BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

The only way to "win" the war on terror. Stop terrorizing the breeding grounds of reprisal. Declare amnesty for all "combattants" and withdraw all personnel (military and covert) from that part of the world. Impossible to go "too far" in this approach. Every further such step would be one in the right direction. Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity...

ok but what part of the world do we withdraw from? Asia and Africa...?? You are very vague..

This is actually a quite arrogant declaration of exceptionalism, as if whatever the U.S. decides upon will be automatically and unilaterally adopted by our enemies.

I'm not nearly so certain of our greatness. Perhaps this enemy has a mind of his own.

Every American military base in any region where terrorists "come from". The NSA is very aware of these areas as they are the same ones that provide the resources so coveted by the corporatists. Trump was against intervention but once he saw the real Zapruder film....err I meant the intelligence, he is adopting the best survival strategy. At least it appears that his intention is to eventually leave....once all the terrorists are killed...

And when that enemy comes after all that is good and wholesome in the US, then the military will be able to defend the country from their attentions. Meanwhile, terror attacks kill fewer than auto accidents. WTH, declare the border a "militarized zone" and station all the armed forces in bases along that frontier. The US has been after a new frontier for some time now.

Every American military base in any region where terrorists "come from".

You want to remove the military from America itself? Are you aware of the numbers for terrorism in America since 9/11?

That might work if countries were closed societies but the world doesn't work that way. For better or worse, we are all interdependent and have to work with one another rather than hiding in a shell.

very vague.

for starters closing a base does not withdraw all of our military force or all of our covert forces for starters think air and sea coverage from afar. Do you want to only close a base and if so what bases?

If you want all military and covert which I assume means spies and flying robots for starters.....you are being very vague.

also you seem to be unaware that one region terrorists come from is called the Usa, another region is called europe

Restraint is not hiding, is it? As far as the way the world works, you would think that we would have learned something by now. What we are learning is that the same old methods continue to only benefit the same old rich and powerful people. Continue to argue about using their method to fix our problems and you shouldn't expect any difference.

I meant to say that we could use robots, instead, for everything...better?

Simplistic answers and sloganeering do not solve problems of a complex and complicated world.

Didn't you just do that? Sloganeer, that is.

So, more than are killed in auto accidents?

From What's the Deal, Mr. Trump? by the NYT Editorial Board:

President Trump promised he’d make so many great deals that we’d all get “tired of winning.” He’s certainly left Americans feeling worn out, but not because of any transactional whirlwind.

In reluctantly signing a bill last week imposing sanctions on Russia that he cannot lift without congressional review, Mr. Trump complained that it “makes it harder for the United States to strike good deals for the American people” and that “Congress could not even negotiate a health care bill after seven years of talking.”

The legislation is actually proof that Congress has learned not to trust Mr. Trump to strike good deals and has seen quite enough of his negotiating skills.

Six months in, Mr. Trump can’t get legislation passed on anything much bigger than naming a post office. Indifferent to negotiating with Democrats and ham-handed in dealing with Republicans, he’s getting rolled on the major promises of his campaign — health care, infrastructure, taxes and jobs.

...

This is the man who opened his 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal,” by boasting: “Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.”

Providing reliable health care coverage to tens of millions of Americans could have been the biggest kick of Mr. Trump’s life.

A week before his inauguration, Mr. Trump said he had a plan “very much formulated down to the final strokes” to provide “insurance for everybody.” In the same interview, he promised to negotiate lower drug prices, “just like” he’d forced Lockheed Martin to produce cheaper F-35 fighter jets.

In fact, Lockheed let Mr. Trump take credit for negotiating F-35 cost savings that were already in the pipeline. He caved on his promise to empower the government to negotiate lower drug prices — an effort Democrats support — after a single meeting with big pharmaceutical makers.

And then he kicked the whole “complicated” health care deal to Republicans in Congress. After months of Trump promises of “a beautiful picture” on health care, the seven-year Republican crusade to end Obamacare seems to have come to its own end.

The $1 trillion infrastructure overhaul Mr. Trump promised is another big deal that Democrats like, but he has yet to take their calls. He’s promoting a sweeping package of tax cuts, but there aren’t many details to go on there, either.

“We hope to get taxes and then infrastructure,” he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal not long ago. “And then I’m going to do a very big — we’re doing very big trade deals, and we’re looking forward to that. But we want to do, ideally, this first. You know, a lot of people said you should have started with taxes or you should have started with infrastructure. Well, infrastructure, I’ll actually have bipartisan support, and I can use infrastructure to carry other things along. So I don’t want to waste it at the beginning, if that makes sense.” (bold and underline mine)

No, it didn’t.

Things make more sense if we remember that despite his gilded penthouse and branded country clubs, Mr. Trump has had a business career filled with questionable deals that almost ruined him and led to multiple bankruptcies.

In a boost for Russia-China trade ties, a new freight train service began Sunday, linking Russia’s Perm with Golmud in Qaidam Basin, northwest China’s Qinghai Province.
The train, loaded with containers of chemical, left China through the Alataw Pass in Xinjiang, and will pass Kazakhstan before reaching Perm, a Russian industrial city of a million people.

The trip covers about 6,360 kilometers and takes 10 days. Officials said transporting goods by train is about a month faster than by ship.

The new freight route is also part of China’s New Silk Road plan.

President Xi Jinping has championed what China formally calls the “One Belt, One Road” or OBOR, initiative to build a new Silk Road linking Asia, Africa and Europe, a landmark program to invest billions of dollars in infrastructure projects including railways, ports and power grids.

Beijing’s top economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said on Thursday that 69 countries, from Ukraine to South Korea, have signed cooperation agreements with China on the joint development of the Belt and Road Initiative.

According to the NDRC, more than 4,000 cargo train trips have been made to ferry goods from China to Europe, with the trains passing through 31 cities in 12 European countries.

A freight route linking China’s eastern coast and London started operating earlier this year

ok but what part of the world do we withdraw from? Asia and Africa...?? You are very vague..

I don't speak for anybody else, but I think we should withdraw our Army, and probably our Air Force, from everywhere except the United States and their territories. We should not get involved in the internal politics of other nations. We (specifically the CIA) should not be in the business of toppling regimes in order to put in place puppet governments that (we hope) will be friendly to the United States.

The Navy (and Marine Corps) is another issue. That organization is the President's arm for handling situations where an immediate application of force is necessary to deal with people and nations who initiate force directly against Americans outside the US. The Navy and Marines should not be invading Grenada or Panama (yes, I know more than the Navy and Marines were involved in those conflicts) in order to institute regime change or "bring to justice" (yeah, right) a dictator who had the temerity to defy Washington.

A standing army was anathema to the founding fathers. It ought still to be anathema to all Americans.

I don't speak for anybody else, but I think we should withdraw our Army, and probably our Air Force, from everywhere except the United States and their territories. We should not get involved in the internal politics of other nations. We (specifically the CIA) should not be in the business of toppling regimes in order to put in place puppet governments that (we hope) will be friendly to the United States.

The Navy (and Marine Corps) is another issue. That organization is the President's arm for handling situations where an immediate application of force is necessary to deal with people and nations who initiate force directly against Americans outside the US. The Navy and Marines should not be invading Grenada or Panama (yes, I know more than the Navy and Marines were involved in those conflicts) in order to institute regime change or "bring to justice" (yeah, right) a dictator who had the temerity to defy Washington.

A standing army was anathema to the founding fathers. It ought still to be anathema to all Americans.