There is a concrete numbers of dollars needed to functionally demine Cambodia, and it's in the low billions of dollars. They have highly effective teams, and you can directly contribute by visiting museum. https://www.cambodialandminemuseum.org/
Nor the hundreds of thousands murder by Israel in a genocide, which is why his strategic analysis doesn't see the gulf states are at risk of collapse if they engage Iran on what is perceived to be on Israel's behalf.
Selective enforcement of rules absolutely does discredit the enforcer and nullifies their "enforcement license".
Let's look at a scenario. I'm a local policeman who jails everyone in my neighborhood who steals from others, except one person that I allow to steal anything they want, whenever they want. When a victim of their theft tries to take their property back from the thief, I stop the victim and jail them for theft, because they tried to take what is now the property of the original thief. Some people say that I had no right to jail the victim for trying to take back what was originally theirs from the thief. Other people cite that it is technically theft and that someone else constantly getting away with theft does not mean that the policeman shouldn't stop this current case of "theft". Whenever the victims tried to do it the proper way and report the thefts to me, I did nothing.
Should the society trust me to continue doing law enforcement? Of course not. They should immediately replace me, and if that's not possible, they should exile me and organize themselves into a militia and enforce the rule of law on their own.
Going back to the real topic, USA has no moral right to intervene on the basis of punishing "slaughter" when they themselves are in the business of slaughtering people worldwide if it's in the business interest of its elite, and supports other countries slaughtering if it's somehow to the perceived benefit of the USA's leaders. The rest of the world should never allow it given USA's historical record, even a recent one.
The US doesn't stop a slaughter unless it is strategically relevant to the US' special interests - and it does promote slaughters if they are strategically relevant to the US' special interest.
Yeah that’s called karma, the force of your intentions. It matters a lot. You can do good things with evil in your heart, and they come out evil. Like giving a nice gift, with strings attached.
The motivation to be known as the nation that stops slaughters should not occlude the truth that in fact, the nation only stops slaughters that serve its own interests.
That the USA allowed Gaza to happen has put an end to the idea that Americans are the good guys and only do things that are good. The rest of the world sees this, even if heavily propagandized American citizens cannot, for whatever justifications they give.
And the USA's inability to reign its security partners in when they commit genocide has put an end to the idea that the USA has any actual weight in its diplomatic efforts.
The world is moving on from American hegemony - we will have to look to others for help in stopping America and its partners' slaughtering.
It was never about nuclear weapons, Netanyahu has been saying Iran was one week away for over 30 years. Europe goes along as an excuse to support politically unpopular war to maintain US support for Ukraine.
What would you expect Europe to do? It’s not like they openly support this war. The Iranian diaspora supports it, there is the secularism element, but the US doesn’t care about the Iranian people anyway
The diaspora is happy about the regime being targeted. They will be much, much more ambivalent if the US starts targeting power infrastructure and innocent people in hospitals etc start dying en masse.
> Power infrastructure & hospitals are already being targeted and bombed
It's absolutely not. If they were being targeted, material fractions of them would be getting destroyed. Instead we're seeing one offs, which look more like fuckups or Israeli nonsense.
The diaspora somewhat supported it for a week. Then a desalination plant was hit, and I guarantee the support grew way, way weaker. Now we're 3 weeks in, and the only Iranian I keep contact with is extremely sad that the outcome is this bad. I won't tell him 'i told you so', because unlike people on HN who argue for the operation, he doesn't deserve it, but to the 'regime change' supporters: I told you so.
No, he hasn't been saying that, despite what you may have read in a random reddit comment. In the 90s he was saying 3-5 years. In 2010 it was 1-2 years.
The first time any kind of claim measured in weeks was immediately before Rising Lion last year, and guess what, the IAEA agreed with him.
I think we can agree that being weeks away from having enough fissile material for a nuke is different from being weeks away from having a nuke. Unless you think you just get your fissile material and then pop it in the next day
America has never been concerned about anything other than America. They literally couldn't care less that they have threaten to take over Canada... Potentially Greenland and Panama militarily.
That's just blatantly false. American power derives not only from raw power, but from alliances. It will be apparent, that it's really hard to get things done when your former allies start slowrolling all your requests.
Unless you mean it like, "countries have no friends", but that's not a very interesting observation.
American power today stems from its power, military and fiscally (which is also backed militarily).
Most countries in the world today are allied to the US out of economic, trade and defense necessity and co-dependence, because all other alternatives are worse for them due to the immense asimetric power disparity.
This might shock you but most countries in the world don't like the US government and its policies, especially after their illegal invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, but have no way to push back without negative repercussions to their economy, so they have to play along as allies whether they like it or not for their own good.
Feel free to down vote all you want, but I'm not revealing anything new or controversial here but it's the truth as all countries, kingdoms and empires throughout history have had alliances with others they didn't like, out of sheer necessity. Same how we in the liberal west have also been trading and having economic ties with the CCP, post-Crimean invasion Russia, Erdogan's Turkey and middle eastern countries that assassinate our journalists, as capitalism post-USSR collapse has prioritized monetary enrichment over fighting for upholding a western ideology.
Define "better". Currently no county, even China can't replace the US as a trading partner in terms of how much the US consumer base buys from us(the European export base I mean) and the kind of technology the US provides back in return. Until China's consumer purchasing power comes close, we're stuck with the US as our main pay piggy.
Plus, I don't think replacing the US with China, a dictatorship that's running slave labor camps, has no human rights or freedom of speech, no freedom of religion, etc, as the main world superpower, is the best idea.
So, how people can promote cozying up to the CCP as some sort of win just to stick it to Trump, is beyond me. It's as narrow minded as the people who were promoting Russian gas dependency as some sort of political victory, until it bit them in the ass and is now costing us through the nose. Why don't people learn from history that cutting your nose to spite your face is not a wise long term strategy?
As bad as Trump is he's only got 3 more years in power until next elections while the CCP is a forever evil pretending to be your friend playing the Embrace Extend Extinguish long game.
The US also doesn't have freedom of speech anymore. Daily attacks on the free press, wrongful arrests, censorship of government agencies, extortion of Universities. Also, ICE has disappeared activists who were legally in the US. It's becoming Trump's gestapo real quick.
Nobody believes the current trend will end with Trump. The corruption, internal divisions, feelings of grandeur and bullying will not end with this regime. And there are a lot reasons to believe Trump will not cede power.
> As bad as Trump is he's only got 3 more years in power until next elections
And even in the "best case" scenario where trump does not win that next election, what are you left with then?
A new reality where potentially the office of the president has widely increased powers. Depending on what the supreme court says on wednesday the president will now be able to raise tarrifs at will, send the army into domestic cities at will, have the army kill foreign civil citizens we are not at war with at will and a massively expanded ICE agency which will be really hard to downsize for later administrations.
What are you on about? Trump isn't part of the next elections.
And everything you just said after that, China is 100x worse at those things. So this isn't the "US bad, China better partner" gotcha you were hoping to be.
If you remember the last time Trump lost an election there was a violent coup. I do not hold out any hope that there will be an orderly transfer of power.
Also, I wasn't comparing the US to anyone, I don't care what China is doing. I was just listing the direction that the US democracy is heading in under Trump. And that direction is a systemic extension of presidential powers that go largely unchecked. The Wednesday ruling of the Supreme Court will be a watershed moment in this case, if they will not check his overreach on tariffs, I doubt that they will check anything that Trump is doing.
> Now, I believe two wrongs don't make a right, but clearly democrats aren't innocent angels in the politics game, but are using every dirty trick in in the book and outside the book to upset the election results while playing the victims.
This is exactly what I am talking about. Trump is right now shifting what is within a Presidents power. He is eroding the checks and balances which were set up to keep we the people in power, not a foreign government or a single person ruling in their own interest; We the People. And as you say, even if there is an orderly transfer of power, I do not see the state of the US democracy changing afterwards. You now have a position which is more powerful than ever, and a single person can do more than ever to bend the people to their will. Why consider other positions and opinions of your People, when you can just send the Army to silence them?
Doesn't matter if they wear a blue tie or a red tie.
Ah come on. If you want to discuss let's discuss, but I would ask you to put at least some effort into your points.
> It doesn't get more democratic than that.
It does get more democratic than that: You vote for congress. You vote in your state, you vote in local county elections, etc.
If now historically your congress, your state, your county had certain powers which are now being taken by the President, I would argue that everything gets less democratic. Your vote and your voice matters less and less. I'm not arguing against Trump in particular here. I am arguing for democratic principles.
Maybe I am misreading your position, but it seems like you do not see democracy as changing in the US?
And yet you couldn't even capture and hold a shitty backwater like Afghanistan.
The last US military action widely regarded as a success was the first Gulf war but, I didn't know about you, but I like my successful military actions to come without a part II.
It is if you look at a map and conclude the terrain is flat. It is a nightmare for any military. This is a funny chortle, I geddit, but if we're to take this at face value:
Alexander the Great's army was garbage. He managed barely by marrying a local noblewoman after a long and frustrating campaign. He had the benefit of not being on the opposite side of the planet. America had to fly over Iran to get there. Super easy.
The British were garbage. The first Anglo-Afghan war went .... poorly. They had the same experience as the US forces. The second Anglo-Afghan war went great! They defeated the Afghan army! A few months later they lost Kabul, their forces collapsed immediately, being slaughtered again by Afghanis. They reinvaded, failed, and retreated. They would have totally won if they had an air force.
The Soviet military was garbage. They struggled for a decade to prop up their own government there. (Sound familiar yet?)
There was a third Anglo-Afghan war. This time the British won handily. Just kidding, they failed yet again, like everyone else.
This is like me telling you: "If you're so smart, why aren't you a billionaire?" Well, that isn't how it works, is it?
Too much of the debate is taken up by regulations are good vs bad. The focus should be on drafting regulations that make sense. The US doesn't allow small trucks due to EPA classification so didn't make any until this recent crop of EVs started popping up.
RE China: They also make the cheapest and best qualities Telsa which are shipped around the world. They can make the best and worst quality depending on your price point.
Probably the creation of techno-fascist state, or at least the desire to have one as outlined by Thiel and co. The excessive deference that all tech companies have had towards elected leaders instead of striving for independence under the law, and now they strive to co-opt government to achieve their goals.
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