The Palis oppressed themselves. Please. Who else gets waterfront property and still manages to fuck it up? Israel let their people live in Israel, become citizens of Israel and before 10/7 had more than tripled the number of work permits issued to Gazans. Any single Arab Palestinian who wanted to live next to or in Israel was free to do so. He or she just had to agree to stop, you know, blowing up school buses and cafes. And even then, Israel would (stupidly) release them from prison only to have them turn around and keep trying to kill Jews. See, e.g., Yahya Sinwar.
Oppressed indeed. Pfft. That is the crazy af US liberal go-to line. Are you a Columbia student? If not, I recommend not using it.
A people unwilling to fight for their own freedom are unlikely to appreciate it being given to them by a foreign power.
Also, until the democrats handed them pallets of cash the regime was on a razor edge with no ability to fund themselves let alone proxies. It's very simple to get back to that state of affairs.
Doubly so since Russia and China are themselves scarce of funds to prop up Iran these days.
Maybe the ongoing policy is full sanction, prop up Israel and periodically bomb the ever loving shit out of strategic targets.
I can get on board with that.
I just need a break from the Steve Bannon/Tucker Carlson "you said you more forever wars!!!!" kermit the frog handwringing girl scouts. It's unmanly and it's unrealistic. We have interests around the globe. We are going to protect our interests as long as we have a man in the White House.
God help us when the pendulum swings back hard to American Liberal Theocracy.
We have a window here with a guy in the chair who is willing to swing the dick. Let him swing.
Let me ask you this: what would you have Trump do if the Iranians started getting cute with Hormuz? I think I know what the gals would say. What would you say?
One thing we know from the piece I cited, and as my primo pointed out, the Iranians were having cash flow problems. Maybe double down on that pressure and, again, periodically swing the dick when the circumstances demand it (and when they do demand it, tune out the "you promised!!!" gals). Maybe that's the way forward.
In other words, LIPO. Until then, we sent a reminder of what we can do that they most assuredly cannot do.
We should double up on our shitty friendship with Israel (and maybe make it not shitty) as well as financial support of war toys and let them keep crushing Hamas, Hezbollah and the rest of the Arab Hitler Youth. One HAS TO BELIEVE that one can defeat terrorism. It's like roaches in your house and @Swaye ain't around to spray: you don't just sit down and let them get into your food and have run of the house. You fucking stamp them out any chance you get. Continue full unapologetic support of Israel, double down on war toy gifts, quit hiring kids from Columbia and Harvard, and dare the Islamic Republic to punch back. Dare them to even look at Hormuz and swing hard if they do.
People and governments respect strength and pretty much nothing else. Otherwise, I want what's yours and you want what's mine.
I also want to add one more thing in true triple shit poast form:
when Israel bent Hamas over in Gaza, every fucking liberal POS in the US said (after screaming "war crimes! war crimes!") that the REAL problem was Iran and that instead of pounding the poor Palis Israel should instead deal with Iran.
those same liberal POS people then screamed "war monger! war monger! another forever war! oh no! end of times!" after Israel grabbed their balls and threw the punch and then screamed it louder when Trump trumped with the bombing. fuckin' A.
after more than half a century of winning on this planet, if I have learned only one thing it is this: you simply cannot win with some people and there is no point in trying to meet them half-way. as both @UW_Doog_Bot and @RaceBannon remember, I used to be quite the centrist and I would go OUT OF MY FUCKING WAY to see things from the liberal side of things only to have it shoved back down my throat with thinly veiled and often not veiled at all accusations of racism, misogyny (well, that's mostly true, but whatever) and xenophobia. eh, some people just cannot get through their boring lives without having a perceived oppressor about which they can bitch, complain and cry.
We? are about the only meaningful country in the world that is well positioned to deal with that risk. Drill baby drill. OK maybe Russia at this point since they've already isolated their markets.
It would absolutely devastate China and put the euros in their place. There's a reason China already told them "No".
It would turn the entire Sunni world into close US allies overnight.
In principle though, no, I like big swinging dick peace through strength foreign policy. I'm good with the occasional reminder to the rest of the world that they aren't our vassal states because of our generosity and magnanimous nature.
That is a far different approach than endless wars.
Trump is the modern day Teddy. Talk shit and carry a bit stick.
And that's tolerable - though morally killing people is just as wrong in military action as at the local Planned Parenthood (Holla at ya boy, creepycoug).
You just don't have to go looking for a never ending stick recipient.
First of all, can we? be more precise than "endless wars"? You guys (I'm calling you men again, for now) love to throw that around but are starting to sound like retarded liberal sloganeering poetry majors at Columbia. There are no endless wars. We end them. Sometimes smartly, sometimes stupidly, but we do end them.
Secondly, no. Morally, killing people in war is different than infanticide. For obvious reasons. Purposefully killing civilians in war is another matter, though the moral line on that has changed since many of our enemies choose to hide behind civilians and create situations where it is next to impossible to avoid civilian collateral damage. But killing in war is morally distinguishable from killing a child in the womb.
Primo, that's more thoughtful (and manly) than what I've been reading from the girls around here the last few days.
Tnx.
If we make them pour again, Hormuz may be one of only a few plays they have to make. We shall see.
One thing about which I am entirely confident: Iran will be around and it will continue to be a problem. That didn't go away with the bombing.
I still say this is a window (before we get a bleeding vag liberal back in the White House, which we will assuredly get) to drag the Supreme Leader to the table and knock out some terms Treaty of Versailles style. But nobody listens to a humble and intellectually crippled Cuog.
I think that Iran attempting to close the Straight would be suicidal. Their navy would be sunk. We close Kharg Island to Iranian oil exports with minimal damage and leave the rest of their oil infrastructure intact, for now. No oil out, then no money in and the mullahs would be up it. The population would see a future without the mullahs and more misery and poverty with them.
The treaty of Versailles is commonly attributed as a causal factor in ww2. Maybe not the best analogy. You can argue the point i suppose but still.
We?ve been entangled in a Middle East war of one or another my entire life. Trump is the only president in my lifetime not to start another one, and not by being a bleeding vagina about it.
I get your point about window. We should focus on making sure 2026 and 2028 go right rather than basing foreign policy on being losers.
So, you're saying if they were to entertain such a suicidal move that military intervention by the US would be warranted. So, what would the "forever wards gals" say about that? Didn't Trump promise to keep us out of foreign affairs?
I think he said America First and Iran can't have a nuke. I don't think he thinks that $200 a barrel oil is an America First idea. Blowing up the Iranian Navy and shutting down Kharg Island isn't a forever war. ISIS wasn't a forever war. I like Trump's record on forever wars versus the Bush's or Lindsay Graham.
That's fine and reasonable. Although once you open up "America First" to oil prices, you are signing up for a bit more activity in the ME than the gals seem to want. IDGAF myself. I grew up with the US involved in shit and was taught from a young age that the isolationists were pussies.
I'm also not sure what a "forever war" means, and I'm not sure anyone else is either. I think it's just a thing to say when the country is involved in something a person doesn't care about. Israel is our staunchest and by far most capable and culturally aligned ally in the ME, where we have interests (by your own admission). I care about keeping them in business. It's good for business.
We lost thousands of dead Americans and tens of thousands with horrific injuries for a forever war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The neocons like Graham still haven't learned. All that sacrifice for what? The same situation we could have had just kicking the Taliban in the ass and some bombs on Iraq with a threat to Saddam not to make us come back because he and his kids were going to be the target.
https://ace.mu.nu/
THE MORNING RANT: President Trump’s Use of Military Power - If We Have to Break It, We Aren't Going to Buy It
—Buck Throckmorton
Our political class has repeatedly told us that the only allowable “solutions” to pressing problems are alternatives not embraced by the majority of Americans. That is why we finally turned to Donald Trump. Just one example was the border crisis – Democrats argued for mass amnesty and a wide-open border, while establishment Republicans countered by also proposing mass amnesty with a slightly less porous border. Trump laughed in all their faces, shut the border, and started deporting criminal aliens.
In the matter of foreign military engagement, we have also been presented just two bad options over the past few decades.
1) Massive military commitment to foreign wars, including nation building and boots on the ground in perpetuity, all with an endless airlift of fallen troops being flown home to Dover AFB.
2) Pacifism, with the U.S. never unleashing its military might, even where it is appropriate.
There is another much better option, which President Trump just demonstrated – the use of our military to destroy what needs destroying, and then leaving the mess as a lesson. If Iran attempts to rebuild its nuclear program in coming years, we can bust it all up again. We don’t have to occupy Iran or pretend that it will become a western democracy. It can figure out whatever it wants to become, but if Iran restarts its nuclear program or exports terror again, it can also face our wrath again.
I have been waiting for the U.S. to strike against Iran for more than 45 years. The lost wars of the Bush-Cheney era have driven home the futility of trying to impose democracy on those not capable of it. But still, I’ve never stopped wanting there to be righteous retribution against Iran’s mad mullahs. They attacked America on American territory when they took our embassy personnel hostage in 1979, and they’ve been killing Americans wherever they can ever since.
One of the dubious lessons learned from World War II was that we must always rebuild what we destroy in war. In that spirit, Colin Powell famously told President George W. Bush regarding the Iraq War debacle, “If you break it, you own it.”
Donald Trump has put that idea to rest. We broke it (Iran’s nuclear program) and Israel has destroyed Iran’s war fighting capabilities. And now we’re done fighting. What Iran does now is not our problem, unless/until we have to break it again sometime in the future.
With all that said, there are plenty of reasons why the mainstream American right has become so anti-war in recent years. The awful loss of young Americans’ lives in service to other countries interests - but not America’s interests - is paramount. But it is also the realization that the war-pushers have a deep reserve of ashamed-to-be-American guilt that motivates them. There is an inherent contradiction in how they go about waging war. Quite simply, they rush into foreign wars, but then refuse to fight for victory, because they believe:
1) The United State has a moral obligation to fight other countries’ wars because of our power, wealth, etc.
2) It is culturally offensive for the United States to inflict what is necessary to actually win a foreign war.
We lost thousands of dead Americans and tens of thousands with horrific injuries for a forever war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Sure. Just don't repeat that kind of mistake. Easy.
Again, all I'm saying is that it's a bit simplistic to point to campaign promises and freak out when the boss hits the button. When Israel threw the punch, the campaign promise hawks said "don't get involved." Well, we got involved. It may not be the end. Probably will not be.
If the litmus test is "boots on the ground," then fine. That's a line I'm willing to honor unless Israel needs saving. Otherwise, sure. Don't try and impose democracy there. I agree it doesn't work. Though I wonder about Iran in that regard, but we can leave that discussion for another time.
Again, if oil prices are on the table, I think we're signed up for a bit more involvement over there than the campaign promise crowd would like.
Comments
The Palis oppressed themselves. Please. Who else gets waterfront property and still manages to fuck it up? Israel let their people live in Israel, become citizens of Israel and before 10/7 had more than tripled the number of work permits issued to Gazans. Any single Arab Palestinian who wanted to live next to or in Israel was free to do so. He or she just had to agree to stop, you know, blowing up school buses and cafes. And even then, Israel would (stupidly) release them from prison only to have them turn around and keep trying to kill Jews. See, e.g., Yahya Sinwar.
Oppressed indeed. Pfft. That is the crazy af US liberal go-to line. Are you a Columbia student? If not, I recommend not using it.
Nothing another crussade couldn't cure!
A people unwilling to fight for their own freedom are unlikely to appreciate it being given to them by a foreign power.
Also, until the democrats handed them pallets of cash the regime was on a razor edge with no ability to fund themselves let alone proxies. It's very simple to get back to that state of affairs.
Doubly so since Russia and China are themselves scarce of funds to prop up Iran these days.
A people unwilling to fight for their own freedom are unlikely to appreciate it being given to them by a foreign power."
Thats the rub. Creepycoug isn't wrong but neither are you
Let's see what happens with the Gulf States engaged.
I hope you are right.
Thanks, Obama.
Maybe the ongoing policy is full sanction, prop up Israel and periodically bomb the ever loving shit out of strategic targets.
I can get on board with that.
I just need a break from the Steve Bannon/Tucker Carlson "you said you more forever wars!!!!" kermit the frog handwringing girl scouts. It's unmanly and it's unrealistic. We have interests around the globe. We are going to protect our interests as long as we have a man in the White House.
God help us when the pendulum swings back hard to American Liberal Theocracy.
We have a window here with a guy in the chair who is willing to swing the dick. Let him swing.
Let me ask you this: what would you have Trump do if the Iranians started getting cute with Hormuz? I think I know what the gals would say. What would you say?
One thing we know from the piece I cited, and as my primo pointed out, the Iranians were having cash flow problems. Maybe double down on that pressure and, again, periodically swing the dick when the circumstances demand it (and when they do demand it, tune out the "you promised!!!" gals). Maybe that's the way forward.
In other words, LIPO. Until then, we sent a reminder of what we can do that they most assuredly cannot do.
We should double up on our shitty friendship with Israel (and maybe make it not shitty) as well as financial support of war toys and let them keep crushing Hamas, Hezbollah and the rest of the Arab Hitler Youth. One HAS TO BELIEVE that one can defeat terrorism. It's like roaches in your house and @Swaye ain't around to spray: you don't just sit down and let them get into your food and have run of the house. You fucking stamp them out any chance you get. Continue full unapologetic support of Israel, double down on war toy gifts, quit hiring kids from Columbia and Harvard, and dare the Islamic Republic to punch back. Dare them to even look at Hormuz and swing hard if they do.
People and governments respect strength and pretty much nothing else. Otherwise, I want what's yours and you want what's mine.
I also want to add one more thing in true triple shit poast form:
when Israel bent Hamas over in Gaza, every fucking liberal POS in the US said (after screaming "war crimes! war crimes!") that the REAL problem was Iran and that instead of pounding the poor Palis Israel should instead deal with Iran.
those same liberal POS people then screamed "war monger! war monger! another forever war! oh no! end of times!" after Israel grabbed their balls and threw the punch and then screamed it louder when Trump trumped with the bombing. fuckin' A.
after more than half a century of winning on this planet, if I have learned only one thing it is this: you simply cannot win with some people and there is no point in trying to meet them half-way. as both @UW_Doog_Bot and @RaceBannon remember, I used to be quite the centrist and I would go OUT OF MY FUCKING WAY to see things from the liberal side of things only to have it shoved back down my throat with thinly veiled and often not veiled at all accusations of racism, misogyny (well, that's mostly true, but whatever) and xenophobia. eh, some people just cannot get through their boring lives without having a perceived oppressor about which they can bitch, complain and cry.
I fucking pray they fuck with Hormuz.
We? are about the only meaningful country in the world that is well positioned to deal with that risk. Drill baby drill. OK maybe Russia at this point since they've already isolated their markets.
It would absolutely devastate China and put the euros in their place. There's a reason China already told them "No".
It would turn the entire Sunni world into close US allies overnight.
In principle though, no, I like big swinging dick peace through strength foreign policy. I'm good with the occasional reminder to the rest of the world that they aren't our vassal states because of our generosity and magnanimous nature.
Both funded by billions of tax dollars via Obunghole and Slow Joe…
That is a far different approach than endless wars.
Trump is the modern day Teddy. Talk shit and carry a bit stick.
And that's tolerable - though morally killing people is just as wrong in military action as at the local Planned Parenthood (Holla at ya boy, creepycoug).
You just don't have to go looking for a never ending stick recipient.
First of all, can we? be more precise than "endless wars"? You guys (I'm calling you men again, for now) love to throw that around but are starting to sound like retarded liberal sloganeering poetry majors at Columbia. There are no endless wars. We end them. Sometimes smartly, sometimes stupidly, but we do end them.
Secondly, no. Morally, killing people in war is different than infanticide. For obvious reasons. Purposefully killing civilians in war is another matter, though the moral line on that has changed since many of our enemies choose to hide behind civilians and create situations where it is next to impossible to avoid civilian collateral damage. But killing in war is morally distinguishable from killing a child in the womb.
Sorry. Thems the the rules.
@UW_Doog_Bot
Primo, that's more thoughtful (and manly) than what I've been reading from the girls around here the last few days.
Tnx.
If we make them pour again, Hormuz may be one of only a few plays they have to make. We shall see.
One thing about which I am entirely confident: Iran will be around and it will continue to be a problem. That didn't go away with the bombing.
I still say this is a window (before we get a bleeding vag liberal back in the White House, which we will assuredly get) to drag the Supreme Leader to the table and knock out some terms Treaty of Versailles style. But nobody listens to a humble and intellectually crippled Cuog.
@HuskyBuck
I think that Iran attempting to close the Straight would be suicidal. Their navy would be sunk. We close Kharg Island to Iranian oil exports with minimal damage and leave the rest of their oil infrastructure intact, for now. No oil out, then no money in and the mullahs would be up it. The population would see a future without the mullahs and more misery and poverty with them.
The treaty of Versailles is commonly attributed as a causal factor in ww2. Maybe not the best analogy. You can argue the point i suppose but still.
We?ve been entangled in a Middle East war of one or another my entire life. Trump is the only president in my lifetime not to start another one, and not by being a bleeding vagina about it.
I get your point about window. We should focus on making sure 2026 and 2028 go right rather than basing foreign policy on being losers.
Count the fucks.
It's a huge number.
So, you're saying if they were to entertain such a suicidal move that military intervention by the US would be warranted. So, what would the "forever wards gals" say about that? Didn't Trump promise to keep us out of foreign affairs?
I think he said America First and Iran can't have a nuke. I don't think he thinks that $200 a barrel oil is an America First idea. Blowing up the Iranian Navy and shutting down Kharg Island isn't a forever war. ISIS wasn't a forever war. I like Trump's record on forever wars versus the Bush's or Lindsay Graham.
That's fine and reasonable. Although once you open up "America First" to oil prices, you are signing up for a bit more activity in the ME than the gals seem to want. IDGAF myself. I grew up with the US involved in shit and was taught from a young age that the isolationists were pussies.
I'm also not sure what a "forever war" means, and I'm not sure anyone else is either. I think it's just a thing to say when the country is involved in something a person doesn't care about. Israel is our staunchest and by far most capable and culturally aligned ally in the ME, where we have interests (by your own admission). I care about keeping them in business. It's good for business.
We lost thousands of dead Americans and tens of thousands with horrific injuries for a forever war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The neocons like Graham still haven't learned. All that sacrifice for what? The same situation we could have had just kicking the Taliban in the ass and some bombs on Iraq with a threat to Saddam not to make us come back because he and his kids were going to be the target.
https://ace.mu.nu/
THE MORNING RANT: President Trump’s Use of Military Power - If We Have to Break It, We Aren't Going to Buy It
—Buck Throckmorton
Our political class has repeatedly told us that the only allowable “solutions” to pressing problems are alternatives not embraced by the majority of Americans. That is why we finally turned to Donald Trump. Just one example was the border crisis – Democrats argued for mass amnesty and a wide-open border, while establishment Republicans countered by also proposing mass amnesty with a slightly less porous border. Trump laughed in all their faces, shut the border, and started deporting criminal aliens.
In the matter of foreign military engagement, we have also been presented just two bad options over the past few decades.
1) Massive military commitment to foreign wars, including nation building and boots on the ground in perpetuity, all with an endless airlift of fallen troops being flown home to Dover AFB.
2) Pacifism, with the U.S. never unleashing its military might, even where it is appropriate.
There is another much better option, which President Trump just demonstrated – the use of our military to destroy what needs destroying, and then leaving the mess as a lesson. If Iran attempts to rebuild its nuclear program in coming years, we can bust it all up again. We don’t have to occupy Iran or pretend that it will become a western democracy. It can figure out whatever it wants to become, but if Iran restarts its nuclear program or exports terror again, it can also face our wrath again.
I have been waiting for the U.S. to strike against Iran for more than 45 years. The lost wars of the Bush-Cheney era have driven home the futility of trying to impose democracy on those not capable of it. But still, I’ve never stopped wanting there to be righteous retribution against Iran’s mad mullahs. They attacked America on American territory when they took our embassy personnel hostage in 1979, and they’ve been killing Americans wherever they can ever since.
One of the dubious lessons learned from World War II was that we must always rebuild what we destroy in war. In that spirit, Colin Powell famously told President George W. Bush regarding the Iraq War debacle, “If you break it, you own it.”
Donald Trump has put that idea to rest. We broke it (Iran’s nuclear program) and Israel has destroyed Iran’s war fighting capabilities. And now we’re done fighting. What Iran does now is not our problem, unless/until we have to break it again sometime in the future.
With all that said, there are plenty of reasons why the mainstream American right has become so anti-war in recent years. The awful loss of young Americans’ lives in service to other countries interests - but not America’s interests - is paramount. But it is also the realization that the war-pushers have a deep reserve of ashamed-to-be-American guilt that motivates them. There is an inherent contradiction in how they go about waging war. Quite simply, they rush into foreign wars, but then refuse to fight for victory, because they believe:
1) The United State has a moral obligation to fight other countries’ wars because of our power, wealth, etc.
2) It is culturally offensive for the United States to inflict what is necessary to actually win a foreign war.
We lost thousands of dead Americans and tens of thousands with horrific injuries for a forever war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Sure. Just don't repeat that kind of mistake. Easy.
Again, all I'm saying is that it's a bit simplistic to point to campaign promises and freak out when the boss hits the button. When Israel threw the punch, the campaign promise hawks said "don't get involved." Well, we got involved. It may not be the end. Probably will not be.
If the litmus test is "boots on the ground," then fine. That's a line I'm willing to honor unless Israel needs saving. Otherwise, sure. Don't try and impose democracy there. I agree it doesn't work. Though I wonder about Iran in that regard, but we can leave that discussion for another time.
Again, if oil prices are on the table, I think we're signed up for a bit more involvement over there than the campaign promise crowd would like.