Armageddon time?

[Deereyme66]

Is this where the world is heading, given that the US’s imperialist foreign policy and blatant disregard for international law seems set up to challenge the Russia and China alliance? How much longer can this flexing and resource grabbing from both sides last before it comes to a head?

[Iron-awe]

Trump said pre election he was going to to be a dictator from day one and he appears to be carrying that out. His total lack of running the majority of his decisions by congress and the senate and as DM says his disregard for international law are no different to Putin waltzing into Ukraine and saying it’s legitimate, different scale of course but the same principal. Of course his mental deterioration and poor health are probably part and parcel of his decision making but it’s very unnerving for the rest of the world. We were famous for gun boat diplomacy back in our empire days ( another term for bullying others ) and Trump is no different IMO.

[Deereyme66]

Strikes me he’s trying to trump (pardon the pun) Putin in the granny gangster stakes. If he lays claims to Greenland it could get very messy. Can foresee China claiming Taiwan-they’re potentially losing billions on their Venezuela investment. Treating sovereign states like a land and resource grab video game.

[Northumbiron]

Funny how we haven’t had any posts on how the Totalitarian State is shaping up in the past week.

[Deereyme66]

There would be some lame excuses even if there were. Believers have a get out of jail free card.

[Iron-awe]

Even Trump’s reasoning about the drugs coming into the USA from Venezuela is lame considering the actual amounts, it’s all about oil and regime change which makes the dictator labelling even more accurate.

[TwoWrights]

Apologies, I’ve tried to resist but I can’t hear’Armageddon’ without remembering this clip. I was driving us to an away match when I had this on my car sound system.
It’s difficult to drive with tears of laughter rolling down your face.

1 user thanked author for this post.

BobbyGmeister

[Deereyme66]

Well, that’s certainly not from the bpg film club library

1 user thanked author for this post.

TwoWrights

[Siderite]

Iron-awe wrote:

Trump said pre election he was going to to be a dictator from day one and he appears to be carrying that out. His total lack of running the majority of his decisions by congress and the senate and as DM says his disregard for international law are no different to Putin waltzing into Ukraine and saying it’s legitimate, different scale of course but the same principal. Of course his mental deterioration and poor health are probably part and parcel of his decision making but it’s very unnerving for the rest of the world. We were famous for gun boat diplomacy back in our empire days ( another term for bullying others ) and Trump is no different IMO.

I would say that there is quite a bit of difference between what happened in Ukraine and Venezuela. Ukraine has a democratically elected leader, while Venezuela has a dictator who is recognised as illegitimate given he has rigged elections and stayed on despite losing a decade ago.

My own thoughts on this is that, on paper, this could have been defendable on this basis. The removal of a tyrant, who has massacred more dissidents than Pinochet and caused a huge economic slump which has destroyed the country. The problem is that it would be extremely foolish to believe that Trump has done this out of any love for democracy and for Venezuelans. This has been evident in that he has only removed Maduro and left the regime still intact and has been openly saying he would be happy with Venezuela if he can just get money from oil out of it, without a care if Venezuela remains the corrupt, despotic state that it is. Any talk of narcotic sponsoring falls apart when you realise Trump pardoned Hernandez of Honduras, who also has links with narcotics. Any talk of upset at Maduro for being a tyrant falls apart when Trump wanted to remain as leader, despite losing fairly, in 2020 and whipped up a frenzy on Jan 6th 2021 for this. And sources close to the White House have said that Trump didn’t want to work with Machado because she refused to demand that Trump got the Nobel Peace Prize instead of her. Narcisstic moron with the maturity of a toddler.

Moreover, he has now gone along with imperialist mantras that are reminiscent of Putin. If he had kept it as a needed operation to remove a hostile element of the US, who had no legitimacy as leader, it could be sold as something that would be beneficial for Venezuela and its people (even if Trump isn’t exactly some benevolent figure). However, his ego couldn’t stop there. He had to speak of stupidity over some ridiculous ‘Donroe doctrine’ over the Americas and threatening Greenland again. I am convinced he wants Greenland because it looks large on the Mercator projection; all his arguments about security fall apart when you realise the USA has that anyway and the countries Trump says he wants protection from include those he has snuggled up to. All his cyclic, failed (so far) peace attempts for Ukraine have collapsed because he is too eager to just go along with whatever the Kremlin says, and even recently he believed the Putinist nonsense about attacks on Putin’s residence. Never mind that Putin has attempted to capture or kill Zelensky more than once and deliberately attacks civilians, Putin maybe being attacked is what gets Trump upset.

The USA doesn’t realise how much damage it is doing to itself among its allies and too many dismiss it as exagerration. The USA, in this last year, has proven itself so unreliable for any kind of trust. It regularly attacks allies, while cosying up to tyrants, pushes for whatever the tyrant wants in resolving conflicts and makes egregious insults towards Europeans. Europeans have sometimes struggled with free speech, admittedly, but the free speech here is damn more available than elsewhere, who Trump has repeatedly been weak on (having a good laugh with Bin Salman of Saudi over dead journalists and excuses for the Khashoggi killing), while going after those who dare insult him or tried to hold him accountable. Even if he goes in 2028, how can we place long term reliance on a country that could elect a Caligula figure every 4 years? The USA have blown mutual cooperation with them into the water. Tariffs, threats and more mean that Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and the rest of the ‘free world’ cannot rely on them. I don’t say this out of American hatred; I think the USA has been a good superpower to have since WWII compared to the alternatives, but now it is beyond contempt because the senile idiot in charge has meant that we can no longer trust them (and this is without going into the domestic stupidity). For a while, critics said it would be better with a multipolar world, but that is what we have now and look how bad it is. Russia and China have been stirring up trouble for years, but now it has arrived and that means ‘might means right’. Maybe a liberal democratic USA, which was always free market capitalist, but with more respect for rules and order wasn’t so bad after all.

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