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A Deeply Fractured World

Bets on how long this holds up?

It would be the first time a National Security Strategy has been written without a classified version. Then again, who knows with this administration. I can't imagine anybody serious actually wants to be associated with this thing.
 
Along the same lines ....

Openly saying they won't interfere in China but pledging openly to support right wing governments in Europe is some insane shit.

I'd be more worried if these folks were competent.
 
Engage with a troublemaker like Iran, Good President. Engage with a troublemaker like Russia ("after my election I have more flexibility"), Good President. Engage with a troublemaker like China, Good President (or in our case, Prime Minister).

Suddenly that's all changed. It is difficult to find a coherent foundation; obviously it can't merely be driven by domestic US political partisanship.
 
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Openly saying they won't interfere in China but pledging openly to support right wing governments in Europe is some insane shit.

I'd be more worried if these folks were competent.
Harper expelling Putin from the G8 must really rankle Trump.
Canadians really have done a lot of different things to piss Trump off over the last 10-15yrs, lol, name another country that have done so?
 
I'm thinking of the people who insist Russia be blockaded/embargoed/sanctioned because it covets others' lands, occupies others' lands, has a terrible human rights record, and seeks to destabilize other countries and pilfer their knowledge, but do not insist China be held to the same standard (covets Taiwan and who knows what else, continues occupying Tibet, has a terrible human rights record, and seeks to destabilize other countries and pilfer their knowledge).

Not a problem for me. I would like both to be regarded as pariah states and treated as such.
 
I'm thinking of the people who insist Russia be blockaded/embargoed/sanctioned because it covets others' lands, occupies others' lands, has a terrible human rights record, and seeks to destabilize other countries and pilfer their knowledge, but do not insist China be held to the same standard (covets Taiwan and who knows what else, continues occupying Tibet, has a terrible human rights record, and seeks to destabilize other countries and pilfer their knowledge).

The moralists should adopt one standard for both. The realists should be as prepared to accept the situation on the ground in Ukraine as they are in Asia.

I guess the Trump administration is consistent.....being conciliatory to both going forward.

 
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The Russians are openly praising the Trump NSS. That should tell you everything.

 
The Russians are openly praising the Trump NSS. That should tell you everything.

With so much US policy being written and developed in Moscow, I can see why.
 
I guess the Trump administration is consistent.....being conciliatory to both going forward.
Cast your minds back into the misty dawn of time, when there was a war called the Cold War...
 
Cast your minds back into the misty dawn of time, when there was a war called the Cold War...

German chap, Kissinger.

Although it feels more like the Sorcerer's Apprentice version.
 
Hard to do political realism well when there are no practically-grounded realists and just a hockey sock of ideologues on both sides.

Are they ideologues?
I sense no ideals or idealists among the leaders of any of the tribes.

Idealists are annoying but I can admire their dedication to their principles even when they are both arseholes and wrong.

I generally prefer pragmatists but I prefer my pragmatists to be grounded and able to recognize the pluses and minuses of their compromises for what they are.

This current mob doesn't feel to me as if they have any core, any centre.

Fame, power and money seem to be the main drivers. And may the devil take the hindmost.
 
Slavery still happens all over the place. It’s just illegal, and we call it “human trafficking”.

I am suggesting that our enemies are playing off the board. They are not playimg by the rules while constantly reminding us that we created all these rules and that we have established commitment to the rule of law as a test of character.

From their standpoint we messed up their economies by enforcing our laws that deprived them of slave labour and the ability to burn their dead brother's wives. Tradition.

Or as Napier of Sind reportedly said:

"Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."

....

"Napier opposed slavery. According to the memoir on Napier by William, the Sindh cultivator was bonded and oppressed, and the numerous Hindus were plundered people and their faith was condemned by Balochis alike. They were eager for peace and protection.[22] Napier removed the Amirs from power, dismantled their private assembly of armed men, proclaimed that taxes previously collected by the Amirs from the peasants be paid to the English instead, and that slavery was abolished throughout the land.[23] This was vehemently opposed by Balochi masters, but welcomed by slave-girls of the harems.[23]

"Napier found that the Sindh was divided into land parcels called kardarats, under a headman called kardar, who were under an Arabian cadi.[24] The cadi had powers to summarily fine and imprison, and in practice exercised powers of life, death and torture. The kardar collected land taxes and customs, frequently fining and torturing the villagers to a level of fear that they were slaves of the chief to whose estate their village belonged. Napier continued the old system of kardars, but made them official collectors giving them government salaries, allowing villagers to file complaints against any kardar.[24]

"While stationed at Karachi, Napier found that the land was owned by the state, Amirs were collecting land taxes with "shocking cruelty – mutilations and tortures", with land tax rates between half and two-thirds.[25] The due collectors enjoyed hereditary tenures in a feudal jagir system where the husbandman was a mere slave. These oppressive practices had led many Sindh farmers to abandon their farms and move to the desert. Napier challenged this oppression.[25]

"Napier opposed the slavery custom where, according to William's memoir, young girls would be dragged from "their homes for the harems of the great". His efforts to respect the rights of women and children required him to battle numerous Amirs who previously exercised "unmitigated cruelty and debauchery"."


....

Just a reminder that the last holdouts on African chattel slavery were the Arabs.

"In 1981, Mauritania became the last country in the world to officially abolish slavery, when a presidential decree abolished the practice. However, no criminal laws were passed to enforce the ban. In 2007, under international pressure, the government passed a law allowing slaveholders to be prosecuted."

Oman - 1970
Aden - 1967
Arab Emirates - 1963
Yemen - 1962
Saudi Arabia - 1962

Qatar - 1952
Kuwait - 1949


Tanganyika - 1922
Turkey - banned black slavery in 1850 and white slavery in 1908 but it persisted until outlawed by the fall of the Caliphate and the installation of Ataturk in 1924
Iraq/Mesopotamia - 1924
Jordan - 1929
Iran/Persia - 1929
Syria - 1931


Sudan - Continuing
Libya - Continuing
Nigeria - 1860 to 1937 and continuing
Morocco - 1922 to 1999
Ghana - 1874 to 1998
Egypt - from 1877 to the 1930s
Algeria - 1848 to the 1910s
Zanzibar - 1873 to 1909
Kenya - 1907
Madagascar - 1896 and onwards
Uganda - from British occupation pre 1894
Tunisia - 1846

And all done under the impetus of the colonial Christian powers, in particular Britain.

The Anglo-Saxons piled on the agony by rewriting the gold standard and enforcing their laws on Chinese society.

Humiliation.

That is what we are up against.

A world full of people who disagreed with our culture.



Apparently the slave traders and their wives still glory in their trade. Tradition.
 
And for 49.99 I will provide you with a tinfoil hat (some assembly required) that is guaranteed to protect you that course.
 
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