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Lithuania is a NATO country. For NATO to mean anything it has to have teeth, and I don't think collapsing in the face of Russian aggression would set a good pr

Lithuania is a NATO country. For NATO to mean anything it has to have teeth, and I don't think collapsing in the face of Russian aggression would set a good precedent. If they sensed weakness and gained momentum I doubt they'd stop no matter how many Baltic countries we fed them. So what, you'd have us return to the traditional "obvious" war and fire-bomb cities to the ground, with long-term and oppressive occupational forces? The Russians tried that in Afghanistan in the 80s. Didn't work out so well for either side. Many more innocents and soldiers died. Why resort to those tactics when drones/special forces can arguable be more effective with less blood on both sides? It's not a straw man. Genocide has a very specific meaning: the intentional, total destruction of a particular ethnic group or nationality. Not all war crimes are genocide. We can debate whether US strategy in WWII constitutes war crimes, but by definition it did not involve genocide. Nor have any of our actions in the wars since. We were not trying to wipe out all Germans, all Italians, or all Japanese. I'm not even going to get into the "war for oil" conspiracies. The Iraq war was a mistake, but if we did it for oil then we did a really shitty job. And North Korean threats don't keep the US at bay, their massive conventional forces stacked along the border do. Their threats merely inflame the situation and make their own position worse. They come off as childish temper tantrums at best and invite direct retaliation at worst, and only serve to make it clear that North Korea has zero desire to peacefully co-exist with the rest of the world. I wouldn't be surprised at all if, upon obtaining a reasonably large nuclear stockpile, they threaten to use it in order to extort food aid among other concessions.

grandalf 9y ago
> I'm not even going to get into the "war for oil" conspiracies. The only reason the middle east is relevant whatsoever in US politics and world affairs is because of the large concentration of petroleum beneath the sand. Once oil loses relevance the middle east will essentially cease to exist as we know it. Middle Eastern life has been dramatically influenced by Western intervention for generations, so it's hard to imagine what it would be like if allowed to settle into a stable state. Pan Arab movements are a force of progress in the sense that they create a solidarity movement that is less vulnerable to manipulation on the basis of ancient ethnic and religious distinctions. > The Iraq war was a mistake, but if we did it for oil then we did a really shitty job. We wanted to control Iraq, the most important land mass in the middle east, both to project power throughout the middle east and to prevent Russia from taking it. At the time of the invasion, Russian and German firms had extensive oil extraction and refinement contracts with Saddam's government, but the Bush administration redistributed the spoils to US and coalition firms. Don't tell me you think the US invaded Iraq for terrorism related reasons. At the time of the first US invasion (GW1) the US had normal diplomatic channels with Iraq and the US ambassador didn't think the US would care if Saddam annexed Kuwait. The US allowed diplomatic relations to degrade simply because doing so made selling the war easier. But no serious person would think that Saddam would step down just because GWB demanded it in a blustery (and humiliating to the US) speech. > the intentional, total destruction of a particular ethnic group or nationality This was done to Baath party members in Iraq, who mostly happened to be Sunni muslims. The US looked the other way after the forces we armed decided to do it. Sunni are a minority in Iraq. > We were not trying to wipe out all Germans, all Italians, or all Japanese. I have not argued otherwise. I focused my comments on WW2 to war crimes. The US has created conditions in many countries that have led to tremendous loss of life of fighting age people. This may not technically be genocide, but the distinction doesn't really matter. We go in and destroy infrastructure and create a cesspool in which we arm and pay people to kill each other. It's a sick way to thin a population, and we have all sorts of justifications and silly terms for aspects of it, but it is abhorrent. As we should have learned over the past few decades, nation building rhetoric and "regime change" rhetoric is nonsense. We destroy infrastructure and then blame the victims when they don't all turn out to be Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, or when they or their injured or grieving family members are less enthusiastic about more suffering after the US-funded regime change effort leaves them in chaos. It's not just stupid and ineffective foreign policy, it's morally abhorrent conduct that has cost the US significant respect around the world, and (quite ironically) created a reality distortion in the minds of many Americans where American actions are considered somehow appropriate or normal. It's reminiscent of the sort of absurd beliefs posited to N Koreans.
- openasocket 9y ago
  > At the time of the invasion, Russian and German firms had extensive oil extraction and refinement contracts with Saddam's government, but the Bush administration redistributed the spoils to US and coalition firms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Iraq#Service_contracts_licensing_results https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Iraq#Ser... seems to contradict you. US companies only control two oil fields, and in terms of gross revenue China actually receives more than any other country. Russia, Malaysia, and China have more service contracts than any coalition nation.

grandalf 9y ago

> I'm not even going to get into the "war for oil" conspiracies. The only reason the middle east is relevant whatsoever in US politics and world affairs is because of the large concentration of petroleum beneath the sand. Once oil loses relevance the middle east will essentially cease to exist as we know it. Middle Eastern life has been dramatically influenced by Western intervention for generations, so it's hard to imagine what it would be like if allowed to settle into a stable state. Pan Arab movements are a force of progress in the sense that they create a solidarity movement that is less vulnerable to manipulation on the basis of ancient ethnic and religious distinctions. > The Iraq war was a mistake, but if we did it for oil then we did a really shitty job. We wanted to control Iraq, the most important land mass in the middle east, both to project power throughout the middle east and to prevent Russia from taking it. At the time of the invasion, Russian and German firms had extensive oil extraction and refinement contracts with Saddam's government, but the Bush administration redistributed the spoils to US and coalition firms. Don't tell me you think the US invaded Iraq for terrorism related reasons. At the time of the first US invasion (GW1) the US had normal diplomatic channels with Iraq and the US ambassador didn't think the US would care if Saddam annexed Kuwait. The US allowed diplomatic relations to degrade simply because doing so made selling the war easier. But no serious person would think that Saddam would step down just because GWB demanded it in a blustery (and humiliating to the US) speech. > the intentional, total destruction of a particular ethnic group or nationality This was done to Baath party members in Iraq, who mostly happened to be Sunni muslims. The US looked the other way after the forces we armed decided to do it. Sunni are a minority in Iraq. > We were not trying to wipe out all Germans, all Italians, or all Japanese. I have not argued otherwise. I focused my comments on WW2 to war crimes. The US has created conditions in many countries that have led to tremendous loss of life of fighting age people. This may not technically be genocide, but the distinction doesn't really matter. We go in and destroy infrastructure and create a cesspool in which we arm and pay people to kill each other. It's a sick way to thin a population, and we have all sorts of justifications and silly terms for aspects of it, but it is abhorrent. As we should have learned over the past few decades, nation building rhetoric and "regime change" rhetoric is nonsense. We destroy infrastructure and then blame the victims when they don't all turn out to be Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, or when they or their injured or grieving family members are less enthusiastic about more suffering after the US-funded regime change effort leaves them in chaos. It's not just stupid and ineffective foreign policy, it's morally abhorrent conduct that has cost the US significant respect around the world, and (quite ironically) created a reality distortion in the minds of many Americans where American actions are considered somehow appropriate or normal. It's reminiscent of the sort of absurd beliefs posited to N Koreans.

openasocket 9y ago
> At the time of the invasion, Russian and German firms had extensive oil extraction and refinement contracts with Saddam's government, but the Bush administration redistributed the spoils to US and coalition firms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Iraq#Service_contracts_licensing_results https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Iraq#Ser... seems to contradict you. US companies only control two oil fields, and in terms of gross revenue China actually receives more than any other country. Russia, Malaysia, and China have more service contracts than any coalition nation.