World News Thread (Politics,whatever)

[Wally]

Considering that there are a lot of political threads / news articles going around I figured it'd be nice to have a thread where people can post news and reply to it and so those who don't really care can just ignore it.
Just bare in mind that this is likely to contain political stuff and will be un-moderated...

Any new threads that are world news will be closed / hidden and the OP will have to add it to this thread themselves.

 

[JDTAY]

And another JDTAY thread bites the dust.

Just to recap, Syria is currently going kaboom. Considering even President Obama was once pushing for this though, I guess there's a pretty good reason for it. I should maybe just trust that the military knows more than I do.

 

[elw3]

They know what weapons they sold them and are now afraid they would use them.

 

[levi]

Syria has been 'going kaboom' so to speak for about a decade now if I recall at all correctly. For once, I'm not sure American made weapons are to blame. For once, for a long time this was one of the few middle eastern conflicts that didn't seem to be a proxy war for anywhere else, although now with Russia and the US coalition involved that seems to be less true than ever (although for once I'm not sure how heavily involved Saudi and Iran are).

 

[elw3]

In this case i meant the French.

 

[vcoleiro1]

Is it a good idea to blow up poison gas storage facilities . Wouldn't some gas escape?

 

[Null]

Wouldn't some gas escape?

Poison gas deserves freedom too you know.

 

[levi]

I'm no scientist, but I assume dispersal will eliminate the range of these weapons. The only people close to these things are likely to be the engineers making the stuff. And I'm not sure how thermally stable anything of this, so in a big kaboom a lot of it might be rendered down to its constituent phosphates along with a bit of carbon dioxide and a bunch of water.

 

[Null]

The only people close to these things are likely to be the engineers making the stuff

 

[CabinetofJoy]

Relevant:

https://swprs.org/the-american-empire-and-its-media/

This was news a few months ago and was vastly undereported. Some context is that control of media programming has been more and more consolidated into fewer and fewer hands. Ben Bagdikian reported this in The Media Monopoly (1983) and it has only gotten worse since.

It has been known that so-called transnational capitalists, who are the very top of the top of the global capitalist pyramid, control wealth, and by virtue of how the interlocking financial system is set up, control nations and governments: this research by the Swiss Propaganda Research Center for the first time explicitly illustrates how the transnational capitalist "elite" use media indoctrination, i.e. controlling what you see and hear, to further their own policy; you don't count!

 

[benoitb]

Syria is a big mess because it is a proxy war. And local people are suffering more because of the involvement of foreign powers. Like Korea, Vietnam, Afganistan.

Regarding the destruction of chemical weapons, one can see it as a good thing but there is obviously political motives to confront the Russians and to demonstrate weapon technology. Also as far as I understand this was done without any UN approval ?

 

[JDTAY]

Also as far as I understand this was done without any UN approval ?

I'm pretty sure the approval process would've gone like this anyway:

President Trump: I wanna strike the Syria. Do you approve?
United Nations: Well, you'll have to give us time to consider the--
Trump: I don't have time for that. I'll just do what I want, then say mean things about you on Twitter.

At least this way, the UN avoided some mean tweets.

 

[levi]

This was an attack against part of Assad's government machinery. Assad is sponsored by the Russians. As a permanent member, the Russians have a veto against any UN agreement, so there's no chance we'd have got one for this. It's debatable in the UK whether May had the right to assert the national defense angle to authorise this action without parliamentry agreement, but I think Trump was well within his rights to do this, and I've no idea about Macron's powers of action.

 

[JDTAY]

Man, that levi post reminds me, I need to post jokes less and info more. I don't have much info in this particular area though. Or most particular areas. Oh well.

 

[levi]

Without jokes, I suspect this thread would quickly become rather depressing, so keep it up!

 

[Null]

I need to post jokes less and info more.

Both are good. I'm personally joking about the situation because it makes me feel like I actually have some measure of control over events.

 

[JDTAY]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43773650

Prominent LGBT advocacy lawyer and environmental activist David Buckel burned himself to death to protest global warming.

Is it bad that my first thought is that this is a perfect setup for an Uncle Jack post? >_>

 

[Null]

Prominent LGBT advocacy lawyer and environmental activist David Buckel burned himself to death to protest global warming.

Seems a bit self defeating, because as I remember it people burning things is one of the main causes of global warming.

Is it bad that my first thought is that this is a perfect setup for an Uncle Jack post? >_>

Probably, I think it breaks the 11.5th commandment or something.

 

[Caine]

Probably, I think it breaks the 11.5th commandment or something.

 

[benoitb]

This was an attack against part of Assad's government machinery. Assad is sponsored by the Russians. As a permanent member, the Russians have a veto against any UN agreement, so there's no chance we'd have got one for this. It's debatable in the UK whether May had the right to assert the national defense angle to authorise this action without parliamentry agreement, but I think Trump was well within his rights to do this, and I've no idea about Macron's powers of action.

Well within his rights as well. The French president has a lot of power, the French constitution dates from a few years after the 2nd world war. Some like it that way, I would like to see it changed.