dagblog - Comments for "America Needs an Entirely New Foreign Policy for the Trump Age"

WaPo is doing a series Ripple

artappraiser — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 07:21:49 +0000

In reply to America Needs an Entirely New Foreign Policy for the Trump Age

WaPo is doing a series Ripple Effect

Part II today:

How a Trump decision on trade became a setback for democracy in Vietnam

Vietnam had promised more workers’ rights when entering into the Trans-Pacific Partnership. After President Trump pulled the United States out in 2017, Vietnam’s Communist government unleashed its most severe clampdown on dissent in decades.

By Simon Denyer and David Nakamura
with 4.28 min. titled "Alarming Increase in Arrests"

Part I: How a Trump decision on abortion policy reverberated around the globe

Not sure who you think is

AmericanDreamer — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 02:55:30 +0000

In reply to It ain't just about war,

Not sure who you think is advocating "laissez-faire isolationism." Robert Wright in the video towards the end distinguishes the sort of progressive realism he favors from Cato Institute realism by the former's respect for norms of international cooperation to tackle problems of global scope, and for international law.

I saw this Friedman

ocean-kat — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 23:26:01 +0000

In reply to I thought of this thread

I saw this Friedman commentary first about Kagan's article. I thought about linking it here but decided it might be dismissed quickly since Friedman is (justifiedly) in disrepute. I don't judge that way. Making a few errors doesn't mean every thing a pundit posts is wrong. This paragraph summarizes the dispute among liberals. We all recognize the wrongs America has committed. But is the world on balance better with America involved or to leave the playing field to Russia, China, etc.?

So when Trump says that we are just going to look out for ourselves, he shows his ignorance of both history and economics. Trump is pursuing “a great American fantasy,” added Kagan. And it is not a fantasy that we can be “isolationists” and we’ll be O.K. It’s a fantasy that we can be “irresponsible” and we’ll be O.K. The world will be far more threatened by too little American order-making than too much.

“It will be springtime for thugs,” Kagan concluded — and the signs of that are now multiplying.

It ain't just about war,

artappraiser — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 22:54:51 +0000

In reply to I thought of this thread

It ain't just about war, either. Laissez faire isolationism with everyone taking care of their own not poking into others' business, no leaders pushing and incentifying global cooperation, all sounds pie in the sky dandy in theory, until we kill a whole planet with competitive global warming...

I thought of this thread

artappraiser — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 22:46:11 +0000

In reply to America Needs an Entirely New Foreign Policy for the Trump Age

I thought of this thread immediately when i read this op-ed by Robert Kagan. Along the lines of: okay, so now you finally got what you wished for:

Welcome to the jungle https://t.co/Ggk6bGF3jq
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) October 10, 2018

You recommend the video

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 21:48:19 +0000

In reply to I posted the article because

You recommend the video because it's full of yak yak blather that makes it hard to refute with specific quotes, plus you have too much time on your hands, and you're reading challenged to actually address the details of what you post. As I said, you're a coward, and as you admit, a horridly repetitive and shallow one at that. Yes, America could use a different, better evolved foreign policy, but this jacking off Putin mentality while ignoring and excusing the rest of the nasty crooked violent forces at work and only addressing the US in the most negative light possible is hardly serious analysis or path to solutions - it's crap propaganda, whether you're paid for it or not. I address the many shortcomings in your BFF Beinart's assessment, while still accepting it was better than your previous shitty nostalgia trip or those awful greying supposed intelligence guys you like trying to keep up with the modern age.

Beinhart is another younster

NCD — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 19:30:58 +0000

In reply to America Needs an Entirely New Foreign Policy for the Trump Age

Beinhart is another youngster pundit who has never had any experience or accountability for his grandiose blathering. Oh, he's from Harvard.....Beinhart, 2004, liberals lost it in 1947, and now need to free a billion Muslims:

..there is little liberal passion to win the struggle against Al Qaeda--even though totalitarian Islam has killed thousands of Americans and aims to kill millions; and even though, if it gained power, its efforts to force every aspect of life into conformity with a barbaric interpretation of Islam would reign terror upon women, religious minorities, and anyone in the Muslim world with a thirst for modernity or freedom.

When liberals talk about America's new era, the discussion is largely negative--against the Iraq war, against restrictions on civil liberties, against America's worsening reputation in the world. In sharp contrast to the first years of the cold war, post-September 11 liberalism has produced leaders and institutions--most notably Michael Moore and MoveOn--that do not put the struggle against America's new totalitarian foe at the center of their hopes for a better world.

Liberals were "against things" because the Republican administration of GWB was an unprecedented catastrophe.

Lulu's favorite part from his lnk:

Before Trump’s July trip to Europe, 44 Democrats on the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees urged him to maintain sanctions against Russia until it returns Crimea to Ukraine, to shun any cooperation between the American and Russian militaries,...

BTW, "poison" and "novichok" do not appear in Beinharts cocky ostentatious malarkey about Trump's wonderful fawning over Putie.

That's a ton of verbiage to

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 17:00:18 +0000

In reply to I posted the article because

That's a ton of verbiage to still not respond.

You're an ass. And a troll.

I posted the article because

A Guy Called LULU — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 16:55:04 +0000

In reply to So why did you post it?

I posted the article because I believe it expresses intelligently some smart viewpoints. I posted the short reply to your comment for the explicit reason of letting you know that I was not ignoring your response while expecting, without really thinking about it, that most anyone reading it would know that there is another world outside the shrinking universe of dagblog which might have a more inviting or more important call to a person’s time at any given moment. You should realize that that world does not rotate around you even if you believe that the universe of dag does. As I write this there are fifteen articles posted on the news section. With the exception of the one I posted every other was posted by either you or AA. Most do not have any comments at all. No one is required to read them, no one is required to comment, and if someone does comment they are not required to respond to someone's non-responsive and usually rude reply.

In your first rambling comment of well over five hundred words which could have been generated by a bot and which says almost nothing directly relating to the article in a way that either supports or disagrees with or expands upon any position by Beinart, you seem to be trying to impress by saying there is more to the subject of the geopolitical world situation than was covered in the Atlantic article. My guess is that anybody who regularly reads here already knew that. What I don’t see is how anyone could weigh that word salad of yours against the views expressed by Beinart and come up with any new knowledge or ideas. Or, anything actually worth digging into for a response.

In the video Beinhart’s article is jokingly introduced at about the thirty second mark as laying out a sweeping diagnosis of what is wrong with America’s foreign policy. Beinart gets the joke and laughs while replying that no single magazine article could do justice to all the different aspects of American policy. Your comment does not do justice, which could be one way or another, to anything the article actually did say. Next you get offended that I did not respond right away to your comment that is mostly a look-at-me word dump and almost not at all about the actual subject.

I recommend the video because the live discussion brings in a great deal more information and nuance to the actual subject, that subject being where we are now and where and why we should try to go in a different direction in the future, than does the article which by necessity spends a great part of itself explaining the history and thus the context of how we got to where we are now.

Whether you or anyone else agrees with Beinart I will point out that his conclusion, which is that our country needs a very different foreign policy, is one that I have been arguing for during my entire time at dag. And, I have done so for the very same reasons as those offered by the author. And, the different direction that I believe our foreign policy should take is the same direction that Beinart suggests.

So why did you post it?

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 05:25:18 +0000

In reply to Maybe back later on this but

So why did you post it?

So I'd read, spend time commenting, and the you'd tell me ti go waste my time instead with a fucking video that you probably wouldn't respnd to either?

You're weird.