International News Events: Asked and Answered...

[mamselle]

Ten days to...?what??

  I'm thinking of friends and family in the UK and hoping they're doing OK with the strain.

    Also forumites past and present across the pond.

It's challenging to stay focused and get ones own work done, but that probably contributes more to the sanity of the universe than anything else, except involvement where warranted, productive, and positively actionable.

M.

[spork]

Looks like I won't be vacationing in Iraq any time soon.

[mamselle]

Can anyone spell "Viet Nam"?

M.

[spork]

Việt Nam

?

[mamselle]

Việt Nam

?

The implication was, a hairball of a war started from a flimsy premise that didn't have to happen the way it did.

To my mind, it's a smoke-and-mirrors attempt at distraction from the more recently released smoking gun emails that pin the order to hold the Ukraine funds to the POTUS, and other entertaining materials....which tie up the removal case rather neatly.

M.

[Ruralguy]

There's always some really bad guys somewhere who can easily be used as props for a pseudo-war someone is looking to cook up for some reason or another. I'm inclined to agree with Mamselle here 
as to the particular reasons for cooking this up now.

[Stockmann]

Question: Saudi Arabia spends more than, say, Israel on its military. Yet it's proven unable to guard key oil facilities effectively and it's been less than a brilliant success in Yemen, and clearly not due to humanitarian restraint, and that's just recent failures. Clearly none of this is due to budgetary constraints. So why is its performance so poor? Is it the sort of military that's world-beating when it comes to torturing and "disappearing" dissidents but useless at fighting the nation's wars, like Argentina's at the time of the Falklands War? Or is it just bogged down by corruption and inefficiency (like, allegedly, Ukraine)? If the latter, is that due to all the senior people getting the post through their judicious choice of ancestors or is it something else?

[spork]

Saudi Arabia is a corrupt rentier petro-state. Those in charge don't dirty their hands with actual work. Only foreigners and the poor work in the oil fields. What prince who is 327th in line for the throne wants to die in combat when he can vacation in Monaco? Luckily Saudi Arabia has the USA to fight and die on its behalf.

[Economizer]

Việt Nam

?

The implication was, a hairball of a war started from a flimsy premise that didn't have to happen the way it did.

To my mind, it's a smoke-and-mirrors attempt at distraction from the more recently released smoking gun emails that pin the order to hold the Ukraine funds to the POTUS, and other entertaining materials....which tie up the removal case rather neatly.

M.

Let me 'splain it to you:

The U.S. was a member of SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization).  As of then the independent nation of South Viet Nam was also a member.  There were quite evident intentions by the Chinese Peoples Republic (a communist nation) through involvement by North Viet Nam (a communist nation as well), to, through of military force and guerrilla warfare to do a takeover of South Viet Nam.  The U.S. and other SEATO members were obligated, by treaty to help SVN to deter the aggression. The U.S., for other reasons as well, attempted to do that. Chief among those reasons were the aggressive actions by Communist Nations to take over more territories and, thus, control of their peoples, globally.  These insurgencies were termed by political scientists and statesmen alike to be described as being a part of a DOMINO Theory.  In that, more nations that, by one means or another, would fall to communism and the pace of that change would occur more quickly as the takeovers resulted.  A result that there would eventually be a challenge to those takeovers which would be military by nations opposed to it and that challenge would amount to global warfare (another world war).

Well, at an earliest enough point, the opposing nations acted and, as all have of have witnessed, the expansion was deterred to the extent that there has been no such global conflict for a period of some 75 years, so far.  Yes, there have been wars since, but nothing to the geographic scope of a world war and nothing that caused the deaths of some 25 million people as WWII did.

There were options, at that time, that if chosen, in any war, that might have extended conflicts or shortened them that were not used.  I am very proud of my service during that period and hold great respect for the nations, men, and those who died that joined the fight in the Viet Nam Era. 

[apl68]

There's always some really bad guys somewhere who can easily be used as props for a pseudo-war someone is looking to cook up for some reason or another. I'm inclined to agree with Mamselle here 
as to the particular reasons for cooking this up now.

Not so certain that this was the case here, but this administration is unfortunately one that's easy to suspect such things of.

[mamselle]

The undeclared unilateral activity was the other parallel I had in mind with VN....that seems to have been forgotten, too....

M.

[Economizer]

 
In reply #68:  My apologies for sentence structure errors. I was doing this in a school library and I was due to cover a class within moments. 

By the way, what of the news that the U.S. had exact electronic footprints of the Iranian launch of two missiles and the hit of at least one of those to the Ukrainian passenger jet that was downed in Iran. It is my unasked for opinion that the event might bring down the current regime in Iran. Any opinions?

[mamselle]

Unrelated to the above (and admittedly, less serious, but it's filling up my newsfeed....)

If the Sussexes want to tone things down and are willing to take the financial hit, good on 'em.

I've been thinking that the real underlying issue was that the Cambridges' noses were being put out of joint by the cheerful liveliness characterizing the first few years of a new family's life together, and someone on the Palace press team turned things over to the wolves and said, "attack, and get back to focusing on the succession, not the 'spares'."

The Palace was not very supportive at all when issues were exaggerated, and the usual snide diatribe got out of hand. I respect Harry, in particular, for seeing clearly how things can go and doing something about it.

Canada's gain, it looks like to me....

M.

[Economizer]

RE: Reply #73

Perhaps the complicated situation sparked by the intentions of the Prince and and his bride could be mitigated if only Canada would rejoin the Commonwealth of Nations.  I do believe that the Queen of England is still the Head of State in 20+ of those members, and that she could find a suitable role for the Sussex'es within the Commonwealth protocol even if they spent a majority of their time impersonating "Canucks".  Uhh.. maybe the Canadian PM, Mr. Trudeau, could be made a Marquis or something?

[Parasaurolophus]

RE: Reply #73

Perhaps the complicated situation sparked by the intentions of the Prince and and his bride could be mitigated if only Canada would rejoin the Commonwealth of Nations.

...We're still part of the Commonwealth.