Both "the west" and Putin are up to no good in the middle east, that is easily an ugly draw. Watch Turkey implode next.

Read up on "Russia's ally in Syria" if your stomach is up to it.
But then if you support Putin in any way you are probably used to that kind of stuff.

That said US foreign policy is... hard to understand sometimes.

Oh and debts on state level dont work the way you imply, but i understand the propaganda viewpoint. Russians have been trying to be economically independent from "the west" for a hundred years now. Maybe if they tried to be responsible partners it would be better for everyone.

And Im not saying the west should or indeed can do something about Putin. All I meant was that Russia is enemy No. 1 in rhetoric only. Not that important at all.

The Dreadful Chronology of Gaddafi’s Murder

"Much has been written about the catastrophe visited upon Libya following the murderous attack by France and the US—400,000 people driven from their homes, an endless cycle of terror and reprisal, the creation of yet another failed state in the wake of a US foreign policy initiative. But the real damage was done to Africa itself, for had Gaddafi’s proposal for a trans-African banking system reached fruition, that unhappy continent for the first time in centuries would have had true freedom and real independence within its grasp, a circumstance the Western powers could not abide. Freedom and justice were never part of the West’s agenda."

Forget the unprofessionalism of Fox and TYT.

Where exactly in the interviews do the students say the US is a bigger threat to world peas than ISIS? All they do is avoid the dumb question and explain that ISIS is in some ways the result of US foreign policy so why are you asking this stupid question conservative activist?

Got to love the country singer's straw man about Hitler and Japan and ignoring the fundamental issue of US policy in the Middle East and acting to protect oil interests over letting them self rule and work out whatever issues they have to work out. I understand the need to try and contain the fallout from the wars between the various Islamic factions (mostly Shia and Sunni) from spilling over to neighboring nations, but the US policy has been overt in serving US interests over the long term interests of the region since the 50's. The US solid backing of Israel, even in cases where it is clearly in the wrong, adds fuel to the fire.

And I know those on the right complain how Obama has backed away from Israel, though the evidence clearly differs as the US still refuses to tell Israel, to the degree we should, to treat people within its occupied zones with proper respect... and the fact so many Americans feel the need to protect Israel and favor Israel over its occupied territories no matter what, again adds fuel to the fire and shows those in Islam how under attack their faith is, which makes them stronger in their faith and more sure that they are on the right path, since the devil is working harder to put their faith down than any other faith... of course I hear this exact same argument from Christians all the time, how the devil is trying to put Christianity down proves that Christianity must be true... amazing how a little empathy would probably help world peace, but neither faith seems to have any... though I've seen enough FB memes about how Christians are so depressed because they have so much empathy and I wonder where it is, as I've yet to see any empathy from Christians as a whole. All of which digresses from the original point...

US foreign policy is directly responsible for the rise of ISIS/ISIL, whatever you want to call it... now ISIS has risen itself up to be a rather large threat via its actions, which are deliberately provoking, as it's easier to radicalize people when the world starts turning against Islam as a whole, as those on the Right are apt to do, than turn against the small segment that aren't peace loving. Of course the Right's preferred response to those provocations are to do exactly what ISIS has publicly stated they want. They want a large war against them, they'd love it if Republicans banned them from coming to the US as it would make lone wolf attacks in the US by US citizens more prevalent, which like they did with Miami (the shooter himself pledged allegiance to ISIS, but he also pledged allegiance to Hezbollah, which is fighting against ISIS)... Republican policies, especially those of Trump and Cruz are so on point with ISIS desires, one has to wonder if they themselves are tied with ISIS interests, or if they are tied to military interests that profit off continuing the war and sacrificing American lives in the name of war profiteering... but Republican Jesus said "Blessed are the warmongers and the war profiteers and cursed be the peace makers"... It was there on the Sermon on the Mount when he also said, "Blessed be the rich employer who pays his employees poorly, and cursed be those employees who are poor and needy and needing assistance. Surely I say unto you, if you give tax breaks unto the rich and cut benefits for the needy and the poor, I shall bless your Nation... oh and forget the sick and dying, they got themselves into their mess, they are responsible for getting out, only the well to do shall have healthcare." Again I digress though...

Too many unsubstantiated assertions here. From a website titled Storm Clouds Gathering, rumor mongering isn't exactly a surprise.

John McCain does not represent US foreign policy and sounds misinformed. The 4-5 US trained fighters and provision of tactical equipment pretty much represents the degree of support/involvement the US has provided Syrian rebels. For obvious reasons that he himself points out. There's no credible opposition remotely alligned with US values, and any arms provided risk ending up with radical groups.

Just because McCain thinks it's a good idea doesn't mean it is happening, will happen or that the executive branch shares his mindset. However it is true that Russian air strikes have primarily targeted other groups over ISIS. This aligns with what I talked about elsewhere that Russia's aim is to prop up Assad. With a western coalition taking on ISIS already, this naturally leaves Assad in the strongest position.

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/20151010_MAM922.png

@Asmo

Don't really want to get a more general argument about the history of US foreign policy, I was talking more about the present day. The US's rationale for intervention during the Cold War was an exaggerated sense of the spread of communism and later to prevent anything that might precipitate an oil price spike like in the 1973-74/79. Nowadays with greatly expanded US shale oil supply and no Cold War I simply don't see any real incentive, if anything with the furore over debt, quite the opposite.

@enoch

Successful US intervention in the previous century generally involved large sums of money, whether it be propping up a government (Zaire/Congo) or funding an insurgent militia (Guatemala). Same thing with the USSR (North Korea). The ability to influence public opinion or mount credible propaganda campaigns in my opinion is generally exaggerated especially in a large, modern and educated country like Iran. It's also the conspiratorial myth that repressive regimes (like Iran, Russia) frequently turn to when they need to discredit dissent. A good example is:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2013/11/arab-conspiracy-theories

I mention Russia because this is the line pushed aggressively to both his domestic audience by it's wholly state controlled television media and to a mix of foreign and expatriate audiences (of which Russia Today is most successful) through a web of shadowy funding and home grown sounding organisations (see link below for a nice overview, e.g. http://www.globalresearch.ca/). It's pretty important to view what he says as part of a narrative to vastly exaggerate US and western intervention in Ukraine and previously Georgia, because that allows him to construct his myth of being a counterbalance to present day western imperialism.

https://criticusnixalsverdruss.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/propagramm3.jpg

@Asmo

On your comment:

The CIA's role in the 1953 Iran ouster is generally exaggerated. Several things - (1) by 1953, the Islamic clergy supported Mossadeq's ouster, something they have been suppressing ever since in inflating their anti-US stance (2) by the time of his ouster he also lacked the support of either his parliament or the people, (3) prior to it that year, he deposed his disapproving parliament with a clearly fraudulent 99% of the vote in a national referendum, (4) strictly speaking Iran was still a monarchy and the shah deposed his PM legally under the constitution, something that Mossadeq refused to abide by.

Did the UK put economic pressure on Iran when it threatened to nationalize its oil and usurp its remnants of imperialism? Sure. Did the UK then convince Eisenhower to mount a political and propaganda campaign against Mossadeq? Sure. Was that instrumental in fomenting a popular uprising of the parliament, the clergy and large portions of the 20m general population against him? Probably not.

Also I listened to it. Really, it's a meandering, probably scripted (the parts where he feigns surprise at the questioning is particularly humorous) that tries to generalize US actions, some of which were obviously harmful and support his argument. Putting Stalin in a positive light relative to the willingness of the US to use the bomb is, amusing? I'm not sure what to call it.

That the US needs a common threat to unite against holds some grains of truth in the present day but is really part of a wider narrative by Putin to construct the US as imperalist and domineering when by all accounts since the end of the Cold War, excluding GWB's term, it has been pulling back. It hardly needed to invent Iran's covert nuclear ambitions in the early 2000s, NK's saber rattling or China's stakes on the South China Sea islands.

Modern US foreign policy largely relies on reciprocation. The US provides a military alliance and counterweight to China's military for small SE Asian nations at a hefty cost to itself, and presumably gets various trade concession and voting support in various international agencies. The key word being reciprocation, something that Russia could learn a fair bit from in its own foreign policy.

@RedSky

20 billion was just an arbitrarily large number I chose to demonstrate that I think that the world would survive significant population growth beyond what we'll be dealing with in the near future.

The point of no return I was referring to is simply a point where we won't be able to get back to a place where we can sustain human population levels without significant environmental degradation and territorial disputes, among other challenges I'd prefer not to experience.

I do consider things like global warming, the fact that China is buying up land in Africa to feed its population, US foreign policy's competitive focus on securing cheap oil and the large scale destruction of rainforest to make way for single crop agriculture in Brasil to be symptoms of an imbalance in population vs. resources.

I'm not drawing the line at "everyone and stock up at the grocery store/pumps" type destruction before I take notice and preach caution. I think that defining that as a deadline would be irresponsible.

Again, I agree that we could theoretically mechanize the whole world in a way that grows the supply of resources and shares them equitably amongst an enormous human population, but that goes against the type of world I'd want to live in (excessive mechanization of natural resources) and the way human social systems typically work (equitable sharing).

There are various estimates on how much longer exponential human population growth will last, but it has certainly happened on a scale of centuries or decades - blips like baby boomers are just expected outliers within that trend.

But what's more important is that even if population levels peter off, it is consumption - which is the only statistic that really matters because it is the only negative effect of population increase - that will continue to increase exponentially as a greater proportion of the world's population begins to achieve first world living standards.

This is why free trade alone is not enough to solve problems. While it is likely to bring people out of poverty, raise education levels and increase human rights (all very good things), it will also continue to push our overall imprint on the planet in a more exponential direction than I'm comfortable with (one reason being the argument detailed in this video).

But of course I'm also uncomfortable with the prospect of any sort of forced population reduction mechanism, and I'm also uncomfortable with the notion of not raising people out of poverty.

So as I see it the only thing left to mitigate my fears is to place a primary emphasis on Education.

There's a million and one ways to do this: Everything from broad, effectual efforts like getting the Pope to get with the program and endorse contraceptives, to nearly insignificant efforts like arguing with people on the internet in hopes that you contribute some small part to a culture that places some significant emphasis on educating people about the importance of self control and restraint in every type of consumption - family size included.

Holy crap, NC. I hope you're right about this!

US foreign policy in the middle east is not making it popular, particularly in the form of sanctions and "(de)stabilization." The consequence of being wrong could be WW3. It's unfortunate that it's all complicated by the all-too-common anti-Semitism in the region (just to add a touch of Arab Tea Party crazy to the mix.)

Chomsky is a brilliant scholar. We should all read more about modern middle eastern history.

>> ^packo:

"for them this is just some place, for us, this is our home"
the irony of that statement in regards to US foreign policy is epic


I think you could make a movie like this seriously and it would be REALLY good because of this idea. However I don't think this is that movie, but I want that movie to be made. Perhaps when we actually have this happen to us.

Just imagine a movie with a character who's the Govenor of the state who's trying to make deals with the North Koreans to keep everything running at least a bit, getting water and food to his people. Imagine what sort of Game of Thrones crap he has to deal with all the time, that would be awesome to see. Imagine the boots on the ground guys (Thor) and their racism and dirty tactics that sometimes kill some of their countrymen in the process. I'd want to see this movie if it would be done RIGHT. Showing the ugliness of war and the reality of a country (or part of one) in occupation. Watch the story of the public as they waste away, dealing with getting food and going through checkpoints. Watch the "Freedom Fighters" and their struggle and significant loses. In my opinion you could only do it in a Game of Thrones sort of way...there can be no heros. Also it would have to be a TV series, it wouldn't work as a movie unless you had one compelling story in the middle of this backdrop.

>> ^dag:

Exactly. I would like to see this dubbed into Pashtun.
Xenophobe chicken hawk neocons will eat this up - seeing no irony at all. They want our freeeeedum!>> ^packo:
"for them this is just some place, for us, this is our home"
the irony of that statement in regards to US foreign policy is epic



And it's scheduled for release on Thanksgiving, the holiday that celebrates their arrival in the Native American's home.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Exactly. I would like to see this dubbed into Pashtun.

Xenophobe chicken hawk neocons will eat this up - seeing no irony at all. They want our freeeeedum!>> ^packo:

"for them this is just some place, for us, this is our home"
the irony of that statement in regards to US foreign policy is epic

"for them this is just some place, for us, this is our home"
the irony of that statement in regards to US foreign policy is epic

@Yogi - interesting (and disturbing) observation. In the 5 years I've been living in Thailand, most of the people I've talked US politics with (be they Westerners like Brits, Aussies, etc. or Asians / SE Asians) have exactly the kind of read on US foreign policy that Ron Paul is suggesting we have earned here. Ie., they see beyond the faces of the different presidents calling the shots and notice the long-term track record of going out and meddling, whether that meddling is beneficial or not.

For a long time, I bought into what we hear in the US and was hopeful that, say, the Iraqi people would be appreciative and thankful that we came and "took care of the Saddam Hussein problem". Remember when the troops got to Baghdad and we saw the Iraqis jubilantly tearing down his statue, later discovered to be largely or entirely prompted by US psyops? Then I moderated my position and thought, OK, we got into this, now we've got to see it through to the end for the sake of those people whose lives we have disrupted. That pans out real well when they overwhelmingly just want us to get the hell out...

Anyway, it sort of boggles my mind that Ron Paul would get booed over suggesting a "Golden Rule" approach. Maybe more of our fellow Americans need to get a little more world-wise and see for themselves that we've already got a big backlog of ill-will to overcome from our legacy of unrequested "intervention"...

Incredibly insightful analysis. He makes some observant connections between US foreign policy and dissident countries. Dissident he says, not for a lack of democracy but for any moves that obstruct free market capitalism.