The Donald J. Trump Presidency

I am worried as well, which is why it is unnerving to see credible journalists referring to Iran as a "terror-supporting regime." I am assuming that the author has Hezbollah in mind when he is making that claim? I'm not really sure.

I don't really care who rolls their eyes. There is a dumb tendency to flippantly disregard basic facts about U.S. foreign policy because it makes you sound like the kid from Lady Bird or whatever, but that's really dumb, especially when people start talking about regime change in the Middle East.

WP64 wrote:

Ned Braden wrote:Just cause it’s pretty on-point imo and references the cluelessness of both trump and bolton:

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/05/12/trump-leadership-vacuum-china-iran-venezuela-north-korea-chaos-column/1169364001/

making a terror-supporting regime seem like the aggrieved party

Are they referring to the United States or Iran? Descriptions like these rightfully annoy the shit out of me.

Ned, I disagree with that article because I don't think no one is in charge. I think China is in charge and they certainly benefit from a bit of controlled chaos.

I also agree that the US has supported more violence and terrorism than any nation state in history, and a failure to acknowledge that greatly diminishes our global credibility. Completely illegitimate war like Iraq or Vietnam is just terrorism by another name.

I'm fully behind you WP. I think Duff and Ned are a bit off the deep end in calling this a legitimate lurch towards war. It seems like more Trumpish nonsense that the "deep state" won't even get the wheels turning for. Further, I'm completely unwilling to look at foreign policy through the status quo, influence peddling, "grown ups in the room" neo-imperialist construct that exists today. Calling Iran a "terror-supporting regime" when we support 100x more terror is pure jingoistic garbage and even if Iran provides some amount of legitimate threat, I won't support any framing like that.

Yeah, I'm not sure we're even speaking the same language. At a loss where you heard me say anything about "legitimacy" or anything remotely close to that ballpark.

In the buildup to the Iraq War, the mainstream news outlets in the United States helped the government manufacture lies about the secret relationship between Sadaam, the Baathists, and al Qaeda. The Iraqi government (which actually had committed war crimes against their neighbors in Kuwait using weapons purchased from the United States only a decade prior) was characterized as a "terror-supporting regime" not for the sake of historical accuracy but to provide legitimacy for the impending invasion by American forces.

Having lived through this already in your lifetime, it seems really naive to view this language as something to dismissively roll your eyes at. The point isn't that you think Iraq and Vietnam were legitimate, it is that you are ignoring the ideological process whereby both of those occupations were made to seem legitimate. And I'm just saying, maybe we shouldn't let that lazy language slide since we have seen that it provides the framework for dangerous military action within the region.

To reiterate: The offending phrase on this page in my estimation is "rightfully annoyed". I don't care about this "issue" one tenth as much as you guys seem to think I do.

Not my negs for whatever it's worth.

So you are just criticizing my English then? I don't really get it.

That's more or less what's going on, yeah.

Duff... wrote:Yeah, I'm not sure we're even speaking the same language. At a loss where you heard me say anything about "legitimacy" or anything remotely close to that ballpark.

I used "legitimate" as a synonym for "actually".

My point is that y'all seem to be sounding the alarm bells like "this war with Iran thing is actually happening!!" when it seems like the 10th instance of nonsense sabre rattling by the Trump Administration since 2016. not that this sabre rattling isn't harmful or that we shouldn't be vigilant against assholes like John Bolton, but it struck me as unhinged to suggest that this is the historical moment we'll strike Iran. we've been threating Iran for a decade and little has happened.

Ah.

I mean, it's typical to warn about things before they happen. I'm not saying "THIS IS IT!" so much as "The US is currently making a bunch of moves that make war more likely and can easily spill over if someone doesn't hit the brakes."

Duff... wrote:Not my negs for whatever it's worth.

I've deduced through my years of boarding here that most of my ghost negs are probably from Jesus Jones.

Duff... wrote:Ah.

I mean, it's typical to warn about things before they happen. I'm not saying "THIS IS IT!" so much as "The US is currently making a bunch of moves that make war more likely and can easily spill over if someone doesn't hit the brakes."

And basically what WP and I are saying is that we don't even agree with the Trump critics who would say, "we need to contain Iran, but not in the way this president is going about it!!"

We don't agree with neo-imperialism and the foreign policy status quo on any level. Even if Trump and Bolton aren't right, the people criticizing them are also very wrong in different ways.

We agree that you're right to be fearful of the sabre rattling and want to push back, but we're concerned that in an effort to be "the reasonable voices in the room", Democrats will back limited air strikes or more sanctions that end up killing civilians. We don't want to concede the overall strategy of neo-imperialist containment under false moral auspices.

Yeah, you're having an entirely different conversation.

That's fine. But do you disagree? Because this is one of these instances where I think people are just way to quick to defend the Democratic Party and the "liberal" foreign policy status quo. Like, Clinton would have been an unmitigated fucking disaster in this regard. Full stop.

WP64 wrote:

Duff... wrote:Not my negs for whatever it's worth.

I've deduced through my years of boarding here that most of my ghost negs are probably from Jesus Jones.

i don't neg or poz anyone

I've already made my mind up on this though. Sorry! It has to be you.

that's fine i guess

Yeah, definitely not gonna devote a lot of time to untie the knot of middle east policy. It scarcely matters given the idiots and sociopaths in charge right now have their heads too far up their asses to even come back to the status quo.

Wrong answer

Oh shut up.

No, Trump is a fucking dumbass with nefarious intentions, but he has demonstrably better foreign policy instincts than the mainstream liberal foreign policy "common sense." A Clinton administration would have more proactively supported the coup in Venezuela regardless of its unpopularity within the country and its destabilizing effects throughout the region. She was critical of the nuclear deal with Iran as well and has been a huge proponent of "regime change" throughout her political career.

Did not expect the board to ride this hard for Juan Guaidó, but ok.

i can't wait til he's fucking dead

But wait you must

https://twitter.com/ECMcLaughlin/status/1139192167501484033

is this for real

I'm not saying it isn't I just want to know.

Parts of it definitely are.