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MOSCOW — If Russia once maintained at least a semblance of distance from President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, it rushed to his defense after the American missile strike ordered by President Trump on Thursday. The attack cemented Moscow more closely than ever to the notorious Syrian autocrat.
Even as the United States condemned Mr. Assad for gassing his own citizens and held Russia partly responsible, given its 2013 promise to rid Syria of chemical weapons, the Kremlin kept denying that Syria had any such capability.
By championing Mr. Assad and condemning American "aggression," President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia seemed to be burying the idea that he could somehow cooperate with the Trump administration to end the conflict on his terms.
"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." Attributed to Abraham Maslow.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Monday April 10 2017, @01:56PM (15 children)
I'm surprised Assad hasn't had an "accident" yet so he can be replaced by a smarter puppet.
Assad isn't completely stupid. Such a puppet will be hard for Russia to come by. A common strategy is the house of cards. It is a sort of dead man's switch for self-destruction of the country with the dictator's presence being the key stabilizing influence. Remove the dictator and the whole thing collapses into chaos, such as happened in Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Somalia over the past few decades.
(Score: 1) by higuita on Monday April 10 2017, @02:10PM
Add Libya to the list... and Tunisia and Egypt barely escaped civil war, with Egypt still unstable
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Monday April 10 2017, @02:27PM (9 children)
It's a good thing that a clown puppet could never happen in the United States.
Nor could our government fall into deeply partisan bickering. Nor the White House have bitter infighting under an ineffective president always on vacation. Nor a dictator wannabee who thinks executive orders can accomplish anything. Nor a senior advisor publicly endorsed by the nazi party. Oops, godwin.
It's a good thing the US is safe from foreign interference, massive disinformation, hacking and destabilization.
Q. Why doesn't Trump wear a wedding ring?
A. Because they don't make rings small enough for such tiny hands.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by https on Monday April 10 2017, @03:52PM (8 children)
The biggest horrorshow in the tragedy the Americans are living with right now is that even if someone successfully assasinates Trump, they then have Pence in charge. There's not enough whiskey to fend off those nightmares.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @04:02PM (7 children)
It may turn into an ironic fight whereby GOP tries to get rid of T to get Pence, but Democrats prevent it because they'd rather live with a bumbling clown than a "normal" Republican like Pence who could actually get right-leaning legislation passed (rich-tax-cuts & dereg).
The Orange Monkey Wrench sure makes politics interesting. Maybe both parties deserve to be tripped up a bit. Let's just hope he doesn't break something important on the journey.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @04:49PM (1 child)
I hope he does break something important.
It's the only way to shock Americans out of their conspiracy-clouded complacency.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday April 10 2017, @07:13PM
I hope he breaks something important affecting rich people. Bigly.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday April 10 2017, @05:43PM (1 child)
This is the best situation I can imagine. The Republicans try, desperately, to impeach Trump. Blocked at every step by the Democrats. Pence doesn't end up in power -- because he might be somewhat more effective than Trump at breaking things, and because he believes gays can be cured with electric shocks.
Trump remains in power. Is even more ineffective because both parties in congress work against him. By 2018, the Republicans are tainted with the stench that will not wash off. Hey, they could have invoked emergency measures even after this clown was nominated. The party of Trump rather than Lincoln.
Maybe both parties might wake up and realize that the offices they hold have a duty to the public attached to them. Something called Public Service. And I'm not pointing my fingers at any single party.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday April 10 2017, @10:33PM
> The party of Trump rather than Lincoln.
Nixon, Ford, Reagan, H.W., W, Trump
vs
Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama
In the last 56 years, that's quite an imbalance. If Johnson didn't have Vietnam...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10 2017, @06:32PM
If grump is impeached that shit will smear all over pence too.
Pence might still be in office, but GOP political capital will be nil.
They won't be able to get anything done either.
The republicans were only a unified front when they were opposed to obama. But now that the black man is out of the white house, the asshole-faction of the party is in open war with the party members who still have some shred of decency. For example, last week Kansas missed a veto-override in support of medicaid expansion (aka obamacare) by just 3 votes. [reuters.com] That's Kansas,FFS, as in the state that is so insanely ideologically republican that they keep screwing themselves with punitive spending cuts that have killed their economy. [motherjones.com]
Impeaching grump will kill gop congress members chances of re-election just due to the fallout of admitting what all the sane people can already see. Its going to take something monumentally bad, like a video of grump fucking a high-school boy, before the republicans will seriously try to impeach him. Their position is so fragile anyway, they don't dare rock the boat.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday April 10 2017, @10:28PM (1 child)
The proper solution, of course, is one that was used towards the end of the Nixon administration:
1. Impeach and remove the VP first for the nefarious stuff he's likely involved in.
2. Replace him with somebody who's not a complete nutter near the end of his career, who will simply try to finish out the term and not run for re-election.
3. Then impeach and remove the POTUS. The guy you picked in step 2 now becomes president.
And I agree both major parties deserve to be tripped up. More than a bit: Neither one has the approval of a majority of Americans (count me among the at least 10% that hate both of them). The trouble is, I don't think that the Orange Monkey Wrench is the person who will actually do that: His only real interest throughout his entire life has been to make money and publicity for himself. The problem that both major parties have is that they sold out the public interest decades ago and show no signs of reforming themselves, and the POTUS doesn't see any of that as a problem.
About the only political figure that has majority support right now is Bernie Sanders, and I think that's in part because a lot of people think the complaint from Democrats that he's "not a real Democrat" is a good start.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @02:06PM
About the only political figure that has majority support right now is Bernie Sanders, and I think that's in part because a lot of people think the complaint from Democrats that he's "not a real Democrat" is a good start.
Its also in part that nobody has seriously campaigned against him. Yeah there are the hysterical bernie bros who think the DNC conspired against him, but when it comes down to evidence its a bunch of trivial shit that only the delusionally hyper-sensitive would think made much of a difference. Pissy emails and downplayed debates, OMG! Sanders has not been subject to balls-out opposition. For example, nobody has heard about how his wife basically bankrupted Burlington College because of some really bad real-estate deals she initiated while running the school. Whether you think that's fair criticism of Bernie doesn't matter, campaigns aren't about what's fair, they are about what sticks with the public and that story is one that could easily stick if a PAC with a couple of million dollars made the effort.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @02:27PM (3 children)
A common strategy is the house of cards. It is a sort of dead man's switch for self-destruction of the country with the dictator's presence being the key stabilizing influence. Remove the dictator and the whole thing collapses into chaos,
It is not a strategy to prevent their removal. Its a strategy to deal with the fact that civic institutions are a roadblock to autocracy. Dictators dismantle institutions because they aren't set up to obey their every whim. The fact that it makes society more fragile is a side-effect, not the intention.
You'll notice that Grump is trying really hard to weaken american institutions that don't roll over for him too. Its easily visible in his tweets like saying "so-called judge" and all this hysteria about the derp state. But his decision to clean house at various agencies like State and DoJ while simultaneously failing to even nominate appointees for hundreds of sub-cabinet positions has the effect of making them weak too, so weak will have a tough time lobbying for their own budgets in congress and of course his budget plan calls for drastic funding cuts to those very agencies.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 11 2017, @04:29PM (2 children)
It is not a strategy to prevent their removal. Its a strategy to deal with the fact that civic institutions are a roadblock to autocracy. Dictators dismantle institutions because they aren't set up to obey their every whim. The fact that it makes society more fragile is a side-effect, not the intention.
This behavior meets the definition of strategy when it is thought/planned out, so no, I disagree on your first comment. As to civic institutions, they are usually replaced rather than dismantled (there remains courts, schools, associations, etc, but these are ordered towards the furtherance of the state - and they usually have some sort of balance of power so that no group or agency gets too powerful). Further, there are structures that can't be dismantled, like ethnicity. In Iraq and Yugoslavia, the system had been set up so that ethnic groups were in relatively peaceful conflict with each other.
The dictator can reduce the potential for united rebellion along the lines of ethnicity by careful cultivation of ethnic conflict of interest and stoking distrust of other ethnicities.
You'll notice that Grump is trying really hard to weaken american institutions that don't roll over for him too. Its easily visible in his tweets like saying "so-called judge" and all this hysteria about the derp state. But his decision to clean house at various agencies like State and DoJ while simultaneously failing to even nominate appointees for hundreds of sub-cabinet positions has the effect of making them weak too, so weak will have a tough time lobbying for their own budgets in congress and of course his budget plan calls for drastic funding cuts to those very agencies.
You're trying hard to carry the water here. I don't believe most of that crap would qualify as a civic institution. It's just places public funding goes to be spent. As such, it really doesn't matter if there are dozens or thousands, or the alleged purpose of the spending. Second, everyone cleans house at agencies like State and DoJ. You won't find a president who hasn't put in their own ambassadors or prosecutors, for example.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:31PM (1 child)
It is not a strategy to prevent their removal. Its a strategy to deal with the fact that civic institutions are a roadblock to autocracy.
This behavior meets the definition of strategy when it is thought/planned out, so no, I disagree on your first comment.
Are you really that fucking dumb?
I said it is a strategy to accomplish something else. And your rebuttal is "its still a strategy so you are wrong!"
You're trying hard to carry the water here. I don't believe most of that crap would qualify as a civic institution.
All that means is that you don't know jackshit about civics. Which is no surprise. Its always the most ignorant who are the most confident.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 12 2017, @12:49PM
I said it is a strategy to accomplish something else. And your rebuttal is "its still a strategy so you are wrong!"
And I disagree. It's not even that hard to describe how the strategy would work. Hussein for example played the three largest ethnic groups (Sunni, Shi'ite, and Kurd) of Iraq against each other. Thus, for a time he eliminated cross-ethnic collaboration as a source of potential rebellion.
All that means is that you don't know jackshit about civics. Which is no surprise. Its always the most ignorant who are the most confident.
A civic institution is something that encourages citizens to contribute to society - for example, courts through the jury system, voting through the election systems of the various states, and a huge quantity and variety of non profits.
You didn't actually mention a civic institution in your post and instead slid in the far broader and nebulous category of "American institution". Departments of State and Justice aren't civic institutions and the turnover that Trump implemented in those organizations is not unusual. And your discussion of subcabinet posts indicates you completely miss the boat. In fact, a fair portion of civic institutions in the US aren't publicly funded at all.
And merely being an American institution doesn't magically make something a good thing. After all, the Mafia and the War on Drugs remain American institutions, but not institutions with collectively value. So sure, you could be right just like a stopped clock is right twice a day. But maybe we should try to reason here?
Moving on, you also don't get that the very "institutions" you complain about not being supported, can be unsupported for other reasons than merely autocracy. Federal agencies consume public funding to exist, and thus, have built-in costs in addition to their alleged benefits. And it's not at all a stretch that someone who has campaigned on reducing government spending would try to reduce government spending by targeting these very agencies.