it’s much more nuanced than that. — Bob Ross

Know who loves Trump? The Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans. Know why? They hate China, just like he does. That is, a nation that was devastated by the US has aligned itself with the US instead of China because it needs protection from China. Think that one through. — Hanover

4. This is exactly what Trump is trying to motivate. He's trying to save on defense costs by pushing it back on Europe. — Hanover

The solution is for the EU and its many nations is to figure out how to work closely with the US in order to function together harmoniously. — Hanover

Human social interaction, for all its surface appeal and fleeting “highs,” often pulls us into cycles of drama, pain, and struggle that leave lasting marks. Entangling ourselves in the lives and expectations of others can feel exhilarating initially, like a quick fix of validation or belonging, but it frequently devolves into complex webs of obligation, conflict, and disappointment. Much like a drug, social interaction can create a dependency- where we crave that next connection or approval, only to find it comes with an equal measure of stress, misunderstandings, and sometimes even betrayal. In the end, the temporary buzz fades, often leaving us more entangled and drained than before. — schopenhauer1

For those who are upset at my rhetoric (and perhaps the lens by which I am analyzing this), I challenge you to try to justify, in your response to this OP, e.g., why Western, democratic values should not be forcibly imposed on obviously degenerate, inferior societies at least in principle—like Talibanian Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, China, India, etc. Some societies are so obviously structured in a way antithetical to the human good, that it is virtually impossible to justify leaving them be in the name of anti-imperialism. — Bob Ross

Cook something, let's eat. — Buddha

That “diplomatic solution” was giving into absurd Russian demands. — Michael

As if there would be a "diplomatic solution" for the artificial state that ought to be part of Russia (or at least parts that are Novorossiya) and is ruled by nazis. — ssu

Somehow you seem not to understand that it's an European objective to not let Russia defeat and conquer Ukraine (or take the parts it wants and put a "denazified" puppet regime in the carcass state that is left). — ssu

As I've been discussing with Tzeentch, one possibility is the US wants to more-or-less start collapsing the global economy by massive chaos in the various Eurasian "crossroads". @Tzeentch views events in line with this general geopolitical strategy. — boethius

The only rape in all these events that's actually proven is the Israelis raping prisoners on camera.

How do you explain that?

Ah yes ... — boethius

"Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty" - J. Goebbels. — BitconnectCarlos

Main difference is that this genocide is being broadcast live and there's also no plausible deniability, muddy the waters, kind of usual bullshit people easily swallow as you mention above. Israeli officials literally just get up on podiums and declare their intention to starve the Palestinians, that rape is ok, that their animals, that children are just future terrorists and must be killed etc.

Normally you have clear evidence of mass murder on the one hand and a long winded plausible deniability bullshit narrative on the other and most people are then like "huh, who's to say what happened". — boethius

But they didn't!

The famous child burning photograph turned public opinion against the war, massive protests, huge cultural change.

It was so shocking to American elites that they did not in fact get away with it, they wanted to "win the war", that they completely reorganized the military, and in particular the draft, in order to be sure not to be bothered by public opinion in subsequent wars they will want to wage.

Of course, US remained a superpower and the threat of the Soviet Union was still current and so on and there were plenty of "rational" parties involved in US politics at the time.

For example, in 1975 you not only have the end of the Vietnam war but also the Churchill committee that investigated the CIA (for the first and only time). That no one was held accountable represents the fact corruption wins out over democracy basically in a process that continues to this day getting more and more corrupt all the time, but the fact the investigation happened at all represents things were on a knifes edge. It could have easily gone another way. — boethius

Did Afghanistan really need to be wrecked? — boethius

Don't get me wrong, I do get the basic geopolitical idea of crashing the rest of the global economy and then sitting pretty in North America ... but how do you actually go about doing that? — boethius

The US empire benefited from a strong Europe. — boethius

For example, we go from abandoning Afghanistan and "fighting for democracy" there to a discourse of fighting for democracy in Ukraine as the most important thing to ever happen and Putin is literally Hitler and a genocidal maniac ... to supporting an actual genocide in Gaza!? — boethius

... and then escalate to regional war with Iran ... which the whole point of abandoning Afghanistan was that Iran was no longer such a big priority and the region generally, time to pivot to East-Asa. — boethius

Add into that blowing up critical infrastructure of key allies, going from decades of the war on terror to now conducting state terrorism openly is ok and actually super clever if you kill some enemies in their living rooms with their families, running low of ammunition after deuces of outspending essentially the rest of the world on the military for decades (where'd the money go??) and so on. — boethius

The main point I'm trying to make is we're in a phase where the top elites, what I refer to as the Imperial primary beneficiaries, have personal plans that are more important to them than the interests of the empire. — boethius

I'm saying "this plane is definitely going down" and your reply is "well we still have a lot of fuel so can't be that bad". — boethius

But then you'd want to negotiate with the ultranationalists to delay their genocide the time to attack whoever needs to be attacked.

There is no strategic path in which genocide is necessary nor conducive. — boethius

Your argument has been premised on the US imperial goal being avoiding regional integration and so becoming a land corridor, attacking Iran is not necessary to avoid this regional integration.

Furthermore, Israel isn't destabilizing Iran either and can't really wage war on Iran. It could nuke Iran as we've already discussed but that doesn't require a genocide and you're position on Israel using nukes is that would be too high a diplomatic cost (but not for genocide?).

As far as attacking Iran goes, as mentioned we've been hearing the neocon reasons for this being important for decades but no actual pathway has ever been presented for how you actually go about attacking Iran. — boethius

Now, Israel will "get away" with the genocide to the extent that no one can intervene due to the US protecting Israel, but this is at a massive diplomatic cost to the US and not really the world shrugging off the genocide. — boethius

People are pretty mad about it, including as mentioned nearly 2 billion muslims. — boethius

We're talking about the US empire, which is its hegemonic influence outside its borders.

Now, if the grand strategy you're talking about at the end of the day is just the US spoiling as much of the rest of the global economy as it retreats into isolationism on their island as you say, that's simply accepting US imperial decline. — boethius

Yes, Ukraine paid far higher a price than America for the war with Russia ... but the important question is what did the US gain? — boethius

There's plenty of ultra-violent groups in the Middle East already completely willing and able to cause further chaos for the right price, training, equipment and a large amount of intelligence. — boethius

Therefore, if America actually wanted to get into a big war in the Middle-East [...] — boethius

The genocide places significant pressure on US alliances which you do actually need when going into a global conflict. — boethius

Likewise escalating the war in Ukraine was an obvious blunder.

Likewise getting into long wars in the Middle-East.

Likewise destroying the empires finances.

Likewise offshoring critical production.

Likewise a lot of things are obvious blunders in terms of geopolitical strategy. — boethius

Power to do what though?

Defend their own borders? Nuke the world? Bomb a few weaker states into a internal chaos. Sure.

The US has no where near the power it did even a decades ago, let alone 2 decades or 3 deuces ago. It's in imperial decline.

We could of course discuss exactly what the US power status is at the moment, but my point here is not to argue that the US does not have a lot of power. Indeed, it is precisely because the US build up such a large amount of power that it can withstand such incredible levels of corruption without collapsing yet. However, the waste is very evident wherever one looks.

But perhaps that would be best to discuss in a new thread. — boethius

Is the main point I'm responding to, which I feel is fair to assess as the US needing Israel to commit a genocide for "strategic reasons", those reasons being solidifying Israel's position (which also the genocide is unlikely to accomplish).

If you're objection is the use of the word "need" in the sense of some sort of categorical need, then I agree that's not what you're saying, but in this case I'm using need in the sense of "need for these strategic reasons" and those reasons being strengthening Israel's position through genocide. My intention was not to connote that you were suggesting the genocide was some sort of US strategic imperative.

My argument is that the US empire is not benefiting at all from the genocide and is in fact greatly harmed by it in various ways. If the US benefits from chaos in the Middle-East generally speaking, which I also disagree with, that is easily achieved without a genocide.

I.e. if your theory was true then it would make sense to say "The US needed Israel to commit a genocide to better secure the latter's borders and so the strategic position of it's proxy would be improved to more optimally contribute to further Imperial machinations". — boethius