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[US Foreign Policy] Peace For Sale

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Posts

  • NSDFRandNSDFRand FloridaRegistered User regular
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    Also, the threat Russia would later pose to the US was because their tactics and strategy were embraced by his party, so fuck him.

    They were embraced by everyone. It's up in the air on their effectiveness, however. Russia spent about $2M on Facebook adds and engagement operations with social media influencers. Michael Bloomberg spent $600M on traditional ad buys, YouTube ads, Facebook ads, and the same exact type of engagement operations (trying to pay social media personalities to create pro-Bloomberg memes) and for his trouble he got four delegates from American Samoa.

  • ButtersButters A glass of some milks Registered User regular
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    Also, the threat Russia would later pose to the US was because their tactics and strategy were embraced by his party, so fuck him.

    They were embraced by everyone. It's up in the air on their effectiveness, however. Russia spent about $2M on Facebook adds and engagement operations with social media influencers. Michael Bloomberg spent $600M on traditional ad buys, YouTube ads, Facebook ads, and the same exact type of engagement operations (trying to pay social media personalities to create pro-Bloomberg memes) and for his trouble he got four delegates from American Samoa.

    They also, you know...hacked the fucking DNC and penetrated voter registration networks in several states.

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  • NSDFRandNSDFRand FloridaRegistered User regular
    Butters wrote: »
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    Also, the threat Russia would later pose to the US was because their tactics and strategy were embraced by his party, so fuck him.

    They were embraced by everyone. It's up in the air on their effectiveness, however. Russia spent about $2M on Facebook adds and engagement operations with social media influencers. Michael Bloomberg spent $600M on traditional ad buys, YouTube ads, Facebook ads, and the same exact type of engagement operations (trying to pay social media personalities to create pro-Bloomberg memes) and for his trouble he got four delegates from American Samoa.

    They also, you know...hacked the fucking DNC and penetrated voter registration networks in several states.

    The DNC is a private organization and private organizations are hacked every day. Yes, it's criminal activity and it sucks but all it resulted in was leaking emails that looked bad for DWS and Clinton if you were a Sanders supporter. The Senate Intel Committee determined that there was no evidence of tampering with votes or manipulating vote tallies (pg 38) in their review of IC products on the matter. And the three states which likely had intrusions reported no known changes to voter registration information, just intrusion through phishing/social engineering and potentially identity theft.

    In my view it's clear the brunt of the effort was the influence campaign, which started as early as 2014 and encompassed a pretty broad swath of political and social media activity. I worked on a project for OSD regarding the topic and it is/was a potentially scary vulnerability. But I think it is exaggerated too often to the point that, as Matt Taibi has argued and I think it is a good point, it has become a short hand for media and political activity that people don't like.

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    I mean, I certainly didn't like how the media equated Clinton and the DNC being hacked by the Russians to all of Trump's scandals. If that's what you're trying to get it.

  • NSDFRandNSDFRand FloridaRegistered User regular
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    I mean, I certainly didn't like how the media equated Clinton and the DNC being hacked by the Russians to all of Trump's scandals. If that's what you're trying to get it.

    The Russian interference narrative has been levied at a variety of targets including the the Catalonia independence movement, the Yellow Vests, Jeremy Corbyn, and even BLM.

    And it was a major part of the debates two weeks ago with Sanders shit on on stage and all but called a traitor for not dropping out after it was alleged that Russia supported his campaign. And lest we forget, a former SecState accused a sitting member of the House and commissioned officer of being a Russian agent as well.

  • durandal4532durandal4532 Registered User regular
    I feel like you're squishing a lot of things together in order to erase context which is in all cases very important.

    Take a moment to donate what you can to Critical Resistance and Black Lives Matter.
  • NSDFRandNSDFRand FloridaRegistered User regular
    I feel like you're squishing a lot of things together in order to erase context which is in all cases very important.

    The context is basically "person engaging in politics I don't like - it's Russia". Which does nothing but hurt the actual effort to engage with Russian adversarial activity aimed at American institutions.

  • Phoenix-DPhoenix-D Registered User regular
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    I feel like you're squishing a lot of things together in order to erase context which is in all cases very important.

    The context is basically "person engaging in politics I don't like - it's Russia". Which does nothing but hurt the actual effort to engage with Russian adversarial activity aimed at American institutions.

    Incorrect. For example: BLM. The *actual* conclusion was that Russian agents posed as Americans to stir up shit around BLM, both for and against. Not that "BLM is a Russian plot".

  • NSDFRandNSDFRand FloridaRegistered User regular
    Phoenix-D wrote: »
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    I feel like you're squishing a lot of things together in order to erase context which is in all cases very important.

    The context is basically "person engaging in politics I don't like - it's Russia". Which does nothing but hurt the actual effort to engage with Russian adversarial activity aimed at American institutions.

    Incorrect. For example: BLM. The *actual* conclusion was that Russian agents posed as Americans to stir up shit around BLM, both for and against. Not that "BLM is a Russian plot".

    Which undermines (or attempts to) the political legitimacy of BLM. Russian social media activity also wasn't solely through the use of fake accounts and bots, but actual Americans engaging in political speech, whether recruited, coerced, or voluntarily. The takeaway for most people is exactly "BLM is a Russian plot" and all it takes is a pointed finger for that to become the narrative as it has in other cases.

  • ElkiElki get busy Moderator, ClubPA mod
    This DNC/hacks/Russian-trolls tangent is off-topic. We’ve had threads for it before, and I’m pretty sure it’ll consume this whole thread and create 40 pages for us to read by midnight, so move on to something else. Thanks.

    smCQ5WE.jpg
  • TryCatcherTryCatcher Registered User regular
    You may think that with the recent news of Afghanistan now having two presidents and how the Afghan government wasn't consulted about the deal and the increasing tensions the troop withdrawal wasn't going to happen.

    Wrong.
    Afghanistan conflict: US begins withdrawing troops

    The US has started withdrawing troops from Afghanistan as part of a deal with the Taliban aimed at bringing peace to the country.

    The US agreed to reduce its troops from about 12,000 to 8,600 within 135 days of signing the agreement.

    Drawing back troops was a condition of the historic peace deal signed by the US and the Taliban on 29 February.

    The Afghan government did not take part in the deal, but is expected to hold talks with the Taliban.

    Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani initially said he would not comply with an agreement to release Taliban prisoners as a pre-condition for direct talks with the militant group.

    But reports say the president, who was inaugurated for a second term on Monday, will issue a decree for at least 1,000 Taliban prisoners to be released this week.

    Mujib Mashal is a senior correspondent covering Afghanistan for the NYT.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited March 2020
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    Also, the threat Russia would later pose to the US was because their tactics and strategy were embraced by his party, so fuck him.

    They were embraced by everyone. It's up in the air on their effectiveness, however. Russia spent about $2M on Facebook adds and engagement operations with social media influencers. Michael Bloomberg spent $600M on traditional ad buys, YouTube ads, Facebook ads, and the same exact type of engagement operations (trying to pay social media personalities to create pro-Bloomberg memes) and for his trouble he got four delegates from American Samoa.

    He was polling in 2nd place nationally until Warren went all Dexter on him live on stage. I think you are vastly underestimating how effective Bloomberg's media blitz was. These kind of tactics are not ineffective.

    shryke on
  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
  • ElkiElki get busy Moderator, ClubPA mod
    I stick by everything I said about Romney, he was dumb. Not in some special dumb way, just the way everyone in Washington is about foreign policy.

    What did Romney want? Here’s his FP article in the wake of Obama’s

    https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/03/27/bowing-to-the-kremlin/
    And it is not hard to understand why. The record shows that President Obama has already been pliant on missile defense and other areas of nuclear security. Without extracting meaningful concessions from Russia, he abandoned our missile defense sites in Poland. He granted Russia new limits on our nuclear arsenal. He capitulated to Russia’s demand that a United Nations resolution on the Iranian nuclear-weapons program exclude crippling sanctions.

    So, a missile build-up race with Russia, more nuclear weapons, and more sanctions on Iran. None of them good ideas, all will actively make the world a worse place, and the last among them will be an important factor in a future health disaster.

    And over the last 3 year, he did get pretty much everything he wanted, with little resistance. All the above, and the rest of what he wanted, to terrible results.
    Would post-election "flexibility" lead him to reach out once again to the Iranian regime "without preconditions"? Would it lead him to resume pressuring Israel into making unilateral concessions to the Palestinians? Would it permit him to take an even softer line, if that is imaginable, toward the authoritarian regimes of the Castro brothers and Hugo Chávez? Would he further shrink our Navy and Air Force below the already-too-low force numbers currently planned? Would he pour more money into United Nations bodies that have recognized a Palestinian state and seem to spend an inordinate amount of their time and energy denouncing Israel?

    We know what Obama’s post-election flexibility, that Romney warned us about, let him do. The Iran deal.

    Romney was wrong, Obama was right but unfortunately, because of the zeitgeist of both parties, Obama will be popularly cast as the naive one for quite a while.

    smCQ5WE.jpg
  • KaputaKaputa Registered User regular
    NSDFRand wrote: »
    Gaddez wrote: »
    So a thought just occured to me about the Taliban; how stable is it's leadership?

    I'm asking because if this is a less organized group with top down command structure as opposed to a coalition of warlords, it might not actually be possible to get a deal that sticks in any meaningful way.

    Their chain of command is stable enough that commanders who have done things the leadership doesn't like have been fired pretty quickly and replaced.
    The Taliban might actually have a clearer chain of command than the government, given that there are currently two people claiming to have won the presidential election and simultaneously swearing themselves in.

  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    US launched air strikes against Iranian backed militias in the last hour. Because what we need now is a war.

    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • PreacherPreacher Registered User regular


    You have got to be shitting me in the midst of all this bullshit Trump is once again trying to start some shit with Iran.

    I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.

    pleasepaypreacher.net
  • CelestialBadgerCelestialBadger Registered User regular
    What if there was a war and no-one turned up because they were all sick in bed?

  • SealSeal Registered User regular
    He needed a distraction I guess.

  • XaquinXaquin Right behind you!Registered User regular
    I mean .... if it was in response to an unprovoked rocket attack ....

    but with these guys, odds are they did the wrong thing

  • RedTideRedTide Registered User regular
    Honestly if the worst case rumors about Iran are true they may have been hoping for just this response to rally their people and ward off a collapse of the regime

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  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    edited March 2020
    BREAKING: The U.S. has launched airstrikes in Iraq targeting the Iranian-backed Shia militia members believed responsible for a rocket attack Wednesday that killed and wounded American and British troops at a base north of Baghdad. http://apne.ws/aBgkYvy

    US to hold attackers at Iraq base accountable
    WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. launched airstrikes Thursday in Iraq, targeting the Iranian-backed Shia militia members believed responsible for the rocket attack that killed and wounded American and British troops at a base north of Baghdad, the Pentagon said.

    Quoting the tweet for those playing along at home. Or wherever.

    Elvenshae on
  • JaysonFourJaysonFour Classy Monster Kitteh Registered User regular
    Oh, look, Donnie needs a distraction on how bad he's fucking up Covid so he's fucking up in the Middle East instead.

    Because that's what the world needs, apparently- let's inch us ever so closer to nuclear midnight because a tiny-brained orange asshole needs a distraction from how hard he's fucking up a humanitarian crisis.

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  • Mild ConfusionMild Confusion Smash All Things Registered User regular
    JaysonFour wrote: »
    Oh, look, Donnie needs a distraction on how bad he's fucking up Covid so he's fucking up in the Middle East instead.

    Because that's what the world needs, apparently- let's inch us ever so closer to nuclear midnight because a tiny-brained orange asshole needs a distraction from how hard he's fucking up a humanitarian crisis.

    It’s not even a blip on the media, everyone is talking about the pandemic.

    I didn’t even hear about it until this thread and I follow this stuff.

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  • Desktop HippieDesktop Hippie Registered User regular
    During An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's recent St. Patrick's Day trip to Washington, he was greeted by what appeared to be an Italian flag outside the White House, and had to smile through Trump congratulating him for the UK's response to the coronavirus outbreak.

    Ireland's revenge for these slights has been swift and terrible. Trump has been fighting for years for permission to build a wall around his golf course in Doonbeg Co. Clare. (Yes, really.) Today the Irish government said no.

    Donald Trump’s Doonbeg golf resort refused permission to build sea wall

    Co Clare resort had warned that failure to protect course against coastal erosion would bring viability of the entire resort and its potential closure into question
    Via The Irish Times

    Simon is the Public Affairs editor for the Irish Times.

  • Santa ClaustrophobiaSanta Claustrophobia Ho Ho Ho Disconnecting from Xbox LIVERegistered User regular
    All the pictures I see show the Ireland flag.

    And an almost racist amount of green

  • Desktop HippieDesktop Hippie Registered User regular
    All the pictures I see show the Ireland flag.

    And an almost racist amount of green

    It was outside the White House, as Varadkar's limo arrived. There were two soldiers at the door, one holding the US flag and the other holding the Irish flag. Except the Irish flag looked a very, very dark orange that ended up looking very red in quite a few shots, especially when compared to the flags on Leo's limo.

  • Santa ClaustrophobiaSanta Claustrophobia Ho Ho Ho Disconnecting from Xbox LIVERegistered User regular
    All the pictures I see show the Ireland flag.

    And an almost racist amount of green

    It was outside the White House, as Varadkar's limo arrived. There were two soldiers at the door, one holding the US flag and the other holding the Irish flag. Except the Irish flag looked a very, very dark orange that ended up looking very red in quite a few shots, especially when compared to the flags on Leo's limo.

    Huh. All I saw were interior shots.
    Was it white and gold? Or black and blue?

  • Desktop HippieDesktop Hippie Registered User regular
    All the pictures I see show the Ireland flag.

    And an almost racist amount of green

    It was outside the White House, as Varadkar's limo arrived. There were two soldiers at the door, one holding the US flag and the other holding the Irish flag. Except the Irish flag looked a very, very dark orange that ended up looking very red in quite a few shots, especially when compared to the flags on Leo's limo.

    Huh. All I saw were interior shots.
    Was it white and gold? Or black and blue?

    It was this bit


    John is a Fine Gael Councillor for Offaly county council

  • Santa ClaustrophobiaSanta Claustrophobia Ho Ho Ho Disconnecting from Xbox LIVERegistered User regular
    Yeeeeeah. It's a bad look for sure.

    But after that dumb dress thing, I'd like to see 'live' video. But the US flag is more-or-less unaffected by the shadow. So, I'll just go with 'yet another unforced error'.

    The ''basically in the UK' thing is far worse.

  • LabelLabel Registered User regular
    The Trump admin has not earned and does not deserve any benefit of doubt.

  • PhyphorPhyphor Building Planet Busters Tasting FruitRegistered User regular
    That's very red
    ireland-flag.jpg
    6n4iv7rr13je.png

    I took a look at the pixels in that image and they are roughly 200/5/60
    The italian flag's red is 205/33/42
    The irish flag's orange is 255/136/62
    If it was an irish flag even under weird lighting I would expect a lot more green in that red

  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    Phyphor wrote: »
    That's very red
    ireland-flag.jpg
    6n4iv7rr13je.png

    I took a look at the pixels in that image and they are roughly 200/5/60
    The italian flag's red is 205/33/42
    The irish flag's orange is 255/136/62
    If it was an irish flag even under weird lighting I would expect a lot more green in that red

    If you can see the pixels then it's obviously a 'shop

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  • ArbitraryDescriptorArbitraryDescriptor changed Registered User regular
    Phyphor wrote: »
    That's very red
    ireland-flag.jpg
    6n4iv7rr13je.png

    I took a look at the pixels in that image and they are roughly 200/5/60
    The italian flag's red is 205/33/42
    The irish flag's orange is 255/136/62
    If it was an irish flag even under weird lighting I would expect a lot more green in that red
    Hi, color nerd here. None of this means the pigments of that flag are actually red.

    A blue offset will push orange to red and red to maroon. If you check the RGB on the reds of the US flag, I suspect you'll find it even 'bluer' than the "orange" (though possibly with less of an offset, if the relative discoloration of each flag's white parts are any indication)

    Meanwhile, since
    - Sub-maroon and off-magenta are still roughly the same relative hue offsets as certain values of red and orange, and
    - Visual perception is half-truth loosely summarized from the actual data being collected by your retinas,

    it's really just a matter of framing as to whether you perceive those RGB values as the actual colors they represent.

    Even removing digital photography from the equation, there will have been plenty of times, in real life, when the actual wavelengths of light returning from the vector of the Irish flag described a red hue by the time they reached the retina, but were auto-corrected to orange after being overruled by the viewer's preconceived notions about the colors of the Irish flag.

  • PhyphorPhyphor Building Planet Busters Tasting FruitRegistered User regular
    Phyphor wrote: »
    That's very red
    <snip>
    I took a look at the pixels in that image and they are roughly 200/5/60
    The italian flag's red is 205/33/42
    The irish flag's orange is 255/136/62
    If it was an irish flag even under weird lighting I would expect a lot more green in that red
    Hi, color nerd here. None of this means the pigments of that flag are actually red.

    A blue offset will push orange to red and red to maroon. If you check the RGB on the reds of the US flag, I suspect you'll find it even 'bluer' than the "orange" (though possibly with less of an offset, if the relative discoloration of each flag's white parts are any indication)

    Meanwhile, since
    - Sub-maroon and off-magenta are still roughly the same relative hue offsets as certain values of red and orange, and
    - Visual perception is half-truth loosely summarized from the actual data being collected by your retinas,

    it's really just a matter of framing as to whether you perceive those RGB values as the actual colors they represent.

    Even removing digital photography from the equation, there will have been plenty of times, in real life, when the actual wavelengths of light returning from the vector of the Irish flag described a red hue by the time they reached the retina, but were auto-corrected to orange after being overruled by the viewer's preconceived notions about the colors of the Irish flag.

    There's a blue offset yeah but not a major one. The US flag's reds are a little bluer (~15-20) but that would also be expected if it was an italian flag since the US red is a little bluer than the italian one

    Even the reddest looking pictures of the irish flag I can find still have a little bit of green channel everywhere, this has effectively none (highest pixel I've found is 10)

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Bogart wrote: »
    Guys.

    Maybe try telling them in semaphore.

  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    Is the flag black and blue, or white and gold?

  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/world/middleeast/trump-iran-iraq-coronavirus-militas.html
    WASHINGTON — President Trump was getting ready to declare the coronavirus a “national emergency,” but inside the White House last Thursday, a tense debate erupted among the president and his top advisers on a far different subject: whether the United States should escalate military action against Iran, a longtime American rival that has been devastated by the epidemic.

    One group, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Robert C. O’Brien, the national security adviser, urged a tough response to rocket attacks that had killed two American troops at a base north of Baghdad, arguing that tough action while Iran’s leaders were battling the coronavirus ravaging the country could finally push them into direct negotiations.

    But Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pushed back. The Pentagon and intelligence agencies did not have clear evidence that the attacks, launched by the Shiite militia group Khataib Hezbollah, had been ordered by Iran, they argued, and warned that a large-scale response could draw the United States into a wider war with Iran and rupture already strained relations with Iraq.

    The military’s position prevailed, at least for the time being. Mr. Trump authorized airstrikes against five militia weapons depots inside Iraq, carried out at night to limit the possible human toll.
    Because an epidemic causing huge problems in both countries is exactly the right time to launch offensive actions.

  • Santa ClaustrophobiaSanta Claustrophobia Ho Ho Ho Disconnecting from Xbox LIVERegistered User regular
    And because attacking them worked out so well the last time.

This discussion has been closed.