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Graham never used to have jack poo poo for meaningful influence until like 6 months ago when he started golfing with Trump super regularly and is now actually influential af.
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Jun 17, 2019 05:45
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Herstory Begins Now posted:Graham never used to have jack poo poo for meaningful influence until like 6 months ago when he started golfing with Trump super regularly and is now actually influential af. Probably because Trump or his cronies have some kind of dirt on him. Maybe they might let out the big secret that Graham is gay.
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Jun 17, 2019 07:15
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No, because he's utterly and completely ambitious and sucks up to power. No one in DC really gaf about Graham's sexuality.
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Jun 17, 2019 07:54
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Things this thread taught me: 1. The NYT is an extreme right wing publication. 2. Brown Moses is a war profiteer. 3. News media is very profitable. 4. Donald Trump is moist.
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Jun 17, 2019 12:28
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Is it really controversial to say the paper that has constantly printed opeds calling for military action against Iran 'right wing'?
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Jun 17, 2019 12:43
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Unimpressed posted:Things this thread taught me:
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Jun 17, 2019 13:15
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Unimpressed posted:Things this thread taught me: it's a shame it took you until now to figure out 1, but it's good to see you learning. fun little trick you can do at home: find a US military intervention in your lifetime the Times was not unconditionally in favor of. seriously the fuckers gave the daughter of one of the guys Chavez overthrew a video editorial to make the case for war with Venezuela, and bylined her as "a Venezuelan-American comedian." compared to that, brown moses' thousand word Hey Check Out My SoundCloud is downright subtle.
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Jun 17, 2019 14:39
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What has Graham done that made everyone thinks that he's influencing Trump in any way? To me, he's just full of bluster and nothing else.
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Jun 17, 2019 15:02
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Was it the Times or WP that let Erik Prince write about how his mercenary army could takeover for US troops in the ME
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Jun 17, 2019 15:03
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Luckyellow posted:What has Graham done that made everyone thinks that he's influencing Trump in any way? To me, he's just full of bluster and nothing else. They do spend a lot of time together, and Trump echoes some of Graham's tough talk from time to time, but we're not at war with half the world yet, so Graham's influence is obviously limited. Trump's very difficult to control for long. Not because he's a brain genius, but because he's incredibly fickle and hates the impression that anyone is controlling him more than anything else, so all someone has to do to manipulate him into the opposing view is show him an article about the other person's influence.
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Jun 17, 2019 15:18
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FlamingLiberal posted:Was it the Times or WP that let Erik Prince write about how his mercenary army could takeover for US troops in the ME the times, of course link here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/opinion/erik-prince-contractors-afghanistan.html?ref=opinion the article is paywalled, so here's a summary from salon: https://www.salon.com/2017/08/30/the-new-york-times-invites-erik-prince-to-advocate-for-privatizing-the-afghanistan-war/ quote:He's previously stated that his model would replicate that of the East India Company and install a "viceroy" to oversee operations, though he insisted he wasn't "advocating colonization."
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Jun 17, 2019 15:38
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The Times is mostly poo poo and they employ morons like Bret Stephens and are happy to take money from criminals and liars to put whatever editorial on the front page
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Jun 17, 2019 15:45
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:it's a shame it took you until now to figure out 1, but it's good to see you learning. fun little trick you can do at home: find a US military intervention in your lifetime the Times was not unconditionally in favor of. The Iraq War. They had a full page advertisement how the entire editorial staff and thousands of others were against war.
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Jun 17, 2019 15:52
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Tab8715 posted:The Iraq War. They had a full page advertisement how the entire editorial staff and thousands of others were against war. the times op-ed staff having to buy ad space in their own paper to bypass the editors in order to oppose the iraq war isn't exactly a strong argument that the nytimes was anti-war.
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Jun 17, 2019 15:57
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Tab8715 posted:The Iraq War. They had a full page advertisement how the entire editorial staff and thousands of others were against war. and meanwhile, when Dick Cheney told the Times "we've got evidence of Iraq having WMDs, but you didn't hear that from me", the Times ran the story, and Dick Cheney immediately turned around and told the world "look it's not just us saying this, the New York Times also has evidence Iraq has WMDs," they smiled, nodded, and said "yessir, Mr. Cheney sir." lol
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Jun 17, 2019 16:02
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Squalid posted:The United States has many options for escalation. These include, in order of increasing violence; 1) Military shows of force 2) Increased money and weapons supplied to the enemies of Iranian proxies, 3) Increased harassment/confrontation with Iranian naval assets in the Gulf, with potential for accidental violence on either side 4) Limited offensive attacks on Iranian naval assets 5) Limited attacks on military targets inside Iran like airbases and naval facilities 6) Large scale attacks against Iranian air defenses and infrastructure 6) Full scale land invasion and ground war. Not really! 4, 5, 6, and 6-2 are all "war", and we're starting at 3 because 1 and 2 are things we already do to pretty much the greatest extent possible.
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Jun 17, 2019 16:20
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GoluboiOgon posted:the times op-ed staff having to buy ad space in their own paper to bypass the editors in order to oppose the iraq war isn't exactly a strong argument that the nytimes was anti-war. Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:and meanwhile, when Dick Cheney told the Times "we've got evidence of Iraq having WMDs, but you didn't hear that from me", the Times ran the story, and Dick Cheney immediately turned around and told the world "look it's not just us saying this, the New York Times also has evidence Iraq has WMDs," they smiled, nodded, and said "yessir, Mr. Cheney sir." The OP was find a "US military intervention in your lifetime the Times was not unconditionally in favor of" not something about Darth Vader manipulating the US Press.
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Jun 17, 2019 16:25
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This is so obvious that I don't know why I even have to point it out, but it doesn't follow that an organization isn't unconditionally in favor of something just because someone who works for said organization dissents against the company line in a private capacity.
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Jun 17, 2019 16:37
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Cerebral Bore posted:This is so obvious that I don't know why I even have to point it out, but it doesn't follow that an organization isn't unconditionally in favor of something just because someone who works for said organization dissents against the company line in a private capacity. If your entire editorial staff is taking out full page advertisements against the war along with numerous op-eds from the same staff that this isn't such a good. Then that's no longer being "unconditionally" in favor of such a thing.
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Jun 17, 2019 17:10
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if by 'someone' you mean 'everyone who works there not named judy miller' and by 'company line' you mean 'selected op ed columnists', sure
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Jun 17, 2019 17:13
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Main Paineframe posted:Not really! 4, 5, 6, and 6-2 are all "war", and we're starting at 3 because 1 and 2 are things we already do to pretty much the greatest extent possible. If you really think there is nothing more the US can do against the Houthi you should think again. It probably wouldn't actually matter much to Iran since they aren't very closely linked really but still. I suspect there's a lot of clandestine stuff that could happen with paramilitaries in Iraq as well. Anyway, I don't know why people insist on being so vague. I would like to know what specifically people think is going to happen, since they appear so confident in their assessments. The US navy doesn't need a casus belli to start threatening Iranian boats anyway, and right now that appears to be as far as US leaders want to escalate. Of course with Iranian continuing uranium enrichment, we may see indications that the US is going to attempt a military response against that. As soon as someone sees statements from policymakers indicating that, they should post them.
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Jun 17, 2019 17:14
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Morsi just fainted and died after a court appearance.
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Jun 17, 2019 17:16
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Volkerball posted:Morsi just fainted and died in court. Now that's what I call a lack of standing 
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Jun 17, 2019 17:17
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Volkerball posted:Morsi just fainted and died after a court appearance. RIP he was stupid and bad but not as bad as the present leadership
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Jun 17, 2019 17:23
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Pretty crazy that we live in a world where Mubarak is still alive and Morsi isn't.
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Jun 17, 2019 17:40
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https://twitter.com/obornetweets/status/1140655444026888192?s=21 This has been coming for a while.
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Jun 17, 2019 17:44
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Ironically, the US has very little to gain by keeping Iran restrained. A powerful Iran just means more arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Israel and SA is already the single largest buyer of American weapons on the planet. There's also the long-term concern about Israel and SA both becoming powerful enough that they are liabilities as allies. How much so SA and Israel are already liabilities is pretty much just a matter of ideology. While Iran is perceived as a thorn in the side of US FP, SA is so loving boneheaded in their use of force and American weapons that they're deeply into being more of a liability than a meaningful ally. Iran getting a nuke is pretty much the only thing at this point stopping the inevitable Saudi war against Iran.
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Jun 17, 2019 18:16
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The Saudis can't even win a war in Yemen, let alone against Iran, and it's not like Iraq is going to give the Saudis access to their territory either, so imagine all the ways a Saudi amphibious invasion could go wrong. If Iran decides they need nukes at some point, it'll be to deter us and to a lesser extent Israel, not the Saudis.
Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jun 17, 2019 |
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Jun 17, 2019 18:21
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Why haven't Israeli and Saudi Arabia been able to stop Iran? It seems the three countries are on a collision course and there's so much bad history there's little anyone is able to do to stop it. Is that a fair assessment?
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Jun 17, 2019 18:28
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Tab8715 posted:Why haven't Israeli and Saudi Arabia been able to stop Iran? It seems the three countries are on a collision course and there's so much bad history there's little anyone is able to do to stop it. Iran is a fairly rich, fairly developed country that's much, much better run then Saudi Arabia, and Israel is a fairly small country with unreliable regional relationships that's wasting a lot of its resources and political capital on its decades-long apartheid project. The Iraq War also destroyed Iran's biggest, nastiest local rival and let them start making friends with the Shia majority.
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Jun 17, 2019 18:35
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Tab8715 posted:Why haven't Israeli and Saudi Arabia been able to stop Iran? It seems the three countries are on a collision course and there's so much bad history there's little anyone is able to do to stop it. Stop Iran from doing what exactly? Israel working with the US definitely screwed up their nuclear projects, even if they haven't been eliminated completely. Saudi Arabia and her allies have also largely succeeded in preventing the spread of Islamic revolution and kept their Shia subjects down. Iran's big international coup of the 21st century was the replacement of Saddam with a friendly Shia led government, but that that was also seen to be in the interests of the United States. Iran's policy in Syria succeeded in keeping Assad in power, however Syria was already an Iranian ally before the civil war. Iran didn't lose Syria as an ally, but it didn't gain anything from the war that it didn't already have. Hezbollah might be increasing its power in Lebanon, but Saudi Arabia has at least been able to check its growth and influence by supporting its own proxies.
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Jun 17, 2019 18:39
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Tab8715 posted:Why haven't Israeli and Saudi Arabia been able to stop Iran? It seems the three countries are on a collision course and there's so much bad history there's little anyone is able to do to stop it. They don't want to be the ones doing it, they want to be the cheerleaders needling on from the sideline.
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Jun 17, 2019 18:48
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https://m.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iran-News/UN-officials-US-is-planning-a-tactical-assault-in-Iran-592832/amp This story credits Maariv. Are they a credible source?
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Jun 17, 2019 18:50
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Volkerball posted:Morsi just fainted and died after a court appearance.
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Jun 17, 2019 19:13
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Squalid posted:Yeah, I've heard a lot of stuff about disagreement within the Trump administration on Iran policy. I haven't however seen any public disagreement regarding the response to the tanker incident. Not to suggest that this is an idea of yours, but these reports of disagreements would also seem to be circumstantial evidence against the theory that this was an American false flag. If the main Iran-war hawks are Bolton and the Secretary of State, and they are opposing the President and Joint Chiefs of Staff, the hawks are going to have a hard time orchestrating a false flag under their opponents noses. The only American organizations capable of pulling off this operation are the military and CIA. I'm not sure what the scuttlebutt regarding the CIA's stance in all this is, but I feel they are unlikely, barring new information, to go against the President. Bolton has very little administrative power to organize anything. (I will preface everything that follows by saying it is all wildly speculative and that it's important to keep acknowledging that we're simply not well positioned to answer most of these questions) I'm inclined to agree that this is circumstantial evidence against US military itself having engineered a false flag attack, though it's very hard to rule anything out at this point. I also think that the Iranians being behind the attack is not as inconceivable as some other posters have suggested. The Trump administration has been putting a lot of pressure on Iran and a precisely targeted but carefully limited strike against shipping could be a way for the Iranian government to signal that they won't be pushed around and that trying to choke off their economy will have consequences for the West. On many levels an American military strike against Iran simply makes no sense, so as hard as it seems to believe from our armchairs it is indeed possible that Iran decided to send a message here. It's also possible that we're seeing a factional dispute within the Iranian government. The Revolutionary Guard recently came under harsh new sanctions and it is possible that they lashed out independently from the rest of the government. On the other hand we can't rule out the prospect that this was a false flag attack conducted 'off book' by some American proxy force or perhaps by a regional power who wants to pull America deeper into the fighting. We already know that the Iran hawks in the White House have been farming out intel assessments to Israel so that they get exactly the results they want. It is possible that Israel or Saudi Arabia - either with tacit approval from the war hawks, or simply acting on their own - were behind this attack, and hoped it would help push America into a more belligerent stance against Iran. It's bizarre to imagine people in the White House conspiring with or at least encouraging a foreign military to create the pretext for an American military strike but far crazier things have happened so the possibility cannot be ruled out. For that matter, I don't think it can be entirely ruled out that part of the message here was in part a message to Japan to butt out of this situation and stop trying to de-escalate. As for whether this was successful (assuming it was a false flag and that it was intended to create the pretext for a military strike), I agree that so far it doesn't seem like the White House is jumping on this as an excuse to start bombing. That's hardly surprising given that a war with Iran would be such a terrible idea that I still think on the balance it is unlikely to happen. However, I could see Bolton and Pompeo trying to use incidents like this one to try and pressure Trump into a show of strength - maybe a missile strike on an Iranian nuclear facility - and then using that foot in the door technique to gradually ramp up Trump's toleration for military action.
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Jun 17, 2019 19:21
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https://m.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iran-News/UN-officials-US-is-planning-a-tactical-assault-in-Iran-592832quote:Diplomatic sources at the UN headquarters in New York revealed to Maariv that they are assessing the United States' plans to carry out a tactical assault on Iran in response to the tanker attack in the Persian Gulf on Thursday. If this is right. How does Iran respond? Does it ride the strikes out like Syria has? Hit back at American forces indirectly via proxy? Escalate to full blown war?
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Jun 17, 2019 21:08
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Sinteres posted:Pretty crazy that we live in a world where Mubarak is still alive and Morsi isn't. 
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Jun 17, 2019 21:12
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If I was Iran I'd be pleading with Europe to try and make this stop. I could sort of a see a minor bombing ignored but anything major would inevitably escalate.
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Jun 17, 2019 21:16
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OhFunny posted:https://m.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iran-News/UN-officials-US-is-planning-a-tactical-assault-in-Iran-592832 Retaliates in some overt way. Too much prestige to be lost by just eating an unprovoked* attack. But they'd hit back in a limited fashion so as to avoid much escalation. I bet there'd be done back and forth. If neither Trump nor Iran's leadership wants war (and I think they do not) then war is unlikely. I think it would be Tanker War redux, basically.
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Jun 17, 2019 21:18
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Sinteres posted:Pretty crazy that we live in a world where Mubarak is still alive and Morsi isn't. And Mubarak is a free man while Morsi died in prison.
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Jun 17, 2019 21:19
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