Published by Scotties Playtime
I am an older gay guy in a long-term wonderful relationship. My spouse and I are in our 34th year together. I love politics and news. I enjoy civil discussions and have no taboo subjects. My pronouns are he / him / his and my email is scottiesplaytime@gmail.com
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everyone sure has “thought and prayers” this to death. started october 7 and we are still wringing our hands. in a world where we have the technology to blow up the entire planet, it’s quite something that the world looks at israel and says oh dear oh dear oh dear
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Hi Susan. If you made any comments earlier than this one I lost them, this is the earliest one I can access.
Yes the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is so different from the reaction to Israels slaughter / genocide of Palestinians. Hugs. Scottie
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I comment quite a bit but if there were any earlier ones, I’m ok with chalking them up to posterity. I will have plenty more to say!
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I love that you comment. Thank you for sharing your thoughts here. Hugs. Scottie
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i don’t know what the solution is, but what’s happening now sure ain’t it.
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Hello Susan. I agree. I think the fact that the US is the big brother on the block protecting Israel means no one else can do much. And the only reason for the US position is Biden is a die hard Zionist. He was there are the start of Israel almost and deeply immersed in its more notable leaders. He was bombarded by the idea that poor little Israel was the picked on and threatened democracy in the dangerous middle east where everyone wanted to kill them. Like many older people he struggles to change his mind on things. Hugs. Scottie
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Scottie, this situation with Gaza and Israel should be none of our concern.
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Hi Ragnarsbhut. Why? Explain. Plus I am still waiting for a reply to my questions on your schooling / education. Hugs. Scottie
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Scottie, that shit show is in a part of the world nowhere near the USA. As for my schooling, it was not entirely by-the-book. Textbook learning had some role, however, not as a rigid thing that governed the whole day.
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Hi Ragnarsbhut. So it was what I feared. You got pulled out of public school and received a haphazard if any education. Were your parents very religious also? Sadly so many kids had that same experience and suffer for it.
To the Middle East. The US has economic and security issues in that area.
OK your view is too narrow, widen your perspective. Do you understand each country tries to maintain a sphere of influence world wide. Influence over friendly countries to help restrain unfriendly ones. Distance means nothing.
There is a lot of reasons the US needs to be involved. While the original founding of Israel was mainly a British thing to start, the US has been Israel’s largest strongest backer and protector. We are also allies with Egypt and other large Muslim states like Saudi Arabia. That was what the 1970s oil embargo was about. Israel and Palestine. Palestinians are mostly Muslim but some are other faiths including Christians.
So it is important we keep the region calm and everyone talking instead of fighting. Israel wouldn’t have been able to do a third of what it has become or is doing now to the Palestinians if the US had not stop other countries from making Israel stop or change.
On Gaza. It is US weapons and supplies Israel is using against US laws to commit a genocide. Israel has committed the same sins against the Palestinians that were committed against them in World War 2 under Hitler. As the slaughter is being done with US weapons and the US has stopped the rest of the world from stepping in we are in fact responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 Palestinians, over 10,000 of them children.
Hugs. Scottie
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Scottie, if Ron Paul had won in 2012, we would have pulled our troops out of the Middle East and probably have had more peace in the world.
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Hi Ragnarsbhut. Sadly that makes no sense. First Rand Paul had no chance and he is a total grifter. Again you say you do your own research, so research him. But you ignore the reality of the situation in the region. We can not impose peace, nor would are leaving the Middle East have lessened their tensions. Instead it would have lost us any influence we had. Remember I told you our national security depends on our having a say in how other countries act. There own hates and past histories would then been freed to take over.
Question. Do you understand the countries involved in the what is called the Middle East? Hugs. Scottie
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Scottie, it actually makes perfect sense. If we just stayed within our own nation and stopped meddling in the business of the world at large, things would be better for us as a nation.
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Hi Ragnarsbhut. Totally incorrect. The US would be so screwed. The world is global now. The world is very interconnected. As I asked you before, do you understand soft power and hard power as foreign concepts? If not please do that self research you claim you are good at. See this is where an education in foreign politics really helps.
Let me try to explain it but I am not the best expert, for that you would have to listen to actual diplomats. I do. Better yet for you start watching Beau of the fifth column on YouTube and listen to his short videos on foreign politics. He calls it the world poker game where everyone is cheating. Incredibly smart man who talks in a way everyone can understand. I really would like it if you would watch some of his videos, many right wing people do. But here is the situation. Every country on the planet wants influence. They want it over their neighbors and they want the most control over their economic or security interests. Think Cuba and the Cuban blockade. It was entirely about the influence of enemy countries over a different one to threaten the US. For example if a country has something the US needs our country tries to court them as friends. But at the same time other countries try to court them as friends to make them an enemy to the US. That is why we seriously need to engage in world politics.
If the US retreated to our own borders other large countries that dislike us and our ways would sabotage every other government against us. The US wouldn’t be able to enter other countries markets so our goods wouldn’t be able to be sold. And despite what you might have heard on right wing media, the US exports a lot of stuff, very profitable stuff. When tRump tried to get into a tariff war with China which the US lost badly our farmers lost over 4 billion in sales we will never get back. Instead of China paying, tRump raided the treasury of taxpayer dollars to pay the farmers for their losses. I have recently posted a farmer in Nebraska running for congress who mentioned how badly that trade war tRump started hurt his farm. Those countries now friends with China or Russia would get the countries with resources we need to stop selling them to us. Or do so at greatly inflated prices. This is a game played by every country in the world not just the big ones. Look up China silk road venture.
To save you time. The quick version is China gave a lot of free building and infrastructure to poor countries including ports under the conditions that China comes first in using them and selling their products in that country. That makes the countries dependent on China, and now china can block the US from selling stuff or using the ports, along with losing any security advantage that that poor country may have been able to offer the US national interests. That is called soft power.
Think of it as a school with different groups of kids. You have the in crowd of cool kids, the kids into sports called jocks, you have the drama club kids, the chess club kids, you have the misfit kids, the LGBTQ+ kids. Everyone wants to be in one group or the other. What kids are most popular are the ones that can use their friendship to reward or harm those other kids. So they other kids try to please the popular kids. The kids in one group defend or comfort their group friends and attack the other groups. That is sort of the way foreign governments treat each other.
I hope this helps. BTW I don’t know how much history you learned, but if you look at the past you will see the US has tried your isolationism approach before. Each time it has been crushing
economically for the US. The best economic growth for the US was after we got involved in WW2. These are facts, this is the way things work in the world. It wont help the US to just stay in our room and ignore the rest of the house, all that happens is that everyone else does what they want, they get to choose supper or the toppings on the pizza and we lose any say. Hugs. Scottie
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Scottie, the isolationism I speak of is not entirely absolute. I was too vague. What I meant was that we should stay out of any involvement in the rest of the world militarily, for example, the Iraq war. We removed Saddam Hussein and then left in a rush and destabilzed the region.
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Hi Ragnarsbhut. I liked your comment because you are partially correct. We did screw up as a nation in Iraq. But do you understand why we screwed up? Three things were wrong. Nationalism in the US was out of control due to a recent terrorist event. 9/11 specifically. But the biggest problem was the president George W Bush filled his State Department and highest advisors with neocons Christian nationalist who hated Muslims / Islam and wanted to promote Christianity world wide. They needed a democracy or government willing to do it to make it work. Those people were convinced that if we showed those Muslim heathens Western democracy they would convert from Islam to Christianity and spread the word like fire through the entire region.
Think about how stupid and futile that was. These people have followed their far longer than the US was a country. Think of it this way. Say tomorrow the US gets invaded by a large Islamic country. Let’s pretend the US doesn’t have the largest best military and is the 800 pound gorilla in the room and say they got the country or part of it. Now they drive from power everyone in government and purge the military installing their own people over any of ours that stayed. Then they begin a campaign to force their ways on us. They are a dictatorship so most rights we have are gone, no personal freedoms, no right to worship, no respect for those that follow the Christian god. For example take Afghanistan. We were in Afghanistan for 20 years and before we even left they reverted to their former ways. They don’t ours they want theirs. And don’t bother reflexively blaming Biden. Facts matter and tRump negotiated directly with the Taliban without the Afghan government, tRump signed the treaty that released 5,000 Taliban fighters from prison and set the withdrawal date. He then drew down the troops levels per the treaty. Biden had no choice but leave and did it when he did because the Taliban wanted to make it a holy celebration day on a certain day, which Biden denied them.
The point is we did the same thing in Iraq. We went in kicked out the legit government, tried to force them to follow our ways of life govern as we do, and to ignore their religious teachings. It was easier in Iraq because they were less Islamic under Saddam Hussein and gave women more freedoms. But again the people like John Bolton, and a bunch of others kept telling Bush that the entire region was in love with us and were soon going to switch fully to being a Christian democracy. I remember Dick Cheney the father of Congress woman Cheney, saying they will treat us as liberators. They did not want liberty our way. As soon as we left they had no strong government because we removed the dictator and Iran moved in. Again that is that influence in national interests I was talking about. It was in Iran’s best interest to have Iraq on their team and under their control, so they buddied up to them, gave them money and help. They only wanted a few things … things against the US interests.
But what about Ukraine and Gaza, what good is that for us there is that your real question? Many things. First Gaza is easy, well over 40,000 regular people civilians killed and at least 11,000 children with US weapons and seeming US support. Those are Muslims for the most part but some Christians. The Palestinians are part of the Islamic community in that region. A region the US is desperate for friends there, especially Muslim / Islamic nations. Nations like Saudi Araba who has oil, and a few other large very powerful nations. Egypt is a vital partner due to the Suez Canal. Lots of economic money could be lost, worse than the pandemic if Egypt gets pissed. And they are now pissed. Israel violated the 1979 treaty by going into the no mans land, the DMZ between their countries. They exchanged weapons fire with each other. That would have turned into a major war shutting the canal. Israel thinks they are invulnerable because the us backs them, but they are killing US national interests worldwide. And this is not the past, those countries have the same weapons as Israel now, the same fighter jets and missiles. Against that greater firepower Israel will lose even with US backing.
Ukraine is doing out work for us. The have shown Russia is no longer and near peer and a paper tiger. They have almost brought Russia to a stand still and were actually winning when they had the funds. If the Putin fraction of the republicans in congress had not held up funding Ukraine would have taken almost all their land back. Russia started this with 350,000 standing army. They have lost 315,000 on the battlefield. If Ukraine falls the next few targets as Putin rebuilds his beloved USSR, and he has said he wants that back, all the land and countries, some of which are now NATO. That means article 5 comes in to play. We end up at war. Better Ukraine fight them there than our troops do, so we should supply them what they need to do it. Putin is the bad guy here, make no mistake. He is from a past when he was a KGB officer for the USSR. He wants desperately to return to that time and that nation. Hugs. Scottie
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Scottie, if Vladimir Putin restores the Soviet Union, that is his decision. Of course, those who refuse to learn from history will always be doomed to repeat it.
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Hi Ragnar. I was going to say the same to you. The USSR was a major threat to the US. Remember the Cuban missile embargo? Putin was a part of the USSR and still believes in that same stuff and his military works tirelessly to spread misinformation on US social media to stir up discontent in the public. That is well documented and agreed to by all the social media companies.
Knowing that Putin is the enemy of the US let’s look at what he gets if we walk away from Ukraine. Ukraine is a democracy, a government like ours with the people having ever more growing rights. Russia is a dictatorship with Putin fully in charge. So we lose a fellow democracy. He gains new territory to rule over a people that don’t want to be ruled by him.
Ukraine is sitting on tens of billions of dollars of minerals that are needed world wide. I would hate to lose that to Russia and China when it could be used in the Western nations. So much is needed that we can’t afford it being in the hands of enemies.
Ukraine is called the bread basket of Europe. Why? Because they have such great growing lands. They grow much of the grains and wheat used all over the world. When Russia invaded food prices soared and many nations receiving aid did not get it. During the USSR Ukraine fed the entire empire. I would rather that food go to the rest of the world instead of Russia and Chine, again two die hard enemies of the US.
Ragnar you may not realize this but what Ukraine has done has saved the US military and taxpayers a huge amount. They showed Russia for a paper tiger, they kept our people from being in a war, which keeps our people from dying. You may not be aware but the USSR that Putin wants to restore includes NATO countries that he has already threatened to invade. Do you understand what that means? It triggers article five, which means all NATO countries have to go to war to help the attacked country. Ukraine is preventing that. Hugs. Scottie
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Scottie, reading this reply made me think of a line in Star Trek: First Contact the movie from Patric Stewart. Here is the quote: “Find a quiet corner of North America and stay out of history’s way.” If we would just mind our own damn business, how many wars would we have been in that are recorded in the history books?
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Hi Ragnar. That is a silly way to look at it. If we had minded our own business Hitler and Germany would own a large part of the world, the US would be greatly diminished and under constant attack from 3/4 of the world who would be run by conquering dictatorships. For the US to become as powerful, as economically great as we have we need to be involved world wide in the global economy.
I am sorry Ragnar, but you can not get your history or world relationship information from movies. There are real experts who spend their lives learning, studying, training, and dealing with these subjects of world interconnected politics and global markets.
Di the US get into wars we shouldn’t have trying to throw our weight around or so a president could look good such as Reagan and a little island named Granada? Yes. But for every mistake we have had great successes and accomplished great goals. Not all people are correct all the time. But history has proven that isolationism, which is what you are asking for, is a recipe for disaster. Hugs. Scottie
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Scottie, the situation in Iraq proved that our foreign policy has been a a bad one.
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Hi Ragnar. I do not want to put words in your mouth. So please explain why you think it was a bad one. I am afraid we maybe crossing streams again. Hugs. Scottie
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Scottie, I do not recall the method in which Saddam Hussein came to power, either through a legitimate election or due to military might. What I do know is that after he was removed and subjected to trial and execution and we got out of there in the way we had is that things went to hell in a handbasket. Destabilizing the region and yet not finishing the job we supposedly went in to take care of facilitated the creation of ISIS and ISIL.
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Hi Ragnar. Saddam Hussein came to power in a very violent blood coup, where he took over the country and government. He was a complete dictator tyrant. His people made up about 20% of the population but had all the good jobs and government positions. He raped, tortured, killed with abandon. His sons were worse, with them having famous torture places they loved to … well you know.
Why do you think the people acted the way they did when the US started the war and he was toppled? They hated him so much. They lived marginal lives unless they belonged to his party, while he and his own had lavish palaces. Plus he started wars and fueled terrorism all over the Middle East.
That said he was telling the truth he had weapons of mass distruction and he also had nothing to do with 9/11.
Yes as I said before the US was run by George W Bush and a bunch of old white Neo-cons who had this idea that if we removed Hussein and showed the people democarcy and Christianity they would instantly become in love with both and spread it like wild fire to every Islamic nation. Vice President Dick Cheney said “They will greet us as liberators throwing flowers to our soldiers” Did not happen that way because you can’t make people change their ways over night, they have to want to change. In this case they got tired of the US acting like lords over them, telling them what to do, who they could hire, how they had to ignore their islamic beliefs and accept western Christian ones. We were acting as much a dictator as Hussein was but instead of raping and torture we were buying them with dollars.
What job do you think we went into to do. See everything you said until the last was true. Do you know who ISIL is? Where it came from?
Let me explain. When we invaded and took control of Baghdad we shut down the government and installed our own. Anyone who was in the Hussein government couldn’t even get a job with the city / government. We took over the army and kicked all the higher officers and higher rank enlisted out and made them pariahs in the country. These military people and leaders melted in to the countryside and formed militias that attacked US troops, building up a steady growing resistance to the changes the US was demanding and pushing. All because of assholes like Donald Rumsfeld who felt they could do no wrong and given just a few more billion dollars the people would become like the US, happy western values Christians. These people were Islamophobes and so they were on a mission to destroy Muslims and Islam. And it started right from the start, not when we left. We left in 2011, we went in in 2003. I wonder if the shit show your thinking of was Afghanistan? But it was the same story. By the time the new government we formed in Iraq demanded we leave and the world supported that, they had already cosied up to Iran and the hardliners there. We did that. If you have any other questions let me know. Hugs. Scottie
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Scottie, I have no disagreement with you regarding Saddam Hussein. The issue is with the overthrow and then leaving the Middle East in chaos,
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Hi Ragnar. Again we agree. The problems start when in the name of national security, the US uses our resources to put in power leaders or even dictators that are friendly to us against the will of the people. Every other large country does it. The problem comes in when people don’t understand the effects of their actions. For instance the US installed the Shaw of Iran after a government favoring China was elected by the people. Yes the Iranian people voted and wanted a secular government close to China. The US government couldn’t have that so the CIA organized and paid for a coup. That installed the dictator, The Shaw of Iran, that was widely hated by the people. But the US got cheap oil, so our government did not care. You know the rest of the story. You understand why Iran is why how it is today, right?
But that is not how US interest in other nations need to play out. You should listen to Beau of the Fifth column, I think you would like his videos. As he says, when the US plays the world’s doctor instead of the world’s policeman, we gain a lot more in respect and soft power. Which is the entire goal of the game. Get as many nations on your side as possible.
The US and other nations have a lot of intertwined interests that are best worked out with trade deals, behind the scenes aid package, the right to tech or military stuff. I think I told you about the Silk Road that China was building. They went all over Asia and the Eastern Pacific talking nations into signing deals where China would build ports for commerce, hospitals, roads, schools. Of course China got first use of the ports and the nations became under Chinese influence. The US did the same thing after World War 2. Why do you think for 80 years so many European countries have tried so hard to be friends with the US? Because instead of ruling over Germany, Japan, and Italy and destroying them, (which only breeds hate in the survivors which is why Israel is making more and more Hamas not eliminating them) We rebuilt these nations and they became the greatest allies. Be the world’s doctors, healers, not the world’s bully. But the truth is we live in a global world, a global economy and we need to be globally engaged. Hugs. Scottie
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Scottie, we agree on this.
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Hi Ragnar. Yes to the chaos caused by pushing our religion and our form of government on other nations that are centuries behind us in understanding. You don’t give someone in the 1600s a smart phone and exspect them to use it correctly.
But the start of the discussion was you advocated for isolationism, and I think I proved how dangerous that is for the US. You wanted us to pull out of Ukraine and let Putin take over a democratic country by a dictatorship, and I showed how our national interests are helped by staying engaged. Hugs. Scottie
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Scottie, there is a difference between full isolation and just not involving ourselves in the affairs of nations where we have no business. To be honest, I think we would be better off minding our own business.
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Hi Ragnar. That is the entire point isn’t it, the point is the nation’s interests are served by the US being involved with many different nations. The world is global now, what one nation in halfway around the world does may be of US military interests.
For example one reason it matters, the US recently being kicked out of a small nation that just had a national coup. The military took over and got real friendly with a nation that did not like us. We had to leave, so we left. All good, why would a small African nation be of interest to the US? But it turned out the base we had there was a strategic listening / intel post that help the US learn about terrorism attacks against us and served to keep the US informed of what plots our enemies were doing.
So sometimes it is important to be involved, it could save our lives. The problem is we the people, the public masses don’t know what the government knows about these situations, until years later. Clearly the president gets more intel on these things, the military knows more about the situations, the state department knows more, and so on.
Again I agree with you that sometimes the wrong people are pushing the wrong agenda. Iraq was one, Afghanistan another, so was leaving the Iranian peace deal worked out by Obama. Leaving that was a complete disaster and not rejoining it was another mistake. But again some people pushing a personal agenda about changing the government and hurting the Iranians kept pushing for things that Iran just would never agree to. Anyway. Nice chat. You have your opinion, I have mine, and all we can do is vote. Voting is our only way to have a say in this involvement / isolation stuff. Hugs. Scottie
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Scottie, you make some interesting points.
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