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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Britain is not considering, never has or likely will ever consider getting rid of its nukes. There is debate over renewal of Trident, our archaic nuclear submarines but (a) that won't happen (the ruling Tories don't want it, the opposition parties are factionalised on the matter with those who do want to disarm generally acknowledged as using it as leverage for economic concessions) and (b) Trident by no means represents Britain's entire nuclear stockpile.
The matter can be discussed in our own politics thread of desired but just want to ensure the falseness of the claim is noted.
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Poised?. We've got five years, in which David Cameron is due to resign. A lot can happen before 2020.
@Native Jovian - 99 times out of a hundred? Proof of this?
Because standing aside as a quarter million people die for the sake of not going to war (and here I'm fighting the urge to quote Harrison Ford in Air Force One on the nature of what that really is) is not what I call successful or "peaceful". Same with Rwanda.
War should not be gone into lightly. But these half measures don't work or help. War is something to be decided on a case by case basis WITH PROPER PLANNING AND UNDERSTANDING, something neither Obama or Bush have been particularly good at, whatever the goal.
Obama's been a hell of a lot better than Bush ever was, mainly because he listens to military advisers with actual knowledge of their subject, not warmongering politicians who answer to arms manufacturers.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
I think it can be fairly understood if Obama wants to avoid getting into yet another war in the middle east. The public won't support it, most of the world wouldn't do more than tacitly support it; I'm fine with staying our of this one. Not to say it isn't a matter that should be addressed and that the hardship isn't terrible; just that I don't see us getting involved.
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Did you really just ask for objective proof of a moral claim? It doesn't work that way. You can't reduce questions like "is going to war the right thing to do?" to numbers and logic and come up with a 100% guaranteed right answer.
The United States military is not the world police and shouldn't act like it. Intervening in humanitarian crises is one thing, but even that's not black and white. The situation in Syria is undoubtedly a humanitarian crisis, for example, but it's also a full-blown civil war, and intervention would basically require straight-up Iraq/Afghanistan style invasion/occupation/reconstruction. As tragic as things are in Syria, I don't think we're morally obligated to intervene in a situation like that.
My point with the "99 times out of 100" claim was that it's never black and white. International politics is complicated. It sucks, but that's the nature of the beast. Killing people to save people is also difficult. I'm not trying to start a debate on when lethal force is justified, but... well, look at Iraq. Saddam Hussein killed around 5,000 people when he used chemical weapons on his own territory in the 80s, and we called him a monster for it. We killed hundreds of thousands of people to depose him. I'm not saying that deliberate genocide is morally equivalent to collateral damage, but those people are dead all the same.
tldr, sometimes trying to help does more harm than good, and in those cases, the best thing you can do is nothing.
edited 29th Sep '15 7:15:15 AM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.The U.S. gets involved - "F*ck those warmongering Americans and their militarist foreign policy. How dare they think they can police the world?!"
The U.S. does not get involved - "F*ck those pacifist Americans and their limp-wristed foreign policy. Why aren't they doing a better job of policing the world?!"
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.(Politico) Senate GOP Rebukes Ted Cruz's plan to shutdown the Government
Then, his Republican colleagues loudly bellowed “no” when Cruz sought a voice vote, a second repudiation that showed how little support Cruz has: Just one other GOP senator — Utah’s Mike Lee — joined with Cruz as he was overruled by Mc Connell and his deputies.
It was the second time that Cruz had been denied a procedural courtesy that’s routinely granted to senators in both parties. The first came after he called Mc Connell a liar this summer.
Cruz was incredulous on Monday, calling it an “unprecedented procedural trick.”
“What does denying a second mean? Denying a recorded vote. Why is that important?” Cruz said. “When you are breaking the commitment you’ve made to the men and women who elected you, the most painful thing in the world is accountability.”
Indeed, denying Cruz a vote prevents the Texas senator from dredging up the roll call in the future and using it to attack his colleagues.
Haha, wow. I love it. I don't care about the procedural mumbo jumbo; Ted Cruz getting shouted down like a misbehaving child is priceless!
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Also, this. People need to make up their minds. Are we to intervene in every world crisis, regardless of whether we are wanted or needed? If so, on whose side? Are we to keep our nose out of other countries' internal affairs unless they ask us? If so, what about when they're massacring their own people?
edited 29th Sep '15 7:27:10 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I don't know; the idea of taking Cruz behind the barn and giving him what for with a willow switch or a belt has a certain visceral appeal. It's certainly more forgivable for a child to behave the way he does; an adult has no excuse.
edited 29th Sep '15 7:41:21 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Thing with U.S intervention is that so much of the shit caused worldwide was caused by U.S government action or inaction that they generally are part of the problem that caused the problem in the first place, and hence they dont really get to take the pontius pilatus way out of many things.
Other shit? Yeah, the people love to blame the U.S because they are an incredibly easy target.
Example. Taliban? Yeah. You guys supplied them with weapons. Contras and the resulting regime in Nicaragua? That too. Maras? Trained in Los Angeles, yeah.
Bolivia wanting sea? Oil problems in european seas? What the fuck does that have to do with the U.S?
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothesIt comes down to a dose of Realpolitik combined with a dose of Might Makes Right. If the U.S. is to act as an arbiter on the world stage — a power that nations come to to help settle their disputes — then it needs enough military might and political willpower that those nations have a reason to fear breaking their agreements. It is not necessary that the U.S. intervene in every conflict, but the nations involved must worry about what would happen if we did, and step back from the brink of inexcusable actions lest our disapproval fall on them.
However, the reality is that, due to varying levels of amour propre, hubris, short-sightedness, ideological agendas, warmongering by the military-industrial complex, and plain old cultural misunderstanding, our interventions often resemble a rhinoceros with a police uniform charging into a house, wrecking it, pooping on the floor, and then leaving a bunch of guns behind for everyone to "keep the peace" with once we leave.
If we can't get a bit smarter about how we intervene on the world stage, then the nations of the world will have a valid reason to shout "Stop helping us!" whenever the U.S. blunders in.
edited 29th Sep '15 7:58:48 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I am thinking more and more that with the internet, Americans need to be (and will be) exposed to more people from other countries, get to know them as people, and become increasingly aware of US foreign policy and how self-serving (of the government, not even the American people) it is and demand heavy changes.
Or, we'll fall deeper into our particular information bubbles, seeking out only information that confirms our preexisting biases.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"@Fighteer - Obama suffers from going too extreme in the opposite direction from Bush. Bush warmongered, Obama peacemongered. Neither was dealing with conflict on a case by case basis, or having any sort of plan. He wasn't listening to advisors either. He may not be listening to the weapons companies, to his credit, but he was listening to groups who think that not doing any fighting ever is somehow reasonable policy.
@Mopman - I understand why he's not doing it, but thats the whole point of being able to make a tough decision. Should he have spoken up about Egypt one way or another? No. Should he have allowed logistical support for Saudia's war in Yemen? No. And yet he has done both. But the one conflict going on where there is a moral and self interested argument to be made for intervention, and he cocks it up. The man is getting the US involved in the middle east...but he's either half-assing it or chasing conflicts that truely are irrelevant to the US. Syria, much like Rwanda during the Clinton years, is such a situation that requires force to be used to resolve, because the conflict's dynamics don't allow for diplomacy without some kind of neutral arbitration with enforcement power.
@Native Jovian - Except the situation in Syria is now negatively affecting two regions. The only way to end that conflict IS an occupation and reconstruction, and likely partition. If it's as you say and not our problem, then let us say that and stop with this half-assed meddling or giving a shit that Putin is helping Assad. But we must stop playing at regime-change from afar.
And I'm not saying it IS black and white, I'm saying it's a case by case situation. The problem is, Obama isn't treating it like one. There are such things as situations where we do have to actually intervene because leaving it alone makes it worse. Libya is not such a case (even if we screwed up the post-war reconstruction by abandoning the new government), which is why you don't hear me arguing for American intervention there. But when a conflict is threatening to drown TWO world regions, you can't just ignore it, Ostrich style.
In the case of Iraq, point of fact, Saddam also killed hundreds of thousands in his nonsense war with Iran. He's got more blood on his hands than the US. Now, was overthrowing him smart? No, but Iraq wasn't also causing regional hemorrage and a global refugee crisis in 2003. Even then, the problem with the intervention is, again, the half-assed nature of it. We broke it, we bought it, and we tried to fix it on the cheap and quick, and it is THAT fact that lead to Iraq's mess today.
tldr: Two points: If we leave it alone, then let us leave it alone. If we want Assad and Daesh gone, then go for it all the way. But morally speaking, Syria is a conflict that requires intervention.
On the subject of world policing, no where do I say the US must go at it alone. The more the better. But to shirk away entirely from it is a bullshit move.
@Tobias Drake - The international community is much like an internet comment board. You can't please anyone ever. That's also not the point. One doesn't intervene or not intervene on a popularity contest.
@Fighteer (again) - It's like porn. You know it when you see it. In this context, Yemen and Libya wouldn't really count. Syria would.
EDIT- Partially
'd by Fighteer. Also damn this thread moves fast.
edited 29th Sep '15 8:17:09 AM by FFShinra
Problem is, reality ensues. Example: September 11.
No, I am not saying it was an inside job. I am saying the U.S foreign policy fostered and allowed the things that ultimately caused September 11 to happen, to breed.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothesJudging from what I've heard of Vietnam, and the current situation in Iraq, US interventions go like this.
Stage 1: US charges in guns blazing. Anyone who questions this is ether a coward or sympathizes with the enemy. Idiotic strategy reigns supreme, and people treat the conflict like they are a conventional war. Acts of brutality are carried out, far fewer than our enemies, but because we are held to a higher standard, and in the case of the Vietcong, the enemy have a good PR department, our international standing plummets. The government lies and says the war will be over soon and we will suffer few if any losses
Stage 2: The situation gets out of hand. US forces suffer heavy losses. The enemy advances, often committing numerous atrocities, which make the locals hate them almost as much,if not more than they hate us. Public support for the war plummets, as people realize the government lied, that thousands of our soldiers are dying, and that our cause may not be just. A new strategy is devised.
Stage 3: We finally have a handle on the situation. A counter insurgency is being waged, the populace supports us, or at leas hates the enemy more, we have good local partners, and the enemy is loosing badly. However public support for the war is at an all time low. The fact that the conflict is "unwindable" has become common knowledge, and is bandied about by idiot talk show hosts. In addition certain political groups have staked their fortunes on the war being a failure. The public demands an end to the conflict.
Stage 4: So after everything we've done, everything we've sacrificed, and after coming so close to victory, we leave. We don't just leave though, we cut our aid. We cut our influence. We try to wipe whatever third world hellhole the intervention happened in form our minds and try to pretend it never existed, and that the war never happened. Left to hang on a vine our allies falter. The enemy advances, and all that the US worked for is undone.
I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

I hope not. At least she has experience in foreign policy, as opposed to being another random idealists the Democrats plucked because they gave good speeches and had "a good narrative." To be honest though none of the current crop will do. The US hasn't had a sane foreign policy since Bush 1 and maybe Clinton.
I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.