US Politics: He's Trump, he's Trump, he's Trump, he's in my head

[Kalbear]

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

Sorry, but where do you figure in all of this? You are a random internet commentator, as am I. When I talk about the anti Trump camp, I don't mean a group headed by you. I mean the left wing cabal that is hell bent on delegitimizing his presidency.

You talked about how it was my fault this happened, and how no matter what  Trump did I'd blame him and how put-upon this made you when people criticized his actions in the face of a nuclear war. 

The left-wing cabal? Sweet. Are they also globalists and cucks too?

Trump is the one who hired Flynn, Manafort, KT, and Tillerson. He's the one who has appointed several members of his family to random positions. He's the one who has spent as much time and money traveling and vacationing in 3 months as Obama did in 2 years. He's the one who is being sued more than the last 5 presidents combined. He's the one that failed to get through the AHCA with his own party, and failed to get his travel ban done, and lied about the wall. These are actions that didn't require a left-wing cabal to delegitimize anything; he did it on his own. 

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

At the same time, I don't think he is a blithering idiot either. He is impulsive, but cunning, and probably able to salvage outcomes that aren't total disasters from initial grandiose schemes that don't work out as intended.

What evidence do you have that suggests this will work out well for the US?

I agree that Trump often does well for himself - but he almost always does so by fucking over other people, often people that were close to him. That is his modus. Trump going to war would do well for himself, for instance. It wouldn't be that great for the country, but it'd be good for his poll numbers (which have risen a point since the Syria attack). Why do you think anyone else would win when Trump does?

[Hereward]

13 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

They really couldn't, not without massive troop involvement and insurgency crises. There's another issue which is that no one really likes the rebels save, perhaps, Iran. No one likes Assad either save Russia, but there's no 'good' side for the US to align with in Syria.

Colour me confused. Iran hates the rebels. They're largely Sunni fundamentalists. Iran has spent a great deal of blood and treasure backing its long time ally and sort of fellow Shia Assad.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

Why on earth would Russia support chemical strikes by Assad - if it was indeed Assad - at this point in the game? It gains them absolutely nothing.

I don't know, nor do I pretend to, but the indications are that Russia at least knew about the chemical attacks. There's this bizarre idea out there that everyone acts rationally based on the data that the person thinking about it has, and therefore if it doesn't fit it must be wrong - but that happily ignores things like actual evidence. 

Whereas the reality is that we don't know all the input for why Putin or Assad do things, but we do have evidence of choices they make. Perhaps Russia found out, argued against it and then tried to cover it up. Perhaps Russia wanted to see how far it could push things. Perhaps Russia wanted to see if it could use chemical weapons in other theaters. I don't know, and neither do you, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. 

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Colour me confused. Iran hates the rebels. They're largely Sunni fundamentalists. Iran has spent a great deal of blood and treasure backing its long time ally and sort of fellow Shia Assad.

Depends a lot on the rebel groups. They're actively aiding Assad and aiding pro-government (but independent) militia groups. They don't particularly like Assad, but want his side to win. And they're looking to set up some power bases there that are independent of Syrian control. 

It's a complicated situation, which is why I said 'perhaps'. To my knowledge no one else really is supporting any of the rebels. (ETA: SA is kind of supporting some, and Turkey is kind of too, but they're mostly focused on the ISIS part of the fighters). 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

26 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Putin was already achieving a peace settlement in Syria. They had already had talks with Iran, Syria, Turkey and Iraq. That had started. And it had started without the US. What this did was put that in jeopardy. The US was getting what they wanted, and now they are not as likely to do so without giving something else up. 

Doesn't that just look like window dressing to you though? Russia isn't interested in any peace treaty that displaces Assad, and no substantial peace can be brokered under that condition, right?

[Kalbear]

Just now, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Doesn't that just look like window dressing to you though? Russia isn't interested in any peace treaty that displaces Assad, and no substantial peace can be brokered under that condition, right?

I think that a Russia-backed Assad has an excellent chance of getting peace in Syria, especially if SA and the US back out or focus on taking back Raqqa. 

I don't think that anything 'brokered' will really happen, mind you. I think that negotiations were with Russia negotiating with Turkey and SA and other states to stop helping rebels and pull their support, and then the war will continue to be prosecuted for a while - just with more success. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I don't know, nor do I pretend to, but the indications are that Russia at least knew about the chemical attacks. There's this bizarre idea out there that everyone acts rationally based on the data that the person thinking about it has, and therefore if it doesn't fit it must be wrong - but that happily ignores things like actual evidence. 

Whereas the reality is that we don't know all the input for why Putin or Assad do things, but we do have evidence of choices they make. Perhaps Russia found out, argued against it and then tried to cover it up. Perhaps Russia wanted to see how far it could push things. Perhaps Russia wanted to see if it could use chemical weapons in other theaters. I don't know, and neither do you, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. 

Or maybe Turkey, or Saudi Arabia or some rogue CIA group orchestrated it because Russia and Assad were achieving their goals up to that point. Frankly, that makes more sense than Russia allowing a chemical attack after they themselves had assumed responsibility for ridding Assad of his chemical weapons.

Anyway, Assad cannot survive without the Russians. So they have massive leverage over him. A peace settlement could be enforced, if they insisted on that as a price for their continued support.

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Or maybe Turkey, or Saudi Arabia or some rogue CIA group orchestrated it because Russia and Assad were achieving their goals up to that point. Frankly, that makes more sense than Russia allowing a chemical attack after they themselves had assumed responsibility for ridding Assad of his chemical weapons.

Shocking that you'd go right to the conspiracy and ignoring direct evidence. Again, just because you don't understand why something happened doesn't mean that the evidence for it goes away.

5 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Anyway, Assad cannot survive without the Russians. So they have massive leverage over him. A peace settlement could be enforced, if they insisted on that as a price for their continued support.

Assad can probably survive for quite a while without Russian support. The rebel aid isn't that strong, and there aren't a lot of anti-Assad forces in the actual government. That said, Russia needs Syria quite a bit too - without Syria, they have basically no middle east presence at all. The notion that they'd pull out and leave Assad high and dry ignores their geopolitical needs entirely. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Shocking that you'd go right to the conspiracy and ignoring direct evidence. Again, just because you don't understand why something happened doesn't mean that the evidence for it goes away.

Assad can probably survive for quite a while without Russian support. The rebel aid isn't that strong, and there aren't a lot of anti-Assad forces in the actual government. That said, Russia needs Syria quite a bit too - without Syria, they have basically no middle east presence at all. The notion that they'd pull out and leave Assad high and dry ignores their geopolitical needs entirely. 

Well, your mind is made up. Trump is a moron. Assad can survive without the Russians. The Russians have little power over Assad. The Russians allowed the chemical attack for shits and giggles. Democrats wouldn't really have supported Trumps move, despite the latest reports saying John Kerry himself is happy about it, and lost the argument to do so the last time around against Obama.

The list goes on.

Again, after an hour spent here, I conclude that the positions are just too far apart for meaningful dialogue.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

21 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I think that a Russia-backed Assad has an excellent chance of getting peace in Syria, especially if SA and the US back out or focus on taking back Raqqa. 

I don't think that anything 'brokered' will really happen, mind you. I think that negotiations were with Russia negotiating with Turkey and SA and other states to stop helping rebels and pull their support, and then the war will continue to be prosecuted for a while - just with more success. 

Ah, so "peace" through superior firepower. I guess that's progress of a sort.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

Well, your mind is made up. Trump is a moron. Assad can survive without the Russians. The Russians have little power over Assad. The Russians allowed the chemical attack for shits and giggles. Democrats wouldn't really have supported Trumps move, despite the latest reports saying John Kerry himself is happy about it, and lost the argument to do so the last time around against Obama.

Trump isn't a moron, but as you said - he's impulsive. Assad can survive without the Russians; we know this because he did so for quite a while. I don't know how much power the Russians have over Assad, but I do know it's not as simple as them leaving him high and dry. Democrats didn't support Trump's move, and while Kerry (and Clinton) both did, they are not every single Democrat any more than Rand Paul is every single Republican.

The difference is that I didn't come in here with an idea of what I wanted to happen. I went and actually read things and linked them. You...as far as I can tell, are still spinning the idea of a Great Russia that you've been doing for 2 years, and continue to do so despite providing any actual evidence to back up your claims. You say that it's a CIA conspiracy to have chemical weapons attacks - what proof do you have other than 'it would back my worldview up'. You say that Russia can simply leave Assad - what evidence do you have that this is the case? You say that Trump must have some plan here - Trump himself said otherwise, and this contradicts both what he said on the campaign about Syria, what he said 4 years ago about Syria, and what he said in his inauguration. 

If you have evidence supporting your claims, provide them. Otherwise yes, the two sides are far apart because one side isn't living in magical fairyland where if things don't make sense we just ignore anything that contradicts us. The other side has a very specific worldview that if the facts don't fit it means the facts must be wrong. 

3 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Ah, so "peace" through superior firepower. I guess that's progress of a sort.

Yeah, it's not a good peace. It just means the end of the civil war.

[Werthead]

 

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Did Russia miscalculate in preferring President trump over President Clinton? Regardless of the extent to which Russia attempted to influence the election, or how effective any attempted influence was, it's pretty much undeniable that Russia wanted Trump to win.

So the question is, is Russia suffering from buyer's remorse, or is Russia getting more or less what it hoped for from trump in the foreign policy department?

 

 

Russia believed that it was getting a pro-Russian President and government, based on Bannon and Flynn. They were not expecting the balance of power to shift as dramatically as it has in favour of the Russian-sceptic staff. They also weren't expecting Trump to completely 180 his strategic outlook on Syria based on a Fox News report. So in that sense they are definitely now feeling buyer's remorse and also whiplash. Next week Trump might invite Putin over for a round of golf and offer to kiss and make up and a week later Trump might drop a daisy cutter on Assad's palace because why the hell not?

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But I suspect Russia (and maybe Iran) talking about a military response to future US attacks in Syria is really just telling the USA that a ground offensive in Syria is a really bad idea because Russia and Iran are willing to provide material assistance in fighting off a regime change invasion. 

 

Except they're not. Make no mistake, that threat was a display of weakness by Putin and Iran. It showed that they were rattled and they reacted with anger and in the heat of the moment, which is something they have not done for a while. Russia has been playing a deceptively weak hand very, very well with excellent strategic use of bluffing and the sound tactical use of other people to do the fighting for them, with Russia just providing a push here and there without committing its own forces. It's been doing that for a couple of years now and everything's been going their way (apart from Palmyra, when it was clear that Putin wanted to withdraw from Syria, but had to double down because Assad's forces were too shit to accomplish anything by themselves), and suddenly this event has thrown their plans for establishing a Russian area of strategic influence in the Middle East (incorporating Syria and Iran, with some friendly factions in Iraq and the possibility of further aligning with Turkey and coaxing them away from the Euro-American axis) into jeopardy (at least briefly).

It was an empty threat. Russia's conventional military strength is impressive compared to many countries, but it's backed by not really a huge amount of economic strength (Russia's economic weakness is a continuing major problem; if Russia was forced into a major land war and lost a significant number of vehicles or aircraft, it would not be able to replace them very quickly) and it really has no chance of winning a showdown with the United States. Any Russia/US confrontation is dangerous because Russia will have to resort to threatening to use nukes quite quickly because its chances of winning a proxy war or direct conventional confrontation with the United States are non-existent.

This threat by Putin was really ineffectual, and the US pretty much ignoring it to lead discussions at the G7 about further sanctions is pretty insulting. The Russians are looking pretty impotent at the moment, which is dangerous in itself as they may feel the need to do something (even on another front) to reassert themselves.

Even worse for the Russians, Iran seemed to immediately back-pedal today on the whole thing today, saying that some kind of diplomatic settlement is necessary and they're pretty much willing to sell Assad down the river to accomplish that. If Tillerson and Trump were smart, they'd follow up on that with more direct negotiations with Tehran and try and stick a wedge between Iran and Russia whilst downgrading the tensions that have risen since Trump insulted the anti-nuclear deal.

 

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If Syria used chemical weapons on US forces, would the US carry out a nuclear response?

 

No. They'd just be carpet-bombed back to the stone age.

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I watched the news tonight and it was all about Assad gassing his own people, but is that true? 

There are alternative possibilities, but the problem with the chemical weapons is that they are quite hard to manufacture and, most importantly, store effectively. The Syrian government is the only entity in Syria with the capabilities to do that. That doesn't mean someone else didn't, but the probability is against it. It's not the best excuse for a retaliation, but then the retaliation was pretty weak anyway.

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People rave about JFK handling the C.M?C., but honestly mankind owes a lot more to NK being willing to take a hit for the sake of sanity,

People also tend to forget that the removal of the missiles from Turkey was actually a key strategic victory for the USSR as well. The USSR certainly didn't back down and walk away with nothing, no matter how it looked in 1962.

 

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Any attack from North Korea can happen absurdly fast and is essentially not stoppable. The nukes are bad - but the conventional weapons are set up to basically wipe out South Korea entirely, and do so in a matter of an hour. 

So yeah, North Korea would be done, but not after it destroys about 10 million people and the entire industrial age of South Korea. 

North Korea has first-strike, rapid-fire capability of its artillery and missile batteries located near the border. However, those batteries are, for the most part, old (some, insanely, date from the first Korean War), wildly inaccurate and short-ranged. North Korea has 10,000 batteries overall along the border, but "only" around 400-600 have the range to hit central Seoul. Rather more can hit the northern suburbs. Some of those weapons could be chemical, which would change the equation.

North Korea can't level the industrial heartland of South Korea or even significantly damage Seoul in an hour. They could certainly kill hundreds and probably thousands of people, but inflicting millions of casualties rapidly is currently beyond their technology (and will remain so right up until they can mount a nuclear warhead on a missile, at which point the equation changes even more rapidly).

Seoul, it should be remembered, has insane multiple redundancy in terms of shelters and also variable approaches to protecting its population: some skyscrapers even have designated high-altitude shelters to get above the dispersal zone of chemical weapons, although that's obviously never been tested. This is a city that has sat on the firing line continuously for 65 years and has been developed with that in mind.

 

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I wonder if the carrier group sent to the Korean Peninsula has the capability to thwart such an attack before significant damage is done. I honestly don't know. 

 

In the case of a North Korean first strike, probably not. North Korea would inflict thousands of deaths before they could respond.

In the case of a US-South Korea first strike (especially a US-South Korea-Japan first strike), it is likely-to-probable that the majority of the North Korean artillery and missile batteries capable of hitting Seoul would be destroyed before they knew what was happening. The US contingency plan for a first strike requires the United States and South Korean air forces to hit North Korea with 600 simultaneous sorties (which would require the total commitment of the 220-odd decent combat aircraft in the South Korean inventory, and then a chunk of the ground-based US Pacific air wings and maybe 2-3 carrier groups) as a minimum requirement. The effectiveness of that would depend on North Korea's radar, and its AA capabilities, which appear to be risible at best.

The problems are those areas of uncertainty, with regards to North Korea's WMDs. The US and South Korea might wipe out the North Korean artillery in an hour, destroy its nuclear facilities hours later and leave North Korea in ruins in a day or two and all that happens in response is a few explosives land in Seoul with minor damage and a low level of casualties. Or North Korea lobs a tactical nuke no-one thought they had and kills half a million people, or poisons the northern suburbs with sarin. Get it wrong and a lot of innocent people die. Leave it five to ten years and North Korea develops nukes capable of hitting Seattle and potentially rather more die.

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North Korea doesn't have to rely on missiles or tanks to cause massive harm; about 60% of their whole artillery forces are positioned in secured, camouflaged areas in range of Seoul. They are widespread enough that they cannot be taken out with one or even a few strikes, and NK has enough early warning tech that they can launch an attack that kills hundreds of thousands within minutes. As stated in the article, NK can fire 500,000 rounds of artillery on SK in one hour.

 

The suggestion that North Korea's artillery forces are completely hidden from the US and South Korea is massively overstated. The stationary large guns have probably been zeroed in for years (there isn't much you can do to hide these gun from satellites, and the DMZ is the most heavily-scrutinised stretch of countryside on the planet). What's more dangerous are the fast-mobile guns, but they can't hit Seoul, and the missile batteries, which can and are of far greater concern.

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They also know that if they weren't developing nukes, they'd continue to be pushed around. They've seen what the US does to countries without that first strike deterrence.  

 

The problem with this is that no-one - not even China - wants North Korea with a nuclear weapon they can actually lob at a target. It's entirely possible the second they get one, they order South Korea to surrender and threaten to nuke Seoul if they don't. What happens then?

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Remember, NK's doctrine is first strike. They are not remotely working on an idea of mutual destruction; they are relying heavily on a strategy of causing so much damage first that it isn't worth it. If you try and take that away, they have few options.

I think the ship is sailing on that. The US, South Koreans and Japanese navies have AEGIS capabilities and could shoot down any missiles fired from North Korea out to sea. The Americans already have THAAD in South Korea and older systems as well. The effectiveness of North Korea first strike is already under threat.

[TerraPrime]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

You talked about how it was my fault this happened, and how no matter what  Trump did I'd blame him and how put-upon this made you when people criticized his actions in the face of a nuclear war. 

The left-wing cabal? Sweet. Are they also globalists and cucks too?

Trump is the one who hired Flynn, Manafort, KT, and Tillerson. He's the one who has appointed several members of his family to random positions. He's the one who has spent as much time and money traveling and vacationing in 3 months as Obama did in 2 years. He's the one who is being sued more than the last 5 presidents combined. He's the one that failed to get through the AHCA with his own party, and failed to get his travel ban done, and lied about the wall. These are actions that didn't require a left-wing cabal to delegitimize anything; he did it on his own. 

The buckets in which people carry water for Trump turn out not to be made of plastic, nor aluminum, nor cast iron, but lead. 

Take pity on their labor, won't you?

[Hereward]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Depends a lot on the rebel groups. They're actively aiding Assad and aiding pro-government (but independent) militia groups. They don't particularly like Assad, but want his side to win. And they're looking to set up some power bases there that are independent of Syrian control. 

It's a complicated situation, which is why I said 'perhaps'. To my knowledge no one else really is supporting any of the rebels. 

So Iran does not support the rebels. Glad we got that sorted!

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

The plot thickens...

/Quick edit, a lot of folks are calling this fake. Saying AP didn't confirm this, etc, etc. Not sure who to believe at this point, but the potential for bullshit here seems strong.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I am on record as saying that even if the worst is true about him, it is worth it just to get one (and perhaps more than one) conservative Supreme Court judge confirmed during his tenure.

I just don't understand how so many conservatives can think like this. Putting the most powerful military in the history of the world in the hands of an unstable narcissists reality T.V. star who doesn't know that he doesn't know anything is not worth keeping a conservative majority on the Supreme Court for 4+ years. 

[Mexal]

18 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

The plot thickens...

/Quick edit, a lot of folks are calling this fake. Saying AP didn't confirm this, etc, etc. Not sure who to believe at this point, but the potential for bullshit here seems strong.

I saw that but haven't seen any independent confirmation that this is real. Likely fake to me.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

6 minutes ago, Mexal said:

I saw that but haven't seen any independent confirmation that this is real. Likely fake to me.

Yeah, all searches lead back to the tweet, and many are saying the Tweeter is a hack/sensationalist. I shouldn't have thrown it up so quickly.

[James Arryn]

So, in a completely unenexpected shocker, Trump's approval is tracking upwards since the bombing, and he is getting a lot of praise from Americans on both sides of the aisle. Wow.

Can you imagine what it would signify if this was a totally expected development?

[Kalbear]

And now they're saying there isn't consensus.

Christ, the fast pace of news is going to get us killed.