Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[MrAce]

Turkey launch a war of choice.

Said invasion is engaging in ethnic cleansing.

There isn't much more to talk about.

 

I will however note that it is laughable when the country of Mustafa Kemal Pasha starts claiming that the US is responsible for all of its military coups...

 

I can,t write everything i want because i am still in Turkey and will get back to you later when back in USA. You have very shallow information about Kurds and Turkish relations. Simply because you spoke well about old alliance and relation during cold war time. Turkey did many bad things, much worse things than this operation vs armed terrorists to Kurds and to its own citizens during the time you think we were good. .

 

This alone also shows my intention is not to defend Turkey. I am fine with critisizing Turkey. But for the right reasons and same standarts.

[hrothgar]

I can,t write everything i want because i am still in Turkey and will get back to you later when back in USA. You have very shallow information about Kurds and Turkish relations.

 

One of my undergraduate degrees was in history, with an area of focus on the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East.

I did three separate course in Ottoman history

I have travelled to Turkey on multiple occasions, including stays of up to a month

My undergraduate thesis was a comparison of the Industrialization policies of Muhammad Ali with that of early Soviet 5 year plans (admitted, this was Egypt not Turkey proper)

 

So, while I readily admit that I am not a native of any of these countries I am far from a layman...

 

And, one of the things that that I an awful lot of experience observing is Turks attempting to deny the Armenian massacres, the forcible population exchanges with Greece, what have you.

 

Just as the Turks tried to deny that there were any such things as Kurds until the early 1990s...

What was the word that was used? Oh yes... the "mountain Turks"

 

I understand that Turkey was treated terribly by the West in the 19th and early 20th century with the various wars in the Balkans before WW1 and the attempts to dismember Turkey between 1918 --> 1923 or so...

And I very much understand that the ethnic hodgepodge in Turkey, the Balkans, etc has made life extremely complicated.

 

However, what is happening now is an atrocity and complaining that bad stuff happened years back does not excuse this in any way shape or form

[MrAce]

One of my undergraduate degrees was in history, with an area of focus on the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East.

I did three separate course in Ottoman history

I have travelled to Turkey on multiple occasions, including stays of up to a month

My undergraduate thesis was a comparison of the Industrialization policies of Muhammad Ali with that of early Soviet 5 year plans (admitted, this was Egypt not Turkey proper)

 

So, while I readily admit that I am not a native of any of these countries I am far from a layman...

 

And, one of the things that that I an awful lot of experience observing is Turks attempting to deny the Armenian massacres, the forcible population exchanges with Greece, what have you.

.

Just as the Turks tried to deny that there were any such things as Kurds until the early 1990s...

What was the word that was used? Oh yes... the "mountain Turks"

 

I understand that Turkey was treated terribly by the West in the 19th and early 20th century with the various wars in the Balkans before WW1 and the attempts to dismember Turkey between 1918 --> 1923 or so...

And I very much understand that the ethnic hodgepodge in Turkey, the Balkans, etc has made life extremely complicated.

 

However, what is happening now is an atrocity and complaining that bad stuff happened years back does not excuse this in any way shape or form

 

You are going off topic when cornered. I am not one of those who deny Armenian slaughters.

 

 

Regarding the past crimes vs humanity. Please dont be funny. We can kill an innocent kid every hour,still cant0go anywhere close to crimes vs humanity US government achieved. If you want to skip conveniently the question I asked and talk about past, you can have your degrees and all your professors and I still win it by far considering what USA did. Just dropping 2 nukes on 2 cities that has disabled-elderly-pregnant females and kids on an already won war is my bonus. This wont get us anywhere so drop changing subject.

 

 

Regarding what is going on now...I have to ask same question again (and will do until you stop changing subject and answer my question. Would you please?

 

What makes you think it is OK for US troops to be in Syria despite not being welcomed by Syrian government that makes it NOT OK for Turks?

Atrocity and complaining bad stuff happened years back? Theybeen attacking to Turkey and this never stopped.

 

Atrocity is to come overseas and hire mercenaries and when done trying to give these lands that does not belong to you to these mercenaries and not to native Syrians who fled to Turkey and Turkey is taking care of because good people of Europe does not want them!

 

 

Atrocity is to engage in military conflict iwith Korea-Guatamala-Indonesia-Kongo-Cuba-Vıetnam-Laos-Guatamala (again)-Kambodscha-Iran-El Salvador-Nikaragua-Grenada-Lybien-Panama-Iraq-Bosnien-Sudan-Serbian-Afganistan-Iraq again and now Syria but complain about another country is making a military operation to a group of people called YPG! Who is YPG? Watch the video below and see and hear from your own military!

 

https://www.facebook...398692064409969

[hrothgar]

 

Regarding the past crimes vs humanity. Please dont be funny. We can kill an innocent kid every hour,still cant0go anywhere close to crimes vs humanity US government achieved. If you want to skip conveniently the question I asked and talk about past, you can have your degrees and all your professors and I still win it by far considering what USA did. Just dropping 2 nukes on 2 cities that has disabled-elderly-pregnant females and kids on an already won war is my bonus. This wont get us anywhere so drop changing subject.

 

 

Look back to my postings on BBO for close to two decades

 

You aren't going to find many examples where I am defending the United States or claiming that we always do the right thing.

Rather I tend to be highly critical of actions like the invasion of Iraq.

 

In a similar vein, I don't believe that the US should have troops in Syria.

However, this doesn't mean that I favor an abrupt and reckless withdraw of the type that is going on now.

 

I think that it is pathetic and intellectually dishonest that you are bringing up these sorts of arguments.

I would expect this sort of stuff from a gifted fifth grader.

Not you.

[MrAce]

 

 

I think that it is pathetic and intellectually dishonest that you are bringing up these sorts of arguments.

I would expect this sort of stuff from a gifted fifth grader.

Not you.

 

Exactly what I thought when you started bragging about your degrees on history which was followed by totally irrelavant past crimes of Turkey and...lol...I tam still laughing..sorry but...which was actually a reply to me when I witnessed myself and told you that Turkey was absolutely like hell to Kurds and Turks during the time you thought or were taught Turkey was a good ally. Although I admit you may have a point depending on your criterias for being a good ally. But whatever your criterias back then, obviously they are different now.

 

Anyway, we all know when you stop replying to the points made and start making funny but well worded insults (I admit I wish I could use English as well as you) it means you are being upset. So I will let you alone at this point. My personal opinion is I am against US and Turkey or any other country military being in another counrty w/o their invitation. No matter what the excuse is.Period! What pisses me off is the double standart of other nations. There was no such opposition when US got in Syria and Turkey is not even a frequent offender like USA. IMO Turkey would gain a lot of respect if they chose not to get in Syria despite the green light from Trump.

[hrothgar]

Exactly what I thought when you started bragging about your degrees on history which was followed by totally irrelavant past crimes of Turkey and...lol...I tam still laughing..

 

You said that I knew nothing about this topic

I pointed out that I literally have a degree in it.

 

And the fact that the Turks have

 

1. Committed genocide and ethnic cleansing in the past

2. Have a long standing history of denying this

 

is hardly irrelevant when dealing with a Turk who is trying to justify the start of an ethnic cleansing campaign

[Winstonm]

According to multiple reports, Fiona Hill testified today that Bolton told her that Mukasey and Guiliani were working together on an off-the-books scheme for Ukraine - his words to Ms Hill were, "I'm not involved in whatever drug deal Guiliani and Mukasy are cooking up."

 

Marcy Wheeler tweeted today that the Mukasey involvement will turn the tide in the Senate votes for conviction of impeachment.

 

I'm not sure how she gets to that, but her track record is pretty impressive.

[cherdano]

Timo, maybe I am biased but from where I stand, this discussion is not a good look for you.

Richard made a specific claim: that Turkey launched a war of choice and is undertaking ethnic cleansing. I don't know whether this claim is true. But from what I can see you haven't disputed this claim. This would be more pertinent than many other points you did discuss.

[MrAce]

Deleted. Wrote a reply to Arend but decided this will keep on back and forth and I am on vacation in my country and will just enjoy it. Everyone will believe what they want to and that is fine. I wıll just pm him this msg.

 

Have a great one you all!

[y66]

Random observation: One third of U.S. Nobel Prize winners in chemistry, medicine and physics are immigrants. Source

[barmar]

Or as Richard Pryor might have said, We're not really separating, separating. We're only kind of separating.[/size]

I'm an atheist, but I happen to agree with that teacher. Separation of church and state means that government policies should not be based on any specific religion. But I think it's asking a bit much expecting government officials to ignore their faith. It's part of them, their morality is often based on it, and in many cases it's a reason that people voted for them.

[Winstonm]

I'm an atheist, but I happen to agree with that teacher. Separation of church and state means that government policies should not be based on any specific religion. But I think it's asking a bit much expecting government officials to ignore their faith. It's part of them, their morality is often based on it, and in many cases it's a reason that people voted for them.

 

If everyone in government is a "believer", then how do non-believers of their "true religions" and "only god" get acknowledged by government as an equal? You may not have a government Department of Christianity as such but a de facto department works even better as there is no one to hold accountable.

 

JFK was able to separate his religious beliefs from his job as president; why do you think others should not?

 

And even if a preponderance of the people vote based on religion, the Constitution was designed in great part to protect minority rights against the tyranny of unbridled democracy. I bet the moral compass of Mike Pence indicates to him to send tax dollars to Christian schools over public; a fair understanding of the Constitution would infer that activity as the government promoting one religion over another.

[johnu]

Are Republican politicians psychologically unfit to recognize hypocrisy?

 

RNC Chairwoman Decries Nepotism In Politics — Even Though Mitt Romney Is Her Uncle

 

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel attacked Hunter Biden on Tuesday for using his family connections ― only to get called out by Twitter users for the exact same thing.

 

McDaniel is the niece of former presidential nominee and current Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, but didn’t mention that minor detail in a tweet attacking the son of former vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Maybe McDaniel didn't think people would notice that she is a shining example of nepotism which would have made her comment much more altruistic.

 

Of course, everybody else does 3rd rate nepotism compared to the Grifter in Chief who hires his unqualified daughter and son in law to senior White House positions which lets them promote their personal businesses and even though they have sketchy enough backgrounds that they couldn't qualify for federal security clearances.

[Zelandakh]

My personal opinion is I am against US and Turkey or any other country military being in another counrty w/o their invitation. No matter what the excuse is.Period!

Perhaps I have misunderstood but is this not directly opposed to your apparent support of the military action in Northern Syria, Timo?

[y66]

From Simon Jenkins at The Guardian:

 

[Trump's] desertion of the Kurds and his license to Turkey to invade Syria must rank high in the annals of diplomatic treachery — but for realpolitik they are hard to fault.

It also must rank high in the annals of reckless mismanagement of the endgame of a conflict involving U.S. forces. According to Shikha Dalmia at Reason, the least America could have done would have been to "safeguard Kurdish lives by offering them a quick way out and arrange their evacuation. There are less than a million Kurds in SDF-controlled Syria. Even if they all came to the U.S., America could absorb them without breaking a sweat. And not all of them would even come. Kurds have been fighting for their own homeland ever since the European powers carved the Kurdish population into several pieces after World War I, handing each to Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. So many of them won't abandon their struggle and flee. But Kurdish fighters may appreciate a safe haven for their spouses and children."

[Winstonm]

As for me, the 2016 election is best described as an unplanned pregnancy of Rosemary's Baby.

[MrAce]

Perhaps I have misunderstood but is this not directly opposed to your apparent support of the military action in Northern Syria, Timo?

 

Hi m8

 

I never supported the military action vs Syria. I disagreed with Richard and all others who claims this is an ethnic cleansing and war against Kurds.

In my deleted post (by me) I explained that we have more than 20 million kurds living in Turkey and if Turkeys goal was an ethnic cleansing they did not need to cross the border. %13 of our troops are Kurds. You do not go to ethnic cleansing of Kurds with Kurds in your troops. This claim is as funny as saying Nazi military or SS had Jewish soldiers among them.

 

I am VERY against this operation. But the purpose of this operation is to gain back the political support inside Turkey that certain individual started to lose. Not because Turks are some racists blood thirsty country vs Kurds. Some Turkish governments , extreme right wing tried to do this in the past not only against Kurds but also against their own people.

 

I am not against the operation because Turks are attacking to poor civilians. Operation is against pure terrorists, no doubt in my mind. I am against it because neither we nor anyone else has any god damn right to put their military in someone elses country w/o invitation. Not even mentioning the economic burden that Turkey is already in and possible sanctions in near future. Every hypocrate nation will scream against Turkey when they were so silent when USA did exactly same and Turkey is not even a extreme and frequent otffender on this subject as USA.

 

I was merely trying to give readers here a different perspective than CNN or other sources who has strong bias and being fed by utter BS. And was showing the double std.

[hrothgar]

I was merely trying to give readers here a different perspective than CNN or other sources who has strong bias and being fed by utter BS. And was showing the double std.

 

So, you don't like the way the mainstream media is acting so you decide to emulate them...

 

I guess this is fine and dandy if you like performance art, but it makes you look like every bit as much as an idiot as those you decry.

[MrAce]

So, you don't like the way the mainstream media is acting so you decide to emulate them...

 

I guess this is fine and dandy if you like performance art, but it makes you look like every bit as much as an idiot as you decry.

 

 

I love you too Richard :)

 

If you are putting my efforts to prove this is not the case (ethnic cleansing) to my friends in BBF in same category of a biased CNN/FOX news or alike then this says a lot more about you than it says about me my friend :)

 

You are supposed to be my friend and I see you as one. Show some courtesy and when i already said I cant write everything i want to, due to being still in Turkey, try and debate with me w/o insults.Instead of showing my efforts to help you and others see the diferent perspectives as same to huge media organisations who has a lot invested on the line and biased,followed by an insult.

 

You know me better than that! At least I hope so.

[Winstonm]

Hi m8

 

I never supported the military action vs Syria. I disagreed with Richard and all others who claims this is an ethnic cleansing and war against Kurds.

In my deleted post (by me) I explained that we have more than 20 million kurds living in Turkey and if Turkeys goal was an ethnic cleansing they did not need to cross the border. %13 of our troops are Kurds. You do not go to ethnic cleansing of Kurds with Kurds in your troops. This claim is as funny as saying Nazi military or SS had Jewish soldiers among them.

 

I am VERY against this operation. But the purpose of this operation is to gain back the political support inside Turkey that certain individual started to lose. Not because Turks are some racists blood thirsty country vs Kurds. Some Turkish governments , extreme right wing tried to do this in the past not only against Kurds but also against their own people.

 

I am not against the operation because Turks are attacking to poor civilians. Operation is against pure terrorists, no doubt in my mind. I am against it because neither we nor anyone else has any god damn right to put their military in someone elses country w/o invitation. Not even mentioning the economic burden that Turkey is already in and possible sanctions in near future. Every hypocrate nation will scream against Turkey when they were so silent when USA did exactly same and Turkey is not even a extreme and frequent otffender on this subject as USA.

 

I was merely trying to give readers here a different perspective than CNN or other sources who has strong bias and being fed by utter BS. And was showing the double std.

 

A better idea was proposed by John Lennon in 1971:

 

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion, too

[y66]

From David Leonhardt at NYT:

 

Eventually, Elizabeth Warren is going to need to find a different way to answer the Medicare question.

 

A central part of last night’s debate was the criticism she received from rivals over her unwillingness to talk about whether middle-class taxes will rise under her plan. Warren refused to answer the question, implicitly arguing that it’s irrelevant.

 

Her position is: Americans don’t care how much they pay in health care taxes; they care how much they pay for health care overall, combining taxes, premiums, deductibles and so on. So why get bogged down in the hoary old tax question?

 

On the narrow substance of the issue, she’s right. Focusing only on taxes is pointless. But in a larger way, she’s wrong.

 

The No. 1 reason to question her version of Medicare for All — in which private health insurance would be eliminated — is its political viability. It would be an enormous disruption to the health care system, and history shows that health care disruptions are very hard to pass and usually unpopular at first. Polls show that her plan is already unpopular, and it would be a bigger disruption than Obamacare or Bill Clinton’s failed plan.

 

Given all that, she needs to engage with the political realities — with how she would overcome people’s resistance to giving up their health insurance for a larger new program that, yes, would require a tax increase.

 

I think Warren has run an excellent campaign on the whole, and I think she has the most thoughtful agenda for addressing the stagnating living standards of most Americans. I’m surprised that she has chosen to focus so much of her candidacy on the most aggressive version of Medicare for All. But she has. Now it’s time for her to tell voters how she will deal with the politics of passing it.

 

In my view, her best answer involves finding a way to signal her openness to a transition, in which people who want to keep their private insurance can do so (and taxes don’t yet need to rise) while Medicare initially expands voluntarily. That idea is hugely popular.

 

I hope her vagueness is a first step toward that position. But it isn’t very satisfying in the moment.

Tom Steyer impressed me last night in his 7 minutes or so of airtime as a guy who could make mincemeat of Trump. Not saying that's a sufficient qualification but he did pique my interest.

[MrAce]

A better idea was proposed by John Lennon in 1971:

 

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion, too

 

Amen!

[hrothgar]

From David Leonhardt at NYT:

 

 

Tom Steyer impressed me last night in his 7 minutes or so of airtime as a guy who could make mincemeat of Trump. Not saying that's a sufficient qualification but he did pique my interest.

 

I tried so hard to stay awake through the debate

 

failed miserably

[barmar]

IJFK was able to separate his religious beliefs from his job as president; why do you think others should not?

I understand that people at the time were worried that electing a Cathoic would allow the Pope to dictate US policy, and I agree that he didn't do that.

 

But do you really think that none of the moral lessons he learned from religious sermons influenced his decisions? Jesus taught the Golden Rule, does that mean it can't be used as a justification for government policy?

[barmar]

A better idea was proposed by John Lennon in 1971:

 

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion, too

As he admitted later on in the song, he was a dreamer.

 

Imagining is easy -- making it happen is much harder.