that is the most stupidly accurate statement of the year.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/18/politics/us-b-52-route-change-north-korea/index.html

While some people talk about the size of their buttons, one of them has some propaganda power about being able to tell the US where they can and cannot fly their planes.

 d-usa wrote:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/18/politics/us-b-52-route-change-north-korea/index.html

While some people talk about the size of their buttons, one of them has some propaganda power about being able to tell the US where they can and cannot fly their planes.

I can only imagine the uproar if Obama did this.

 whembly wrote:

It's not an accusation... it's a goddamn fact that the Obama administration used its counterintelligence powers to investigate the opposition party’s presidential campaign.

When then opposition party's presidential campaign is showing evidence of colluding with a foreign power to influence the outcome of the election, it's the JOB of said counterintelligence to investigate.

Just imagine how you would be feeling right now if Hilary had won, and we were hearing that her campaign organization had been in collusion with North Korea...

All about that small government

Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer today signed a bill today legalizing discrimination against gay couples who want to adopt children. Oklahoma’s governor Mary Fallin signed a similar bill into law last week.

The Wichita Eagle reports:

The bill, approved by the Legislature in early May, allows agencies to refuse placement of children “for foster care or adoption when the proposed placement of such child would violate such agency’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Colyer signed the bill Friday at Youth Horizons Kinloch Price Boys Ranch, a Christian nonprofit that offers residential care for boys with severe individual and family challenges.

http://www.towleroad.com/2018/05/kansas-gay-adoption/

 Ustrello wrote:
All about that small government

Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer today signed a bill today legalizing discrimination against gay couples who want to adopt children. Oklahoma’s governor Mary Fallin signed a similar bill into law last week.

The Wichita Eagle reports:

The bill, approved by the Legislature in early May, allows agencies to refuse placement of children “for foster care or adoption when the proposed placement of such child would violate such agency’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Colyer signed the bill Friday at Youth Horizons Kinloch Price Boys Ranch, a Christian nonprofit that offers residential care for boys with severe individual and family challenges.

http://www.towleroad.com/2018/05/kansas-gay-adoption/

Faith based organizations are going to make faith based decisions. I would expect that an adoption agency that is faith based whether it’s Christian or Muslim or Jewish or whatever would prioritize putting kids in families that align with their religious beliefs. If that’s not something the state wants to happen then they shouldn’t have private or faith based adoption agencies in the first place. Of course this is Kansas, the state with notoriously lax puppy mills laws so them not regulating baby mills well either isn’t shocking at all.

Wow. That is a lot of leaps made by the Trump administration.


We have gone from;

"FBI had an informant inside the Trump campaign" (Trump tweet)

to

"FBI PUT an informant inside the Trump campaign" (Giuliani interview on FOX News)

to

"There was an FBI representative implanted inside the Trump campaign - for political purposes". (Trump tweet)

Doesn't anybody notice how the language shifts?


And all this from an op-ed by former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy being quoted as saying; "There is probably no doubt that they had at least one confidential informant in the campaign".


It has to be pointed out that quote doesn't actually appear in the article linked as a source of the quote - anywhere.

Here is FOX News linking to THIS article.

The McCarthy article references that co-founder of Fusion GPS Glenn Simpson testified before Congress, that Christopher Steele (of the Steele Dossier fame) told him (Simpson) that FBI had received intelligence from a human source inside the Trump campaign.


Am I missing something here? Does President Trump and Rudolph Giuliani simply make gak up?

Steelmage99 wrote:
Does President Trump and Rudolph Giuliani simply make gak up?

Is water wet?

Steelmage99 wrote:


The McCarthy article references that co-founder of Fusion GPS Glenn Simpson testified before Congress, that Christopher Steele (of the Steele Dossier fame) told him (Simpson) that FBI had received intelligence from a human source inside the Trump campaign.


Am I missing something here? Does President Trump and Rudolph Giuliani simply make gak up?

Well, you know how it is, the Dossier is golden when it suits them, and a pack of dirty lies invented by Hillery when it says nasty things about them.

Steelmage99 wrote:
Am I missing something here? Does President Trump and Rudolph Giuliani simply make gak up?

Why shouldn't they? The libs don't like it, but stigginit, and the base just repeats it elsewhere as if it was a fact without any examination. Look at the last 2 pages! There is literally no downside to the Trump Train lying freely. We established pages back that this was an op-ed making guesses, it was conceded that it was a "good faith" op-ed (whatever the feth that is), and now it's somehow graduated to being repeated as fact despite no new information by dint of it being repeated by inveterate liars.

Why not just make up lazy, easily debunked lies? Why feed them steak when they'll happily eat gak?


In other news, it looks like those SARS weren't removed, they were just restricted. Not clear who requested the restriction.

Steelmage99 wrote:
Wow. That is a lot of leaps made by the Trump administration.


We have gone from;

"FBI had an informant inside the Trump campaign" (Trump tweet)

to

"FBI PUT an informant inside the Trump campaign" (Giuliani interview on FOX News)

to

"There was an FBI representative implanted inside the Trump campaign - for political purposes". (Trump tweet)

Doesn't anybody notice how the language shifts?


And all this from an op-ed by former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy being quoted as saying; "There is probably no doubt that they had at least one confidential informant in the campaign".


It has to be pointed out that quote doesn't actually appear in the article linked as a source of the quote - anywhere.

Here is FOX News linking to THIS article.

The McCarthy article references that co-founder of Fusion GPS Glenn Simpson testified before Congress, that Christopher Steele (of the Steele Dossier fame) told him (Simpson) that FBI had received intelligence from a human source inside the Trump campaign.


Am I missing something here? Does President Trump and Rudolph Giuliani simply make gak up?

We passed that stage a long time ago.

I don't think people take notice of the shifting statements because we've all known for a long time that almost everything that comes out of Trump's lips is a self-serving lie.

If you're a supporter and don't care, you just accept and parrot the latest party line, like the population of Oceania in 1984 with their "doublethink".

If you're an opponent you already are more appalled than human psychology can measure.

EU officially makes US withdrawal from Iran Deal economically moot.

 Vaktathi wrote:
EU officially makes US withdrawal from Iran Deal economically moot.

It certainly marks the start of divergence of western policy and direction. If the US is determined to move off and do its own thing, the EU must step up to replace that presence. I imagine that will include a hastening of an EU defence force as it's almost certain that's where Trump will move to next.

Withdrawing from NATO and re-examining US military commitments worldwide.

Obviously that means a period of instability as "pax-americana" is readjusted, but I'm sure that the EU, China and Russia will expand to fill the void.

The world has finally come to realise that the US cannot be relied upon, and maybe it's influence, and power will now start to take a hit. I can't imagine it will end well for the average Joe both in the US and in other parts of the world, but what can you do when the political system of a super power allows an infantile moron, supported by a right wing cartel, to call the shots.

 r_squared wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
EU officially makes US withdrawal from Iran Deal economically moot.

It certainly marks the start of divergence of western policy and direction. If the US is determined to move off and do its own thing, the EU must step up to replace that presence. I imagine that will include a hastening of an EU defence force as it's almost certain that's where Trump will move to next.

Withdrawing from NATO and re-examining US military commitments worldwide.

Obviously that means a period of instability as "pax-americana" is readjusted, but I'm sure that the EU, China and Russia will expand to fill the void.

The world has finally come to realise that the US cannot be relied upon, and maybe it's influence, and power will now start to take a hit. I can't imagine it will end well for the average Joe both in the US and in other parts of the world, but what can you do when the political system of a super power allows an infantile moron, supported by a right wing cartel, to call the shots.

Agreed, it's a big deal but not because of the economics themselves. Also I'd say it's far from rendering the USs pull from the deal as economically moot.

r_squared wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
EU officially makes US withdrawal from Iran Deal economically moot.

It certainly marks the start of divergence of western policy and direction. If the US is determined to move off and do its own thing, the EU must step up to replace that presence. I imagine that will include a hastening of an EU defence force as it's almost certain that's where Trump will move to next.

Withdrawing from NATO and re-examining US military commitments worldwide.

Obviously that means a period of instability as "pax-americana" is readjusted, but I'm sure that the EU, China and Russia will expand to fill the void.

The world has finally come to realise that the US cannot be relied upon, and maybe it's influence, and power will now start to take a hit. I can't imagine it will end well for the average Joe both in the US and in other parts of the world, but what can you do when the political system of a super power allows an infantile moron, supported by a right wing cartel, to call the shots.

Yup, pretty much.

NinthMusketeer wrote:Agreed, it's a big deal but not because of the economics themselves. Also I'd say it's far from rendering the USs pull from the deal as economically moot.

The US withdrawal won't be painless, but the big thing with the original sanctions was that they worked because they cripplingly isolated Iran, especially from foreign capital. It will suck for Iran for the sanctions to be reimposed, but Iran will be able to interact enough with the world to basically still do what they want to.

The bad news just keeps coming thick and fast for the USA:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-44178771

So the man who hates the USA, led two uprisings against American forces, and who is essentially Iran's man, is now the king maker in Iraqi politics...

1 trillion dollars spent, thousands of US servicemen and women dead, and all for this...

I don't know why the USA bothers with a foreign policy these dyas, becuase they've lost the skill they used to have...

If you know your Iraq history, Paul Bremer wanted him arrested back in 04-05, had an Iraqi judge give the nod to an arrest warrant, and was all set to go until...

Washington got cold feet and pulled the plug...

Sadr got the message that he could act with impunity and Washington wouldn't touch him, which of course encouraged him and his followers to raise the stakes further...

I suspect that a British Imperial Governor would have had Sadr hanging from the nearest lamp post...

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
The bad news just keeps coming thick and fast for the USA:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-44178771

So the man who hates the USA, led two uprisings against American forces, and who is essentially Iran's man, is now the king maker in Iraqi politics...

1 trillion dollars spent, thousands of US servicemen and women dead, and all for this...

I don't know why the USA bothers with a foreign policy these dyas, becuase they've lost the skill they used to have...

If you know your Iraq history, Paul Bremer wanted him arrested back in 04-05, had an Iraqi judge give the nod to an arrest warrant, and was all set to go until...

Washington got cold feet and pulled the plug...

Sadr got the message that he could act with impunity and Washington wouldn't touch him, which of course encouraged him and his followers to raise the stakes further...

I suspect that a British Imperial Governor would have had Sadr hanging from the nearest lamp post...

Skill we used to have? We never had any to begin with. The 20th century is one long comedy of American foreign policy failures. The best achievement we ever had was walking out of WWII virtually undamaged, a position we have since wasted being a global bully completely blind to the reality that such a policy practice is only viable so long as our bullying benefited Western Europe and key regional allies.

Trump basically misses all the nuance that strategy hinges on, and is slowly obliterating it. It's hard not to look around and realize that US foreign policy, as shaky as its always been, really might not survive another 2 1/2 years of the cheeto being in charge. Neo-Colonialism is only slightly less bloody than outright Imperialism, and just as much a long term failure.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
The bad news just keeps coming thick and fast for the USA:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-44178771

So the man who hates the USA, led two uprisings against American forces, and who is essentially Iran's man, is now the king maker in Iraqi politics...

1 trillion dollars spent, thousands of US servicemen and women dead, and all for this...

I don't know why the USA bothers with a foreign policy these dyas, becuase they've lost the skill they used to have...

If you know your Iraq history, Paul Bremer wanted him arrested back in 04-05, had an Iraqi judge give the nod to an arrest warrant, and was all set to go until...

Washington got cold feet and pulled the plug...

Sadr got the message that he could act with impunity and Washington wouldn't touch him, which of course encouraged him and his followers to raise the stakes further...

I suspect that a British Imperial Governor would have had Sadr hanging from the nearest lamp post...

Skill we used to have? We never had any to begin with. The 20th century is one long comedy of American foreign policy failures. The best achievement we ever had was walking out of WWII virtually undamaged, a position we have since wasted being a global bully completely blind to the reality that such a policy practice is only viable so long as our bullying benefited Western Europe and key regional allies.

Trump basically misses all the nuance that strategy hinges on, and is slowly obliterating it. It's hard not to look around and realize that US foreign policy, as shaky as its always been, really might not survive another 2 1/2 years of the cheeto being in charge. Neo-Colonialism is only slightly less bloody than outright Imperialism, and just as much a long term failure.

I agree that the US has done a lot of bad things but I find this a cynical take.

I am cynical on US Foreign Policy