DONALD

[NoBodyImportant]

1 minute ago, Retsdon said:

You see, that's the problem right there. At a tactical level politics might be about power. But at its root, politics is most definitely about morality, which in turn gives rise to political philosophy. And as Clausewitz observed, war is an extension of politics. So unless you have a viable, moral political philosophy underpinning your war effort you are, in effect, confusing tactics with strategy.

Ask any chess player how that works out.

 

Then why even pay for Nato if Nato doesn’t do their job?    

[Retsdon]

5 minutes ago, NoBodyImportant said:

Not saying Saddam should have murdered them.  I’m saying it wasn’t America’s problem,  it was a Nato problem. That’s exactly why Nato was formed.

Actually it wasn't. NATO was formed to counter potential Soviet expansion westwards after WW2. I think you're confusing NATO with the UN.

[NoBodyImportant]

I will argue later.  It’s 8am here and I headed to bed.  Cheers.  

[ordnance]

Sending out the message we can get you anytime anywhere. Pity they did not do similar here over the years. 

[chrisjpainter]

8 minutes ago, NoBodyImportant said:

Me? Nothing.  It doesn’t effect me.  But if America pulls out, which I’m in favor of, it because America decides to pull out and not because we were asked.  

Not saying Saddam should have murdered them.  I’m saying it wasn’t America’s problem,  it was a Nato problem. That’s exactly why Nato was formed.  Why should America pay in billions to Nato only to fight Nato’s Wars.  But you just made my point.  Everyone looks toward the Americans to solve everything.   It’s not Americans responsibility to shield Eastern Europe from Russia. Japan from China, ect........   

No we don't! we look to America to either: solve the messes it creates or more preferably stop causing them in the first place! Since the end of WW2, world history has been dominated by America's staggeringly inept conflict management. The US has got its dirty little mitts burned all over the place and the result has either been to solidify dictatorships or to cause power vacuums that just lead to more bloodshed and chaos. Whether it's Cuba, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq, it's either: you fail and run away, thus strengthening the communists (Cuba, Vietnam) or declare victory and things are just as bad if not worse than before.

[southeastpete]

Wow, Americans are so arrogant. ‘These countries should do what they’re told, if we leave it’s cos we want to not cos we were told’ etc 🙄

 

i dont understand alot of politics and global affairs etc but I have a question.

isnt there international law? Surely killing an Iranian citizen, never mind too general, outside of wartime is a crime (murder)??

so there was apparently (hmm) evidence he was planning attacks against Americans. Is there my jnternstional courts? Present the evidence..?

if an American was planning a murder, do the police just kill them?

 

i agree with the comments that it’s all about money. Oil, America’s war machine etc etc.

i wonder how many Iraqi/afghani civilians were killed per year by American ‘soldiers’ versus by saddam etc.

 

america will probably end up uniting many countries against them. Imagine if Iran Iraq etc got together with Russia to fight America...

[Rewulf]

15 minutes ago, chrisjpainter said:

No we don't! we look to America to either: solve the messes it creates or more preferably stop causing them in the first place! Since the end of WW2, world history has been dominated by America's staggeringly inept conflict management. The US has got its dirty little mitts burned all over the place and the result has either been to solidify dictatorships or to cause power vacuums that just lead to more bloodshed and chaos. Whether it's Cuba, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq, it's either: you fail and run away, thus strengthening the communists (Cuba, Vietnam) or declare victory and things are just as bad if not worse than before.

Youre arguing over semantics.
Perpetual war = perpetual profits, and we are as guilty of it as the US, the staggering amounts of money spent on Iraq since 2003 on infrastructure .protection and defence, arent entirely paid for by western taxpayers, they are paid by bleeding cheap oil out of Iraq.

We only go after countries with resources, thats why some African countries, Myanmar and NK get left alone, they have nothing to take.

24 minutes ago, chrisjpainter said:

No we don't! we look to America to either: solve the messes it creates or more preferably stop causing them in the first place! Since the end of WW2, world history has been dominated by America's staggeringly inept conflict management.

The US picks up the tab of around 80% of NATO costs , thats a fact.
And world history since WW2 has been dominated by 'defending' against the 'new' enemy , Russia.
Even though its plain to see they are not remotely interested in global domination.

Perpetual war/threat.

[Retsdon]

2 minutes ago, southeastpete said:

Surely killing an Iranian citizen, never mind too general, outside of wartime is a crime (murder)??

Not just an Iranian general. The man sitting next to him was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Mahdi_al-Muhandis . He's on the Iraqi government payroll. Not to mention another 4 Iraqi senior officers. In a country in which the culture of manhood and honour underpins everything, never mind the Iranians, how did the US imagine that the Iraqis would take to having their government employees murdered in their own capital city's airport?

You'd have to believe that wasn't a lot of thought went into this action. But if there was, it's sinister beyond belief.

6 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

And world history since WW2 has been dominated by 'defending' against the 'new' enemy , Russia.
Even though its plain to see they are not remotely interested in global domination.

Perpetual war/threat.

For once we agree!

[Rewulf]

2 minutes ago, Retsdon said:

For once we agree!

It had to happen one day 

[Retsdon]

1 minute ago, Rewulf said:

It had to happen one day 

😁

[WestonSalop]

5 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

It had to happen one day 

I think we may have just witnessed a miracle that should go down in PW history. Congrats gents!

[Rewulf]

1 minute ago, WestonSalop said:

I think we may have just witnessed a miracle that should go down in PW history. Congrats gents!

😂 New year and all that ...

[TIGHTCHOKE]

It will not last!

Edited January 4, 2020 by TIGHTCHOKE

[treetree]

1 hour ago, NoBodyImportant said:

I will argue later.  It’s 8am here and I headed to bed.  Cheers.  

Let's hope your president hasn't started World War III by the time you wake up.

[GingerCat]

5 minutes ago, treetree said:

Let's hope your president hasn't started World War III by the time you wake up.

Ww3 is not going to start over this. Not by a long shot. The Iranian general is far from the fairy tale prince some seem to think and irag is not some enchanted Disney paradise. Trump Had the opportunity to get rid of a rather nasty individual and some of his nasty friends that liked to help him on his endevours. Trump also had the capability. So he did it. Fair play to him. 

We used to be the world's policeman but our empire fell, so did our capability. It fell on the shoulders of the US who would, if the roles reversed, have scorned us just the same. 

[Rewulf]

39 minutes ago, GingerCat said:

Ww3 is not going to start over this. Not by a long shot. The Iranian general is far from the fairy tale prince some seem to think and irag is not some enchanted Disney paradise. Trump Had the opportunity to get rid of a rather nasty individual and some of his nasty friends that liked to help him on his endevours. Trump also had the capability. So he did it. Fair play to him. 

We used to be the world's policeman but our empire fell, so did our capability. It fell on the shoulders of the US who would, if the roles reversed, have scorned us just the same. 

Well said 

[Retsdon]

24 minutes ago, GingerCat said:

Ww3 is not going to start over this.

The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand started WW1. 

 

26 minutes ago, GingerCat said:

The Iranian general is far from the fairy tale prince some seem to think and irag is not some enchanted Disney paradise.

Nobody ever said he was, even the Iranians. Iraq? or Iran?

 

27 minutes ago, GingerCat said:

Trump Had the opportunity to get rid of a rather nasty individual and some of his nasty friends that liked to help him on his endevours.

As for his endeavours, nobody, not even his enemies, has ever viewed Solemeni as anything other than a fighter in the cause of his country. And he's viewed as a hero by millions for his coordination of the fight against ISIS. Without him Baghdad would almost certainly have fallen to ISIS. Think Zhukov for the Russians, or Eisenhower for the Americans, or Montgomery for the British. That's the kind of status that Solemeni had across the whole Shia Crescent. To assassinate someone like that is reckless in the extreme.

Never mind the morality of murder, actions have consequences and his assassination risks setting in train a whole train of bad events. There's no  rational upside to it.

[Newbie to this]

6 minutes ago, Retsdon said:

The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand started WW1. 

Sure, it was all peachy until that 

[Retsdon]

A couple of good articles (as usual) on this from Patrick Cockburn.

 https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iran-war-us-iraq-trump-general-qassem-soleimani-airstrike-a9269301.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/news-analysis/trump-iran-war-general-death-qassem-soleiman-iraq-us-troops-a9268816.html

Edited January 4, 2020 by Retsdon

[Rewulf]

17 minutes ago, Retsdon said:

The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand started WW1. 

WW1 was brewing long before he rather unluckily copped a bullet.
A complex web of old style alliances did the rest, and no one saw the massive escalation..

These days EVERYONE sees the escalation, well before it happens.

17 minutes ago, Retsdon said:

As for his endeavours, nobody, not even his enemies, has ever viewed Solemeni as anything other than a fighter in the cause of his country. And he's viewed as a hero by millions for his coordination of the fight against ISIS. Without him Baghdad would almost certainly have fallen to ISIS.

Really ? 

As much as western media plays up the threat of IS setting up its caliphate and taking over the middle east , then the world, the only reason it advanced so quickly was ...conspiracy alert ! ...It was heavily assisted in doing so by other national powers, including Turkey, Arab gulf nations, and the deliberate inactivity/assistance of the US.
If it controlled parts of Syria , it was usually in the form of the roads linking towns, it had little armour , no air support/offence, and at its height could 'maybe' field 50,000 fighting men.

Quite how it controlled Mosul Im not sure , but to take on Baghdad with its 10 million variously armed inhabitants, various national compounds , with armour , air and special forces support ?

Bear in mind the massive Shia population of Baghdad and its environs, a natural enemy for IS mentality, the Kurds in the north, and various superpowers picking them off, we are saying its all down to a Paul Hollywood lookalike 'hero' that the Iraqi capital wasnt taken ?

Makes no sense to me, how they managed to control the land area they did, in fact my conclusion is they actually DIDNT.

[Retsdon]

17 minutes ago, Newbie to this said:

Sure, it was all peachy until that 

Nope. Only there wasn't actual war and nobody really believed there would be, even, for a few weeks, after the Archduke was assassinated. But when sitting on a political powder keg, only an idiot tosses lighted matches about.

But perhaps  it's calculated. I wouldn't put it past Trump to have looked at this year's elections  and thought what I need to guarantee votes is a proper, patriotic war. And he'd of been right. Look at NoBodyImportant's posts.

[GingerCat]

34 minutes ago, Retsdon said:

Nobody ever said he was, even the Iranians. Iraq? or Iran?

 

 

Iraq. 

1 minute ago, Retsdon said:

Nope. Only there wasn't actual war and nobody really believed there would be, even, for a few weeks, after the Archduke was assassinated. But when sitting on a political powder keg, only an idiot tosses lighted matches about.

But perhaps  it's calculated. I wouldn't put it past Trump to have looked at this year's elections  and thought what I need to guarantee votes is a proper, patriotic war. And he'd of been right. Look at NoBodyImportant's posts.

I don't think the election, in this instance, had much to do with it other than easy front pages for the press. It was opportunity and capability. He took the opportunity. Given the status of the target and the current actions of iran I can't blame him. A good resetting of the game if not a tilting of the table. That is his job after all. 

8 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

WW1 was brewing long before he rather unluckily copped a bullet.
A complex web of old style alliances did the rest, and no one saw the massive escalation..

These days EVERYONE sees the escalation, well before it happens.

Really ? 

As much as western media plays up the threat of IS setting up its caliphate and taking over the middle east , then the world, the only reason it advanced so quickly was ...conspiracy alert ! ...It was heavily assisted in doing so by other national powers, including Turkey, Arab gulf nations, and the deliberate inactivity/assistance of the US.
If it controlled parts of Syria , it was usually in the form of the roads linking towns, it had little armour , no air support/offence, and at its height could 'maybe' field 50,000 fighting men.

Quite how it controlled Mosul Im not sure , but to take on Baghdad with its 10 million variously armed inhabitants, various national compounds , with armour , air and special forces support ?

Bear in mind the massive Shia population of Baghdad and its environs, a natural enemy for IS mentality, the Kurds in the north, and various superpowers picking them off, we are saying its all down to a Paul Hollywood lookalike 'hero' that the Iraqi capital wasnt taken ?

Makes no sense to me, how they managed to control the land area they did, in fact my conclusion is they actually DIDNT.

Agreed.

 

[Retsdon]

6 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

Makes no sense to me, how they managed to control the land area they did, in fact my conclusion is they actually DIDNT.

It's an interesting one. I remember at the time looking at  sprawling Saudi cities  like Dammam  (not dissimilar to Mosul) and wondering how a force like ISIS could actually take them over. But then you look at how thin on the ground government forces really are, and you realize that if the government forces didn't actually want to fight and ran away, there'd be nothing to stop them.  And once inside, they could just,on pain of death, co-opt the local officials to do their bidding. Then once they controlled the local administrators they controlled the area. They didn't really need a soldier on every street corner.  When people are fearful...

 

[Retsdon]

21 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

A complex web of ...alliances did the rest, and no one saw the massive escalation..

Quite. But of course one never actually knows what alliances really exist or to what extent allies will, in their own strategic interests, support or abandon their 'friends'. And it's always an unknown to what extent 3rd parties might use a conflict to further their interests. If America were to get involved in a war with Iran, would China and Russia not use American preoccupation to push their strategic interests in a way that they wouldn't do otherwise? As Churchill said, once you open the Pandora's Box of war there's no telling where it might end.

[derbyduck]

6 hours ago, Rewulf said:

I just want to know who's going to replace him on Bake off? 😳

LOL