this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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United States | News & Politics

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Two counterarguments:

National September 11 Memorial & Museum

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago (2 children)

5 Star General, former President, Dwight D. Eisenhower had this to say about the Military Industrial complex. It rings true today as much as it did in 1961

SPEECH

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago

If we’re linking to the classics: Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler: War Is A Racket

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Eisenhower was the main force behind building the Military Industrial complex.

It's kind of like a drunken, pantsless party guest saying that there's a bunch of shit and vomit in the bathroom, and that it will certainly be a problem, but they're going home now, so you should clean it up.

Only instead of shit and vomit, it's a bunch of rich assholes making money by killing poor people.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

He was kind of saying "there's this thing I built that could make all of you really rich, but it's kind of horrible, you should totally dismantle it instead of using it to get rich".

When Eisenhower gave that speech in 1961, there were already people screaming about how the military industrial complex was horrific, how it would lead to endless wars, and how it would cause global suffering.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago

yes because bombing pali children will save us from a sovergen debt crisis and a bunch of other issues that resulted in the US dumping tens of billions in "foreign aid" while allowing the country to rot with a shitty 2 party system.

but the GDP went up!!!!!

when was the last time the GDP actually improved your life?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago

Is "American Security" going to pay off my student loan debts? How about my rent? How about for my medication this month?

No?

Then fuck off.

[–] gravitas_deficiency 21 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Ukraine? 100%. This is among the best and most cost effective uses of US military funding ever. A hostile (or at least deeply antagonistic) nuclear power is geopolitically neutering themselves in slow motion, and all we have to do is send some crap over and make sure the Ukrainians don’t run out of bullets. We’re destroying the combat effectiveness of what we thought was a peer power for literal pennies on the dollar.

Israel? 😬 the whole thing is a shitshow, and Netanyahu’s strategies have been and continue to be obviously unworkable in the long term.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

He should name one security argument of supporting "Isreal".

A political system where the president can say whatever without an opposition is useless...

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If only the opposition wasn't batshit crazy...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Tbf they’re mostly all crazy. Just some are better at hiding it than others.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They're not the same level of crazy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

The ones who better hide it are not always the more sane nor safe.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago

More evidence to the contrary today: FBI says Hamas attack on Israel inspiring ‘new level’ of terror threat against US

The head of the FBI warned a congressional hearing on Tuesday that the Hamas attack on Israel has given terrorists inspiration “the likes of which we haven’t seen” since the rise of Isis a decade ago.

Christopher Wray told the US Senate committee on homeland security and governmental affairs that while the terrorism threat had been high throughout 2023, “the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole other level”.

“We assess that the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the likes of which we haven’t seen since Isis launched its so-called caliphate years ago,” Wray said.

Original link is paywalled: https://www.ft.com/content/e1758abc-df4c-49d4-ad4f-3f7b5f143305

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Why is this moron still lumping Ukraine and Israel into the same bucket?

He should have just stuck to his most effective presidential policy, wearing cool glasses and having prog-fascists give him cool nicknames.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I voted for him to actually get us out of Afghanistan and not screw anything else up. He delivered on the first, and he hasn't yet screwed up the second yet. He should be focused on getting a budget passed, not throwing money around.

Israel is fine. Just keep ships nearby, but don't do anything, that's all I want. If things start to get out of hand, then we can talk. Until then, have diplomats work toward peace talks. Hamas probably won't talk, but maybe Fatah will.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I was almost listening to you and then said "Israel is fine".

Then heaped on rhetoric to preserve Israel's effort to displace, unto extermination, the people of Palestine.

Fuck you.

Spineless American Thug.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Then you misunderstood my comment.

I believe Israel and Palestine should exist, and I don't think the US coming in on Gaza's side would ever happen. That's why I think the US should maintain a presence, but not come to the direct aid of Israel, but stay to deter other countries like Iran from joining (i.e. to prevent the war from escalating further). The US should also remain to keep a corridor open for humanitarian aid for Gaza.

Also, I would very much like to see Hamas removed, but I don't want to see the Palestinians killed en masse. So the US should remain to gather information, help funnel humanitarian aid, and deter other powers from joining, but they should not aid Israel.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago

Nah.

Spineless American. Through and through.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

How are you going to pay for that?!?!

Fuck every single media hack that asked that question over and over in 2020 about m4a and isn't asking that now

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

The double standard couldn’t be more blatant. Most media hacks don’t know the truth, and those who do are smart enough to know they’d lose their job for revealing it. YouTuber Second Thought: Why The Government Has Infinite Money

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I'd never seen this memorial before, so had to Google lens it and realized what the "counterargument" image was.

It's the memorial at the twin towers after 9/11.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

9/11 was blowback from what our government did in our name in the decades prior. The military-industrial complex is protecting neither our liberty nor our security; it’s making line go up for American oligarchs 📈

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

No I tracked what the whole thing was after I realized what I was looking at. Osama bin Laden and the Mujahideen and the CIA and so on, i just had a moment where brain no work so goodly because I didn't know i was looking at the twin towers memorial.

"Squares? Military buildings? No...it looks like a memorial. Hmm maybe vietnam? No...eh I'll just ask google. Oh wow I feel dumb as shit"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

It's actually a double skelly spawner xp grinder

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Blow back go brrrrrrr

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Fucking clown show lmao

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

The dividends will be deposited in the form of 9/11s

Also as dollars for munitions industry owners

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

This. Is. An. Investment. In. Democracy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I told you we stored nukes there. Shh. Don't let the Arabs know.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


In an impassioned speech, Mr. Biden said that America must again act as a "beacon to the world," and insisted that the needs of the people of Israel and Ukraine are vital to the United States' national security interests.

That's why tomorrow I'm going to send to Congress an urgent budget request to fund America's national security needs, to support our critical partners, including Israel and Ukraine.

At a time when Congress is divided, the president said the United States "can't let petty, partisan, angry politics get in the way of our responsibility as a great nation.

While Mr. Biden reaffirmed the United States' intense commitment to Israel and the Israeli people, he also stressed the humanity of Palestinians who simply want peace.

Mr. Biden told reporters on the way back from Tel Aviv that "we're going to get people out, and quickly" but said he couldn't discuss details.

Mr. Biden said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi agreed to allow up to 20 trucks of humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafa gate.


The original article contains 1,009 words, the summary contains 173 words. Saved 83%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] -5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

It's interesting how this doesn't make y'all question the support for Ukraine...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There's a slight difference between:

  • Helping an underdog that got invaded. While the invading force is by the way one of your worst enemies that the sent gear was prepared for anyway.
  • Further financing of a state that already has full capabilities to wipe the floor with a largely irrevelant country.
[–] [email protected] -4 points 9 months ago

And yet they're being tied together.

Doesn't that make you rethink your assumptions at all?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Not really, every bullet fired in ukraine weakens russia, an invading country and therefore it hurts soldiers.

The war in palestine kills innocent civilians and children

[–] [email protected] -3 points 9 months ago

And yet Biden supports both. Why?