Exactly, Russia and China are not in the same ball park at all.

(Much to Putin's frustration, no doubt)

(Much to Putin's frustration, no doubt) — jamalrob

I think it's almost to Putin credit that he's made it seem as though Russia is a far bigger fry than it is. I think it helps too that the US likes to play Reds under the Bed every once in a while to stoke up nationalist ferver and keep them in focus (and off American domestic policy).

--

Also just to add a note now that I've said something vaguely substantial: those who want to use cartoon categories like 'good guys' and 'bad guys' to think about any of this stuff ought to go back to watching the Disney channel rather than commenting on this stuff. Like, fuck off back to the Dora the Explorer forums or something.

Like, fuck off back to the Dora the Explorer forums or something. — StreetlightX

In this case, I heartily approve of your abusive language. :grin:

Street be like:

My take away from that was that my arguments apparently confuse you, which is probably why you never actually engage them.

I understand that the US and Germany had legitimate POW agreements that were by and large followed, but this was not the case in the Pacific. — BitconnectCarlos

How is a treaty with a Chapter "Prisoners of War" not a "legitimate POW agreement"? Or the 1929 Geneva Convention III titled "relative to the treatment of prisoners of war"?

I understand that legal standards existed but whether the nations signed to them or not, they were not followed in the Pacific theater. I was just wondering whether you'd consider FDR a war criminal due to this, and if so, is there any conclusion beyond that that we should be drawing?

I'm not trying to defend FDR here. FDR is an icon for the American left though. I'm not even trying to push a certain view here - a part of me obviously wishes affairs in the Pacific could have been more humanitarian, but on the other hand I understand that was a completely different time period and that I'm so far removed from the actual situation in my warm home and comfy chair. There were American war crimes in the European theater as well that went completely unpunished. No one should try to white-wash them, but on the other hand excessive criticism comes off as suspect. How we ought to view these crimes is an interesting topic.

the US almost had the Taliban/Al Qaeda beat in Afghanistan. — The Opposite

Think so?



If last May the Taliban controlled 75 districts and the Taleban had roughly about 60,000 full-time Taliban militants and some 90,000 seasonal fighters, it means that it's quite alive and kicking. 60 000 insurgents means that the counter-insurgency war is anything but won. The Afghan security forces lose nearly 1000 troops a month (see here).

Knowing something about history, the US was never near beating the Taleban. Besides, the Taleban could always withdraw to Pakistan and then come back. Hence the Doha agreement was in truth realism from the Trump administration.

The few things Trump got right.

(The US making an agreement with the Taleban in Doha. Not something the Trump supporters eagerly display like the Israeli - Gulf State relationship normalizations.)

I’m supportive of the idea that Russia’s role (and thus threat) in global affairs is greatly exaggerated. If people read the press in Asian countries as I do, they see Russia very differently from the US & European press. Russia is just treated like another normal country, not Hitler.

I do think Russian bombing in Syria has been de-emphasized here though, which is Putin’s worst crime in the past decade. You can squeeze in a realist interpretation in this too to an extent, but not as much as for Ukraine. So I think the bounds are a bit more than Eastern Europe.

I do think Russian bombing in Syria has been de-emphasized here though, which is Putin’s worst crime in the past decade. You can squeeze in a realist interpretation in this too to an extent, but not as much as for Ukraine. So I think the bounds are a bit more than Eastern Europe. — Saphsin

Yes, that occurred to me, good point. Maybe I'll get around to dealing with that.

Your sentiments would make more sense if there was a global government. Without that, theres no social contract to support intervention and no taxation (on loudmouth Dutch people) to provide structure post intervention.

There's also a touch of condescension to it that's a downer

Globalist efforts are back on the table. For instance, listen to the “great reset” nonsense from the World Economic Forum, or Agenda 2030 from the UN. I suspect that with Biden as president the US will take back its role as the neoliberal spearhead.

My theory is that there are forces in human life that lead to unity and forces that divide. Global unity would require a crest of the former and a great weakening of the latter.

I think it would require a new global religion. Biden's personality is just a grain of sand in that ocean.

It fell to Truman ("The buck stops here") to give final approval, but Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and another city had been left unbombed by design to provide a "pristine target". All the important decisions about the nuclear program had been made under Roosevelt. Truman was not part of the decision making loop.

As for the Dresden (or Hamburg, Tokyo...) fire bombing, the 'total war' approach to civilians was tried out in WWI. The level of mechanization and air power in in the 1914-18 conflict didn't allow for the kind of devastating attack that was possible 20 some years later.

thanks. I didn't know that.

Your sentiments would make more sense if there was a global government. Without that, theres no social contract to support intervention and no taxation (on loudmouth Dutch people) to provide structure post intervention.

So let's discuss creating these things so that there is a contract in place to make everyone care about Iraqi women being raped by their own government.

The NATO coalition would be a good place to start. It requires unanimity for decision-making. It only allows secular capitalist liberal democracies in. It's reach could spread beyond the North Atlantic to allow Australia et al in.

I think it would require a new global religion.

Ok, so create one! I've made an attempt here.

I think China owns a fair amount of Australia, so it would be their call.

I think China owns a fair amount of Australia, so it would be their call.

Let me know when you think Iraqi women being raped by their own government and Iraqi men having their tongues cut out is a serious issue worth addressing.

Why? Are you trying to recruit me for the Australian CIA? :grin:

Why? Are you trying to recruit me for the Australian CIA?

The CIA equivalent here is "ASIO". And no, I don't trust ASIO to respond properly to the rape of Iraqi women, or indeed to Americans jumping out of skyscrapers. I think you have brought up some very interesting points that need to be explored in the free marketplace of ideas, and I wish you would expand on them. And I'd like to see your response to my suggestions. I'd like to see Hippyhead's thoughts too.

secular capitalist liberal democracies — Paul Edwards

Too bad one of those things has to spoil the great civilization that the other three together would make.

Too bad one of those things has to spoil the great civilization that the other three together would make. — Pfhorrest

Part of the comprehensive response to 9/11 is to get people like you to stop running the same absurd social experiment on multiple countries at the same time, instead of testing your theories on one small island at a time, voluntarily (like Venezuela did), and without accompanying human rights abuses and lying about the results.

As opposed to the massive social experiment that’s been failing all over the western world for the past four decades, and threatening to take the entire planet with it now.

As opposed to the massive social experiment that’s been failing — Pfhorrest

It hasn't been failing. It's the best system we actually know of. Any time someone tries out a different system it only ever makes things worse. Your different take on the same data is why we need to have an ideological war, an all-encompassing ideological war, in response to 9/11.

America today is not better for most people than America 40 years ago. Stainism or Maoism is not the only alternative to what we’re doing now.

America today is not better for most people than America 40 years ago. Stainism or Maoism is not the only alternative to what we’re doing now. — Pfhorrest

How many GiB of RAM did your computer have 40 years ago? We've had massive improvements in standard of living thanks to our capitalist economy. Note also that capitalism is the *natural* form of trade (no-one in charge of setting prices) so it's not surprising that that is the best system we know of to date.

Again, I'm sure you've got your pet idea which is guaranteed to work and be better than what we have now, and it's a crying shame that no-one has implemented it to date. I'm not against trying out kooky experiments just for laughs, but as I said, please try them out on a small island, or even better, a hippy farm, without human rights abuses, and without lying about the results.

We've had massive improvements in standard of living thanks to our capitalist economy. — Paul Edwards

Most of my generation have barely any hope of ever paying off a home. Two generations ago a man my age who wasn’t well on his way to that goal would have been a complete failure. I’d gladly trade some GiB of RAM for a real house of my own, one I could raise a family in. We have a lot of cheap fancy toys now, but the actual necessities of life are increasingly out of reach for most people. That’s not progress, that’s failure.

Note also that capitalism is the *natural* form of trade (no-one in charge of setting prices) — Paul Edwards

“Capitalism” is not synonymous with “free market”. I never said anything against a free market. The social experiment that’s failing the world is the concentration of capital ownership in increasing fewer hands. That destroys the freedom of the market.

If you can’t even differentiate capitalism from a free market you’re not educated enough to be participating in this conversation.

I'm sure you've got your pet idea which is guaranteed to work and be better than what we have now, and it's a crying shame that no-one has implemented it to date — Paul Edwards

They have actually, but then literal fascists destroyed it almost immediately. Funny thing that.

The majority of Americans have not seen massive improvements in their standard of living during the last 40 years. Inflation and wage stagnation--two very important economic processes--have lowered the standard of living, significantly.

40 years ago personal computers were not a significant factor in most people's lives. Granted, the 1970s had seen significant progress in portable calculators. In 1971, our college library had a very impressive adding machine that used an electronic visual display. We kept it in a locked room. By 1976 we had card-reading calculators that were pocket sized, and they sat on a table in the library. We had access to a shared off-site mainframe computer (using a phone modem). Faster internet speeds were a bigger benefit than more RAM and faster CPUs. Of course, having all three is nicer than watching a B&W TV with an antenna. But in its day, remember, the B&W TV was a pretty big deal.

I happen to like technology, but tech stuff isn't what gave me a sense of quality-of-life. What did that was having enough money to exploit the opportunities of living in a big city (after growing up in Podunk). During the next 40 years I had the opportunity to watch as more and more people were finding it just a little harder every year to make ends meet, and maintain what they considered a nice lifestyle. After 40 years, the decline is significant.

No, it isn't that most people are starving or wearing ragged clothes. What you see are more people in a household working to maintain 'x' level'; you see more household debt; you see more rising balances on credit cards; you see rents rising beyond what a single occupant can afford (hence more adult roommates); you see large portions of the population unable to save for retirement. You see more deficits all over the place.

This lamentable state of affairs isn't due solely to capitalism. After all, people were doing much better during the post-WWII capitalist economic boom, which came to an end in the 1970s (triggered by OPEC's oil games). Lots of factors came into play, but one of them was neoliberalism and greed on the part of the ruling class, which decided that they needed more gold -- much more.

Most of my generation have barely any hope of ever paying off a home. Two generations ago a man my age who wasn’t well on his way to that goal would have been a complete failure. I’d gladly trade some GiB of RAM for a real house of my own, one I could raise a family in.

Ok, I'm not against doing something to address such issues, but I don't know how to solve that problem.

The social experiment that’s failing the world is the concentration of capital ownership in increasing fewer hands. That destroys the freedom of the market.

Note that under capitalism, sometimes monopolies form, which requires government intervention to break up the monopoly. For some reason the US government hasn't addressed the problem of Microsoft and IBM having respective monopolies. For decades I have been trying to address that problem myself, and you can see the result here. Maybe if you have any programmer friends who also dislike capitalist monopolies you can send them my way.

I'm not sure. I suspect Putin is personally the most powerful man in the world even if Russia isn't the world power it used to be. Will he be that patriotic that this bothers him? While the country has a limited desire to project power within a "smaller" sphere of influence, I think it's more sustainable than the Pax Americana certain morons think is a good idea and that the neo-liberal/neo-con warhawks desire.

Perhaps in the long run the Chinese and Russian foreign policy is the smarter move; they are not investing much in military capabilities to project power across the globe. tTe USSR has recently experienced imperial overreach so Russia understands better what and how it got there. Possibly Russia and China are just waiting for the (inevitable?) decline of the US Empire.

I'd expect a forceful demand from China for Taiwan to rejoin and for the Japanese to handover the Senkaku Island followed by a full scale attack by China on Taiwan and occupation of the Senkaku Islands, the day the US is no longer the dominant super power. I don't think they'll go further than that. Could we do something about that and should we? How many deaths would a war cause compared to letting it just happen? Who would be involved? What's the risk this escalating into WWIII?

I think it's more sustainable than the Pax Americana — Benkei

It would be good if people could see that it's Pax Free World rather than just an American venture. And this is already known by the name "Democratic Peace Theory" which can be found in Wikipedia. To that we need to add an aggressive campaign (preferably led by the likes of Tunisia or Iraq) to democratize the world while we are still in a strong position to topple assorted dictators.