Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lie? So are you saying these satellite images are fabricated? https://www.wsj.com/video/series/on-the-news/satellite-image...
Yes, the framing of the high budget web military propaganda from the effectively state-run military news source is based on lies.
War Is a Racket (1933)
211–220 of 235 posts
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of the countries have two or two choices, align with Russia/China, or align with the West. Back in 2017, 69% of Ukrainian wants to join NATO[1]. It is Putin's own fascination that Ukraine should go back to Russia that starts all this mess[2]. Even if US has sponsored the color revolution, so what? Between two evils, choose the lesser one. [1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-nato-idUSKBN19V12... [2]:…
Lesser of two evils applies when there is a dichotomy of two likely outcomes both of which you see as evil. In this case, the United States can simply not invade. Then there will be no problem. The problem is that Jen Psaki is going on television and telling the country a bold-faced lie. It is just a lie, that is all there is to it. Russia is not the aggressor. The United State is the aggressor. No US invasion, no ev…
Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and created puppet state Abkhazia and South Ossetia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, US was not involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Ru...
US also not involved in the war in Donbas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas
If you cannot provide proof, then what you said are flat out lie.
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the big, big problem! Let me give you a few well-known countries and you can think about whether there are any parallels between them and Afghanistan. 1 England: the English Civil War (very simplified description). The terrorists as we would call them nowadays [the Parliamentarians] won and King Charles I was executed. The people that now rule the UK have inherited the system of government originally set up by…
Take a look at your two answers: 1) > Pretty simple really! 2) > That's the big problem! At all but the most superficial level you'll find armed conflict motivations over all of human civilizations isn't "pretty simple really" and you'll find there are a lot of "that's the big problem's". Trying to reduce a topic as big as armed conflict in human history to a single idea of "just" or "unjust" isn't a particularly ins…
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#214The tragedy is that poor unfortunate grunts only get to know it's a racket after it's too late - when half of them are already dead. Unfortunately, it seems to be a chararistic of the human condition that learning about war is a slow prossess and that the horrors of experiencing it cannot passed down from one generation to the next. Experience gathered over millennia has demonstrated that it's essentially impossible…
In the Southern US the religious and the Republicans actively attempt to erase wars. Most recently in TN where they ban books about it. It would help if the US would actually teach history instead of pretend like it did not happen.
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Take a look at your two answers: 1) > Pretty simple really! 2) > That's the big problem! At all but the most superficial level you'll find armed conflict motivations over all of human civilizations isn't "pretty simple really" and you'll find there are a lot of "that's the big problem's". Trying to reduce a topic as big as armed conflict in human history to a single idea of "just" or "unjust" isn't a particularly ins…
A warfighter, I presume.
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#216I read this book (or a good chunk of it) awhile ago and something was off about it. I didn't believe he knew what he was talking about. I dont recall any counter examples in his book, or him claiming he had direct experience with businesses matters. Perhaps he conflated correlation and causation. Some businesses are going to profit from war because demand for certain items will spike. But to claim WW I was pushed by…
WW1 was thought to have been impossible to happen ahead of time because of the losses in business and trade would have been too great. Claiming that it was pushed by business interests is an extraordinary claim which to my knowledge has never been substantiated with any extraordinary evidence.
Wall Street banks (especially JP Morgan) had loaned huge amounts of money to England and France. They stood to suffer masses losses if the war didn't turn out favorably for them. On April 24th, 1917, only 8 days after the US entered the war, congress passed the Emergency Loan Act which sent hundreds of millions of dollars to England and France. The lion's share of this money was used to immediately make interest payments to JP Morgan.
>Morgan brokered a deal that positioned his company as the sole munitions and supplies purchaser during World War I for the British and French governments, bringing his company a 1% commission on $3 billion ($30 million). He was also a banking broker for financing to foreign governments both during and after the war.
>Morgan played a prominent part in financing World War I. Following its outbreak, he made the first loan of $12,000,000 to Russia.[6] In 1915, a loan of $500,000,000 was made to France and Britain following negotiations by the Anglo-French Financial Commission.[7] The firm's involvement with British and French interests fueled charges the bank was conspiring to maneuver the United States into supporting the Allies in order to rescue its loans. By 1915, when it became apparent the war was not going to end quickly, the company decided to forge formal relationships with France.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._P._Morgan_Jr.#World_War_I
Then there were the manufacturers and the farmers. Demand for goods, foodstuffs and merchandise of all kinds was a large part of what helped pull the moribund US economy out of a long period of economic distress that stretched all the way back to The Panic of 1907. England and French (borrowed) money was flooding into the coffers and US companies and US workers. A poor outcome for England and France would leave an uncertain future (at best) for the prospect of future exports for many companies.
There were other, non-economic factors to be sure, but much has been written about the influence that the banks and the business community had on pushing US entry into the war.
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
This just show that fascism means different things to different people. There are indeed several aspects to it: - suppression of labor unions and other political organisations that go against the interests of the ruling class, using mob violence - a nationalist/religious/wtv ideology portaying anyone discussing orders as a dangerous enemy (dividing the people in the name of unity) - the will to at least temporarily i…
>This just show that fascism means different things to different people. Fascism is a very specific political ideology, based on Marxism, and involves (what they call a third-way economic policy) transforming the state into an amalgamation of trade unions working together to create a socialist state. It does not have different meanings to different people. It has only one meaning. The problem is just that many people…
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't forget that congress redacted a ton of stuff from his testimony and the unredacted version wasnt discovered until the 1970s or something like that. Smedley Butler has always been my favorite Marine because he saw the bigger picture, and I like to give the Chesty lovers a talking to about the differences. From my experience I can confirm that war is indeed a racket.
Chesty did have some good lines, though, like "We're surrounded. That simplifies things."
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. About 5000 American soldiers died in the Iraq War. A tragic loss, undeniably. Iraqi deaths? Estimated to be between 400,000 and 1,000,000. That doesn't include deaths that will follow for decades from lasting damage and the instability that followed in the region and continues to this day.
Don't forget the lasting effects of depleted Uranium munitions: https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2019/09/21/new-study-do... that's a particularly nasty thing to be lobbing around. The shell that just keeps on shellin' long after the war is over.
I believe that the toxicity of DU comes from its properties as a heavy metal, same as lead, rather than from being radioactive. [0]
[0] Chemical DNA damange effect is a million times higher than radiological according to this: https://zenodo.org/record/1259849
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
This just show that fascism means different things to different people. There are indeed several aspects to it: - suppression of labor unions and other political organisations that go against the interests of the ruling class, using mob violence - a nationalist/religious/wtv ideology portaying anyone discussing orders as a dangerous enemy (dividing the people in the name of unity) - the will to at least temporarily i…
>This just show that fascism means different things to different people. Fascism is a very specific political ideology, based on Marxism, and involves (what they call a third-way economic policy) transforming the state into an amalgamation of trade unions working together to create a socialist state. It does not have different meanings to different people. It has only one meaning. The problem is just that many people…
Fascism explicitly opposes Marxism, and "trade unions" under fascism were simply fascist-run organizations designed to suppress labor power. The Italian fascists banned non-fascist trade unions, and the fascist "union" was essentially run by the employers' association.