mdk

Trump drops the MOAB (artist's rendition)

@mdkI get my information on Trump from his own twitter feed, where he calls anyone who disagrees with him weak, a loser, or fake news/media. How is that anything other than fanning division?

@KnightShade

This twitter feed? He does a lot more than 'fan division.'

But antifascist groups aren't the only ones protesting Trump.

I mean there's also convicted terrorists, convicted kidnapper/torturer/murderers, proponents of racial violence, and actual literal nazis. At some point you really have to stop and think.

And he's the President and they're not. He's supposed to have dignity and rise above pettiness. You can't blame everybody except the President, the buck is supposed to stop with him.

"We can act like shitheads all we want and if you respond at all you're petty" -- wait, who's the troll again?

Trump drops the MOAB (artist's rendition)

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I agree to some extent with that. I'm not going to pretend to understand fully the distinction between the strategies used, however the repetitive use of drone strikes didn't appear to be accomplishing anything to me. I don't necessarily favour a stronger approach than previously but I do favour a more purposeful one. I know that here in the UK for awhile our government only bothered to bomb ISIS before press releases, it was absurdly passe.

But globalised communications bring the fight home too. No matter how much spending you put into the military they can't fight a war in your own country. If we want to stop terrorism, which is supposedly what this is about, we have to engage in the ideological war at home too. Trump is vastly outgunned in that department. He's a caricature of an American who repeatedly seems incapable of seeing other viewpoints or stringing an argument together. He's done nothing but stir up divisions at home so far.

@KnightShade

"He's done nothing but stir up divisions at home so far" -- well, ah, um.... would you argue if I pointed out that the divisions are stirring themselves up? The stated objective of the Democrat party right now, right this very minute, is "make Trump furious." AntiFa is literally throwing bombs at pro-Trump rallies. "Impeach Trump" started before day one of the presidency. And I could go on and on, but the point is this: Trump isn't the one sowing discord here. If you're seeing a caricature you might wanna think about where you're getting your info. He's actually done quite a bit.

Anyway, moving back to the start of the post: drones honestly did accomplish quite a bit. The reason we're dealing with ISIS, and not Al Qaeda, is that we basically took AQ apart with drone strikes, bit by bit, piece by piece. It was very effective -- against the organization. What it failed to do was address the core ideology, because drones are the pinnacle of non-commitment. Drones are what you send when you don't care enough to put boots on the ground or even remotely near the ground. Like I said, still plenty effective in the short term. We killed a lot of terrorists with drones, and lots of them were senior leadership -- awesome, right? The MOAB was just one strike, so you can't exactly call it a strategy just yet, but it does a lot more than just kill a few guys. We destroyed an entire cave system -- that's a force-multiplier, it's what makes 100 or so terrorists seem like 500 because it enables them to do more damage.

.....and I'm getting a little into the weeds, so let's just slow it down and simplify. Obama's drone policy was under executive control -- basically he was running it. He controlled the rules of engagement. Trump has left all of that to one of the greatest military minds America has ever produced, and that's not an exaggeration, Mattis is a real-life anime war genius wunderkind. With one bomb, he's got these guys so rattled that they're already scrambling to make friends. (I know we hate them both, but they have not been friends).

TL:DR it's working, and we're not invading anybody. Hell we even got China to turn on the DPRK. Jesus it's all going so well.

Trump drops the MOAB (artist's rendition)

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We can't ignore the development of the internet and growth of internationally available mass media. Ideologies now spread far more effectively across borders, with more independence from governments, armies and printed newspapers, than they did during the World Wars.

@KnightShade

That works both ways though. The MOAB drop spread far more effectively across borders too. Also since WW2, the US has vastly (Vaaaaaastly) increased its military superiority to every other nation on earth, so our shows-of-force are more effective than they've ever been (short of nuking).

Non-state actors have been kicking our ass in the information-sharing department for a long time, in no small part because the last two presidents took a vastly different approach. New sheriff, new strategy, and it's a pretty sound one.

Trump drops the MOAB (artist's rendition)

<Snipped quote by mdk>

Not saying we shouldn't defend ourselves and our interests, just saying that it's a mindset that stems from a certain culture and set of beliefs, and bombs don't change that sort of thing.

@Lucian

On the contrary, bombs change mindsets all the time. Shit, we're posting in English after all. We didn't win the various world wars because of our superior identity politics.

Anywho the reason the MOAB makes me happy... when you talk a big game and don't follow through, that's really bad. When you back up your words with decisive action, your words have meaning again. THAT is the essential step towards peace.

Trump drops the MOAB (artist's rendition)

If it actually had any impact on this tunnel network, then great. Just can't help thinking this isn't a problem one can solve with firepower alone. It's a war of ideologies.

@Lucian

It's certainly not a war we can win on ideology alone, or we wouldn't still be here.

Trump drops the MOAB (artist's rendition)

After that was cleared up, it became boring information. News talking about it like ISIS is one place and Trump was the first person to think up bombing it, rather than this just being the gajillionith bomb we've tossed over there in our "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" version of foreign policy.

@Vilageidiotx

If we really did disable the tunnel network (or even just a part of it), this is a radical development. Personally I think the Syria strike, then the MOAB drop, were both timed to coincide with the fucking armada on its way to the DPRK. Lil' Kim is accustomed to some drone strikes; he (and China, our potential ally) needed to be reminded what we can do without chucking nukes.

Trump drops the MOAB (artist's rendition)

Oi, politidorks, hit me up with some nuanced articles you've been reading lately.

@Keyguyperson fuck u buddy

@mdk it's linked to politics, it's basically explaining the chronology of monarchy -> republic with representation or monarchies with representation (to a lesser degree) where the bourgeois began forming a public sphere (where private people come together in a public body to discuss matters related to politics) and how it progressed from there. The media was a nr. 1 tool for them more or less like the French political journals and stuff.

The author then argues that there was a change in modern society where that's no longer the case, or beginning to decrease, due to media being increasingly focused on crime and entertainment and how there is no longer a platform for politics unless it generates revenue.

Now I'm unsure where the change comes in

@Buddha

You should be able to get free school points by relating (read: force-fitting) the article into a "twitter age" conversation.

A, that last argument is just recency bias, so it's bullcrap. But B, it's irrelevant anyway because media is no longer the primary means of understanding current events. Instantaneous communication has supplanted it. The zeitgeist IS the story, but it's also how we hear/share/interact with the story.

Oi, politidorks, hit me up with some nuanced articles you've been reading lately.

Reading this for a class. If someone can give me some insights and explain/summarize it for me that'd be great because I am hitting neither shore nor ocean with my attempt at figuring it out. I am reading the words but they just don't materialize for me in my head as tangible things. It just seems like a lot of theory that doesn't make sense to me.

HELP

@Buddha

well that's politics alright

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Still waiting on my Soros Cheque.

Maybe I need to raid the Republican state headquarters.

@Dinh AaronMk

You keep your commie hands off my rubles.