It's not wasted breath to vent your hatred of the USA. — frank

I don't have a hatred towards the US. The US has had a great foreign policy in the long run in Europe. When other countries voluntarily join your alliance, do want keep in it, and look for the US for leadership, that is true success.

But in the Middle East, two former ally countries of the US became it's enemies (Iran, Iraq), which the other one the US invaded (Iraq), and with a third country (Pakistan) the relations are now non-existent and nearly hostile, which can be seen from the crucial role Pakistan had in the Taleban defeating the US backed regime, which meant that the US lost the longest war it had fought.

Why do you say that above is this astounding remarkable success or "a well-established pattern"? It's not my hatred of the US that I "vent" this. It's simply the truth. Losing wars like in Afghanistan isn't what the US would want to happen.

Perhaps for Trump the Middle East with the Gulf States brazenly and openly giving bribes to him is what he is indeed the place that he is exited about. That Western democracies don't do this and cannot do this perhaps makes him irritated. Why this would be a good thing I don't know.

To make such a statement, one must first understand what the principal US goals have been in the Middle-East. In my view, it is first and foremost about securing access to cheap oil and denying stable land-based access to others (like Russia, China and India). Second, it has been to avoid any regional competitor to Israel from rising. (Note the role Iran plays in both of these) — Tzeentch

If your previous allies turn into your enemies, how do you think that would be a success of any kind?

This policy has been remarkably successful for decades. The US completely dominated the Middle-East, and successfully laid waste to the region at will. — Tzeentch

Bullshit. Laying waste to a region isn't anything successful. Having something like the occupation of Iraq isn't a success. US has now fought several wars in the region. It's simply a huge waste of money as the region is as volatile as before.

Having Western Europe in NATO and peaceful is what success looks like.

Just compare the UK and Saudi-Arabia as allies to the US. Which country is the US afraid of if there would be a revolution and the current regime would be ousted and a hostile to the US regime could get into power? Or how about Egypt? What if the Muslim Brotherhood takes power or an even more radical cabal takes over? How friendly are now the ties with the US and Iraq?

(Anti-US demonstration in Iraq in 2020)

The Middle East has been fucked up since the British ruled it. The US has not returned it to a state of organic ease and well being, but all they wanted was oil, right? — frank

Don't forget the French. Thanks to technological advances like fracking, the US isn't dependent on the Middle East anymore. So what's really the point?

The universe contains many laws which govern how the universe operates e.g. laws of physics. The question that is puzzling me right now is why are there laws in the first place and why is the universe not lawless instead ? — kindred

It's simply human behavior.

It comes from us being aware of our surroundings and simply from survival skills. Reasoning, logic and putting things into cause and effect is the method how we have become a totally dominant species in this World. Now we can harness everything, be they other animals, plants or natural resources to serve our species. Now I would argue that other animals do use also logic, can count up some number in a very rudimentary way etc., but they lack totally the systemic approach we humans have to this thanks to our advanced language system to communicate complex issues to each other. Whales and dolphins can communicate about things like where food is, but their "language" is a simply communicating tool.

Because this is the very useful way we model reality, we start calling things as "laws of nature". Yet in the end, it's simply the way we reason things.

The only thing that hasn't happened is for the entire narrative to collapse. People keep on believing the delusions, etc., but that's not actually something that will help the US going forward. Keeping people high on delusions and propaganda has a long-term cost, and all it is achieving is allowing the US to continue a defunct foreign policy. — Tzeentch

You are right. If US Middle East policy is looked on the long run, it really has been a train wreck. But people just don't think about it. Yet when you went from having CENTO, having nearly all the major regional players as your allies to then having "Twin Pillars" (of Saudi-Arabia and Iran) and then to the present, it's obvious that things have gotten just worse.

South East Asia shows how actually things can improve. The US has now ties with Vietnam. The Korean Peninsula is rather stable. It isn't involved in a shooting war in the area. Now it doesn't have such an alliance system as it has in Europe (SEATO simply failed), but the region is rather peaceful (apart of Myanmar).

The fact is that domestic politics overrides conventional foreign policy for the US especially when it comes to Israel. And Bibi understands this well, I'd consider him the only case of politician that can operate in the political realm of two countries.

So, basically the 12-Day War has turned out as a complete disaster for the United States and especially for Israel.

Neither of two possible goals (regime change and destruction of Iran's nuclear program) were achieved. In fact the war has made it more likely that in the long-term Iran's regime will survive and that it will get its hands on nuclear weapons. — Tzeentch

In the long run maybe, yet it wasn't a disaster. Iran isn't parading captured Israeli or US pilots. Nor are there pictures of IDF or USAF/USN aircraft being shot down.

It's like the Patriot missiles during the Gulf War. Back then the technology was still to poor and basically the Patriots didn't hit incoming Scuds at all, but the media portrayed a stellar kill score for the old missiles. And that was enough. The public didn't care about it later when it came to light that the Patriots back then had failed. With these strikes, history will tell us in the future, but then it will be an issue the public doesn't care about.

The real failure is that there is no peace is in sight for Israel and Bibi and the Likud party have basically accepted that. Israel is in a permanent war footing, and it will need similar large scale military operations in the future. And now the US is trusty sidekick for Israel.

And the MAGA-morons are still happy with Trump. The no-new wars in the Middle East will be forgotten and what will be promoted is that Donald Trump is the only President since Reagan that has fought with the Iranians (and selectively even Reagan's successful war, Operation Praying Mantis, will be forgotten).

Well my comment was regarding Western countries. It looks to me like any appearance of increased average prosperity is on account of increased debt. It seems that, in a world of diminishing resources that are becoming ever more costly to extract, we are borrowing against the (illusory) promise of increasing future prosperity. — Janus

Well, technological advances have kept up, so even if we already have experienced Peak conventional Oil many years ago, yet we don't have a crisis of diminishing resources. The resource crisis that people were counting to happen by using simple extrapolation models from the present didn't happen. What we have is a very problematic monetary system that is based on perpetually growing debt. When will that happen, who knows.

In fact, I would dare to say that our modern society is far more able to deal with global crises than civilizations were earlier. The Pandemic just few years ago is a case example. Yes, it has been always very trendy and hip to look at our future in a bleak and pessimistic way. Yet Oswald Sprengler wrote The Decline of the West in 1922. The decline of the West hasn't happened yet, I would say that the great catch up done by many Asian countries doesn't tell us that the West is declining. Even the US can survive two Trump administrations, I guess.

That said, how many economists today include the environment in economic reckonings as anything other than a range of "externalities'"? — Janus

Look, economists as fortune tellers forecasting the future can basically predict only 6 months ahead. In fact, it's great if they can agree on the economic cycle we are just now in. Changes in the environment take a bit more time to happen. Yes, summers are warmer than before, but all it takes is a few volcanoes to erupt and cause the temperatures to fall. That's the problem with forecasting: you can see the obvious long term cycles going on, but that doesn't matter if something else puts you into a totally different situation you have prepared for.

Hence we do have things like climate change, falling population growth and other issues that are quite clear and will happen, but forecasting what will happen simply depends on too many butterflies flapping their wings and creating hurricanes in the other side of the planet. Start from a butterfly like Donald Trump would not be a TACO and go through with "Liberation Day" tariffs.

Besides, human decisions have huge impacts on the environment and wildlife. Just to take one example: In the 19th Century whales were hunted to near extinction and whale had to be replaced with other oils as there simply weren't enough whales in oceans. Then in the mid 20th century whale population made a huge comeback in only a few years. What happened? WW2 and unrestricted submarine warfare all over the Atlantic happened. This had the effect that basically for the wartime years no whalers went out to hunt whales as they themselves would have fallen prey to German U-boats. Just like the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that created a wildlife refuge around Chernobyl, the environment reacts to our actions in ways that we haven't thought of.

(Bisons near an abandoned Belarussian village in the Chernobyl exclusion zone in 2016. Wildlife are able to reproduce before falling to the radioactivity of the place.)

During the post modern period, High Art lurched from one development to another culminating in conceptual art, which was nonsense asserted as High Art and grotesque perversions of modernism, asserted as High Art. — Punshhh

Well, the so called High Art has it's tendencies to go the extreme as @Count Timothy von Icarus gave us an example with "stuff like human excrement or menstrual blood thrown at a canvas with a paragraph on how it's attacking capitalism, the patriarchy, etc. attached".

Yet I don't think this is regression. It's simply art transforming to an institution that will desperately want to do something new ...and shocking! Perhaps it's like a political movement which at start had sound and justifiable objectives and an agenda, which the majority of people agreed on, has then an existential crisis, when these objectives are gained. Then comes the "next wave" of thinking and thinkers, the new generation, which is usually hijacked by radical ideologues. The next wave after that is even more silly. This has happened to feminism, when you compare modern feminism to the suffragettes. Yet it also has happened to liberalism, when one just thinks of the anarcho-capitalists and their take on just what an ideal libertarian society would be like.

True regression would really being of losing some technology or skill that previously was there. If that technology or skill lost isn't worthy to be kept up, that isn't so bad. But when it is something that people have enjoyed or have given a lot of value, then that is really bad.

We should notice that art is far more the parody many give it. Art isn't only the exhibitions and concerts that the hoi polloi doesn't have money or interest to experience. Pop music is one thing I think will be here to stay just like movie art, thanks to the 20th Century. Perhaps the problem today is that for example making music is simply too easy.

Trump ends sanctions against Syria. Hopefully they can utilize the moment for reconstruction and prosperity. — NOS4A2

At least here I can say that this is a good thing.

And also that Trump has gotten the 5% defense expenditure in NATO going forward... and he didn't leave NATO.

Of course, now governments are having think tanks on just what expenditure can be put into as being defense spending. (The Nordic idea of Total Defense will give lots to spend on).

So that's the rare positive feedback on Trump.

But now I guess the time to make those beautiful trade agreement before the "liberation" tariffs set in is coming to an end. And Trump has done... one with the UK?

This is not to say there wasn't a very real loss of knowledge. Civic engineering projects like the Roman roads and aqueducts arguably wouldn't be matched for 1,300 years, or at least 1,150. At the same time, the Byzantines erected churches that arguably best the great temples of antiquity during the "Dark Ages," and even when the Latin West was still culturally and economically backwards, its ability to dedicate a high chunk of GDP to cathedrals for generation after generation of construction (many spanning centuries), led to Gothic masterpieces that bested anything from antiquity or the Christian East. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What is interesting that both in the fall of Rome and the fall of Constantinople you have in both cases a huge logistical disruption of simply there being the incapability of feeding a huge metropolis. With Byzantium it was losing Egypt to the Arabs. After that the agriculture in the Balkans couldn't sustain a huge city as Constantinople had been. When the Ottomans finally took over Constantinople, it was a pale image of a city what it had been before with fields inside the city. Something like Detroit, perhaps.

I always love to put this graph up just to show the long term effects of when "All roads lead to Rome" wasn't anymore reality and how long it took for modern Rome to grow past it's former self in Antiquity (even if this graph talks about Istanbul, not Constantinople).

It should be noted too that progress and regression is not unidirectional. Europe today has great difficulty maintaining its great cathedrals (or say, rebuilding Notre Dame) because the skills required are almost extinct. There have been similar issues even in relatively short timespans, like highly classified military technology becoming "lostech" that no one knows how to maintain or recreate (e.g. the US nuclear modernization program's struggles, or efforts to return to the moon). This is actually a fairly common problem in the industrial sector, and it's also been a huge factor in Russia's inability to replace war losses. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree totally with this. Once some technology is replaced, the techonology does vanish if there aren't some historians or collectors that uphold the knowledge of the technology once the old engineers and users die. Fortunately in many things we do respect our earlier technology so much that have the understanding around. And hopefully that doesn't happen with things like art.

One great example to us is cars. The modern version of various computers on wheels run by batteries is somewhat easy to use. At least for us, who use computers daily. Cars 50 or 60 years old are easy for us also, but when we look at the first cars like the Ford T-model, many people would have severe difficulties in starting the damn thing without instructions (given here aptly by AI):

Here's a more detailed breakdown:
1. Prepare the car:
Engage the parking brake: This locks the transmission and prevents the car from rolling.
Turn the ignition switch off: This is crucial for safety during hand cranking.
2. Locate the hand crank:
The crank is a long, metal handle located at the front of the car.
3. Engage the crank:
Insert the crank into the designated slot at the front of the engine.
Ensure the crank is properly engaged before proceeding.
4. Crank the engine:
Use a strong, upward pull on the crank to turn the engine over.
Do not push down on the crank, as this could cause injury if the engine kicks back.
Some recommend using your left hand with your thumb outside the handle to avoid injury from potential kickback.
5. Adjust controls:
Throttle: The right lever on the steering column controls the fuel flow to the engine.
Ignition timing: The left lever on the steering column adjusts the timing of the spark plugs.
Choke: The choke lever (often a small rod) can be used to enrich the fuel mixture for starting, especially in cold weather.
6. Start the car:
Once the engine is turning over, you can adjust the throttle and ignition timing to find the optimal settings for the engine to run smoothly.
You may need to experiment with the choke to find the right mixture for your specific conditions.
Once the engine is running, you can release the hand crank.

That said, I am a great appreciator of contemporary art museums and I think the frequency of such work is vastly overblown. There is a lot of good stuff out there that is very creative. However, it is true that a lot of this very creative stuff also has a seemingly obligatory paragraph about capitalism or patriarchy attached to it, and that does seem to be a bit of a straight jacket on much (but hardly all) contemporary art. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Much less than the straight jacket that religious art was (or is still today).

Yes, indeed creativity and something new are things put on a pedestal in modern art in my view.

Culminating in the radicalism of modern art and now in the post modern era, High art has died. Ravaged and crucified by the modern and post modernists. — Punshhh

I wouldn't say that. Simply after the technique was basically universal, which any art school could teach, then the focus was simply to have other techniques than photorealism. That in the end you had modern art isn't at all a death of high art.

We should remember that Picasso painted also this, when he was still a child:



Or this, a portrait of his mother:


Hence we can assume if Pablo Picasso have lived Centuries earlier and he would have been able to follow a career of a painter, he would have also then been an able master.

To assume that once you have modern art that high art has died or degenerated is something that the Nazis were eager in believing. Personally I don't agree with them.

The Middle Ages and the Renaissance are categories encompassing many forms of art, including literature, poetry, architecture and music. Given the fact that Gothic architecture and polyphonic music were both born in the high Middle Ages, it is difficult to justify the claim that art as a whole ‘had fallen back’ during that period. — Joshs

Gothic churces are indeed awesome, yet what is totally obvious is that a feudal society simply doesn't employ artists as much as a more prosperous society that enjoys international trade and a high level of job specialization.

Don't forget Trump's war on international institutions, like the ICC and the UN.

In economics I'd say Trump is at war against international trade and globalization. The sad truth is that many are for this, when they would basically want more fair income distribution, not for higher prices and more inefficiency in the economy (by going against trade).

I'm not convinced that the visual arts, at least, regressed in the so-called Dark Ages. — Janus

Well, there was a time called the Renaissance, so at least people back then did think that art had fallen back in the Middle Ages. Only in the 19th Century we started to feel romanticized by the Middle Ages.

Art from Antiquity:


Art from the Middle Ages:


Renaissance art:


Why they call it "Renaissance" should be obvious to everybody. Of course now as we have modern art and cameras, even AI making pictures, hence difference isn't so evident. But back then before cameras, it was evident that some abilities had been lost. Above all, it should be noticed just how limited it was to few cities where the "Renaissance" happened. Just to show how Medieval the artists in the periphery were, here's a Finnish Church painting from the 16th Century made by a local Finnish artist.

This picture is from a Finnish Church painted in the start of the 16th Century:


This is from Italy at the same time period (actually, from ten years earlier), also a Church decoration:


Today we rarely understand the huge difference in the ability to paint as you can go to any country today and you will find artists that can paint photorealistic paintings. Take classes in your local art school, and many could be "masters" earlier... at least in the periphery. But back then, it really was only a few like Leonardo da Vinci and not many else.

I'm not economist, but I think that any apparent general increase of prosperity in the West over the last twenty years or perhaps longer is largely "smoke and mirrors". — Janus

We should stop gazing at our own navel and notice what huge transformation has happened in the World. Absolute poverty has decreased dramatically around the World. China is far more prosperous than it was fifty years ago as are many countries all over the World. The growth simply hasn't been so fast in the West as it has been in other places. Above all, one should note that we suffer more of the problem of income distribution where the rich have come far richer while the middle class and the poor haven't seen such increases in prosperity as the rich. Yet in absolute terms, absolute poverty has diminished even in the West.

I agree, we must always start from where we are. It seems to me that hankering for ancient, "lost" wisdom is a fool's errand, given that we may well be misunderstanding the contexts within which ancient literature found its meaning. — Janus

Well, I would be really happy if the book written by Zeno of Elea would be found and we could read thodr additional paradoxes that Zeno had found and in general something that the Eleatic School itself actually thought, because now we have only the writings of those who opposed the school. And naturally finding a part of the books from the Library of Alexandria that the Romans didn't burn would be fabulous. However it's unlikely that there would some totally unknown philosopher or mathematician who back then would have to the same conclusion if not have gone beyond Gödel's incompleteness theorem and would tell us something new that we are eager to hear. That is extremely unlikely.

Besides, we do know how that losing of knowledge happens in history.

Perfect example is how Antiquity turned into Middle Ages and what we call the "Dark Ages". Talk about a collapse in trade and in globalization. That's all it takes. Once North Africa couldn't feed Rome (as Vandals conquered it), then Rome's population started to shrink rapidly. Once that happened, then urban professionals like artists and engineers that relied for income from an advance economy simply didn't have any demand for their work. And then simply things like drawing, sculpture, engineering etc. simply regressed. When large administration became impossible, the logical solution was feodalism.

Earlier example is the Bronze Age Collapse. These historical developments and anything similar in the future can have a dramatic effect on our knowledge base. It might not be a societal collapse, but simply an economic collapse.

My favorite example of this is when an university professor, perhaps teaching the language that is spoken in country, has to have a second job as perhaps a taxi driver. This is reality in many Third World countries as universities simply cannot afford to pay a reasonable salary to their teachers. It's not reality yet in the Western World, but it surely can be. It sounds like a small difference, but in my view it's quite huge and tells a lot about the prosperity of the society itself.

But do you reference the 18th and 19th century in it's relatively peaceful international relations, such as between European powers not having yet discovered the true power of industrial warfare, or in its ruthless colonial competition aspects? — boethius

18th Century was a mess in Europe. A lot of wars and very unstable alliances. Yes, there wasn't yet industrial warfare, but there were the fighting and the armies roamed, that was total warfare. And so it had been even earlier.

Colonial competition started really in the 19th Century globally as then the technological advantage the West enjoyed was totally overwhelming. It was only Napoleon who first showed European technological superiority to the Ottomans, but do noticed that he was kicked out of Egypt. Only in the 19th Century was the Ottoman Empire "the Sick Man of Europe".

Is North Korea even so isolated now? — boethius

Good point, actually North Korea is the country which is now in a firm defense pact with Russia. The North Korean troops now fighting in Europe show this.

It's so wild that the US is now attacking institutions it created for its own benefit. — boethius

And it's actually the real reason why the Superpower status of the US is waning.

Especially the MAGA-morons don't understand that whole system was designed for the US itself and to especially benefit Americans! But no, the brainfarts of Trump, the great populist orator, have been taken as Holy Scripture and they truly think that all the international organizations are there to fuck Americans. And that international trade is bad. And they don't need that Superpower status, that somehow it isn't useful at all for them.

If the biggest breakthroughs came from focusing on creativity rather than criticizing existing ideas, why is philosophy focused on the latter? — Skalidris

To the soft skinned, any new idea or thought is a critique of something old.

And then, we never start from an empty plate, we never clear our minds and be like a tabula rasa and then start create something new. We always create the new from the old. As Newton himself said "if I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

This is true in science, but it is also true in philosophy.

And as to post-modernism―I think it is simply the idea that we should drop the myth that history is necessarily a story of continuous progress or that there is a real underlying telos at work in history. — Janus

History already shows with many examples that there isn't continuous progress and that basically we can have such collapses that knowledge is forgotten. Yet as I said to @Skalidris above (on a comment he wrote pages earlier) that knowledge and new insights, be they scientific or philosophical, are created on the present knowledge.

Then once Iran has the bomb they can be like "See! See! We were right all along! If only we bombed them harder!" — boethius

Exactly. To welcome back Iran to the international community, or at least to accept not attacking it is against the hawkish policy. Even if Iran would want to change it's policies, it's very difficult to change the course of Israeli lead US now.

Then, as you note with North Korea, Iran doesn't strike anyone with nuclear weapons and the issue is forgotten about, but sanctions permanent due to having nuclear weapons. — boethius

Sanctions will be a natural part, but note that's it's only Western sanctions. Iran isn't similar to the Hermit Kingdom (North Korea).

If the MAGA people cheer on how inept and totally useless the UN or other international organizations are, do note that then simply "the South" goes it's own ways. As I've said earlier, we are on track to go to an international order that was present in the 18th Century (as even the 19th Century had functioning international cooperation and organizations).

And you understand that the UN Security Council and other western nations found that the Rwandan military were supporting M23, and actively participating with them in the DRC, despite their denials? — NOS4A2

That was known, but the main issue is what happens to M23 or what it does. Is it capable of fighting the DRC without backup from Rwanda? And anyway, many countries have put their troops and support into the mess that DRC is in. Basically earlier the African countries had their version of WW1 in the Congo.

There's still time to start a war with the cartels. Iran has now already been bombed. And Greenland, just as Canada, won't be annexed, unlike you think I've said. Panama I guess has also avoided a true conflict.

The FBI, just like the Department of Defense, will not show at all just how detrimental the ineffective leaders will be. Only later historians can write books about it, but that will take time.

And anyway, there's still the likely recession, the debt problem. And if the Democrats win in the midterms, what will that then give us in the end.

Yes, I was talking about the conflict between the DRC and Rwandan-backed rebels. — NOS4A2

And you understand that Rwandan military and the M23 are two different entities and that DRC is fighting mainly the M23 and that the agreement was between Rwanda and the DRC?

What war in the Middle East? — NOS4A2

You did notice that Trump attacked Iran, didn't you?

You didn't comment much then, when the strikes were still happening. Noticed your silence.

But then I did write a week ago this:

At best, the US is now on board with Bibi, as Bibi wanted, on this perpetual conflict of "war off - war on" where two sides stop for some time with announcements from Israel and the US that the nuclear threat has been now thwarted/eradicated... only for the next bomb strikes to happen later. But that will be enough for the MAGA-morons.

Once few weeks (or less) have gone and Israel and the US halt their strikes and declare victory, all these MAGA people will rejoice victory and the wisdom of Trump and deride those who opposed this war.

I think my forecast was quite accurate, if it just went on for 12 days. And btw, even Trump talked about a 12-day war. Hence it's very telling that you are trying to deny any war happened. At least, I was very accurate week ago just what your reply would be. :grin:

But no war, one precision strike, and an extraordinary de-escalation brokered once again by the US, while the EU leaders and your failed international institutions did nothing. Trump play in Iran was nothing short of brilliant. Everyone is saying it. Sorry. — NOS4A2

So then we will wait for the next time Israel/US will want to hinder the Iranian nuclear program with another short strikes. Could it happen in some years still in the Trump administration? Perhaps.

I was responding to your point that Trump doesn't have a plan. He does. It might be unrealistic, but the plan is to offer Iran goodies to drop their nuclear ambitions. — RogueAI

I do agree that Trump has plans. Many plans, actually. Like "Liberation Day" tariffs, remember? Great plans!

Yet in this occasion it's totally clear that Israel was the initiator and the real actor here, Trump simply responded when initial Israeli strikes went so well.

Would Iran trust us? Doubtful, but there is precedent for the U.S. bribing Iran to drop it's enrichment. Obama did it. What is Iran's alternative, though? They just got punished severely. They got no support from the (civilized) world and even their neighbors turned on them. Top Iranian officials now know Israel can and will take them out. Why not take the bribe the Trump Admin is offering? Isn't enrichment just not worth it at this point? — RogueAI

One thing would be for them to drop the program. Another thing to get Israel to believe the program is dropped.

We should remember all the talk of the "Mushroom cloud" and the "Yellow cake from Niger" when the Bush administration was making the case for war against Iraq after 9/11. Well, Saddam didn't have any nuclear program then. Saddam did have one before he went and invaded Kuwait, yet afterwards he didn't have a program. Yet in the end: that didn't matter. And similar thinking should be applied here too.

First of all, is an Iran that has great relations to it's Arab neighbors the optimum situation for Israel, or is an Iran that still is a "rogue state" that can be bombed every once and a while better? I fear that for Bibi, the war prime minister, the latter is a better option.

Iran can be later bombed again and again.

hink the Trump admin would be thrilled if Iran could be bribed into giving up their nuclear ambitions. — RogueAI

Think about it, just for a while.

Assume your country would be striken with missiles for 12 days. Over two hundred civilians would have been killed. Then the attackers would want to bribe you with third party investment.

How eager would you to start negotiations with your attackers? How much would you trust them?

Another US brokered peace agreement, this time between the Democratic republic of Congo and Rwanda.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1e0ggw7d43o.amp

None of this stuff will net him a peace prize, of course, because he doesn’t have the gift of hopey-changey rhetoric which the chattering class falls for. — NOS4A2

WTF peace deal are you talking about? You are basically talking about the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from Congo, but not about peace between M23 and the DRC.

If you would have any interest to look at the actual conflict in Congo, you would immediately notice that this is only a part of the conflict. Yes, Rwanda is a player (along others) abusing the weakness of the larger DRC. But what about M23? That Rwanda agrees to pull out it's soldiers, that haven't been as an major issue like the M23 taking towns, but basically been a humiliating issue for DRC showing it's inability to control it's borders.

Even the BBC article you referred to states the following questions:

Unless and until full details of the signed deal are made public, several crucial questions remain unanswered:

Will the M23 rebel group withdraw from areas they have occupied?
Does "respect for territorial integrity" mean Rwanda admits having troops in eastern DR Congo and will withdraw them?
Would the agreed "return of refugees" allow thousands of Congolese back from Rwanda?
Does "disarmament" mean that the M23 will now lay down their weapons?
Who will disarm the FDLR, after the failure of several previous attempts?
Would the agreed humanitarian access allow the reopening of the rebel-held airports for aid supply?

But yes, now that Trump broke the promises of starting wars in the Middle East by eagerly jumping on a strike done by Israel, naturally he has to now pretend he is this great peace-maker. And what else do MAGA loyalists now uphold than his "peacemaking abilities" after likely quite useless strikes on Iran, which they naturally won't talk anything anymore.

And since Trump alongside others (like Bibi, Putin) have made the UN totally useless, naturally two sides of a conflict want to get some kind international arrangement, then the second best way is to have the US to be involved. Just like in the case of India and Pakistan.

And oh yes! Trump can claim himself to be this great man of peace.

My analysis of the current situation is that Zionists "went for it" and tried to push the United States into a high-intensity war with Iran and the faction that stopped that from happening (for now) is the pentagon (because they know it conflicts with US imperial interest, represent far more costs than gains, have other regions they worry about, such as East-Asia) and (I would guess) managed to convince Trump in the situation room where it's mostly pentagon people in the room that war with Iran is incredibly high risk and don't recommend it (if they did, I have a hard time imagining the war wouldn't be on full blast right now). For, war with Iran as concept is easy to talk about, but when you get into the nitty gritty of how to actually make war with Iran, that they fought Iraq for 8 years and are not push overs, have bunkers everywhere, mountains and a surface area of 1 Rocky Mountains + 1 France, and the ballistic missiles capacity and so on, it's obviously not an easy task and many dead Americans would result tin the attempt. — boethius

Israel got lured the US to join the strikes on Iran, which sooner or later (and now sooner) were stopped.

The reality just why the noecons under Bush never attacked Iran are now quite evident: there is simply now way to "topple" the Iranian regime with a quick and inexpensive war, only a huge quagmire.

But for Israel this is totally OK: it is quite happy with the "war-on-war-off" mentality and a perpetual crisis that erupts into limited wars every couple of years or a decade. So the strike packages are sent to Iran and it's declared that it's ability to build nuclear weapons is pushed forward.

The reason I was so concerned about Israel escalating to nuclear weapons is because they have no diplomatic off-ramps by design, literally opening the war with assassinating negotiators; precisely so that the US would be inevitably sucked into an expanding conflict. — boethius

I assume that with using nukes Israel is as level headed as other nuclear powers. Why should they escalate?

To this discussion, Benkei adds the additional information that the previous nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by Obama was clearly part of a strategy of detente with Iran, that drops sanctions and allows them to develop and normalize, and not some sort of 5-D chess move knowing Trump would come in and tear up the agreement, then Israel embark on a genocide under Biden to be finally in a position to attack Iran in a second Trump administration. — boethius

Obama at least had a plan. Trump doesn't have any plan just to wobble into the next crisis that is going to erupt and try to take center stage.

Israel and the US showed just showed their limits on how far they are willing to go. Hence if Iran can build it's military industry that is survivable enough to survive an 12-day bombing campaign, that's it. And now the logical step from a military point of view would be for Iran to learn from this campaign, rearm and get that nuclear weapon and the ability to survive forthcoming attacks from Israel and the US.

The current Harvard estimate is 400 000 Palestinians "missing" — boethius

That's something I've not stumbled into and something totally on a different scale than the Gaza health officials are themselves stating. It would basically mean that Hamas and Palestinian officials are hugely downplaying the death toll. (It is a possibility, perhaps)

Ethnic cleansing of simply moving the Palestinians I don't see how that could be a worse crime, since if they are still alive the situation could be reversed by the world or then at least compensated. — boethius

Ethnic cleansing on a huge scale just happened now in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan didn't get at all negative publicity, especially when they flatly denied it and said that Armenians would be wellcome to stay.

And basically that ethnic cleansing would mean a repeat of the Nakba. Then 720 000 or so Palestinians out of 1,4 million were moved off from Israeli controlled areas. Hence just to finish this you would have to move about 5 million Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank to somewhere else.

Now if you think they would be compensated or the move could be reversed, I'm not sure that would happen. But I'm sure that the Bibi administration is surely salivating about these kinds of plans. For the exrremists, that is their solution.

Yes, that is the crucial difference. So why does that difference exist? Is it religious fundamentalism and the rise of European secularism? — RogueAI

No.

It's because millions of Europeans died in the two World Wars and many countries have had the experience that defending their country only gave them misery and a humiliating defeat. The Pre-WW1 jingoism and imperialism died especially after the Second World War. Then Europeans had their continent divided with the prospect of a nuclear WW3 being fought in their cities and countryside.

(German soldiers going onwards to war in 1914 with flowers given by onlooking women spectators)


That's what Trump the idiot doesn't understand: European integration wasn't done to fuck Americans, but to finally put securely away the wars of the past. And even still that hasn't happened: In Yugoslavia there was a bitter civil war and thanks to Putin, several decades after the Soviet Union collapsed, the "Civil War" because of that breakup is fought in Ukraine.

Actually many neocons don't understand this either: the saying that Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus and hence Europeans don't have an eager enthusiasm to fight "Rogue states" comes also from this background. Basically the only European country that has still made it's own "Great Power" politics is France. Even this old colonial master has suffered major setbacks in it's former colonies in Africa in this decade. The UK opts sometimes to be the loyal sidekick of the US, but after Suez has been very passive, even if it can still kick ass as we saw in the Falklands/Malvinas war. Everybody else are happy with having NATO around.

But in the end, this anti-militarism comes from the experience of WW1 and WW2.



A similar war has never happened in Israel and not even in the Palestinian territories. The casualties especially on the Isreali side are minimal compared to the losses that European countries suffered in WW1 and WW2, although naturally Israeli jews do truly remember and keep in mind what their parents and great grandparents suffered during WW2 under the Third Reich. Yet that isn't something that happened in Israel or is part of this conflict. Perhaps now the Palestinians in the Gaza strip are truly suffering a total war. Now the Jewish people in Israel are about seven million, so 1% would be 70 000 people.



Hence some hundred Iranians and below fifty Israelis being killed, that won't make these countries to howl for peace. The jingoists and the militant hawks will be in power in both countries for a long time still, even if the cease-fire will last for a while.

Yeah, that's certainly not true. The rise of nations is a zero-sum bloody game. — RogueAI

In truth, it isn't. If we mean by nations rising that they become prosperous.

War and conflict doesn't create prosperity, it might only transfer wealth as loot as war is extremely costly. In truth nations have gotten prosperous through voluntary trade and cooperation and investment to education and technology and in general a positive attitude toward business and private enterprise. The most successful imperialist enterprise was the Mongol Horde, and that basically created zero prosperity itself and basically immediately fell into couple of different khanates. The Mongol cavarly traditions gave these Khanates the ability to survive a few Centuries until modern rifles made it a turkey shoot to defeat cavalry fighting on horseback.

Israel hasn't become prosperous because of the wars it has fought with it's neighbors, but with the trade and tech investments. Nearly one third of it's GDP is made up of exports of goods and services.

How many times has Alsace-Lorraine changed hands in the last 1,000 years? — RogueAI

Yet notice the crucial difference to the Middle East. Germans don't give a fuck that Alsace-Lorraine belongs to France now. And both French and Germans of today would be surprised just how some place like Alsace-Lorraine stirred up fervent jingoism in both countries in the past.

Every illegal attack, like the two we've recently witnessed, is an argument for them to pursue a nuclear bomb as that is the only weapon that truly acts like a deterrent. That's rather obvious. — Benkei

Having a nuclear credible nuclear deterrent keeps the US from attacking an "axis-of-evil" country that has been declared to be a rogue state. Worst possible situation is when a country doesn't have nuclear weapons, but the US firmly thinks it's trying to make them and is considered a rogue state.

Yet Iran also should really think about it's past aggressive foreign policies in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen and just how much they have worked. Iran should understand that trying to export their Islamic Revolution will ultimately fail and just worsen the situation with fellow Muslim states. Trying to create a "Shiite Crescent" will only push other states closer to the US and even Israel. What is notable has been the stance of the Arab League and Turkey in this conflict: the idea that Saudi-Arabia would eagerly join the beating up of Iran didn't prevail. What is also notable is that UK hasn't participated (in my knowledge, I could be wrong) to the defense of Israel.

What is normally the difficult to prove part is the intention. As mass chaos and violence and death can be presented as carried out for some other goal. — boethius

And here the courts got an ample amount of this rhetoric after the Hamas attacks. Yet I think the real threat is ethnic cleansing on a vast scale. Our international institutions are simply collapsing as the regional players and the US don't give them any role. Trump is simply making it more natural to speak about ethnic cleansing.

I can't blame everything on Likud. One event that sticks in my mind was the Olympic massacre of 1972. That wasn't under Likud. The violence has been there regardless of whether Israel has been liberal or conservative. — BitconnectCarlos

The Oslo peace process was far later than the 1970's. If you want another one to blame is of course Jasser Arafat, who didn't take the agreement when there was the chance. But still, even if he would have taken it, I'm not at all sure if even then peace would followed and the two state solution would have held.

And the structural problem for Israel that it actually needs a strong counterpart that could also keep the peace and control it's territory. With Egypt and Jordan this works. Failed states or nearly failed states Lebanon and Syria this isn't possible, hence the Israeli solution seems to be perpetual low intensity conflict.

The genocide is an openly declared policy such as starving the entire population and bombing every hospital and university, and horrendous crimes in themselves even considered in isolation to mass murder, such as sniping children, proudly boasted about by the perpetrators.

There is nothing to analyze or debate about these facts. It is as clear as anything taken for common knowledge such as the sun shining upon the earth.

If you want to live in denial about it, then you weld your soul to the fate of these evil doers. So I'd consider it carefully if you entertain the possibility of an afterlife.

Or if I misunderstand you and there's multiple genocides to consider at the moment, you're just asking which one I'm talking about, then in that case I am referencing all the genocides currently being perpetrated by Israel. — boethius

I understand your point.

My point is that we don't really want to have inflation on the term genocide or it to be a popular derogatory adjective as "fascist" or "nazi" describing something that it isn't. With genocide we are talking about the intent of total destruction of people. Of the two million people in the Gaza strip perhaps 60 000 in truth have been killed. That yet isn't genocide, or it is a very failed attempt of genocide. Do notice that amount hasn't grown even linearly. The real threat is famine, which truly could kill a lot more with a quarter of million people in catastrophic food insecurity and one million emergency condition. That catastrophy has not been initiated yet by Israel. Yet the number 50 000 - 60 000 dead out of two million ought to make it perfectly clear the absolute disregard for human life in this conflict.

To make some sort of plausible attempt at peace, Israel would have to stop its settler activity. — boethius

I don't think that the Bibi administration attempts a peace solution, it is attempting to win the conflict. The Oslo peace process has been dead for decades now.

Limited strikes by Israel (due to simply being way smaller) and then limited strikes by the US is the absolute worst strategy, as Iran can now transition smoothly to a total war system, and even better now after the US strikes knows exactly what these bunker busters can do. — boethius

Hear hear! :100: :up: :heart:

Now the clergy that rules of Iran can really go back to the times of the 1980's when it was in war. The idea that Iran's regime would fall because of this is an example of the utter stupidity now so prevalent. I mean really, think of yourself and your country that you live in. If two foreign countries that are thousands of kilometers away from you suddenly started bombing your country, why would your response be to attack your own government? Nope. Iran will try to transition to a wartime economy now.

Israel needed an existential enemy to justify its militarism and refusal of a 2 state solution and obstructing any peace process generally speaking. — boethius

I agree.

Yet you should give a thought here also to why is Iran, of all countries, so hellbent to be against Israel in the first place? Iranians aren't Arabs, they are (mainly) Persians. Iran doesn't have a border with Israel and Israel hasn't taken any of land that is considered part of Iran. One reason might be that the Pahlavi regime was not hostile to Israel (yet not extremely friendly either), but that isn't a reason enough.

The only reason I can understand is that in order to blow wind to the sails of the Iranian Islamic revolution, the Shiites of Iran had to attack Israel to get a following from the Sunni community. Because otherwise the Sunni states wouldn't be so accepting of the Shiite Islamic revolution. It's actually quite similar to the fact that after invading Kuwait, Saddam Hussein was suddenly extremely supportive to the Palestinian cause and lobbed few Scud missiles into Israel, because why not?

Iran, like Russia, represents a lot of resources that the neocons can't control, so both they and their predecessors are psychologically damaged by the existence of Iran. They are used to being able to "do something" when they don't like someone or what's happening in a country. — boethius

Well, a lot of countries have a lot of resources that the neocons don't control. International trade is for that. In the end, the resources of some country don't justify war, because those resources never make wars actually profitable as in the end they cost a lot more than just to buy the Goddam resources by trade. Neocons and other imperialists give as reasons the natural resources of some country as a valid reason to invade them, but in the real world this never goes out so simple.

Likud rose to power because of the intifadas and the failure of peace agreements. The nice, left-wing Israelis failed, thus you get Likud. Sort of like how on 10/7, the most left-leaning progressive Israelis were killed. Hypothetically, I believe if the Arabs living in Gaza or the West Bank truly wanted peace, we would see it, but this would not work the other way around. The Nakba always looms in the collective memory. I think the "Nakba" is how the "Palestinian" people came to be—both lies. — BitconnectCarlos

@BitconnectCarlos, naturally you see lies in there being a "Nakba" or "Palestinians", but the people living in West Bank and Gaza don't see it that way. Besides, these Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank don't see any prospect of peace because of Likud. Once Likud came into power, the peace process stopped. That's it. And it wasn't anymore the time of Palestinians negotiating, it was the time of Hamas.

With the other side remembering "Nakba" and the other side remembering "The Holocaust", it's no wonder you have a perpetual war.

I'll repeat one anecdote I remember from the times I was in the university. One of the brightest guys that I had started studying economics with was an Finnish reservist NCO who had been a blue beret in Lebanon. Once in the mid 1990's I was sipping beer with him in a student party and the discussion came to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The guy said in the most earnest and straight forward way possible: "There is never going to be peace in the Middle East between Israel and the Arabs." Not in our lifetime.

Looking back thirty years now, his words are still true. Yep, it might have been a conflict that could have come to the end when the Cold War ended, but it didn't. That Oslo peace process might have worked, but it didn't. And we cannot get back to that. And in the end we have this today.

Israel has no way to normalize due mainly to the genocide. — boethius

Just what genocide?

Israel has pursued a strategy of intentionally having no off ramp, so unsurprisingly finds itself with no off ramps. — boethius

I agree with you. This is Likud party's main line: there doesn't have to be any peace with the Palestinians, there can be a perpetual war as far it is low intensity and doesn't cost too much. And that has worked for decades now, whereas trying to do a peace with the Palestinians has been represented as utterly impossible, because it failed.

Moreover, there's really no way to conquer Iran. 90 million people, and a geography that similar to 1 entire Rocky Mountain chain in addition to 1 entire France.

It's just not feasible for the US to conquer Iran without going to full total war, drafting millions of people, which is obviously not happening. — boethius

This is the main issue that Trump in his ineptness doesn't understand. The only options are limited strikes. Trump should ask himself, just how long did he fight the Houthis? How long? 30 days and that was it, and they are quite alive and kicking.

This is behind the absolute stupidity that the neocons have spread for many decades of Iran being an existential threat to Israel and the US. The politically incorrect and utterly out of the Overton window is the fact that Iranian nuclear deterrent would be to deter Israeli nuclear deterrent, not to be used in an all out attack on Israel. Why would Iran want tens of millions of it's own citizens to perish? There's no reason.

The fact is that if Iran would have a nuclear deterrent, the US response would be similar as it was to North Korea. Bill Clinton was the last president that truly thought of attacking North Korea in the similar way as Trump has now attacked Iran. Americans too are sane in the end: they attack and occupy countries that don't have a nuclear deterrence capability. Unconditional surrender, occupation of the whole country and regime change are exactly the things that countries with nuclear weapons will opt to use them against.

This all just shows how stupid this war is and how Trump has been lured into a war that in the end won't give him that victory he so eagerly wants.

And anyway, especially the vice president is going batshit crazy in trying to deny just what has happened:

(CNN) Vice President JD Vance, in his first public comments since President Donald Trump authorized US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, emphasized that the US is “not at war” with Iran as he laid out the president’s decision-making process.

“We’re not at war with Iran. We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program,” Vance said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker,” calling the strikes a “testament to the power of the American military.”

Vera was one of those members whose comments I always liked and whose discussions I enjoyed. Very sad to hear this. Condolences to her family.

Ah, Trump's big beautiful war is here. Trump the peacemaker, Trump the "no-foreign-wars" peace president! :rofl:

Seems that Donald "I'm not going to start wars, I'm going to stop wars." -Trump has now put aside his eager hopes for that Nobel-prize and has gone head on to the next forever war with his supporters eagerly cheering for this.

Now it's so warming to see the spineless MAGA-morons rallying around their big beautiful prez and supporting Trump's decision to go to another not-so well thought war. How desperately they now try to change their stance:

Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s one-time pick for the attorney general post who had warned of the Middle East conflict turning into another drawn out war for the U.S., said on X that the president’s strike didn’t necessarily portend a larger conflict, and likened it to the strike of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani during Trump’s first term

“President Trump basically wants this to be like the Solimani strike — one and done,” Gaetz wrote. “No regime change war. Trump the Peacemaker!

Few strikes and then go back home to eat that cherry pie? Well, might not to happen exactly that way. At best, the US is now on board with Bibi, as Bibi wanted, on this perpetual conflict of "war off - war on" where two sides stop for some time with announcements from Israel and the US that the nuclear threat has been now thwarted/eradicated... only for the next bomb strikes to happen later. But that will be enough for the MAGA-morons.

Once few weeks (or less) have gone and Israel and the US halt their strikes and declare victory, all these MAGA people will rejoice victory and the wisdom of Trump and deride those who opposed this war. Of course, likely Iran will continue to adapt it's defenses and simply then get the nuclear weapon and the clergy will stay in power in Iran. After these attacks, the young generations of Iranians will remember just how Israel and the US attacked them, hence the evil nature of the US doesn't have to be retraced back to the Pahlavi regime and the ouster of Mossadeq, which is old history for the new generations of Iranians. If Iranians had an 8 year war against Saddam Hussein, then this generation isn't going to be softer either. And then the Iranian nuclear deterrent, likely with ICBMs, will simply be a "non-issue", just like North Korea. Because that's what the US does when the country actually has nuclear weapons that could possibly strike mainland US. Bibi's Israel has opted for perpetual war already, so they are totally OK with this.

The US has an armed forces of over 1 million with roughly quarter of a million based outside of the Continental US. Of those less than 40 000 are stationed in the Middle East. Hence there's no land invasion happening. And no regime change, actually.

So along the invasion of Iraq, this is one of those stupid wars the US gets itself into.

he Israeli/NRA lobbies will become even more strong and wicked here in the US. — Eros1982

You meant AIPAC?

No. Don't you notice agriculture from the old times (even if it's used still today in India or Latin America)? They are creating a swidden. Very popular in especially Eastern Finland earlier. Make some land that you can cultivate for some time and then move on. Just thinking of being independent and close to nature. A lot of hard work but hey, you are totally independent. No need for any trade or government.

Trump's war is coming closer, more B-2 Spirits are deployed forward:

(UK Defensejournal) U.S. Air Force B-2 stealth bombers have departed from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri with aerial refuelling support from eight KC-135 Stratotankers.
The aircraft appear to be heading toward Diego Garcia, a strategic U.S. military base in the Indian Ocean.

Flight tracking data shows two groups of four tankers each linking up with the bombers over Kansas. The B-2 aircraft were using the callsign “MYTEE21,” which has previously been associated with stealth bomber missions.

The movement comes during a wider repositioning of U.S. military assets toward Europe and the Middle East. In recent weeks, dozens of American aircraft, including fighters, tankers, and surveillance platforms, have been deployed to the region. Two U.S. Navy supercarriers are also operating forward, along with other naval and air force elements.

Seems also that Iran is still launching missiles into Israel.

(Reuters) Early on Saturday, air raid sirens were triggered across parts of central Israel and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with missile interceptions visible over Tel Aviv and explosions echoing.

If a woodchip floats from upstream, time to move further away into the wilderness.

I think he's not among us anymore. And people who think like him don't run the World.

I mean really, how many people live like him, seriously?

It's this myth that people think they want to live like.

Self sufficiency is smart thing to prepare if there is crisis and the sea routes for trade are blocked. If you're self sufficient in food production, your people won't starve if there is a war or another crisis that cut those important sea routes.



But that's it. Really, nothing else.

Perhaps it's really difficult for Americans to understand this, because there are 340 million of you, but the truth is that is your prosperity is dependent of global trade and you being a part of it. For us Finns, which there are a puny 5+ million, it's very easy to fathom: the World give a shit about us if we don't engage with the billions of people that make the rest of the planet. Our prosperity, is dependent on trade with other countries. And actually, even if many deny it, so is yours.

The MAGA people can live in their dreams that Trump can make the US independent of the rest of the World thanks to the "liberation" of tariffs! But if your industries don't have to compete on the world stage, then you will simply fall behind.

In Canada the provincial and federal leaders are negotiating with each other about lowering the steep and stifling provincial trade barriers, fast-tracking projects that would otherwise take decades to get through the red tape, cutting spending, lowering taxes, diversifying trade relationship, and other goodies. Last month King Charles gave the throne speech to open parliament, the first time the true Canadian sovereign has done so in around 50 years.

All of it is a complete reversal from previous domestic policy of the last half century, and now we all know that every thing the Canadian governments have done over the past few decades were complete nonsense. My god, and all it took was a few Truth Social posts. — NOS4A2

Never underestimate the effect an derogatory and condescending statement from a foreign leader has on a population. Add there sky high tariffs on highly integrated supply lines, and you have Canada in earnest looking for other trade partners than the US.

Everything that’s going in the world is the direct and indirect result of the kind of leadership you hope and pray for, and an old playboy and reality-tv show host is out here exposing how effete and obsolete it all is.

Thanks Trump! — NOS4A2

Well, I don't think that international trade has been effete and obsolete. Throughout history it has been global trade that has brought us prosperity. Not stupid naval gazing and mercantilism.