[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

[Kaelik]

There is only One Turkey, and Istanbul is a part of it.

I know you are an idiot, but this is really easy. They lay claim to the parts of Turkey that were conquered by the Mongols. Since the Mongols didn't capture Constantinople, China doesn't claim it according to your own "only parts that used to be China" doctrine.

But of course, yes, if they did conquer half of Turkey, they would of course want Istanbul and conquer it to. And that proves your claim wrong.

*Points to the New York Skyline. *

What fucking Wars of aggression?

You are just so fucking dumb. Just... the dumbest.

[hyzmarca]

There is only One Turkey, and Istanbul is a part of it.

I know you are an idiot, but this is really easy. They lay claim to the parts of Turkey that were conquered by the Mongols. Since the Mongols didn't capture Constantinople, China doesn't claim it according to your own "only parts that used to be China" doctrine.

But of course, yes, if they did conquer half of Turkey, they would of course want Istanbul and conquer it to. And that proves your claim wrong.

*Points to the New York Skyline. *

What fucking Wars of aggression?

You are just so fucking dumb. Just... the dumbest.

Yes, yes, I know. 9/11 was really a controlled demolition. The planes and buildings were empty, and no one actually died.

[Kaelik]

Yes, yes, I know. 9/11 was really a controlled demolition. The planes and buildings were empty, and no one actually died.

So just to be clear, your official position is that Hitler didn't engage in any wars of aggression because UK, France, Czechslovakia, Poland, and Russia started the war because Josef Römer tried to kill Hitler.

Or you know, perhaps Saddam Hussein didn't blow up US buildings... nah, Saddam Hussein definitely blew up buildings, it couldn't be that you are full of shit.

[Username17]

Yes, yes, I know. 9/11 was really a controlled demolition. The planes and buildings were empty, and no one actually died.

It was not an event that was in any way caused by Iraq. Remember that while Afghanistan can be claimed as a reactive war, the invasion of Iraq simply is factually a war of aggression against a neutral country.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

Okay, hyz, do you actually believe the US invasion of Iraq wasn't a war of aggression? If so, please tell me what you think the provocation was.

[hyzmarca]

Okay, hyz, do you actually believe the US invasion of Iraq wasn't a war of aggression? If so, please tell me what you think the provocation was.

It was an honest mistake caused by bad intel. The documents that were relied on were forgeries, but if they had been true they would have been ample justifications for invasion.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The documents that were relied on were forgeries, but if they had been true they would have been ample justifications for invasion.

Which documents? I still don't know what you think Iraq did.

edit: Or was supposed to have done.

[Kaelik]

Okay, hyz, do you actually believe the US invasion of Iraq wasn't a war of aggression? If so, please tell me what you think the provocation was.

It was an honest mistake caused by bad intel. The documents that were relied on were forgeries, but if they had been true they would have been ample justifications for invasion.

So if the US invaded France tomorrow, that wouldn't be a war of aggression, because having weapons of mass destruction is an aggressive act against all countries?

So I guess the US is involved in a whole lot of wars of aggression right now, and Al Quida were just engaged in a non aggressive war against the US's aggressive ownership of weapons of mass destruction?

Pro-Tip: even if you are the most credulous America First Neo-Con Bush Apolgist ever, "justified" =/= "defensive."

[hyzmarca]

The documents that were relied on were forgeries, but if they had been true they would have been ample justifications for invasion.

Which documents? I still don't know what you think Iraq did.

edit: Or was supposed to have done.

The Italian Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare bought some documents from sources in Niger that said that Iraq was secretly purchasing yellow cake Uranium. Iraq already had a significant supply of yellow cake uranium, but this was accounted for by the UN weapons inspectors. The only reason to secretly obtain a second batch would be to enrich it for production of nukes, or possibly dirty bombs.

SISMI took the documents straight to Washington, and Bush believed them. The CIA suggested holding off because they couldn't confirm that the documents were accurate, but those concerns were dismissed.

It turns out that the documents were forgeries.

[Kaelik]

The documents that were relied on were forgeries, but if they had been true they would have been ample justifications for invasion.

Which documents? I still don't know what you think Iraq did.

edit: Or was supposed to have done.

The Italian Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare bought some documents from sources in Niger that said that Iraq was secretly purchasing yellow cake Uranium. Iraq already had a significant supply of yellow cake uranium, but this was accounted for by the UN weapons inspectors. The only reason to secretly obtain a second batch would be to enrich it for production of nukes, or possibly dirty bombs.

SISMI took the documents straight to Washington, and Bush believed them. The CIA suggested holding off because they couldn't confirm that the documents were accurate, but those concerns were dismissed.

It turns out that the documents were forgeries.

And we are right back to "It's not aggressive war to attack the US or France, because the US and France have Nukes."

[angelfromanotherpin]

It turns out that the documents were forgeries.

Okay, first, it also turns out that the CIA and the US State Department knew they were forgeries in early 2002. Since the invasion of Iraq took place in early 2003, there's a pretty basic before/after problem there.

But even if they had been accurate, the invasion of Iraq would still have been a war of aggression. Because, as Kaelik said, having or trying to develop horrible weapons is not by itself an aggressive act.

[DSMatticus]

Not only did the state department know they were forgeries before we invaded, the administration was planning post-invasion scenarios before we had the forgeries.

There is no justifying the Iraq War or defending the administration that launched it. None. We now have the benefit of hindsight and it turns out that we were deliberately deceived by an administration which had made invading Iraq a primary goal from the word go. They were not tricked by the forgeries; everyone had red flagged the documents as incredibly suspect or blatant fabrications and the White House ignored that because it gave them the pretext for doing something they'd wanted to do all along.

This isn't liberal bitching about politicians they don't like. We have the documents and they have dates and the chronological order goes -> plan what to do after we invade Iraq -> get a bunch of "evidence" -> everyone tells us the evidence is almost certainly forged -> invade Iraq. It was completely outrageous.

[hyzmarca]

Which documents? I still don't know what you think Iraq did.

edit: Or was supposed to have done.

The Italian Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare bought some documents from sources in Niger that said that Iraq was secretly purchasing yellow cake Uranium. Iraq already had a significant supply of yellow cake uranium, but this was accounted for by the UN weapons inspectors. The only reason to secretly obtain a second batch would be to enrich it for production of nukes, or possibly dirty bombs.

SISMI took the documents straight to Washington, and Bush believed them. The CIA suggested holding off because they couldn't confirm that the documents were accurate, but those concerns were dismissed.

It turns out that the documents were forgeries.

And we are right back to "It's not aggressive war to attack the US or France, because the US and France have Nukes."

The US and France are legally allowed to have nukes.

It's not an aggressive war to attack Israel, India, Pakistan, or North Korea.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Wow. That's... deranged and evil. Okay, I'm done.

[Kaelik]

So yeah, you are a deranged lunatic who needs to aquatint themselves with a dictionary, because when you use words that badly, stupidity is the only possible reason.

[PhoneLobster]

nuance

Naunce does not in fact mean you get to selectively ignore and cherry pick your facts, it does not mean you get to ignore the giant elephants in the room especially.

The US narrative on China at the moment is that the USA is the force of justice, the world police, just there to defend helpless foreign people who will welcome them with open arms to protect them from the big mean regime. Sound familiar? No, of course it doesn't because YOU want to exclude the repeated times around the world that the USA has used that old propaganda chestnut from consideration. So OF FUCKING COURSE Iraq is relevant you stupid gullible fuck.

The US isn't fucking about in the pacific for the interests of small nations about to be invaded by China ANY SECOND FOR REALS! It is a minor maritime border dispute beat up. China is not about to invade the Philippines. NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN.

The US is there for its openly stated goal of attempting to prevent China from becoming powerful enough economically to challenge the US. A goal which is questionable and likely already failed at best, and a shocking announcement of an intention to be the aggressor in world war 3 for selfish economic reasons at worst.

China meanwhile is in the Pacific for it's openly stated goal, of establishing an independent trade route through the Pacific (and around the world). And ever since they announced that US interests have been beating the propaganda drum to beat up minor maritime border disputes into a thin and fucking obvious pretext for the US to place military vessels into positions to threaten a fucking trade route you know, typical fucking comic book villain shit and stuff which is very much in character for the selfish, evil, bully of a nation which is again why NUANCE requires the CONTEXT of every other evil international action your fucktard nation is up to.

You want to talk about useful gullible fools, US residents like you falling for the SAME "we are there to save the terrified natives from the evil regime" propaganda line AGAIN.

So, would you have preferred that we kill 20 million Japanese civilians in a conventional invasion, or that we let Japan keep Manchukuo and Korea?

Your version of history is not the accepted version of history. It is NOT believed that the nuking of two civilian cities contributed to surrender. From a military perspective, even an anti-civilian terror campaign perspective, and in the now known view of Japan's leaders at the time the bombings were considered failures militarily and of less significant civilian impact than the more deadly (and also deplorable) fire bombing of the civilian population.

Japanese leadership was split at the time on exactly how to surrender and who to surrender to, but it was the official declaration of war by the Soviets which is now widely accepted by a lot of historians as the actual reason the Japanese surrendered, conditionally, to the US, in large part because the one condition they ultimately demanded was a condition they knew the Soviets would not offer them. And even Japanese factions that wanted a more favorable conditional surrender before the soviet declaration were already planning on giving up the specific regions you name as part of cutting a deal anyway, I mean it's not like they could hold them against the Soviets, you stupid fucker.

But why trust them, why not ask the commanding general of the US Army Air Forces, the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, and General Eisenhower. ALL of whom said AT THE TIME that the bombing was utterly needless in terms of defeating the already defeated Japanese AND did not save ANY American soldier's lives.

But no, you just conveniently decide to be the strawman of even Frank's extreme "I'm not a war crimes apologist BUT..." position. I'm pretty cool with that.

[Mechalich]

The US isn't fucking about in the pacific for the interests of small nations about to be invaded by China ANY SECOND FOR REALS! It is a minor maritime border dispute beat up. China is not about to invade the Philippines. NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN.

You're right, China isn't going to invade the Philippines, because, if they did, it would start a war with the US. Likewise China isn't going to invade Taiwan, because it would start a war with the US. China isn't going to invade Vietnam, because would start a (trade) war with the US. China isn't going to allow North Korea to invade South Korea because doing so would start a (potentially nuclear) war with the US.

On the other hand, imagine is the US had collapsed alongside the USSR in 1989. In all probability Taiwan is now part of China. Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, and even Japan have been forced to concede China's ridiculous South China Sea demands. Seoul is a smoldering pile of wreckage and widespread conflict continues on he Korean peninsula. People's Liberation army divisions are sitting in Kashmir trading daily artillery barrages with the Indian Army in a state of undeclared low-level conflict. 'Ethnic reunification' claims on behalf of Chinese minorities have been used to occupy chunks of northern Burma and Vietnam. Finally, a terrified Japan is sitting on an ever expanding pile of nukes.

Is it likely that all of these things would happened, maybe not, but some of them assuredly would have.

The unipolar American/NATO superiority of the post-Cold War era has had both positives and negatives. There have been good moments (Iraq Round 1) and bad moments (Iraq Round 2) and moments were American and/or her allies took some action that ultimately didn't accomplish much either way (Libya). Ultimately, the US has simply taken more actions, and been asked to take more actions (Libya again) than anyone else by virtue of its unique capabilities. The funny thing is, you know the country that has, arguably, retained the greatest overall benefit from twenty-five years of American hegemony: China.

[Whipstitch]

So yeah, you are a deranged lunatic who needs to aquatint themselves with a dictionary, because when you use words that badly, stupidity is the only possible reason.

I thought everyone already knew that Hyzmarca's whole shtick is to drop a nominally cynical one liner en route to making an argument that's actually pretty naive.

[Red_Rob]

You are pulling an excuse most three year olds don't get away with "other kids did something similar but lesser and ages ago!" or worse "other kids WOULD do it if they could!" with no fucking evidence.

The fact is your fucking claim is China is the bad guy right the fuck now and that the USA is the good guy right the fuck now your lame excuses that it's OK for the USA the only nation to ever drop a nuke on civilian cities to be evil "because power"

So, would you have preferred that we kill 20 million Japanese civilians in a conventional invasion, or that we let Japan keep Manchukuo and Korea?

You realise there were options other than "Nuke densely populated civilian centres / land invasion" right? Hitting a military target, dropping the bomb in a less populated area to demonstrate it's power before threatening a civilian area etc? Going straight for the option that leads to the most loss of life amongst non-combatants seems pretty horrific.

[PhoneLobster]

In all probability Taiwan is now part of China.

Once again, defending actual real world evil with accusations of speculative alternative history evil. Fuck you that argument is shit.

But more importantly your "hypothetical" alt history has Taiwan being part of China.

There are... a lot of things that are pretty offensive about that.

Starting with the fact that Taiwan IS part of China. Ask the Chinese, they say it is. Ask the Taiwanese, THEY say it is. They have different ideas about who the government of their own personal "China" is but they both fucking agree, Taiwan and China, part of the same thing.

But if you look at the actual history of Taiwan, fuck it China does have a pretty fucking legitimate claim to Taiwan, Taiwan for years was little better than a western puppet to antagonize China with and the great anti-commie hopeful government in waiting that USAssholes totally believed will rule again any day now. These days it's just about entirely dependent on China and while we could have some pretty complex arguments about whether Taiwan should remain independent or if it should perhaps pull a voluntary Hong Kong there IS an argument to be had and you do NOT get to pull Taiwan out as any kind of clear victim state potential or otherwise. They are basically are a part of China and all in all the two nations probably should reconcile and unify somehow.

Indeed mentioning Taiwan with a confidence that you have a clear example of victim of China is general a clear sign that you are an ignorant US imperialist that knows little beyond the crudest propaganda.

[DSMatticus]

Starting with the fact that Taiwan IS part of China. Ask the Chinese, they say it is. Ask the Taiwanese, THEY say it is. They have different ideas about who the government of their own personal "China" is but they both fucking agree, Taiwan and China, part of the same thing.

... I don't know what you think you're arguing. China thinks they're the legitimate successor to a pre-Mao China which no longer exists. Taiwan thinks they're the legitimate successor to a pre-Mao China which no longer exists. Therefore both are China and it's really not that big a deal if China 1 invades China 2 and destroys their government in order to replace it with their own. Because... both have basically China in the name, and that's really all that matters? I, too, agree with your assessment that the Southern Confederate States were the exact same geopolitical entity as the Northern United States. Really, all civil wars are just smoke and mirrors, and also the two really should have just reconciled and unified somehow anyway, right? Perhaps they could have agreed that black people suck and that they should continue to be treated like animals.

PL, you are an idiot. You've always been an idiot. And you have a really nasty habit of tripping over your own idiocy and flailing wildly and viciously at everyone on the way down. That's not new. But right now you're being a monstrous and insensitive douchebag, which is... a little bit new. The situation in Taiwan does not reduce to one of nomenclatures. It's not a naming dispute. They are two very different countries with two very different systems of government and one is too fucking small to defend itself or its values. That both think they are the legitimate successor to a country which no longer exists and claim the other is a rebel territory is not even remotely the most important part of that story, and to frame it that way makes you... a shithead. A terrible, terrible shithead. Fuck you. China is a genuinely shitty country with a genuinely illegitimate one-party government and complacency with its expansionism is simply not okay. There are people's lives, welfare, and democratic rights at stake in these discussions, and handwaving that away with "Well, Taiwan calls itself the Republic of China - aren't they basically already the same country anyway?" is over the line.

[Mechalich]

In 2005 the PRC passed a law that basically forbid the ROC Taiwan from declaring independence on threat of military action. The ROC applied to the UN to be Taiwan anyway in 2007, but was rejected. The rest of the world basically allows the PRC to hold the ROC hostage and forces itself to continue to claim identity as 'China' because if they ever allow the ROC Taiwan to declare independence its lost pretty much forever.

Unification between the PRC and the ROC becomes less likely with every year that passes and is only likely to happen in the circumstance where the PRC stops being a communist-in-name-only kleptocratic oligarchy and actually becomes some form of democracy. Don't hold your breath for that.

[PhoneLobster]

I, too, agree with your assessment that the Southern Confederate States were the exact same geopolitical entity as the Northern United States. Really, all civil wars are just smoke and mirrors, and also the two really should have just reconciled and unified somehow anyway, right?

If your "naunced" argument is that Taiwan and China are the same as the US Civil war, A) Hahahaha, B) How typically ignorantly US centric of you and, C) So then by your standard of glorification and support of separatist movements and depiction of the other nations involved as being TOTALLY the slave owning South, I guess that you support separatist movements like the Basque separatists, Scottish, Western Australian and Texan. And if you can figure out which side of which separatist movement your even on I'd even assume you are totally in favour of Northern Irish separatism from I guess both evil slave owning south like nations involved.

PS in an argument about the US being basically evil, possibly not the best to rather needlessly remind people how late and violently reluctant you guys were to give up slavery. Or for that matter to remind them that the US Southern States are a thing period, best to gloss over those guys to this day really.

But right now you're being a monstrous and insensitive douchebag

I'm just calling the US what it unarguably is, a war crime committing aggressive nation working for evil on a scale the world has never seen. The US economic agenda alone has killed countless numbers of human beings for greedy personal profit, and it's constant wars of aggression are a matter of public record. You don't like that you find yourself sitting there defending war crimes and promoting an aggressive militaristic and unjustifiable anti-china agenda maybe you feel uncomfortable siding with Frank's "America is big and powerful so war crimes are business as usual and totally OK" argument? Then grow some fucking humanity until you can put it ahead of your nationalistic jingoism.

Don't go calling me insensitive for reminding you of Iraq and suggesting you should stop needlessly poking your navy at China like you are blatantly trying to start world war 3 as if that was a good idea.

The situation in Taiwan does not reduce to one of nomenclatures. It's not a naming dispute.

Gee it's a pity I didn't mention anything else and ONLY talked about the inarguable fact that both nations believe that only one nation should rule both their territories. I mean if I talked even a little bit about the complex history of Taiwan, it's economic dependence on China and other stuff boy would there be egg on your face for going with the "how dare you reduce it to just a naming dispute!". So sad that I, wait... did I fail to do that or are you full of shit?

[Mechalich]

I'm just calling the US what it unarguably is, a war crime committing aggressive nation working for evil on a scale the world has never seen.

You just claimed that the US is 'committing evil' on a scale above that of Nazism or Stalinism. If you seriously believe that to be true, I honestly don't know what to say. That represents a fantastical belief on such a fundamental level that there really aren't any points of engagement.

The reality is that the modern era, and especially the post-Cold War period of American hegemony is quite possibly the most peaceful ever recorded. Now I would never stipulate that US influence is the cause of this and it is almost certain that various non-state factors such as increased communication capabilities, global trade, and others are responsible, but the idea that the US is some source of unprecedented magnitude of evil in an era of empirically lower violence than has ever been known is inherently absurd.

[deaddmwalking]

I think it is telling that while the United States has done some pretty deplorable things (particularly in the form of supporting autocrats against popular reform) they haven't fought a war of territorial expansion since 1898.

I won't argue whether Iraq II was or wasn't a war of aggression, but I will point out that at the end, Iraq still possessed its original territory and using the rule of law asked the US to leave...and they did.

While the US still struggles with what equality means, it's one of the relatively few places where that conversation can be had generally lefally and generally peaceably.