Off Topic > Off Topic
U.S.A. Politics Thread
Aide33:
--- Quote from: Deus Ex on August 25, 2022, 05:47:02 AM ---forgive student debt without plugging the hole and ending student loan programs is a great idea bc then you can buy another few million votes in a few years when the situation occurs again, print more money and cause inflation, taxing the very people who need it by devaluing the currency they own
but whoop whoop no debt teehee
handicapped but that's abt what I expect from this admin
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except he has plugged the hole, you didnt read the legislation at all
on top of forgiving 10-20k of the student loans, he made it so that anyone paying student loans only has to pay back a small amount per month (5% of their total income minimum) and all of that interest free
this makes it so that instead of being investment vehicles for interest the loans just become loans to help students, this has cut down the repayment time for some people by like 20 years.
even if he was bribing people, literally why the forget arent politician bribing people, it's their literal JOB TO DO THAT, to help working people.
holy forget you americans are so loving cucked into giving the government forgettons of money and defend them when they give none of it back and do nothing with it.
i do not understand how brandon has devalued our currency when almost every other currency on earth is now worth less than ours
Aide33:
when the government takes 30% of your salary elsewhere in the world: "give us it back in the form of social services and aid for the working class"
when the government takes 30% of your salary in the us: "oh sorry mr government keep giving more to ukraine and raytheon, i didn't mean to upset you i dont expect anything in return i am pulling myself up by my bootstrapts by working for 7.5/hr at mcdonalds for 80 hours a week, hike my taxes and cut taxes for the rich, mr bezos deserves an extra 5 trillion dollars he works so hard"
Mardalf:
Wait some people actually think that? wow.
Deus Ex:
Totally defending the government not giving us money back after stealing it
handicapo brain prevented you from making a proper point, u just had to try to go for the throat and make urself look dumb, a real shame
PhantOS:
--- Quote from: Drydess on August 24, 2022, 04:20:34 PM ---this has nothing to do with what I told you. not only is it wrong to “hope for competent invaders” when there are maybe 10 countries in the world who have put armies into foreign countries since 1993, but the US is not a “competent invader”. the fact that you quoted the drone program as some sort of tactical success for minimizing civilian casualties (see daniel hale’s drone papers) demonstrates your lack of understanding of american warfare and, more importantly, diplomacy. you said that the drone strikes are good but there’s not enough intelligence around it to confirm the target is an “unlawful enemy combatant” (lol) beforehand and afterwards, my answer is that this is by design because there is zero incentive for them to actually do this when terrorism (unlawful attacks on civilians) creates more people to spend money to kill. it’s like when an IT guy unplugs the server and plugs it back in so that he can make sure his boss doesn’t fire him because there aren’t any IT problems going on at the time he can actually fix.
US intelligence released a story the other day that russia might start striking more civilian infrastructure, which is hilarious because striking civilian infrastructure and utilities is the first thing that the US does in a war. in yugoslavia, close to 8 thousand serbs died from the bombings— most of them because there wasn’t running water, power, gas, or food supply chains in lieu of the embargo.
you said that, in iraq, the US’s problem was that they didn’t ‘follow through’ to create a stable country after the war (officially) ended. this is of course true, iraq is a stuffhole now and never recovered from what the US did; however, I’m telling you this is intentional. iraq is something of a cliche for criticism of American foreign policy, but that’s only because it is the perfect example. saddam hussein would not exist without the US backing he had; Kurdish uprisings which led to the anfal genocide were a direct result of the US lying to them; 1 million iraqis and kurds and syrians in iraq, mostly children, starved because of oil for food, most of them dying before they even knew they were iraqi, but the only reason cited being that they were iraqis. saddam’s domestic intelligence network wouldn’t exist without the US sanctions. al qaeda, backed by iraqi islamists, wouldn’t exist without the US. the poverty in iraq now, and subsequently CIA, wouldn’t exist without the US’s approval of it.
my point here is as follows: the US lies about the circumstances of a country to manufacture public disapproval. then, the US makes these circumstances a reality through sanctions, impoverishment. then, the US backs local separatist groups to create fear and report it as “tensions” or “civil war”. then, the US enters the conflict directly, using expensive bombs and some expensive troops to unstrategically inflate the conflict. then, the US enacts regime change in the country, backing a weak, corrupt, controllable administration who operates as a US puppet-state. finally, the US abandons the country while maintaining their hold on many of their possessions, such as oil or food or bank holdings. if you’re lucky like iraq you get to be invaded 2 more times due to other circumstances the US created
it has been like this since korea and the philippines at least, it has never changed, and it never will unless diplomacy is taken seriously by the public, and media and government are held accountable by the public. the US is THE MOST destructive and powerful country in the history of the world, it is not ‘strange’ to criticize it in the ukraine conflict, it is strange to NOT criticize it. US foreign policy exists to create ‘shocks’ to justify upward transfer of wealth, that is the simple reality, the group of people in power exist to serve themselves and not the public and not any moral higher power who saves foreigners
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i agree with your opinion on the outcomes of armed conflict, but i disagree on the reasons. armies tend to bring their most expensive ordinance and the most well-funded operators of said ordinance. however, moving expensive people and weapons through a warzone is a logistics nightmare, and keeping them operational and combat-effective is difficult. the drone strikes we hear the most about in the US are the ones that target high-value leaders and end up killing civilians, but the ones that occur most frequently are supporting strikes and strafing runs for ground troops under fire.
during an exchange of combat, the situation may rapidly deteriorate. if soldiers are unable to maintain fire superiority and begin taking excessive casualties, air support and artillery become necessary. this is the main application of our drone program and also where the most civilian casualties end up being caused by. every second troops are on the ground and in the air, they risk dying at any moment. the air force is especially vulnerable, and portable air-to-surface missiles (even small arms fire) can destroy million dollar drones and choppers flying lower to the ground. under these stuffty conditions, soldiers' decision-making skills are disrupted, and the chances of civilian casualties climb by the second.
none of this makes it right, and there is no real excuse for civilian death. it also raises the important point that nobody would have to die if the army wasn't there in the first place. once an armed force arrives, the question is no longer 'why are we here' but 'how can we achieve our objective as fast as possible with as little casualties to our men, our enemies and civilians as possible.' this is where it helps to have a dedicated plan to minimizing losses of everyone involved.
the US certainly isn't the beacon of peace when it comes to warfare. after all, the country remains the only one in the world to have used nuclear weapons against human targets, not just once but twice. operation desert storm was a hugely successful operation compared to the nuclear bombings and the korean and vietnam wars, and the decision to knock out iraq's air superiority and comms from day one likely prevented millions of people from dying. an unsuccessful first strike would've meant that coalition troops would have to bring heavier armor into the cities and more civilians would've been displaced and killed. the decision to stay in the middle east and maintain a presence is what cost the people of iraq many more lives than necessary, and is where the US begins to look like an incompetent russia-like invader. many of the problems that remain today are directly the result of US intervention, but these losses would've been much greater had the show of force invasion failed.