The Official Former President Trump thread

[KarlMarx]

1 hour ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

Given that it's the largest economy in the world, the most powerful military in the world and one of the bigger populations in the world it's obviously true that when it causes problems it can cause far bigger problems than anyone else but by the same token when it produces benefits to the world it can produce huge benefits .

 

The bad outweighs the good massively.

When they say jump we better all jump or else especially with an idiotic megalomaniac in the White House.

[NotThePars]

Moscow and Riyadh say hi, by the way.

While both are undeniably responsible for a lot of the destabilisation in the world you would be hard-pressed to make the case that they are on the same level as the United States. While the Russians and the Saudis are largely limited in scope to specific regions the US have influence across the entire globe stretching from their own backgarden in Latin America to the Pacific, the Middle East and Africa largely without significant opposition.

[Savage Henry]

40 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

 

While both are undeniably responsible for a lot of the destabilisation in the world you would be hard-pressed to make the case that they are on the same level as the United States. While the Russians and the Saudis are largely limited in scope to specific regions the US have influence across the entire globe stretching from their own backgarden in Latin America to the Pacific, the Middle East and Africa largely without significant opposition.

 

I'd suggest 90% of what the US actually does in its Embassies and Consulates across the globe goes unreported.  

But still, the world's media has every right to point and laugh when then US broadcast media is focused on whether Rex Tillerson called the President a Moron.  Tillerson seems to be less than effective in ideal situations, but in this kind of situation, it's impossible for him to do his job.  

I have more faith in the State department than most around here because my daily work involves working quite closely with their soft programmes.  The real risk, actually, is that Trump pulls back funding from these projects and genuinely does cause destabilisation.  As we've seen in Spain, folk are quite capable of destabilising without the Wotsit Shitgibbon interfering.

[AUFC90]

Thats a nonsense, also we only jump because our Tory and Labour Governments say how high. Scotland has repeatedly shown through the SNP's interactions with US industry and money that we can be firm and still retain investment in many forms.

Scotland isnt a 3rd world country on Americas doorstep though. Ask the south american countries if being firm gets them anywhere.

[EdgarusQPFC]

2 hours ago, bob the tank said:

I met a woman having a day out with her old father on a riverboat trip in Nevada years ago. The dad was an ex cop from Chicago and was carrying a wee 38 pistol. The daughter had a desert eagle in her shoulder bag, " for self protection only"

I can almost understand the ex cop, likely he has seen some shit that has made him wanna be safe, but the lassie packing a big hand cannon is ridiculous 

[Cerberus]

33 minutes ago, AUFC90 said:

 

Scotland isnt a 3rd world country on Americas doorstep though. Ask the south american countries if being firm gets them anywhere.

 

OK. Anyone got the phone number for Guatemala?

[KarlMarx]

50 minutes ago, kilbowie2002 said:

Thats a nonsense, also we only jump because our Tory and Labour Governments say how high. Scotland has repeatedly shown through the SNP's interactions with US industry and money that we can be firm and still retain investment in many forms.

In what way is it nonsense?

If you think the SNP would be different then you are a fool.

America does more bad than good.

Grenada,Guatemala, Iraq and Chile were all worse off after Uncle Sam intervened with their bully boy tactics.

[AUFC90]

OK. Anyone got the phone number for Guatemala?

Guatemala isn't South American

[Miguel Sanchez]

https://twitter.com/EmGusk/status/915600695130193920

If you're still in any doubt about the intellect of the man in charge.

[Jacksgranda]

6 minutes ago, kilbowie2002 said:

Im pretty sure ive just seen a news report where he wished a man in puerto rico would have a nice time.

 

6 minutes ago, kilbowie2002 said:

Im pretty sure ive just seen a news report where he wished a man in puerto rico would have a nice time.

So that's two men, then.

[strichener]

27 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

 

So that's two men, then.

No it was one man but Kilbowie was so disbelieving of what he saw that he thought he would post once for each eye that witnessed it.

[Savage Henry]

2 hours ago, KarlMarx said:

In what way is it nonsense?

If you think the SNP would be different then you are a fool.

America does more bad than good.

Grenada,Guatemala, Iraq and Chile were all worse off after Uncle Sam intervened with their bully boy tactics.

*Inhales sharply.*  

 

I'm not targeting you at all, and I hope this doesn't come off as personal, but I'm kind of sick of this idea that somehow Iraq was a bohemian outpost up until 2003 and then the Americans came along and ruined everything by creating Islamic State.   I've spent the last three years working and studying in Iraq, both in the Kurdish areas, the Yezidi areas and, intermittently, Baghdad.  Don't believe what you read in Zero Hedge, or even the Guardian, necessarily.  It's an essentially masochistic endeavour.

There are, currently, three real centres of conflict in Iraq.  1. Baghdad.  Outside the green zone, it's a bit of a mess, although it has been a couple of months since the last bombing.  You aren't supposed to go out without a detail, if you are a Western worker, but it's possible.  It's not terribly pleasant, though, and I wouldn't recommend it.  If you can go down to the marshes, you really should though.    2. Mosul.  Mosul is home to Arabs, both Christian and Muslim.  That puts it at a bit of odds with its surrounds, which is largely Kurdish and secular.  It is pretty much abandoned, as it was the last retreat of Islamic State (which is not the creation of the CIA, or Mossad but has in fact existed in various guises since the sixties and was a religious reaction, on the part of Western educated Islamic clerics who derided things like the jitterbug as decadent and depraved.)  The third is Kirkuk, which is essentially contested territory and has been for centuries.  There's a whole pile of oil there.

For about 400 years, up until 1916, all of these places were ruled from Turkey, as part of the Ottoman Empire.  After 1916, the infamous Sykes-Picot agreement which followed the collapse of the Empire, these areas were collectively called Iraq, and divided into four distinct governates.  Those governates essentially served as means to provide Britain, Italy and France with oil and dates and olives and suchlike.   International trade was plentiful, and folks got rich, both in the West and in Iraq. A minority, granted, but still.  Money and trade and intellectualism was flowing.   It also provided thousands of jobs and became centres of academic excellence.  But yeah, it's largely fair to say that they were playthings of the west.  It's not a great time in terms of Western foreign policy, I grant you.    During the second half of the 20th century, Western hegemony paled and the UK and France were effectively forced to give over an element of self-governance, in what was and is essentially a federal Iraq.  It was always unstable, and at some point, Saddam Hussein came along and seized power.  In Baghdad, he set about plans to quite literally exterminate any opposition.  He would use torture,  state brutality and cultural oppression.  This ghettoised Iraq.  The Jews and Christians were forced to repatriate or flee to the North.    So for the most part, the Iron Fist of the Ba'athist Party kept an oppressive list on what was a genuinely cosmopolitan part of the world.

Along came Iran, and Kuwait, and this polarised the Persian areas of Mesopotamia with the Arabic areas. This isn't always a good or a bad thing, but Persian cultures and Arabic cultures are quite distinct, and at times polarising.   Well, Saddam didn't like this, and gassed everyone.  If he didn't gas them, he'd torture them.  The 80s were a really, really shite time to be Iraqi.  Not through any foreign intervention (notwithstanding the cultural divide I refer to) but entirely because Baghdad attempted to coerce an Iraqi-Arab nationalism in areas which were neither Iraqi or Arabic.  This came to a head around 1988, in Halabja, when  Hussein embarked on systemic and indiscriminate bombing of his own people, as well as the Kurds, who by now had developed quite the nationalist identity.  Saddam didn't like this, and exacted his revenge.  By 1990, the West couldn't sit back as millions of Kurds and Christians and Muslims were forced to flee over the mountains towards Iran, and, in one of the few genuinely moral pieces of military intervention since WW2, the US and the UK created a Kurdish safe haven.  Since then, the Kurdish diaspora have returned, the Muslims who have fled IS (which was partly a direct response to the toppling of the Saddam and the hopelessly short sighted 'handover' - but, get this, actually used to go around killing people under his leadership as well) have found a home, and the West has been able to effectively destroy IS as a fighting army.    And what do you know, in the areas other than the four hotspots of violence, Iraq is functioning pretty well.  People are free to practice whatever religion they choose, vote for whomever they wish, and do all sorts of things otherwise forbidden in the rest of the Middle East.  You might want to look at the Fulbright Scholarship, Access English, Iraqi Young Leaders Programme, and other academic and humanitarian projects funded by the US Department of State.  You might want to look at the access to uncensored media, movies and music.  You might want to look at the bars, clubs and international tourism in Iraq, too, much of which is supported or funded by the good ol' US of A.  

So, if you want to say that Iraq (a very modern construct) was better off before the Americans became involved, you are basically harking back to a time when a dictator was routinely firing chemical weapons at dissidents, where police actually served as instigators of domestic terror, where Iraqi dissidents were slaughtered, and where religious minorities were forced into learning Arabic, into attending political indoctrination and were effectively banned from receiving international media.   There are Iraqis who would agree with you, but they are the ones who lost power after the handover and who have seen society swing 180 degrees from their previous existence.  

This is not at all to say that Western foreign policy in the ME is benign.  Far from it.  But Iraq, notwithstanding the utter clusterfuck of the handover which has made life almost unconscionably cruel for relatively isolated parts of the country, is a relative success.

[TheProgressiveLiberal]

The US invasion made Iraq worse, at least in the short term. The long term remains to be seen.

I hope the US eventually shuts off all those programs we are funding over there. We're a bankrupt country.

[TheProgressiveLiberal]

How long do we get to coast off being responsible for keeping Soviet tanks from pushing to the English channel, and then within a handful of decades containing and defeating one of the most evil and imperialist regimes without a major war? Those are both pretty big deals on  the balance of whether US foreign policy is a net positive or negative for the world.

Still, even putting US foreign policy in the most extreme negative light, I'd say 99.9% of the worlds problems are due to local leaders and local people interacting with each other.

[ICTJohnboy]

22 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

*Inhales sharply.*  

 

I'm not targeting you at all, and I hope this doesn't come off as personal, but I'm kind of sick of this idea that somehow Iraq was a bohemian outpost up until 2003 and then the Americans came along and ruined everything by creating Islamic State.   I've spent the last three years working and studying in Iraq, both in the Kurdish areas, the Yezidi areas and, intermittently, Baghdad.  Don't believe what you read in Zero Hedge, or even the Guardian, necessarily.  It's an essentially masochistic endeavour.

There are, currently, three real centres of conflict in Iraq.  1. Baghdad.  Outside the green zone, it's a bit of a mess, although it has been a couple of months since the last bombing.  You aren't supposed to go out without a detail, if you are a Western worker, but it's possible.  It's not terribly pleasant, though, and I wouldn't recommend it.  If you can go down to the marshes, you really should though.    2. Mosul.  Mosul is home to Arabs, both Christian and Muslim.  That puts it at a bit of odds with its surrounds, which is largely Kurdish and secular.  It is pretty much abandoned, as it was the last retreat of Islamic State (which is not the creation of the CIA, or Mossad but has in fact existed in various guises since the sixties and was a religious reaction, on the part of Western educated Islamic clerics who derided things like the jitterbug as decadent and depraved.)  The third is Kirkuk, which is essentially contested territory and has been for centuries.  There's a whole pile of oil there.

For about 400 years, up until 1916, all of these places were ruled from Turkey, as part of the Ottoman Empire.  After 1916, the infamous Sykes-Picot agreement which followed the collapse of the Empire, these areas were collectively called Iraq, and divided into four distinct governates.  Those governates essentially served as means to provide Britain, Italy and France with oil and dates and olives and suchlike.   International trade was plentiful, and folks got rich, both in the West and in Iraq. A minority, granted, but still.  Money and trade and intellectualism was flowing.   It also provided thousands of jobs and became centres of academic excellence.  But yeah, it's largely fair to say that they were playthings of the west.  It's not a great time in terms of Western foreign policy, I grant you.    During the second half of the 20th century, Western hegemony paled and the UK and France were effectively forced to give over an element of self-governance, in what was and is essentially a federal Iraq.  It was always unstable, and at some point, Saddam Hussein came along and seized power.  In Baghdad, he set about plans to quite literally exterminate any opposition.  He would use torture,  state brutality and cultural oppression.  This ghettoised Iraq.  The Jews and Christians were forced to repatriate or flee to the North.    So for the most part, the Iron Fist of the Ba'athist Party kept an oppressive list on what was a genuinely cosmopolitan part of the world.

Along came Iran, and Kuwait, and this polarised the Persian areas of Mesopotamia with the Arabic areas. This isn't always a good or a bad thing, but Persian cultures and Arabic cultures are quite distinct, and at times polarising.   Well, Saddam didn't like this, and gassed everyone.  If he didn't gas them, he'd torture them.  The 80s were a really, really shite time to be Iraqi.  Not through any foreign intervention (notwithstanding the cultural divide I refer to) but entirely because Baghdad attempted to coerce an Iraqi-Arab nationalism in areas which were neither Iraqi or Arabic.  This came to a head around 1988, in Halabja, when  Hussein embarked on systemic and indiscriminate bombing of his own people, as well as the Kurds, who by now had developed quite the nationalist identity.  Saddam didn't like this, and exacted his revenge.  By 1990, the West couldn't sit back as millions of Kurds and Christians and Muslims were forced to flee over the mountains towards Iran, and, in one of the few genuinely moral pieces of military intervention since WW2, the US and the UK created a Kurdish safe haven.  Since then, the Kurdish diaspora have returned, the Muslims who have fled IS (which was partly a direct response to the toppling of the Saddam and the hopelessly short sighted 'handover' - but, get this, actually used to go around killing people under his leadership as well) have found a home, and the West has been able to effectively destroy IS as a fighting army.    And what do you know, in the areas other than the four hotspots of violence, Iraq is functioning pretty well.  People are free to practice whatever religion they choose, vote for whomever they wish, and do all sorts of things otherwise forbidden in the rest of the Middle East.  You might want to look at the Fulbright Scholarship, Access English, Iraqi Young Leaders Programme, and other academic and humanitarian projects funded by the US Department of State.  You might want to look at the access to uncensored media, movies and music.  You might want to look at the bars, clubs and international tourism in Iraq, too, much of which is supported or funded by the good ol' US of A.  

So, if you want to say that Iraq (a very modern construct) was better off before the Americans became involved, you are basically harking back to a time when a dictator was routinely firing chemical weapons at dissidents, where police actually served as instigators of domestic terror, where Iraqi dissidents were slaughtered, and where religious minorities were forced into learning Arabic, into attending political indoctrination and were effectively banned from receiving international media.   There are Iraqis who would agree with you, but they are the ones who lost power after the handover and who have seen society swing 180 degrees from their previous existence.  

This is not at all to say that Western foreign policy in the ME is benign.  Far from it.  But Iraq, notwithstanding the utter clusterfuck of the handover which has made life almost unconscionably cruel for relatively isolated parts of the country, is a relative success.

 

Do you write speeches for Tony Blair?

 

[KarlMarx]

2 minutes ago, TheProgressiveLiberal said:

How long do we get to coast off being responsible for keeping Soviet tanks from pushing to the English channel, and then within a handful of decades containing and defeating one of the most evil and imperialist regimes without a major war? Those are both pretty big deals on  the balance of whether US foreign policy is a net positive or negative for the world.

Still, even putting US foreign policy in the most extreme negative light, I'd say 99.9% of the worlds problems are due to local leaders and local people interacting with each other.

You're not American.

How did Yankland improve Guatemala, Chile, Iraq or Grenada?

One alleged evil empire replaced with a behemoth who believes it has the right to tell us what to do.

Who elected Trumpland the world's policemen anyway?

[Savage Henry]

 
Do you write speeches for Tony Blair?
 

Tony Blair would most likely disagree with 80% of that. As far as I know he still believes 2003 was the right course of action, for one thing.

[KarlMarx]

23 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

*Inhales sharply.*  

 

I'm not targeting you at all, and I hope this doesn't come off as personal, but I'm kind of sick of this idea that somehow Iraq was a bohemian outpost up until 2003 and then the Americans came along and ruined everything by creating Islamic State.   I've spent the last three years working and studying in Iraq, both in the Kurdish areas, the Yezidi areas and, intermittently, Baghdad.  Don't believe what you read in Zero Hedge, or even the Guardian, necessarily.  It's an essentially masochistic endeavour.

There are, currently, three real centres of conflict in Iraq.  1. Baghdad.  Outside the green zone, it's a bit of a mess, although it has been a couple of months since the last bombing.  You aren't supposed to go out without a detail, if you are a Western worker, but it's possible.  It's not terribly pleasant, though, and I wouldn't recommend it.  If you can go down to the marshes, you really should though.    2. Mosul.  Mosul is home to Arabs, both Christian and Muslim.  That puts it at a bit of odds with its surrounds, which is largely Kurdish and secular.  It is pretty much abandoned, as it was the last retreat of Islamic State (which is not the creation of the CIA, or Mossad but has in fact existed in various guises since the sixties and was a religious reaction, on the part of Western educated Islamic clerics who derided things like the jitterbug as decadent and depraved.)  The third is Kirkuk, which is essentially contested territory and has been for centuries.  There's a whole pile of oil there.

For about 400 years, up until 1916, all of these places were ruled from Turkey, as part of the Ottoman Empire.  After 1916, the infamous Sykes-Picot agreement which followed the collapse of the Empire, these areas were collectively called Iraq, and divided into four distinct governates.  Those governates essentially served as means to provide Britain, Italy and France with oil and dates and olives and suchlike.   International trade was plentiful, and folks got rich, both in the West and in Iraq. A minority, granted, but still.  Money and trade and intellectualism was flowing.   It also provided thousands of jobs and became centres of academic excellence.  But yeah, it's largely fair to say that they were playthings of the west.  It's not a great time in terms of Western foreign policy, I grant you.    During the second half of the 20th century, Western hegemony paled and the UK and France were effectively forced to give over an element of self-governance, in what was and is essentially a federal Iraq.  It was always unstable, and at some point, Saddam Hussein came along and seized power.  In Baghdad, he set about plans to quite literally exterminate any opposition.  He would use torture,  state brutality and cultural oppression.  This ghettoised Iraq.  The Jews and Christians were forced to repatriate or flee to the North.    So for the most part, the Iron Fist of the Ba'athist Party kept an oppressive list on what was a genuinely cosmopolitan part of the world.

Along came Iran, and Kuwait, and this polarised the Persian areas of Mesopotamia with the Arabic areas. This isn't always a good or a bad thing, but Persian cultures and Arabic cultures are quite distinct, and at times polarising.   Well, Saddam didn't like this, and gassed everyone.  If he didn't gas them, he'd torture them.  The 80s were a really, really shite time to be Iraqi.  Not through any foreign intervention (notwithstanding the cultural divide I refer to) but entirely because Baghdad attempted to coerce an Iraqi-Arab nationalism in areas which were neither Iraqi or Arabic.  This came to a head around 1988, in Halabja, when  Hussein embarked on systemic and indiscriminate bombing of his own people, as well as the Kurds, who by now had developed quite the nationalist identity.  Saddam didn't like this, and exacted his revenge.  By 1990, the West couldn't sit back as millions of Kurds and Christians and Muslims were forced to flee over the mountains towards Iran, and, in one of the few genuinely moral pieces of military intervention since WW2, the US and the UK created a Kurdish safe haven.  Since then, the Kurdish diaspora have returned, the Muslims who have fled IS (which was partly a direct response to the toppling of the Saddam and the hopelessly short sighted 'handover' - but, get this, actually used to go around killing people under his leadership as well) have found a home, and the West has been able to effectively destroy IS as a fighting army.    And what do you know, in the areas other than the four hotspots of violence, Iraq is functioning pretty well.  People are free to practice whatever religion they choose, vote for whomever they wish, and do all sorts of things otherwise forbidden in the rest of the Middle East.  You might want to look at the Fulbright Scholarship, Access English, Iraqi Young Leaders Programme, and other academic and humanitarian projects funded by the US Department of State.  You might want to look at the access to uncensored media, movies and music.  You might want to look at the bars, clubs and international tourism in Iraq, too, much of which is supported or funded by the good ol' US of A.  

So, if you want to say that Iraq (a very modern construct) was better off before the Americans became involved, you are basically harking back to a time when a dictator was routinely firing chemical weapons at dissidents, where police actually served as instigators of domestic terror, where Iraqi dissidents were slaughtered, and where religious minorities were forced into learning Arabic, into attending political indoctrination and were effectively banned from receiving international media.   There are Iraqis who would agree with you, but they are the ones who lost power after the handover and who have seen society swing 180 degrees from their previous existence.  

This is not at all to say that Western foreign policy in the ME is benign.  Far from it.  But Iraq, notwithstanding the utter clusterfuck of the handover which has made life almost unconscionably cruel for relatively isolated parts of the country, is a relative success.

So those that say that Christians who are now being persecuted that were previously allowed to practice are liars?

Women who previously worked in good jobs who no longer are allowed to are liars?

Women beaten for not wearing appropriate clothing are liars?

The takeover by religous leaders who want to see IS in control is not happening?

Why did take 12 years after gassing for the evil twins of Bush and Blair to invade?

I don'tread The Guardian nor do I read rags like The Daily Mail who want you to believe everything is rosy.

Basically what you are saying is that observers who state things are worse for the average Iraqi are liars or Saddam supporters?

 

[TheProgressiveLiberal]

9 minutes ago, KarlMarx said:

You're not American.

How did Yankland improve Guatemala, Chile, Iraq or Grenada?

One alleged evil empire replaced with a behemoth who believes it has the right to tell us what to do.

Who elected Trumpland the world's policemen anyway?

Guatemala sucks. Did we cause that? I'm not sure what your referring to.

Don't think we improved Iraq.

Don't know anything about Grenada.

If you're referring to that commie who was overthrown in Chile, I thought that was local people. I'd imagine the CIA had a hand, but it still would have happened. From what I understand Chile is currently the richest and most stable democracy in South America. I have limited understanding of the differences in Latin American nations beyond the obvious about how Spanish or how Native they are, but it seems Chile is way better off than Cuba or Venezuela, which would be the best comps for what the commies were trying to do.

Edited October 4, 2017 by TheProgressiveLiberal

[KarlMarx]

Just now, TheProgressiveLiberal said:

Guatemala sucks. Did we cause that? I'm not sure what your referring to.

Don't think we improved Iraq?

Don't know anything about Grenada?

If you're referring to that commie who was overthrown in Chile, I thought that was local people. I'd imagine the CIA had a hand, but it still would have happened. From what I understand Chile is currently the richest and most stable democracy in South America. I have limited understanding of the differences in Latin American nations beyond the obvious about how Spanish or how Native they are, but it seems Chile is way better off than Cuba or Venezuela, which would be the best comps for what the commies were trying to do.

You're thick as f**k and know nothing of American history.

Thanks for proving that

1 You do know it was the American shitehole that funded Pinochet who murdered thousands in football stadiums?

2 America put out a leader of Guatemala for kicking out The American Fruit Company and giving the money to the people.

3 America invaded Grenada to displace a democratically elected leader for being a socialist.

America only believes in democracy when it suits them.

Read some books about American history and world interference.

You may learn something Swampy