Oh, boy. Here we go again.
The real spearhead of global terrorism.
ISIS Claims Responsibility for Manchester Concert Attack; Toll Rises to 22
The Donald is showing great restraint and diplomacy in not nuking all of these savages.
How does that work for a narrative?
Iām only half kidding.
[quote]āThis type of target was absolutely foreseeable, as Islamic State has increasingly been highlighting in its propaganda that scores of children have been killed in coalition and Russian strikes targeting Islamic State positions in Iraq and Syria,ā said Michael S. Smith II, a terrorism analyst who specializes in the Islamic Stateās influence efforts and who is writing a book on its external operations.
All of that content is āintended to stimulate thinking about executing retributive attacks among Islamic State supporters here in the West,ā Mr. Smith said.[/quote]
If the narrative is that Donald bin Laden is considering āexecuting retributive attacksā against civilian targets in the Middle East using weapons of mass destruction because āscores of childrenā were killed on Manchester then Iād say results speak for themselves.
I donāt think I bring myself to accept a moral equivalence between human shields and the deliberate targeting of civilians.
Blowing up an apartment building in order to kill one individual versus blowing up an apartment building in order to kill everyone in it arenāt morally equivalent but theyāre both still acts of depravity. Just ask the families of the dead women, children and elderly.
Let the tantrums begin:
Iām looking at the accord on NPR and it is really hard to read. I wonder where the language is in it that requires the US to pay more without requiring China and India to reduce their emissions. Any legal experts out there?
I think that we Americans will join in the end but renegotiate something that is better for America. I also think that most of us really do care about global warming but we arenāt convinced that a Paris Climate Accord is the way to do this.
This is what Trump says:
āI cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States, which is what it does, while imposing no meaningful obligations on the worldās leading polluters,ā Trump said ā singling out China and India by name.
āIn short, the agreement doesnāt eliminate coal jobs, it just transfers those jobs out of America and the United States and ships them to foreign countries,ā he added. āThis agreement is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States.ā
This is from NPR
As NPRās Christopher Joyce recently reported, emissions in the U.S. have declined by about 12 percent since 2005.
āThe U.S. has successfully bent its greenhouse gas emissions curve,ā Kate Larsen, of the economics research team Rhodium Group, told Christopher. āAnd we are going to continue to reduce emissions over the next 10 years, likely regardless of Trump policy.ā
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Well done for wanting to read what the actual accord is. Much easier to virtue signal by name calling Trump a meanie. Iāve tried reading up on it, so far just the article on Wikipedia.
Itās interesting that Obama didnāt get congressional approval when he signed. Then paid, 500 million? towards a 3B commitment. Correct me if Iām wrong. It is a complex agreement. It doesnāt look like anything in it can be enforced though from my first reading of it. I hope we will join on better terms and I also support taking care of the environment.
When it comes to this agreement, thereās only one thing you really need to know: itās non-binding. With no mechanism for enforcement, itās basically just a big letās-pat-each-other-on-the-back (pardon my French) circle jerk. Of course everybody but Nicaragua and Syria have signed itā¦itās no skin off their teeth. And the poor countries are promised $100 billion in aid a year from the rich countries. What are they gonna do? Refuse free money?
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In a non-binding agreement, anyone who honors the terms is a chump. The Donald has opted to be one of the non-chump nations.
But heās also decided to announce it. Why bother to announce when you can just pretend the thing doesnāt exist? The only reason is to troll people.
Holy cow, looks like someone has been thrown under the bus.
As dubiously sourced as anything you see in the news these days, but oozing with truthiness:
Trump was blunt with the Saudi ruler. āIāll help you with Iran only if you help me sell American LNG and oil to China, and thereās only one way to do that.ā ā Which is?ā asked the head camel driver. āStop Qatar from selling their LNG to the Chinese, and while youāre at it, both of you stop funding terrorists, or else.ā
All effective international diplomacy is international politics, and most effective politics is pressure politics.
Il Douche politicized law enforcement and thus weaponized the law. Now The Donald wields the weapon.
Nation building.Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesnāt. Itās like psychotherapy: the nation has to want to be built.
Tangentially relevant:
Dubya tried to be the worldās wise old uncle. It turned out he wasnāt as insightful as he thought he was, and his platitudes about the Iraqi People and the Religion of Peace soon appeared ludicrous. But killing terroristsā¦ that always made sense.
Oh, and thereās no Libyan People or Syrian People either.
Lot of sour grapes in this article, but hereās the real takeaway: people like this are currying favor with us now. Thatās an improvement.
Oh, and Saudi Arabia is trying to be less evil for a change. Still lots of problems to clean up in this world, but thatās major progress on one of them. Well, thereās also some progress on North Korea.
Speak softly and carry a big stick. And a carrot. And throw Il Doucheās not-so-smart diplomacy under the bus.
China imports soybeans from the US?
Yeah. China consumes 61% of the worldās soybeans (tofu, anyone?) and the U.S. is a major farming country.
I was reading 60b of tariffs on china, which responded by proposing 3b tariffs on Us imports.
Lol