MAKE AMERICA POST-APOCALYPTIC AGAIN

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100 years ago to the day marks the US entry into World War 1. Woodrow Wilson, despite running for a second term as President on a platform of "I will keep us out of the war", began pushing for war with Germany within a month of his inauguration. Yes, an anti-war candidate ran on an anti-war platform, and then declared war immediately upon being put into office.
Sound familiar?

Trump never really said "I won't start a war", but he did campaign on Hilary being the warmonger and him not so much. And yet, within 3 months of taking office, Trump has officially started a new war.
The most egregious part of it is, unlike the Iraq War where "the case was thin" for Saddam having WMDs, the Trump Administration is making NO effort to prove the recent chemical attack was conducted by Assad. They're simply saying it is so, and the incompetent, feckless media is reiterating it ad verbatim.

It's actually pretty normal behavior for an authoritarian regime, when failing on it's domestic policies, to start trouble abroad in order to draw negative attention away, as well as benefit from a Rally 'round effect. With his two travel bans, his Obamacare repeal, his tax cuts for the rich, and his wall; all debacles and foulups, and his approval rating at one of history's lowest for a President's first 100 days, the candidate who Wins is grasping for at least one victory.

It's known by everyone paying attention that Syria's military bases are populated with Russian military guests, helping them to defeat ISIS. If the Russians take some hard casualties during a bombing run or missile strike, we're looking at full blown World War 3 with all the possibility of going nuclear.


Oh, and it looks like the Republican favorite for the Supreme Court, Gorsuch, is on track for confirmation, forming up another decade or two of 5-4 reactionary majority. It'll be Scalia 2.0. Corporations are people, guys. You don't have the right to vote.
We are entering dark times.
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
The asshole didn't make it three months. I'm afraid this may be worse than deflection. As you said, he never ran on an anti-war platform, but while he may have been calling Hillary a warmonger, he said he would be quite happy to use nukes in war. He literally said there's no point having them if we're not going to use them, and "if the situation calls" he was going to use them.

This may very well be a case of "I'm the President! I get to bomb something now!" Remember, it was only a week ago that he said that Syria is an internal problem and should be left to Syria. Now, we have a chemical attack which has not been linked to Syria in any way, and the narrative is now, literally, "They did it because we say they did." At least Bush fabricated some bullshit about WMDs. Trump isn't even doing us that courtesy. Never mind that since this bombing is on Assad, this attack is supporting ISIL.
Decky
I'm a dog pirate
19645
eh let's not get too far ahead of ourselves
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
At least now he'll have better things to do than wage war on Twitter.

author=pianotm
he said he would be quite happy to use nukes in war. He literally said there's no point having them if we're not going to use them, and "if the situation calls" he was going to use them.

He also said he'd do much worse than waterboarding. I can only assume he means ripping your fingernails out at the root and shoving a cone in your ass and slowly opening it. If he meant death by tying people to wooden chairs and putting a bullet in the side of their heads, he should've just come out and said it.

To put it blunt, he's old, rich and a whiny little bitch. We elected someone you can do nothing to.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got more pressing matters to attend to, like watching Gavaroc play Hero's Realm for the first time since 2013.
I have to admit I thought this was for talking about postapocalyptic settings and sharing favourites or brainstorming new ones.

Surely this is more about making Syria even more postapocalyptic than making america so...
Cap_H
DIGITAL IDENTITY CRISIS
6625
author=Donaldus Trumpus
Let's put an a in putin.


I think, that they will exchange parts of Ukraine for Assad. Big boys have more than one playground.
author=Deckiller
eh let's not get too far ahead of ourselves

Maybe I'm looking too far down the worst case scenario road, but this is a huge leap into the abyss that did not need to happen. All caution has been thrown to the wind, and yet it benefits nobody in any meaningful positive way, and has potentially global catastrophic ramifications if it escalates.

Fortunately, it seems like Russia and Syria are working hard to mitigate the effects. Russia only called it an Act of Aggression, which isn't nearly as damning as an Act of War, and Assad is statesmanly calling it "a disgraceful act" which is peanuts. At least some countries in the world still elect capable leaders.

author=Cap_H
I think, that they will exchange parts of Ukraine for Assad.

Putin will never give up Ukraine. It's "recognized" government has never been more than a western puppet, and the only reason to take it from Russia is so Russia doesn't have it anymore. It'd also allow NATO to build up on Russia's dootstep; another step towards WW3.
author=Dyhalto
100 years ago to the day marks the US entry into World War 1. Woodrow Wilson, despite running for a second term as President on a platform of "I will keep us out of the war", began pushing for war with Germany within a month of his inauguration. Yes, an anti-war candidate ran on an anti-war platform, and then declared war immediately upon being put into office.
Sound familiar?

Trump never really said "I won't start a war", but he did campaign on Hilary being the warmonger and him not so much. And yet, within 3 months of taking office, Trump has officially started a new war.
The most egregious part of it is, unlike the Iraq War where "the case was thin" for Saddam having WMDs, the Trump Administration is making NO effort to prove the recent chemical attack was conducted by Assad. They're simply saying it is so, and the incompetent, feckless media is reiterating it ad verbatim.

It's actually pretty normal behavior for an authoritarian regime, when failing on it's domestic policies, to start trouble abroad in order to draw negative attention away, as well as benefit from a Rally 'round effect.

Not to nitpick here, but I'm gonna stop you there.

The actual bombing event? Suspiciously near in chronology to calling Susan Rice to task for meddling in Trump's stuff.

http://nypost.com/2017/04/05/why-the-media-want-to-bury-the-susan-rice-unmasking-news/

(Two days ago, btw.)

In other words, Trump gets too close to the truth, and he gets phony intelligence about Syria.

The Russia hackers? Complete crap and everyone knows it. Who is trying to distract here? Hmmmm...

----------------------

In a side note, I do not believe he should have gone after Assad. But he also stayed out of civilian areas and just attacked military/supply centers. War is hell, and he should have ignored this intelligence, but this was an effective move.

Alot of his supporters turned away, but I'm gonna shrug it off. I'm also not convinced you can just arbitrarily decide that WW3 has started without even war being declared. Trump is basically Leeroy Jenkins. Putin and Assad are smart enough to know this. I believe one or the other will probably have a "heart to heart" with him before rushing into a war. And by heart to heart, he'll likely get a thorough talking to about involving himself in basically the wrong side of a war trusting on an intel that hates him.

---------------------------------

I have to admit I thought this was for talking about postapocalyptic settings and sharing favourites or brainstorming new ones.

Surely this is more about making Syria even more postapocalyptic than making america so...

You're welcome to do this. In fact, I encourage a historical fiction style genre with postapocalyptic elements. Just don't make it too close to home, so to speak.
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
Yeah, not World War 3 yet. The Pentagon even went through the standard procedures and got Russian approval before the strike. Not that Russia actually approves, but they gave permission.

Still, the man has said that we are wasting our nukes, and asked why build them if we're not going to use them. I get why so many people love this guy, but I don't get how they can just dismiss the genuinely horrific things he's promised to do.
harmonic
It's like toothpicks against a tank
4142
Trump voters were lied to.
Hillary voters got what they would have gotten.

When the USA stops becoming the attack dog of the Saudis/Israelis, it will be a good day.
author=bulmabriefs144
The Russia hackers? Complete crap and everyone knows it.

Naaaah, I'm afraid it's looking more and more like there was some degree of Russian intervention in the US election on Trump's behalf. I was one of the first ones to disbelieve it at first because I didn't believe Putin would be so dumb as to meddle in the internal affairs of their strongest rival, but I have to eat humble pie on this one.
It's history repeating itself again. Stalin used the Communist International to attack the Social Democrats because he thought if the Nazis took power, they would start a huge war in central Europe and wreck the whole continent, after which the Soviet Union could come in and take over. Instead, Hitler built up a war machine and attacked him too. Oops!

author=bulmabriefs144
War is hell, and he should have ignored this intelligence, but this was an effective move.

Two things.
1) There is no "intelligence". We have yet to see any kind of evidence put forward proving that it was Assad who used chemical weapons. Chemical weapons were allegedly used and the narrative immediately accused and passed judgment on him. The whole affair is a total violation of international law and plain old jurisprudence.
2) It was not an effective move, if you consider why Trump says he did it. According to his statements, he did it as some kind of punishment. Yes, because Assad supposedly gassed some innocent people, the US will enact justice by murdering soldiers who probably weren't involved in the attack. That's not how you punish anybody for anything. Remember sanctions? Those are one way of "punishing" (even though they're a crock of shit).
No, the reason they bombed the air base is because that's exactly how you lay groundwork for a wider campaign : Establish air superiority.
The wider campaign may not happen (yet), but that's the basic idea behind the choice of target.

author=pianotm
The Pentagon even went through the standard procedures and got Russian approval before the strike. Not that Russia actually approves, but they gave permission.

No, not permission. Just an advance warning. Not much different from Israel air dropping leaflets saying "We are going to bomb this and that area. Leave."
Cap_H
DIGITAL IDENTITY CRISIS
6625
What I thought is that Putin will give up Assad's regime, if Trump let him do whatever he wants with Ukraine.
author=harmonic
Trump voters were lied to.
Hillary voters got what they would have gotten.

When the USA stops becoming the attack dog of the Saudis/Israelis, it will be a good day.


I think the difference is that Hillary would have had a plan for Syria (not that I agree or disagree--it's all a fucking mess and I have no clue what the right course of action is) and wouldn't be doing this as step two or three in a plan to lift sanctions on Russia in order to personally profit. I think the Cap's right on this one.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong about Trump and instead of him being motivated by greed and narcissism, he saw some pictures of beautiful babies in Syria (the same ones he won't give refuge to) and his heart just couldn't take it so he slapped Assad's wrist.
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
Housekeeping
I have no clue what the right course of action is

Maybe we could stop stirring up, supporting, and funding rebellions against legitimate rulers so that we can prop up dictators who'll do the U. S.'s bidding. That might be nice. It's pretty telling when even Wikipedia has an article on it (notice that this list is loaded with every bad guy the news told you to hate in the past six decades.).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authoritarian_regimes_supported_by_the_United_States

By the way: Assad's regime? Democratically elected! Isn't that nice, we're supporting rebels trying to topple a democracy, and in its place attempting to install a totalitarian regime. That's actually business as usual for the U. S.

U. S., making the world safe for democracy, one puppet dictatorship at a time.
harmonic
It's like toothpicks against a tank
4142
author=pianotm
Housekeeping
I have no clue what the right course of action is
Maybe we could stop stirring up, supporting, and funding rebellions against legitimate rulers so that we can prop up dictators who'll do the U. S.'s bidding. That might be nice. It's pretty telling when even Wikipedia has an article on it (notice that this list is loaded with every bad guy the news told you to hate in the past six decades.).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authoritarian_regimes_supported_by_the_United_States

By the way: Assad's regime? Democratically elected! Isn't that nice, we're supporting rebels trying to topple a democracy, and in its place attempting to install a totalitarian regime. That's actually business as usual for the U. S.

U. S., making the world safe for democracy, one puppet dictatorship at a time.

Odd how divergent paths cross on issues like this. Though probably not for the same reason, but I agree 100% with this entire post. It is not feasible to "bring western style freedom" to the ME. The best we can hope for for the foreseeable future is a secular government (like Assad) regardless of how shitty he is. The alternative is a power vacuum filled by ISIS, Al Queda, and Islamist theocrats. What we don't need is:

1) Sensationalized tragic event
2) See pictures of dead kids, muh feels
3) Time to topple a regime
4) Wait, where'd all these refugees come from?

Not sure what the solution is here because the entire Dem/Rep establishment is pushing this paradigm hard. Considering that the Clinton campaign was already rattling the saber before the election, a huge portion of Trump voters voted him in specifically to avoid this same old story, despite what you're told to believe (that all Trump voters are warmongers)
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
Oh, no, I think we agree for pretty universal reasons on that. Propagandizing democracy while literally toppling democracies in favor of fascist regimes that will do your bidding is pretty objectively bullshit.
When is the last time the US toppled a democracy? I think there was some bullshit in Haiti in 91, but other than that, we're talking about Cold War stuff. I don't know a lot about the Cold War, but I feel pretty comfortable saying the NATO alliance were the good guys. The US might have been the least good of said good guys, but I'm hoping we're all far enough along here that we can at least admit America was better than the USSR.

While there were certainly ulterior motives, everything the US did was in the interest of preventing WW3 (meaning, keeping the communist sphere of puppet states small enough that another war wasn't realistic). And considering WW3 would have been literally the worst thing that has ever happened in human history, it's kind of hard to fault them for that.

That isn't to say petty politics and vendetta and corruption and other factors didn't come into play. They did, and criticism for that is absolutely valid. But the Cold War was a game, and the US didn't have the luxury of not playing to win.

There was every reason to believe that WW3 was right around the corner, and the choice was literally to become too strong for it to happen or to fight it. There was no third option. And yeah, that results in a lot of mess and death and what could legitimately be perceived as hypocrisy.

And on top of that, there were some bad moves too. Even if every decision was an honest attempt to prevent WW3 (and every decision wasn't), that doesn't mean everything turned out to be the correct thing to do.

Anyway, my point is this; it's fair to criticize the US's foreign policy, but it seems a little naive to boil it down to hypocrisy.

Democracy is good... unless it furthers the aims of a superpower that wants to start WW3. Despite all the confounding factors, I really don't think it's fair to boil that down to hypocrisy, and dismiss it as such.

As for Syria, it seems pretty clear to me that letting people get away with chemical weapons attacks is absolutely not acceptable. It also seems clear to me that this shitty, ineffectual missile strike from the US had nothing to do with that aside from convenience, and is an attempt to create plausible deniability as the evidence continues to mount that Donald Trump colluded with Russia.

If Trump actually did collude with Russia, this is obviously what just happened. And considering that the Steele Dossier now appears to be legitimate, not to mention the mountain of circumstantial evidence, this really does seem like the most reasonable conclusion.

What I anticipate is Russia pretending to want war with the US from this, Trump pretending to throw a few diplomatic punches, lots of fear-mongering (both as a distraction and a way to consolidate power), then a peace deal is "brokered" at the last minute, in which the US lifts sanctions on Russia, recognizes that annexed bit of Ukraine as Russia, with a promise from Putin to be tougher on Assad.

No WW3. Lots of corruption.
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
Rwanda was a democracy in the 1990s, until the US funded and supported a rebellion. *Checks list of US supported dictatorships: yep, Rwanda's on the list*

Iran was a democracy until the US funded and supported a rebellion. We no longer support Iran, but...1953 civil war. *Checks list: no, we don't currently support them...but--checks secondary list--we did, until 1979. Oh, and that one's declassified! The CIA deliberately stirred up a rebellion and overthrew the Iranian government.*

Ukraine was a democracy until we spent 5 billion dollars funding a rebellion against their government. Now, they're struggling to restore democracy, which the U. S. government is actively preventing.

That's off the top of my head.



Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
The idea that Trump would be less warlike than Clinton is a position that doesn't make sense to me. The guy campaigned on the idea that the US was seen as weak, of projecting might through a surge in military spending and build-up, of expanding the US' involvement in the war on ISIS, that Obama's inaction in Syria was disgraceful, why can't we use nuclear weapons, etc.

I also think proclamations that this is a 'new war' are a bit overblown. We've been bombing in Syria for years. For the record, the idea of a president retaliating for the use of chemical weapons on civilians isn't something I really have a problem with, but there are a lot of factors at play here I don't trust, and we don't know the whole story yet.
author=Dyhalto
author=bulmabriefs144
The Russia hackers? Complete crap and everyone knows it.
Naaaah, I'm afraid it's looking more and more like there was some degree of Russian intervention in the US election on Trump's behalf. I was one of the first ones to disbelieve it at first because I didn't believe Putin would be so dumb as to meddle in the internal affairs of their strongest rival, but I have to eat humble pie on this one.
It's history repeating itself again. Stalin used the Communist International to attack the Social Democrats because he thought if the Nazis took power, they would start a huge war in central Europe and wreck the whole continent, after which the Soviet Union could come in and take over. Instead, Hitler built up a war machine and attacked him too. Oops!


The "Russian hackers" narrative was based on an extremely flawed whiny narrative that goes like this. This is subconscious though, nobody say it out loud, but it helps support the narrative that the election was impossible without Russian hacking:

  • Cities all have millions of people, the rest of the country is like five people per 100 square miles.
  • People in cities are more educated, therefore they should dictate how the government is run.
  • Because these areas have so few people, and because they are so stupid, they could not possibly make an informed decision, or all show up to vote. Therefore, either a few rich farmers somehow bought votes or we had hacking going on.
  • We hate the Russians, because they used to be "socialist" but now they went kinda capitalist, so let's scream "Russian Hacking!" as loud as we can because it's obviously true.


As I say, this is a subconscious thought process. But it appears to be what people think.

Actually, the amount of US cities, while population dense, is also a very small parcel of land if you put it all together. Less than 100 miles. To put it in perspective, there are 3000 miles IN ONE DIRECTION from one coast to another, and this does not account for the longitude. Or clusters of people stationed outside of the US, voting from overseas as they serve the military (which btw, every election, the liberals have tried to either corrupt this vote or prevent absentee votes to disenfranchise them). In my small town, I have several thousands of people. Further, I have been across the country. There are heavy farming areas but people still manage to have decent population even within a 10 mile zone. Sorry, premise 1 is wrong.

Premise 2 is not true either, having spoken, and argued with many of them. They preach diversity, while being completely unable to accept that other people have different opinions. Here's an example. Election failed for liberals, and all latched on to this one explanation. On the other end, the attack on Syria, three different conservatives debated on Trump's attacks, they all arrived at different conclusions. Same for "fake news", some blowhard tells you what fake news is, and you all buy it. This is not "education" this is what we call "brainwashing" into lockstep thinking. If you are taught that anyone who might have a different opinion is "obviously less educated" you have basically let someone else use any latent elitism to create an effective bubble where no new thought can get in. Who should decide how government is run? Should it be people who have only ever lived in cities, whose jobs include blogging and internet surveys, jobs that do nothing at all to promote commerce, agriculture, or industry? Should it be civil rights workers with no actual job at all, who collect food stamps? Or maybe all of the people who lost their jobs to outsourcing, who watched the local farming or forestry companies employ millions of undocumented immigrants, who used to work in their town Amazon or Purdue until it got screwed over by regulation, who actually stood up and voted because they were sick of this crap?

See #1 and #2. Also, many of the younger millenials that I knew locally seemed to not even bother to vote. They couldn't get off their bums and stop smoking medical marijuana. Or playing their XBox or PS3 which they didn't earn through actual work. My job pays biweekly and part-time. It took me about a month to recoup my last console. Also in a given city, not 100% vote the same way. So you have small liberal voting zones, not even 100% voted that way, most districts were red, and you still want to tell me it's impossible when I and alot of ppl I know voted this way, and we didn't even win our state? Yeah...

Do I need to tell you how bad this narrative looks once you take apart all the sections, and all that's left is this last one?

--------------------------------------------------

Moving on...

It was a terrible mistake to bomb Syria. But based on the nonsense that is Calexit (try, the military rounds up the group of ppl wanting to secede, who believe in gun control, so... maybe aren't even armed, and quietly tell them that maybe it might be a totally good idea to stay part of the Union, leading to... like, the shortest rebellion in history? *read this section in valleygirl*) not even the stupidest.

author=Housekeeping
I think the difference is that Hillary would have had a plan for Syria (not that I agree or disagree--it's all a fucking mess and I have no clue what the right course of action is) and wouldn't be doing this as step two or three in a plan to lift sanctions on Russia in order to personally profit. I think the Cap's right on this one.


Hillary's plan for Syria involves making it even less hospitable, and declaring that it is now our duty to take in more refugees, since we caused the refugee crisis. I am not kidding. She wanted to missile attack them hours before Trump did, and she supports open borders.

Trump, so far as I know, has no defined plan for Syria. This means, occasionally, that he lets advisers steer him wrong. Like this case.
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