USA US Presidential Elections 2024

[Rooxbar]

I mean it's fine; the "your" use as a generic "your" should be quite obvious.

The issue about Trump not actually being anti-war or anything resembling that is that U.S. and its western allies have sanctioned Iran to the ground crippling its economy and completely blocking its ability to trade, tried to bring Georgia into NATO which resulted in a devastating war there hampering their economic growth for more than a decade, killed close to 1 million people in Iraq and devastated its infrastructure, instigated a civil war in Syria producing close to 20 million refugees, and (as per the Nuland leak) forced a colour revolution in Ukraine and via bringing the alliance to the soft belly of Russia provoked another war there. You know what these countries which all have devastated economies and hampered ability to trade share? Ukraine, Georgia, Syria, Iran, Iraq: they're all our neighbors. Not only can't we trade with them properly, they're just places which export extremism, devastation and refugees to us and nothing more.

So "liking" another war in our region isn't exactly a matter of video games or something. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people will die and millions will be displaced, main brunt of which will be borne by us as the only barely stable country in the region. And then westerners will be looking from afar in the comfort of their homes, calling every death a death of a terrorist (as the pretext is being prepared right now), and all acts of extremism stemming from some "inferior culture" and not illiterate orphans with no education and no prospects due to the actions of western governments. And then the same people who said they like Trump because he's anti-war will cheer on their soldiers killing brown "terrorists", without a hint of irony.

So I'm trying to make sure you fully understand what liking Cheney and Bush, and another war here amounts to. It effectively translates to wishing death on thousands and devastation for our region and blocking of economic development.

 

[SilverMachine]

Yes. And I'm saying that horribly-bloody conflict with Iran is coming at some point or another anyway, their government is one of doom-cult theocrats who want the fight. If it goes down now under Trump, if the spark is something dumb like "durr hurr they tried to kill me, get 'em Bibi!", doesn't bother me. The death factor's baked in, it's happening one way or another unless the Iranian people manage to somehow overthrow the regime there on their own. Unlikely.

Yeah, I was pro-Iraq and Afghanistan (obviously with the latter, no serious person argues against Afghanistan being justified) too.

I'm not personally a big Trump guy, literally neither here-nor-there on him. He ain't smart, he's not disciplined or honorable, he's also not the anti-Christ. I do tend to lean toward him not being an all-out warmonger, considering he didn't *start* any shit the first time, merely continued dealing with whatever was already going on. Whether Iran has Israeli & American & British jets & drones over Tehran is entirely up to the Ayatollah & his guys. He backs off, I doubt Trump does anything, his interests are domestic not foreign. He hits Israel in any larger way and/or continues doing dumb shit like funding assassination plots on the Orange Guy, then yeah, Trump & Bibi are probably a nightmare duo for Iran.

Again, that's on Iran though. Only reason Soleimani got whacked was the fuckery he was plotting against Americans & regional allies/interests. When/if that and the anti-Israel boner stops happening, I doubt Trump gives two shits about Iran one way or the other. Trump doesn't stand for anything, there's no ideology or obsession there. He's literally "don't mess with mine and I won't destroy yours" crude mob boss. He's not Bolton who *wants* the showdown. Or even me who thinks it'd be a horror show but probably necessary.

 

[Rooxbar]

U.S. is responsible and instigator of all of those conflicts and will be the one to instigate and responsible for the Iran one as well. One doesn't (I don't use the generic "you" to avoid confusion) get to go to a region thousands of miles away, attack and destabilize each and every one of these much smaller and less populous countries and then get to claim they were the ones who started it all. You don't know nothing about what U.S. has done in Iran. Iran doesn't have the capability, the power, the size, nothing to start shenanigans against U.S. They are the ones starting to fuck with people and then call anyone who reacts terrorists, etc.

 

[SilverMachine]

The U.S. "instigated" Afghanistan? Bahaha.

Iraq's probably the case, sure. I'd venture to say Saddam did himself no favors in the years leading up to it, but hey, 'Murica bad always is the in-vogue mindset for sure. You do you.

No serious person would/could assert the U.S. "instigated" the fight with Iran if it goes down, not after all the shit they've been pulling with their foreign little-brother attack dogs of late. Hey, you poke the bear, you just might get eaten. Regarding "not having the capability to start anything against the U.S.", fucking with Israel every chance they get is doing just that. Same as if you're a foreign government that sets off a bunch of bombs in London, chances are you've got an American F-15 squad raining hellfire on you, no different.

 

[Tabmachine]

Timing of that news is very suspect; and also this:

Israel-Iran war: 'Trump will give Netanyahu a blank check to strike Iranian regime', ex-CIA chief reveals

Donald Trump is set to give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘blank check’, potentially paving the way for conflict with Iran. As Trump prepares to take office, reports suggest he plans to renew the ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against Iran, with a focus on crippling the Iranian...

economictimes.indiatimes.com

Here you got your anti-war candidate. He's filling his cabinet chock-full of Dick Cheney republicans.

I do not dispute the facts you lay out (in the previous post), but I think there is a miscommunication in terms of what I meant. I mean to say that I do not think the US will engage Iran directly, nor that they will pour the same amount of financial and material resources into conflict with Iran as they have been doing with Israel/Ukraine the past 4 years.

The measures you describe from the last Trump administration though, are definitely well within the scope of what we can likely expect this time around.

As an aside though, this link you've posted is not a reliable source of information (indian propaganda outlet) ,and the video itself did not seem to contain any meaningful content just referring to "reports" and "insider sources".

 

[Rooxbar]

I do not dispute the facts you lay out (in the previous post), but I think there is a miscommunication in terms of what I meant. I mean to say that I do not think the US will engage Iran directly, nor that they will pour the same amount of financial and material resources into conflict with Iran as they have been doing with Israel/Ukraine the past 4 years.

The measures you describe from the last Trump administration though, are definitely well within the scope of what we can likely expect this time around.

As an aside though, this link you've posted is not a reliable source of information (indian propaganda outlet) ,and the video itself did not seem to contain any meaningful content just referring to "reports" and "insider sources".

That link was not that important as that was reported far and wide, I just copy/pasted the first link I came across concerning the issue: ex-CIA chief said it as reported here in the Guardian for instance:

Trump will give Israel ‘blank check’ which may mean all-out war with Iran, says ex-CIA chief

Leon Panetta says he also expects US president-elect to favor letting Russia retain control of areas of Ukraine

www.theguardian.com

The more I read about this the less I think U.S. has any intention of engaging Iran directly; but this is not about U.S. and its institutions and their intentions. It's about the Jewish lobby, their billionaires (read the Adleson interview I posted), the Israeli far-right (like 70% of the country) and their intentions of creating chaos, blocking negotiations, and hence forcing Iran to seek the bomb under pressure to then through fear-mongering be able to both prepare the western public opinion (through the terrorism and apartheid cards which I mentioned earlier, plus the nukes) and make the case for the people on their payroll in Capitol Hill to pressure Pentagon and the state department to engage Iran directly. I think this is a likely scenario and the cadre available for the picking for Trump will be from recommendations by his donors, mainly from the establishment of gop and neocons and they will be quite conducive to this scenario.

 

[Lordimperator]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1855699236077088991

 

[SilverMachine]

I mean, delusional as that is if true, I guess the logic is consistent. If you're not mentally capable of running for president, you sure as hell shouldn't *be* president.

 

[Kartal1]

Stay away from personal attacks and contribute positively to the quality of the discussion!

Warnings were given and messages were deleted.

Thank you!

 

[Rooxbar]

The U.S. "instigated" Afghanistan? Bahaha.

Oooh I hadn't seen this; the world is sure funny when you know nothing about it.

 

[Afif]

Oooh I hadn't seen this; the world is sure funny when you know nothing about it.

Exactly, most people vaguely knows something about America funding and supporting the Afghan 'Mujahideen' once upon a time. That's about it. But in reality when you start reading the details, you come to realize this is actually an understatement. I hadn't much idea about these before either.

"After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the United States in coordination with regional partners such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan launched a covert campaign, Operation Cyclone, to support the Afghan mujahideen resistance to the Soviet occupation. While American funding for weapons and military equipment for the mujahideen is well known, many are unaware of the significant expenditures by the American government through USAID to provide educational materials and textbooks to mujahideen parties and Afghan children.4 Published and distributed by the University of Nebraska-Omaha (UNO), this program attempted to encourage a violent resistance to Soviet forces in Afghanistan by shaping the educational program of Afghan youth.

However, the content of these textbooks blatantly promoted jihad, militancy, and violence through graphic language and imagery. The textbooks included clear messages aimed at evoking hostility towards Russian invaders and promoting violent retribution against occupiers of Afghanistan. Textbooks designed to teach children to read and basic mathematics simultaneously emphasize weapons, killings, jihad, and Islamism."

Read the detailed analysis of textbook themselves at the link.

Islamist Education: American-Funded Textbooks In Afghanistan – Williams Undergraduate Research Journal

sites.williams.edu

These stuff created an entire generation of highly radicalized people across Afghanistan and Pakistan in an already extremely proverty ridden region. When you combined these two factors what did you expect to happen? You reap what you sow!

What makes it worse, Amercians were in for geopolitical reasons so they stopped at some point. But Saudis didn't, they had a retarted ideological aspect to this so they kept going. Using the influence of their raw money they continuesly sped up the wheel of mass radicalization that Americans set to course once.

And that's just the background stuff without going into how horribly they managed this so called war on terror later.

And for all this, Pakistan paid dearly. It was effectively in semi-civil war since 2000s to mid 2010s. (With terrorist attacks, bombs going off each week, drone strikes, and everything.) It set the whole country decades behind. It's not like I want to claim that Pakistan didn't had any problem before. It always had tribal and ethnic tension outside urban centers in the vast lands. But anybody knows the primary history of the region will agree that, from a socio-religious point of view as a society it was relatively better during 1950s to 1980s compared how it is since then to today.

 

[Lordimperator]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1856096778006811097

 

[SilverMachine]

Oh my god. Funding the mujahadeen 20 years prior means we don't get to go in and kick ass after being attacked?

Dumb take. Iraq's one thing, there's a legitimate debate there, but any country was going into Afghanistan after suffering a 9/11. That's not instigation, that's a reckoning.

 

[Rooxbar]

https://www.coindesk.com/tag/peter-thiel/

Peter Thiel made JD Vance btw and Trump has gone quite favorable towards Crypto; a big pump will happen if he wins. Not financial advice btw, esp. since I don't believe Dems will stick with Biden.

Trump first term showed he followed the Republican programme to the tee, and used the Republican infrastructure, apparatus and intelligentsia. Some neocons didn't like that his surface-level rhetoric has taken over the party, but their dissent is over aesthetics. The talk about isolationism, against Nato and against support for Ukraine is rhetorical mostly. Some monetary support for Ukraine might be retracted, but most seemingly aberrant actions by Trump were part of the generic Republican agenda (Paris Accord, Iran deal), some were just aesthetics used by liberals to consolidate their base (Friendship with Putin, meeting Kim, unserious stuff like that). Only subversive thing he did was Jan 6 and he wasn't directly to blame for it. I predict an even tamer second term (insofar as pursuing the Republican agenda can be considered tame) if he gets elected.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1856173648710906013

 

[SilverMachine]

Yeah, he probably won't last long. Kind of an odd choice considering Trump's posture in the campaign, I guess unless it's just another of the bluster moves like with NK, start rattling the saber and have Putin convinced the U.S. won't stop with the supplies, making him more amenable to talking with Zelensky. Could be something like that. At any rate as an army colonel he's not dumb/naive enough to actually believe the Ukes are going to "drive Russia completely out of Ukraine".

 

[hugh]

hehe

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1856531756083527702

 

[hugh]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1856658569124262092

 

[Rooxbar]

America's new defense secretary.

 

[SilverMachine]

Yeah, it's a little concerning. I figure a lot of that stuff's probably just the Fo News blowhard stuff, "owning the libs" or whatever (seems that's dated 2019 during covid), and I get what he probably *means* in the sense that we've all probably got a little too overzealous with the "can't be around any germs ever, hand sanitizer every 10 minutes!" wackyness, but as always with these types of people he takes it to a ridiculous "g3rmz ar3nt a th1ng, lulz!" level.

Apparently he was a major in the national guard and volunteered to go to Iraq when he wouldn't have had to otherwise though, so I dunno. Seems like both sides are doing their thing here, the right is all "he's totally qualified to be Secretary Of Defense!" and the left is dismissing him as *just* some TV pundit. Neither's true. He does seem to have a master's in public policy from Harvard though, so that ain't nothing, he's not just some uneducated rube.

Major isn't a super-junior rank either, and fairly sure back in the day lower-ranked people have eventually risen to the position. Even recently, think Hagel was a sergeant, Rumself a lieutenant etc. Think even a few civilians have held it. So yeah, kinda in two minds on this one, I'd want a general or admiral in an ideal world, but the "not qualified!" angle seems to be a little overplayed too, as if the guy's just a TV pundit alone.

 

[Rooxbar]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1856437836771406040