961–970 of 1001 posts
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Parent is referring to the same president as the grandparent... Trump has murdered 2 innocent U.S. citizens so far, and was president when COVID started. Trump's response to COVID was part of why he lost the 2020 election.
> Trump has murdered 2 innocent U.S. citizens so far Are you referring to documented murders from the Epstein files, or to Melissa and Mark Hoffman?
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In Romania it took some 10 years to reach some degree of functional democracy after the fall of communism and the execution on Ceaușescu, who coincidentally, just returned from the crowning of Khamenei, while learning, dictator-to-dictator, how to suppress a revolution: 1006 killed, though most of them not by the initial "Revolutionary Guards" reprisal but in the semi-civil war that followed. And that in a country/re…
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Kosovo won’t get into the EU?
At that time (1990), when everything seemed possible and a quick path to democracy and all that it brings (in the imaginary of the poor, oppressed people that we were) along with it, this guy came along: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Ra%C8%9Biu
He ran for president in the first free elections and made some 0.5% or something. I remember him for his words which go along the "it will take 20 years at least, for democracy to settle in Romania". He was right on. Now, 30 years after, we have a strong, frile democracy. Everyone can run for president but not everyone can win, even if they could: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4x2epppego
All things considered, I live a much, much better life now than 30 years ago during the communist dictatorship. Perfect? Far from it and perfection is a moving target. But we're definitely a solid democracy, and also definitely, it's a miracle the first 5-10 years didn't erupt in a full scale civil war. And the despised "revolutionary guards" had some involvement in making sure it didn't happen, so as much as you hate them, you need them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_clashes_of_T%C3%A2rgu_M...
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There is no evidence this strike has anything to do with oil, our leadership is not even saying that we will be involved with the changes on the ground. Oil prices are extremely low and have been so for a while now, domestic production is huge and we just claimed Venezuela's for ourselves as well. We have plenty of oil and again, there is just no evidence that this is motivated in any way by oil. It is purely because…
Yes, and the price of oil has gone up 10% last I saw. United states domestic oil sells at the same price. Maybe not planned, but a reality. On the flip side the possibility this affect the global economy, which includes the US, more negatively is probably true also.
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Sunni Muslims hate the Iranian regime and consider Shia to be heretics
Every single one of them? There are many Sunnis who view their leadership as "traitors to the cause" and respected Iranian defiance especially against Israel. It's far from black and white.
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So they are not even comparable. > there are attempts to criminalize harmless minorities like what?
> So they are not even comparable. What a bizarre comment when I just compared them. >> there are attempts to criminalize harmless minorities > like what? Among other minorities, they're going very strongly against transgender people and support groups and try to criminalize them. They're obsessed with transgender people for some reason. For example, Executive Order 14168, Executive Order 14183, Executive Order 14187…
This isn't chasing trans, it's looking for people who promote 'radical gender ideology'. It's not activists who support trans either. Emphasis on _radical_ and _ideology_.
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That's no excuse. And if a choice between 2 people that have been thoroughly vetted by elites is your definition of democracy, you have a sad sad view of what's possible.
Sorry, how are free and fair elections not democracy?
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I went there and asked people about it. It was pretty clear they felt theyd gone through hell. They were also complaining bitterly about things that got worse thanks to there being a war like corruption and a lack of jobs. I have no idea who OP talked to nor why they thought the war was so great but it matched nothing of what I saw.
Isn’t it a bit wild you had to confirm with Iraqis that war was bad for their country?
I didnt exactly ask Iraqis that question directly and war certainly wasnt the only bad thing in their lives. e.g. a lot of guys would moan that they want to get married but "cant afford it".
but anyways OP's comment set my bullshit-o-meter spinning so fast i got vertigo.
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Islamic societies seem to be unable to form stable institutions. The recipe seems to be unable to synthesize this, no matter how many ressources are available and how benign the conditions. As a result the biggest formable state-institution remains the family clan and the family clan just does not cut it in preventing civil war. At best you get a clan-coalition masquerading as a military government with some democrat…
The Ottoman Empire lasted 600 years with only one major civil war, a feat not matched by any major Christian European country. England faced 3½ civil wars (counting the Hundred Years War as a ½ civil war here, because while it is essentially a dynastic dispute, it's not a dynastic dispute over England itself but rather English holdings in France) in the same timeframe. And this despite the Ottoman successor law being…
The well-established succession processes practiced in the West guaranteed that at any given time, not only was there almost always at least one person who would benefit directly from the ruler's demise, there were often individuals for whom the ruler's premature demise was required for them to be inline for the throne. If you're the King's brother, for example, under male-preference primogeniture you need to make sure your brother doesn't have any kids.
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> I can't think of any time when bombing the shit out of a country and killing their leader has actually worked. Japan? Although their leader wasn't killed, but same logic. The more civilized a country is the easier it is to reform them into a good state, and Iran is a pretty civilized and structured nation, the dictatorship is the main issue. Most people in Iran want a democracy and are capable of running it, you ju…
The Americans had to occupy and place both Japan and West Germany under their military rule afterwards to make it stick, that's not a comparison
We aren't going to occupy Iran.
Comparing this to defeated nations in WWII is also a massive stretch, I almost can't believe people seriously think that is a parallel situation.
There's a lot of propaganda out there to dissuade people from thinking that this looks a lot like Libya at best--and that is assuming that decapitation airstrikes can even make the regime fall (which I doubt).