US Military's Knee on the Throat of the World

[georgephillip]

Trump ran on reducing tensions with Russia and reducing interventions, and you people dogpiled him and got him to back off on those policies.

Democrats criticized Trump for the policies you mention, and I give him credit for not resorting to starting another war (yet).

Initially, I was hoping for a better relationship with Russia, but as it turned out, the gangsters running that state can't agree with US gangsters on how to divide the global spoils.

We each meddle in the politics and elections of the other, and I strongly suspect decades of doing business with rich Russian gangsters have compromised Trump in ways we won't see until his financials become part of the public record.

 

[georgephillip]

Where were you when your side (and many from my side) were beating the war drums against Putin?

Putin came of age politically speaking during the 90s, when the US determined the outcome of a Russian presidential election

Neither side is likely to stop interfering in the other side's elections, but with Putin in office until 2036, it will be difficult to reduce tensions.

Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com

"There has indeed been lots of speculation that dirty tricks were used that year to push Yeltsin past the post.

"The powerful oligarchs in Yeltsin's circle have said on the record before that their goal was to get Yeltsin a second term by any means necessary. By 1996, Russia's transition to capitalism had impoverished millions of people.

"The economic reforms known as "shock therapy" had caused hyperinflation, and Yeltsin had gotten himself entangled in a highly unpopular war with the separatist region of Chechnya.

"Meanwhile, the Communist Party candidate, Gennadi Zyuganov, was promising the people a return to the stability of the U.S.S.R.

"In the first round of voting, the two were neck and neck, with Yeltsin getting 35% against 32% for Zyuganov. Yeltsin narrowly won in a runoff vote with 53.8%."

You want to defund the military now, even though President Trump hasn’t started any new wars, as he promised

He has increased "defense" spending to post WWII record levels, and his drone strikes are killing more civilians than Obama's:

Trump wants to cut $54 billion in spending from domestic agencies — that's enough to wipe several of them out

 

[DustyInfinity]

They can sail their warships within 12 miles of our coast too, oh wait, they aren't a blue water navy.

Or perhaps they don't want to rule the world?

"JULY 3, 2020
The US Military Has Its Knee on the Throat of the World
by ELLEN TAYLOR "

"The manner in which we treat other nations contains many of the same elements as the racism and violence which the demonstrations on our streets are denouncing.

"The US military has its knee on the throat of the world.

"We must vanquish this shape-shifting, Orwellian spectre with which our overlords ensnare us, with their lies of “they hate our freedoms”. Defund the Pentagon!

"It would save millions of lives."

Only one country has maimed, murdered, and displaced millions of innocent civilians on the opposite side of the planet from its homeland over the past 75 years, and it's not China or Russia, is it?

No, Russia and China seem to be OK with just maiming, murdering and displacing their own citizens.

Why travel when you don't have to?

and care to back up that "millions" number?

FOAD you communist has been.

I wish we didn't need a huge military, but China is already pestering India, and Russia would go through the rest of the Ukraine and keep going through Europe. The Indian Military is very, very good, but they are sandwiched in between Pakistan and China. Not a good situation. I wonder what liberals think would happen if we told the rest of the world to fend for themselves?

 

[DustyInfinity]

Which country poses the greatest threat to global peace?
Who gets rich from that?

"JULY 3, 2020
The US Military Has Its Knee on the Throat of the World
by ELLEN TAYLOR"

"As Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, observed, 'The character of war is changing frequency'.

"The messy, scrappy, unsatisfying, asymmetrical wars in the devastated Middle East have lost the interest of our warriors, as two worthier adversaries, China and Russia, have been conjured up, and now grip their attention.

"Although our budget comprises over 40% of the world’s military spending, and China and Russia spend respectively one-sixth and one-tenth of ours, the Pentagon refers to them generously as “near-peers”.

"China and Russia are not eager for these roles.

"We have had to torment them, like reluctant bulls in a bullfight.

"We sail our warships within twelve miles of their shores, conducting vast military exercises in the South China Sea, the Black Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Japan Sea.

"Thousands of US troops marched across Europe this spring to perform military exercises along Russia’s borders.

"Arleigh-Burke class guided missile destroyers, with aerial escort, performed maneuvers this May, close to the Russian coast in the Barents Sea, to enforce 'freedom of navigation'".

Time to defund the Pentagon?

Well, thanks to Trump and McConnell we may have to choose between the Navy and soc sec/medicare. But that may be a different issue than your thread.

I don't think Russia and China can be viewed together. Russia seems to be about Putin's Russia reacquiring its territories of the Czarist era. That includes Ukriaine. Geogia and the Baltics. Putin's already reacquired Belarus. At the heart, I just don't think Russian's view personal autonomy as being as central to the reason of being as Westerners do. Bruno, Galileo and the holocaust just don't have the same meaning to them and westerners. It's grip on its WWII pacific acquisitions was never challenged. Putin also views the US as a personal existential threat based upon Carter and Reagan toppling the Soviet Empire in Afghanistan.

Russian Empire - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

China is imo a much bigger issue. The question imo is that without the US Navy, would China treat Japan, SK, the Philippines, Vietnam and their neighbors to the West differnently than Hong Kong? Taiwan's future is probably already sealed, and Gulags are planned. Trump was right at least as far as the US being the world's chump in making sure China had access to western markets.

Don't forget India. China is already messing with India.

 

[DustyInfinity]

Does anyone else think it is a problem that Nato Countries are energy dependent on Russia? Do you think the EU would even try to stand up to Putin?

 

[martybegan]

They can sail their warships within 12 miles of our coast too, oh wait, they aren't a blue water navy.

Or perhaps they don't want to rule the world?

"JULY 3, 2020
The US Military Has Its Knee on the Throat of the World
by ELLEN TAYLOR "

"The manner in which we treat other nations contains many of the same elements as the racism and violence which the demonstrations on our streets are denouncing.

"The US military has its knee on the throat of the world.

"We must vanquish this shape-shifting, Orwellian spectre with which our overlords ensnare us, with their lies of “they hate our freedoms”. Defund the Pentagon!

"It would save millions of lives."

Only one country has maimed, murdered, and displaced millions of innocent civilians on the opposite side of the planet from its homeland over the past 75 years, and it's not China or Russia, is it?

No, Russia and China seem to be OK with just maiming, murdering and displacing their own citizens.

Why travel when you don't have to?

and care to back up that "millions" number?

FOAD you communist has been.

I wish we didn't need a huge military, but China is already pestering India, and Russia would go through the rest of the Ukraine and keep going through Europe. The Indian Military is very, very good, but they are sandwiched in between Pakistan and China. Not a good situation. I wonder what liberals think would happen if we told the rest of the world to fend for themselves?

Russia and China win, and that's not a bug for them, it's a feature.

 

[bendog]

Does anyone else think it is a problem that Nato Countries are energy dependent on Russia? Do you think the EU would even try to stand up to Putin?

Putin needs someone to buy his gas. But the question might be whether Germany would do anything if Putin "reacquired" Ukraine or the Baltics. The market for Russian goods, aside from gas, is pretty much limited to countries with govts that won't let citizens freely import western goods. Russia is just not like the West. We don't acquire foreign countries gnp or economic markets by invading them. That is just so passe post Hitler. LOL

Even Iraq and the neocons was not about that. W would never have let the neocons invade if they hadn't sold him on the mythological chance of creating a quasi republican/individual property state in the middle east. All the neocons needed was to get the Iraqi oil into the global market to keep the price down. And ironically, the price is too low for American producers now. Talk about a clusterfuck … without discussing the million or so Iraqis who got killed, and creating Isis.

 

[Godboy]

You think China doesnt want to rule the world?

I KNOW China doesn't currently have over 800 military bases in more than 70 countries. I KNOW China has not killed millions of innocent civilians on the opposite side of the planet since 1945.

US military bases – geographical imaginations
Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World Today?
It's not China.

Whatever.

 

[georgephillip]

Funny how any talk of drawing down US forces in Europe is immediately criticized by the left as “reckless” or “doing Putin’s bidding”.

Any withdraw from South Korea or Japan by President Trump would be immediately called “surrendering to China”.

You leftwing maggots are so predictable.

You're prone to confusing "leftwing maggots" with New Democrats like Biden, Clinton, and Obama just to name a few.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans can afford to turn their back on the American Empire's military spending since that is how the US has gained its "free lunch" by establishing the dollar's as international currency:

Dollar Recycling | Michael Hudson

"My book 'Super Imperialism' was about how the United States has gained a free lunch by establishing the dollar as international reserve currency by replacing gold.

"I also showed that the U.S. balance of payments deficit is almost entirely military related to support its 800 bases around the world.

"Ending the gold-exchange standard in 1971 created a situation in which the excess U.S. dollars thrown off by the U.S. payments deficit end up in foreign central banks."

Those foreign central banks use their excess US dollars to buy Treasury bonds and bills, IOUs of the US Government, thereby subsidizing the US military's presence around the planet.

 

[georgephillip]

Fuck you you limey bastard

Too much MAGA, Moron?

 

[Rocko]

Fuck you you limey bastard

Too much MAGA, Moron?

FUCK YOU, filthy Eurotrash, evil Fuck. Go directly to hell and take your entire country with you!

 

[georgephillip]

Umm - no.

Who's paying for this?

Many Chinese believe US investors would like to pillage China the same way they looted Russia in 1993-94 when Russians paid 100 percent a year to wealthy Americans for dollar backing they did not even need.

At the end of that road, Russia had to sell off its nickel mines, electric utilities, and its oil reserves; although, the US wasn't successful in prying Crimea away from Russia.

Similar tactics today make China believe the US would like to divide the country into three or four distinct states with Hong Kong and Macau hosting US military bases.

Is that a policy you endorse?

Dollar Recycling | Michael Hudson

 

[theHawk]

You think China doesnt want to rule the world?

I KNOW China doesn't currently have over 800 military bases in more than 70 countries. I KNOW China has not killed millions of innocent civilians on the opposite side of the planet since 1945.

US military bases – geographical imaginations
Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World Today?
It's not China.

Yea, China has only killed millions of its own people.
Although we’ve yet to see the final extent of their Wuhan virus.

 

[theHawk]

Umm - no.

Who's paying for this?

Many Chinese believe US investors would like to pillage China the same way they looted Russia in 1993-94 when Russians paid 100 percent a year to wealthy Americans for dollar backing they did not even need.

At the end of that road, Russia had to sell off its nickel mines, electric utilities, and its oil reserves; although, the US wasn't successful in prying Crimea away from Russia.

Similar tactics today make China believe the US would like to divide the country into three or four distinct states with Hong Kong and Macau hosting US military bases.

Is that a policy you endorse?

Dollar Recycling | Michael Hudson

Jesus, conspiracy theorize much?

 

[georgephillip]

He’s a self admitted communist. He hates America and wants to see it destroyed.

Actually, he wants to see America live up to its propaganda about liberty and equality of opportunity instead of its history of white supremacy.

 

[theHawk]

He’s a self admitted communist. He hates America and wants to see it destroyed.

Actually, he wants to see America live up to its propaganda about liberty and equality of opportunity instead of its history of white supremacy.

America doesn’t have a history of white supremacy. Just the Democrats do.

 

[georgephillip]

YES, YES...The United States Of America is a terrible place full of terrible people doing terrible things.
You should stay the fuck out and tell all your foreign buddies to stay the fuck out as well please...Thanks in advance.

The rich parasites who control the US government are indeed terrible people. Just look at the imbecile currently living in the White House if you doubt that. I've been listening to your "love it or leave it" drivel for decades, and it means less today than it did fifty years ago. Maybe you should say it in Russian?

Before emigrating.

 

[OKTexas]

Which country poses the greatest threat to global peace?
Who gets rich from that?

"JULY 3, 2020
The US Military Has Its Knee on the Throat of the World
by ELLEN TAYLOR"

"As Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, observed, 'The character of war is changing frequency'.

"The messy, scrappy, unsatisfying, asymmetrical wars in the devastated Middle East have lost the interest of our warriors, as two worthier adversaries, China and Russia, have been conjured up, and now grip their attention.

"Although our budget comprises over 40% of the world’s military spending, and China and Russia spend respectively one-sixth and one-tenth of ours, the Pentagon refers to them generously as “near-peers”.

"China and Russia are not eager for these roles.

"We have had to torment them, like reluctant bulls in a bullfight.

"We sail our warships within twelve miles of their shores, conducting vast military exercises in the South China Sea, the Black Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Japan Sea.

"Thousands of US troops marched across Europe this spring to perform military exercises along Russia’s borders.

"Arleigh-Burke class guided missile destroyers, with aerial escort, performed maneuvers this May, close to the Russian coast in the Barents Sea, to enforce 'freedom of navigation'".

Time to defund the Pentagon?

A commie running interference for commie countries, who'd a thunk. LMAO Perhaps you should pick one and move there.

.

 

[georgephillip]

China killed hundreds of millions of its own citizens with communism. Mao even had his own wife killed. Have to do better than that gp. You're slipping big time.

Old age catches up with all of us, LBT
Why do you think the communists won in China?

Chinese Civil War - Wikipedia

"Historian Odd Arne Westad says the Communists won the Civil War because they made fewer military mistakes than Chiang Kai-shek and also because in his search for a powerful centralized government, Chiang antagonized too many interest groups in China. Furthermore, his party was weakened in the war against the Japanese.

"Meanwhile, the Communists targeted different groups, such as peasants, and brought them to their side.[73]

"Chiang wrote in his diary in June 1948: 'After the fall of Kaifeng our conditions worsened and became more serious. I now realized that the main reason our nation has collapsed, time after time throughout our history, was not because of superior power used by our external enemies, but because of disintegration and rot from within."[74]

"The USSR generally supported Chiang's forces. Stalin distrusted Mao, tried to block him from leadership as late as 1942, and worried that Mao would become an independent rival force in world communism."

 

[georgephillip]

Communist assholes trying to make the world into a Bolshevik shit hole is what created the Military/Industrial Complex. Kill your communism/socialism nonsense and the military can stand down.

Harry Truman created the MIC in 1945 when he refused to allow free elections in Korea.

United States Army Military Government in Korea - Wikipedia

"The United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) was the official ruling body of the southern half of the Korean Peninsula from September 8, 1945 to August 15, 1948.

"The country during this period was plagued with political and economic chaos, which arose from a variety of causes.

"The after-effects of the Japanese occupation were still being felt in the occupation zone, as well as in the Soviet zone in the North.[1]

"Popular discontent stemmed from the U.S. Military Government's support of the Japanese colonial government; then once removed, keeping the former Japanese governors on as advisors; by ignoring, censoring and forcibly disbanding the functional and popular People's Republic of Korea (PRK); and finally by supporting United Nations elections that divided the country.[1]"

It's likely Truman took these steps in 1945 because the US had nuclear weapons and Stalin did not. When the inevitable war of reunification came five years later, both sides possessed the devices.