You're missing the point. What has to be shown is that the fact that one can think of f(n) = n - 1 means that there exists one-to-one correspondence, or bijection, between N and N0. To do that, you have to show that f(n) = n - 1 is not a contradiction in terms. — Magnus Anderson

With finite set there's a contradiction.

With infinite set there isn't.

(In fact just look up the axiom of infinity in Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory. Or the definition of Dedekind infinity).

Sorry, but I don't think you grasp the example of Hilbert's Hotel, which above @Banno gave you. So you write:

Suppose we have a hotel with a number of rooms equal to the number of natural numbers.

Suppose each room is occupied by a single guest.

That gives us a nice bijection between the set of guests and the set of hotel rooms.

R1 R2 R3 ...
G1 G2 G3 ...

Guest #1 ( G1 ) is in room #1 ( R1 ), guest #2 ( G2 ) in room #2 ( R2 ) and so on.

If there exists a bijection between N and N0, then it follows that we have a spare room for another guest. Let's call that guest G0.

---- R1 R2 R3 ...
G0 G1 G2 G3 ...

There is no longer a bijection between the two sets. G0 is not in any room. And if you try to add it to any room, you will either end up having two guests in a room ( not bijection ) or you will have to kick out one of the guests ( still not bijection. )

There's no way out of this conundrum . . . other than to pretend. — Magnus Anderson

OK, you really don't understand the Hilbert Hotel.

How Hilbert hotel works, at first:

R1 R2 R3...
G1 G2 G3...

And then when one gest, let's say G1, leaves, it's still full (meaning there's a bijection) because:

R1 R2 R3 ...
G2 G3 G4 ...

And if another guest comes, that G0, then the hotel fills up:

R1 R2 R3 ...
G0 G1 G2 ....

Please understand when many people are saying the same thing to you. Perhaps this video would help, because it's talking exactly about the same thing, although it really shows in what circumstance there isn't any bijection:



And if you are interested in finitism, I have a great professor to listen to or watch his lectures...

It's about more than just politicians. Land. Universities. In any case, our original topic was the role of religion in political discourse, or the use of appeals to God/absolute truth in the political sphere. — BitconnectCarlos

The "custom of the land" as often corruption is referred to.

Politics deals also with moral and ethical questions, hence it is no wonder that in religious societies God (and hence absolute truth) would play a part. Yet politics in a democracy is about compromises to get agreements and a consensus. Political polarization makes that very difficult.

Basically every political party and movement should at all times be frightened of losing elections and power. A very entrenched political system where that isn't a problem is one reason (among others) that increases the possibility of corruption. And if the legal system isn't working or itself is corrupt, then corruption is rampant.

Perhaps conservatism might be a problem for the right if those "old values" are things like corruption, yet there's ample ideology in the right to eradicate these problems starting simply with the rights of the individuals and the ever important separation of powers.

Centralization of power, usually to one leader, is a cause for corruption and the destruction of the institutions necessary in a republic. This has been the real problem in leftist ideology (which doesn't care about separation of powers and the necessary institutions), but can also lead the right-wing astray when people want "strong leaders" to fix things.

The dispute concerns the notion of Dedekind Infinity. — sime

It's not just Dedekind Infinity, it simply is Infinity in general. Galileo Galilei noticed the puzzling aspects of infinity a long time before Dedekind or Cantor (which in my view are best explained by the example of the Hilbert Hotel).

Recall that Hilbert believed that finitary proof methods could be used to ground the notion of absolute infinity that he considered to be indispensible for mathematics — sime

I think the term would be actual infinity that you should refer here to. Absolute Infinity is something totally else, which contradicts the Cantorian hierarchy of larger and larger infinities. Cantor simply preserved Absolute Infinity for God and as he was a deeply religious man, that shouldn't be overlooked. Yet for Absolute Infinity Cantor had no clue how to reason it.

and which the incompleteness theorems conclusively debunked — sime

The incompleteness theorems didn't debunk actual infinity, what they debunked was Hilbert's aim to formalize mathematics and to prove its consistency and completeness by having a general answer (algorithm) to the Entscheidungsproblem. Mathematicians are usually just happy having infinity as an axiom in ZF and don't worry so much about it.

Cheers. Useful stuff. When someone makes such obvious mistakes, it's probably not worth giving detailed responses, because chances are they will not be able to recognise or understand the argument. The result will be interminable. — Banno

If someone is willing to learn something, on the contrary.

I really would hope that if I make a mistake, some fellow PF member will say that I have made a mistake and try to thoroughly explain to me what my mistake was. Not just "Read high school math 1.0".

But yes, usually the response is just an angry outburst.

What makes you think so? Haven't you noticed that a lot of what the Trump administration does is performative. A lot of them are podcaster, newsanchors, social media-figures... even Trump made his name in showbizz. A lot of the time there's a 'show'-element to it.

I bet if Europe stands united together and doesn't blink first on Greenland, nothing happens. — ChatteringMonkey

The only thing that makes Trump forget Greenland is that something else captures his imagination or demands his focus.

Remember that the "Let's buy Greenland" was a thing that already came to light in the first Trump adminstration. Then the Danes reacted just the way you assume Trump to be.

It's the foreigners who buy up large plots of land and make large donations to politicians and universities. Everyone notices the poor foreigner; the rich are more subtle but far more dangerous. — BitconnectCarlos

If your politicians can be bought to play the tunes of foreigners, which especially now they surely can be (starting now from Trump himself), you should blame your own people, not the foreigners for this.

If your country is corrupt, don't blame others for it.

I would hope actually that there would be a philosophical debate about war in this forum. Too easily it becomes related to current events and ongoing wars. And this is already this OP is found the lounge, not in "ethics" or in "political philosophy".

The real problem is that we have been learnt a way to discuss war and the military and many times they come to be more like a lithurgy. "I'm against war and for peace" is something very obvious that we can say all the time. But so is "I'm against crime and people being violent and hurting each other" would be also similar. Or "All weapons, especially nuclear weapons, should be destroyed" is also very simplistic. Yet we just reach to the moral high ground and not accept just how institutionalized war and warfighting is in every society that there is.

Well, it's definitely happening. — Tzeentch

You might be right on this, which makes me sad if it happens. :sad:

(Notice btw. that this Pro-Trump Reuters article leaves conveniently away the fact that the Greenlanders have no desire to be Americans and would like to be part of the EU if (when) they are independent. But who cares of some 50 000+ people made up mostly of Inuits.)

I think he understands more that you give him credit for. I think he sees everything as a negotiation to get the best deal... that's why he never rules anything out. If you rule out military action for Greenland then that is something you cannot leverage to bargain for it. That doesn't mean he is willing to do it. — ChatteringMonkey

Oh, he is really willing to do it. He needs Greenland, he needs to expand the territory of the US.

The real question is if the US government is really willing to let him do it. Luckily there are some signs that the Republicans won't swallow Trump's stupidity (see Thom Tillis' remarks above).

And if the Congress and the military will let him do it, annex Greenland, break NATO, the next real question is what will the Americans themselves not let him do.

And I'm sure that when (if) he does this, annexes Greenland, then will appear the "realists" that will say that Denmark has to give up Greenland and this actually doesn't mean anything for NATO, that the alliance is intact. And Trump will see what Europeans are really the degenerate surrender-monkeys (or cucks, as the favorite definition in MAGA world goes) as they have appeared to him.

:lol:
— Banno

For a grownup man, that's a pretty childish response. — Magnus Anderson

Sorry Magnus, but this what you say is wrong:

That a bijective function exists, cretin, does not mean that the two sets can be put into a one-to-one correspondence. — Magnus Anderson

A bijection does mean that sets can be put into a one-to-one correspondence.

If the word "function" is defined the way mathematicians define it, namely, as a relation between two sets where each element from the first set is paired with exactly one element from the second then, if a bijective function... — Magnus Anderson

No. There are injections and surjections, which aren't bijections (both injection and a surjection) and they are also called functions.

Let me just remind you of this. It's looks simply, but actually it is difficult to grasp especially with infinite sets:

But I don't think he wants to push it that far that the US effectively loses all its allies, because that is part of what makes the US so powerfull. — ChatteringMonkey

I'm not sure if Trump understands that American power comes from the alliances it enjoys. I think he truly believes that US alliance with Europe has been only a financial burden without anything gotten back. He has stated this so many times, just like in his own mind the EU was formed to be against the US, again a totally bogus historical reason. He also has said so many times that "If we would need them, they wouldn't come", which just goes against history as the US did get help in Afghanistan the only time article 5 was used (after the 9/11 attacks).

(Danes in Afghanistan, back then few years ago)

He could do that and might do that — ChatteringMonkey

Latest interview starts really hinting on that. The easy or the hard way. This is bad.

After his term, the next administration would have to affirm their willingness to enforce it over and over, — ChatteringMonkey

Then the damage has already been done. NATO has already been done and the US has been seen as a threat itself. And how humiliating is it then give back US territory ...assuming there are MAGA-lunatics still around in US politics?

And 2) he does still have to consider his political base somewhat. — ChatteringMonkey

Does he, really? Does his base really want the US to be in NATO? Does his base think it's important to have good relations with those puny Europeans? No, they will just cheer for their President to have the audacity to do what he wants. He will surely have his "base", no matter how small it is.

I wouldn't be so sure if there are going to be midterms the way things are going now. Do notice what he wants: he wants to use the insurrection act, he does want wars all around. It cannot be simply disregarded the possibility that he simply puts on hold midterms.

Remember this President in January 6th: he wanted to join the crowd in the assault on Congress, but his Secret Service simply drove him to the White House. This time it isn't so. He has loyalist in the political positions in the military and in the Justice Department. Do you think they would say no? The military might say no to literally attacking NATO allies, but he just can declare himself to be in control of Greenland and it's US territory. How well that will go on the Europeans?

So like I said in my first post here, whether or not they turn over Greenland will probably also depend on how much economic pain Europe is willing to accept for it, if the US wants to play it that hard that is. — ChatteringMonkey

First, Europe should play hard.

Yet let's just think of this for a moment.

What does stop Trump simply from flying to Pituffik Space Base and declare that now Greenland is part of America, announce that Greenlanders will be given an American citizenship and perhaps 10 000$ and those who will not take the citizenship are to be deported to Denmark. And then it's just a huge ICE operation for those who don't take the money and the citizenship.

Once he has done this, Trump can then say that any resistance, be it the Danish military or the civilian population, is a threat to the US and will be dealt with maximum force of the US armed forces. He can obviously then enforce the insurrection act, perhaps martial law in the new territory formerly named Greenland now to be called Trumpland.

There will be ample amount of MAGA media-people cheering for their GodEmperor Trump and break up in U-S-A, U-S-A, chants once he has done this and they will just laugh at anybody criticizing the action. The interesting question is what ordinary Americans will do.

In this way he doesn't at first ask the military to plan to attack Denmark, which many in the Joint-Chiefs-of-Staff, the highest generals, would take as an illegal order. He surely doesn't need "Shock and Awe". It's the other way around: if the Danes use force, then it's natural that Trump can defend the US and it's citizens.

Why would this above be illogical? Trump already has declared that he is in charge of Venezuela, which he isn't in charge of. This would be a totally similar action.

perhaps it would be good to combine all these threads into a 'Recent geopolitical developments' thread, or something like that. A mod might be able to help with that, if you like the idea. — Tzeentch

Well, that morphs into a Trump thread, because there's always 'Recent geopolitical developments'... just as there will be the US president and his policy actions debated.

The fact is that some of threads may end and be forgotten... WHICH WOULD BE A SPLENDID OUTCOME!

It really would be great if this annexation of Greenland ended as being as one of the odd eccentricities of Donald Trump which created confusion, yet something that didn't end up in a tragedy or as a divisive infamous event (as his actions on January 6th became).

Remember that the Ukraine thread with it's 18.1k responses is called the "Ukraine Crisis" as the war hadn't yet happened when the thread was started (and earlier the discussion was on the Biden thread). Yet a war that has killed hundreds of thousands in Europe is something worth commenting.

That's also the story of UK, actually. Yet here Germany shot itself on the foot by getting rid of nuclear energy.

Yet here's the issue: if those high prices of energy happen because of pressure from another country, if let's say the US halted energy shipments to Germany in order to pressure Germany, that backfires.

You see, people are angry if the economy is tanking because of government mismanagement. If we in Finland would start to have cuts in our energy production in the middle of the winter suddenly, we would be angry and likely the present administration would lose in the next elections. Yet if Putin would start, out of the blue, bombing or sabotaging our energy power plants and thanks to that we would have blackouts, the blame wouldn't be on the government. Heck, then you just put on clothes, use candles and buy an aggregate!

Germany and the European countries aren't poor. If they have to buy with a higher cost energy from somewhere else, they will do it. Trump pressuring Europe will simply just backfire in this case as every move to pressure Europe into something that it doesn't want will reinforce the need for strategic autonomy. (Hence Trump demanding that Europe would spend on more on defense was taken happily on by the Europeans.)

And yet there's still little in the way of socialism in Europe. That's because the EU controls economic policy, and it's firmly neo-liberal. Again, what you're pointing to as evidence of European leftism is just government handouts in an otherwise liberal domain. — frank

One note to the discussion that you and @I like sushi are having: the political discourse is obviously quite different between the continents, but the actual government spending is quite the same. Which is quite surprising as the US doesn't have universal health care etc. Even if the US usually denies it and thinks the European countries are the "welfare nanny-states", the similarities are obvious.



Just compare this to let's say German budget in 2020, when the rearmament issue hadn't emerged:

Germany is the most important one, 'the economic engine' of Europe. — ChatteringMonkey

In Germany in 2024 about 40% of the electricity was produced by renewable energy. Then a large share comes from coal, which it get's from Poland.

And mind you the Kremlin thought that Germany would shiver in cold once the imported gas was turned off. It didn't. Even if Germany is an extremely bureaucratic country and reacts slowly, the idea of rolling blackouts or Germans even freezing to death (if the winter would have been harsh) made Germany quickly to rearrange.

It's not just a questionable effect on the economy. The British grooming scandal wasn't economical. There are real concerns with male immigrants from countries with institutionalized misogyny. — RogueAI

Never underestimate the impact of the economy, as these tensions flare up in economically distressed areas. There's a lot of foreigners in Mayfair and other posh sites in Central London with a lot of foreigners, but .

In a way the grooming scandal was more about the actions of the police and the officials. There's an antidote to this: the police will openly go public with the statistics of who are the criminals, what crimes have immigrants done and simply don't have double standards when it comes to immigrants. The credibility of the police isn't then on the line and this takes way the opportunity of conspiracy theorists to take hold on the public discourse.

What of immigrant groups that claim to possess absolute truth and consider it their prerogative to spread or impose it on the native population? — BitconnectCarlos

What immigrant group are you talking about acting this way? Americans in Latin America or what? I think you confuse those vocal people speaking on the behalf of immigrants, when it comes to Western countries.

Usually migrants do understand the age old truth of "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". Especially when it is religion that makes the people not to behave this way, then there's friction. Yet if the foreigners, just like tourists or foreign investors, do bring money into the economy, they usually are tolerated. If not, then these differences emerge far quicker.

Just think of what would be the attitude towards tourists, if they wouldn't buy souvenirs and use local services. Who would tolerate cheap vagrants just strolling everywhere eating their own food or worse, just begging for food? In India they absolutely hate the Western people who live as hippies with a shoestring budget and are on a "spiritual trip" in the country.

The Great Replacement exists in a quantum state.
If you say that the Great Replacement is real, but is a good thing, then this is an argument that is allowed to be taken seriously and given real credence.
But if you say that the Great Replacement is real, but is a bad thing, then that is dismissed as a racist conspriacy theory which is beneath rational discussion.
The exisence of the phenomenon as a statistical fact is subject to epistemic uncertainty a lot like Shrodinger's Cat until the moral evaluation is brought forward to frame it, thus collapsing the waveform. Only once the speaker's morality is observed do their statistical facts become distinguishable as reality or conspiracy theory.
In this way, the fact of the existence of the Great Replacement is determined, not by statistics, but by moral evaluation and rhetorical framing.

That aspect of the Left's argument on this is utter bullshit. Settle whether it's happening or not first, which should be strictly based on the data, before we go evaluating it as good or bad or neutral.

Here's the thing on the demographic shift: I am perfectly happy to replace certain categories of whites whom I don't like with browns. — BenMcLean

First of all, nobody's replacing anybody.

The theory Renaud Camus is there with David Lanes "White Genocide" conspiracy theories. If you truly believe in those, I think you are on a wrong forum. See the site guidelines: "Racists, homophobes, sexists, Nazi sympathisers, etc.: We don't consider your views worthy of debate, and you'll be banned for espousing them."

What countries have done is to have immigration because a) they lack workforce and b) growing population bring economic growth while decreasing population hinders economic growth. That has been the basic reason, not an idea to change the population.

Population growth has nearly everywhere except in Sub-Saharan Africa gone negative as people have become more wealthy. That the fertility rate is falling and basically the fertility rate is below 2.0 has not happened because of some active policy from any administration (even the Chinese have gone back from their one-child policy), but many other reasons. There's an universal demographic transformation which hasn't been decided by elites. This transformation is not related to policies or agendas of any elites may have. Here lies the error which puts Camus etc. into conspiracy theories: that this has been some great plan pushed by certain groups.

Yet when you add up the two, having immigration while also then lower fertility rates, some argue illogically that this is an active policy truly "to replace" the existing population.

I'm OK with bringing in non-whites as long as they are the kind of non-whites who are going to help build a civilization and not the kind who are going to tear one down.

But fundamentally, completely apart from any ideology which says there's anything particularly special or superior about whites, absolutely nobody should be expected to just accept a system which is deliberately, maliciously stomping on their people's faces, no matter what color they are, no matter what period of history it is and no matter whether academic elites say they get to count as "historically marginalized" or not. — BenMcLean

It's not about helping "to build a civilization", it's about helping your society, your civilization.

The real question is how an society, any society, responds to an influx of foreigners. The basic answer here is that IF the foreigners bring wealth to the society, then the foreigners are accepted. Yet if this is questionable or it seems to be questionable if the foreigners do add any wealth to the society, then anti-immigration views, prejudices and also racist thoughts emerge about discussing the foreigners. And if the foreigners are indeed in the country to pillage the wealth of the society without any attempt to contribute to the society, we have a common term for them: the are then the enemy, an invading force. And the usually every society is up in arms to fight and kill the foreigners.

And that's basically it.

You can see the above three foreigner types in everyday discourse. Everybody is happy with tourists that come with their money to spend it in one's own local economy. If you start complaining that there are too many foreign tourist in your city, you'll likely be approached by some telling that he or she feeds his or her family thanks to tourists, so why don't you just mind your own business.

If the inflow of foreigners has a questionable effect on the economy, then you basically have an "immigration-debate" like in Europe. But similar would happen anywhere.

And if the foreigners are there to steel your wealth and subjugate you, you fight back like the Ukrainians are doing now against the Russians.

(This is btw something that the Trump administration should take into account when "running Venezuela".)

I am just hoping that the new American Right after Trump can be one which still promotes liberty and justice for all -- and to do that, it's going to need a new political theory, beyond Trump's populism. — BenMcLean

The American right should understand that Trump is the real RINO and his populism is extremely toxic and destructive for the right. It just leans on the worst aspects of what the right has been about.

I think first it should be noted the fears that are typical for present day populism: take the replacement theory, for example: that the evil elites want to replace ordinary people. MAGA people don't dare to say the racist fears out loud behind these ideas, but they can project these fears to Europe and declare that in Europe European civilization faces civilizational erasure. But the real fear is that white Americans won't be a majority in the US anymore. In a truly multicultural country like the US with it's painful history starting with slavery, it would be too much to say this out loud such racist lies. But when referring to Europe, it works fine.

This racism is something that is truly ugly and something that the right has to fight against. These are the worst kind of "radicals" on the right, if in the left the worst are the "Shining Path maoists" or people like Pol Pot who want really radical change by killing many, many people. You should never confuse those lunatics with your average social democrat. But also one should notice the difference with the traditional right and the Trumpists.

Who are the real dunces in this story? — ChatteringMonkey

Europe - thinking that appeasing Trump and just waiting three more years will make this self-destruction of the US built alliance system and international order to stop.

The US Congress - both the supine Republicans who assume that there's a huge support for Trump and the Democrats who seem to assume that it's business as normal with Trump and all they need is to wait for the next elections starting this November.

Trump - the real idiot who is voluntarily following Kremlin playbook on how to destroy the US Superpower.

the MAGA supporters - cheering all the way this destruction that Trump is doing.

Statements from House Trump and Ogles don't make much sense. What's missing? — jorndoe

Nothing as it simply doesn't make sense. It's all about the flag waving on the island. It's that Trump can say that he made the US greater in size with a territory larger than Alaska. It's make America Great, literally.

But there are no "adults in the room" in this administration, just yes-men that compete who can praise the president the most and reurgitate his fallacies. Yet I think this stunt might be the one that will change Europe's attitude of appeasement towards Trump. Already Denmark and Canada have seen the light.

That doesn't sound different at all. That's US foreign policy in a nutshell. — Tzeentch

Too simplistic. All Great Powers have had quite different foreign policies toward different states.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's because Washington doesn't give a flying fuck about what the American people think. — Tzeentch

Well, only a minority supports the Venezuela campaign in the US.

WASHINGTON, Jan 5 (Reuters) - One in three Americans approves of the U.S. military strike on Venezuela that toppled the country's president and 72% worry the U.S. will become too involved in the South American country, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that concluded on Monday.

When it comes to invading the Kingdom of Denmark, the whole idea is too strange and odd.

And there are those that didn't vote for Trump.

LNG, the US is our main LNG supplier, which replaced the Russian pipeline gas. And also oil. — ChatteringMonkey

Well, this actually varies by country and do remember the change in energy production happening now. For example France gets a huge share of it's power needs from nuclear energy and my country gets 90% of it's electricity from nuclear power and renewable energy. Oil isn't so dominant as it was during the 1970's.

- The US is showing clear commitment to enforcing the Monroe Doctrine (aka domination of the western hemisphere). — Tzeentch

I'd still call more accurately the Donroe doctrine, because Trump's moves are totally different from anything else we've seen. It's basically "we've got this awesome military, so we can plunder weaker countries.".

- The US views Europe as an unreliable ally in the long run (ironic, I know), and a potential rival. — Tzeentch

Good that you notice the irony, because the US itself made this alliance and was truly successful of creating an alliance system that the Europeans voluntarily and happily were in, and thus gave US a say in their defense policies and also gave a lot of economic perks to the US (starting from the dollar being the reserve currency, even after Nixon's default).

- Greenland comes with large territorial and economic claims on the Arctic. — Tzeentch

Actually, it's really about the map and territory. Trump wants Greenland and then perhaps Canada, because then the US would be the largest country in the World. Even with Greenland, that's the largest territory extension for a while in US history, because it's larger than Alaska.

The real estate man Trump wants Greenland because of this. Everything else is just hogwash and lies, just as Greenland being needed for "security reasons".

I think that now the US has less than 500 servicemen, perhaps as little as 150 in Greenland and just one military base (earlier they had 17). That's how really much this is a "security issue".

- In the case of a US-EU split, Greenland would serve as a forward base against the Russians (mainland Europe could no longer function as a bridgehead). — Tzeentch

In case of US-EU, the Russians hardly don't matter anymore.

You see, it just takes some time for Europe to get over the appeasement stage with Trump to accept that the Trump administration is a hostile threat to them. And invading Greenland would likely push them over that line. Naturally nobody wants that, because Europeans largely love Americans. I've lived there two years when I was small and I liked the people very much.

And why isn't anyone asking the question from Americans just how much they want to invade an ally like Denmark?

At least some Republicans in the Congress are saying just how stupid all of this is:


(Starts at 0:51 about the comments made by Miller on Greenland)

If only amateur hour would be over...

Europeans are a bit shocked at the moment about it all, but will slowly come to the realisation that they really don't have anywhere else to go in the short term. — ChatteringMonkey

Defense procurement is long term thing. And that's why something like SAFE does tell a lot.

I don't think there will be a military conflict over Greenland in any case, to much is at stake for both parties — ChatteringMonkey

Is there for Trump so much? If he get Greenland and the cost is NATO, why would it be for him a problem? Let's remember that this guy truly thinks that it's a great idea to go to Venezuela and take their oil and the US has been cheated by it's allies.

as the US is the main energy and digital services provider etc, — ChatteringMonkey

I'm not sure what you refer on energy, because the US doesn't export much. With digital services, Europe is starting to be aware just how dependent they are on US tech. Basically the real issue here is that the US is an untrustworthy ally, and is capable of freezing the essential logistics and supplies of advanced weapons systems. This is one of the reason why the heated F-35 vs Gripen discourse in Canada, for example.

And then there's the case of France and it's independent defense industry, something again on the lines of "strategic autonomy".

Destroying the Ba'ath Party in Iraq left a vacuum which created the conditions for ISIS. — ChatteringMonkey

Actually, let's be a bit more specific about just how it went: The US Military, on it's own and without the politicians in Washington, actually basically destroyed Al Qaeda in Iraq and it's grasp in the Sunni areas by the Sunni Awakening, where Sunni tribes were supported to fight Al Qaeda and helped to form the Sons of Iraq.

But then the US troops withdrew and the Shiite leader of Iraq, Nouri Al-Maliki denounced the Sons of Iraq and dismantled them... which then lead to a power vacuum and the emergence of ISIS. Remember that ISIS leaders were first Al Qaeda leaders...which emerged in Iraq only after the US invasion.

Hence a successful insurgency strategy that worked was stopped by Obama's withdrawal and Iraqi policies.

In Venezuela they left the regime intact... minus Maduro. — ChatteringMonkey

Which doesn't make sense. How is this even be thought to work in a country that basically is very close to just collapsing into anarchy? And why would the Chavistas roll over?

Here's what vice President Rodriguez is actually saying:

Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez, has said that “no foreign agent” is running Venezuela in the wake of Nicolas Maduro’s abduction by United States military forces.

Rodriguez, who had been Maduro’s vice president before his abduction, spoke during a televised event on Tuesday, a day after Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty in a New York court to drug-trafficking conspiracy charges.“The government of Venezuela is in charge in our country, and no one else. There is no foreign agent governing Venezuela,” Rodriguez said.

And the Chavista government and the paramilitaries are cracking down on the people, so it really doesn't make any sense.

Just think of the present in the scenario of Iraq: So assume that under Bush prior to attacking into Iraq in 2003, the US would have made a similar stupendous special operation and gotten Saddam Hussein. And a high profile Baathist politician and field marshal Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri would have taken the lead in Iraq (Saddam's second in command). Yet Bush wouldn't have the nearly 300 000 ground force ready to invade the country, but only 15 000 even if the Navy and Air Force were at the disposal.

You think the Baathists would have then surrendered and given the US their oil?????

In 20 years we'll learn there was some of angle that was conveniently left out of the discussion, like the Israel angle with Iraq, that also 'happens to' establish mens rea. — Tzeentch

In decades we will have actual history writing. And when it comes to Trump, it really can be things like he got pissed off about Maduro dancing and ridiculing him. Just like that one partly reason for the Soviet Union collapsing was that Gorbachev and Yeltsin didn't get along (and the people doing the Putsch didn't get Yeltsin).
.

They are just playing dumb, attributing to incompetence what ought to be attributed to malice, and attributing to the Trump administration what ought to be attributed to the machinations of all of Washington and the foreign policy blob. — Tzeentch

The Trump administration is quite different from the Obama administration, just as Putin is different from Yeltsin, even if the former are US administrations and the latter Russian administrations.

It's clear the American goal was to send a signal to all of Latin America: If you get too cozy with other great powers, we have the power and the will to ruin your country overnight. It's the Monroe Doctrine. — Tzeentch

I think the apt name is Donroe doctrine. Very different from the doctrine that European colonizers shouldn't try to take back their colonies that they've lost. (Which btw. was shown to be an empty threat in the late 19th Century, when France attempted to take over Mexico and had it's debacle there. But then the US wasn't a Great Power yet.)


What the future reality will be is unclear. Trump is simply a chaos engine, which then many try to make sense into, into the famous 5D-chess or whatever. And oh boy, do they have a tough time supporting their leader which changes his stances totally:

6 months ago:


and Now:


That's the kind of spineless turnarounds one has to make when supporting Trump. First against the neocons, now embracing them! Wonderful logic and integrity in one's beliefs.

All that said, Maduro was responsible for a huge amount of suffering and economic degradation. Venezuelans have been reduced to living in poverty while he and his cronies squirrelled away the wealth of the nation in their private accounts. His wife owns entire neighborhoods in Caracas according to reports. — Wayfarer

I think that Saddam Hussein was responsible for a lot more of suffering and death than the previous busdriver then President Maduro ever did. Saddam's policies were even worse for Iraq. Hence there were similar arguments for intervention in Iraq. You have always these kinds of arguments and the neocons have stated these, even if the real cause has always been the threat that the country poses.

Countries and their societies are very complex and difficult to change from the outside. Venezuela is the best example of a rentier state and country where the "Dutch Disease" went totally out of control. And later the Chavistas have absolutely wrecked the economy with disastrous socialist policies. That's were Venezuela is irrelevant of how much natural resources and beautiful beaches and wildlife it would have to make it very prosperous.

What would be the chances of a foreign entity to get things to improve even if they would be wholeheartedly welcomed to the country, yet with the same regime in power? Because they would have to improve in order for the oil industry to be modernized and put on to track... and the profits to start flowing. But here there's not even that. The Trump administration thinks that it can change at gunpoint with threats Venezuela where in a similar earlier case even by occupying the whole country of Iraq and having Americans in charge didn't work.

The short answer: it won't work.

I’m constantly reminded that I give Trump and his idiots too much intellectual credit for decisions, when in reality most of them are just a bunch of absolute morons representing the most brainless slobs of meat walking this earth. — Christoffer

:up: :100:

but from a team of 12 experts I would expect more - especially given the annual funding Brookings receives. — Tzeentch

Do notice one aspect here: everybody in the US Foreign Policy sphere, which obviously includes the Brookings Institute, is now walking on egg shells. Criticism will get a nasty attack from the White House, but there is still criticism.

Yet you can notice the real criticism, that is made very diplomatically:

Focusing narrowly on oil access or prioritizing creditor repayment over recovery would risk creating a small set of rent-seekers while keeping Venezuela’s failed institutions largely intact.

He seems to believe that oil revenues will fund the ongoing presence, stating that, “We’ll be selling large amounts of oil to other countries,” and that running Venezuela “won’t cost us anything.”

This is nonsense.

The oil industry in Venezuela is a shambles.

Trump’s particular brand of lawless bravado, narrow-minded nationalism and crony capitalism have combined in Venezuela to lead our nation down a dark hole of open-ended responsibilities for the world’s largest holder of oil reserves and the region’s largest source of migrants (though not narcotics, the alleged threat). The harmful consequences for U.S. national security, and international peace and security more broadly, will unspool for years to come.

Trump’s ‘Donroe Doctrine‘—his rebranding of the Monroe Doctrine aimed at building a U.S. sphere of influence in Central and South America—seems to have made a relatively secure region meaningfully less stable overnight.

And it just goes on like this. This is, in the long term, an absolute disaster to Venezuela thanks to Trump. Another consequence is the decline of the US position in the World will speed up, because Trump very likely cannot handle this.

It looks like "adults in the room" are betting on VP Rodriguez being more pliant and reasonable than her (former) boss. So, to them, "running the country" is basically keeping Rodriguez as a technical president and trying to work with (strong-arm) her. From what I have picked up about Rodriguez, she seems like a competent technocrat. But how secure her position in the hierarchy is an open question. — SophistiCat

These "adults in the room" aren't adults in the room, as in Trump's first administration. Only vaguely Marco Rubio tries to give an impression of normalcy by trying to say that the operation was to bring into justice Maduro, that the US isn't at war with Venezuela, yet his POTUS quickly made it clear it was about the Venezuelan oil reserves and that the US taking over the country.

Think about just how ridiculous this whole idea of "running the country is". So you have the Chavista regime in Venezuela still in power, you have thrown under the bus the Venezuelan opposition, and you have stated that you basically are talking to the Maduro/Chavista-regime. The Rodriguez team can now stall things and basically agree on something, yet still say "No" to other things. And it's still a large country. Venezuela is getting support from Colombia and Brazil. Trump can bomb the country and seize oil tankers, but what then? Now the Chavista-regime can convincingly tell it's population that any worsening of the economy will happen because of Trump that wishes to colonize the country.

Good to see your neocon side, NOS4A2. I didn't remember you being such a great fan of nation building.

I still don’t understand how far he can go before those with the power to remove him, do so. How many illegal things has he done by now? What does it take for the US to remove a president? Impeachment doesn’t work if the people who decide on it are part of his cult. — Christoffer

The political opposition to Trump hasn't woken up to the fact that this isn't a normal President playing by the rules. Many are just dumbstruck. And then there's the vast majority who don't follow politics and get only mad when the US economy tanks... or more precisely their own economy tanks.

What nobody even mentions is Article 1:

The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.

NATO is dead if the US uses violence of the threat of violence to take Greenland. Not just maimed as the UN is, but seriously dead.

Likely what the Trump lunatics want is that Greenland declares independence of Denmark and then they can rape the island. Because what is so peculiar in Trump's deranged mind is that he genuinely wants to increase the physical territory of the United States. It's not the mining rights, iwhat Trump wants is territory. He made it clear in his inaugral speech. With Canada and Greenland, the US would be far larger than Russia. (Let's remember that Greenland is larger than Mexico)

But again, the European allies of Denmark are holding drills in Greenland...



And Macron has visited Greenland with the Danish PM being the host:

One undersea cable cut again, one ship seized by Finnish authorities again:



Acts like this start to be the new normal. :sad:

Maybe the word ultimate is the problem. — Tom Storm

I think you are correct. Just look how problematic ultimates like infinity are still in math and logic.

What is good and what is bad? You and I may agree on individual examples, but we also may not. The answer depends on us, it is a subjective answer.

No objective information just what reality is will answer this. So what's the solution for this that humans have come up with? That there's an ultimate subjective: God. How do you accept this then? By faith.

Soo... should there be an "US annexation of Greenland" thread too? Really thinking of it.




Europe: time for Strategic Autonomy!

Venezuela was already a failed state. How much worse could it get? — frank

A lot more worse.

Civil war. Hundreds of thousands of dead. Widespread famine. Failed state with competing regime that have divided the country. Or become like Haiti with criminal gangs running the country without any much if any operating government.

Or something...

Believe me, things can always be far more worse. Improving things is the difficult part, creating chaos is easy. And it's very easy for things to come far more worse. Especially with Trump as now when he has quite a war lust going on. Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Greenland...

I liked the rest of your observations about the oil situation. — Tzeentch

How much of that Iraqi oil went to US oil companies in the end? Not much, there's few of them, but they don't represent the majority of the foreign companies now in Iraq: there's Russia, China, the Europeans etc.

And yeah, as @Mikie stated, not much even rhetoric of democracy or war on drugs with Venezuela! Yet in order for oil to flow to Chevron (or the bunch), Venezuela needs:

a) A regime/administration that is willing to have the US in the country and work with it.
b) enough stability that it's safe for American companies to work in the country and for the companies really be willing to invest in the country.
c) a way for all of the above somehow to be reached by a cunning and capable US, which the US isn't under Trump, even if it's military is very capable and pulled of a successful 90-minute decapitation operation.

What I'd like to know is how Trump is thinking of running Venezuela now. Basically the option is to seize the oil shipments from Venezuela at sea. Or then take strikes on Venezuelan leaders and government. So pressure them and assume they will cave in. And hope that this will pressure the "Bolivarian revolution" to surrender to Trump.

That's it.

Question: was Trump so petty that he had to through Machado under the bus because she got a Nobel prize? When is Trump we are talking about it, it might be really the reason.

And just like from the Iraq/Afghanistan playbook, they might want to pick up some Venezuelan who kisses Trump's ass the most. Likely will dedicate his or her time to make the Trump family wealthy. So fuck off, Edmundo Gonzales or any other anti-Chavistas, you aren't needed!

When I say I believe the universe is fundamentally good I am merely the superiority of a FAITH in truth and the ultimate goodness of the universe with the inferior FAITH in some book that has a talking serpent and a talking donkey. They are both types of faith. — Art48

Sorry, I didn't understand this part.

Exactly. But when one is stupid and full of oneself, one doesn't even notice how fucked up the whole situation is from the start.

Trump is just “defending our institutions”. — NOS4A2

Just what institutions I ask? In his press conference, Trump mentioned oil 20 times while he didn't mention drugs, war on drugs or democracy at all. That's quite telling just what "institutions" the sick fuck is values.

And it probably hurts knowing that the exiled opposition leader in Venezuela dedicated her Nobel peace prize to your favorite president last year, isn’t that so? — NOS4A2

Lol, Trump threw Maria Machado immediately under the bus, didn't even bother to mention Edmundo Gonzales, but was eager to tell that they were in contact with Maduro's vice president Delcy Rodriguez.

Trump idiocy as ever. Then claim that he's going to run Venezuela without any troops on the ground and the Chavista-regime quite in control of the country still.

Now you know. — NOS4A2

Actually, I don't. And neither do you.

Just how is this going to work out? What if the Chavistas don't simply surrender?

and your high-horse leaders just sat around and let him repress his citizens, as they’ve done all over the world. So much for “defending our institutions”. — NOS4A2

You are just contradicting yourself. So now you are in favor of nation building?

How well it went in Iraq? That country too had oil.
How well it went in Afghanistan?

Whose plan is it?

The way I understand it, Putin, Xi JInping and Trump are in a quid pro quo threesome, each concerned with their own imperialist goals. — Questioner

To break the Atlantic tie between the US and Europe, just as to hinder the European Union has been a plan of Russia for a long time. So the Russians are quite honest when they say that Trump's plan matches their plans. This is a dream come true for the Kremlin.

Perhaps it's just the absolute idiocy of Trump that he indeed wants to divide the World when there wasn't any need for division. Just as he thinks the EU was made to fuck the US, not an European response to two devastating World Wars.

I concede that maybe I shouldn't have used the world "superpower" to describe Russia. Maybe "power at play" would have been more accurate. — Questioner

Whose power play is this?