US Formally Withdraws From Nuclear Treaty with Russia and Prepares To Test New Missile (cnn.com) 407
The United States formally withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia Friday, as the US military prepares to test a new non-nuclear mobile-launched cruise missile developed specifically to challenge Moscow in Europe, according to a senior US defense official. From a report: The US withdrawal puts an end to a landmark arms control pact that has limited the development of ground-based missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers and is sparking fears of a new arms race. "Russia is solely responsible for the treaty's demise," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement Friday announcing the US' formal withdrawal from the Cold-War era nuclear treaty. Pompeo said, "Russia failed to return to full and verified compliance through the destruction of its noncompliant missile system." NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told CNN's Hala Gorani that the treaty's end is a "serious setback."
Flying Crowbar (Score:5, Informative)
If the US really wants to freak the Russians out they should just announce the resumption of the Flying Crowbar [jalopnik.com] platform.
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The quote within from the 1990 A&S article is absolutely hilarious:
"This is thinly disguised environmentalist whacko propaganda, designed to make nuclear power seem dangerous in the sheeple’s mind. If we had gone ahead with this weapon, no telling what kind of technology we would have today."
We would have one hour trips from New York to Beijing but everyone dies along the route, including passengers! Maybe some specialized drone for a FedEx competitor...
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If the US really wants to freak the Russians out they should just announce the resumption of the Flying Crowbar [jalopnik.com] platform.
China is way ahead of both Russia and the US with its Flying Guillotine [wikipedia.org] technology.
When they arm that with nukes and come after us, it will be literally time to Duck and Cover.
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Why would that freak them out? They have their own. That's partly why this treaty was considered pointless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Intermediate Range (Score:2)
What about short range stuff? I want my Davy Crockett nuclear rifle!
Trump's gift to Putin (Score:5, Insightful)
Putin wants to build more intermediate range missiles he can use to attack Europe. Right now he's got to keep development of those missiles under wraps. This opens the door wide on those.
I should add before the trolls jump in (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I should add before the trolls jump in (Score:4, Insightful)
Trump is not a Russian mole. He's an idiot.
Well, we have already established that he isn't a Russian mole, nor is he an idiot. I do believe that this is a mistake. We should be concentrating on reducing nuclear weapons; not increasing them.
Ok, when have we established he's not an idiot? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is something people seem to have a really hard trouble with: the idea that somebody can make it to a high station of life not through merit, but through sheer dumb luck. Donald Trump is not playing 3D Chess here. He's a charlatan that took advantage of his father's wealth to become a celebrity and then the establishment running the worst candidate in human history to become president.
I saw this in IT working for Doctors who couldn't do basic computer tasks. And not old ones. Ones my age. I couldn't understand why they couldn't do basic computer tasks or stop clicking on virus laden emails. What I figured out is that it's not that they were smart. It was that they had well to do parents who could afford to support them until they were 30 and done with med school and they could put their heads down and memorize what they needed to memorize. Doctors have books that tell them exactly how to treat diseases. I found this out the hard way when a family member suffered a negative reaction from a drug and it wasn't a doctor that caught it and pulled them off the drug, it was another family member with a high school degree who looked into it....
What I'm saying is Trump looks smart because he's the president and we don't want to believe you can become president not through skill, smarts and hard work but through being handed literally everything in life. Falling up.
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>>> through sheer dumb luck.
I don't agree with this. Trump's major ability is bluster - he's willing to get into anyone and everyone's face at the drop of a hat, and use schoolyard bullying on anyone who doesn't fully support him. His rise has more to do with the spineless politicians and financiers that he's dealt with - people who were unwilling to face the barrage of bull that Trump and supporters would unleash at them if they opposed his initiatives.
This isn't dumb luck - this is simply a uni
Trump has been bankrupt more than once (Score:2)
Basically if Trump hadn't been handed $400 million inflation adjusted dollars by his dad he'd have been the night manager of a Jack In The Box after
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"he is a stupid idiot" assertion is one that has been commonly made against every sitting Republican President that I can remember in my lifetime.
Then you must be very young, because George Herbert Walker Bush was considered brilliant. He graduated Yale, wrote books, directed the CIA, and received military honors and honorary degrees. He wrote his own speeches. Even Ronald Reagan was considered of average intelligence. Any attacks on his intelligence were probably accurate since he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease only 5 years after leaving office. It was probably affecting him at least to some degree during his presidency.
You are simply unable to acknowledge that somebody who does not share your worldview could possibly be intelligent. It's okay, really it is.
LOL! Drop the f
Bush was marter than Reagan and Trump (Score:3)
Reagan was by far the dummest.
But the attack on Iraq was not, as some would have you believe, some clever conspiracy to steal their oil. It was plain stupid. Thinking with one's gut instead of one's brain. Having no understanding of the Middle East or history. And it was obviously stupid AT THE TIME to anyone that bothered to read a newspaper.
So no, Bush was not too smart. Nor did he manage a good team.
(Bush senior, on the other hand, did a decent job, and his attack on Iraq was both necessary and well
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Thank you for my laugh of the day, so far!
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We most certainly have not established that Trump is not a stooge for Russia.
We most certainly have not established that sjbe is not a stooge for Russia.
There is plenty of evidence to support the thesis that Putin or other parties in Russia have some amount of leverage or influence with Trump and his circle.
There is plenty of evidence to support the thesis that Putin or other parties in Russia have some amount of leverage or influence with sjbe and his circle.
The Mueller report explicitly declined to exonerate Trump despite having the opportunity to do so.
The Mueller report explicitly declined to exonerate sjbe despite having the opportunity to do so.
I dare you to present one piece of evidence. I'll also remind you that exoneration was not in Mueller's purview.
You morons are why he's going to win again.
Re:Plenty of smoke (Score:4)
Yes, we have. Now if you wish to have a intelligent conversation on the subject of withdrawing from the treaty and it ramification we well do so. But the the subject of Trump's intelligence and any mythical Russian conspiracies is closed.
I'm not so sure we have (Score:2)
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Trump's a man who couldn't sell alcohol, steak and gambling to Americans.
A man, a REAL man, takes responsibility for his actions and his mistakes. I have seen no evidence that Trumpy is capable of this. Therefor, not a man.
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This is among the most insightful comments I have read on Slashdot.
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Closest thing to an actually insightful comment I was able to find (based on the moderation).
However I think you should have considered the second-order effects. Now Putin is also free to push #PresidentTweety for much more expensive countermeasures. Some of the extremely short-sighted so-called Republicans welcome the military spending increases, but Putin has actually learned from history. One of the main contributions to the dissolution of the Soviet Union was military spending for "countermeasures", and
We lost that battle when we took the 9/11 bait (Score:2)
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*sigh* I can't give you any mod points because I never get any to give.
However, we haven't collapsed yet. It's going to be an amazing thud when it happens. The Soviet Union fizzled out quietly, but Americans have LOTS more guns.
I rather hope that Moscow Mitch finds out all of his loot is worthless and feels all sad when he can't get any social security for his last 5 or six months.
Public masturbation of 1183119 (Score:2)
Z^-1
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So you're disregarding completely that the Russians have been violating the treaty for years, then?
cf SSC8 (https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/ssc-8-novator-9m729/)
But yes, sure, the US leaving a treaty that the Russians were ignoring is a "gift to Putin".
Russia killed the treaty years ago with the SSC-8 (Score:5, Insightful)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... [nytimes.com]
Trump is only making it official.
Re:Russia killed the treaty years ago with the SSC (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.state.gov/timeline-of-highlighted-u-s-diplomacy-regarding-the-inf-treaty-since-2013/ [state.gov]
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Re: Russia killed the treaty years ago with the SS (Score:2)
Obama was busy polishing his Nobel and cheering Hillary on in Libya.
Slashdot (Score:3)
This...this isn't news for nerds. Bahoo hoo hoo...
Slashdot: News for angry political arguers.
Since when did Slashdot become about politics? (Score:2)
Honestly, I seems like the editors mostly care about Russiagate and related stories.
Give us more stories about Linux, FreeBSD, EFF, RMS, ESR, encryption, freedom of speech, digital surveillance, and how vim managed to become more popular than emacs.
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[dons asbestos suit]
Vim became more popular than emacs because it's better than emacs.
Myth and facts from State Dept concerning this (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.state.gov/inf-myth-busters-pushing-back-on-russian-propaganda-regarding-the-inf-treaty/ [state.gov]
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https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/INFtreaty/ [armscontrol.org]
hypocrites (Score:3)
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Remember the 80's? (Score:4, Insightful)
C'mon Elon... (Score:2)
pick up the pace on this "making humans multiplanetary" stuff...
conservitive equals backwards (Score:2)
Why do they think going backwards is better than going forwards. Quit doing things that don't work and find a new that will.
Good luck with that (Score:2)
" developed specifically to challenge Moscow in Europe,"
Poland maybe, if they get enough money.
Finally progress on climate change (Score:2)
Nuclear winter followed by near complete human depopulation will do wonders for meeting CO2 emission goals.
Re:Ha Ha (Score:4, Insightful)
I am pretty sure big bucks are being made developing weapons in Russia as well ...
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If you want to see a demo of MIC power - watch Tulsi Gabbard - they're smearing and attempting her complete destruction, for now more o
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She is now the human equivalent of a warrant canary - the evil bastards attempting to destroy her by any means possible will (are) reveal themselves and their tentacles into, well, just about everything.
And I don't even like her stances on most topics. So what, she's serving an important purpose here besides just calling out other D's on their hypocritical BS.
I don't know much about her, but my least favorite of her stances on topics so far is her total support for genocidal dictator Bashar Al-Assad.
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Are you sure there's no middle ground between "pro-endless-illegal-war" and "full political support of any asshole who starts a war?"
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No, I mean support-support, like parroting fact-free Assad regime propaganda, such as painting everyone fighting the Assad regime as "terrorists" and denying the chemical weapons attacks the Assad regime has carried out. It's like the difference between Obama's non-interventionist approach to North Korea, and arguing that North Korea should be left to do as they please because the Dear Leader and Juche are just so awesome.
It's a shame that WaPo is trying (unsuccessfully) to protect this article [washingtonpost.com] with a paywa
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I use the right combination of uMatrix rules. More work up front but less over time.
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I think she became the candidate with a BIG target on her back just the other night at the last Dem Debate.
She dared throw some rather unflattering and true facts at the new Dem 'darling' candidate, Kamala.
They started smearing Tulsi the minute that hit the TV, and Kamala couldn't answer to those alleg
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I'm with you, but one small correction.
It isn't "defense". The US hasn't had a defensive war since 1812. And no on Perl Harbor. It would not have been a thing if we hadn't been blocking Japan's oil imports. I don't think the US is imperialistic, but if we are, we are doing it all wrong. I do, however, think that there are a lot of people that justify big paychecks by convincing themselves that providing big guns to the US is a good thing.
Only right wing nitwits would laugh at this (Score:5, Insightful)
And most of you thought our government was colluding with Russia despite years of examples of Trump antagonizing Russia, now this....
This is a gift to Russia on so many levels:
1) Putin wants out from under the treaty's restrictions, now he gets that. Putin 1, America 0
2) The US, not Russia, tears up the treaty and takes the blame. Putin 2, America 0
3) Putin/Trump don't want to look like they're too chummy, what good is a Russian asset who is dismissed as a Russian asset. Putin 3, America 0
and the list goes on.
But go on sticking your empty, right-wing head in the sand. After all, what could possibly go wrong?
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1) Putin wants out from under the treaty's restrictions, now he gets that. Putin 1, America 0
Russia was not adhering to the restrictions. They were already "out from under" them
2) The US, not Russia, tears up the treaty and takes the blame. Putin 2, America 0
Who cares? This has zero impact on anything of substance.
Putin/Trump don't want to look like they're too chummy, what good is a Russian asset who is dismissed as a Russian asset. Putin 3, America 0
and the list goes on.
Exactly what has Trump done for Russia?
Re: Only right wing nitwits would laugh at this (Score:2, Funny)
So what if Russia wasn't complying with it. With the treaty in place sanctions can be levied against Russia for breaking it, sanctions that can hurt them. Without a treaty Russia isn't breaching anything so from Russias point of view, the USA is giving them exactly what they wanted.
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How does a lack of a treaty block sanctions? We don't have a treaty with Iran, which has had a LOT of sanctions placed on them.
Re:Only right wing nitwits would laugh at this (Score:5, Insightful)
Other than repeatedly blocking sanctions against Russian companies or Russian oligarchs, looking the other way whenever Russia does anything, basically giving them Syria, and publicly implying that the US might leave NATO or not honor its commitments to defend other NATO members if they were attacked?
Except for that stuff, who knows? Probably nothing.
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If I ever got a mod point to give, I'd give you the funny mod, even though the situation isn't funny and the discussion is overrun with trolls, mostly nameless.
On the main topic, and probably (or at least should have) already been said (because it's so obvious, though I haven't been able to find it amongst the trollage), is that Putin wanted the freedom to act that cancelling this treaty gives him. However, it would have looked bad if he cancelled it from the Russian side, so it was highly convenient that h
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Agree with you that RussiaGate was completely ridiculous from the get-go.
Mueller disagrees with you, and wrote about 100 pages detailing exactly how and why RussiaGate was real, with sources -- though some of it is redacted in the publicly-available copy, for various reasons. He also concluded that there was insufficient evidence of an overt or tacit agreement between the Trump campaign to cooperate in Russia's attempts to influence the election. That's not the same as saying he concluded Trump's campaign didn't cooperate with Russia, indeed he cited a fair amount of evidence
New missiles rein in Russia, its how we got treaty (Score:2)
This is a gift to Russia on so many levels
Only if you are delusional. Russia was already cheating so the Treaty ws effectively meaningless. You know what brought the Russians to the disarmament table in the past and kept them in compliance? The US researching and building new missiles. Doing so again is the only way to rein in Putin, polite words of disapproval will not.
Re: Only right wing nitwits would laugh at this (Score:4, Insightful)
Russia is the worldâ(TM)s 11th biggest economy with a population of 145 million. The east-west border has drifted from Berlin to somewhere east of Kiev since the cold war. Theyâ(TM)re ridiculously underpowered to threaten Europe unless itâ(TM)s an alliance with China and in that case itâ(TM)s WW3. Yes Ukraine was a reminder that we shouldnâ(TM)t let our invasion defense completely rot away, but anyone this side of the pond would laugh at you if you claimed that Putin is in any way dominating us.
Europe dependent upon Russian fuels (Score:3)
but anyone this side of the pond would laugh at you if you claimed that Putin is in any way dominating us.
Your infrastructure and power generation is increasingly dependent upon natural gas. When Putin threatens to shut down your supply get back to us regarding a lack of pressuring you.
Stalin was Hitler's partner until betrayed (Score:3)
... they all had the utter devastation of the "Great Patriotic War" in the back of their mind. They were there, up close and personal ...
Yes, up close and personal arming and supplying the Nazis before the war, collaborating with the Nazis to let them train troops and develop weapons in violation of Versailles, working with the Nazis to split up Eastern Europe into Nazi and Russian sphere's of influence, working with the Nazis to invade and split Poland between themselves. Yes Stalin and the rest were there, up close and personal collaborating with Hitler.
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I don't think this ia about Russia.
The rest of the world has not been idle when it comes to missiles like this. Iran may actually have better intermediate-range missiles than we do at this point, as they've been iterating continuously on the Russian SCUDs they started with, and at least on paper left them far behind. Who knows what the Chinese military has been up to, but they haven't een idle either.
Re:Ha Ha (Score:4, Informative)
Iran may actually have better intermediate-range missiles than we do at this point
An American Tomahawk (range: 2500 km), fired from either a submarine or surface ship in the waters of the Persian Gulf, can easily reach downtown Tehran with a W80 150 kT nuclear warhead (roughly 10 Hiroshimas).
Cruise missiles just need to be "good enough".
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So much for Trump colluding with Russia indeed.
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UK and France have their own damnd missiles.
Germany signed a treaty 60 years ago, to not have any missiles or any nukes.
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Exactly :P :D
But that was 70 years ago, get over it
The government is more than a few officials (Score:3)
And most of you thought our government was colluding with Russia despite years of examples of Trump antagonizing Russia, now this....
I never thought our government in general was colluding with Russia at any time. I am rather certain we have some highly placed officials (some elected, some not) who are definitely or very likely colluding with Russia or have conflicts of interest that do not favor US interests. Trump and his family very clearly have and have sought business interests and financing in Russia. If Putin doesn't have some leverage over Trump and/or some of his circle I cannot explain their behavior otherwise.
While it woul
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This isn't antagonizing Russia, but releasing them. Also, the US nukes aren't pointed at Russia, but at anyone in the world. We don't live in a world of two superpowers.
Re:Ha Ha (Score:5, Insightful)
This also means Russia can expand their Nuclear Weapons. While Russia may not want to hit the United States at the moment, there are other countries that Russia would like to point missiles to, and would give Russia more world power.
The United States use to have Soft Power that it could use to influence people. But Trump has burned most of it, in favor of just using our weapons as a motivator. Putting the US in a much worse position. While Russia who didn't have much soft power, now has more military power to oppress on the world.
Comrad Trump just played into the Russian hands. But the GOP just wants to feel like tough guys, so they spin it like it is a good idea, because the US can make more weapons that we probably never use too.
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Nope, the treaty that they made with Russia tied the US' hands.
Russia isn't the Boogey Man at the moment; you need a perceived enemy to justify funding the war machine.
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Our politicians and their military contractor donors can get lucrative contracts to build stuff.
A Trump reelection might even see the US back out of NATO obligations opening the doors to Russia bluffing its way into further expans
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You obviously have no understanding of what Putin would want from a pet US President. Putin does not want to be the friend of the US. He doesn't want us to be a partner or support him. He needs an enemy. It would be nice if that enemy helped in his casting them as the bad guys.
Putin wants the restoration of the Soviet Union minus much of its politics - more like a mafia run state than a communist run state. Reducing US economic and military power and international respect in any way he can is key. Anytime h
Re:Ha Ha (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody except the power elite knows what the true intentions of the power elite are.
Nope. The people in power don't know what they are doing either.
When I was in high school, my history teacher required us to read The Guns of August [wikipedia.org]. That book did more than any other to teach me how the world works. The people in power really don't know what they are doing. They will be petty, negligent, vain, rash, and incompetent, even when the lives of millions of people are at stake. That was true 105 years ago, and it is true today.
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Nonsense. Which tribe in Africa, Asia, North America or South America did not attempt to attack and overthrow neighboring tribes the moment they obtained enough power to do so? If you can name just one, I will consider myself corrected. World Wars were destined to happen just as soon as men developed the mechanization to do it.
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"What?" -- Charles Martel
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Err....you can still do that in the US too.
Re: Ha Ha (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I guess they just aren't reporting it, then.
Stats seem to show that London is a more violent city that NYC in the US. Of course they took everyones' firearms away, so they've had to become the stabbing capital of the world.
And also, the US is a VERY large country, so with that many people and places we're gonna have a lot of bad people, but per capita, it's not that bad.
Crime in the US has been coming down since the 70's and is at an all time low.
And the gun killing numbers are being very badly reported...for the most part they like to quote 40K a year.
Out of that, if you take out the approx 30K suicides (those aren't what people general think of as gun violent crime against others), you whittle that number down to about 10K a year....
Take out justified law enforcement shootings, and negligent discharges, and you have about 8,800 gun murders a year, mostly gang/drug violence.
That's just under 9K a year from a US population of about 327 Million people in the US.
It's barely a statistical "blip".
This is an interesting video describing the numbers [youtube.com].
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This is inspire of no guns hardly at all in the whole of GB. So, folks are going to use something if they don't have guns.
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Britain and the US do not report crimes in the same way. In the US, a homicide is a homicide. In Britain, a homicide is only a homicide if there is a conviction.
https://publications.parliamen... [parliament.uk]
Since 1967, homicide figures for England and Wales have been adjusted to exclude any cases which do not result in conviction, or where the person is not prosecuted on grounds of self defense or otherwise.
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And that thing you're typing on to act like Americans didn't invent anything. The transistor. The laser. The machine gun. The nuclear bomb. The assembly line. Round-Up.
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Beer. Yes, even Budweiser.
Wine.
This goes back to Sumer and the dawn of mankind. Beer and wine is a human invention - it doesn't belong to a nation or people, it belongs to humanity.
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I found the one that never read an actual history book!
We've been fighting amongst ourselves for our entire history. Usually, worse than this. But, if you want to stop the infighting real quick, launch an attack on us. It is sort of the "I can fight my brother, but you better not."
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The "right" to levy sanctions? Do we have a "right" to levy sanctions against Iran? What treaty gives us that "right"?
Re:So much for a new era of peace and cooperation. (Score:5, Insightful)
This deal has been in place in some form since the end of the Cold War and since the Obama years, Russia has never really followed up with UN inspections. This was already thing during the Gulf War already and escalated under Obama but nobody was going to pressure China or Russia, especially Europe has been kowtowing to Russia just so they could avoid another Cold War.
Learn some history, the US in general (not just Trump) has been very reluctant since Vietnam to escalate issues anywhere and Europe has wholesale given up on the notion of self-defense. The UK, one of the biggest military powerhouses let two of their boats be captured by Iran and did literally nothing, at least the US claimed to do some retaliation. That simply emboldens the Iranian regime.
Europe rather accepts an invasion from both Russia (through Ukraine and other Russian satellite states) and the Middle East (funded mass-migration) than a conflict, again, emboldening Russia and others in the region (Palestine etc) to do what they’re doing.
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Wasn't the INF treaty from the Reagan era?
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Re:So much for a new era of peace and cooperation. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's why I compared it to road rage.
Road rage makes the 'winning' aggressor feel dominant, filled with testosterone and an internal narrative. But it doesn't fix the actual problem they were angry with to begin with - they're still playing a gambling game of risk vs benefit - and dramatically increasing the risk by playing a more dangerous game.
And the next time they're in the same circumstance, the cycle of anger and seeking triumph only gets ramped up. Until consequences - which only increase the same unhappiness with an increasingly broken narrative.
That's Trump support - feeling triumph swatting your fellow travelers, moving maybe a few seconds ahead of them...but making the transit worse for yourself over time.
It's a strategy - but one that makes the whole process worse for everyone in both cases.
Ryan Fenton
Re:So much for a new era of peace and cooperation. (Score:4, Interesting)
(Disclaimer: I did not vote for Trump and think he is the worst President ever to hold office)
Hi Ryan,
If I may, it is a little more subtle than that. The people that elected Trump are angry and that anger has been building for a long time. It started with the NAFTA treaty and kept building as the people affected by NAFTA and the free trade philosophy lost jobs and had their earnings stay flat for so long. Obama gave them hope with the promise to change things..and things stayed the same. And then Hillary became the nominee. And the people who had been promised change and that things would be better saw Bill Clinton 2.0 . So they finally revolted and voted for Trump. Because anyone was better than the embodiment of what started their decent in life.
Basically, many of the angry Trump supporters are very similar to the young males of the Civil rights black population of the 1960's that rioted. Martin Luther King confronted one of them asking why he had destroyed something. The person responded that "now they have to acknowledge us. Now they will listen"
You are totally correct in that their anger and channeling of it is destructive. Both to them and to us in the long term. But we need to start listening to them because they have legitimate issues and for far too long the political establishment has not listened. And make no mistake about it, Trump has shown other politicians the way to galvanize this base and most of the politicians that follow will not be unintelligent as Trump is.
Gordon
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Yes - history is filled to the brim with stories of rebellions that turned around and acted exactly against the causes they worked for.
Anger and outrage are the fuel for moving and changing leadership - which is exactly why the voting process to sidestep the whole violence part of that process was established - because the self-defeating aspects of this process are kind of obvious across thousands of cultures over time.
If any story is appropriate for Trump it would be Crassus - a real estate mogul given une
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Lots of experimental evidence suggests we aren't in control of even the decisions, and all our conscious brain does is rationalize ex-post facto.
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Sure he lies and is no role model
Wrong. Trump is POTUS and is a de facto role model.
How does this hurt Russia? (Score:2)
How can Trump love Putin as much as that crass late night comedy guy says if he is pulling out of a peace treaty with him.
By all means please tell us how this treaty withdrawal in any way hurts Russia or Putin. Dazzle me. They already have the weapons. Putin can (and will) easily spin it as an act of American aggression since we are the ones tearing up the treaty. Now Putin has a free hand to build and sell the weapons and he gets to blame the US for making it possible.
Yeah quite the negotiating genius we have in the White House...
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