Wanderthread

Politics
103

[quote=“mdh_AcerPlatanoides, post:102, topic:648, full:true”]
I was arguing that the enlisted ranks can trust their intermediate leadership to treat them like citizen soldiers and not toy soldiers.[/quote]

I feel that you are severely mistaken in that belief. My reading of US history leads me to the opposite conclusion.

The USA is a serious contender for the most aggressive nation in the history of the planet. In the entire span of the USA, there has not been a single decade in which the US military did not attack.

The longest span of peace ever tolerated by the USA was seven years: the period just before WWII, spent flirting with fascism and selling a shitload of guns.

Stupid, destructive and counterproductive invasions of weaker nations is what the US military does. They’re the world leaders at it.

Just about everyone, at the moment.

To their west, they have the Saudis. To their east, the Pakistanis [1]. North, the Russians…and from the sea, Americans.

Try to see it from their point of view. Your country spends a few centuries getting fucked by foreign imperialists [2] then just as you finally kick out the quislings and get a decent government, a new imperialist arrives. Your government is brutally overthrown by foreign intervention, and a murderous dictatorship takes its place.

When you finally manage to overthrow that bastard, you’re attacked by your neighbour in a war that makes the Somme look mild. Horrendous sacrifice by your people halts the invasion and turns the tide, but the counterattack is halted by the renewed intervention of foreign powers, both local and imperial [3]. Their interference causes this unimaginably brutal war to drag on for eight years.

A decade later, due to an event that had nothing to do with you, the imperialist that fucked you before declares you to be a member of a three-part “Axis of Evil” and immediately annihilates one of your fellow accused (who also had nothing to do with the supposed justification). Crippling economic sanctions are imposed upon your country that severely limit the ability to modernise your military.

The other surviving target in the “Axis” responds by displaying nuclear weapons. Although they’re still subject to constant rhetorical threats, their nuclear deterrence appears effective.

The foreign power then massively arms the most hostile of your neighbours, vigorously encourages them to aggression and specifically points them at your country. While apparently forming an alliance with the largest of your other historical oppressors.

If I was an Iranian, I would want nukes as fast as I could possibly build them.

.

[1] Pre-US invasion, the Afghan conflict was an Iranian-Pakistani proxy war.
[2] Russians as much as the Brits.
[3] US and Saudis primarily, but the French and Brits got in a bit as well.

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104

My relationship with senior military enlisted officers, as well as staff officers, personally, tells me otherwise. I trust my people over the books written about them.

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105

Which of those is going to start the war? Over what? and a follow up, when has that ever happened before?

It’s not a war that is going to happen. The US is simply closer to Iran than gets let on. Don’t take that to mean ‘influential’ - but do take that to mean ‘we don’t want to, need to, nor would be well served by wining a war against them - assuming we even could’

It’s all very scary when it’s a tabletop game, but it isn’t one of those.

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106

The Saudis, as I’ve been arguing from the start. Most likely using Yemen as a justification.

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that’s relatively terrifying, but absolutely they’re still a shrimp who would lose.

When was the last time Persia was invaded? I’ll wait.

This has been true for 30 years. SIMILARLY We are always 6 months away from wrapping up in Iraq. That’s been 15 years now.

that opportunity is all talk. What have they DONE to convince you that this ‘possobility’ is actually plausible? I don’t see it at all as plausible. Yes, they could launch cruise missiles at one another (with the US approval)… but beyond that - what actual accomplishments have the SA military under their belt?

Three of those can be disabled from the Pentagon. Also, where are the BOATS?

There’s a fair bit of water between them, if you didn’t notice that. Where are the SA Marines? Paratroops? Nowhere, because it’s not an army for invasion.

And 4000 years of entrenchments.

Military people - not as easily fooled as civilians.

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108

1980-1988, Iraqi Army. The invasion was repulsed, but not before killing half a million Iranians.

Remember how batshit crazy the USA went after a few thousand Americans were killed in 2001? Multiply that by a hundred and drag it out over a decade of justified horror and fear.

For the last successful invasion, 1941. Anglo-Soviet.

The pause in Iranian nuclear development was due to the Iranian choice to respond to diplomatic pressure, not technical inability.

It’s their warmup/shakedown cruise. Condor Legion in Spain.

The current military technology gap between Iran and the Saudis is comparable to that between Saddam’s Iraq and the USA two decades ago. That technological difference was the primary reason why those wars were a one-sided slaughter.

The Saudis have a strong coastal navy, and they’re investing heavily in modern submarines. That’s suited for naval interdiction and bombardment, but not an amphibious invasion.

If they do intend on sending ground troops, it’ll probably be via Kuwait and Iraq. The Shia Iraqis wouldn’t be happy, but there’s not much they can do about it. The Saudis are perfectly happy to blow up Iraq as well; they see it as an Iranian client state, which is why they created and supplied Daesh to destroy it.

If they go across the Gulf, it’ll be in the ships of the USN.

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109

Closer to 30. In 1990 I was in junior high school and we had an assignment to do some research and write a report about Desert Shield and the upcoming Desert Storm. Pretty much everyone else in the class’s report was “We’re gonna kick ass and blow 'em away in no time cuz we’re the U.S.A.!” Mine was quite different.

In retrospect, I got some of the details wrong. As it turned out, we were able to deploy and maintain a high-tech army halfway around the world, on the enemy’s home territory, without any significant logistical problems. And although we were outnumbered and outranged tactically, it didn’t really matter when the enemy mostly didn’t have ammo or morale to fight with (but we didn’t know that at the time).

However, my end analysis was that there was a very good chance that we’d get stuck fighting there for 20 or 30 years and in the end have little or nothing to show for it but a memorial. I cited Vietnam and Afghanistan (the Soviet-Afghanistan war) as examples of how I expected it to play out.

The teacher (who was a foreigner that spoke 8 languages and had traveled the world a lot) pulled me aside afterward to talk to me about it. She was surprised, gave me an A, and suggested that I not talk about my ideas to the other kids because local people wouldn’t understand.

That was 27 years ago. We’re still fighting there, have been all along, and still have nothing to show for it. And as a bonus, we’ve been mired in Afghanistan about 16 years now.

Although we’re not supporting Osama bin Laden this time, or Saddam Hussein (as we did before Desert Shield), who knows who we are supporting now that we’re going to end up fighting next? :weary:

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110

If you’re waiting on a legal or democratic solution to this, you’re going to wait forever. Trump is not going to be impeached or prosecuted, and there is not going to be a real election in 2018.

There isn’t going to be a flashing banner headline on CNN declaring that now is the time to resist. If you wait for the midterms, all that’s going to happen is that the GOP holds the House and there are a scattering of stories about voter suppression and intimidation. Same as usual.

If you want to save yourselves, or spare the world from the slaughter that the US military is sure to deliver, you need to take to the streets.

Not in 2018. Now.

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111

I’ve been holding to the theory that Putin must have something on Trump beyond the golden shower tape. Video of him murdering an obviously teenaged girl, or getting fucked by a beefy Russian Sergeant.

It’s pathetic and kinda gross, but the golden shower thing really is just a routine fetish. Surely nobody would betray the democratic world just to spare themselves such petty embarrassment, especially when the details of the fetish are already widely known.

But the really depressing possibility that occurs to me: what if that is all of it?

Is Donald Trump really so pathetically insecure that he’d destroy the democratic world just in order to try to avoid the broadcast of footage of himself squealing under the urine of a couple of Russian teenagers?

For a normal, reasonable adult, you’d instantly dismiss such a ridiculous hypothesis. For the manbaby Trump, it’s regrettably plausible.

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112

At the moment, we’re at: is there a Trump-connected business near you? Why aren’t the roads to it blocked by protesters 24/7?

Give it another six months, and it’ll be: is there a US government installation near you? Why isn’t it on fire?

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113

I don’t see how a new American revolution happens. There are no organizations or communities that can function as an opposing force. Americans would need to see politics as something other than the ballot box and partisan social positioning.

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114

You don’t actually need to get everyone into the streets. Just enough to block traffic, and keep it blocked until the job is done.

A few thousand people per building should do it. One protest for every property owned by Trump or any of his wealthy supporters. Get in the street, block traffic, ignore police demands to move, and stay there. You’re going to get clubbed/arrested/teargassed, and given that it’s America some of you are likely to be shot. But that’s what it takes.

The alternative is an endless wave of dead brown people.

There are three hundred million of you.

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115

I guess I’m not convinced that’s the kind of overthrow – if it just forces one man to step aside – that would actually solve the systemic reasons the US behaves as it does. It always struck me that the Occupy Wall Street protests modeled a wider kind of movement that would have questioned the capitalist-centric culture & behavior of the US and provided enough of an alternative to make a more lasting difference.

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116

We really don’t. We think voting every four years for Team Red or Team Blue is enough, and that everyone who’s complaining is complaining because they’re not voting, not because they vote and follow politics and get involved and not a goddamn thing changes.

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117

I am very much not focused on Trump; they’re all intolerably bent. The entire Republican Party is a white supremacist organisation incompatible with a civilised society.

GOP delenda est, then get started on the hopelessly corrupt and useless Democrats. Into the streets and stay there until a genuinely representative government is established.

Business as usual political procedures are not compatible with that; rerunning another gerrymandered plutocrat’s pseudo election won’t cut it. The system needs an overhaul, and the official methods for doing so are not adequate for the task. The situation has gone beyond legal solutions.

You can have a peaceful revolution now, or a violent one later. I’d advise the first option.

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118

“Mr. Trump, let’s play a game. Either you become the most powerful man in the world and alter the course of American history forever or we will make people laugh at you so hard that The Apprentice gets canceled. Do you give up or do you play to win?”

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119
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120

The NYT are reprising their usual role of pro-war propagandist:

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121

I know, I see, I feel and yes I fear it everyday
These egos their minds and games
With all their power could end our days
Still the sun it shines and the moon it sinks with grace
It’s such a shame that all this shit exists
Here on this earth, this magical place

I’m doing fine

Yes you have the funds and size and power to make some change
What you have will break their smiles
So many people so many ways
Each child who walks their line
Should be free to run their race
It’s such a shame that all this shit exists
Here on this earth, this magical place

I’m doing fine

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122

Is Trump Hitler?

No.

For the same reason as why Mussolini wasn’t Hitler and Franco wasn’t Hitler. No two fascists are the same; every country that falls down this hole gets its own unique horrorshow.

Is Trump as dangerous as Hitler?

No.

He is much, much worse.

Hitler was leading a broken nation that was militarily matched by the Western Allies and outmatched by the Soviets. He had an intelligence apparatus based upon radio and typewriters.

Trump has the most ludicrously over-funded military in the history of the world, with global reach, instantly apocalyptic potential and no real competition. And an espionage apparatus that would have made Himmler cum in his pants.

If you aren’t scared shitless, you don’t understand the situation.

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