“I cannot escape the sense that those pundits who really believed that Donald Trump was going to embrace restraint in foreign policy have been played for fools.” @dandrezner.bsky.social danieldrezner.substack.com/p/donald-tru...
Donald Trump, American Imperialist
Link Preview: Donald Trump, American Imperialist: Restraint had a nice rhetorical run.
so the internet is an echo-chamber echo chamber.
absolutely. but we have put a few decades between us and our invasions. and the stakes are very different, and much higher, than in the 1980s, when two hegemons took military liberties within their own blocs. it is our interest now to prevent that kind of liberty-taking.
right now it’s all bluster, doesn’t justify anything. probably it stays all bluster. but you never know. it would be, just in cold, realpolitik terms, a profound betrayal of american interests. control of the canal is nowhere near worth the damage it would to norms in which US interests depend.
* on which i so miss mastodon’s edit button
a panama thing, let alone some greenland / canada / mexico thing, would instantly justify in retrospect russia’s ukraine thing and in prospect china’s taiwan thing. kind of what a russian-asset american president might attempt.
Biden: We have to take extraordinary efforts to counter a recrudescence of territorial adventurism by military force. Trump: What if we just joined in on the adventure? Our military could take some pretty cool territories!
( re bsky.app/profile/bcfi... )
“We become one of the most dangerous kinds of people — a cruel person with a clean conscience.” @davidfrenchjag.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2024/12/22/o...
Opinion | Why Are So Many Christians So Cruel?
Link Preview: Opinion | Why Are So Many Christians So Cruel?: It’s a simple question with a complicated answer.
oh, i voted for, publicly endorsed, kamala. drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/11/04/t...
the most deluded people in the world, who surround themselves with one another and then their sycophants, know what's "obviously true" when they see it.
Loading quoted Bluesky post...
different ethical concerns, pick your poison.
it's not that remunerative jobs are boring. it's that they are mostly unethical.
believe me, i tried to help them notice. there were some shouting matches.
Trump did negotiate the agreement under which Biden withdrew the troops. To be clear, I think that negoti8n was shameful (it cut out our allies who we claimed were Afg’s legitimate govt) + the withdrawal was a catastrophe (for which I blame both Trump+Biden). But these friends credit the agreement
🙂
yes. they say no wars in his term (they overlook the crushing of ISIS and accelerated drone wars), tried to withdraw from Syria and Afghanistan. they see Biden as risking WWIII, doubling down on an ill-starred US orchestrated coup in Ukraine (Maidan 2014). to be clear, these are far from my views.
definitely not libs. people coming from the chomskyist, anti-US-imperial left. once upon a time you might have described Glenn Greenwald as left. the arc they’ve followed, and our political realignments, put them on the right now. their self-id is beginning to catch up with that, maybe, sluggishly.
i'm sure i'm worse.
a couple of amazing people i know from elsewhere and have i have found here recently: @lmsacasas.bsky.social @robertmanduca.bsky.social
definitely. drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/10/15/a...
he's in it for the good of Humanity. x.com/elonmusk/sta...