Trying to dig around a bit, but what concessions are they giving? I have found some stuff that is painted in a warm and fuzzy light on Financial Review, but it didn’t have much for substance with it. Sounds like the access was nearly there during the end of the last administration, just pure curiousity.
Tillerson’s comments about, “…charting our own course” with N. Korea is interesting as the meeting with China seems to have been positive and productive, and then right on the heels of it we (Tillerson) pretty much says N. Korea is pissing everyone off and needs to be dealt with.
I think our recent attack on Syria has as much to do with Syria’s chemical attack as it does with N. Korea “pissing everyone off” as you have appropriately stated. In fact, it is a message to the world. America is back on the world stage as a super power. Which, thank God, is a very good thing as that void was quickly being filled by those with evil intentions.
There was some speculation that possibly another motivating factor for the Syrian strike was that it was directly ahead of talks with China and could then be used as a sort of, “Remember who we are? We still got some muscle up these sleeves.” sort of thing. Just interesting observations I have stumbled across and want better minds than mine to pick at them, I am going to be real interested to see moving forward how many other folks are “not demoted” to positions that take them out of Trump’s earshot.
Was the world actively questioning this before? Not taking a pot shot here, I’m just not super well versed on other countries opinions of us from that viewpoint.
Seems like with our insane defense spending and willingness to be the world’s police force that any other countries doubting whether or not we’re still a superpower (regardless of POTUS) is being pretty silly.
I don’t think the world was actively questioning that we still have the muscle of a superpower.
I think that some of our right-leaning friends on here believe that our past President was viewed as someone who would not flex that muscle.
Maybe a world presence, but a world power…maybe not so much? This is only my unearned opinion, but to be a world presence is not hard, being all over the globe and being recognized is simply a “thing” and that we are and have been, but a world power should be at the forefront of problem solving and taking action. I think that maybe we have been relegated to presence rather than power, at least in people’s minds. Once again, this is strictly how I see it.
Some people with sources within the Whitehouse are reporting 150000 boots on the ground by June
Does a country exist that has been more at the forefront and taking more action than the USA in the past 8 years? I’ll admit to not always being up to date on global affairs. Shit’s so time consuming.
I will try not to turn this into an Obama bashing post but the man did allow our military to become a bit depleted. In addition to that he refused to put Syria in it’s place even after drawing a line in the sand. He also allowed Russia to play a major role in the middle east after leaving a vacuum. He told our enemies when we were leaving Iraq and we did so prematurely. This resulted in terrorist groups forming.
Okay…like I said we are back on the world stage as a super power and that is a good thing.
How do you feel about this Raj? I remember you saying last week this is an exact scenario you voted for Trump to avoid. I’ve heard that echo’d by a dozen people or more over the weekend. Seems like a lot of diehard Trumpers are really really caught off-guard by this latest move.
I can’t answer that question, and it is simply my perception and possibly that of the world’s that we are a presence and a hindrance as opposed to a power. I try to stay abreast as well, and then almost instantly fall behind, it’s unreal how quickly it moves.
It’s more than right leaning folks. Obama would not only refuse to flex American might at the right time. He would also take far too long to make a decision when it came to foreign affairs. And when he did make a decision he usually made the wrong one. In short he was a disaster. Trump, Bush, Rubio, Cruz, hell even Hillary Clinton would have been a huge improvement over Obama.
Well, I hope that’s not the case. We have such a technical military that we are able to inflict severe damage from an aircraft carrier, as we saw recently. Also, fly over pin point bombing has been effective.
Of course this methodology alone will never win a war, but then again we are not in a war…
Side question. You’re someone I would consider to be “fiscally conservative” (whatever that means these days). Do you ever/often find yourself at odds when it comes to the US asserting global power and the spending/funding required to do so?
Personally I’d love to see us more or less gut half the spending the govt does in regards to Defense from a monetary viewpoint, but I also recognize a strong (albeit wasteful af) military is important.
Awful if true.
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Yes pfury in a perfect world where there were no bad guys I would agree with you. Let’s take my city’s Police Department spending for an example. We could save a great deal of money if we didn’t need a Police Force in our City. That money could be spent on really cool things like the arts, civic improvements, or tax cuts. But what would happen if we gutted the departments budget? Crime would be rampant and then it wouldn’t matter how many people that were exposed to the arts, or how beautiful our city was, or even how much money that we saved in taxes.
It’s all about priorities.
I will chime in on military.
We spend too much on fanciful equipment that doesn’t work. To the detriment of keeping current weapon systems in operational order and strength.
Should we continue developing magic wands that go bang? Of course, but in usable stages and not at the expense of having less sophisticated equipment inoperative.
@anon50325502 linked an article where Marines were robbing museums for aircraft parts.
That is ridiculous and dangerous for our troops.
Which I get, hence asking your thoughts.
My comment was more about scaling down. I realize now the word “gut” may have been overkill.
This is the root of my question. So many people (myself included) are more than willing to cut a lot of entitlement programs, to some degree, but are not willing to even entertain cutting defense (not saying that’s you).
What’s the point where we stop bleeding the coffers to ensure that other countries have a higher standard of living. Seems that even though some of it is a national security thing, but clearly not all of it.
Not to re-engage the hijack, but it does need to be addressed:
[quote=“therajraj, post:6329, topic:223365”]
He searched and compiled personal information about me and then had the audacity to post it on this forum.[/quote]
I disagree that what Loppar posted would be considered “personal information.” You’ve posted similar “personal info” on this forum yourself. From just your T Nation posts, we know how old you are, where you live, your religious and ethnic background, what you studied in school, your height and weight, how long you’ve been training, why you started training in the first place, how long you’ve been using steroids, and you’ve posted a pic of yourself.
All that said, I do see how Loppar’s decision to find and post that info can be upsetting and disconcerting. I also think his rationalization about “Learn the lesson, potential employers and spouses can find it too, so I’m helping” is reminiscent of Zeb’s “I think we all learned something from me having an extra account, now didn’t we?”-shtick. It’s unnecessary and very much not the point.
But the bigger issue is that people tend to forget/ignore that the World Wide Web, in general, is a big place with a long memory. Social media even moreso because it’s info that you are specifically deciding to put “out there”.
It’s unrealistic and naive to think you can make public social media posts in the 21st century and have any control over who does what with them. If you’re concerned about actual cyber-stalking, which I’m fairly certain this is absolutely not anything close to, contact the Admins of your social media sites and address it through other proper channels.
Outside of that, I’d just say:
Dude, you’re flat broke. Move on.
One last heads up: If you’re genuinely concerned about your random people seeing your Twitter page, change your privacy settings so posts are only viewable to people who follow you.
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