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You know, I think the people who claim non-interventionism is a core tenant of leftism just don't get leftism. If they were arguing for anti-imperialism they'd have more of a case, but I still think that's missing the real core: the fundamental equality of all human beings. It's that equality that leads us to the idea of economic democracy, since we are all equal we all deserve a fair share of the fruits our labor and an equal say in how it used. It's that equality that leads us to the idea of anti-imperialism, because imperialism favors the citizens of one country over those of the countries it dominates. And it's that equality that asks us to move against genocide and ethnic cleansing, the ultimate expression of imperialism, the idea that certain groups of people are so unequal that they don't even deserve the right to live. We had our chance at non-interventionism before the Iraq War. We failed. We can't undo the intervention, just like we can't undo the first invasion of Iraq or any of the Western intervention that led to the current state of the Middle East. What we can do is not let western governments suddenly become non-interventionist the minute our help can actually help defend the people of the Middle East from a real existential threat, because as leftists they should be as equally important to us as our own family or our own countrymen, and we should also remember that to many Americans and Europeans those in danger in Iraq and Syria really are their own family and countrymen.
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Sep 18, 2014 16:25
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My Imaginary GF posted:Not really. You're just seeing the public reporting of a change in subcontractor. How well would it go over in Egypt if they knew the previous contract during Morsi's tenure was awarded to an Israeli-registered venture owned by a Chicago billionaire running for governor? What was the name of the company with the previous contract? My friend is working for the Quinn campaign, he'd owe me a big favor if I can get it to him.
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Sep 18, 2014 16:26
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Brown Moses posted:Yeah, he went back and got kidnapped again. I know he's a good person who is more of a human being than I'll ever aspire to be, but what a loving retard.
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Sep 18, 2014 16:29
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Zedsdeadbaby posted:I know he's a good person who is more of a human being than I'll ever aspire to be, but what a loving retard. No, that's totally fair. Like, come on. Way to push your luck. This does call all the reporting on Foley into question, since no one mentioned until now they were kidnapped together.
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Sep 18, 2014 16:31
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TheOtherContraGuy posted:IMO it's pretty apt consider the European Spring of Nations in 1848 was also largely a failure. Turns out revolution is really hard. The revolutions were failures but they forced reforms in many countries, and helped spark the German and Italian unification process.
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Sep 18, 2014 16:37
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A Fancy 400 lbs posted:You know, I think the people who claim non-interventionism is a core tenant of leftism just don't get leftism. If they were arguing for anti-imperialism they'd have more of a case, but I still think that's missing the real core: the fundamental equality of all human beings. It's that equality that leads us to the idea of economic democracy, since we are all equal we all deserve a fair share of the fruits our labor and an equal say in how it used. It's that equality that leads us to the idea of anti-imperialism, because imperialism favors the citizens of one country over those of the countries it dominates. And it's that equality that asks us to move against genocide and ethnic cleansing, the ultimate expression of imperialism, the idea that certain groups of people are so unequal that they don't even deserve the right to live. We had our chance at non-interventionism before the Iraq War. We failed. We can't undo the intervention, just like we can't undo the first invasion of Iraq or any of the Western intervention that led to the current state of the Middle East. What we can do is not let western governments suddenly become non-interventionist the minute our help can actually help defend the people of the Middle East from a real existential threat, because as leftists they should be as equally important to us as our own family or our own countrymen, and we should also remember that to many Americans and Europeans those in danger in Iraq and Syria really are their own family and countrymen. You see, the assumption you're making here is the US will be intervening in good faith in favor of democracy and human rights and not self interest. These can overlap sometimes (the Balkans worked out..sort of) but in the Middle East the US is currently at zero successes when it comes to establishing stable liberal democracies. Also bombing campaigns are not exactly known for deradicalizing populations. EDIT: Oh wow that post was confusing.
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Sep 18, 2014 16:43
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The only intervention in a civil war that has actually done more good than bad was NATO`s intervention in former Jugoslavia. The jury is still out on Libya. But it humanitarian concerns have been misued so many times to justify imperalist actions that to not be sceptical is to be foolish. Ofcourse given enough evidence that scepticism should be dropped. Sign med up for tenative yes to intervention. But only in a limited scope. Putting ground troops in Syria will just turn it into vitenam X 100. So do what ever is needed to frustate ISIS and prevent them from truly becoming a state and let the other groups figth it out amongst themselves. Provide big IMF loans to whoever wins and make the debt payable in oil barrels.
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Sep 18, 2014 16:48
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A Fancy 400 lbs posted:You know, I think the people who claim non-interventionism is a core tenant of leftism just don't get leftism. If they were arguing for anti-imperialism they'd have more of a case, but I still think that's missing the real core: the fundamental equality of all human beings. It's that equality that leads us to the idea of economic democracy, since we are all equal we all deserve a fair share of the fruits our labor and an equal say in how it used. It's that equality that leads us to the idea of anti-imperialism, because imperialism favors the citizens of one country over those of the countries it dominates. And it's that equality that asks us to move against genocide and ethnic cleansing, the ultimate expression of imperialism, the idea that certain groups of people are so unequal that they don't even deserve the right to live. We had our chance at non-interventionism before the Iraq War. We failed. We can't undo the intervention, just like we can't undo the first invasion of Iraq or any of the Western intervention that led to the current state of the Middle East. What we can do is not let western governments suddenly become non-interventionist the minute our help can actually help defend the people of the Middle East from a real existential threat, because as leftists they should be as equally important to us as our own family or our own countrymen, and we should also remember that to many Americans and Europeans those in danger in Iraq and Syria really are their own family and countrymen. Non-interventionism is not a core tenet of leftism. Opposition to the incessant and incompetent warmongering of western nations is not a 100% inherent philosophical praxis, but it is basically a requirement in practice. You are correct that anti-nationalism is also pretty close to a "core tenet," but fail to comprehend the possibility that nationalism has biased you to support wars by your nation which happen to be also more frequent and atrocious than the wars of other nations you declaim against. You can recite pious dogma about how as long as someone is suffering we must be there to stop it, and sound like a leftist. You probably even believe it. But you are letting fantasy override reality. Really-existing interventionism by western countries does not work for the benefit of the people in those countries in nearly all cases, either by ideological incompetence or design or both. We are living in the world created by "western humanitarian interventionism." The imperialism you declaim against - recall how it was defended morally. "The white man's burden" was a humanitarian argument: westerners should pay and even die to help uplift the poor ignorant primitives. Any war in the post-imperialist age was also sold in similar grounds: the people there are suffering oppression and want us to come in. When exactly did we "have our chance" at non-interventionism before the Iraq War? Was it during that ten-year period prior where we were bombing Iraq and crippling it with sanctions? Was it during the Afghanistan war? Are you talking about before the first Iraq war? Was it while we were training and arming the Mujahedin? Was it during the time we were funneling weapons and intel to the moderate ally Saddam Hussein so he could combat the brutal fundamentalists in Iran? Was that when we had our chance? The strategy you advocate to solve the problem created the problem and has perpetuated it for 30 years. How many more years of this poo poo must we put up with because you're sure we're Turning the Corner on our strategy here?
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Sep 18, 2014 16:56
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the youtube vid is down, was it actually an uncoerced speech?
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Sep 18, 2014 16:57
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A Fancy 400 lbs posted:We can't undo the intervention, just like we can't undo the first invasion of Iraq or any of the Western intervention that led to the current state of the Middle East. What we can do is not let western governments suddenly become non-interventionist the minute our help can actually help defend the people of the Middle East from a real existential threat, because as leftists they should be as equally important to us as our own family or our own countrymen, and we should also remember that to many Americans and Europeans those in danger in Iraq and Syria really are their own family and countrymen. I'm generally anti-intervention, but I do agree with this. However, as I've said before, I think there is room for discussion about whether direct intervention from us is the best way to help those countries in the long term. I mean, protecting people who are in immediate danger, e.g. the refugees on Mt. Sinjar? Great. But a protracted military campaign aimed at destroying the whole IS organisation? What if they hole up in cities they've occupied, or disperse among civilian populations? Protective Edge: Iraq Edition? That's not going to win us many friends and probably won't help the people there very much either. There seems to be a lot of difficulty around the idea of a humanitarian intervention that leads to people rather talking past each other. As many have pointed out, it can seem like just about every intervention and indeed most horrible geopolitical meddling since the second world war has been sold to a large extent on 'humanitarian' grounds. You could see it employed in the US' South American campaigns, we did see a great deal of it in Iraq, and even in Afghanistan, although it may not have been the primary stated purpose, we saw a ton of stuff about liberating the women from the Taliban. It can even be retroactive - there was a sustained effort after the invasion of Iraq to reframe the aims as humanitarian as it became ever clearer that the WMDs weren't there. At least until it turned out that the whole massive fuckup had in fact created a huge humanitarian crisis. All that leads to a great deal of cynicism amongst the left about the very idea of humanitarian intervention so that whenever those particular war drums start beating there is an almost instinctive response, especially if they haven't studied the particular conflict closely. It might not be correct but I think it is understandable.
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Sep 18, 2014 17:01
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TheRamblingSoul posted:Military advisers are like foreplay, you always seem to end up loving anyways when you said you weren't in the mood. Counterpoint: Soviet interventions in Vietnam and arguably Korea. Also, Cuban interventions in Africa. It is different for "democracies" though to not escalate further. Someone else in the "democracy" will see not escalating as weakness, and launch a political attack over it. E: Which may still happen in autocracys of course. Mightypeon fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 17:31
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 Abu Usamah #باقيه @MuhajirSomali 5h 200 dead in American air strike on a military training camp in Mosul today. We'll turn the Euphrates red with American blood to avenge them.
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Sep 18, 2014 18:31
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The US has "advisors" and the like working at hotspots all over the world at any given time. The vast majority never escalate past SOF/DOS involvement. Vietnam was a massive exception, not the rule.
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Sep 18, 2014 18:52
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At the same time, Shia rebels in Yemen are making a push into the capital? http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/09/houthi-rebels-push-into-yemeni-capital-201491811272660134.html
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Sep 18, 2014 18:56
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Looks like the YPG is getting pushed back in the Kobani region. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhiVgVH8tKw News reports mention them getting hit by tanks. As you can see from this video, they have the unique experience of being shot at directly by a tank. Torpor fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 19:04
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TheOtherContraGuy posted:IMO it's pretty apt consider the European Spring of Nations in 1848 was also largely a failure. Turns out revolution is really hard. The French Revolution took the better part of a century to have lasting success on Europe's way of doing things, so I think it's fair to give the Arab Spring a few decades at least.
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Sep 18, 2014 19:20
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The X-man cometh posted:What was the name of the company with the previous contract? My friend is working for the Quinn campaign, he'd owe me a big favor if I can get it to him. You have PMs? I detailed some stuff in the Israel thread. I'd be willing to type up my research findings for you via PM if you'd like.
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Sep 18, 2014 19:31
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http://youtu.be/cIvCqy_0Emw?t=7m26s The guy in this section of video is shooting something out of the RPG, not sure what it is. There is a lady earlier in the video doing something with what looks like something analogous to a zuni rocket.
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Sep 18, 2014 19:33
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Chadderbox posted:For all the claims I hear about how savvy IS is at PR, choosing to kidnap and execute the Westerners who care most about the Middle East and the people there doesn't strike me as particularly wise at all. trigger warning: i'm going to do something very dangerous for good ol' forumid=46 and talk about aesthetics and intertextuality in regards to explaining a PR campaign that is nakedly not targeted at the prototypical D&D poster, while also mentioning bad things the US did. I'm sure its a waste of breath to point out that I'm not saying nonstate actor X is justified because State Actor Y did bad stuff, but this is also a thread where a dude straight up said we should invade Turkey for Reasons and hasn't been drummed out yet so I'm not sure how serious y'all are being. Americans in Iraq, with terrifyingly honest and good intentions, will slaughter a couple journalists and their entourage in cold blood, then beg for the chance to paste the good Samaritans who stop by to clean you off the street real quick.    ISIS, with terrifyingly honest and earnest intentions, will slaughter a couple journalists eye-to-eye in order to goad a superpower into doing something stupid in a place it doesn't understand and historically has a lot of trouble communicating to and within. Then they will kill three dudes in the street for smoking cigarettes while taking the lord's name in vain, again all in earnest. Earnesty is the key term there, coming off a decade of American occupation whose praxis can be conservatively described as "schizophrenic" where it can even be called "praxis". This is juxtaposed against a peculiarly Victorian sensibility of Americans toward actual violence IRL considering the place violence occupies in our popular media, because let's be real here pretty much everyone wants to see these motherfuckers die. I'm a sexually flexibile leftist atheist feminist alcoholic, by rights I should be first in line baying for some goddamned salafi blood. But we, such as the Americans can be said to be a "we", cannot allow ourselves to enjoy it. Sure there are some risque photos and footage of questionable poo poo US soldiers do, but generally speaking for mainstream consumption the most vivd footage Americans see of war is a few carefully cut and curated pieces of stock footage where soldiers are firing into the horizon, maybe they're swearing, maybe a bomb goes off nearby, but mostly its dominated by the omnipresent grainy nightvision or IR footage with redacted timestamps. We'll get our blood from ISIS but it'll be mediated through a few kilometers and a digital optic, then through military censors, then through newsdesk editors, then through our TVs or computers. We'll blow you to bits with a TOW because your ideology doesn't jibe with our geopolitical vision, but we'll only celebrate your death in interlaced infrared SD. We'll assassinate Bin Laden, snap a deadpic, then dump him over the side of a ship. We'll capture Saddam and show off his dental exam for the world, but leave the retributive killing to those barbarous Shia. Anything more would be tasteless and brutal, you see. Contrast this with the ISIS releases which, cumulatively, are already as a collaborative effort the most comprehensive and brutal war documentary ever made in the history of film. I wont presume to know your leanings, but the poo poo in ISIS vids is why antiwar sentiment exists, because the real brutality of the fighting isn't in the field engagements but the structural violence visited upon the population, and if you want to get utterly stone-cold blooded using High Rational Process, then in absolute terms just as the Iraq War was a fraction as tragic on all fronts as the Vietnam War, the invasion and occupation of ISIS for all its attempted genocide and excess is a fraction as deadly as the American invasion (albeit a fraction as comprehensive as well). The key difference is that ISIS records every single event that under American occupation would be brushed under the rug or delgated to proxies with SLR's and lens adapters shooting 1080p with a paper-thin depth of field, and then puts it on the internet. ISIS will not bullshit with "debaathificiation" in liquidating the local government should they prove uncooperative, they'll kill you and put it on the internet. ISIS will not dicker around rolling up 50 men on a block who may or may not be conducting insurgent activities and send them to Abu Ghraib for We watch in judgement. We watch because in adopting a pro-sumer production value, ISIS has done something very very profound which is adopting the hallmarks of a Serious News Documentary Program which we are conditioned to take seriously, far more so than the public access clownshow that is Zawahiri's Al Qaeda, and we watch because it shows an aspect of war that we usually only hear secondhand. "Forces in Ukraine have entered city X, Y dead on both sides, Z civilians thought killed or missing" etc. Adopting that visual taxonomy does a whole world of things to your brain and virtually none of them occur on the level of rational thought process! I'm sure you've noticed at some point in the last few years that in the Internet Age it is far, FAR easier to lie or obfuscate than it is to debunk a lie or establish the truth. Because of this, ISIS' decision to bypass the rational and traffic almost entirely in well-produced images is a Big loving Deal, because it signals that they're actually quite well equipped for the contemporary era because like most successful corporations they bypass your cortex and grab you straight by the damned brainstem, your limbic brain. Both individuals and groups get really really loving malleable when a PR campaign starts prodding you on the levels of sexual/aggressive/fear/hunger/safety instinct. So we watch in judgement, these videos showing acts that either Americans have done or have accomplished through proxies and say "we need to kill the people doing this, or something, just do something other than nothing to these monsters". And that is very sad because every time an American says that, Sayyid Qutb reassembles an approximate corpus in the backyard mass grave of an Egyptian black site and gives a big ol' thumbs up, because those actions are straight-up Jahiliyyah in his definition, validating his ideology and embodying the dissonance between our ideals and how quickly we discard those ideals not out of malice but because we simply don't know poo poo and act erratically yet reliably when presented with new information penetrating a fortress of stable geopolitical and cultural ignorance. There's some pretty salty language that applies to ISIS, but "ignorant" ain't one of the terms. ISIS knows exactly what it is, what its doing and what it's trying to do. Obama has cheesed me off for various reasons irrelevant to the scope of this thread, but if there's an upshot to his administration its the almost perfunctory and transactional way he's addressing this challenge, trying to stifle the blaze of oxygen and trying to get the thing burnt out of its own accord. He's also tremendously unpopular for it with 75% of the country opposing either because he's killing too many people or too few, which means he's probably hit a nice middle ground of just enough murder for the occasion. But as if to prove on some cosmic level that even if there isn't a God the Universe undeniably has a sense of poetry to it, just as Obama's administration has now defined the literal policies of Ronald Reagan as unconstitutional and mandatory gay national socialism and shifting the terms of "acceptable narrative" accordingly, so has ISIS affected the conversation in the Middle East to be one of breaking at last the borders of their colonial period and realignment along broadly religious and (sort of but not really relatedly) cultural grounds. I sincerely doubt, with their penchant for martyrdom, that ISIS has any real staying power as a territory beyond occupying the negative space between other countries but if the success of a nonstate actor can be judged on their ability to affect discourse then ISIS is running the table with their PR right now. --- Sorry if that post ranged on a bit, but a picture really is worth a thousand words and ISIS has shot over a thousand hours of footage in at least 720p30, and nearly all their words address the subconscious limbic brain so a conversation about their PR aesthetics in a forum predominated by (mostly) rational written text is going to get a little janky.
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Sep 18, 2014 19:34
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My Imaginary GF posted:You have PMs? I detailed some stuff in the Israel thread. I'd be willing to type up my research findings for you via PM if you'd like. I do, and I'm really interested in this for both personal and professional reasons.
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Sep 18, 2014 19:36
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that post, GBS version, ultimate goon relatability edition: American guncam footage is a censored JAV japanese porn where the chick mewls and cries and is clearly not having a good time or at least playing at it very well. ISIS execution reels are a bleached and brazillian'ed model in Burbank having her orifices joyously ravished and begging for more in panted breaths. ISIS consists of some of the most sexually frustrated men on earth right now, in the year 2014. None of this is a coincidence.
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Sep 18, 2014 19:41
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Willie Tomg posted:trigger warning: You should probably never actually say "trigger warning" since it is vague. You should probably just say exactly would be objectionable about the video itself.
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Sep 18, 2014 19:41
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Torpor posted:You should probably never actually say "trigger warning" since it is vague. You should probably just say exactly would be objectionable about the video itself. thanks, man! good looking out, just added some text past the colon hope you liked it --starwars420@juno.net
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Sep 18, 2014 19:43
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Willie Tomg posted:thanks, man! good looking out, just added some text past the colon hope you liked it No problem I am here to help.
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Sep 18, 2014 19:46
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This is an interesting point and I think you're basically correct (regardless of whether intervention is a good idea, what kind of intervention is necessary, etc.). At a very abstract and detached level it's a kind of incredible interruption of the usual cynical postmodern stance, where we assume everyone is dissimulating and the media narratives take precedence over the event itself. ISIS are saying 'no, gently caress you, this is reality' and it's a brutally effective means of agitation.
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Sep 18, 2014 19:49
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Torpor posted:http://youtu.be/cIvCqy_0Emw?t=7m26s That's an anti-personal round for the RPG-7. It's smaller than the AP rounds you normally see as it doesn't need a shaped charge.
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Sep 18, 2014 20:21
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To demonstrate how universal is the humanitarian argument for wars, here's Hussein under US interrogation: http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/saddam-states-reasons-for-kuwait-invasion-1.502105 quote:Saddam restated that the goal of the invasion of Kuwait was to allow Kuwaitis the right to "decide the way they wanted to deal with Iraq". quote:Prior to the start of interview, Saddam was informed this session would be a continuation of the previous discussions regarding Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
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Sep 18, 2014 20:22
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You seem to know quite a bit with regards to PR and the way ISIS is using it, Willie Tomg. Are there any other major historical precedents for this? Obviously this is the first one to really utilize the internet to this degree, but I'm always curious about propaganda techniques (though this may not really be the same as "propaganda").
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Sep 18, 2014 21:35
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Oy veyquote:Until today, Cantlie’s hostage status had been kept under a media blackout in the U.K. When Cantlie was seized with Foley it was the second time he had been kidnapped in Syria, and just prior to his being called as a witness in a British terror trial whose defendants were dismissed when Cantlie disappeared. Foley and Cantlie were working on a film about Cantlie’s dramatic escape from his first abduction when they were kidnapped. http://abcnews.go.com/International/john-cantlie-missing-british-hostage-surfaces-alive-isis/story?id=25596190
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Sep 18, 2014 21:48
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Xandu posted:Oy vey Most people don't defend the practice; to me, its cases like these which are why extraordinary renditions exist.
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Sep 18, 2014 22:08
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Speaking of extraordinary renditions, even CAGE is calling for these guys to be released, albeit while blaming the West for everything. http://www.cageuk.org/article/cage-calls-release-british-aid-worker-alan-henning
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Sep 18, 2014 22:21
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The New Black posted:I'm generally anti-intervention, but I do agree with this. However, as I've said before, I think there is room for discussion about whether direct intervention from us is the best way to help those countries in the long term. I mean, protecting people who are in immediate danger, e.g. the refugees on Mt. Sinjar? Great. But a protracted military campaign aimed at destroying the whole IS organisation? What if they hole up in cities they've occupied, or disperse among civilian populations? Protective Edge: Iraq Edition? That's not going to win us many friends and probably won't help the people there very much either. I agree it's understandable, but I also think it's a completely broken approach. It really comes down to your beliefs on why these modern intervention type wars happen. If you think there's a hidden agenda, never presented to the public, that drives politicians to try and push for war, of course you're going to oppose anything they present. But to me, even if the majority of this country aren't Republicans, they are pretty conservative and hawkish as a whole. When 9/11 happens, or ISIS doing awful things that we see on the news daily happens, this bloc calls for blood immediately in a reactionary way. Conservative Republicans and Democrats represent that call, and politic the scenario of the war to gain support and push through legislation. (I know some of you would point to Bush wanting to invade Iraq prior to 9/11, but it was because he viewed Iraq as terrorist enablers, and a massive threat to the US. In a post-9/11 world, he was able to get the reactionary bloc to agree with him) Since liberals these days largely think that the politicking around these wars are evidence that they are crafted by the illumanti and sold by their puppet politicians, they base their entire foreign policy around preventing that from going through. They aren't very well represented in Congress, but the extreme left isn't in general. That doesn't change the fact that primary anti-war bloc, especially in this thread, is entirely based on opposing any war, without any context or alternatives presented. I'd point to codepink and groups like that. Even in the months prior to the Ghouta attack, when anyone following Syria closely would've bet any sum of money that US intervention against Assad was not coming, liberals position was defined by screaming "Hands off Syria." They weren't talking about the refugees. They weren't talking about the thousands of people living and dying in concentration camps in Damascus. They weren't talking about the people living in residential areas being directly targeted with all manner of bombs and missiles. They weren't talking about people living in squalid camps and broken cities finding any camera they could to plead for help from the Arab League and the UN. All they talked about was US imperialism. And of course, the conservatives didn't give a poo poo about any of that human suffering with the exception of like, McCain (who lamented the lack of American leadership in the world), but there was no support whatsoever for any action in Syria. Even after the chemical attack, there was not. That only changed when ISIS came into the forefront, and the hawkish majority got scared and angry. They wanted ISIS to pay, and their representatives began talking about what a threat ISIS are, and how we must destroy them. Of course that got support. Everyone hates ISIS, after all. The entire divide in these situations is based around war vs no war, and that's all that comes into play. Liberals don't support the US military getting involved in situations like Rwanda, or the initial response to the Syrian revolution by the regime, because they are against all war. And of course the conservative, hawkish bloc doesn't as well in those situations, because it's not their problem. Who cares? As such, when people cry against pushing for popular sentiment in favor of just wars, they're leaving the floor open to the reactionary conservatives to write US foreign policy when it comes to crises around the world, because they're the only ones who offer solutions. Of course, they're usually terrible solutions, and only presented when things have devolved so badly that it concerns the reactionary bloc. What were the anti-war crowd demanding when ISIS was on the march, when the wave of mass executions and refugees was ongoing, and the eventual crisis on Mt. Sinjar were created, that could've prevented war? Aid for refugees? Demands that the US push for reforms to the Iraqi government to be inclusive to Sunni's? Protesting against Russia and Iran for intervening in Syria at a scale that was keeping a genocidal regime afloat and enabling ISIS? Of course not. What was important was that the US stays out of it. In Syria, no war was never on the table. All that was available was to kick the can, and we kicked the can repeatedly in the name of anti-imperialism, because the "anti-imperialists" were the only ones who cared about it. Now ISIS is a prevalent force controlling an area the size of Great Britain, they, combined with the regime, control 90% of Syria, and an Islamic public has spent nearly 4 years watching the countries representing the ideals of freedom and democracy, that their revolution supported substantially not so long ago, sit idly by and watch them die. All while the forces representing salafism fought and died to take down their oppressor. That's had a tremendous effect on what the revolution has become. Now that the isolationist stance has destroyed the credibility of democracy in Syria, the conservatives have become interested, and they still have the influence to write foreign policy how they want when they go head to head with the anti-war crowd. It reminds me of an old George Orwell quote. quote:Since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively the pacifist is pro-Nazi. The "anti-imperialists" opposed the good options, and don't have the influence to prevent the bad ones, which thereby made bad action an inevitability. In short, it's a loving useless position that assures neocon foreign policy.
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Sep 18, 2014 23:10
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You criticize people for being anti-war and anti-interventionist, but I have yet to hear any solutions on your end that would be reasonable ones to solve any of those crises (Syrian civil war, ISIS killing people, etc). US or Western intervention is only going to exacerbate the situation further. Already military experts are concerned because by going after ISIS directly we are giving Assad an opening to go after the other rebels with greater force, since we've made it pretty clear from various statements that Assad will not be targeted by US or coalition warplanes if he ignores airstrikes in Eastern Syria. Other military people tend to agree that airstrikes are only going to halt the advance of ISIS into Iraq/neighboring countries. You're going to need a major ground force, more than likely, to at least present a decent threat, and even if you kill every last one of them it's not solving the underlying problems in the region.
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Sep 18, 2014 23:39
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Why do you assume it is impotence of ideologies that make things the way they are. We spend 600b on the MIC, and 6b on foreign aid a year. It makes sense that an MIC would have greater resource to affect policy; your story is compelling too, if we made a movie. Oh, I do not think foreign PAC are looked upon favorably except the obvious one. Is this wrong? Femur fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 23:50
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Volkerball posted:I agree it's understandable, but I also think it's a completely broken approach. It really comes down to your beliefs on why these modern intervention type wars happen. If you think there's a hidden agenda, never presented to the public, that drives politicians to try and push for war, of course you're going to oppose anything they present. But to me, even if the majority of this country aren't Republicans, they are pretty conservative and hawkish as a whole. When 9/11 happens, or ISIS doing awful things that we see on the news daily happens, this bloc calls for blood immediately in a reactionary way. Conservative Republicans and Democrats represent that call, and politic the scenario of the war to gain support and push through legislation. (I know some of you would point to Bush wanting to invade Iraq prior to 9/11, but it was because he viewed Iraq as terrorist enablers, and a massive threat to the US. In a post-9/11 world, he was able to get the reactionary bloc to agree with him) Since liberals these days largely think that the politicking around these wars are evidence that they are crafted by the illumanti and sold by their puppet politicians, they base their entire foreign policy around preventing that from going through. They aren't very well represented in Congress, but the extreme left isn't in general. That doesn't change the fact that primary anti-war bloc, especially in this thread, is entirely based on opposing any war, without any context or alternatives presented. Yes it was the antiwar movement's fault that we are going into a bad war. All those commies and codepinkers and their media organizations and senators and capital. If only they had supported the good and successful war I have imagined into existence this could have been avoided. Good loving lord. Do you listen to yourself? Tezzor fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 00:02
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FlamingLiberal posted:You criticize people for being anti-war and anti-interventionist, but I have yet to hear any solutions on your end that would be reasonable ones to solve any of those crises (Syrian civil war, ISIS killing people, etc). US or Western intervention is only going to exacerbate the situation further. This situation you are describing did not exist in any form 2 years ago. I've repeatedly stated solutions over the years to arguments like this one. It's harder these days, and perhaps impossible. But for an example, earlier in the revolution, when there were maybe 3 million or so refugees as opposed to the 9 million today, many of the internally displaced fled to various rural cities where there was no fighting (because there was no ISIS you see). They thought themselves to be safer here because they weren't in contested cities. But the regime doesn't bomb based on military significance. It bombs to crush dissent and destroy popular support for the government making concessions. As such, a brutal bombing campaign specifically targeted at non-hostile cities with the intent of killing civilians began and continues to this day. Tens of thousands have died. The vast majority of syrian refugees, myself, the entirety of the moderate opposition, and many others supported a no fly zone to make these cities safe for those who had fled to them. But this was perceived as too much. The opposition was fractured, it would do little to stop the killing, and it would be costly and risky while entangling the US in Syria. Oh to be in 2012 again. 
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Sep 19, 2014 00:05
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Obama's just gave a speech on Congress approving aid for the opposition. Starts at like 8 minutes. http://www.whitehouse.gov/live/president-obama-delivers-statement-congressional-passage-continuing-resolution
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Sep 19, 2014 00:18
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Something has been going down in Baghdad overnight, probably including a multi-suicide bombing coordinated assault on at least two detention centers. Rumors of freed prisoners, but we will have to wait until the smoke clears.
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Sep 19, 2014 01:41
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Volkerball posted:Obama's just gave a speech on Congress approving aid for the opposition. Starts at like 8 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj8M2kc6lHU
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Sep 19, 2014 02:16
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MothraAttack posted:Something has been going down in Baghdad overnight, probably including a multi-suicide bombing coordinated assault on at least two detention centers. Rumors of freed prisoners, but we will have to wait until the smoke clears. Reports on Twitter of two or three armored suicide trucks, many fatalities
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Sep 19, 2014 02:20
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