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| Thread: Should all U.S. forces return home? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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artu
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted January 10, 2016 02:13 AM |
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Edited by artu at 02:14, 10 Jan 2016.
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blizzardboy said:
I think a safe zone would have been a happy medium between telling the refugees to screw off, and large swathes of them abruptly land in a foreign culture & environment. Perhaps some of them could still migrate, especially to central Europe which is desperate for warm bodies, but in less dramatic numbers all at once.
But it's water under the bridge.
Well, the EU is giving Turkey 3 billion Euros to "keep them." So, you can say we are that safe zone in practicality. The culture is not as foreign as Western Europe, espceially in the East and in conservative Anatolian towns. (You wont have to worry about girls with mini-skirts getting harrased in a place such as Konya or Yozgat.)
Of course, this caused especially Germany to go soft on Erdogan and put him back on good graces. Criticism from Europe that he's turning more and more authoritarian got drastically tuned down. The conflict with the Kurds is almost back to its heated days of the 90's. There is martial law in many Eastern cities, people are not allowed to leave their homes. The leftists are constantly protesting inhumane behaviour by the police or the military during this or that operation, children getting shot accidentally etc. Normally, European civil organizations would be all over this, but not a peep as of now.
@Zenofex: That post almost made me fall off the chair, dude.
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Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
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posted January 10, 2016 02:26 AM |
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Imperialism didn't die after WW1, and surely not after WW2, and it's not dead now either. This Union of European countries is a farce, but I suppose better than being at each other's throats openly.
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Atronach
Hired Hero
Fired Hero
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posted January 10, 2016 05:19 AM |
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Here's the ambiguity: if America reduces its military involvement in the wider world, others will occupy the vacuums of power, and this could result in more resources being wasted on militaries because of the competition of many groups jostling for power. On one hand, it's not great to be under the thumb of an empire (though the US isn't as bad as some have been), but on the other hand, if there's a single locus of overwhelming power, no one's going to bother seriously competing with it and will use their resources more effectively elsewhere.
Though on the whole I think the balance favors non-intervention and scaling back America's armed forces, when considering the many failures of American foreign policy (Iraq, Libya, etc) and the backlash against it and similar adventures. This doesn't have to be a complete retreat into "Fortress America", because something like patrolling the seas to fight pirates (yarr!) is useful, but military bases in places like Germany do little for us.
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted January 10, 2016 06:43 AM |
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blizzardboy said:
Tell you what. Make a serious response claiming that that sentence isn't true, and I'll apologize "for being arrogant". What is your view? That the US doesn't enjoy a leadership position? That it doesn't have influence over other nations' policies?
Otherwise, deal with it. In 40 years or so you can have a jolly good time seeing China be the top dog. You won't have to put up with US supremacy in politics anymore. The long-term survival of the EU (unfortunately) is uncertain at this point, let alone a deeper alliance, so I wouldn't be having any dreams over a grand Europe lurking just over the crest of the next hill.
You enjoy it, obviously. One day the coin may turn around, some other nation may occupy your territory and ask you to follow suit, then some Internet smartass may tell you that you should grasp reality. In any case, I'm not sure what you are so smug about, the US military excursion has driven it bankrupt, you simply can't afford to maintain that military presence everywhere for long, even if we don't count the discontent among the "allies" from NATO and the increasingly more stubborn "megalomaniacs" challenging your country's role as the only legitimate megalomaniac.
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blizzardboy
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Nerf Herder
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posted January 10, 2016 07:21 AM |
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I could do a lot worse if I was doing it for enjoyment.
But you know, to be honest with myself, I'll admit, at least on this forum, I guess I do get a little bit of pleasure out of it sometimes. Then again.
phe said:
Go home and disband with the rest.
They create conflicts to have something to do and to excuse huge spendings in budget.
No one needs an ally who kill and mistreat innocent people by mind control, earthquakes etc.
With asylum escapees like these plugging stolen laptops into an outlet at the side of a building, it's harder than you realize not to have a little bit of fun. The urge can be so strong. I've suppressed myself more times than you know to attempt to be a more serious poster than I used to be. I'm a victim, really.
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Tsar-Ivor
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posted January 10, 2016 08:10 AM |
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Thought as much.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted January 10, 2016 11:04 AM |
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blizzardboy said:
I think US policy has been pretty decent in the past 8 years.
Since the US is a leader, it has the power to set a policy and prompt other nations to follow suit.
No, sorry. For a majority of people in Europe, it became imperative electing true leaders, those who will have the balls to say NO to Americans, then NO to Bruxelles, then take and apply only the decisions serving their declining countries interests. The policies actually imposed on our weak leaders are no safe, they reflect an imperialistic tendency which we don't have the capabilities nor the interest to follow. To sum, only our politicians see in US "the leader", combine this to weak and pernicious internal decisions and here you have the reason that more 50% of Europeans don't vote anymore.
Is too easy to put all you have in army expenses, get the biggest one then claim you are the leader because of that alone. A leadership, as seen today in international politics, is the mixture between reciprocal trust and capability to federate all the actors energies around a collective action, leaded by one entity or individual. Or we highly doubt that a) USA trusts his allies and vice-versa b) the collective actions results are equally beneficial to all actors as they are to USA.
Then there is a complete lack of long term vision, as under the overused motto of "we bring democracy and freedom", we know that only destruction and plunder will occur, now that we can look back at Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and evaluate the outcome. So, basically we feel fooled, every time when payback time comes.
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Elodin
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Free Thinker
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posted January 10, 2016 07:46 PM |
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Sometimes I think the US should pull back and let others defend themselves. But then a numer of nations would fall to evil forces. So I guess the US has to continue to pay in blood and treasure to preserve some semblance of civilization for the world. Maybe some day other nations will step up but that say has not yet come.
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markkur
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Once upon a time
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posted January 19, 2016 05:34 PM |
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I don't think it is an option to pull out everywhere. But one place I would is Europe. Let them EU boys go to war; let them be called upon to defend other lands. Instead, their leaders only care about ARMs-dealers selling weapons to anyone with the cash. Let them be responsible for the grief they cause. Funny how no one talks/rants about that business and it's been going on for decades now.
However, on that note there is a problem and one of the German's said it this way "m/l"..."What would folks think about armed Germans coming into their country?" He made a great point and some people might have to think about it. I wouldn't need to...WWII is long past now.
One more thing, If the U.S. pulls out of Asia, you do realize that Japan will go nuclear. Now, think for a moment about that one. China is not keen on Japan as it is...just like the German already said; How are other nations going to feel/react?
The last thing I will say is this; Yes, I know the U.S. has mucked-up a lot but without the miscues, some areas of the world could be worse. But in the end it doesn't matter to anyone else what the high-cost is for American taxpayers to protect other nations and reap few benefits. Many people want US in other places but don't give a flip about paying for it. This is the number one reason I'm a bit tired of the world and would like to see our investments return home for a change. All of them. Pull back and rebuild our nation. Because folks it's going down the toilet.
The 1st gulf war is a fine example. We go in "with a coalition" and drive Iraq out of Kuwait. What was the reward? Oil contracts? Not really, some small deals but the lion's-share went to CHINA and others that did not save their butts. Now they sit back in their wealth, give everything free to their people (how nice)and expect the American taxpayer to protect them, while they go down the tubes. If you didn't hear this you didn't really watch the video.
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Zenofex
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posted January 19, 2016 06:45 PM |
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This almost sounds like you want to be paid for invading other countries. I'm not going to go into this again, the very notion that you can send an army which costs millions per day to maintain so you can make someone else's life better is beyond ridiculous, not for this planet, not for this race, not for the whole history of civilization in this specetime. If you're not willing to pay for this - just stop (you'll soon be forced to anyway) - you'll be surprised how many nations will be grateful for your policy of savings. The EU already reaps the benefits of the policy in the Middle East so don't worry about justice too, everyone will soon be more or less equally deep in ****.
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Minion
Legendary Hero
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posted January 19, 2016 08:59 PM |
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markkur said:
One more thing, If the U.S. pulls out of Asia, you do realize that Japan will go nuclear. Now, think for a moment about that one. China is not keen on Japan as it is...just like the German already said; How are other nations going to feel/react?
What do you mean exactly when you say Japan will go nuclear?
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Salamandre
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posted January 19, 2016 09:10 PM |
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He means Japan will start testing the bomb then the Chinese will go nuts because of it.
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Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
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posted January 20, 2016 08:30 AM |
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...then Kubrick's "Dr Strangelove..." will become closer to reality.
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markkur
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Once upon a time
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posted January 20, 2016 01:41 PM |
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Edited by markkur at 13:45, 20 Jan 2016.
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Zenofex said:
This almost sounds like you want to be paid for invading other countries.
You know Zeno, you are really...really...anti U.S. and cannot see anything of the other side of the argument.
@ all
In a strange way the U.S. has itself to blame for it's current costly position. With both Germany and Japan, our leaders (and most of the world btw) thought it best that neither country should field much of an army after the fatal war. This proved a great boon to both ex-Axis countries because they both threw the bulk of their GDP into infra, society etc. while the U.S. began it's never ending feeding-frenzy by it's own military-industrial-complex. President Ike, once a General, saw the harm to come in the future. The once economic boon eventually turned into a huge burden that...has been used by poor leadership in more recent decades and with undesirable results.
One final time about the OP. It was not the U.S. government that the video addressed nor my intention either, it was the grey decisions that the U.S. taxpayer faces. Everything is NOT black and white.
For the record, just like everywhere else; we have people that hate the world, feel like the U.S. is the "end-all", feel like the U.S. is corrupt etc. on and on. The thing is, I've seen many people (that are not wild about the U.S.) overseas raging because we did NOT stop something when we could and many other times folks in countries that insist we do not pull-out. I gave Japan as an example. The point I'm making is that except for some of the obvious mistakes that our Government has made there are indeed situations that seem very dangerous to leave, even if we are a mostly hated tyrant.
Frankly, though I know some of the issues on that video were valid, I could not help thinking about Trump and is moolah and ambition. The guy is a good business-man; so the idea that a slick vid that really mirked the water and called for radical action, seemed a tad too tailor-made for the guy. Most of us know about the intense use of propaganda today world-wide. This is what troubles me, with all the "steering" knowing what to do is not always easy. As a matter of fact, I am seldom, if ever, confidant about ANY news I read. The BBC used to be pretty rock solid but they seem to have buckled to the money now too.
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frostymuaddib
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育碧是白痴
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posted January 20, 2016 02:05 PM |
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markkur said:
You know Zeno, you are really...really...anti U.S. and cannot see anything of the other side of the argument.
I understand that there is the other side of the argument, but for me, it is very hard to see that other side (US side) when I saw this:
pic1
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pic5 - Memorial of the 3 year old who died in bombing
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted January 20, 2016 02:21 PM |
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The problem with the U.S. is that their whole economy is built on war, they need war, and the few people responsible for the death of millions of innocent people couldn't care less.
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Zenofex
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Kreegan-atheist
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posted January 20, 2016 02:22 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 14:23, 20 Jan 2016.
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markkur said:
You know Zeno, you are really...really...anti U.S. and cannot see anything of the other side of the argument.
It probably looks exactly like that but what I'm asking for in fact is to stop looking at your country as something exceptional and nonsensical and bring it into the big framework of the international relations. The US has not invented anything or innovated anything and no serious, unbiased analysis using the scientific method can prove that it does whatever it does on the international scene differently from any other Great Power that had existed before or exists now. It's kind of forced to. If you get out of your "Us, the unique Americans" corner, we can have a more balanced talk, until then I don't think there's any point.
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Salamandre
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posted January 20, 2016 05:29 PM |
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Well, markkur, you made the thread, your question, our answers. What you expect... usually, outside americans, there is not much people outside America agreeing with America politics (Personally I know no one, for example).
Call it anti, if you feel being rational is too much. This kind of thread finishes anyway identical to Israel ones: when you disagree, you are anti, so this closes discussion.
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markkur
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posted January 21, 2016 01:18 AM |
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frostymuaddib said:
markkur said:
You know Zeno, you are really...really...anti U.S. and cannot see anything of the other side of the argument.
I understand that there is the other side of the argument, but for me, it is very hard to see that other side (US side) when I saw this:
Dude, I have complained and also been quite outraged about what my country has done long before you were born.
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markkur
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Once upon a time
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posted January 21, 2016 01:19 AM |
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Zenofex said:
It probably looks exactly like that but what I'm asking for in fact is to stop looking at your country as something exceptional and nonsensical...
If that is how you see all Americans than there is nothing more for me to say.
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