== I still can’t believe we spent $7T on the global war on terror and no one is asking questions.==
Everyone who asked before we started that “war” was called a traitor.
Everyone who asked before we started that “war” was called a traitor.
It was several times worse in the early days of the GWOT. Sikh's were getting killed for looking too Muslim. The stuff you see now where people want to include mandatory "Fact checks" in internet searches sort of paled to the crap we saw in the GWOT of Extraordinary rendition, enhanced interrogation, the Bush doctrine, destroying privacy laws in the name of patriotism, and so on.
We've already started forgetting what happened.
What's happening now is not remotely comparable to what the US did in response to 9/11 - if anything, it's the opposite (we are defending a country from being invaded for BS reasons vs invading another country for BS reasons)
The proof included claims by dozens of different intelligence agencies, testimony from high level insiders in the Iraq government, surveillance photos of mobile biological weapons laboratories, definitive proof of purchase of Uranium for nuclear weapons purposes, under oath testimony, and of course endless propaganda:
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Washington Post - "Irrefutable" : https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/i...
NYTimes - "Irrefutable and Undeniable" : https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/irrefutable-and-u...
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To imagine all of this was fabricated or based on lies would make even the most enthusiastic conspiracy theorist look at you a bit funny. These events played a major role in shaping my worldview. And what we're going through today is even more extreme.
The one bright side of this is that if we can manage to avoid nuclear annihilation, I expect an even larger chunk of the population will join the jaded and cynical asshole family. It's not a pleasant worldview, but probably necessary for the survival of humanity in the age of mass media and mass weapons.
And why wouldn't they? What exactly has been the punishment for so called reliable media for spreading lies over and over again? If anything they are considered more reliable than ever. Which means people consuming it are not interested in truth either.
Some might find it implausible the media and legislators were so credulous.
I mean, Saddam did allow UN weapons inspectors in before the war, and nobody could direct them to any WMD. Even at the time, it took some serious mental gymnastics to believe spy agencies had all this evidence of a huge programme, and yet couldn't direct weapons inspectors to anything.
If you wanted to sell papers, you needed to sell stories about AMERICA STOPPING TERRORISM! How did you get access to stories of marines busting down doors and shoving the foreign looking faces of murderous terrorists into the dirt? Well you had to be known as a news source who said the right things, had the right attitude.
At these news organisations there were some editors who were mostly there before 9/11 happened who decided that supporting America was the crap and were pushing stories from any reporter who had "sources" that gave evidence of what was going down. Readers LOVED reading stories about heroes who kicked the ass of murderous terrorists. It was a feedback loop, the more hawkish you were the more you succeeded, the more dovish you were the more irrelevant you were.
I opposed GWOT / going into Iraq after 9/11, I have not forgotten the collective national mania.
But the comparison you're drawing to Ukraine is nonsense. If you're at the point where you believe all the reports, images and interviews detailing the millions of refugees crossing out of Ukraine have been faked... I'm not sure how to help you.
Clearly, that's not what the OP is saying.
That happened with every recent war. It’s a habit of fabricating evidence, not mere clerical errors.
The UN Security Council is not a singular entity, it's composed of permanent and rotating members, so it can hardly have "habits". A member can come with fabricated evidence, which can be accepted by other members for whatever reason, but that's not the UN Security Council fabricating evidence.
Has Russia not been illegally Ukraine, trying to steal it's territory, and trying to destroy its culture since 2014?
That's the entire question of this war (and the one entirely absent from Western media). After the Russian leaning government in Ukraine was overthrown in 2014, those heavily Russian territories declared their independence, starting a civil war. Numerous efforts were made to resolve this were made (the Minsk accords), but went nowhere. Russia blamed Ukraine, Ukraine blamed Russia.
So who gets to decide the fate of a people within an area? The people within that area, or the government with historic claims to the land of the area? That's not a rhetorical question because the traditional answer has always been the latter - generally changed only by war or collapse.
But I think it's an important and fundamental one that must eventually be answered on a global scale if we ever want a peaceful world. At what scale does the right to self determination and rule begin? Obviously a household shouldn't be able to declare itself independent, but a city? County? State? Region?
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Demographics_of_U...
[2] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-a...
Like in many other regions of the Soviet Union, that was done by force, i.e. by deporting or murdering the native inhabitants.
After bringing Russian colonists in all those regions, the Soviet Union frequently did not need to spend any money for them, because the Russian colonists have been installed directly in the houses vacated by their former owners, who were forced to leave almost all their belongings behind.
So when now the Russians from such territories recently colonized by the Soviet Union complain that the natives do not love them, or that they are discriminated, or that some country wants to maintain control over the colonized territory, while they want to unite with the Empire which gave them the land and houses stolen from others, there is no wonder that such Russian desires are hard to accept for the neighbors of Russia.
Today more Tatars live in Crimea than before the exile. Well, at least in modern history, if we go back to times of the Ottoman Empire, things get much more complex. And Russia remains the home of the majority of Tatars today, where they remain a large ethnic minority.
It's an important issue and certainly ironic, but not a direct factor in the current conflict.
This is also true for other regions that belong now to Ukraine, where other nationalities, for example Romanians or Poles or Slovaks, were the prior inhabitants, before being deported or killed and replaced with Russian colonists.
However my point was not about the prior inhabitants, but about the current Russian inhabitants, who protest that nobody should do to them much less than their grandfathers did two generations ago to the natives, by robbing them at gun point of everything they possessed.
Unlike other people, like the Germans, who have paid heavy reparations to their victims, and who have presented solemn apologies for the acts of their ancestors, the Russians have never acknowledged any wrong doing.
To whom Crimea should belong administratively is debatable, but Russia does not have any more rights than Ukraine.
For the neighbors of Russia, a Russian-occupied Crimea or any other regions of Ukraine that remain occupied by Russia are a danger, because there is no sign that Russia will ever stop from its policy of territorial expansion that has been carried on successfully for centuries, with only 2 setbacks, when Russia, after WWI and after 1990 has granted the right of auto-determination to its larger parts, and it was very surprised when everybody opted out.
After WWI, Russia has succeeded to reconquer back in a short time some of the defectors, and after WWII it recovered not only all the lost territories but it gained many more others, plus the vassal countries that were nominally independent but in fact were open for pillage in unbalanced economic relationships.
While all the other European countries appear to have abandoned a long time ago the medieval ideas that the best way for prosperity is to use war against the neighbors and occupy their lands, the Russian dictators remain addicted to such methods, so they remain a danger for all the neighbors of Russia.
Yes the invasion of Tibet was terrible (as was the annexation of Tibet from China before that), and the destruction of Tibetan culture is perhaps even worse, the same can be said for all cultures that have fallen under the guns/germs/steel civilisations. Saying China or the US is bad is kind of missing the point… it would have happened anyway.
I take it you are not from Europe, because over here everyone has historical claims on everything.
But it doesn't answer gp. Whatever an enlightened political philosophy debate might yield, Russia annexed Crimea by force at a time when it was not theirs. Full stop.
However good Russia's case was or however much a majority of the inhabitants wanted control to change, control was ultimately changed via unjustified means that should be rejected by the international community.
The proof of Russia's lack of genuine interest in the will of those people is how quickly it came in to start shooting. You don't resolve national break-ups in weeks or months (see, for example, the dissolution of Czechoslovakia).
How did “not my war” turn out in the 1930s?
> We've already started forgetting what happened.
The cherry on the ironic top.
The Treaty of Versailles was nothing short of sadistic in the penalties it imposed on Germany which, shockingly, didn't result in Germany rejoining the modern world order (of the time) but growing to despise it even more. It is this which set the stage for the rise of a vegetarian artist who had a knack for oratory and riling up crowds.
WW2 was likely necessary, but WW1 was not. And WW1 created WW2. The worst part is also always the propaganda. When WW1 was being carried out it was being framed, at the time, as 'The War to End All War.' What cause could possibly be more noble? Of course it not only didn't end all war, but even directly led to even more war. And the fundamental cause of the conflict which initially triggered the war persists to this day!
Russians and French died in much higher numbers on the Entente side than the Brits (who only joined due to Belgium's neutrality being violated anyways).
However, you probably know that the assassination of the morganatically married heir presumptive of the Austro-Hungarian throne was not the real reason for the war, only the spark that ignited the powder keg. There were many reasons and a lot of tension building for decades, starting with, funnily, Germany beating Austria which forced them to expand south, towards Bosnia, and also Germany beating France making the latter want revenge. The former pitted Austria-Hungary against Russia in the Balkans, on top of the many problems between the different Balkan countries. The latter made France eager for revenge and desperate to not be alone next time, hence it's cozying to Russia and the UK. Sprinkle an agressive German naval build-up that pushed the UK towards the Entente, German fears of Russian rearmament, Austrian fears of irrelevance, etc. and you have a powder keg with clearly defined lines just waiting for a spark.
For the Americans? I'd say their policy of being a "neutral" arms dealer mostly made the Americans a ton of money and rocketed them to global superpower status. Now Japan did attack them in a hostile action but America kind of pounded them after so I'm still not sure "neutrality" worked out so badly for them. If anything the Americans started doing worse and worse the more and more they got involved in wars halfway across the world.
For the Brits? Yeah appeasement was kind of a policy failure, Hitler turned out to not be the most trustworthy chap. I dare say Hitler was an unscrupulous chap.
I'm sorry but this sounds like an activist fever dream/urban legend. Are there actually two (or even one) known incidents like this from that time period?
I'm not defending the GWOT or opposing it here but that's an extreme characterization you're making; I was there and it doesn't match anything like my memory.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Balbir_Singh_Sodhi
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Classy.
Nobody was forced to take on debt they can repay because their were no job prospects.
If you want to say there shouldn't be loans for college or whatever that is fine. The fact is, the US is not in that situation.
Nevertheless, the government allowed businesses to take out loans, and in many cases forgave those loans, because it benefits the country. The government allowed students to take out loans, and in many cases forgave those loans, because it benefits the country.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be college loans. I am saying the job of the government is to help people, and both kinds of loans, an both kinds of loan forgiveness, fall into that category.
And how did we reach here? Government policies. I am not saying that these policies were bad. But there can be no denying that government is the major reason why more and more people are going to college. And definitely, if college is not free or subsidised, they will be forced to take loans. Again, because economy is punishing for those who don't have a college education.
I agree the economy is set up against non college educated people. We should work to change that. Promoting trade schools as legitimate alternatives to college might help. I am not sold that would solve much though. A lot of young people don't want to get into the trades. How many 18 year olds who just graduated high school want to be a plumber?
One thing I will say is that I don't think it is solely the government to blame. Companies require degrees for jobs that don't need it. They probably do it since there is a massive amount of people with degrees so they may as well get one of them to work for the company. We need companies to step up and stop requiring degrees. At the company I work at there are people with degrees who are working in data entry.
Not all loans went to businesses that were forced to shut down.
Except that there wasn't lower demand across the whole economy, only very specific industries. Most businesses were not shut down. Lots of businesses continued running, and had increased demand. They still got forgivable loans.
Perhaps the perception it has more to do with who signed the legislation (a Republican President and Senate) than whether it was actually "socialist" (it was)?
Obviously some industries weren't impacted. Many were though. The GDP also declined.
You can probably say the same about every recession.
>Most businesses were not shut down
I never said they were. I've seen some estimates at 200,000 businesses. A huge number of businesses went out of business as well.
>Lots of businesses continued running, and had increased demand.
And lots of businesses who continued running had decreased demand.
Even if the demand remained the same or increased they might not be able to meet the requirements like outside eating or distancing which would limit their revenues.
>Perhaps the perception it has more to do with who signed the legislation (a Republican President and Senate) than whether it was actually "socialist" (it was)?
It is not socialist. Socialist can mean either state controlled or worker controlled. This is corporate welfare.
Just to be clear. I am not defending this policy. I am strictly saying that this is more justifiable then paying off student loans since the government literally shut many businesses and put other rules on businesses.
You claimed businesses got loans because the government forced them to close. I am saying that plenty of business that didn’t close (and saw record demand) sought and received loans. Nobody made them take out PPP loans. Once you acknowledge that, it looks a lot like student loans.