The commenter archive features may be temporarily disabled at times.
Search
TEN SECOND BUZZ
- Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024April 15, 2024205 Comments
- OJ Simpson: Football Great, Murder Suspect, and Convicted Felon, Dead at 76April 11, 2024115 Comments
- Open Mic for the week of 4/8/2024April 8, 2024158 Comments
- Open Mic for the week of 4/1/2024April 1, 2024357 Comments
- Sam Bankman-Fried Gets 25 Year Prison SentenceMarch 28, 202434 Comments
Features
Hot Posts
A Message From Devcat
We have been experiencing some system resource issues. We believe the problem may be resolved, but if it is not please bear with us.
Recent Comments
- Brandon Berg in reply to Chip Daniels on Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024Most of the crackdowns are against things that aren't speech. As they should be. We need to get away…
- Dark Matter in reply to Philip H on Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024That is not the dictionary definition of tantrum. A tantrum is "an uncontrolled outburst of anger an…
- Dark Matter in reply to Philip H on Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024Definition of "Tantrum" : an uncontrolled outburst of anger and frustration His prescribed solution…
- Jaybird on Planning The Annual Trip Around The WorldHaving been to Iceland in the current year, I can't imagine what it might have looked like back then…
- North on Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024Holy buckets! A successful union drive in the south?
- Marchmaine in reply to InMD on Weekend Plans Post: The Aftermath of Catching UpHeh, I don't really keep track of directors... but looking at IMDB I liked Sherlock and Man from UNC…
- Jaybird in reply to Jaybird on Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024Update about yesterday's missile attack on Iran: There have been no missile attack on Iran tonight,…
- Jaybird in reply to Michael Cain on Weekend Plans Post: The Aftermath of Catching UpWe always keep out two hoodies and two sets of fuzzy pajamas per person. We have a throw blanket for…
- Michael Cain in reply to Fish on Weekend Plans Post: The Aftermath of Catching UpI find that I’m much less extroverted now than I used to be... Kept granddaughter #3 on Wednesday wh…
- InMD in reply to Marchmaine on Weekend Plans Post: The Aftermath of Catching UpI'm skeptical of the reviews. It's solidly fresh on RT but even the good ones from the top critics s…
Comics
-
On the Way To The Dressing Room After The Game
April 20, 2024
-
Planning The Annual Trip Around The World
April 19, 2024
-
April 18, 2024
-
April 17, 2024
More Comments
- Michael Cain on Weekend Plans Post: The Aftermath of Catching Up
- Jaybird on Weekend Plans Post: The Aftermath of Catching Up
- Jaybird in reply to Marchmaine on Weekend Plans Post: The Aftermath of Catching Up
- Jaybird in reply to fillyjonk on Weekend Plans Post: The Aftermath of Catching Up
- Jaybird in reply to Philip H on Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024
- Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels on Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024
- Philip H in reply to Pinky on Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024
- Fish in reply to fillyjonk on Weekend Plans Post: The Aftermath of Catching Up
- Pinky in reply to Philip H on Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024
- Pinky in reply to Philip H on Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024
- Philip H in reply to Pinky on Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024
- Pinky in reply to Philip H on Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024
- Philip H in reply to Pinky on Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024
- Philip H in reply to Jaybird on Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024
- Chip Daniels on Open Mic for the week of 4/15/2024
On “The politics of pettiness”
E.D. - you are worrying about the wrong thing. Again.
On “the inevitability dodge”
“from a humanitarian and democracy promotion standpoint, intervention has produced far more failures than successes.”
Sure. And Waffen SS won the Battle of Midway too.
On “the democracy fallacy”
Roland,
Check IISS's Military Balance 2009 here:
http://www.iiss.org/
It's going to happen sooner or later and 44's current neocons in humanitarian clothing like Dr Samantha Power and UN ambassador Dr Susan Rice actually look forward to trashing certain regimes.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/africa/july-dec06/darfur_11-17.html
Also check Dr Rice's bit about using R2P to kill state or militia sanctioned killers anytime anywhere.
http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2007/1024darfur_rice_Opp08.aspx
Unlikely? Unrealistic?
Au contraire'
"
E.D.,
Generational commitments of the last millennium had military commitments that totally dwarf anything in the ME - including the 1st Gulf War.
Like NATO.
Recent SOFA agreements totally fulfill Dr Rice's pronouncement
"Leave them be."
Dangerously wishful and illogical.
Despots and tyrants are the cause of instability - and historically that instability is never confined to their own borders. Add WMD in the mix - it could be said the Free World is just asking for it.
" Set up trade. Keep the world as open as possible. Live by example. Encourage liberalism where we find it. Publicly discourage tyrannical behavior. Keep trading. Help create a world where the flow of goods can be realized."
Realpolitik, nicht war? The faux school played ideas like stability, deterrence, and containment are suspect since 911.
A case could be made that Realpolitik's ammoral corrupt cult of stability, a history of genocide, terrorism and wars, that sucked up to any despot horrid or benign actually created the age of Regime Change.
Closed societies - Like Syria, that fear Facebook, abuse Palestinians as strategic resources and literally bomb a sovereign semi democratic member of the UN's political cadre out of existence do NOT merit trade, friendly dialogue or lectures. They need to be regime changed and put out of biz.
"Looking to our own interests first and foremost" is perfectly correct
"
Freddie,
"vanishingly small number of countries and that have absolutely no chance of being met by the current “bad actors” in the world"
Yes! Annihilating creepy time traveling intolerants or semi secular leaders for life that retard - in the classic sense no less - the timely development of values like fun and free choice or as Uncle Tony put it, "the Universal Values of the Human Spirit" is well within any of the League of Hot! Democrazies and their fully crunk 30 year in the future militaries.
Again, in the age of WMD - why even tolerate them? Many illegit, unelected, nigh unhinged regimes can be taken out - all the way out over a long week end.
"not invading other countries under self-defeating “democracy by force” adventures that leave the world less stable, the people less free and more dead, and our own country less capable of providing for its own defense?"
Totally incorrect on all three counts - and sooo 2003, btw.
"
"In other words, the very premise for invading countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan in order to democratize them and thereby impose peace through war, is a false premise."
That is suspect.
Every threat to internat'l order after the Cold War involved a government that fell short of Western and economic standards. Every security problem that the American government felt called upon to address would be alleviated, if not solved altogether, if the regimes responsible for them could be remade to American specs: Tolerant, egalitarian societies with a penchant for periodic, transparent elections, a free, uncensored press, a nat'l treasury under public scrutiny, a military under civie control, an independent judiciary under elected Gov oversight
Many critics of neoconservatism amazingly (or perhaps on purpose) fail to include Dr Rice's caveat that such a correct manuever in the new millennium ...
"Is a generational commitment. But it is not a generational commitment in military terms; it is a commitment of our support to them, our political support and an understanding that democracy takes time.”
Smokescreen aside - what is the alternative?
In an age of WMD crunk caliphates that tend to torment their own people, their neighbors and fiddle about with WMD?
Hope for the best?
Isolationism?
Realpolitik era treaties with known oathbreakers?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.