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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
@Fighteer: So you seriously expect Clinton to let the American unipolar moment go quietly into the night? If it's not a direct war it'll be Reagen-request CIA shennigans in our more disloyal partners, plus major escalation of the current proxy war in Syria.
What happens if Turkey makes good on it's current flirtations with realigning towards Russia and China starts escalating the South China Sea dispute? Is the US really still capable of being everywhere at once?
edited 24th Oct '16 11:50:28 AM by CaptainCapsase
Re: Sanders the Gadfly: This is pretty much what he promised to do in his DNC speech - "The revolution is not over", etc. I wouldn't worry too much about him digging in like his supporters are wont to, however, he's been lauded on both sides of the aisle for his deal-making (and i still think he did deal-making with Hillary before he conceded the primary/endorsed her).
edited 24th Oct '16 11:49:55 AM by Elle
Yea, but Capsase, your speculation about going to war is... not at all supported by the possibilities of other countries realigning away from the US. For one thing, it's grossly immoral. For another, hugely practical reason, war is fucking expensive in several ways and the US has a whole lot of other options to go through BEFORE just going into war.
And again, North Korea isn't going to be in a war. It's dependent on China and everyone knows it. As for Iran, well, we've been having negotiations with them. It's rocky, but we're trying there. Why would Clinton do a fucking about face like that?
Like, it seems like you have no idea how international diplomacy works.
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And you know this how? Some secret insider information that we're not privy to? Clinton has given speeches praising globalism, particularly economic globalism; she's not going to turn warmonger on us. Again, you're trailing straw everywhere you walk.
edited 24th Oct '16 11:50:05 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
"The American Empire"? It's hard to even have sensible conversations with so many wrong ideas to unpack.
Capsase, you keep saying she's going to be a warmonger without supplying any actual logic for it. Like, oh no the American Empire! Fuck that bullshit, what actual fucking reason other than extreme leftist bullshit does she have for ruining years of American diplomatic efforts to keep us out there?
Seriously, you keep doing this. It's getting tiresome. She's not a warhawk, she knows how hard it is to be a diplomat because she was Sec of State. She knows what's at stake of we renege on the deal with Iran. And North Korea, of all fucking countries, is not going to war with anybody.
Turkey, the Phillipines, and several other American client states are toying with the idea of realigning in favor of another power, Japan is beginning to assert itself, the EU is in danger of collapse...
Iraq wasn't just the work of some neoconservative cabal, it came about through bipartisan consensus. That's the norm of American foreign policy.
edited 24th Oct '16 11:58:15 AM by CaptainCapsase
Again, how in the fuck is that supposed to automatically mean that Clinton wants to wage war with anyone? Or that the American public would be supporting that? Or that Congress would vote to make it all official?
Poorly explained logic all around, Capsase. A changing world does not mean a war is inevitable.
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It's consistent with her history of going with the beltway consensus virtually 100% of the time.
America's image as an unstoppable hegemon has been irrevocably damaged by the war on terror. If America doesn't flex it's muscles and cow the world back into submission, more and more countries will strike out on their own or realign with alternate great powers.
edited 24th Oct '16 12:02:07 PM by CaptainCapsase
How would a war (other than the Russians charging West...
) stop the EU from imploding? And the US wants Japan to reassert itself.
The Philippines are another issue. And Turkey is worrying, but I think economic pressure could be brought to bear on them.
None of these realignments demand war as a solution.
edited 24th Oct '16 12:00:02 PM by Rationalinsanity
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.Or in other words, 'everything is going to go to the shitter because how it could it possibly go any other way?'
Come on Capase. I get that you don't want to get your hopes up, and that you want to provide a different perspective, but this is not the right way to go about that. As the old adage goes, 'if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.'
???? Not sure censorship is a good way to go about disputing dissenting opinions.
It's better to overwhelm them with irrefutable logic.
Also. The hell is "The Beltway"?
edited 24th Oct '16 12:02:03 PM by blkwhtrbbt
Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for youLook, half of the work we've put into the world over the past seventy years has been with the express purpose of making it able to stand on its own so that all of these nations can be responsible global partners. Note that this involves two components: military defense, particularly against the encroachment of ideologies we perceive as a threat; and economic support to build up each nation's infrastructure and institutions.
Now, we haven't always done a good job, but at no point has the U.S. ever shown the slightest desire to have a bunch of compliant puppet states that bow to our every whim.
"The Beltway" is a bunch of strawmen invented to prove whatever anti-establishment point the interlocutor desires to make without having to bring up pesky things like facts.
edited 24th Oct '16 12:03:14 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"@Capsase: And America's reputation being damaged leads to war, how? Again, poorly fucking explained logic that is approaching the circular in nature.
You're also assuming that the beltway wants a war, too. Again, I point to a war wear public, which despite a vocal bunch of idiots is most of the public.
You're making an assumption and then just bending perceptions to your conclusion. Not using actual facts.

The Russians won't abandon the Kurds because they want control over Syria, abandoning the Kurds means giving up on that dream, Assad is not physically capable of fighting the Kurds and the Iranians have no desire to do so.
That means the buck would stop with Russia, you'd have to see a full on ground intervention by Russia in Syria for the Kurds to be bought under control, I'm not sure if the Russians are capable of that politically or militarily, and that's before one considers that if Russia started fighting the Kurds you can bet the US would start arming them again in earnest, the Russians would be stuck in another Afghanistan.
As for Sanders, I do wonder if Clinton will pull an Obama and get Sanders into the cabinet. It would get him out of the senate where he can cause trouble, give the Dems his seat and hopefully build a strong enough friendship between them that he wouldn't pull anything in 2020.
edited 24th Oct '16 11:51:57 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran