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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: 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.