Donald Trump ditches Obama-era restrictions on use of landmines, citing 'great power competition'

I am not American

But I had no problem with Bill Clinton
Obama was a bit of a do-nothing President who allowed America's adversaries to get
the advantage (Iran, China, Russia)
Biden seems okay to me.
I grew up in a Labor house hold. Until that party got into the woke and PC stuff I
often voted for them. My favorite Aust leaders were Hawke and Howard - Labor
and Liberal.

 

Name the country and event—as a general principle, as an act of self-defense, yes.

 

Poo,
thanks for your honesty.
While I agree on Hawke, I don't on Howard. Howard didn't use his 10.5 years to propel us forward.
As a climate change denier and a war follower to the US, we lost a decade in doing nothing but helped to kill 1m people in Iraq.
For many he looked like the strong leader. But as a fact, if China hadn't demanded the ore they did, Howard would have been a nobody.
However, the gun buy back scheme was the best he did and for that he has my deepest respect,
reg.

 

Your points are a tad over the top. But it's super important to look at the good and bad
in any leader. Even Trump, by the way. You Australian?

 

yes mate....

 

Who the hell do you think I mean by "him?"

 

Who else do you criticise other than Trump?

 

What the fukk would I know....................
Don't be offended, I often believe the world would be a better place without the Fata Morganas.....
Cheers

 

What the hell are you talking about?

 

Send me a pm to sort our obvious differences out, reg.

 

Bowerbird. This is emotive language. Emotive language is designed to manipulate.
As it is, mines are not designed for children - they are designed to keep combatants
apart and save lives.

 

The veto was forced onto the UNSC at its creation in 1946. Fifty delegates voted against its forced adoption. Since then as many people have been killed in wars as were killed in WW2 itself.

I say you lack awareness of the 'human condition', which turns you into a war monger; you have yet to present a rational argument as to why this is not the case.

OK, that's going to be a tough exercise for you, so I'll deal with the rest of your post (and I won't be reminding you again...I'm sure your memory is fine.......)

Bernie's financial transaction tax only affects some taxpayers, namely those who are wealthy enough to play in the financial derivatives casino, ie the mob that caused the GFC and forced millions of ordinary people, who were not even in the casino, into unemployment.

Addressed above.
[But note: Bernie has AOC who understands MMT, on his team. MMT turns our present neoliberal ("trickle down") orthodoxy on its head; the currency issuing government doesn't need to tax before it can spend. I expect you will be hearing about MMT in mainstream media soon].

In real - irrational - politics? [on which you are asking me to hypothesize]. Various scenarios

1. North Korea has nukes. If NK invades SK, Korea becomes a waste land, whether the US acts or not.
2. But even if NK doesn't have nukes, war on the peninsula is a mutual suicide pact, whether the US acts or not, because China will not just sit and watch an American puppet occupy the entire Korean peninsula.
3. Unlike in Vietnam, the US has been able to maintain/enforce a ceasefire on the peninsula, allowing SK to exist up to the present. So NK will not invade SK.

Like all social democrats, Bernie hates war, so he would (like Trump, to his credit) work to defuse the situation by diplomacy, but unlike Trump, would engage all the machinery of the UN, presenting a vision of a united Korea and, inviting Kim to New York to make an offer NK cannot resist eg immediate economic assistance including raising NK living standards to those in SK ASAP, in return for political re-unification with SK.

Again you are demanding of me that I accept and hypothesize in terms of your irrational world of legal war. I want to promote rationality among men.
Anyway, since you ask:

Since Bernie and I think alike, I reckon Bernie would have done everything possible to aid the considerable anti-Hitler resistance in Germany, going as far as Hitler's assassination (indeed there were quite a few attempts by Germans themselves). And Bernie would have been working through international agencies to resist the rise of the Nazi party itself.

But its time we got off this 'merry-go-round' of 'legal' war; indeed the nuclear age and MAD has changed the dynamic of war somewhat, but not enough to save the lives of million of children, since 1946.

He's aghast that they are paying the most expensive health insurance in the world, double that of the OECD average.

No, he is going to implement the GND which will engage the entire nation in the achievement of a clean green-based economy, alongside a productive, sustainable private sector.

...and engages with international organisations as far as possible, to promote universal development?

Actually, Americans are EXTREMELY fortunate Trump is ignoring mainstream orthodox economists*; if not for those huge deficits, the US would be in recession by now, just as Australia will soon enter a recession if Frydenberg persists with his orthodox balanced budget mythology.

*as in this article condemning Trump's deficits:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/opinion/budget-deficit-republicans.html

Keep your eye open for Professor Stephanie Kelton's upcoming book " The Deficit Myth" available in June I think.

 

Economic war - but not Military - and if we do go to war with Russia - or another nuclear superpower of the future - this discussion is pointless because the world as we know it will have ended.

That is why it was called "Mutually Assured Destruction" or MAD. Both nations would be destroyed - by any objective measure.

Today the power balance has shifted even further. The US/Russia have an even greater ability to destroy each other - and at the same time - more nations are gaining that status - such as China and India - and at the same time - non nuke technology has advanced and spread to other smaller nations - making projection of power more difficult and more expensive.

Read "Blood in the Streets" or "The Great Reckoning" - same authors James Dale Davidson and Sir William Reec-Moog 1987 .. by the second book he was Lorded so it is "Lord Moog" .. Editor of the London times .. Chairman of the BBC ..

It is a book on cycles in history - Predicts the Housing Crash - rise of terrorism - and many other things. Not on the basis of some crystal ball .. but on the basis of - this is how these cycles have always played out .. slightly different in ways - but the same template.

We are in the twilight of our Economic Empire .. and that the board on which this game is being played - Economic is now the strongest piece on the board - not Military.

Lack of understanding of this - leads to a flawed assessment of our position on the board.

 

Clearly God is not interested - or at least not in such a way that there is some direct intervention - perhaps like a scientist watching an experiment. We know this from History - surely God would have intervened during the 1000 + years of horror under Christian Theocracy - his name being blasphemed directly.. the leaders of this movement claiming to speak on his behalf "Pontifex Maximus"

If there was ever a time to teach these good for nothing humans a lesson - that would be it don't you think ?

The anti Establishment (AE) movement determined the outcome of the last election .. active on both sides of the fence. When Mike Moore toured the nation doing town halls - he predicted a Trump win - at a time when that was just ridiculous. He said it was not that the folks liked Trump so much - but that they wanted to throw a Moltov cocktail at the Establishment.

On the Blue side - many Bernie Supporters likely did not turn Red - but for sure some stayed home - given what Hilly/DNC did to Bernie.

One can only presume that the AE movement has gotten bigger - and while we didn't know for sure that Trump was an Establishment Wonk back in 2016 - we knew that Hillary was.

Now many will have figured out that Trump is an Establishment Wonk .. despite Trump doing everything in his power to portray a different story - hoping that some will associate drama with being AE.

Bernie is the "unknown" this time - but not like Trump. Bernie has some hard won anti establishment street cred - and a proven track record of running against the herd. One that none of the other Dem Candidates has - except Tulsi but she is out of the running.

Bernie is a bit too extreme for my liking in some of his positions - but these will moderate if elected.

 

Just one point. A hypothetical Korean war in an age where there's no UN veto.
There could still be an American led war - happened before.
Negotiating when you have no intention of doing anything just means "defeat"
With no veto America can still act alone
If there's a General Assembly vote the Russian/Chinese/Sth American/non-
aligned group could easily support a Communist take-over of Sth Korea. And
keep going to liberate Japan if it wanted to.
There's no mechanism invented to stop war. War is what humans do. Some
times it can be good (think fighting Hitler) sometimes it can defuse tensions
and sometimes it can save your life/value/country. War taught humans
altruism and cooperation. War gave us most of our technology. So live with
it - you have no choice.

 

That would be one possibility. You can do many things with an extra 900 Billion dollars. I use half the amount because the other half comes from the citizen - and you would use that to reduce their payments by half.

 

Far more difficult as anti personnel land mines are normally made to detonate when moved even slightly. Where as anti tank mines, being designed to detonate when run over by 50 ton tanks can actually be moved and jostled (even stood on) quite a bit without danger of a person detonating them.

 

Not if we deploy enough ABMs.

 

Unfortunately for the world it is most commonly the children that are harmed
Afghanistan

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-landmines-scattered-country-decades-war.html

https://endingchildpoverty.org/en/n...e-lasting-effects-of-landmines-on-development


https://www.unicef.org/protection/colombia_39301.html

 

And what happens 20 - 30 years later when those anti tank mines have rusted?

 

Good try (well, not really)...

The permanent members of a SC without veto CANNOT act alone.
A UNSC without veto, in international affairs, is analogous to a nation's supreme court in national affairs.
The vote is taken, and that becomes law. You don't have one of the judges deciding to quit the court and act on his own volition, that's NOT rule of law, either at home, or in an international rules based system.

[But for sure, with the veto, the US (and it's puppets Blair and Howard) certainly invaded Iraq 'illegally', despite millions all around the globe marching in protest]

 

From what I've gathered they become an bigger hazard. Note, from what I've read most anti personnel land mines are not designed to actually kill someone. They are intended to blow off a foot or leg thus forcing the fellow soldiers of the injured person to be encumbered by having to care for him.

Anti tank land mines of course will kill a soldier (or civilian) instantly.

 

Your just dreaming - Even if the ABM's that we have worked against Ballistic Missiles - which they don't - they do not work against cruise missiles or other weapons .. like nuclear drones that swim here and then rise up from the sea outside some port and start firing.

But never mind nuclear - Biological weapons Dayton - don't forget about those ..

Technology has increased to the point where nation states such as Iran can launch cruise missiles and drones - against a site that is defended by the "Patriot System" - from hundreds of miles away.

How about against an undefended city ? - and this is Iran we are talking .. not the folks with serious missile technology such as China -Russia - India - and they are selling this technology (not sure about India but why not - China and Russia for sure) - to "anyone with cash".

 

Iran will not attack the US.
If it did, the US would melt Iran into the desert and waste lands, with its people.

 

ABMs have worked against ICBMs repeatedly in tests. And shooting down cruise missiles has been done since World War Two. It is very old and established technology.

The "nuclear drones" are something that Putin brags about but which have never actually been built.

And no nation is going to use biological weapons.

And I'm only interested in protecting urban areas.