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HelloSailorSign posted:lmao what he means people 40 years ago programmed computers to tell them what to do
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Feb 15, 2020 01:35
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Never assume incompetence what can be explained by malice in geopolitics.
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Feb 15, 2020 01:44
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Yes but we are a 20trillion economy russia is a 2 trillion. Our loss in afghanistan is a drop in the bucket. I would also go as far as to say russia has done things very econimically and cheaply. The question you ask is the same one im trying to wrap my head around. If they can keep Turkey out on the cheap, then there's no reason to agree to a major partition. There's a huge, huge difference between federalization vs forcing Assad into a rump state. Yeah, Russia finally got Assad to update his offer from nothing to something in talks with the Kurds, in an effort to decouple them from the US, but he's massively dragged his feet on meaningful political reforms in any sense for the entirety of the war. If Russia intended for a political process to solve all the remaining problems with the rebels, they wouldn't be murdering civilians in Idlib right now. WhiskeyWhiskers posted:Never assume incompetence what can be explained by malice in geopolitics. Never assume this administration isn't incompetent as gently caress though. They're all over the map on foreign policy because Trump doesn't have the knowledge to have firm convictions, so it's one of the few areas where Senate Republicans have been able to get him to back down and reverse himself more than once. Once he checks out, you get a bunch of different people with different ideas about what priority is most important making policy until he remembers foreign policy is a thing again. He's been particularly distracted with domestic issues lately (outside of the idiotic crisis he provoked with Iran), and will likely remain so with an election coming up, so there hasn't been much bandwidth for getting his administration to take a coherent line. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Feb 15, 2020 |
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Feb 15, 2020 01:55
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Sinteres posted:If they can keep Turkey out on the cheap, then there's no reason to agree to a major partition. Also, the State Department is a burnt-out shell of its former self.
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Feb 15, 2020 02:07
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:Never assume incompetence what can be explained by malice in geopolitics. this is an idiotic assumption
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Feb 15, 2020 02:28
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:Never assume incompetence what can be explained by malice in geopolitics. Both can be true at the same time.
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Feb 15, 2020 06:49
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Quickest way to drain the coffers. Charlie wilsons war was fougjt this way. Without the shield of air superiority he regime is finished in terms of power projection. Yet despite the shoot dows (and a whole bunch of TOW hits) the Syrian government forces have continued to advance with apparent ease around Aleppo. In the last few weeks they've taken about a third of the remaining Idlib enclave, including the strategic towns of Maaret Al-Numan and Saqrib, without any real difficulty.  There really isn't that much left. And the north eastern section of that green, around Aleppo, is falling as we speak. This isn't 2015 anymore - the government isn't fighting desperately in the South, around Damascus, in the East, in Latakia and in Hama and in Aleppo - there is one active front left, the government can concentrate their forces all they like, and at this point TOWS and even MANPADS won't make much of a difference.
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Feb 15, 2020 11:50
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:The US isn't some bumbling set of fuckwits TFW you tank so hard you start praising Trump as some kind of geopolitical genius.
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Feb 15, 2020 12:27
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I'm sure you're all smarter than the combined minds of the US state department. Everything can be explained by how stupid everyone else is. Why do any of you even bother to discuss this poo poo if you think it's based on irrational behaviour? My suggestion wasn't even based on the true imperialist motives of the US. It was a reading that considered Trump's individualist pettiness as a possible motivating factor of the US, but even that's too tankie for everyone? WhiskeyWhiskers fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Feb 15, 2020 |
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Feb 15, 2020 12:42
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Individual decisions can be rational at that moment, but if the leadership is reversing those decisions all the time and doesn't follow any long term strategy then the end result is irrational, like a demented ADHD meth addict.
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Feb 15, 2020 12:55
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What US state department, trump completely hollowed it out.
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Feb 15, 2020 12:55
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If you're all right and Trump is systematically hampering the US' ability to destroy other countries overseas, are you all going to vote for him? Or are you invested in making sure empire is as an efficient killer as possible?
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Feb 15, 2020 13:05
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:If you're all right and Trump is systematically hampering the US' ability to destroy other countries overseas, are you all going to vote for him? Or are you invested in making sure empire is as an efficient killer as possible? You sure are full of hate and contempt toward everyone itt. Why do you torment yourself by staying here?
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Feb 15, 2020 13:28
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I just hate your useless liberalism. I don't particularly mind anyone here. Definitely not tormented. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 15, 2020 13:56
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:I'm sure you're all smarter than the combined minds of the US state department. Everything can be explained by how stupid everyone else is. This is indeed a cogent summary of the worldview of Donald J. Trump, your geopolitical idol. Ed: ^^^ *totally* not tormented.
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Feb 15, 2020 16:32
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well, you see, he wants to lynch brown people
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Feb 15, 2020 18:49
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Tankies for Trump isn’t exactly what I expected out of this thread but i’m glad i’m here.
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Feb 15, 2020 21:38
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:I'm sure you're all smarter than the combined minds of the US state department. Everything can be explained by how stupid everyone else is. Why do any of you even bother to discuss this poo poo if you think it's based on irrational behaviour? it's not that its better to assume incompetence over malice, but rather you really should try to make as few assumptions as possible. You're dangerously close to falling into teleology. people who make a lot of assumptions generally end up making themselves look like fools repeatedly. For example, the people who continue to insist that this time, for real, the latest crisis is all part of Trump's grand scheme to invade Iran. Despite all of his public statements, all of his actions, despite the subtle leaks to the NYtimes reporters indicating the contrary, no convoluted conspiracy is too complex for them to believe. They have decided that the USA is plotting to go to war, and the facts will be bent to fit this decision regardless of how badly they fit. If it is not Trump's desire, then obviously the CIA has gone rogue, or the Saudis have suddenly become competent enough to fool the world with a false flag. In reality, the simplest explanations are most often the best. If you must make assumptions, you should keep them simple and specific, rather than general and moralistic.
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Feb 15, 2020 22:06
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBb_uj51_Hc Looks like maybe they didnt find all the dhows carrying AA missiles and thermal imagers to Yemen
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Feb 15, 2020 22:58
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:Never assume incompetence what can be explained by malice in geopolitics. the real mistake here is assuming that the explanation must be either incompetence or malice.
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Feb 16, 2020 00:01
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echomadman posted:
hopefully this means the Saudis will be making fewer sorties then
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Feb 16, 2020 00:27
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echomadman posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBb_uj51_Hc Yeah that's no MANPAD. The Houthis are getting some serious poo poo from Iran.
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Feb 16, 2020 01:21
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US is boasting about how they got the Iranian shipment of (3) AA missiles on some dinghy while a god drat freighter with AA vehicles sails on by them
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Feb 16, 2020 01:22
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Squalid posted:hopefully this means the Saudis will be making fewer sorties then According to UN 30 civilians have died in retaliatory air strikes...  But that is pretty much normal Saturday in Yemen. Supposing there is any degree of competence, they will at least adjust tactics. If so, I would expect the same amount of sorties but more cautious, higher altitudes, more distance to Houthi positions.
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Feb 16, 2020 01:53
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https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1228989899354722310
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Feb 16, 2020 14:29
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Here is a thing that worries me: UN structures, in my experience, cannot speak in the simple present. The consensus rule means that no agency will pass a resolution that says "This country is doing this poo poo" or "This massacre is happenning right now". At most you get a press release saying "If nothing is done there is a heightened risk this bunch of people will die horrible". "A heightened risk of X in the future", normaly, has to be interpreted as "X is happening right now". The WFP is the specific branch of the UN that sends trucks of food to places. I am kind of surprised tthat they said that something is happenning right now. I see it as a portent of some kind but I cannot interpret it. Beyond, of course, a million people are going to starve and freeze.
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Feb 16, 2020 15:45
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https://twitter.com/tobiaschneider/status/1229083687985307648
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Feb 16, 2020 17:48
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The regime is grabbing up huge chunks of territory west of Aleppo, which have been some of the most heavily fortified rebel positions throughout the war. This was the big prize this whole advance has been working toward, so hopefully things can stabilize again soon. Like I've said before though, even if you grant that the regime making an effort to regain some of its territory surrounding one of its most important cities was ultimately inevitable, it's hard not to view choosing to violently uproot hundreds of thousands of new refugees in the freezing cold as an evil choice that could have been avoided.
Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Feb 16, 2020 |
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Feb 16, 2020 18:25
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Sinteres posted:The regime is grabbing up huge chunks of territory west of Aleppo, which have been some of the most heavily fortified rebel positions throughout the war. This was the big prize this whole advance has been working toward, so hopefully things can stabilize again soon. Like I've said before though, even if you grant that the regime making an effort to regain some of its territory surrounding one of its most important cities was ultimately inevitable, it's hard not to view choosing to violently uproot hundreds of thousands of new refugees in the freezing cold as an evil choice that could have been avoided. That would have caused less suffering. Collective punishment and terror is how the Assad regime has held onto power.
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Feb 16, 2020 18:33
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Nenonen posted:Supposing there is any degree of competence, they will at least adjust tactics. This is a rather bold assumption for the Saudi military.
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Feb 16, 2020 19:20
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https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1229091807000190976 This guy's a Turkish reporter, so far from a pro-Assad source. Here's the translation: "All of Western Aleppo is in the hands of Assad. Air strikes stopped. The entire M5 fell into the hands of the Assad regime. Control of Aleppo was achieved. So-called truce also comes." My impression is that it's not all over just yet, and there are some reports that Russia may have fired some cruise missiles from the Med, but things do seem to be winding down as the regime finishes clearing the territory south of the Kurdish area. They ended up getting more out of this advance than I thought they would, and Erdogan looks weak as hell if he doesn't find a way to claw some of it back or get some Kurdish territory elsewhere as part of the deal for standing by after making such big threats. Russia's apparently garrisoning the M5 themselves, so I don't see a big Turkish counterattack to reclaim it happening. If they were going to act, shipping in all those forces and then doing nothing significant with them while the regime kept stomping the rebels is a weird way of signaling it. Edit: The new rumor is that TFSA are withdrawing to Afrin and that the regime forces are going to take the M4 to cut off the southern third of Idlib too. https://twitter.com/LindseySnell/status/1229153772678656000 The dumbest possible outcome, which means it could actually happen, is that Russia got Erdogan to agree to a plan in which the SAA gets to keep the stuff they were driving for in this offensive, and then the SAA decides to grab more while they're ahead and gets blown the gently caress up. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Feb 16, 2020 |
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Feb 16, 2020 20:07
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Randarkman posted:That would have caused less suffering. Collective punishment and terror is how the Assad regime has held onto power. Ah yes sovereign states should just let Al Nusra backed by Turkey form a rump state right next to its largest city.
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Feb 17, 2020 03:57
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https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1229285646755385345
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Feb 17, 2020 15:09
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So, somebody had a really combative response to a story about an Iranian family denied a visa to mourn the shooting down of that plane with a relative: https://twitter.com/HomaYamani/status/1227726712277848064  This lead to this further exchange: https://twitter.com/HomaYamani/status/1227760272019881984  And this is how I learned there were avid Pahlavi royalists online. Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Feb 17, 2020 |
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Feb 17, 2020 20:48
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I agree with the lady, it's important the US shows ordinary Iranians that the US are a horrible place run by horrible people, in no way any better than the Islamic Republic.
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Feb 17, 2020 22:33
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This is the first day in a while where I haven't seen the regime capturing any new territory, so we may be seeing the start of a new cease fire taking hold, though there is still bombing and shelling, as well as the possibility that Turkey will still go full YOLO and try to enforce the Sochi lines. Or that the regime will get greedy and push their luck if they get cocky about Turkey backing down. Still, it's a better day than most lately for anyone living there. The rumor is that this is the map Russia offered to Turkey as the basis for an enduring cease fire, and Turkey understandably told them to gently caress off since it basically gives the regime everything but a bunch of IDP camps for Turkey to take responsibility for along the border. Meeting somewhere in the middle could still just mean more or less accepting conditions as they stand. https://twitter.com/janreno__/status/1229812452705042432 Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Feb 18, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 19:17
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Erdogan's still talking big, but I'm still skeptical that we'll see an all out offensive, so at least one of the two of us is going to look pretty dumb soon: https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1230081151559258114 Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 11:59 on Feb 19, 2020 |
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Feb 19, 2020 10:50
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Erdogan demands more lebensraum, cool cool cool Bohemian Nights fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Feb 19, 2020 |
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Feb 19, 2020 12:59
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Bohemian Nights posted:https://twitter.com/ObservatoryLY/status/1229718540057534465?s=19 I posted that earlier before editing it out, so I got tricked too, but the video's from 2016. It's a potentially revealing and inflammatory sentiment either way, but I think it was in a less blatantly revanchist context too. Here's what a commenter on Reddit said about it: For the context, he was talking about an anecdote on TIKA, the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency, while extending help to a village in Macedonia. So I believe that his speech was revolving around the need to extend Turkey's soft power and international aid and cooperation, not military expansion.
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Feb 19, 2020 14:33
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Alas, fooled by reddit once again. Thanks for pointing it out!
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Feb 19, 2020 16:07
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