Originally Posted by
Niall_Quinn
Surely the passages you have quoted are simple to comprehend? I'm not sure how to state it more clearly. Clinton is a war criminal, Trump isn't. Her crimes in Libya are documented and her policy in Syria is more of the same with the added danger of a confrontational approach towards Russia. Insane. There's nothing at all that can be documented related to Trump in terms of war crimes, obviously because he's not even the president yet but this is a fact nonetheless. If he engages in the same shit as Clinton then he'd be a war criminal too. But the fact is, as things stand, he hasn't and he isn't. In moral terms and whether this weighed on the voters' minds or not, whether intentional or not, the Americans did not elect a war criminal and that surely has to be a very good thing? Or put another way, what a statement it would have been had they elected a woman that is guilty of crimes against humanity.
My comment was a personal one. I'm relieved a creature like Clinton hasn't been able to behave in the manner she has behaved and then be rewarded with the presidency. But there's more to it than that. In both the US and Europe the war criminals in charge failed to persuade their citizens to go to war with Iran and to a lesser degree failed to persuade the citizens to support a full scale war against Syria. It at least suggests some of the people paid attention to what has happened in Iraq. Blair is loathed for being a liar and a war criminal. Bush is not as unpopular as Blair but his legacy is tied intimately to the grand failure in Iraq and the lies that led to the loss of so many lives and so many resources. Clinton easily sits in the company of these criminals. She's "more of the same", the establishment in the eyes of a large segment of the American electorate. With these three criminals you get the neoliberals/neocons as part of the deal. That is what has been rejected in the US. The warmongers and their plans for global supremacy, their "full spectrum dominance", their American exceptionalism.
This is all tied to the US domestic economy. First Ron Paul gained traction with the notion that "blood and treasure" should not be thrown at crazy globalist schemes, not just because of the neglect at home and the waste overseas but also because the blowback generated a cycle of increasing violence and increasing loss. Trump's slogan is America First. He's talking about jobs, the rejuvenation of the domestic infrastructure, better relations with adversaries thus implying less conflict. Now whether he follows through on any of this is another matter entirely, but the fact is he's been elected on the strength of these promises so this at least suggests it's what the people want. And if that's true then finally, at last! It has taken 30 years to go from, "Kick their chicken Shi'ite asses!", to a far more sober realisation that global war by proxy and potentially direct confrontation with Russia is probably not a great idea.
There's another important side to this too. The cheerleaders for war, the mainstream media, have been entirely discredited. Their subscriptions are on life support, their advertising revenues in the gutter. They are dying. This is excellent news as for-profit warmongers such as Clinton have a much tougher time pushing their crude propaganda. Iraq started the funeral for the mainstream media. The large number of people who saw through that utter bullshit and took to other venues, such as the Internet, to expose the mainstream laid the ground for an alternative media that will soon surpass the mainstream in terms of audience numbers. It is no coincidence Ron Paul and Donald Trump dominated the modern outlets and got their message through despite the open hostility and brutal lies and propaganda of the mainstream.
So this is where I find encouragement on a moral level. The rejection of the establishment and the warmongers that have driven the agenda for so long and the slow death of their media cheerleaders and the corresponding rise of an alternative media freed from the establishment gatekeepers.
That's about as detailed as I can go without writing a book. I would hope ANYONE who wants peace and prosperity is aligned with that section of American society that has expressed a desire for the same. I'm afraid writing these people off as racists and misogynists is just silly. Sure, it's nationalism but nationalism is only a dirty word because the liberals and their mainstream media worked hard with their slurs against the idea of nation as they pushed their globalist agendas. What we have seen though is everyday people breaking out of the programming, despite the power of the establishment aligned against them, despite the endless propaganda of the mainstream media. A majority now want their country back, a majority want fewer or no wars, a majority has dismissed globalisation and all the injustices it brings. Brexit is progress. Trump is progress. Whenever you turn away from war and theft you have progressed. That doesn't mean you have reached Nirvana but you have to stop shooting yourself in the foot before you can walk anywhere.
My own views on Trump is that, of course, he's no racist, no Hitler, I mean FFS can we all grow up for a minute? But he's also no Republican so he'll struggle against the forces within his own party that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. But, for a change, there are millions of eyes on this president that are focused on policies instead of bullshit like, "first black president", "first woman president" (which is what the establishment play was about this time around btw). If Trump doesn't deliver, millions of people will notice. If Trump doesn't deliver because he is consistently blocked by his own party then people will notice. There's more chance than ever, albeit a slim one, that this guy might just have enough support to get something done...
HENCE THE TERROR OF THE LIBERAL ELITE...
.., hence the tears, the hysterics, the futile marches and protests which are really about their own arrogance and complacency. They are on a precipice, screaming. If things go well they could be pushed over the edge never to return. Probably wishful thinking on my part but a slim chance is better than no chance at all.
Even if Trump fails completely, if he demonstrates he's just another charlatan seeking power on the back of empty promises then we'll soon know just how serious his current supporters are. If they settle for that and go back to business as usual then you win, the status quo will slip back into gear and we likely won't have a chance for progress in another century. But if the people say well that's enough of that, we gave your shitty political systems one last chance and you blew it, well then we move to interesting times that provide the possibility of real change and real progress. And sure, you can't get there without upheaval, and yes that could be a nasty business. But any more nasty than what we have done to Iraq? Libya? Syria? Afghanistan? I doubt it. There must eventually come a time when we cease building our own security on the back of the victims we create elsewhere and instead build it in cooperation with the people we share the planet with. You'll hear snakes hiss their messages that death and mayhem are the only guarantees for future security and prosperity, but we've been down that route and where is our peace? Where is our prosperity? Isn't it true that the status quo has delivered one notable outcome? Great inequality. It has failed, it has been exposed. And about time too.
Which leads to Russia and Syria. What we do there is help get rid of that ISIS shite we created (starting way, way back when the British felt entitled to rule the world), and then we get our arses out of other peoples countries. Full stop. This doesn't mean we hold joint operations with the Russians and invite them over for team (although we were happy to do that with Stalin in WWII so let's stop with crocodile morality), but we can stop bombing Assad's forces so the Syrians can turn their full weight against ISIS. The Russians HAVE to be there to prevent the collapse of a state they have a traditional relationship with, just as we have our rotten relationships with terror states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar (so stop it again with the mock outrage), but they can't afford to be there and they want to be out of there as fast as possible - hence their partial withdrawal at a time when withdrawal made no sense.
ISIS is committing the vast majority of atrocities in Syria (and wherever they happen to be). The Russians, Syrians AND YES, the UK and the US (again, time to grow up) are also committing atrocities too but this is what happens during war. Every war. When civilians get caught in the crossfire the shooting doesn't stop. I think the statistic for combat casualties and civilian casualties in war is 1:15. Horrendous, but now that we've started all these wars in the Middle East (WE as in US, WE started all these wars), whether we are horrified or delighted with the realities of war those realities still exist. So we can all shout at each other, you did this, you did that. Or we can resolve to end the carnage as soon as humanly possible.
The ONLY sane option then is for combatants to reach some sort of agreement where all resources can be focused on destroying what is the significant threat of ISIS and returning some degree of stability to the country. What does that get us? First, the destruction of ISIS, everyone benefits from that (provided Trump isn't some neocon cuckoo). Next a reduction in tensions with Russia, again everyone benefits from that. Whatever else happens, these are two very worthwhile outcomes.
OR, we can sit there while people die daily, calling each other names and making stupid threats that if carried out will provoke global war. The Clinton plan. No, it really is. Go and look at her policy. The insane bitch. No-fly zones that if violated will result in shoot-downs, even if these are Russian aircraft. Do you get that? Shooting at Russian aircraft. And the Russians would then respond, how? By doing as they are ordered? This is the kind of brinksmanship that moves war beyond the control of the rational and into the realm of the inevitable. It's HUGE that Clinton was defeated. It could just have saved all our lives.
After ISIS is destroyed or at least dispersed, then comes the uncertain part and that's where the UN has to show some balls and stop being a puppet of the US for a change. The Trump factor may or may not come into play once again. We just don't know. But anyway, the US and Russia must be held to account by the legal body that is supposed to preside over these things. If neither agree to leave, which they should according to the law (and not some bullshit political interpretation of the law) then the UN has to intervene and stabilise the situation on the ground. Far from ideal but the alternative is allowing Assad the opportunity to enact revenge against his internal enemies. As I understand it, this is precisely why we have a UN. Not to take sides and provide political cover for war crimes (see Iraq) but to respond to humanitarian crises with the full weight and authority of a unified global community. Time for the UN to do its fucking job and if it can't do that job then disband it.
I haven't mentioned the French. Scumbags. Little weasels who have provoked half the shit that's going on in the Middle East. I haven't mentioned China who are always looking to capitalise on the follies of their adversaries. I haven't mentioned Iran, their ambitions need to be contained too. Trump is right on the money here, don't give them huge amounts of cash FFS. This will stabilise their economy and allow them to commit more resources to undermining the region. They should be made to come to the table like anyone else, without the bribes. Crucial to all of this though is assurances from the US that its crackpot plan to sweep through the Middle East overthrowing governments has finally come to an end. If that guarantee is placed on the table then all else is possible. There will be no perfect outcomes. Dictators all over the region will remain in power and will have to be acknowledged. That's the reality of decades of prior interventions by the major powers and those mistakes aren't easily undone. So we hold our noses in the interests of a wider peace. There is no other option.
And then we put an end to all the stupid sanctions that have forced the poor in the target nations into even deeper poverty and driven them right into the arms of the extremists we claim we want to defeat. Those policies were deliberate btw. It's difficult to create a rabid terrorist movement when people are prosperous. Deliberate. That shit has to stop. So that will mean Trump has to develop some sort of working relationship with his intelligence services that right now are pretty much a law unto themselves. Kennedy got shot in the head for trying to do that, so I guess we'll see if it's even possible to negotiate with these people. Hopefully the mood in the US is enough to suggest to the unelected technocrats who run their own little kingdoms within the empire it's a good idea to listen. But that's a grey area that I doubt anyone can predict right now.
That's how you solve these problems. Not because I say so but because that's why we have the institutions and policies that were decades in the making and have been trounced by the neocon crazies and the self serving politicians that have enabled these vandals, such as the Clinton gang. It may be naive to hope for a change this time, it probably is. But the bottom line and everything upon which this debate has been based is that such a change wasn't conceivable under a more of the same, hopelessly compromised and corrupt Clinton administration. Fact. I'd give us a 1 in 10 chance of achieving something better than that, making some progress. Not much of a chance but a better chance than 0%. And you don't get that chance if Clinton is elected instead of "Anybody but Clinton", in this case Trump.
Which is why I'm delighted he won it. And which is why I believe either this presidency or the fallout from a failed presidency could signal the desire for real change. And for that to be on the table at all the American people, or at least some of them, must have realise the need for change. A realisation based on many reasons no doubt, but central to it all was the cry, "Enough of this shit!" Hallelujah.
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