1991? When the US backed Yeltsin’s coup, causing the breakup of the USSR, the greatest non-war-related humanitarian disaster of the 20th century, and paved the way for Putin to come to power?

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That they have no intention of defending Taiwan would be my guess.

You’re reading this backwards; war would cut US interests in Taiwan. If anything, this is preparing for the US to try to defend Taiwan.

A war with China would not be good for American business interests in Taiwan.

It’s wild how unpopular peace in Ukraine is among liberals.

America is willing to sacrifice its own economy and those of all of its allies to make sure it doesn’t get cheap solar or EVs.

I’ve never seen someone haul a whiteboard into a coffee shop.

In the late 2000s HSBC did the calculation that the profits for what they were doing would be greater than any potential fines, and they were correct. I don’t see the chinese government fucking around like that.

So would the pro-Russian party keep the border with Russia closed, or would they let more Russian draft-dodgersrefugees in?

Yes, there’s a monochrome display in the middle. It’s kinda like a TI-86 calculator aimed at children.

It’s kinda crazy that 3 nuclear armed countries have periodic armed skirmishes.

Literally anyone who is in an opposition party and won an election.

Reminder that Navalny was a Russian ultra-nationalist who referred to Chechens as cockroaches.

You don’t need to eulogize a nazi, even if another nazi didn’t like them very much.

There’s even opponents to Putin who’ve had more electoral success than getting 27% in a mayoral election.

Without Judaism there would be no Zionism.

There would be be an equivalent, to quote Joe Biden “If Israel didn’t exist, we would have to invent it”. Settler colonialism does not require religion to create all the systems we see in Israel, as we saw most of them during the colonization of the rest of Africa, and many when Japan was colonizing SEA.

If I look at the Old Testament and see it as a genocidal and elitist mythology, what chance to believers have when they adopt it as an ideology?

It’s not a random chance, it’s determined by what they’re using it for. When my jewish friend interprets his books, his agenda is justifying why zionism is incompatible with Judaism. Sadly that interpretation isn’t useful for America’s foreign policy so it’s not amplified like Joel Olsteen’s interpretation of his books.

Idealism is not a useful way to analyze societal effects of an ideology, they only exist in the context of society.

What Adam Smith has to do with iPhones and Ancient Egypt is a mystery to me

The point is that ideology doesn’t determine society. If it did, then all the ancient Egyptians needed was for Adam Smith to invent capitalism, and then they’d all embrace capitalism and start making iPhones, in the same way you suggest that reading the torah turns people into zionists.

But we could argue here indefinitely and get nowhere

Yes, if you keep coming back to claiming religion determines behavior after we’ve established religion is molded to fit what the ruling class is using it for.

You’re still approaching this from a non-materialist perspective; do you think that if Adam Smith wrote Wealth of Nations in ancient Egypt, they’d have stopped making pyramids and started making iphones? Why was this new belief system suitable to Britain at a time when the power of the bourgeoisie was surpassing that of the aristocracy and not ancient Egypt?

If the percentage is high, then you can safely assume that there’s a fundamental flaw in the belief system.

No, because it’s not their belief system that’s causes zionism, it’s zionism being useful to the ruling class that causes that interpretation to be amplified. Zionist jews get articles republished in NYT and spots on cable news. Antizionist jews get silenced (or in Israel and Germany, literally arrested).

Yes, but the US’s analysts know they can’t win this type of war with Iran; a generic number required of troops thrown around for an occupation is 2%, though it’s often much higher.

The US can bomb civilians all they want, but any strategic objective like stopping Iran from sending masses of balsa wood drones to overwhelm Isreal’s defenses can’t be done with airstrikes.

Iran has 92 million people, that’s almost 2 million troops needed for occupation. Drafting a million Americans to enable an occupation would be political suicide.

Here’s a whitepaper written by some brookings institute ghouls in 2009.

Note that when it was written, Iraq’s counterinsurgency was considered a success, drones weren’t a thing, and it assumed Iran wouldn’t close down the strait of Hormuz.

People interpret it the way that suits their agenda

Then you understand it’s not the belief system causing these people’s behavior, their agenda determines the belief system.

America doesn’t support Israel because the bible says so, even though some people might come up with some wacky interpretation, we support it because it helps facilitate imperialism throughout the middle east.

There’s plenty of jews who don’t interpret their religion that way, but their interpretations aren’t convenient for the ruling class so they’re not promoted. You can observe the same with philosophy, I’d hardly call philosophy bad just because those in power are able to amplify ideologies that serve their material interests.

You’re putting the cart before the horse, when a belief system is incompatible with what the ruling class requires, they change it the way its expressed accordingly.

You understand Israel’s actions have nothing to do with Judaism, right?

Religion is a justification used after the fact, in the same way the US used Christianity to justify genociding the native americans. There’s nothing in the bible that says “Destroy the native American’s food sources and take their land”, the Americans were going to do that anyway.

Any 2 state solution was dead on arrival for the last 30 years, as such a Palestine would be effectively dependent on, and always at the mercy of Israel by virtue of Israel having already stolen the best arable land, water sources, and strategic locations.

If Yassir Arafat had gone back to the Palestinian people with “We’re gonna live forever at their mercy, and none of you will ever return to the homes Israel stole”, the Palestinians would have assassinated him.

If Ehud Barak had gone back to the Israeli people with “You have to give them back their houses and stop encircling/blockading their settlements”, he’d have been assassinated by the Israelis.