RE: What If Russia And Cuba Held Joint Millitary Exercises Simulating An Attack On The USA Every Year?
Now, I'll be the first to admit that U.S. foreign policy is pretty miserable. However, North Korea IS a threat for the simple fact that their leader is insane (or at least acts it) and has nuclear weapons. Whether he is insane enough to use them or not is another matter though it isn't an unreasonable possibility.
Sanctions generally hurt the population of a country far more than its leadership but the problem with North Korea is that it tends to spend every percent of GDP on its military and advancing its nuclear capability. North Korean leadership does plenty to hurt its own people. And why put all the blame on the U.S.? If the U.S. were the only country with sanctions against North Korea then they would hardly notice.
As far as Gadaffi goes, he's lucky to have survived as long as he did given that he was in part responsible for the terrorist attack that brought down an airliner over Scotland in the 1980s. If that wasn't an act of war then I don't know what is. The U.S. attacked Libya in response but Gadaffi survived. However, I think it's a much better type of response when the U.S. is attacked. Strike back hard against those responsible but leave the nation building to the survivors.
The military exercises are a non-issue. North Korea does them, South Korea does them, Russia does them, all countries with militaries do them
Weighing all the facts as you suggest leads me to the conclusion that U.S. foreign policy could by much, much better. I have long advocated removing our military from most of the world instead of expending blood and treasure to protect it. It's high time for Japan, Europe, Israel, etc. to take care of their own defense. And let the Middle East deal with ISIS on their own. I'm not so sure war would be any less likely if that were to come about though. I believe the U.S. would be far better off and more prosperous were it to change its interventionist foreign policy. I don't know if the rest of the world would be or not but it would become their problem. Either way, there is no moral equivalence between the likes of Libya, North Korea and the U.S. Whatever mistakes the U.S. has made don't compare to the evil that leaders like Gadaffi and Kim Jong-un perpetrate.
If you go back into my blog I did write on addressing the fallacy in an aggressive response towards North Korea 10 days ago. You do make some reasonable points if we are strictly working on the narrative we are given. In regards to Gaddafi and the Lockerbie bombing, it has recently come to light that Gaddafi claiming accountability for the bombing at the time was to alleviate sanctions that Libya was struggling under. In short it was a swap with the west to avoid agitating Syria. The reality was that the bombing was an act by Iranian intelligence services. This is according to intelligence officials from Iran, the United States, and Britain today. At the time we didn't want to upset Syria who was assisting the US in fighting Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War. And Iran was pissed for the shooting down of their passenger jet by the US 6 months prior. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence and credible testimony to support this and it was widely accepted and admitted to by officials within our own government in 2015. In many ways Qaddafi has been a patsy on the defensive. The key reason for the over throw of his government was he was attempting to move North African countries onto a gold backed currency called the dinar which in turn would have lead to disrupting the dominance of the US petrodollar. No different than Hussein in 2003 pulling oil sales off the dollar and moving them to the Euro. Within three months we were alleging he had weapons of mass destruction and brought good old American democracy to Iraq's door. In regards to the North Korean dictator acting insane? Nah. I'm not saying he's not a tyrant. Anyone who detains civilians without trial or charge, reserves the right to with hold fair trial, and aggressively postures towards other military powers and its neighbors has unstable leadership...... Oh, wait. If you visit the NDAA of 2017 or give a quick read of the patriot act in its entirety you will see the US does the same. Yet we as Americans still say we are happy and free. Your argument does stand if we ignore evidence and just go with narrative. The utter and complete truth is that the US is an axis of evil, not the countries that we routinely demonize. In Syria we accused Assad of attacking his own people with chemical weapons and a UN investigation latter revealed it was the US funded FSA , Iraq it was weapons of mass destruction, Afghanistan it was retaliation for 9/11. If we believe what we have been told and you have read the 9/11 commission report put together by congress then you would know that the bombers were Saudi funded and raised. That's not a conspiracy theory, that's the findings of the US Congress appointed commission. Most don't read the 9/11 Comission report because it's a big document and the news seems easier. In the Ukraine we overthrew a democratically elected leader and put a government in place that was comprised of nazi extremist from the Svboda party. Look, I'm not asking you vote or even follow them, but in my blog I have a long series of videos covering each of these points. In them are copies of the documents and stacked fact not theory. Leaked recorded calls, and even blatant admissions. Pick a topic and click. I didn't post them over for votes or followers. The information is important and the researcher responsible for the compilation of them is one of our brighter minds. I as an American and former servicemen would love to believe that our government is doing the right thing but there is a problem with belief as it can blind us to facts. If I were conservative or liberal and was confronted with a fact that contradicted my liberal or conservative world view and I behaved hostile towards it then it means I'm married to the ideology. Not the truth or basic human morality. It also means that my mind is not in my own possession. As a dual citizen I was able to leave the country and live in another with ease and I do. I've traveled extensively through most of the country's the US routinely lies about and it's wearying BS. In many ways the North Korea issue could be solved diplomatically. Given the moves that China and Russia just made against the dollar (moving oil sales over to gold backed securities and the gold backed yuan) and petrodollar hegemony, the US wanting to destabilize or attack North Korea is not a surprise move. In fact it's in keeping in time and rhythm with US foreign policy. Foreign policy is a word that many chuck around but more often than not don't understand fully. I do respect your point of view and please don't take my counter as rude. I humbly and simply ask that as an American you examine with a critical eye the moves of our own government both towards its own people and other nations. The American Government is not the American people but it does manipulate them on a large scale. This isn't new. In fact the psychology of authority in it's current model has existed for the better part of a century because it's effective. For ten thousand years the varying models of government have shifted and changes but the effect is still the same. It's designed to contain and subvert. I know what it's like to want to defend the US and it's decisions and to be irritated at those who criticize it. But humanity is better choice than nationalism and being devoted to the first is more preferable than the second. I am not saying that N Korea is great or good, but our current posture isn't warranted and once the US goes down this road we can't turn back. And no they aren't a threat to the US any more than any other country, and no full blown war games are not a norm. They are reactionary and a display act that countries engage in to posture when another is knocking at their door. For instance in Russia they are being hemmed in by NATO, China does the same in response to different US military allies in the pacific. Yet for years after the fall of the Berlin wall we saw very few of these "exercises" by comparison to today. In closing, your right. We don't compare to Kim Jong Un or Gaddafi because we are worse. Consider the fact that we all know politicians lie, but yet when they are collected and make decisions we call them a government and believe everything they say whole heartedly? Does that seem logical? I appreciate your feed back and thanks for reading. Many blessings Steem on.
As far as Libya goes there are UK and former Libyan officials who say he was involved and a Libyan intelligence officer was the only person ever jailed for the attack. Even if he wasn't involved and new nothing about it, his regime was involved in a number of other terrorist attacks. He was no innocent in that regard.
You can point at the Patriot Act and say what an awful law it is and I would agree with you 100%. The fact remains though that this is a far, far more open society than that of North Korea and the North Korean leadership can and does get away with far, far more awful things against its own people. There is no comparison here...at all. I can freely criticize my government without fear of imprisonment or execution. And I don't know where you are living but I don't know very many (or any really) people that believe our government officials whole heartedly. But despite the flaws of this country, I strongly disagree that we are worse than North Korea or Libya. It just isn't so.
And full blown wargames ARE a norm. There are various very large exercises performed by many countries and a number of them are performed annually. There are certainly some that are scheduled to make a point (legitimate or not) but those are usually small by comparison (e.g. recent bombers flying over the Korean peninsula). The larger events take a long time to schedule and are usually done on an annual or longer schedule.
I agree that our posture is sometimes over aggressive but I also see extreme risks in countries like North Korea or Iran getting nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are the only potential existential threat to the U.S. I consider it extremely unlikely that the U.S. would ever launch a nuclear first strike on anybody. There's just too much to lose. And even given Trumps habit of aggressive speaking, he hasn't threatened anything other than retaliation if attacked first. This is not how the leaders of Iran and Korea speak. They threaten destruction so often then we tend to ignore it. But that may not always be wise. What should Japan's response be if one of those missiles that NK keeps launching overhead lands on them, even if by accident? How about the U.S. as their ally? The U.S. may be holding military exercises but they aren't launching ballistic missiles over north korea.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that the yuan is backed by gold. It isn't. In fact they peg it to the U.S. dollar (or some percent thereof) by fiat. China has been buying a lot of gold in recent years but despite this it currently holds less than half of what the U.S. holds (and the dollar certainly isn't backed by gold) even by the highest estimates. I think the petro dollar concept is a bit overrated. With the supposed emphasis on green energy, this is going to become less of an issue over time anyway. Even if it didn't, the U.S. has vast untapped reserves of oil, coal and natural gas of its own. I wonder what it will be priced in?
I think the issue with North Korea could be solved diplomatically if NK would agree to give up nuclear weapons. I don't think that will happen though.
Yes, Saudi involvement in 9/11 is not a conspiracy theory or even something that is not well known. It has repeatedly been reported by even mainstream media often and early. That doesn't mean that the Taliban had nothing to do with it. Just because many of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and derived funding from their doesn't make them not Al-Qaeda or Bin Laden not the mastermind or the Taliban not the protector of Bin Laden. Personally, I think the whole "nation building" (or whatever you want to call it) that has gone on in Afghanistan is stupid and counterproductive as was the invasion of Iraq. They should have stopped after capturing or killing Bin Laden and the Taliban leadership. That should have been "mission accomplished". Iraq certainly did have WMDs but they were just old and no longer effective. The U.S. knew he had them because we gave them to him years previous. Regardless, it certainly wasn't enough to invade over and has obviously been counterproductive as has every other nation building exercise.
Don't get me wrong. I do think U.S. foreign policy is pretty horrible in many cases. I just don't think the U.S. or its leadership is as bad as that of North Korea or Iran. Or even close.
As far as Syria, I think the U.S. should just get out. I think we would agree on that. As far as who gassed who, as of a year ago the U.N. did in fact conclude that it was Assad who gassed his own people, on at least two occasions in 2014 and 2015. He is accused of doing it many more times but that has not been proven conclusively.
Well as I said, we probably aren't going to agree. In regards to the yuan going over to oil sales on backed securities, an article on the topic is here:
https://www.marketslant.com/article/golden-yuan-crude-backed-gold-here
The UN investigation into gas attacks has significantly cooled but is still ongoing. The general consensus is that they have been perpetrated by the US backed forces. But due to the fact that most of the Hague prosecuting team is largely NATO appointed it will probably never see a full follow through. Carla Delponte actually resigned as an investigator simply due to the fact that she knew the prosecution of the responsible parties would never occur. An article that covers some details can be found here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10039672/UN-accuses-Syrian-rebels-of-chemical-weapons-use.html
In regards to the Taliban.... Have you been to Afghanistan? Our war there is completely and utterly so disconnected from it's initial reasons that it's clear it was never our intention in the first place. However, if you look into the Pentagon backed surveys into the countries precious metal resources that were done in 2000 then the picture becomes clearer. Many more surveys followed after but if you like you can take a look on the subject and decide yourself. Don't just read a handful of articles.
In regards to the US.... Here's a document from your own government to give a read:
https://info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-InternmentResettlement.pdf
Interestingly in regards to Gadafi... I invite you to look in depth into our various hot cold era's in relationship to the "terrorism" reported. You'll find in depth cooperation at different points in our history in regards to the exporting of terrorism endorsed by the US from Lybia. In regards to North Korea? I think you have a very media driven understanding of the North. Not a bad thing as most Americans do. The North on many occasions has approached a point of cooling in regards to it's nuclear program. When I was in Seoul there was even the beginnings of economic cooperation between the the North and South where workers were being bused in to work at various manufacturing outlets making things like cook wear. The North has on multiple occasions voiced a want for diplomatic talks and been reasonable in this. Interestingly that posture and those announcements never see the light of day in the US or Western world. Everywhere else in Asian Media as well as Russian but never in the US. I know many Americans who after a brief period in these countries go back to the US scratching their head as to why we are being so aggressive when peace would be incredibly easy to approach. The North will only be a threat to the US and their allies if provoked which is exactly what we are doing today. The US not being as bad. Well we will have to agree to disagree. I see it as a totalitarian police state in the making but that's my perception. It wasn't always that way but it is now. You have less than 5 percent of the global population yet over a quarter of the worlds imprisoned population rest in the good ol' land of the free. My stance is not one of anti America but rather anti American pro war propaganda. You need to take a look at how that's executed. By simply reading Edward Bernays books on propaganda or public relations the playbook is there. Given that he helped found the Council On Foreign Relations and various other round table groups that still heavily influence everything from foreign policy to media the books are relevant. I can see where you are coming from and once used to think the same. But the US government has long ago passed into the realms of being indefensible in regards to it's foriegn policy. As far as motive in regards to Russia or China? Just look at current sweetening between those countries and Saudi Arabia. Saying the concept of the petrodollar being over rated does show a gross misunderstanding of global and US economics that is far to lengthy for me to cover in this response. But having said all of this I do thank you for the time to respond as well as well as the feed back. Best of luck with your projects and write up's and steem on.