Everything's gonna be okay!

[Kurieuo]

If I were Iranian, I'd be looking to immigrate while I can.

[Philip]

I can guarantee you Trump doesn't want to blunder into an unnecessary war with Iran or anyone else. But he IS putting the Persians on notice that their rhetoric and scare-posturing tactics will only hurt them, and that any cute aggressive actions will be met head on. Note that the Iranian people mostly hate their leaders. They are in great financial straights. And so the always like to drag out the "Death to America" posturing to keep the focus off their own massive unpopularity and incompetence. This is the mentality of the Mullah-led theocracy that Obama released vast sums of money to - and made an agreement that isn't worth the paper it is written on! Trump just wants them to worry about what he might do in response to whatever cheap provocations they might initiate.

[Kurieuo]

Israel and Saudis would say it's a necessary war.

[LittleHamster]

In the middle east, there have been about 90 wars in the last hundred years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_m ... iddle_East) and hundreds more in the last few thousand.

It looks like those places are caught up in an endless cycle of attack-revenge-attack. Some of the pictures of Syria, for example, that place looks like hell. Talk about a frustrating situation. Is it simply due to their ideology and religious beliefs ? Is it part of God's plan that wars should just go on and on ?

Someone could put on a white robe and walk the streets preaching love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, perform a couple of miracles, etc.. It's a winner !

[edwardmurphy]

In the middle east, there have been about 90 wars in the last hundred years and hundreds more in the last few thousand.

It looks like that place is caught up in an endless cycle of attack-revenge-attack-revenge. Very frustrating. Is it simply due to their ideology and religious beliefs ?

I know, right? Thank God Europeans and Americans don't behave that way.

Sigh...

Could be that here in the West we're looking for reasons for their behavior that don't involve our aggressive involvement in their affairs. And that includes looking closely at all of their faults while conveniently forgetting our own.

I glanced through the list of Middle Eastern conflicts in the 20th and 21st centuries and counted 24 that directly involved European powers and the United States, including revolts against French and British colonial occupation forces, CIA backed coups, and American invasions. It's also worth noting that a lot of the sectarian, ethnic, and tribal violence was the direct legacy of colonialism. For example, here's a wee blurb that provides some context:

Britain and France worked out another agreement–the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916–which was signed in secret.

It divided the region into areas that looked really good to the colonial offices in London and Paris, but made absolutely no sense on the ground. For example, there are two countries that really epitomize the colonial midset: one is Jordan, and the other is Lebanon.

Lebanon was created as a safe haven for the Christians of the region, and it was literally split off from Syria because the French decided that Christian and Muslim should not be living together. What they accidentally did was create a country that had no majority population at all; it was a country made up entirely of a plurality of minority populations, which is one of the reasons why there have been internal skirmishes ever since. In addition to which, at the time—and for a long time after that—the Muslim population really just wanted to be part of Syria again.

Jordan, by contrast, was created specifically because as part of the agreements that Lawrence of Arabia worked out, two sons of the rulers of the Hejaz were promised kingdoms: one was supposed to become the king of Iraq, which he did—they were deposed in a revolution in the 1950s—and the other was supposed to become king of Syria. Well, under the Sykes-Picot agreement, Syria went to the French as a protectorate, so Britain couldn’t promise it to them. So, they literally took out the map, drew some lines on it—and this is where Jordan originates. They had to come up with a kingdom to give this guy. He was marching to Damascus with his army. They met him at the train station in Amman and said, “Hey, guess what? This is your new kingdom!” And, literally, that’s why Jordan was created.

Nothing happens in a vacuum. History matters.

BTW, I got that blurb here. It's worth a look if you want to put Middle Eastern violence in context.

[abelcainsbrother]

Again,relax people. If you had been following Q you'd know what is going on.Remember North Korea and how Trump threatened "Rocketman"? Well he is following the same plan he did with North korea to establish peace just like he did with North Korea.There will be no war with Iran just like North Korea.The MSM was wrong claiming there would be war with North Korea and Trump wanted them to report that and they did.It was fake news.They were being guided by Trump because the Deep State who controls the media wanted war and Trump made them think there would be war.This is 4D chess Trump is playing with the Deep State and the neo-cons just like he did with North Korea.The Deep State plans in the Middle East of regime change is coming to an end.Q said months ago Iran is next after North Korea so we are right on schedule. Remember the troops are coming home and by November you'll see a parade as our troops come home.No more fighting useless costly wars in the Middle East that have nothing to do with keeping America safe and instead were about destabilization of the the Middle East.Just imagine how much money the US will save.We will only be fighting wars if America is threatened in the future.

[edwardmurphy]

My God, he's been right all along...

[PaulSacramento]

LMAO !!

[RickD]

My God, he's been right all along...

I guess I missed the context to this joke. Was someone here claiming this to be true?

[edwardmurphy]

I guess I missed the context to this joke. Was someone here claiming this to be true?

Yes. The article pretty much just outlines what Abe, and others who get their information from QAnon, believe about the Mueller investigation, among other things. It gets a bit less funny when you see Q's followers doing stuff like this and this, but at this point it's either laugh or cry. I'm choosing to laugh.

[RickD]

I guess I missed the context to this joke. Was someone here claiming this to be true?

Yes. The article pretty much just outlines what Abe, and others who get their information from QAnon, believe about the Mueller investigation, among other things. It gets a bit less funny when you see Q's followers doing stuff like [e url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/loc ... 76d572450f]this[/url] and this, but at this point it's either laugh or cry. I'm choosing to laugh.

I hadn't heard of this "Q" site. Looks legit to me.

[edwardmurphy]

Yep. I first learned of Q by googling some of the details of Abe's claim that Trump was secretly working with Mueller to shut down the gang of Deep State pedophiles, led by Hillary Clinton, who secretly run the world in a massive conspiracy financed by child sex trafficking. It was an interesting trip down the rabbit hole.

[Kurieuo]

Looks like Trump's "trade war" worked well with the EU. There will be freer and more open trading between the US and EU, which is of more benefit to the US. As I said earlier in this thread, that was your one point that I saw as possibly valid DB but requiring time to tell, and time looks to have made this point crumble a little also. Is the media reporting much on Trump's success with EU trading? It didn't end up in a trade war afterall, but the EU caved in to Trump.

Time will tell if China ends up a better trading partner also, but I suppose Trump is about 50% of the way there doing a good job all-around with US international trade.

[edwardmurphy]

Remember Trump's big deal with North Korea? The one he thinks should earn him a Nobel Prize? All he actually managed to do was get Kim to agree to talk about the possibility of talking about denuclearizing at some point in the future. And for that he granted Kim the face to face meeting with a sitting President that Kim and his father before him had begged for for decades. In short, he gave away a lot, got nothing in return, and then called it a big win. And within a couple of weeks Kim was calling Pompeo's proposals unworkable disasters and we got word that NK was expanding one of their nuclear research facilities. Some win, Mr. T.

Now we have Trump creating an international trade crisis, then agreeing to a temporary ceasefire with the EU - a deal in which we gain virtually nothing - and calling it another big win.

I'll give Sideshow Don credit for shamelessly dishonest self-promotion, but that's about it. He inherited this economy and is on the cusp of screwing it up, he hasn't done a thing with the infrastructure bill he promised, he's allowing his stupid, pointless wall to torpedo immigration reform, he signed a tax bill that favored the wealthy at the expense of his base, and his foreign policy is incoherent, yet the vast majority of Republicans love him. That's amazing to me. He completely abandoned most of the bedrock Republican Party principles (of which he was likely unaware), replaced them with protectionism and nativism, and then enacted policies that have consistently favored the wealthy over his core constituency, but they love him.

Amazing.

[Philip]

Ed, while I appreciate your cynicism for all things Trump, I would think, no matter what we might think of him on a personal level (yes, he's a self-promoting piece of work), we better all hope he brings about some substantial positives. Because if he fails at the important stuff, we will ALL lose!

As for NK, Fat Boy at least talking more conciliatory - as he knows Trump will stand up to him and that continuation of severe sanctions makes him far more vulnerable at home - can only be a positive. One can't reasonably think a tyrant like Kim is going to change overnight - he's got to see his constant threats and nuclear ambitions are only hurting him, and that it's a win-win if he'll only abandon his nuke program. Right now, Kim is testing Trump.