PeterMP

This is moving the goal post. The point was that what we did in Germany, Japan, tried to in Afghanistan, etc. is fundamentally different than what Israel has tried to do. Doing just what you are responsible for isn't always the right thing or make things better. Were we responsible for rebuilding Japan and Germany after WWII? And even our allies? Did we have a responsibility to intiate, support, and fund the Marshall program? Today, do we have a responsibility to carry out much of the foreign aid spending we do? What country wants them wiped out? (I guess Iran but even much of that is garbage/propaganda I tend to think.) Even Hamas in their latest charter has backed off that sort of language. Israel is a nuclear power. One of the most successful economies in the world. Has the backing of the most powerful country in the world. Has consistently and soundly defeated its neighbors in every war they've ever fought. Nobody is wiping Israel out in the foreseeable future.

Japan and Germany have both signed new treaties since the surrender that cover US troops and bases. None of that is based on the older treaties. They don't get to independently set the terms. It is our military and our people. But they get a say and a choice (the choice being we leave and they are on their own). There are public opinion polls that cover things like our support in said countries. https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/majorities-support-us-bases-key-allied-nations Over 60% of Germans and Japanese currently support US bases. (As shown, the numbers have gone up and down through the years but greater than 50% is the norm).

One last point on this topic. Again, post-WWII we were taking things like the Philippines and saying, you should be your own country. While France was essentially re-invading Vietnam to try to essentially recolonize it. Post-WWII France didn't nearly have the ability to project power the way that the US did. And their thought process post-WWII was not that Vietnam was too far away or that they could benefit some other way by not having Vietnam be a colony.

@tshile I can't say it is permanent. People/countries do forget and make the mistakes they have made in the past. I can only speak to what has and did happen. I can't speak to some imaginary future. What we did and tried to do in Afghanistan is extremely different than what Israel has a history of doing with respect to Palestinians and even its other Arab neighbors. Yes, there are similarities, but the Israel has never put large sums of money (or any real support) into building a stable Palestinians state/military/government. (And they really haven't for any of their neighbors). But that's exactly what we did with Afghanistan, Iraq, and going back to WWII Japan and Germany. Military bases in Japan and Germany are governed based on treaties with the respective countries. And while sometimes there are issues, for the most part, the people that live there (and their elected governments) want us there.

Then explain it. How did allowing/helping the Philippines move from a territory to a country or not claiming more of the smaller Japanese islands that we had taken over in WWII as territories help us in terms of "projecting power and spheres of influence and price of oil or other resources" and that distance was the key motivating factor? Take some specific cases and actually explain why I am wrong.

We occupied Germany with the objective of rebuilding it and building a German government for Germans. Israel has and is taking land from Palestinians. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/03/un-human-rights-chief-deplores-new-moves-expand-israeli-settlements-occupied#:~:text=The size of existing Israeli,since monitoring began in 2017. They've occupied Gaza before. They did not rebuild it or try to create a government for Palestinians. This is not comparable. People protest things when they are unhappy and think organization that they are associated with can/should make changes. The US government is already against Russia and has put significant sanctions in place that limit what things like universities can do in terms Russia. If a university was found to be skirting US sanctions, you would see protest. There is a bit of this being a much longer conflict and has historically gotten more attention component to it too.

Yes, we installed a government we preferred. We also installed a government that is responsive to its people. Don't equate what we did in Europe and much of the world to what the Soviets did. We play global politics, but it isn't like many countries for the most party want us there. Even countries like Vietnam our essentially asking for our help. We (and much of the world) used to have a well established history of taking land far away from us (in our case, Hawaii, Guam, etc). The British in an era when the world was much less connected and distance was a much greater obstacle had a global empire. The British didn't break up their empire because things got too far apart. We stopped doing it because we realized it wrong and the benefits weren't worth the costs (to us or the native population). We could have easily claimed many of the islands in or around Japan as territories (i.e. colonies) and eventually states after WWII. We didn't. We could have claimed chunks of Afghanistan as territories. We didn't. (I'll point that we even transitioned the Philippines from territory (which we took control of in the late 1800s to its own country post-WWII). We could have easily left the Philippines a colony if we were interested in controlling territory.) We didn't help the Philippines establish a government and become a country because it got too far away. Distance doesn't have anything to do with it. Right/wrong beneficial/not beneficial is what drove the change.

I think this is not true. We didn't acquire land in Afghanistan, Germany, or Japan after WWII. We worked to try to rebuild those countries and their governments and leave them better off (at least as we see it) then we found it. Something Israel over the decades with Palestinians haven't done. Israel hasn't and in this case hasn't shown any indication after we have when we were attacked or fought a war. We spent billions of dollars on things like building roads and schools and a Afghani government/military in Afghanistan. Israel has never done anything like that. That you can't see the distinction/difference is shocking to me.

But again, all of them aren't waving Hezbolah or Hamas flags. (Here's the link to the opinion piece I talked about with the video of the Jewish students/group that are part of the protest: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/23/opinions/columbia-university-protests-greenblatt/index.html with no Hamas flags.) You are ignoring the opinion of everybody that is protesting based on the actions of I don't know the % of actual protestors, and I doubt you do either. All of them haven't jumped to extremes. Some of them are extreme. Ignoring the ones that haven't jumped to extremes because some of them have doesn't make any sense.

Pretty sure that it is a 4 year contract with a team option for a 5th. So no real way he gets out after 3 years unless he gets cut. Also pretty sure any young QB that makes it to FA after that contract is going to take the most money. Doing otherwise would be stupid. Seems like an unreasonable hit against Daniels.

They aren't protesting Hamas. Columbia (or any other college) isn't doing things that result in supporting Hamas. They aren't going to burn a Hamas flag because that isn't what their protest is about. Burning the American flag isn't a crime. If somebody shows to the protest and decides to burn the American flag, what should they do?

Good cops should weed out bad cops by reporting their crimes and misbehavior to the police and things like internal affairs. Burning an American flag isn't illegal.

I'm not a huge fan of the pick, but is there any evidence liking being thin and getting (seriously) injured in the NFL? He's played a lot at a high level at college and doesn't have a history of injury. This isn't RGIII situation where he tore up his knee in college already.

How do you suggest that they "weed" them out? Are you suggesting that they use violence to deter people from protesting that show up that don't agree with many of the other protestors' views. On Columbia's campus some of the protestors were Jewish. Should they resort to violence to eject more extremists Muslims that are also protesting? (There was actually a funny dichotomy the other day on cnn.com. They had an opinion piece by somebody that was Jewish that visited Columbia talking about how awful the situation was. At the top of the same page, they had a link to a group of Jewish protestors that were protesting Israel's actions in Gaza by camping out and were celebrating Passover as they did so. And the one guy was talking about how he couldn't imagine celebrating Passover doing anything else.) (In general, that's just such a bad talking point that at least goes back to the 1960's and the Vietnam war. Yes, some of the Vietnam war protestors weren't serious. Some of them were criminal and violent and weren't helping. But many of them were young people that saw what the US was doing was screwed up and wanted to make thing better. Discounting them all because of the first two groups does them, this country, and really everybody else a disservice.)

But they weren't stuck in the 7th century. For hundreds of years through the 13th-17th century in terms of women's rights and religious tolerance the Ottoman Empire was ahead of Europe in many cased. They did fall behind some in the 1800s but in the late 1800s they started a modernization effort and were catching up. The ME is what is largely because of who western powers decided to support before and after WW1 and 2 and people like Reagan doubled down on during the Cold War. We and other western countries have consistently supported extremists that have 7th century beliefs. We had a hand in making the problem and likely will need to have a role in fixing it.

Rome took much of Europe too and through war. Napoleon invaded multiple European countries. Both were European and created plenty of death and misery among Europeans and in Europe. The Mongols invaded into Central and Eastern Europe too, and their invasions displaced people causing a cascading affect of conflicts and death and misery throughout Europe. None of those cases were specific or unique to the ME. Popes caused plenty of death and misery in Europe first by contributing to wars against pagan countries to convert them into Catholic countries, and then pitting Catholic countries against Protestant countries to try to contain Protestantism. And if we are going to talk about death and misery wars started by European powers in the ME cause death and misery of and to Europeans. To talk about the wars started by them as if they are specific to death and misery in the ME doesn't make much sense.

WWII was fought outside of the US because neither Germany or Japan had the ability to project power to the continental US. The Japanese didn't think they could even hold Hawaii. I guess if you imagine a scenario where Germany is able to knockout Russia and the UK without lend lease and Japan China and they're able to build a military directed at projecting power to the US, then maybe that changes things.

I'm certainly not going to tell you there has been more violence in Europe than in the ME. Especially post-WWII and even post-WWI. But I'm not sure the ME has been worse longer term, especially post-WWII, to single it out. It is especially odd to single out ME for violence and start talking about wars started by European powers.

The Crusades in total lasted about 250 years. 250 years during which there were plenty of wars in Europe too. And it isn't like the Crusades didn't include Europe. To talk about the wars in the ME and the Crusades and ignore that they involved much of Europe is dishonest. Between the 1st and 5th crusades there were 7 different conflicts between France and England alone (including the French invading Normandy to take back control from English control/influence). Prior to WWI, the area was heavily Muslim and there wasn't much conflict between them and the small Jewish and Christian populations there and certainly not any more than the Catholic and Protestant populations that existed in places like Ireland.

I just want to point out that the ME hasn't been then bad for 3,000 years. I'm not at all sure it has been worse than Europe. The Ottoman Empire successfully and relatively peacefully governored over the Middle East and much of N. Africa for hundreds of years. The Ottoman Empire was multi-cultural generally religiously tolerant and diverse country/government. What you see in the Middle East today is heavily the result of post-WW1 and WWII decisions/foreign policy by/of western powers coupled with the rise of the importance of oil.

That's what we did, but we got very little back in compared to what we gave. And even after lend-lease expired we sold them equipment at a 90% discount. And then after the war we "gave" them more money through the Marshall plan and other programs. For example, we ended up giving Britain $3.3 billion dollars after the war for promises related to tariffs, balancing a budget, etc through the Marshal plan. In totality, what we gave was much more than what we got back through lend lease. We were giving money out in one hand taking some of it back with the other so that we could say something had been paid back through lend lease. If Ukraine wins, they are going to have rebuild much of their country which they'll need money for. That they'll have money to pay anything back is just so unlikely it isn't worth considering. The only way we gat paid anything at all meaningful back is if we do what we did with much of Europe after WWII and through another program give the money.

Just to be clear, it was the President of Student Affairs. Though, I'm not sure why the President of Student Affairs would have been involved in or known about case of assault on the campus 20 years earlier.

And if, as it states they were reported to the police, paying off the University wouldn't do any good. There would be a police record. Paying off the university doesn't do any good if there is a police record.

I think there are people out there that don't think he's actually a committed pro-life person. The more doubt they have the better (in terms of him losing). (I don't think Trump is really pro-life. I think he'll do what is best for him. If he thinks somehow becoming pro-choice as President will help him, I don't doubt for a second that he'll flip. It is hard for me to imagine a scenario where that's the case. But that's what I suspect.)

Somebody needs to push him on the legality of crossing state lines to get an abortion. Where does he stand on that?