Bay 12 Games Forum

Oh yeah, it's been going on for a while now. Not really something new. Definitely an example of why you don't fucking privatize any portion of your criminal justice system, regardless.

Naaah, there's plenty of stuff related to anger that still fits, right? Frustration, irritation, indignation, etc., so forth, so on. The lesser not!angers that don't involve actually getting outright pissed.

Though making people burst into flames is easy. No anger mastery points required. Just a lighter and maybe some butane or somethin'. Damnit lyeos, you ninja'd me ;_;

That sounds kinda' amazing, if accurate. Two trillion freed up to be spent on things besides getting places and not turning into a muddied pile of meat on the side of the road? Glorious. I could buy a lot more food during the year if I could slash vehicle related costs to a fraction of what they are, ha! Or any hundred other things. To hell with the auto industry, imagine what $2tril freed up to ramble around the rest of the economy can do? Medicine, science, entertainment, infrastructure... plenty of nice places for that money to go~

Is the middle east not better off now than it was before the 80s? How would it be better off without outside influence?

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure anyone was saying it would be better without outside influence. Investment, trade, all that stuff is pretty nice and there's certainly been some degree of just that. M'pretty down with that, personally -- hell, pretty much my entire ranting bits a lil'while ago was about getting foreign interactions in the region to be less lopsided and/or disruptive.

It's the, as you say, ham-fisted military bullshit along with all the cold war-style further bullshit and probably most of the latest round of "terror war" bullshit-in-the-year-20XX it could really have done without. I'd rather imagine it would have been better off without extremely, overtly, and often times intentionally disruptive foreign influence. Though that's kinda' tautological, I guess. Positive influence is positive, negative influence is negative. Investing in infrastructure good, blowing it up bad. Degree of simplification there, obviously, but the point gets across. I hope.

Same question for Frumple, actually. Do you deny that foreign policy should have a moral component?

Not really, no. But if you can point to a single thing the US has done in the last couple decades in the ME that has anything that could be positively identified as having a moral component worth any note whatsoever, I will be incredibly surprised.* With rare exception, every intervention the US has participated in for the last ever has gone tits up with full capitals involved -- at this point, I'd say we have a stronger moral burden to stay the fuck out, because we've repeatedly proven we can't make things better.

Beyond that, if there is a moral component, then it's a universal one -- as I said, it's either global (something goddamn everyone should do something about), and should have a global response, or it's not, and shouldn't. Which is to say if it's not, the moral component needs to be left to the folks on the ground (note: Incredibly damned difficult when you're on the other side of an ocean!).

But it's long reached the point for me where I'll say it bluntly: If the rest of the world doesn't consider the moral component reason enough to pitch in evenly to a solution, neither do I. States have way too many civil issues for an economy of its strength to be shitting it down some third world sump with no sign of it doing a bloody thing, especially when everyone else seems damned and determined to not give a damn. If that makes me an immoral bastard, well. Okay. Foreign policy moral burden is fully subsided by domestic policy moral burden -- can't fix neighbor's tire when back yard is on fire, doubly so when the rest of the neighbors are just watching and maybe cheering a little.

*Yes, this is somewhat hyperbolic. I'm sure we've managed to not completely screw the pooch a few times. Can't really recall any, but they've got to be out there somewhere.

Pick your poison.

Yup, my poison is: Let them suck it up. They want the middle east, at this point, they can bloody well have it. Couple decades of that and maybe everyone-but-the-US will be horrified enough to actually chip in worth a damn. Or maybe nothing will happen or the whole place will go up in fire or rainbows will spout from ISIS's ass and there'll be peace and happiness and equality and goddamn ponies. I'm beyond the point of caring so long as it gets the US out of the leadership position (and, more importantly, primary/major bankroller) of that mess.

Yeah, a lot of it does. Which, y'know, I'd say needs to freaking stop. Don't mind the country helping out or whatev', but shouldering a significant amount of the burden while the rest of the world just sits on their thumbs and functionally diddles themselves is getting more than a little old.

Kudos to them for convincing the states to bleed themselves like this, but it's long past time for the states to step down from this leading the world police bullshit and let the rest of the world shoulder more of the burden. To say nothing about stopping the outright dickery that's not even part of the facsimile of playing international sheriff. Been fed up with this shit since about two seconds into the initial Afghan mobilization back in early 2000s, personally.

Invasion of Afghanistan: The sequel is probably going to happen with the assassination of a US general.

... major general, which isn't quite the same thing -- couple ranks below general, actually, if I'm reading things correctly. Also, that article didn't seem to actually say who was killed -- all I'm seeing (from that article, and checking others) is that the coalition is saying one is dead and several wounded, with no mention whatsoever as to who they are beyond naming one of the wounded as a german brigadier general.

E: Regardless, I'll be surprised and viciously, incredibly pissed off if something like that is enough to stop us from continuing to pull out. Said it before and will say again: Incredibly goddamn tired of the US sticking its dick in the middle east. Let the UN or freaking whatever deal with that shit.