Perhaps its more that it's a painfully accurate reflection of us. Gluttonous, vain, boorish, bigoted and cruel, maybe the most American president ever.
oof. You don’t think that, do you? That’s a harsh perspective. (Although our country does have a weight problem)
I think he does perfectly embody some of the worst attributes of this country and how it operates and is perceived, and his election caused vast discomfort for people faced with that. Simply the obverse of how Obama allowed people to feel good about their country and therefor themselves, despite those same ugly attributes still prevalent in American power and our culture.
We can't help it. A third of the party is insane with conspiracy theories, and easily manipulated by click-bait bloggers in Croatia. Another third of the party is senile, and believes whatever Fox News tells them (which is what the broadcasters read from the click-bait bloggers). The rest of us can't outvote the two thirds who are committed to their delusions.
The Saudi Arabian gov't did not fund 9-11. The gov't (the king) funded Wahabi clerics and his own extended family, with no intentions of attacking his best customer. Many of the Wahabi clerics funded Al Qaeda, along with a few members of the king's extended family. There are over 100 members of the royal family, and with that many, there are bound to be one or two who might support violence to achieve their objectives. The king financed the clerics because the clerics were the one class of people who could overthrow the king, and would be difficult to send to prison for suggesting that KSA might not need a monarchy. The royal family lives a relatively un-Islamic life with their conspicuous consumption and taste for whiskey, and they need the clerics to keep their silence about that. It's not like OBL hung flyers around Riyadh advertising for donations to knock down a few major buildings in the U.S. The people who were sending money to AQ had little idea of exactly what it would be used for, other than promoting Islam in places like Afghanistan. Only people who are a bit immature would be able to draw the conclusion from the (known) facts above that the Saudi government financed 9-11.
In the sense that we were actually intentionally financing the North Korean and Iranian war machines or that paying bad actors to not act badly is not the textbook definition of tribute?
No, seriously, which point were you trying to make? I just have no idea if your position is that we were “financing” North Korean and Iranian war machines in the same sense that another poster was arguing that Saudi Arabia “financed” 9/11, or whether you disagree with the characterization of either deal as tribute. If it’s the first, then okay, I have no more to add than I have already. If it’s the second, then I’m curious where you make the distinction between those deals and what we traditionally call tribute.
Okay, so the Saudi government didn't finance the two Saudi operatives who entered the country and were helped by a Saudi official or officials as I outlined from the Senate intelligence report. Maybe those officials were rogues and used their own money. I don't know, but obviously you do. Anyway at this late date it doesn't matter. As the 9/11 Omission Report stated way back when, the whole question of who helped finance 9/11 is "not significant." That should satisfy everyone.
Most of this thread is pointless. Trump said it to rationalize working with the Saudi’s, who, by any measure we know with certainty helped finance some of the terrorists. It’s just another bit of idiotic self serving BS Trump mourn diarrhea that further shows why he shouldn’t be allowed with it a mile or the White House ever again.
Seriously, this gets old. You know what point I was making and I know point you were making. We disagree about the characterization and the facts. All situations are fact specific. There's no overall arching reality or easy characterizations. That's intellectually sloppy and does not track reality. Briefly, and at a high level of generality, and I'm not to go back and forth on this. I'm unproductive enough as it is and need to get more work. done I'm not pretending I'm above it. I would much rather do this. But unless someone wants to start paying me to do it, I can't. The problem with the DPRK was not the implementation of the Agreed Framework, but the lack of implementation from us, largely the Gingrich power of the purse and later Bolton. We gave them neither the promised financial payments or the reactor that could be used for energy but not weaponization. You may call giving them that tribute. That's rather inconsistent with how foreign affairs work. First, they are a sovereign country and they were doing what they had the legal right to do. Second, we asked them to forgo previously sunk costs and surrender assets they paid for. Under any normal contractual principles, even if not between sovereign nations, you have to pay something for that. And we would get a lot more than we paid for. That's not the same as tribute in the classic sense. Which even then is hard to define, because you get a lot into the application of unilateral "rules" that not everyone accepts are binding. Pace Thucydides and the writers of history, the stronger do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Really, I hesitate to get into this because anything I say can be twisted and I can address all that but I don't like putting the time. But you have an overly simplistic view of how nations really interact and what is within our power to create or encourage. We did not finance their weapons program, unless you want to say that because all finances are fungible, any financial consideration finances anything that they are spending on. If you want to use that is your definition, it's really impossible to have a discussion. And then there is the Republican periodic table problem. If DeSantis had been in politics back then, I'm sure there would be a Republican periodic table that failed to distinguish between plutonium and uranium, and light water and heavy water reactors in application. That would be called liberal chemistry. Because Republicans like to eilde those distinctions to make their soundbites. And Bolton is a common thread. In both cases, he didn't believe in treaties and believed that the force or threat of force would be enough to compel the Kim dynasty or the Islamic Republic to buckle under. In both cases, he's been proven wrong. And in one case, and likely two, the result is a nuclear armed country where it could've been avoided. In terms of the Kingdom, it's always hard to speak of it as a normal sovereign nation, especially the Kingdom as it operated during the timeframe relevant to 9/11, before the extended royal family was purged and power was centralized. I used to think that centralization would be a good thing, but always be aware what you asked for. Before at least we had a centralized government that greatly favored our interest but couldn't control those below them. That was the main source of the 9/11 conspiracy support. Now we have a centralized KSA government that still likes our protection but doesn't really care about US interests or doing anything to support them, largely because it doesn't view them as US interests, but has a partisan valence. Another terrible legacy, largely but not exclusively of the last Administration. And they still have the same existential threats to the House of Saud. MBS may have made the threats more dangerous. They still have not diversified economically or modernized or figured out a way to handle the Shiite majorities in the peninsula. Much like Bolton, the mindset that the "problem" could only be solved with greater force has boomeranged and backfired. MBS has proven to be "smart" in the same was that Jared thinks he's "smart." Plain why they bonded. I'm not sure what I think we should have done way back when. They were an important ally that filled an important role, especially back then, and our options were not completely open. But I have always trusted Sen. Graham. I don't know what he thought exactly should be done. He would've shared it, but he was threatened with criminal prosecution if he did. He certainly was against the emphasis on Iraq, and was trying to get the real facts out about WMDs. And he certainly always made it clear that he thought that very high level family members of the Kingdom were actively harming US interests on an ongoing basis, and that much more could be done within the alliance to curtail that if we quit being charmed by Bandar. And I would include Isis on top of Al Qaeda. I understand why the Saudis felt like they had to help create Isis. They felt they were filling a vacuum that we should have filled. The Sunnis fomented revolt in Syria and thought they would get quick success. Everyone did, me included. Eventually the Alawites and their allies rallied, the Russians wanted to keep their Alawite clients in power and their naval base, and the Iranians wanted to maintain the Shiite Crescent (now that we had conveniently removed the block to their immediate west). At that point it was going to take a significant and costly US commitment to oust the Alawites, with no assurance their replacement would be better for us. I think we made the right decision not to go big, which was the only option if were going to go. But no foreign-policy issues are easy. That's rather the larger point. Sloganeering and pretending that if the President talks like an action hero, all the world will bend to our will without conflict, or with costless conflict, just doesn't comport with reality. Searching for common doctrines that are easily and universally applicable is similarly a fallacy. The JCPOA was smart, and the decision to abrogate was one of many stupid related decisions. I could write thousands and thousands of words more. But I have to work.
Dan Rather, reporting for CBS on 9/11, said that the collapse of Building 7 "looked like controlled demolition." Come on, Dan, are you going to believe your lying eyes?
