2019 American Political Scene

[snapper]

Le' madame' (pardon my French or whatever language that is), you're here in WAB for 11 years, read Shakespeare and Tolstoy, have citizenship of 4 countries including Shangri-la, please tell me when will you start using 'paragraphs'? It's annoying going through your posts, really very annoying. And I don't care what your religious affiliations are. Religious people needs to be whipped. Religion is a disease. All religions suck. Allah is the only true God, and the Prophet is his messenger. Convert or die. Infidel. P.S. Cover up your head, when you go out. That was a command, not a request.

Madame is normal for a married Lady in French, Pani in Polish or Ukrainian (which can be a married or unmarried Ladies as there is no distinctive Miss/Mrs, Mademoiselle/Madams titles).

I previously had dual British and Polish nationality but it would be illegal for me now hold Ukrainian citizenship and retain other passports, including that of Shangri-la.

Certainly I have read Tolstoy and Shakespeare and much else besides. I think most people educated people have. You want to see some of Tolstoy's paragraphs! (Or Descartes or other more modern philosophers). I was educated such that you use a single paragraph to address a single point. If you have more than one argument for your view then of course different paragraphs are needed for each. So I open the book I have in front in me right now ('The Empire of the Czar' by the Marquis de Custine) and on page 105/106 (where I am at) I can find a paragraph that continues for 21 lines, nor do I know if it the longest in the book, it being merely the page I have got to.

As to why Trumpkin will not release his tax returns (which apparently under continually "under audit") we can only conjecture for now. I suspect though that he is not half as wealthy as he likes to make out (or at least wasn't before he leverage his Presidency for his own gain) and that much of the money he did have while a candidate originated from Muscovite money laundering, which would show Muscovite leverage over him.

[TopHatter]

Any idea who gave Trump the terrible notion that he is the best fit to be POTUS?

His motivation had nothing to do with wanting to be President or thinking that he would be the best fit for the job (although with his narcissism, he unquestionably believed that to be the case)

It had everything to with enriching himself, as money is one of the only things that matters to Trump, period. All of Trump's words and actions can be explained by this motivation. It's certainly not due to love of country and his fellow citizens.

Trying to find the source, but someone (might have been Trump himself) told Trump that he could make a pile of money running for President. Indeed, he's on the record way back in 2000, stating that: “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it”. Didn't quite work out that way, apparently.

I'm 100% sure someone massaged his ego.

That's certainly possible but being a textbook narcissist, I doubt his ego needed much massaging.

And now that he has won, he can't back down on his ridiculous poll promises, nor can he get support or the moolah to fulfil those, needless to say, always running into some sort of a controversy that he himself creates.

That's exactly correct. The longest government shutdown in US history was caused by people like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter jerking his leash, causing him to renege on a deal that he'd already agreed to sign.
His problem now is that his narcissism and inability to keep his stupid mouth shut is providing god-only-knows how many prosecutors with ammunition to use against him, his family and his Family. He made the same mistake that Al Capone and John Gotti made, probably for the same reason: That malignant narcissism.

And now, his vaunted "fighting" that his supporters adore so much, has only caused a legion of jurisdictions to spring up from the ground, all of them wielding forks and knives, ready to dig fully into his business dealings. It would've been interesting to see if he'd directed more of his "fighting" to proposing actual legislation that benefit the country, making the deals that he constantly brags about, to do some lasting good. An infrastructure package, would've been a great start. Instead he squandered the two years of control the GOP had in Congress railing about the Democrats investigating him.

[TopHatter]

As to why Trumpkin will not release his tax returns (which apparently under continually "under audit") we can only conjecture for now. I suspect though that he is not half as wealthy as he likes to make out (or at least wasn't before he leverage his Presidency for his own gain) and that much of the money he did have while a candidate originated from Muscovite money laundering, which would show Muscovite leverage over him.

More than likely that will be the case. Certainly it will show that the Trump Organization was and probably still is, teetering on the brink of disaster, just as it was when Mark Burnett came calling.

“The Apprentice” portrayed Trump not as a skeezy hustler who huddles with local mobsters but as a plutocrat with impeccable business instincts and unparalleled wealth—a titan who always seemed to be climbing out of helicopters or into limousines. “Most of us knew he was a fake,” Braun told me. “He had just gone through I don’t know how many bankruptcies. But we made him out to be the most important person in the world. It was like making the court jester the king.” Bill Pruitt, another producer, recalled, “We walked through the offices and saw chipped furniture. We saw a crumbling empire at every turn. Our job was to make it seem otherwise.”

Trump maximized his profits from the start. When producers were searching for office space in which to stage the show, he vetoed every suggestion, then mentioned that he had an empty floor available in Trump Tower, which he could lease at a reasonable price. (After becoming President, he offered a similar arrangement to the Secret Service.) When the production staff tried to furnish the space, they found that local venders, stiffed by Trump in the past, refused to do business with them.

Anybody still want to believe that Trump is a "successful businessman"? Or has the Kool-Aid finally run out.

[WABs_OOE]

So when the Cold War ended why did so many Central European nations chose to join NATO instead of retaining the Warsaw Pact ties with Muscovy?

Young lady, I was still in uniform when the Berlin Wall came down. You were in highschool. So, don't you DARE lecture me about the times I lived through. Promises were given to Moscow by London, Paris, Washington, and Berlin. Clinton renegged on those promises.

That was NOT your point. You said the Kosovo War was vastly different from the Putin's adventures in the UKR. HOW? Anyone with an ounce of brains knew EXACTLY where Putin got his ideas.

Your cherry picking is failing big time.

[Red Team]

Mainly because the Serbs were right about the Kosovo Liberation Army, that they were/are nothing more than an Albanian Mafia on a turf war with the Serbian government, not that Milosevic ain't more of a crime boss himself but he's at least is a head of state and should be treated as one.

It was a mob war pure and simple and NATO taking sides is determining which whorehouse (and I mean that litterally) should be in Kosovo. Kosovo right now is nothing more than a drug selling whorehouse with human organ sales on the side.

What a wonderful outcome just because Albright convinced Clinton that bombing the Serbs to smithereens would distract the public from his blow job scandals.

And Putin took lessons from us. We bypassed the UN using some legal mumble jumble. Partitioned Serbia when we said we would not. Install a government just to piss off the Serbs (Albright's doing). Sound familiar? It's almost like Eastern UKR.

I can see where you draw the parallel from NATO's intervention in Kosovo to the Kremlin's escapades in Eastern Ukraine. Perhaps it may have given Putin an abstract moral casus belli of sorts to do what he is doing now. Nevertheless, Milosevic's regime was found to have committed several war crimes up to and including genocide. In the event that NATO had not intervened, would we not have caught significant international criticism from turning a blind eye to war crimes unseen since the second world war?

[WABs_OOE]

I can see where you draw the parallel from NATO's intervention in Kosovo to the Kremlin's escapades in Eastern Ukraine. Perhaps it may have given Putin an abstract moral casus belli of sorts to do what he is doing now.

There was nothing moral about the Kosovo War as there is nothing moral about Putin's actions. I sincerely doubt that the Kosovo War would have happened if Clinton was not caught with his semen on Monica's dress.

My General, Lewis MacKenzie, UNPROFOR's commander and others, argued against the war.

Nevertheless, Milosevic's regime was found to have committed several war crimes up to and including genocide.

Not genocide, ethnic cleansing. Although the results would be similar. People freezing to death without shelter instead of being gassed. However, the Serbs did have a code of honour. They did not murder women and children. They just told them to get out ... or threw them out into the snow.

In the event that NATO had not intervened, would we not have caught significant international criticism from turning a blind eye to war crimes unseen since the second world war?

We're turning a blind eye now. Kosovo is practically ethnic cleansed of Serbs with the Albanians starting to make demands into Southern Serbia proper (Kosovo is not economically viable without some parts of Southern Serbia).

We turned a blind eye a lot earlier than that too. The Croatians ethnic cleansed Krajina of Serbs and UNPROFOR was helpless to stop them; mainly because the Croats had covert help from several NATO members.

In either case, the only thing Milosevic did wrong was to NOT hire the right New York Propaganda (Public Relations) firms. The Croats and the Bosnian Muslims and the ethnic Albanians more than got their moneys worth.

The point here is that there were no good guys. They were all assholes. It was a gang war pure and simple. Those ethnic Albanians who paid protection money to the Serbs were fine and left alone. The Albanians who wanted in on that racket started targetting the Serb AND their FAMILIES. Since the Albanians could not use the legal system to throw the Serbs out, they used bombs.

Kosovo would have be a whorehouse either way. Our intervention made it an Albanian whorehouse.

The Serbs also got their supporters, namely RUS and the UKR. A hell of a lot of Russian and Ukranian weapons go through to Serbia. So who's going to be screaming bloody murder if no one cared? Pol Pot died in his sleep and never spent a day in jail.

[DOR]

It took me all of five seconds to put Rwanda and Kosovo in a Google search box.

“President Bill Clinton has revealed that guilt over his failure to stop the Rwandan genocide led to the US's fast intervention in Kosovo.”
--Clinton made the comments during an address to Kosovo’s parliament in 2009.

More:
“Examining the cases of Rwanda and Kosovo, this chapter explores the recent history, legality, and legitimacy of the normative architecture of a new, consensus-based, world order that seeks to bridge the divide between the competing norms of non-intervention and armed intervention. It begins by describing the default policy setting of non-intervention of the 1990s, and then discusses the policy challenge posed both by no action and unilateral action when faced with mass atrocities.”
--Rwanda, Kosovo, and the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, by Ramesh Thakur (http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/...0198753841-e-6).



Can we move this to a 1990s thread, and get back to 2019.

[WABs_OOE]

It took me all of five seconds to put Rwanda and Kosovo in a Google search box.

Your 5 seconds ignore ALL THE HISTORY!

Every UNPROFOR veteran was against the war. General MacKenzie and I are on record against the war.

The war was poorly planned in that NO ONE listened to the military and WAS FORCED onto the military to use airpower and airpower alone. That ALONE said everyone INGNORED all the advice, INCLUDING A UN INVESTIGATION that DISPUTED the massacre findings MAINLY because of the Belarusian involvement.

The military FROM DAY ONE stated a ground incursion was needed. Clinton and ilk ignored General Shenseki. How Clinton sidelined that honourable man was a disgrace and showed his true ilk in that war.

You want to know how Milosevic surrendered? The Russians convinced him that the ground war was coming. Indeed, on the eve of the surrender, JTF 2 and 22 SAS was tasked to penetrate.

So do not use your google fu against my testimonies. Your precisous Democrat President Bill Clinton fought an unnecessary war because he wanted to distract from his BJ scandals. The evidence speaks for themselves. Kosovo is an Albanian drug selling whorehouse ethnic cleansed of Serbs. Exactly what UNPROFOR vets said it would be. Period.

Can we move this to a 1990s thread, and get back to 2019.

This is about 2019. Your 1990s Bill Clinton gave us 2019 Putin. The Responsibility to Protect. Putin is claiming responsiblity to protect ethnic Russians no matter what country they're in. Including NATO.

[DOR]

Your 5 seconds ignore ALL THE HISTORY!

Every UNPROFOR veteran was against the war. General MacKenzie and I are on record against the war.

The war was poorly planned in that NO ONE listened to the military and WAS FORCED onto the military to use airpower and airpower alone. That ALONE said everyone INGNORED all the advice, INCLUDING A UN INVESTIGATION that DISPUTED the massacre findings MAINLY because of the Belarusian involvement.

The military FROM DAY ONE stated a ground incursion was needed. Clinton and ilk ignored General Shenseki. How Clinton sidelined that honourable man was a disgrace and showed his true ilk in that war.

You want to know how Milosevic surrendered? The Russians convinced him that the ground war was coming. Indeed, on the eve of the surrender, JTF 2 and 22 SAS was tasked to penetrate.

So do not use your google fu against my testimonies. Your precisous Democrat President Bill Clinton fought an unnecessary war because he wanted to distract from his BJ scandals. The evidence speaks for themselves. Kosovo is an Albanian drug selling whorehouse ethnic cleansed of Serbs. Exactly what UNPROFOR vets said it would be. Period.

This is about 2019. Your 1990s Bill Clinton gave us 2019 Putin. The Responsibility to Protect. Putin is claiming responsiblity to protect ethnic Russians no matter what country they're in. Including NATO.

Set your testimony, and your service aside for one moment, sir.

Question: Why ?
Answer: Rwanda.

(170,000 + Google hits seems worthy of note.)

[hboGYT]

Set your testimony, and your service aside for one moment, sir.

Question: Why ?
Answer: Rwanda.

(170,000 + Google hits seems worthy of note.)

DOR, have you read Versus' long running series? :D

[DOR]

DOR, have you read Versus' long running series? :D

No, just Bill Clinton's statement, and a couple of other items.

[WABs_OOE]

Set your testimony, and your service aside for one moment, sir.

Question: Why ?
Answer: Rwanda.

(170,000 + Google hits seems worthy of note.)

That is a load of crock! There's one and only one reason why Clinton did not do Rwanda. BLACK HAWK DOWN. I find his excuse nausating, to use that genocide as an excuse. Nigerian battalions were standing ready to intervene in Rwanda, waiting for the UNSC go. All the US had to do was to say the word "genocide." Not one American soldier would have been needed. To use that moral cowardice to justify a war for KLA pimps is disgusting to the core.

Let me paint you the picture. UNPROFOR vets, the guys who were there were telling everyone leave it alone. It's a freaking gang war. Our expertise dwarfs that of Clinton. We were being shot at by those fucks. We know who the fucks are. Our advice ignored. Fine. The military serves the civilians.

The Racak Massacre which was used as the primary evidence for the war. The UN forensic team comprising of the Finland, Belarus, and Former Repulic of Yugoslavia, got their report suppressed and classified. One lone Finn Helena Renta released her report, hers and hers alone, not the rest of the Finns but just hers. She reported the victims were civilians and did not bear the markings of combattants. Belarus and FRY disagree, stating that they found GSR on the victims, stating that they were indeed combattants and illegal combattants at that. Renta stated the tests they use could give false positives. That does not mean there were no GSR but it does mean that Renta did not confirm nor deny the GSR evidence. Was Renta right? Don't know but Milosevic was also charged with Racak. That charge was dropped because of insufficent evidence.

At best, Clinton used disputed evidence. At worst, he outright ignored the findings of the UN Forensic Team and cherry pick the one AND only one person who supported his view.

Now, let's get to the war itself. Planes need something to bomb. Passive Air Defence is Dispursal, Deception, Burial. You spread out so the air force would have to go looking for you and waste bombs on tiny targets, You use camo, decoys to hide and waste enemy bombs. The Serbs even black painted their runways after a US bombing to simulate a crater so that the Americans thought they had destroy the runway. And Burial to protect your weapons against everything but a direct hit.

Now AirLand War 101. To force the enemy to come out from hiding and give your planes something to bomb. You mass a force before the enemy. He either digs his weapons out, come out to confront you or you go through his lines like shit through a goose. When the enemy mass, you've got things for your planes to bomb.

Guess what Clinton did? Not only did he forbade a ground war. BLACK HAWK DOWN still haunting him. He let the Serbs know it. Guess what the Serbs did? Dispersal. Deception. Burial. Before the war even started, the entire battle plan was already compromised.

I could not believe this ineptitude.

Now, let's get to the Chinese bombing in Belgrade. It was a CIA op, not a NATO op. NATO had a no go database for bombing runs and one of the inputs was from the CIA. As a matter of intel sharing, we sent updates to the CIA as well so that there can be no mistakes. Well, the CIA stated the Chinese embassy address was not on their no-go list while it was on NATO's. That's one hell of a mistake. BTW, Clinton PERSONALLY approved the CIA bombing run and it was the ONLY CIA op of the entire war.

Clinton felt guilty about Rwanda? Horse puckey. Monica's Dress was on his mind. Anything after the fact is nothing more than revisionism. You want to believe Clinton's words? That is your pre-orgative. But his actions are more than enough proof that he didn't give a rat's ass about Kosovo.

Professional advice ignored. Cherry picking evidence. Fighting a war half assed, tying the military's hands behind their back. Could not care less about reconstruction and let Albanian pimps turn Kosovo into a whorehouse. Yeah, Clinton was really serious about Kosovo.

For fuck sakes, Clinton could not even get the peace right with WWIII almost being started with the Pristina Fiasco!

[TopHatter]

I could not believe this ineptitude. General Shensiki testified before Congress that he would need 100,00 ground troops to accomplish the President's goals. The General was forced to retire 1 year before his tenure was up. Disgusting.

Sir, I think you have your events mixed up:

"As Army Chief of Staff, Eric Shinseki testified to the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services on February 25, 2003 that "something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would probably be required for postwar Iraq. Critics of the Bush Administration alleged that Shinseki was forced into early retirement as Army Chief of Staff because of his comments on troop levels; however, his retirement was announced nearly a year before those comments."

[WABs_OOE]

Sir, I think you have your events mixed up:

"As Army Chief of Staff, Eric Shinseki testified to the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services on February 25, 2003 that "something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would probably be required for postwar Iraq. Critics of the Bush Administration alleged that Shinseki was forced into early retirement as Army Chief of Staff because of his comments on troop levels; however, his retirement was announced nearly a year before those comments."

Brain fart. I stand corrected.

[Firestorm]

Ok, let me clarify that I only used Allied Force as one example to buttress my point that NATO is NOT a "Defensive" alliance as Snapper stated and that the Russians surely do not see it that way. I wasn't commenting on whether the intervention itself was "right" or "wrong". I will defer to the Colonel's knowledge and experience on that.

Fear of NATO is definitely one reason why Putin overreacted in Ukraine. He was legitimately scared that if Ukraine joined the EU the next step was most certainly NATO.