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US Elections: When Murder isn't Murder


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1 minute ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

The Arab Spring was bound to happen eventually. Bouazizi's death was the spark that lit the fire, but the fire wood had been lying around for years. And it would be extremely cynical for us in the West to insist that democracy is not for brown people. Our support for those brutal oppressors is a disgrace anyway. Yes, the results of those uprisings were disappointing, but so were the results of the democratic uprisings in Europe 1848. I still hope we can have a less oppressive MENA region eventually. It's the only thing that could reduce the Islamist terror long-term (but yes, this will take decades at least)

 

 True, but it happened under Obama for a reason, and it utterly failed to establish democracies. We need to do it and mean it or not.  We failed on both counts.  

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4 minutes ago, All-for-Joffrey said:

Yes -- obviously there were multiple factors -- I was referring to the spark that set off the entire Arab Spring (which would likely would have not happened had he not killed himself) to point out the absurdity of blaming Obama for "the Arab spring" -- especially in response to my clearly sarcastic post about how the Iran deal is going to give Iran a nuclear weapon -- which is completely unrelated to the Arab Spring anyway.  I'll agree that his response to Egypt was ineffectual in that he was too late to condemn Mubarak and call for him to step down, then didn't take enough action in response to Morsi's human rights/governance abuses, and is taking even less action on the Sisi regime. But I'm not sure by what you mean "the Egyptian military changed policy...." If anything, Obama's policy to Egypt has been consistent, support whoever's in power and disregard human rights and democracy to preserve US security interests (even though Sisi's clearly making the security situation there worst by creating more terrorists with his police state). 

As for the French suddenly wanting to take out Ghddaffi, Ghaddaffi was actually improving relations with Europe when the Arab Spring broke out via oil interests. I think the Libya intervention was mostly motivated by the desire to prevent an impending massacre of Benghazi. Furthermore, even if he had massacred Benghazi and there was no US-European intervention, there still would have been a long, protracted civil war against Ghaddaffi and the rebels, during which Islamists would have gained increasing prominence. I think the main mistake of Libya was a lack of institutional support for an emerging government and new Libyan institutions, but even with an intervention + strong post-war support or no intervention period, Libya would still very likely be in a similar position. 

And the US-Israel relationship, it's still as strong as ever thanks to the Israeli lobby -- hence why there's no question about sending them billions (except maybe from Sanders, who wouldn't overtly state that anyway) -- it's the Obama-Netanyahu relationship that's shit. And that's mostly over the Iran deal and secondarily the fact that Obama has had the nerve to call him out on illegal settlement construction in the West Bank (but not actually follow through and do anything about it). But again, neither of those things actually have anything to do with the Arab Spring. 

 Good points.  My point is that things are not any better than under the utterly failed Bush administration.  A low bar to clear, and Obama and Clinton failed.

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No, we don't need to do it. The people of Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Qatar, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc. need to do it.  Democracies only work when the people in these countries either established them themselves, or the previous form of government was utterly defeated (see: Germany and Japan after WW2). All we need to do is not actually stop the people of the Middle East when they try to get rid of their dictators, something we've sadly become very good at over the decades of our involvement in the area. Still, I consider the Arab Srping the MENA equivalent of 1848 in Europe - largely unsuccessful, but ultimately a necessary step towards a better system of governance.

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1 minute ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

No, we don't need to do it. The people of Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Qatar, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc. need to do it. All we need to do is not actually stop them when they try, something we've become very good at over the decades of our involvement in the area.

 Agree, why the US needs to act like the world policeman is well beyond me.  We claim to have a democracy, and we meddle with every one elses government.  North Korea might be different where they are truly dangerous, but that is the exception.  We need to allow governments tofunction unless they threaten us, Saudi Arabia funding of terrorism is something we openly tolerate. Why?  If we piss off Saudi, we can drill our own oil....

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6 minutes ago, GrapefruitPerrier said:

 Good points.  My point is that things are not any better than under the utterly failed Bush administration.  A low bar to clear, and Obama and Clinton failed.

But things are better. Relations with Iran and Cuba are on the way to normalization. There's an actual climate deal in place. Whatever Obama had in his power to improve himself, he did improve. Guantanamo was held open by congress; Iraq and Afghanistan were disappointments - but there was no way they wouldn't have been. There's just more than one actor in this field, and other actors making things worse doesn't mean Obama failed at making better what he could.

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4 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Considering the appalling hand Obama was dealt, he's been the best US President in terms of foreign policy since Nixon.

I'd agree. I don't really want to judge presidents by how the world changed while thy were in office. Too much is not in a president's power to change. I do judge presidents by what effect they had in the areas they could affect, and by those measures, I don't see Obama faring too badly.

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On 4/2/2016 at 2:02 AM, Kay Fury said:

I'm not an expert in economics, but that guy was, pretty inarguably and he seemed to think the size IS a problem because having fewer and larger banks makes them more likely to be heavily invested in the same shit which makes instability in one almost contagious to the others. And if none of the banks are too big to fail, it won't be a blow if they do fail. Another problem with big banks is that their size gives them a huge share of the financial market and in packaging financial products. They get to decide to a large degree how trustworthy we consider an exotic financial product (think sub prime mortgages and whatever the next big idea could be) by how much of it they buy and how they package those things and use them to back other securities. Small banks have more people making those decisions for the buying power they have, and that is good for stability. Again, economics is not my thing, but what he was saying really made a lot of sense and his position also is pretty convincing that he knows what he's on about, particularly since it contained a lot of unpopular opinions for a republican to hold. But we didn't think before the financial crisis that these huge banks were unstable. That's the thing about financial crises. It all looks pretty solid until it's not.

Sure, he's got good credentials. But so do. say, Janet Yellen and Eric S. Rosengren and Paul Krugman. You can find plenty of people not impressed with Kashkari in general and/or not agreeing with his statements back in February.

There's not necessarily anything inherent to large banks that makes them an issue as long as their risk is low. The connection of "too big to fail" to the financial crisis of 2008 is to many (like Krugman as an example) not as important as it's made out to be. That's one fo the big reasons Clinton's plan gets more praise from left-wing economists, because it more directly attacks what many see as the actual issue, the "shadow banking" industry.

But there's also a problem with the hidden assumption here. Why is the failure of smaller banks do to increased regulatory costs a bad thing? If they can't comply with regulation and still operate, why should I consider it a bad thing? We don't make these argument for other industries for a good reason. "Environmental regulation is bad because small manufacturers can't bear the costs of safely disposing of their industrial waste!" If small banks can't operate in certain sectors within rules to reduce risk then they shouldn't be operating in those sectors.

The only way small banks being unable to comply with regulation is bad is if the regulation itself is not useful. To argue otherwise is to confuse the issue by assuming "banks being large" is the issue rather then the risk of financial crisis. It's turning the chain of logic the wrong way around.

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1 hour ago, All-for-Joffrey said:

 

 

Funny. I'd say that Clinton's reluctance to engage in more debates feeds into the sense of indulgence that many Sanders supporters have grievances against her for. 

Clinton already agreed to those debates back in February when Sanders was refusing to debate in New Hampshire, where he was the clear  front runner. The deal was that Sanders would get an extra three debates with Clinton -- in reasonable slots -- not Wasserman Schultz's Sunday nights during major sports events bullshit -- if he would debate in New Hampshire where he obviously had more to lose and Clinton more to gain by debating. It's a matter of keeping your word and integrity, which she is not doing. She's basically pulling a Trump by reneging on her debate commitments after she got what she wanted from Sanders. This isn't a matter of the Sanders campaign calling for more debates -- this is a matter of the Sanders campaign asking her to live up to her end of the bargain that she agreed to as he's already done his part. 

And unlike most of us in this thread, most people don't watch every single debate or necessarily even pay attention to the primary process until it's time to vote in their state. So yeah, the debates still do matter for their respective states precisely because the average voter doesn't pay attention until the last minute. If they had no impact, Clinton would happily debate and Sanders wouldn't be pressuring to live up to her end of the bargain so much, 

Actually it appears, like last time, that it's Sanders who's  holding up the debates,

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/hillary-clinton-s-campaign-says-bernie-sanders-rejected-new-york-n549671

It appears that his campaign is bullshitting to give them more ammunition to attack the "establishment" with. Even their excuses are bullshit since the whole "It's the NCAA finals!" complaint ignores that they deliberately proposed times that wouldn't conflict with the game. And Clinton's camp apparently proposed 2 other dates on top of that anyway.

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StantheManBaratheon has a good point. The moment the U.S. elected to pursue the Bush Doctrine (we are still under this) they ceded the moral authority to dictate to any other country whether they should have nuclear weapons. The U.S. made a clear choice for "might is right" over human rights or democracy a long time ago and has no basis as a arbiter (beyond bullying) over how other countries choose to protect themselves. All that (argument) went out the window the moment we decided we would become a nation that would invade pre-emptively, with or without any other nations approval or cooperation. There are consequences for pretending you are Gods of men and we (the U.S.) have only just began paying that bill. 

Might is right works really swell for a while when you are on the might team, then the tide goes the other way and you are left chasing for your swim suit.

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1 hour ago, GrapefruitPerrier said:

 If you really think the Arab Spring developed from one act by one person you are the most naive person on the planet.  Why did the Egyptian military change policy? Why did the French suddenly want to take out Kaddaffi? Why has America's relationship with Israel gone to shit (can we please stop giving them billions, please)?  These were clear changes, and they did not work.

Uh, what?

The Arab Spring was set off by one protest self-immolation. Like everything ever, of course, there was a ton of things that lead up to it as well. Some of which the US was involved in but that's been true for, like, decades and decades.

But really, the bigger problem here is the way everything you've said is entirely wrong. The US backed the Egyptian government till almost the bitter end. The US desperately tried to not have the situation there change. The French have hated Gaddaffi for awhile. As have the Brits. For obvious reasons. And any reporting on the lead up to Libya shows that Obama was the one most reluctant to get involved in the situation. And the US/Israel relationship has gone to shit because Bibi despises Obama and in diplomatic terms openly backed Mitt Romney and has slighted him and his administration on several occasions. And, of course, the US taking a harder line on Israel would be a good thing.

Your whole argument here is a mish-mash of conspiracy theory nonsense and just plain ignorance.

 

1 hour ago, GrapefruitPerrier said:

 I have no problem with our relations with Israel getting worse, I just have a problem giving them tens of billions while at the same time allowing them to act like spoiled children.

Then your comments make even less sense since Obama can't stop the first but has definitely acted on the second. Which is part of the bad relations between him and Bibi.

 

 True, but it happened under Obama for a reason, and it utterly failed to establish democracies. We need to do it and mean it or not.  We failed on both counts.  

It happened under Obama cause he was president in 2011. And it failed to establish democracies because that shit is not simple or easy.

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57 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Considering the appalling hand Obama was dealt, he's been the best US President in terms of foreign policy since Nixon.

Nixon? The guy who provably sabotaged peace negotiations to win the presidency? Are you trying to insult Obama or something? We can find a better comparison surely....

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38 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

StantheManBaratheon has a good point. The moment the U.S. elected to pursue the Bush Doctrine (we are still under this) they ceded the moral authority to dictate to any other country whether they should have nuclear weapons. The U.S. made a clear choice for "might is right" over human rights or democracy a long time ago and has no basis as a arbiter (beyond bullying) over how other countries choose to protect themselves. All that (argument) went out the window the moment we decided we would become a nation that would invade pre-emptively, with or without any other nations approval or cooperation. There are consequences for pretending you are Gods of men and we (the U.S.) have only just began paying that bill. 

Might is right works really swell for a while when you are on the might team, then the tide goes the other way and you are left chasing for your swim suit.

The hell are you talking about?

Obama is not operating under the Bush Doctrine by any definition of it I've seen. The rest of your post is just ... I honestly have little idea wtf you are trying to refer to.

In general, as usual, Stan has no point at all and nuclear proliferation is not good for anyone.

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1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Considering the appalling hand Obama was dealt, he's been the best US President in terms of foreign policy since Nixon.

The cynical view (argued by Chomsky, Vidal, Roy, the far left etc.) is he's the same U.S. President since Nixon (at least on imperialism). I am pleased the Obama regime has decided to free Cuba, he should've did it about 6 yrs ago. It's true Obama was dealt a shit sandwich from the onset, but the administration is far from an innocent after 8 yrs now pursueing it's own M.E. misdirections. He will be remembered squarely (right or wrongly) for owning Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Libya. The seeds for problems in those states, it can be argued, were sewn  in the past. But who can tell the difference when we've had one continuous string of militarist, world policeing, CIC's for decades now? The differences (on foreign policy) from Truman to Ike to JFK to LBJ to Nixon to Ford to Carter to Reagan to Bush1 to Clinton to Bush the Lesser to the Obama regime have been little but window dressing. Even Carter armed Indonesia to the teeth for their E.Timor genocide, saints none of these are.

If one is comfortable with the U.S. as the worlds police that's entirely their choice and case. But argueing there is any real or meaningful difference in these foreign policies is like splitting hairs. They have been the same CIC for decades. Obama is only the latest in a long line (Clinton will be the next) of the purveyors of what Arundhati Roy is referring to here. 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Shryke said:

Nixon? The guy who provably sabotaged peace negotiations to win the presidency? Are you trying to insult Obama or something? We can find a better comparison surely....

The guy who was a driving force behind détente with the Soviets, to say nothing of his diplomatic work with Beijing. Yes, that Nixon.

(I'll see your sabotage-of-the-peace-talks and raise you the destruction of Allende's Chile. No-one ever said Nixon was a nice guy, but in foreign affairs, he was incredibly effective). 

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51 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

 The differences (on foreign policy) from Truman to Ike to JFK to LBJ to Nixon to Ford to Carter to Reagan to Bush1 to Clinton to Bush the Lesser to the Obama regime have been little but window dressing. Even Carter armed Indonesia to the teeth for their E.Timor genocide, saints none of these are.

 
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If you honestly cannot see a distinction in policy between Kennedy and Nixon, Carter and Reagan, or Bush and Obama (hint - these gentlemen all had very different views of international relations), then why not go the whole hog and point out that Franklin D. Roosevelt and his predecessors also operated under the same imperialist framework?

The ultimate problem with such a viewpoint is that while it makes some very valid criticisms, by starting with the framework that everything anyone does is evil, you're always going to run into fault-finding and finger-pointing. As the saying goes, only the eunuch is pure.

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Yes @Roose Boltons Pet Leech the argument does have limitations. But I still fall back on the differences (between adm for. policies) are less than we make them out to be. Especially when the policies and apparatus' fall under the framework of the larger ongoing (for decades) umbrella of the U.S. as worlds policeman. Until that role evolves the differences aren't that great or meaningful. The Obama drone campain in the M.E. or the Libyan air raids were not noticeably different than what we could have expected from previous admins and I do percieve that as a continuation of the Bush Doctrine, there's been no break away from that.

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Except for, ya know, obama not actually invading anyone and not getting involved in a long war...yeah, totally the same.

The implication here is that the only candidate that is appreciably different is trump, who has said that if north Korea goes to war south Korea is on its own. Sanders voted for bombing in Kosovo and the Afghanistan war, so he's just the same as everyone else.

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Well the Democrats cant say they werent informed when/if the far left wont come out in droves to support the Kerry/Obama/Clinton type candidate who is far too hawkish for many. Just being better than a neocon is too low a bar. If there isnt a Kucinich, Wellstone, Nader, Conyers style true liberal to choose from in the Democratic elections of the future than I don't think Democrats can count on those voters to not stay home or vote Green.

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