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We've already established that the invasion was carried out under a false pretext. It was neither about WMD nor oil, but about removing Saddam who on multiple occasions threatened Israel. In the 80's the Israeli Air Force took out one of Iraq's nuclear sites. Defending the only functional democracy in the middle east is a noble goal, even if the war itself was a mistake.
Russia's invitation to Syria is questionable at best, as the regime that did so is not accepted by all the parties. In many ways, it's similar to the US intervention on behalf of the South Vietnamese government in the 60's.
Sorry Milky...no.....that is sugarcoating to the fullest...Saddam could not longer threat anyone, he was a shadow of the former self, at least he guaranteed the functional integrity of its own country and kept Islamic extremism at bay.
The Iraq war was a disaster on so many fronts, totally inexcusable....it damaged America reputation probably for ever.....especially with the actions that followed and still continue to this day.....
The Iraq war is one of the main reason why, despite the media, the vast majority of world public opinion is wary or downright skeptical of the current Russophobia environment....
America needs to learn that being the biggest kid on the block does not mean that the rules do not apply to you...otherwise other kids on the block will eventually take you down....
If these companies weren't there, someone would fill the void immediately....it is not like unreachable technologies from other actors and countries...
But they haven't as of now, that's the point. Without the US, I'd be unemployed tomorrow.
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These are at best theoretical plans, not even sure to work....Russia launched similar projects and so Europe at study stage...
I don't doubt that, though once again the US is way ahead of anyone else when it comes to space exploration.
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Putin himself said publicly more than once that the US is a great nation and he admires many aspects of it....and others, less so....
Putin is quite intelligent himself. I'll give him that much even though I don't like him personally. He's also obviously quite jealous of the US and would like Russia to be that powerful, which is similar to most of the anti-Americanism I've seen. Most people masquerade it as being a result of war, but they are lying.
The Iraq War was a turning point for me, but in a very different way to what many would expect. It made me me realize that the protests and opposition was solely aimed at opposing big powers entering the war, as opposed to being humanitarian in nature. While I myself am critical of the war, I'm also vocal about my belief that no one really cares about it on a personal level. The reason I came to that conclusion, was due to the fact there was an even more devastating war going on in the Congo at the same time, to which almost everyone turned a blind eye, therefore I concluded that the loss of life was never the true purpose of the protests. If one cannot offer unconditional sympathy to suffering, then it loses it's value.
You could say that I have a very unconventional approach to observation, but that's because I put it through a scientific lens. In some ways you could say that even make me a hypocrite as I don't always use compassion as the defining metric and that's comes from historical lessons.
Many historical events lose their value over time which makes me question their true merit. Humans have been pilling up atrocity after atrocity since they first showed up, yet distant events become a footnote to history. This suggests a break with causality as what we have today is dictated by the distant past. People use past milestones only when it suits their agenda. Consider the ME, some use Iraq as the turning point, others point to the overthrow of Mossadegh, yet others blame colonialism as the root problem. if we go back even further, we see that Arabs were the first to invade Europe when they started conquering Byzantine territory.
This is why I don't consider most of the criticism of the US as valid (I'm talking about foreign policy here), since it plays loosely with the near past to gauge sympathy from it's supporters, not to mention tends to conveniently ignore the actions of other players. Why is intervention so wrong, when individual state actors subject their population to atrocities on a daily basis?
I want people to come up with a universally agreed upon time frame to determine the value of events. How am I supposed to know what that magic number is? The way I see it, all this criticism is slavishly shackled to time. If the ultimate outcome is oblivion, then why not fast track these events to irrelevance. To me there's not much of difference between Iraq, the battle of Marathon or the Crusades.
I hope some of this clarifies how I view the world.
Sorry Milky...no.....that is sugarcoating to the fullest...Saddam could not longer threat anyone, he was a shadow of the former self, at least he guaranteed the functional integrity of its own country and kept Islamic extremism at bay.
The Iraq war was a disaster on so many fronts, totally inexcusable....it damaged America reputation probably for ever.....especially with the actions that followed and still continue to this day.....
The Iraq war is one of the main reason why, despite the media, the vast majority of world public opinion is wary or downright skeptical of the current Russophobia environment....
America needs to learn that being the biggest kid on the block does not mean that the rules do not apply to you...otherwise other kids on the block will eventually take you down....
The Iraq War was a mistake by all measures, but that doesn't mean that Saddam was not a despot. His rule worked well for the Sunni minority, but not the Shia.
I also fail to see why the Iraq War would damage America's reputation forever. The campaigns in Vietnam and the bombings of Hiroshima/Nagasaki were far more atrocious. Other countries have gotten away with far worse.
World public opinion is something I take with a massive grain of salt. Just because Iraq was a big disaster, it doesn't automatically justify the actions of other countries. It only attests to the simple minded nature of many people in that they cannot fathom the notion that opposing parties can be equally bad. People think in the simplest of terms, in that one side is entirely good while the other is bad.
Not everywhere though as even people who were opposed to Iraq are still critical of Russia. We've seen that across a number of countries. France, who opposed Iraq under Chirac, was still critical of Russia's role in it's election. Macron called them out on it. Wariness of Russia comes from a number of sources. Former Soviet countries are wary of them due to past actions and many people who identify with progressive ideology dislike the country's slip into authoritarianism and it's attempts at reviving traditional Christian values. Russia in it's current states opposes LGBT rights, to the point that even the mayor of Sochi said that they don't have gays in the country. Then there's been censorship of media, including pop culture. The recent Beauty and the Beast movie got banned because it allegedly promoted homosexuality.
I personally think that Russia is a very fascinating country. It has tremendous natural beauty, fascinating architecture, great literature and arts, a very poetic language, intellectuals, yet despite those it has had a very brutal front. I'm not Russophobic at all, even though some of my posts may come off that way.
The Iraq war is one of the main reason why, despite the media, the vast majority of world public opinion is wary or downright skeptical of the current Russophobia environment....
LOL, as Boris Johnson said yesterday: "there is hardly a country in Europe that hasn't experienced a malign or disruptive behavior from Russia."
There is no such thing as Russophobia, it was made up by the Kremlin to explain away condemnation of its actions.
But they haven't as of now, that's the point. Without the US, I'd be unemployed tomorrow.
You would probably work for someone else....the simple reason is scale....USA has a huge homogeneous market that many others lack, including Europe....China has that and, in fact, few online IT giants are emerging there...
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Putin is quite intelligent himself. I'll give him that much even though I don't like him personally. He's also obviously quite jealous of the US and would like Russia to be that powerful, which is similar to most of the anti-Americanism I've seen. Most people masquerade it as being a result of war, but they are lying.
Putin said more than once that he admires some aspects of American culture.
Quote:
The Iraq War was a turning point for me, but in a very different way to what many would expect. It made me me realize that the protests and opposition was solely aimed at opposing big powers entering the war, as opposed to being humanitarian in nature. While I myself am critical of the war, I'm also vocal about my belief that no one really cares about it on a personal level. The reason I came to that conclusion, was due to the fact there was an even more devastating war going on in the Congo at the same time, to which almost everyone turned a blind eye, therefore I concluded that the loss of life was never the true purpose of the protests. If one cannot offer unconditional sympathy to suffering, then it loses it's value.
You could say that I have a very unconventional approach to observation, but that's because I put it through a scientific lens. In some ways you could say that even make me a hypocrite as I don't always use compassion as the defining metric and that's comes from historical lessons.
Many historical events lose their value over time which makes me question their true merit. Humans have been pilling up atrocity after atrocity since they first showed up, yet distant events become a footnote to history. This suggests a break with causality as what we have today is dictated by the distant past. People use past milestones only when it suits their agenda. Consider the ME, some use Iraq as the turning point, others point to the overthrow of Mossadegh, yet others blame colonialism as the root problem. if we go back even further, we see that Arabs were the first to invade Europe when they started conquering Byzantine territory.
This is why I don't consider most of the criticism of the US as valid (I'm talking about foreign policy here), since it plays loosely with the near past to gauge sympathy from it's supporters, not to mention tends to conveniently ignore the actions of other players. Why is intervention so wrong, when individual state actors subject their population to atrocities on a daily basis?
I want people to come up with a universally agreed upon time frame to determine the value of events. How am I supposed to know what that magic number is? The way I see it, all this criticism is slavishly shackled to time. If the ultimate outcome is oblivion, then why not fast track these events to irrelevance. To me there's not much of difference between Iraq, the battle of Marathon or the Crusades.
I hope some of this clarifies how I view the world.
I totally agree that a lot of anti-Americanism is disingenuous..conversely I find American idolatry as naive...that's all. Great powers act in certain way because they can, as simple as that.
Last edited by saturno_v; 03-20-2018 at 09:17 PM..
The Iraq War was a mistake by all measures, but that doesn't mean that Saddam was not a despot. His rule worked well for the Sunni minority, but not the Shia.
If we want to take all despots out we would be in a permanent state of war...and we could start from Saudi Arabia....
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I also fail to see why the Iraq War would damage America's reputation forever. The campaigns in Vietnam and the bombings of Hiroshima/Nagasaki were far more atrocious. Other countries have gotten away with far worse.
Oh, Vietnam did damage the image of America for sure, I did not say it was perfect before the Iraq war...but Vietnam was still a cold war conflict, a proxy war, you could make the case about defending the world from communism, the domino theory, etc...
Hiroshima for many is, even today, debatable...still a lot of people believe that it "saved lives" (I beg to differ) but it was hardly so clearly wrong like the Iraq war.
Putin in Syria ain't no saint but he ain't worse than the US...I strongly believe in a world with balance of power, without an overwhelming powerful nation that call all the shots.....it is a better world that way IMHO....
That's especially significant given that Johnson was in favor of Brexit and most Brexiteers are non-interventionists.
Have you ever heard Boris Johnson?? Listen to a two minutes video of him and everything will be clear about his level of competence and political ability...
Have you ever heard Boris Johnson?? Listen to a two minutes video of him and everything will be clear about his level of competence and political ability...
What I meant to say was that one can be critical of Iraq while still being wary of Russia's actions, not that he's competent. Most of the non- interventionists come from the far right these days, as they believe in isolationism.
Мы все-таки мудреем год от года / We are still getting smarter from year to year
Распятья нам самим теперь нужны / We need a сrucifixions ourselves now
Они - богатство нашего народа / It is the wealth of our people
Хотя и пережиток старины. / Although a relic of antiquity.
(с)Vladimir Vysotsky, 1975
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