Senate The US Politics discussion

Don't be harsh on the kid. Like my younger self, naive and morally superior view on the world....which gets shattered when you actually enter politics. Those books at uni? Nothing but BS and propaganda.

 

Was the Cold War anything like this? Because WWIII seems so possible to me right now.

Also, that seems like a ridiculous thing for Tillerson to say, he might as well have said, "The bombs will drop until diplomacy begins."

 

Axrendale - well you have the DFATtitude downpat.

Pro-tip though - most of what you learn is theory and has no bearing on the world. All the paradigms? Nonsense save realism.

You can trust me on this. Also forget DFAT. Useless and disinterested unless you've grown up overseas or have wealthy parents. It's been 9.5 years since I left but back in 2006/7 Defence, Immigration, Transport, AusAID, AFP, Customs, AGs (both as actual lawyers and the domestic secret squirrels), AusTrade all had people at posts. They represent agency activity in-country, not DFAT. AUSTRAC probably also have people in-country but I was there pre-AML/CTF legislation.

<- Masters of International Relations from Macquarie Uni.

 

My only memory is watching the Berlin Wall come down.

 

I remember in the first Iraq war there was a fair bit of alarm because the fear was that Iraq would hit Israel and drag them into the war and then . . .

.

 

No, because the US/USSR kept each other restrained. The fear of nuclear attack was there, but not the sense of unhinged lunacy at the helm. However, I was a kid, and therefore not really able to process Reagan.

 

The closest we ever came to deliberately nuking each other to kingdom come was the Cuban Missle Crisis.

 

an interesting little read:

http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/5-cold-war-close-calls

 

ABLE ARCHER.

Do you people even history?

 

Yeah. The Soviets ere burning their documents.

 

For better or for worse, the United States believed in the "Domino Theory", the belief that if a country turned communist, the countries next to it would also turn communist. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz were students of this theory.

 

yes but that meant they were a threat to American companies and prosperity. It was less ideological than it was financial. Why else do you think a fruit company helped control US covert actions?

 

phrasing .

.

 

How is that phrasing? Since when did "process" become a euphemism? You tit.

 

I understand you feel angry , but you're not to blame .

 

You still haven't explained it!

 

This will do him in for sure!

 

One never explains a joke , but I suppose if you were to look up the definition of 'process' you might find :
"a natural appendage or outgrowth on or in an organism, such as a protuberance on a bone."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company#Guatemala

"UFCO had a mixed record on promoting the development of the nations in which it operated. In Central America, the Company built extensive railroads and ports and provided employment and transportation. UFCO also created numerous schools for the people who lived and worked on Company land. On the other hand, it allowed vast tracts of land under its ownership to remain uncultivated and, in Guatemala and elsewhere, it discouraged the government from building highways, which would lessen the profitable transportation monopoly of the railroads under its control. UFCO had also destroyed at least one of those railroads upon leaving its area of operation.
In 1954, the democratically elected Guatemalan government of Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán was toppled by U.S.-backed forces led by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas who invaded from Honduras. Assigned by the Eisenhower administration, this military opposition was armed, trained and organized by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (see Operation PBSUCCESS). The directors of United Fruit Company (UFCO) had lobbied to convince the Truman and Eisenhower administrations that Colonel Arbenz intended to align Guatemala with the Soviet Bloc. Besides the disputed issue of Arbenz's allegiance to Communism, UFCO was being threatened by the Arbenz government’s agrarian reform legislation and new Labor Code. UFCO was the largest Guatemalan landowner and employer, and the Arbenz government’s land reform included the expropriation of 40% of UFCO land. U.S. officials had little proof to back their claims of a growing communist threat in Guatemala; however, the relationship between the Eisenhower administration and UFCO demonstrated the influence of corporate interest on U.S. foreign policy. United States Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was an avowed opponent of Communism, and his law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, had represented United Fruit. His brother Allen Dulles was the director of the CIA and a board member of United Fruit. United Fruit Company is the only company known to have a CIA cryptonym."

I love when people talk to me about the ideals of liberty handed down from the Revolution.

 

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

- Major General Smedley Butler
Common Sense, 1935

 

I'm old enough to remember last decade of the Cold War and it could get pretty funky at times, but I never felt that the lunatics were in control of the asylum then – as opposed to now.

 

At least if the Cold War had turned hot, we would have been nuking each other for less stupid reasons.

Maybe you could make the case for America being a benign superpower under Obama, but you can't say the same for the Bush presidency, let alone Donald Trump's. A benign superpower is supposed to behave a certain way...does having a president that discards diplomacy in favor of war, whose rhetoric gave every indication that he desired war (the complete opposite of his father I might add), fit the bill? Absolutely not. And then we have Republicans spending the past 8 years trying to lower the threshold for war with Iran...how the **** is that right? John F. Kennedy once said we should aspire to create a world where the strong are just, but we have done the opposite...we've erased the benign part of "benign superpower".