World News
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News [email protected]
Politics [email protected]
World Politics [email protected]
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
view the rest of the comments
Correct, but irrelevant to military spending.
Military spending is still low and it is possible for a country to spend a bit more on defense and have a good healthcare system.
Giving Ukraine some 30 year old F16s, which were going to be scrapped anyway, costs almost nothing compared to what is spent on healthcare. Suggesting you have to choose is a logical fallacy.
If anything, giving Ukraine some more military aid, reduces the risk of Russian invasion or increased provocations, which in turn reduces the need to increase military spending in the long term. Giving Ukraine some more military aid now, ultimately means we will almost certainly have MORE money to spend on healthcare.
Correct. But this has little to do with buying new planes, a decision which was made decades ago (if it wasn't the brits would still be using spitfires), or sending Ukraine a few 30 year old planes.
Incorrect. The best way to ensure peace, is to ensure your military is strong enough to deter foreign countries from invading.
Eg. North Korea vs. Ukraine.
One has nukes. One had nukes. Guess which one was invaded?
Appeasement doesn't work. Claiming you're neutral doesn't work either.
Didn't work the Belgians during WWI.
Didn't work for the Netherlands during WWII.
Didn't work for Latvia. Didn't work for Lithuania.
Didn't work for Hungary in 1956.
Didn't work for Ukraine in 2014.
The Chinese and Russians certainly can't, judging by what they've been up to in Ukraine, South East Asia, Xinjiang and Sudan.
The problem seems to be that a lot of people assume European supremacy and can't conceive of us being the victims who need to defend ourselves from Imperial powers. That's why like you they can't grasp needing planes for anything other than foreign wars. Because you've never experienced war, you don't seem to grasp what the primary purpose of a country's military is defence not foreign interventions or humanitarian missions.
The reality is that we are incredibly weak because we've spent far too little on defense for decades, and because Europe has been stagnating in relative terms, and has been for years. And yes, that is costing us money and jobs.
War has never been beneficial to an economy unless they're selling the weapons instead of waging war with them.
There is already a job shortage and you say we need to waste even more workers on making weapons because jobs? Because bombs are going to build houses or something? Especially now the economy is stagnating
The west has been massively oppressing other countries for about a century now with their "defense". But you have not read any history. Afghanistan and Iraq, Palestine, Syria, and many others don't exist according to you.
Sudan has been ruined by France and NATO for the last few decades. Peace is not gonna come from the Russians but it sure won't come from the West either. Do you need to defend it or colonize it?
Destruction is becoming cheaper than ever just look at israel's billion dollar defense system being wrecked by 30.000 Hamas members with improvised rockets. If you want to win wars with these costs you'd better be a thousand times richer than your enemies.
This extra spending has nothing to do with previous purchases. It's about spending even more on more on western backed terrorism like the Dutch are doing against the Houthis to support israel's Genocide. The extra budget won't be used defensively, knowing NATO that's for sure.
Which is why you need a strong military as a deterrent. It demonstrably reduces the risk of war.
Imperialism is wrong, whether it's the west, the Russians, or the Chinese doing it.
You need to increase military spending to prevent war, not for jobs.
But if the economy stagnates or goes into recession, this will lead to job losses, so this argument doesn't make much sense.
It is possible to build more houses and spend money on defense. Once again, this is the false choice fallacy.
Would the Israelis be carpet bombing Gaza right now, if the Palestinians had a very strong military?
Would the Soviets or Americans have been more or less likely to invade if Afghanistan had a very powerful military?
What is now Sudan was a British and not a French colony.
It sounds like you're confusing Sudan with French Sudan, which is present day Mali, or perhaps Niger which has been in the news recently.
In any case, Sudan broke off relations with the west in 1967. They were in the Soviet sphere of influence for decades after that. They've had close ties with Russia and China for years now.
The F16s were going to be put out of service. That decision was made decades ago.
If the F16 wasn't being replaced with the F35, Rutte wouldn't be sending them to Ukraine. So as a matter of fact, Rutte sending F16s has a lot to do with the previous purchase of F35s.
Increasing military spending to 2% was agreed upon years ago, before Rutte became PM.
The French are supplying weapons to Sudan.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2023/09/01/sudan-some-states-are-actively-fuelling-the-conflict-by-providing-arms-and-ammunition_6118526_23.html
The 2% number was never being reached because it's not needed. We have Nuclear weapons that is plenty deterrent.
Unless you want to keep the entire world under the terror grip of the west of course then you need the 2%.
Read the article you posted. It doesn't say France is selling Sudan weapons.
It says "Amnesty International representatives call on France and its European partners to press for an effective international arms embargo to be imposed on Sudan" and that "France and its European partners should urgently pressure states concerned by these sales, and international bodies, to impose an effective international arms embargo on Sudan."
The article mentions who those states are. The UAE, Russia/Wagner, China, and Libya. It also mentions that a lot of the weapons are of Soviet and Iranian design. It does not mention France supplying Sudan weapons.
Also, how is France supposed to impose a weapons embargo without a military to monitor shipments? That was a rhetorical question. No need to answer.
Anyway, agree to disagree and all that. No point continuing this discussion.