War, what is it good for?

Forum rules
1.) No personal threats.
2.) No doxxing/revealing personal information.
3.) No spam.
4.) No circumventing press restrictions.
5.) No racism, sexism, homophobia, or derogatory posts.

Post a reply

Confirmation code
Enter the code exactly as it appears. All letters are case insensitive.
Smilies
:points: :-D :eyeroll: :neutral: :nmr: :razz: :raging: :-) ;) :( :sick: :o :? 8-) :x :shock: :lol: :cry: :evil: :?: :smirk: :!:
View more smilies
BBCode is ON
[img] is ON
[flash] is OFF
[url] is OFF
Smilies are ON
Topic review
   

If you wish to attach one or more files enter the details below.

Expand view Topic review: War, what is it good for?

Re: War, what is it good for?

by CaptainFritz28 » Thu Jun 19, 2025 1:36 am

Esquire Bertissimmo wrote: ↑
Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:57 am
Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:08 am
 I am not posting this in support of Saddam or Gaddafi. But I AM saying that chaotic regime removal increases overall harm. If in doubt, the west should entirely FUCK OFF.
With the notable one off principled exception of Israel lol?
Oh, I don't think Jamie has any doubt about that.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Esquire Bertissimmo » Thu Jun 19, 2025 1:02 am

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:18 am
 The lessons of history are that Western Imperialism is fucking shit and leads to chaos and death.
Would preventing Iran from getting nukes be imperialist?

Iran interferes an awful lot in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, etc. Are they imperialist?

None of this seems to engage with the question of the day—what to do (or not) about Iran's nuclear ambitions now that a long-awaited Israel-Iran war has started.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Esquire Bertissimmo » Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:57 am

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:08 am
 I am not posting this in support of Saddam or Gaddafi. But I AM saying that chaotic regime removal increases overall harm. If in doubt, the west should entirely FUCK OFF.
With the notable one off principled exception of Israel lol?

Re: War, what is it good for?

by CaptainFritz28 » Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:28 am

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Wed Jun 18, 2025 9:08 am
CaptainFritz28 wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 11:11 pm
Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Tue Jun 17, 2025 10:39 pm
 Oh so we should just stop talking about the holocaust then because nobody who did it is still alive?

Got it.
"Talking about it" and "basing modern foreign policy around it" are two totally different things. If we were to treat Germany based on what they did in WW2, then we would have an immense distrust of Germany and would be moving for German disarmament of their military. Learning from the past is entirely different from what we're talking about.
The difference here is that the organisations which perpetrated the Nakba are the ones in power in Israel today.

If the Nazi Party was still ruling Germany would your comment above be different?
It would be different, yes. Again I defer to Bert's response.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Jamiet99uk » Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:18 am

The Iraq war under Tony Blair and George W. Bush was fucking stupid and should not have occurred.

The US / UK / NATO intervention in the first Libyan Civil War was fucking stupid, entirely unjustified, and should not have occurred.

Same about Syria, etc.

The lessons of history are that Western Imperialism is fucking shit and leads to chaos and death.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Jamiet99uk » Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:13 am

Nobody ever properly considers the public policy outcomes of doing nothing.

Policymakers want to be seen to be active, to be doing something.

Politician's logic, as expressed in Yes, Minister, has too much sway.

"What is the opportunity cost of doing nothing at all" is not asked often enough. It should be asked regularly.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Jamiet99uk » Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:08 am

Esquire Bertissimmo wrote: ↑
Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:03 am
 Wasn't Oct's post in fact saying those were mistaken invasions?
If so, great, we might agree on something.

Iraq under Saddam was a better place to live for most people than 5 years after the west removed Saddam. More people had clean running water, electricity, schools for their children, etc.

Afghanistan under Gaddafi as a better place to live for most people than 5 years after the west removed him. More people had clean running water, electricity, schools for their children, etc.

I am not posting this in support of Saddam or Gaddafi. But I AM saying that chaotic regime removal increases overall harm. If in doubt, the west should entirely FUCK OFF.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Esquire Bertissimmo » Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:03 am

Wasn't Oct's post in fact saying those were mistaken invasions?

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Jamiet99uk » Thu Jun 19, 2025 12:01 am

It's interesting that Octavious implies he thinks imperialist intervention in Iraq and Libya was the right thing to do - when it was clearly the opposite from my perspective.

@Octavious: Why do you think "boots on the ground" intervention in Iraq was justified please? Why couldn't we just have done nothing at all? I strongly backed the latter at the time, and I think history has proved me right.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Jamiet99uk » Wed Jun 18, 2025 11:45 pm

Octavious wrote: ↑
Wed Jun 18, 2025 9:05 pm
 In Iraq we took direct boots on the ground action and countless thousands died.

In Libya we limited ourselves to airstrikes and supporting local factions and countless thousands died.

In Syria we stood back and watched and countless thousands died.

So if we apply the lessons of history to Iran we're fucked no matter what we do.
No.

In Iraq our reason for intervening was bullshit and we should have done nothing.

In Libya our reason for intervening was bullshit and we should have done nothing.

In Syria our reason for intervening was bullshit and we should have done nothing.

If we apply the lessons of history we should not have funded and armed Israel.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Esquire Bertissimmo » Wed Jun 18, 2025 9:24 pm

Octavious wrote: ↑
Wed Jun 18, 2025 9:05 pm
 In Iraq we took direct boots on the ground action and countless thousands died.

In Libya we limited ourselves to airstrikes and supporting local factions and countless thousands died.

In Syria we stood back and watched and countless thousands died.

So if we apply the lessons of history to Iran we're fucked no matter what we do.
It feels important to me that Iran not just be lumped in with these other regional conflicts.

The key difference being that Iran does in fact have an independently-verified nuclear weapons program.

So even if this becomes yet another middle east boondoggle that kills many thousands, on the other side of the ledger was the development of atomic weapons by Iran (and then by others in the region in response) that could easily kill millions or billions ("BABIES" aren't nuke proof).

From what I've read it seems like right wing isolationists and left wing anti-war types just largely ignore this inconvenient fact when proposing the West do nothing. Maybe striking Iran really is the wrong move, but in my mind any convincing argument in this vein would have to accurately account for what we know about Iran's nuclear ambitions and the risks posed by proliferation.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Octavious » Wed Jun 18, 2025 9:05 pm

In Iraq we took direct boots on the ground action and countless thousands died.

In Libya we limited ourselves to airstrikes and supporting local factions and countless thousands died.

In Syria we stood back and watched and countless thousands died.

So if we apply the lessons of history to Iran we're fucked no matter what we do. Jamie's policy of supporting action that has zero chance of ever actually happening ensures that he can avoid any blame for whatever it is the leads to the deaths of countless thousands this time, and as such is a surprisingly logical and sound strategy.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Jamiet99uk » Wed Jun 18, 2025 5:06 pm

Esquire Bertissimmo wrote: ↑
Wed Jun 18, 2025 3:24 pm
 ^Alternatively, I guess if this Iran war because an Iraq style debacle and tens of thousands perish, Iran gets taken over by an even more extreme Islamist group, this all turns into a regional war, etc. then I guess we'll look back and maybe think we should have just taken the nuclear risk instead.
This scenario appears the more likely one, to me.

But at least there will be a Trump golf resort and mega-mall where Gaza used to be! Just don't ask where all the children's corpses are buried! Shut up and enjoy your Big Mac!

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Esquire Bertissimmo » Wed Jun 18, 2025 3:24 pm

^Alternatively, I guess if this Iran war because an Iraq style debacle and tens of thousands perish, Iran gets taken over by an even more extreme Islamist group, this all turns into a regional war, etc. then I guess we'll look back and maybe think we should have just taken the nuclear risk instead.

I'm really not hopeful for this century lol, this but one of many corners we've backed ourselves into.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Esquire Bertissimmo » Wed Jun 18, 2025 3:11 pm

I'm looking at the current situation and wondering what we might think in retrospect. If by 2030 there are five nuclear powers in the middle east, and in some conflict in 2045 one of them uses a bomb in self-defense, we may all wish the US had bombed the shit out of the Fordow site regardless of whether or not it looked like supporting a genocidal Israel back in the year 2025.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Jamiet99uk » Wed Jun 18, 2025 3:07 pm

And in this case by "bad outcomes" I mean tens of thousands of innocent people, including many thousands of children, being MURDERED by a regime we still suck up to and disgustingly refer to as an ally, instead of seeking to put all their leaders in jail.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Jamiet99uk » Wed Jun 18, 2025 3:06 pm

Indeed.

The thing is, you see - of course from a purely temporal standpoint I accept we can't "go back in time".

However, we can, and we should, hold our political leaders to account for decisions they have made prior to waking up this morning, and hold them robustly to account if those decisions were wrong-headed decisions which have led to bad outcomes.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Esquire Bertissimmo » Wed Jun 18, 2025 3:01 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑
Wed Jun 18, 2025 2:58 pm
Esquire Bertissimmo wrote: ↑
Wed Jun 18, 2025 2:37 pm
 I'm a bit confused what you want the UK and other Western powers to do.
I want them to have managed relations with Israel differently over the past several years so that this situation would not have come about.

I am deeply ashamed at the utterly spineless conduct of the UK's so-called "labour" government, in regards to Israel, since coming to power.

I assume you are confused because you appear to think that policy starts afresh with a clean slate every morning. Clearly, I do not.
That's totally fair. I think, likewise, something different should have been done re: Iran's nuclear ambitions. If we could rewind the tape ~10 years (but not further), then maybe the US and Europe could have done better than the on-again-off-again nuclear "deals". Getting this right might have preempted this conflict and would have made it easier for Western leaders to find the fortitude to restrain Israel in Gaza.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Jamiet99uk » Wed Jun 18, 2025 2:58 pm

Esquire Bertissimmo wrote: ↑
Wed Jun 18, 2025 2:37 pm
 I'm a bit confused what you want the UK and other Western powers to do.
I want them to have managed relations with Israel differently over the past several years so that this situation would not have come about.

I am deeply ashamed at the utterly spineless conduct of the UK's so-called "labour" government, in regards to Israel, since coming to power.

I assume you are confused because you appear to think that policy starts afresh with a clean slate every morning. Clearly, I do not.

Re: War, what is it good for?

by Esquire Bertissimmo » Wed Jun 18, 2025 2:47 pm

The US demands were clarified. They want the total elimination of the nuclear program, a cap on Iran's ordinary missile count, and an end to Iran's support for proxies. Regime change is apparently a lesser priority (but a threat they're going to keep making).

Top