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Nowhere is safe

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Re: Nowhere is safe

#291

Post by konart »

YZF wrote: post #37
firefoxd wrote: post #9

I often see these angles, how we should have prepared better or attacked this instead of that, or the unexpected strategy from the adversary. What about not bombing? The best safety trick the US can use is not bombing others.

Who did the US bomb before 9/11? Who did the US bomb before Pearl Harbor? Who did the US bomb before its embassies in East Africa were attacked? https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/east-african-embass... Who did the US bomb before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103 ? I would love for nobody to bomb or kill anyone. Did Ukraine bomb Russia? Is Taiwan bombing China that declares it is going to take Tai…

Yugoslavia?

Re: Nowhere is safe

#292

Post by dTal »

kakacik wrote: post #176
cogman10 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add, the primary reason the US supported Iraq was because it didn't want Iran to send oil to the USSR. This was because the US didn't want a communist nation to have a good economy. That's the story of a bunch of the CIAs operations.

Iran itself in its current form is a continuous line of failures of CIA and MI6 that led to their revolution against highly unpopular shah that was undemocratically installed only by those powers. Why do you think back then the us embassy situation evolved as it did. 'Embassy' my ass, full of cia folks regardless what shallow hollywood flicks try to propagate, meddling with internal affairs for profit and power of br…

I keep seeing comments that refer to Iranians as "brown people" - usually to emphasize their perceived "otherness" by the ignorant, as in this case. But Iranians aren't brown, or Arab apart from a small minority, and relatively speaking their culture isn't even that "other" - it would probably feel more familiar to the average American than some European countries even.

Do Americans really hear "Iran" and think of durka-durka from Team America?

Re: Nowhere is safe

#293

Post by towledev »

bdangubic wrote: post #267
towledev wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be truer to say the agreement was between several world powers and Obama, as the Senate didn't ratify.

did the senate ratify starting a war with iran or president is ok to bomb with isreal at will but any agreement requires “ratification” by senate?!

Re starting wars, you’re preaching to the choir.

Re international agreements: yes, the idea is that _broad support_ is required for binding international agreements. Senate ratification represents broad support.

The JCPOA was written in pencil.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#294

Post by _heimdall »

ilovecake1984 wrote: post #279
_heimdall wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So its your argument that if the US, Iran, and Israel laid down arms the world would find an indefinite peace?

No.

So what is the point of calling out three countries and saying they are the only real dangers?

Re: Nowhere is safe

#295

Post by cogman10 »

dTal wrote: post #292
kakacik wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran itself in its current form is a continuous line of failures of CIA and MI6 that led to their revolution against highly unpopular shah that was undemocratically installed only by those powers. Why do you think back then the us embassy situation evolved as it did. 'Embassy' my ass, full of cia folks regardless what shallow hollywood flicks try to propagate, meddling with internal affairs for profit and power of br…

I keep seeing comments that refer to Iranians as "brown people" - usually to emphasize their perceived "otherness" by the ignorant, as in this case. But Iranians aren't brown, or Arab apart from a small minority, and relatively speaking their culture isn't even that "other" - it would probably feel more familiar to the average American than some European countries even. Do Americans really hear "Iran" and think of du…

Iranians tend to have a little more pigment in their skin and it's not a minority.

I get why you'd say this, Iranians don't have particularly dark skin and some are as white as my English/swedish ancestors.

> Do Americans really hear "Iran" and think of durka-durka from Team America?

Some do. But usually the "killing brown people" is a shorthand for the fact that US policy has mostly focused on immiserating non-western-European nations for the benefit of of the US.

It implies racism at the core of US policy because only Western European nations are considered civilized and deserving of fair international treatment.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#297

Post by poszlem »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #255
poszlem wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason we can imagine conflict easier than peace is pretty structural. Wars usually happen because of disequilibrium, and we're sitting right in the middle of a big one. The world order we know was built by and for the US when it was the uncontested superpower. Thats just not the case anymore. Countries that spent decades being the West's cheap labor pool have risen up, industrialized, built real militari…

>But the West isnt going to voluntarily get poorer to make room for them either. How is it that Hacker News people can be so smart on tech, yet lack Econ 101 understanding that the world is not a zero-sum place? The pie can grow for everyone. Why do you suppose that the World Bank and the IMF make loans to developing countries? Under a zero-sum frame, wouldn't it be better to keep them underfoot by denying them credi…

Before you complain about someones economic knowledge, you must first learn that while econ 101 tells you trade creates surplus, econ 301 tells you the distribution of that surplus is a power struggle.

The World Bank/IMF were designed to integrate developing countries into a system on WESTERN TERMS as suppliers of raw materials and labour, as markets for Western goods, as borrowers denominated in dollars. The loans weren't charity but architecture. They worked great as long as the recipients stayed in their lane. The tension now is precisely that countries like China used that system to climb the ladder and are now competing for the parts of the pie that were never supposed to be on the table, semiconductor fabs, AI leadership, alternative financial infrastructure, military projection in their own regions.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#298

Post by poszlem »

DeathArrow wrote: post #212
poszlem wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason we can imagine conflict easier than peace is pretty structural. Wars usually happen because of disequilibrium, and we're sitting right in the middle of a big one. The world order we know was built by and for the US when it was the uncontested superpower. Thats just not the case anymore. Countries that spent decades being the West's cheap labor pool have risen up, industrialized, built real militari…

>The world order we know was built by and for the US when it was the uncontested superpower. You mean after the fall of the Soviet Union? Because Soviet Union used to contest US power. >Countries that spent decades being the West's cheap labor pool have risen up, industrialized, built real militaries, and they are not going back to where they were. But the West isnt going to voluntarily get poorer to make room for th…

The soviet union did not contest that order so much as exist outside of it. When it collapsed, those institutions didn't change they just lost their counterweight.

aggregate economic growth is positive sum, but the things that actually matter in geopolitics, namely who controls chokepoints, who sets standards, whose currency denominates trade, who has military primacy in a given region are zero-sum or close to it. china getting richer grows the pie. china getting rich enough to contest US naval dominance in the South China Sea does not. both are happening simultaneously. pointing at the first doesn't make the second disappear.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#299

Post by nradov »

gmerc wrote: post #261
nradov wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US states are free to build infrastructure without any federal involvement or permission. California just spent $114M to build a wildlife crossing bridge over Highway 101. https://smmc.ca.gov/liberty-canyon-wildlife-corridor/

That’s not the same thing tho. issit?

How is it not the same? State governments can just build things without the approval of federal senators.

Re: Nowhere is safe

#300

Post by _heimdall »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #280
_heimdall wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pacifism at such a large scale is a self-defesting strategy though. If its well understood that a country will never respond, eventually someone will take them over or wipe them out.

Responding to a threat and meddling proactively half the world away are quite different things, are they not?

For sure, and I wasn't arguing that they are the same.
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