World Politics

Political discussion here. Any reasonable opinion is welcome, but due to the sensitive nature of the topic area, please be nice and respectful to others. No flaming or trolling, please. And please keep political commentary out of the other board areas and confine it to this area. Thanks!
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3rdside
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Re: World Politics

Post by 3rdside »

Everything was going swimmingly in Australia other than the fact that we bungled our procurement of vaccines, but it didn't really matter as there was no virus in the country.

Then the much more contagious delta variant snuck through, an outbreak is picking up steam and now everyone here in Sydney is in lockdown which will probably stay until the end of winter I'd guess.
Last edited by 3rdside on Mon Jul 12, 2021 2:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Indy
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Re: World Politics

Post by Indy »

Indy wrote:
Mon Jul 12, 2021 9:37 am
virtual9mm wrote:
Mon Jul 12, 2021 8:16 am
Indy wrote:
Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:29 pm
virtual9mm wrote:
Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:00 pm
All sorts of stuff is going go go down. Take a look at hegemonic stability theory.
What should I sell and what should I buy, v9?
If I knew, I wouldn't have lost 5% of my portfolio over the past 6 weeks based on Delta wreaking havoc on the potential for the tourism industry's return!

But if HST is correct, the US dollar cannot continue to stand. US diplomats have been concerned about the USD maintaining reserve currency status for nearly a decade now. If the USD loses reserve currency status, the US ceases to be able to finance imports by borrowing money overseas. At that point, you're looking at a 15% decline in the US standard of living effective immediately.
Wait, what did Delta do?
omfg. I just realized you were talking about the Delta variant and in my mind we were talking about stocks and I was thinking Delta Airlines (because I put a good chunk of cash into about 2 months into the pandemic and it is doing really well). :lol:

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3rdside
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Re: World Politics

Post by 3rdside »

virtual9mm wrote:
Mon Jul 12, 2021 8:16 am
Indy wrote:
Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:29 pm
virtual9mm wrote:
Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:00 pm
All sorts of stuff is going go go down. Take a look at hegemonic stability theory.
What should I sell and what should I buy, v9?
If I knew, I wouldn't have lost 5% of my portfolio over the past 6 weeks based on Delta wreaking havoc on the potential for the tourism industry's return!

But if HST is correct, the US dollar cannot continue to stand. US diplomats have been concerned about the USD maintaining reserve currency status for nearly a decade now. If the USD loses reserve currency status, the US ceases to be able to finance imports by borrowing money overseas. At that point, you're looking at a 15% decline in the US standard of living effective immediately.
Ray Dalio - The Changing World Order (via his Linkedin profile):

https://www.linkedin.com/in/raydalio/

The financial crisis, printing money to bail out the country that meant asset prices shot up (the rich got richer), Trump's tax cuts that benefitted the rich, the virus leading to more printing of money and further asset price rises and the rich getting richer again, an upstart country in China with a point to prove and nationalism based, in part, on previous national humiliations.. to a tee this is a text book script for a changing world order and loss of reserve currency status for the USA.

But ..

The future is never written, and established doctrines can change.

If you read it, you get a sense that America is right on the precipice, but with Biden there's a chance of success .. with Trump it was all over.

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3rdside
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Re: World Politics

Post by 3rdside »

China isn't perfect either - it has a massive demographic problem, and there's plenty of talk about China never overtaking the USA as the world's largest economy ..

Spoiler: show/hide

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

Post by Nodack »

Interesting.

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3rdside
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Re: World Politics

Post by 3rdside »

I should add that Dalio tries to avoid discussing his personal political view points at all times - he even mentions how risky it would be to do that considering the politicised environment in the US right now - and definitely does not say he's either pro-Biden or anti-Trump, but it's clear based on the incontrovertible evidence he uses which way he sees things in that regard.

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

Post by Nodack »

Here’s the stuff Russia puts out.

Who wants to burn in nuclear hell for Ukraine?
Читайте больше на https://english.pravda.ru/world/99059-nuclear_hell/
Ukraine and NATO: Final preparations to strike Russia

According to military expert Colonel Vladimir Popov, Russia needs to treat this threat seriously.

"Neptune is a Soviet development based on the X-35 anti-ship missile. Russia should think of defence. The fact that Ukraine has taken all this to the border is not surprising at all. The Ukrainian authorities still advertise their plans to "liberate" both Crimea and Donbass. The Russian military need to take this perspective into consideration," the expert believes.

Lieutenant General Yuri Netkachev believes that Ukraine and NATO already wage the hybrid war against Russia. Sea Breeze 2021 naval exercise near Russian borders comes as a clear demonstration of this.

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

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European Parliament calls to terminate relations with Russia once and for all
Читайте больше на https://english.pravda.ru/world/119837- ... arliament/

"MEPs believe that the EU should be ready not to recognize the Russian parliament if the parliamentary elections in 2021 are held in violation of democratic principles and international law," the European Parliament said in a statement released after the vote.

Is the United States behind the assassination of the President of Haiti?
Читайте больше на https://english.pravda.ru/world/13602-h ... ssination/

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

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China threatens to nuke Japan if country intervenes in Taiwan conflict
https://www.news.com.au/technology/inno ... b4c77629e1
“We will use nuclear bombs first. We will use nuclear bombs continuously. We will do this until Japan declares unconditional surrender for the second time,” a threatening video circulated among official Chinese Communist Party channels warns.
“When we liberate Taiwan, if Japan dares to intervene by force – even if it only deploys one soldier, one plane or one ship – we will not only return fire but also wage full-scale war against Japan itself.”

CCP sanctioned video threatens China will nuke Japan in a 'full-scale war'
https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/c ... b5c3d23803

CCP channel reposts video threatening to nuke Japan if it defends Taiwan
Video calls for 'Japan Exception Theory' for first use of nukes if Japan comes to Taiwan's aid during Chinese invasion

https://www.newsweek.com/china-official ... ry-1609586


China Officials Share Viral Video Calling for Atomic Bombing of Japan
BY JOHN FENG ON

2656
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4250097
In the second video, the narrator focuses on the numerical superiority and fighting will of PLA forces compared to their Japanese opponents. The video also claims that after Japan is defeated, China will break up its four main islands into independent countries under the "supervision" of China and Russia, which will both establish military garrisons there.

The narrator adds that Okinawa will be broken off from Japan and either be managed by China or made into an independent country. The video concludes with a vow to punish Japan Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, and Deputy Prime Minister Aso Taro and force the Liberal Democratic Party and Japanese right-wing parties and organizations to pay "heavy war reparations."

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

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Biggest US Navy war games in 40 years to prepare for WW3 across 17 times zones amid tensions with Russia, China and Iran
https://www.the-sun.com/news/3410018/bi ... war-three/
THOUSANDS of Marines and sailors are taking part in the US Navy's largest war games in 40 years as Washington "prepares" for a future world war amid rising tensions with Russia and China.

Fleets began the Large Scale Exercise on Tuesday and the drills across 17 time zones will continue until August 16. But it remains unknown if China and Russia will “pay attention” to the wargames or if they will be interpreted as an act of aggression.

American officials fear that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is “closer than we think”. Beijing continues to stage war games off the coast of the island in what is widely seen as a dress rehearsal for an invasion.

Meanwhile, Russian leader Vladimir Putin continues to boast that his hypersonic missiles can deliver an “unpreventable strike” against Moscow's enemies. Last week, Moscow warned of an “inadvertent conflict” if the US pushed ahead with the deployment of long-range hypersonic rockets in Europe.

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

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I don’t know if anyone has noticed or not but, Biden has decided to end our mission/war in Afghanistan. As we have pulled out the Taliban has wasted no time in capturing everything. I don’t think there was much doubt that the Taliban would rise up and recapture the country. The speed at which they have done it has been astonishing. The remaining Afghan troops that were supposed to defend their country have fled the scene and the Taliban have captured all that nice US military hardware. Same thing happened in Iraq when we left. Biden said there would be no Saigon moments of helicopters rescuing embassy staff off the top of the embassy as the enemy closed in. CNN just posted on their headline a picture of a Chinook helicopter rescuing people off the top of a building. I don’t know if that was just a picture of Saigon or a fresh Saigon picture in Kabul.

My feelings on this are all over the place. We have been there for two decades. We went there to get Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda friends who attacked us on 9/11. The Taliban ran Afghanistan and when we asked them to turn over Bin Laden they refused. The US decided to go to Afghanistan and get Bin Laden by force and in the process declared war on the Taliban. It seems to me the Taliban weren’t even on our radar aside from hosting Bin Laden. The US went in and twenty years later Bin Laden has been killed, lots of terrorists were killed, lots of Taliban were killed and the Taliban no longer controlled anything and were in hiding.

We got Bin Laden and then decided we would save Afghanistan from the brutal Taliban ways. We helped them form a democracy and they elected their own leaders. We formed an Afghan military, trained them and gave them military equipment and air support. We rebuilt infrastructure. The country was functioning as a Democracy. Unfortunately the leaders turned out to be as corrupt as you might expect. The whole democracy thing hinged on the US military enforcing that democracy. I am pretty sure just about everyone on planet earth knew the second we pulled out that democracy would crumble.

So there lies the problem. Wars cost money. We have spent almost a trillion dollars on Afghanistan in those 20 years there. To hold that democracy the US military has to stay. What does that say about that democracy? We left and those Afghan troops scattered like roaches along with their elected leaders. That tells me Afghanistan’s democracy was just a puppet government propped up by the US and the people of Afghanistan had no interest in fighting for their own democracy. I am ok with that and feel if they aren’t willing to fight for democracy that maybe they aren’t that interested in it as a whole.

What makes me sad is knowing how bad the women of Afghanistan will be treated. All those interpreters and their families who risked their lives helping the US are in mortal danger. We talked about getting them out and it seems like the red tape associated with that bogged down and took forever. A lot of those people will be killed and that isn’t right. Now the Taliban are already taking Kabul and it’s too late.

We couldn’t stay there forever and had to leave at some point. Obama wanted to leave Afghanistan but was talked out of it. Trump said he would leave Afghanistan and was talked out of it. Biden decided to do it and is taking the heat for it. I don’t blame his decision to pull out. I am disappointed with the way he did it. We should have planned for getting those people out before announcing the exit. Talk with our allies about the logistics before announcing the exit. There is nothing we can do now for the women of Afghanistan after we pull out.

Afghanistan will go back to the way it was 20 years ago almost overnight. The Russians tried. The Americans tried. Now the Chinese maybe want a crack at Afghanistan? We abandoned our embassy. Russia says it has no need to abandon their embassy. China and Russia cashing in on our exit already and making deals with the Taliban. We will see how that goes.

After this have we learned anything? It was Saigon all over again. Nation building does not work. They have to want what you are selling. You can’t force it on them. I doubt if we learned anything. We will do it all over again probably in the not too distant future.

Biden will take all of the heat on this and I think he is OK with that. Someone had to pull the plug at some point and he did. He deserves some scorn for the handling of it and deserves some credit for having the stones to do it.

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Superbone
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Re: World Politics

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Good post, Dack. It's a very sad situation. Especially for the women of the country.
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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-47391821
Since the war against the Taliban began in 2001, there have been more than 3,500 coalition deaths, of which more than 2,300 have been US soldiers.
More than 450 UK troops have died.
A further 20,660 US soldiers have been injured in action.

But these casualty figures are dwarfed by the loss of life among Afghan security forces and civilians.
President Ghani said in 2019 that more than 45,000 members of the Afghan security forces had been killed since he became president five years earlier.
Brown University's research in 2019 estimated the loss of life amongst the national military and police in Afghanistan to be more than 64,100 since October 2001, when the war began.


https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/cos ... ans/afghan
About 241,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan and Pakistan war zone since 2001. More than 71,000 of those killed have been civilians.

The war has also inflicted invisible wounds. In 2009, the Afghan Ministry of Public Health reported that fully two-thirds of Afghans suffer from mental health problems.

The CIA has armed Afghan militia groups to fight Islamist militants and these militias are responsible for serious human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings of civilians.


On 9/11 some terrorists from Saudi Arabia attacked our country. In retaliation we attacked Iraq , Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Americans killed on 9/11- 3000

US service members killed post 9/11 in war - 7000

US service members and veterans who committed suicide post 9/11 - 30,000

Allies killed post 9/11 in war - 177,000

Iraqi civilians killed in Iraq war - 200,00

Contractors killed in Iraq - 3900

Afghan, Pakistan civilians killed in Afghanistan war - 71,000

Afghan police military killed in Afghanistan war - 73,000

Taliban killed (est) - 51,000+

I think we have to ask ourselves. Was our reaction to 9/11 worth it? I don’t think so.

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Nodack
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Re: World Politic

Post by Nodack »

If you could be President Bush right after 9/11 knowing what you know now what would you do?

If I was sitting on the throne and know what I know now I think I would handle it differently. Investigate 9/11 and make sure you know who you are dealing with. It wasn’t Iraq. There were virtually no terrorists in Iraq at the time. IMO attacking Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, Bin Laden or terrorism. That was just the excuse given to settle an old score and finish what dad started.

Afghanistan is where Bin Laden was living and training terrorists as a guest of the Taliban. I wouldn’t send in tens of thousands of troops and try to take over the country. If you take over the country you are responsible for taking care of it’s population and have to fight pissed off insurgents on the ground. A lose lose situation.

Terrorism is a movement not a country. We spent a trillion dollars fighting those wars? Ouch! Our best protection is security back home. How did we get Bin Laden?

American intelligence officials discovered the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden by tracking one of his couriers. Information was collected from Guantánamo Bay detainees, who gave intelligence officers the courier's pseudonym as Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.[3] In 2009, U.S. officials discovered that al-Kuwaiti lived in Abbottābad, Pakistan.[4] CIA paramilitary operatives located al-Kuwaiti in August 2010 and followed him back to the Abbottabad compound, which led them to speculate it was bin Laden's location.[5]

On May 1, 2011, United States Navy SEALs of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DevGru) carried out an assault on the compound on orders from U.S. President Barack Obama. During a 40-minute raid, bin Laden was killed by one bullet above the left eye and another to the chest.[6] The SEALs overpowered the compound's remaining residents, killing several, and extracted bin Laden's body (which was subsequently buried at sea) as well as computer hard drives, documents, and other material.


So I guess we captured some terrorists, “interrogated” them, got info on Bin Laden’s courier and somehow tracked him down to a Pakistan address and sure enough, Bin Laden was hiding there. We sent in the SEALs and they took care of the rest.

It seems we could have accomplished that without declaring war on two countries and sending in tens of thousands of troops to take over those countries. A trillion dollars would buy enough drones to blanket Afghanistan in drones. Find their camp, send in the A-Team and capture some “interrogate” them and maybe you find Bin Laden’s courier without a half a million people being killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan in retaliation for 3000 being killed by a few guys from Saudi Arabia.

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Superbone
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Re: World Politics

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War...What is it good for?
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3rdside
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Re: World Politics

Post by 3rdside »

More like $2.5t ‘dack..

This is pretty good account of why USA got it so wrong, again, by John Hulsman, the global political risk expert:

https://johnhulsman.substack.com/p/lawr ... ource=copy

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Indy
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Re: World Politic

Post by Indy »

Nodack wrote:
Sun Aug 15, 2021 1:55 pm
If you could be President Bush right after 9/11 knowing what you know now what would you do?
Umm, he did know most of what we know now. His dad watched it all happen with Russia.

And Biden didn't decide to pull our troops out. Trump did that and gave a deadline of May. Biden pushed it back a bit.

But honestly, we never should have been there, and all we did was cost innocent lives and trillions of dollars and created at least two more generations of people in the region that can't trust anything the West does or says.

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

Post by Nodack »

Biden could have stopped the pullout if he wanted. Not that I think he should have. It does look like they didn’t think things through logistically on the pullout and they certainly didn’t anticipate the Taliban rising up like the Phoenix and taking control so fast. That said, we shouldn’t be there. It’s almost as if we violated the Prime Directive.

In the fictional universe of Star Trek, the Prime Directive (also known as "Starfleet General Order 1", "General Order 1", and the "non-interference directive") is a guiding principle of Starfleet, prohibiting its members from interfering with the internal and natural development of alien civilizations.[1] The Prime Directive applies particularly to civilizations which are below a certain threshold of technological, scientific and cultural development; preventing starship crews from using their superior technology to impose their own values or ideals on them.

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3rdside
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World Politics

Post by 3rdside »

If this result was inevitable then it’s possibly better to look at it in terms of a political move, that he’s just carried out a Trump policy, giving the GOP crazies one less thing to shout about.

Could have been handled better I’m sure, but the genesis of fault is the Bush administration, with one bad decision following the other from there from all subsequent administrations.

Trump’s role in the current fiasco sounds pretty damning but again, this is all on Bush.

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

Post by Nodack »

I forgot it was a Trump order. Biden could have reversed it if he wanted to I believe. I think America is done with that war. The political games and blame will dominate the news now. I am not really interested in all that anymore. No matter who was President or in control the fact remains we are a country and we all get the blame. Time to move on and maybe learn from our repeated mistakes.

Thinking of the future. Like Indy said, Bush knew what he was doing. I really wonder how much power the military complex/lobbyists have over our politicians during times when there is an escalation of hostilities between us and whomever. That’s a conspiracy theory sort of..


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