zephyreks @ zephyreks @lemmy.ca

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635

Joined

2 yr. ago

Watch as Canada's so-called allies do jack shit because relations with India, a rising power they can use to futilely attempt to encircle China, are clearly more important than relations with a close ally that's fought for them, lost domestic industries for them, soured international relations for them, and has been their largest trading partner for decades.

Seriously, what the fuck? The US has had an incredibly weak position on this ordeal that's entirely unexpected from such a close ally and feels far more like something coming out of Germany or France - aligned by being part of the West but not in terms of actual interests. This is what the US has said publicly:

"They are certainly serious allegations, and we believe in order to determine how credible they are, there needs to be a thorough investigation. Prime Minister Trudeau has called for that, and so we'll see how Canada moves forward on this. It's certainly well within their capacity to do this, and we urge India as well to participate and cooperate in that investigation. It is important to find out exactly what happened."

I'm sorry, but what the fuck? We're talking about a country violating our territorial integrity to commit an assassination in a dense and developed suburb of one of our largest urban centers. This investigation has been going on for months.

Our allies are leaving us out to dry solely because, despite our history of being their steadfast ally, we don't provide them as much utility as this shiny new country that wasn't relevant until it suddenly was because the Soviet Union collapsed, they pulled out of the Middle East, and they declared China to be the new big bad.

Watch as Canada's so-called allies do jack shit because relations with India, a rising power they can use to futilely attempt to encircle China, are clearly more important than relations with a close ally that's fought for them, lost domestic industries for them, soured international relations for them, and has been their largest trading partner for decades.

Seriously, what the fuck? The US has had an incredibly weak position on this ordeal that's entirely unexpected from such a close ally and feels far more like something coming out of Germany or France - aligned by being part of the West but not in terms of actual interests. This is what the US has said publicly:

"They are certainly serious allegations, and we believe in order to determine how credible they are, there needs to be a thorough investigation. Prime Minister Trudeau has called for that, and so we'll see how Canada moves forward on this. It's certainly well within their capacity to do this, and we urge India as well to participate and cooperate in that investigation. It is important to find out exactly what happened."

I'm sorry, but what the fuck? We're talking about a country violating our territorial integrity to commit an assassination in a dense and developed suburb of one of our largest urban centers. This investigation has been going on for months. This isn't some backwater in the middle of Nunavut; this is Surrey: the second largest city in the Lower Mainland. It's not like murders around here are all that common: in 2022, we saw four murders (with most crime being gang-related).

Our allies are leaving us out to dry solely because, despite our history of being their steadfast ally, we don't provide them as much utility as this shiny new country that wasn't relevant until it suddenly was because the Soviet Union collapsed, they pulled out of the Middle East, and they declared China to be the new big bad.

Ah yes, because all of NATO Europe (GDP: $23 trillion) and Canada (GDP: $2 trillion) could never match the economic might of Russia (GDP: $1.8 trillion) and needs US support in any protracted conflict.

Who do you think you're convincing?

The bot doesn't know what's "real" or not though - it's a large language model, not a model of the real world. All it knows is what it's been told in its training data.

Not really, no. The US still has NATO obligations, Ukraine will still be corrupt, and Russia will still have oligarchs leeching all of their economic output.

Is anyone arguing that, at the time of the Iraq War, it wasn't considered a "truth" in America that Iraq was developing WMDs and that anything to the contrary was considered disinformation?

How the fuck are 14 155mm shells filled with mustard gas from 1980 and a few kilograms of expired growth media going to kill millions of people?

Iraq had those same stores of chemical weapons since the 1980s and was in the slow and arduous process of dismantling them (it had dismantled something like 90-95% of its WMDs by 2003 and was not stockpiling replacements). Given the lack of new production, many of the chemical weapons supposedly in Iraq's stockpile would have turned harmless due to the short shelf life of chemical weapons.

By and large, people used this imagined idea that Iraq was still developing nuclear weapons as the justification for the invasion. American media ran stories about how aluminum tubes "used for uranium enrichment" were being imported by Iraq. American media brought out Iraqi defectors of questionable credibility who talked about Iraq's burgeoning nuclear capability. American intelligence claimed that Iraq was actively seeking nuclear weapons development. Of course, all of these claims were entirely false.

We've had US intelligence telling us for years that the Russians can rig an election with a piece of paper and some string. What exactly did you think was going to happen?

Turns out Americans don't even need the string to rig an election.

Ah yes, American truths like "Iraq has WMDs and that's why invading them is the fair and just thing to do," "abortion is bad for human rights," "the US isn't collecting all of your internet traffic because that would be a violation of privacy," and "this CIA-funded coup of a democratically-elected government will definitely help spread democracy around the world."

This researcher has built a pro-America AI disinformation machine for $400. I expect that, like most American media, it will start citing "independent think tanks" like Atlantic Council (which, coincidentally, is staffed mostly by ex-US intelligence and receives funding from US intelligence agencies) and use reports gathered by "independent sources" such as the US 4th PsyOps Airborne (which, per their recent recruiting videos, admits to orchestrating large-scale protests including Euromaidan, Tiananmen Square, and others).

You mean, Pashinyan flirting with the West led to Russia decreasing support for Armenia? No way!

Pashinyan is in a situation of his own making.

You could make your way through Montreal without ever speaking French.

I'm honestly pretty supportive of tax breaks for emerging industries: these companies wouldn't be operating in Canada otherwise, so increasing skilled employment is rather advantageous in terms of second and third order effects (more income tax revenue, more skilled labour to drive up average salary, future growth that will lead to more future tax revenue).

What I don't understand is why the government is so happy to subsidize existing, established industries that aren't seeing growth. What's the end goal for those? You're not sacrificing revenue today for revenue in the future because these businesses aren't growing.

The world is left no less stable than it already is, Europe goes back to consuming cheap gas, and the Europeans finally restart their domestic military programs.

🤷‍♀️ I've been on some pretty non circular roundabouts too

The US military needs to be able to justify it's obscene budget somehow and we're just getting caught in the crossfire.

According to declassified CIA reports, Chinese military doctrine has been designed with a solely defensive purpose. They don't expect to operate anywhere that a blue water fleet would be necessary because the role of the Chinese military is to protect and preserve the territorial integrity of China. Modern analysts see China's military as being designed with one purpose: to repel a potential US invasion of Mainland China.

Fear mongering over Taiwan is just that: fear mongering. We're talking about a region that captures the worst and most bloody parts about war: an amphibious landing over a fucking ocean, dense urban combat, dense jungle combat, mountainous terrain, and a deeply entrenched enemy. Taiwan is literally impossible to occupy, which is why the KMT retreated there in the first place. Meanwhile, China-Taiwan trade grows every year and China continues to court Taiwanese skilled workers and Taiwanese investment. China also integrates heavily with Taiwan's cultural output.

For some reference, it would be akin to the US invading Canada. While "oh yeah we'll totally take over Canada" plays really well to American right-wing nationalists, it's a stupid idea that no one has either the capability or the desire to follow through with. It's too politically unpopular and Chinese propaganda isn't actually that good at manufacturing consent.

Yet, I guess the US needs a way to justify spending enough money every year to literally solve the climate crisis and world hunger... On more weapons.

It's showing a marginal positive result. It doesn't need to target the entire homeless demographic if this income isn't provided to the entire homeless demographic.

Social security comes with screening. That's not new.

Profitability has clearly not been a problem for smaller grocers. Why is it only a problem for the big chains?

Costs are driven up by grocery chain skimming. This is most obvious by stepping into any large independent grocer. In Vancouver, these include Foodymart in Richmond and the Crystal Mall produce stands in Burnaby.

Other way around: the US is projecting international law on domestic issues that, as we've already established, should be governed by domestic policy before falling to international law.

As we've already established, condemnation and punitive actions against a country for unilateral domestic policy decisions doesn't make sense, even if they are in violation of international law.