2020 US Election (Part One)

[Kyriakos]

The notorious RBG was a close personal friend of Antonin Scalia to the end even if they advocated for diametrically opposed policies and nobody thinks much less for her that I've been able to find out.

Maybe income-based social club membership brings people together
That said, who in their right mind would want to be friends with W. In recent decades he likely is the person whose actions led to most global suffering.

 

[Estebonrober]

Pretty disgusting. Lol, the issue wasn't she was "being cozy with a former republican president", but a person responsible for massive wars which killed hundreds of thousands of people. Helen is super-fake. And not even news

This is fine.

 

[Estebonrober]

Maybe income-based social club membership brings people together
That said, who in their right mind would want to be friends with W. In recent decades he likely is the person whose actions led to most global suffering.

Is he? I mean the reality is the Islamic world needs to work some **** out. He might have instigated that and our closeness with the House of Saud is bloody despicable. I'm still not willing to lay this all at his feet. The Islamic world is crap. It will continue to be crap. He just opened the **** storm up.

 

[Zardnaar]

Is he? I mean the reality is the Islamic world needs to work some **** out. He might have instigated that and our closeness with the House of Saud is bloody despicable. I'm still not willing to lay this all at his feet. The Islamic world is crap. It will continue to be crap. He just opened the **** storm up.

It's been crap since about 5 minutes after they crossed the border from Arabia.

You can't have a Reformation in Islam either.

ISIS used Saudi textbooks in the "caliphate".

 

[Kyriakos]

Is he? I mean the reality is the Islamic world needs to work some **** out. He might have instigated that and our closeness with the House of Saud is bloody despicable. I'm still not willing to lay this all at his feet. The Islamic world is crap. It will continue to be crap. He just opened the **** storm up.

So the invasion and subsequent collapse of Iraq would have just happened on its own. Are you being serious here?

 

[Birdjaguar]

So the invasion and subsequent collapse of Iraq would have just happened on its own. Are you being serious here?

The current round of ME troubles began after WW2. All the wars and bombings and terrible leaders have been a product of lots of different, influential nations stirring the pot. The collapse of Iraq in the 2000s can be tied neatly to both W and his dad, but theirs weren't the only hands at work. There are too many weapons, too much money and ideological conflicts for it to stay peaceful for any length of time. Bush lit the fuse in Iraq this time, Arab Spring set off Syria, Zionism worked last century. There is no incentive for peace at all. Chaos creates opportunity for religious extremists and such movements are always waiting in the wings. I'm sure we will see more bad stuff in the next ten years.

 

[Zardnaar]

The current round of ME troubles began after WW2. All the wars and bombings and terrible leaders have been a product of lots of different, influential nations stirring the pot. The collapse of Iraq in the 2000s can be tied neatly to both W and his dad, but theirs weren't the only hands at work. There are too many weapons, too much money and ideological conflicts for it to stay peaceful for any length of time. Bush lit the fuse in Iraq this time, Arab Spring set off Syria, Zionism worked last century. There is no incentive for peace at all. Chaos creates opportunity for religious extremists and such movements are always waiting in the wings. I'm sure we will see more bad stuff in the next ten years.

Simplified way of looking at it.

Ottoman Empire jep a lid on things using methods not really that different from the British.

Familiar with the millet system?.

Even then they had huge issues keeping a lid on Egypt pre British after they took it off the British, the also had trouble in Greece.

Not to mention slave markets.

 

[Berzerker]

George Bush 41 had 3 chances to block the path we've been on for ~30 years, had he told Saddam we would attack him if he invaded Kuwait he would have stayed home. But Bush gave him a wishy washy response when he asked for our guidance on his complaints about the Kuwaitis. Having screwed that up Bush could have still partially redeemed himself by using diplomatic pressure to get Saddam to leave, or he could have ignored the situation and let other countries deal with it.

 

[Zardnaar]

I thought it was Madeline Albright who gave the wishy washy response.

IIRC Iraq didn't explicitly ask can we invade Kuwait.

 

[Berzerker]

April Glasby... and the message was we wouldn't get involved with inter Arab disputes or something to that effect

 

[Zardnaar]

April Glasby... and the message was we wouldn't get involved with inter Arab disputes or something to that effect

I remember an interview but she didn't think it meant invasion and the Iraqis took it to mean that.

 

[Berzerker]

it didn't mean we'd attack Saddam if he settled his dispute with Kuwait by invading

 

[FriendlyFire]

April Glasby... and the message was we wouldn't get involved with inter Arab disputes or something to that effect

The oil well dispute / land dispute with Kuwait had been bubbling away for some time now. Which came to a boil when Kuwait decided to buck OPEC and kept drilling to take a larger share of Oil production
On the other hand the US were well aware of the Iraq military build up along the Kuwait border, it was a diplomatic blunder not to warn off Saddam. Then there was Bush call for an uprising and overthrow of Saddam which triggered a civil war.
Some of the fault was misteps by the US but the majority of the blame should be on Saddam.

 

[Ferocitus]

The current round of ME troubles began after WW2. All the wars and bombings and terrible leaders have been a product of lots of different, influential nations stirring the pot.

There certainly were a lot of cooks preparing the broth for Iraq and the region.

Reagan's administration was well aware that the materials sold to Iraq would be used to manufacture chemical weapons for use in the war against Iran...
According to Reagan's foreign policy: "every attempt to save Iraq was necessary and legal.

According to Iraqi documents, assistance in the development of chemical weapons was obtained from firms in many countries, including the United States, West Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and France. A report stated that Dutch, Australian, Italian, French, West and East German companies were involved in the export of raw materials to Iraqi chemical weapons factories.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_attacks_against_Iran

 

[Zardnaar]

I remember a joke circa 2003.

"Saddams got weapons of mass destruction".
"How do you know"
"We kept the receipts"

 

[Kyriakos]

Simplified way of looking at it.

Ottoman Empire jep a lid on things using methods not really that different from the British.

Familiar with the millet system?.

Even then they had huge issues keeping a lid on Egypt pre British after they took it off the British, the also had trouble in Greece.

Not to mention slave markets.

People should have more sympathy for occupation forces

George Bush 41 had 3 chances to block the path we've been on for ~30 years, had he told Saddam we would attack him if he invaded Kuwait he would have stayed home. But Bush gave him a wishy washy response when he asked for our guidance on his complaints about the Kuwaitis. Having screwed that up Bush could have still partially redeemed himself by using diplomatic pressure to get Saddam to leave, or he could have ignored the situation and let other countries deal with it.

Didn't father Bush just trick Sadam, the good US ally for two decades, into that? Sadam even promptly retreated from Kuwait, but of course the invasion still happened (apparently now to teach a lesson and prevent future invasions, by a vast invasion).

 

[Sommerswerd]

Bernie is my 2nd choice but I'd rather have the guy have his age.

I like Yang. He really impressed me in the last debate (or maybe it was a Town Hall?), so much so that I'd mentally jumped him up my preference list ahead of Castro and Booker to right behind Gabbard... but he, along with all of those others... is just polling way too low to be relevant. He can still exert some influence on the frontrunner and maybe, by extension, the famous Overton window, by advocating for popular, but less mainstream policies... UBI for example.

Cheney had four heart attacks, and the cockroach still wouldn't die.

Bernie announced that he would be "changing the nature" of his campaign due to his heart attack and the healthcare related implications, but apparently he is now trying to walk that back a little, presumably for the same reason that they didn't want to disclose the heart attack in the first place... it lends legitimacy to the "He's too old" argument... turning it from superficial, vanity and ageisim into something a little more truthy.

Warren will bounce down again if someone/some group would just tackle her with a list of prog issues that Bernie supports but she has been quiet to lukewarm on. Ditto against Biden. The DSA or some other Leftist 'mob' (heh) should squeeze it in piecemeal at various events.

Warren is now "leading" in the polls, at least according to fake news CNN. RCP has Biden with a 0.2 percent "average" lead, but that's only due to him leading one poll by 12 points. The rest of the recent polls all have Warren leading. I've said in the past that what was keeping Biden in the lead was purely the perception of him as being the frontrunner... it was essentially inertia. Once he loses that... and it appears he has, I'm guessing his support will collapse like a house of cards. It remains to be seen whether Bernie or Warren is the beneficiary of that. I'm thinking that the folks who wanted someone familiar and liked Biden because they'd grown to know who he was over the Obama Years will lean towards Bernie, while the folks who were with Biden because they want to "go with the sure thing" and thus tend to favor the frontrunner will trend to Warren.

 

[Lexicus]

Gabbard

Sommer, Gabbard is in a cult and her campaign is a vehicle to aggrandize the cult. I actually support Biden and Bootyjudge over her.

Once he loses that... and it appears he has, I'm guessing his support will collapse like a house of cards.

It's possible. I would guess he'll maintain significant support until losing Iowa to Warren (or, in a longer shot, Bernie).

I'm thinking that the folks who wanted someone familiar and liked Biden because they'd grown to know who he was over the Obama Years will lean towards Bernie,

Interesting, why do you think so?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I've said in the past that what was keeping Biden in the lead was purely the perception of him as being the frontrunner... it was essentially inertia. Once he loses that... and it appears he has, I'm guessing his support will collapse like a house of cards.

I completely agree with this theory. He's had name recognition, familiarity and Obama's coattails giving him a big boost but if he stumbles, I think that'll be it for him. The debates haven't gone very well for him and he's perpetually one gaffe away from having to work serious damage control so I just don't think he's going to be the nominee. My money's still on Warren.

It will be interesting to see if the Ukraine scandal will drag him down or if Dem primary voters will approach the issue like Trump voters - that they'll stand by him not in spite of the scandal but because of it. It's still not clear if he did anything wrong (and leaning heavily toward nothing illegal) but it's not a good look for him to have and it plays into one of Trump's few non-racist attack strategies - to go after corruption and to drain the swamp (I'm aware of the irony there too). But Democratic voters tend to have a conscious in matters like these and are more than happy to jump ship on a candidate over perceived (if not real) misdeeds so I expect this scandal to drag him down over the next month. Between that and any future debate missteps or public gaffes, I think it's just a matter of time before his support collapses.

 

[Lexicus]

It will be interesting to see if the Ukraine scandal will drag him down or if Dem primary voters will approach the issue like Trump voters - that they'll stand by him not in spite of the scandal but because of it.

Partisan Democrats tend not to have a good track record on this stuff.