Gyroscopic Investing

notsheigetz wrote: The point of posting the picture was that I just find the U.S. now appointing itself to be the punisher of anyone using chemical weapons 40 years later to be somewhat hypocritical.

It's sort of similar to the way the U.S. gets so indignant about any country that wants to get nuclear weapons to protect itself from foreign aggressors.

MediumTex wrote:

notsheigetz wrote: The point of posting the picture was that I just find the U.S. now appointing itself to be the punisher of anyone using chemical weapons 40 years later to be somewhat hypocritical.

It's sort of similar to the way the U.S. gets so indignant about any country that wants to get nuclear weapons to protect itself from foreign aggressors.

That's because once a country has nuclear weapons, the US can't attack it.

Libertarian666 wrote: That's because once a country has nuclear weapons, the US can't attack it.

Bingo. Which is why they all want 'em. Can't blame them, really. If I was the defense minister for a hypothetical libertarian/anarchist/private society, my top priority would be the acquisition of nuclear weapons and submarines capable of holding them. It really is the best defense.

If I couldn't get any of those, my next best choice would probably be long-range drones with explosive or poisonous payloads.

Pointedstick wrote:

Libertarian666 wrote: That's because once a country has nuclear weapons, the US can't attack it.

Bingo. Which is why they all want 'em. Can't blame them, really. If I was the defense minister for a hypothetical libertarian/anarchist/private society, my top priority would be the acquisition of nuclear weapons and submarines capable of holding them. It really is the best defense.

If I couldn't get any of those, my next best choice would probably be long-range drones with explosive or poisonous payloads.

If Elon Musk can have personal orbital launch capability, surely a private enterprise society should be able to afford that.

The great irony about weapons is that the mighty always want them most of all because they like might and violence, but in reality, they don't really need them; it's in fact the weak who benefit most, because weapons put them on the same level as the mighty.

If nuclear weapons had never been invented, conventional force and numbers would still rule the day, and a tiny island of 20,000 people could never hope to be safe against attack from mightier nations. But now that governments invented nukes, that tiny island society could get some and threaten the largest and most belligerent nations, and so ensure their own safety.

Same thing with guns on a micro scale, really. A mighty warrior or powerful thug doesn't need a gun to hurt his victims. But his victims can use guns to stop the threat instantly. In medieval times, nobles and knights hated guns for just this reason. Personal firearms challenged the might monopoly of the mighty.

Nobody seems to be addressing the fact that we are signatory to international treaties regarding certain weapons such as chemical, biological and nuclear. While I personally believe that such treaties are ineffective and should not be entered into, what should we, or the so called "international community", do about violators ?

Mdraf wrote: Nobody seems to be addressing the fact that we are signatory to international treaties regarding certain weapons such as chemical, biological and nuclear. While I personally believe that such treaties are ineffective and should not be entered into, what should we, or the so called "international community", do about violators ?

Is Syria a signatory to any of these treaties?

Ad Orientem wrote:

Mdraf wrote: Nobody seems to be addressing the fact that we are signatory to international treaties regarding certain weapons such as chemical, biological and nuclear. While I personally believe that such treaties are ineffective and should not be entered into, what should we, or the so called "international community", do about violators ?

Is Syria a signatory to any of these treaties?

They are not. That's why I think these treaties are ineffective

TennPaGa wrote:

Mdraf wrote:

Ad Orientem wrote: Is Syria a signatory to any of these treaties?

They are not. That's why I think these treaties are ineffective

So I guess they aren't violators of the treaty, which was the premise of your question.

Exactly. So your implication is that if they were signatories then they should be attacked and since they are not then they should be left alone ? Is that what you are saying? Correct me if I'm wrong

Mdraf wrote: Nobody seems to be addressing the fact that we are signatory to international treaties regarding certain weapons such as chemical, biological and nuclear. While I personally believe that such treaties are ineffective and should not be entered into, what should we, or the so called "international community", do about violators ?

What about the international agreements that are supposed to prevent one country from attacking another without provocation?

I suspect that the U.S. has violated that one on several occasions in recent decades.

When you look at the invasions, bombings, assassinations, coups, embargoes, and other acts of aggression carried out by the U.S. in the last century, it seems a little silly to talk about Syria violating international law.

I can't believe I am quoting Noam Chomsky, but one of the things that he has said about 9/11 is that as he travels the world he detects a sense of confusion in many foreigners about why the U.S. found 9/11 so upsetting.  The sentiment seems to be "If the U.S. finds having your cities attacked so offensive, why have they been attacking other cities for decades?"  Rather than exploring this question in any detail, though, the U.S. responded to 9/11 by immediately bombing many cities, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq, and in the following years on a selective basis bombing individuals who we didn't like through predator strikes.  Now we are on the cusp of bombing Syrian cities.

Do we not understand that to citizens of other countries, it's hard to distinguish 9/11 from what has happened to their own cities at the hands of the U.S.?

What would we say to a Vietnamese, Korean, Afghan, Iraqi, Panamanian, or Libyan who said that if we don't like having our cities bombed, perhaps we should consider stopping our practice of bombing other cities around the world?

If we say that the U.S. has a special entitlement to bomb the cities that it thinks need to be bombed, then I would say blowback will be with us for the foreseeable future, and maybe we're okay with that.  The thing is, though, I don't really think that we are, especially when we consider that 9/11 itself was basically just blowback from decades of U.S. Middle East policies.

Understand that I'm not saying that America "deserved" to be attacked on 9/11, but I am also saying that perhaps many other cites around the world that the U.S. has attacked also didn't "deserve" to be attacked either.

As Harry Browne noted, violence is usually a downward spiral that only leads to more violence, but which gives governments a pretext for consolidating power under the guise of "protecting" us from various hostile foreign interests, even though these foreign interests are often only hostile because of specific U.S. acts of aggression.  This whole NSA spying on Americans thing under the guise of "protecting" us from some vaguely defined threat is a great example.

I would say that if the U.S. government REALLY wanted to protect Americans from foreign threats, we would stop bombing, invading and otherwise attacking other countries.  As we found with Reagan's Libya missile strikes and on a much larger scale Clinton's Afghanistan missile strikes, such actions often generate asymmetrical, unanticipated and disproportionate responses, sort of like you find when you poke a hornets' nest with a stick.

All countries want to further their self interest. The global self interest of the US is stability. Stability is needed for commerce and enrichment which is what the "American Dream" is all about. So our global adventures all have the common thread of suppressing what we consider to be a threat to global stability.

This is still preferable to other global goals (eg. enrichment through conquest). Utopian goals such as  "live and let live"  are unrealistic.

TennPaGa wrote:

Mdraf wrote: So our global adventures all have the common thread of suppressing what we consider to be a threat to global stability.

The evidence says the U.S. is not doing a very good job at achieving this goal.

As I recall, the British used the same implicit rationale for attempting to put down the American Revolution.

As with so many things that governments try to do, I would say that attempting to maintain global stability is probably not going to work out too well in the long run, as most empires are eventually surprised to discover.

MediumTex wrote:

TennPaGa wrote:

Mdraf wrote: So our global adventures all have the common thread of suppressing what we consider to be a threat to global stability.

The evidence says the U.S. is not doing a very good job at achieving this goal.

As I recall, the British used the same implicit rationale for attempting to put down the American Revolution.

All things considered... they may have been right.

MediumTex wrote:

TennPaGa wrote:

Mdraf wrote: So our global adventures all have the common thread of suppressing what we consider to be a threat to global stability.

The evidence says the U.S. is not doing a very good job at achieving this goal.

As I recall, the British used the same implicit rationale for attempting to put down the American Revolution.

As with so many things that governments try to do, I would say that attempting to maintain global stability is probably not going to work out too well in the long run, as most empires are eventually surprised to discover.

The British Empire's method of enrichment was not free trade.  It was the extraction of natural  resources from its colonies and forced taxation on its colonies.  It even went as far as forcing China to buy its opium so it could in turn purchase porcelain, tea and silk. China did not want to engage in such commerce so Britain sent in the gunboats.

Mdraf wrote: I somehow think that this is all bluster and nothing will happen. Some mediator (Jimmy Carter ?) or a UN guy will pop out to "mediate". Obama will jump at the opportunity to do nothing and go back to his golf.

Just reminding you all about my prediction when this crisis started..

Yes, but who thought that the "mediator" would turn out to be Vladimir Putin?

And who knew that Obama would secretly agree to let Iran off the hook and keep their nuclear program for obtaining the figleaf of removing Syria's chemical weapons?

Reub wrote: Yes, but who thought that the "mediator" would turn out to be Vladimir Putin?

And who knew that Obama would secretly agree to let Iran off the hook and keep their nuclear program for obtaining the figleaf of removing Syria's chemical weapons?

Why Reub, I can't predict EVERYTHING. If I could I wouldn't need the PP !!

Really good version of the last couple of years of the Syrian War in 5 minutes. Worth the watch.

http://www.vox.com/2015/11/14/9735102/s ... tory-video

Nicely done, Mdraf! 
--
That does look like a good video from Vox. Could be my dessert after a heavy Fargo meal.

dualstow wrote: Nicely done, Mdraf! 

Mekong Delta Riverine Assault Force?

Greg wrote:

dualstow wrote: Nicely done, Mdraf! 

Mekong Delta Riverine Assault Force?

Managing Director at Royal Fettucine

dualstow wrote:

Greg wrote:

dualstow wrote: Nicely done, Mdraf! 

Mekong Delta Riverine Assault Force?

Managing Director at Royal Fettucine

Ahh. Makes MUCH more sense... hah.

Oh, wait, that would be MDARF.

http://usuncut.com/news/what-americans- ... zi-europe/

Thoughts?

Greg wrote: Really good version of the last couple of years of the Syrian War in 5 minutes. Worth the watch.

http://www.vox.com/2015/11/14/9735102/s ... tory-video

That's a great little video