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If I Were an ISIL Leader

Arkady

President
If I were a leader of ISIL or of some other international Islamist group, I'd be planning a major attack on the US for shortly before the election (the last week of October would be ideal). Here's my thinking.

From the perspective of someone trying to bring about a caliphate, or at least to chisel out power for extremist Islam, there are a couple priorities. One, is building the organization: you need a steady stream of recruits and money. Two, is driving wedges among your enemies: dealing effectively with international terrorism takes coordinated efforts among the leading nations. A well-timed terrorist attack on the US would serve both those purposes.

Terrorist attacks tend to push the American public in an authoritarian direction, and Trump's appeal is squarely authoritarian. I believe a big enough successful attack in late October, on US soil, would usher Trump to the presidency. That, in turn, would help with both those intermediate steps towards a caliphate.

First, building the organization. Recruiting for organizations like ISIL is tough, because you need to find people willing to face near-certain death, either as part of carrying out a terrorist attack, or at least within a few years as part of fighting against vastly superior military forces. How do you convince someone to give up his life that way? You need him to be very angry, to become suicidally radicalized. Trump will help. Trump has repeatedly called for discrimination against Islam within the US, and he has proven to be a rabble-rouser who is great at bringing out the bigoted worst in his followers. That will win groups like ISIL a steady stream of recruits within the US. Trump has also called for war crimes against Muslims abroad -- tortures worse than water-boarding for suspects, and even targeting the innocent families of suspects. That will produce the kinds of horror stories that get people abroad lining up to fight for ISIL, the same way Bush's conquest of Iraq, and the Bagram and Gitmo torture scandals helped set the stage for the rise of the Islamic State in the first place. Terrorist recruiters will have a never-ending supply of images of the mangled bodies of children, killed by the Americans. Only, if Trump gets his way, it will be actual murder, rather than collateral damage. It'll become much easier to recruit terrorists when the US itself is putting a stamp of approval on terrorism as a legitimate means of fighting.

Second, driving wedges between enemies. As has been well-documented, the Bush era was one when decades of work by the US in building a coalition of allied nations was largely undone. US approval ratings among our leading allies plummeted, and even though they've come part-way back since Obama took office, they're still nowhere near where they were. Bush made cooperation with the US politically toxic among the populations of foreign nations, and thus made foreign leaders much more reluctant to work with us. But that's nothing compared to what Trump is likely to do. His neo-fascist rhetoric horrifies people in countries that have experience with fascism, including Spain, Italy, and Germany. He will drive them away far faster than Bush did. And, facing that increasingly divided front, ISIL will find they have more room to operate.

If I were the leader of ISIL, I'd be far more worried about Hillary Clinton becoming president. Clinton is popular abroad, making cooperation with the US less politically toxic for foreign leaders. In Europe, for example, nearly 60% of poll respondents said they believe Clinton will handle world affairs appropriately -- compared to just 9% for Trump. Clinton's approval ratings are particularly high in Germany, Europe's biggest and most powerful nation (79 percent). From the perspective of ISIL, she'd be very bad news -- making the effort to stop them more coordinated and effective. She'd also make it tougher to recruit in most nations, because potential recruits wouldn't be stewing in a cultural stew of extreme dislike of the US and the West. They also are less likely to be handed piles of new propaganda about the people we're torturing and kids we're murdering.
 
D

Deleted member 21794

Guest
If I were a leader of ISIL or of some other international Islamist group, I'd be planning a major attack on the US for shortly before the election (the last week of October would be ideal). Here's my thinking.

From the perspective of someone trying to bring about a caliphate, or at least to chisel out power for extremist Islam, there are a couple priorities. One, is building the organization: you need a steady stream of recruits and money. Two, is driving wedges among your enemies: dealing effectively with international terrorism takes coordinated efforts among the leading nations. A well-timed terrorist attack on the US would serve both those purposes.

Terrorist attacks tend to push the American public in an authoritarian direction, and Trump's appeal is squarely authoritarian. I believe a big enough successful attack in late October, on US soil, would usher Trump to the presidency. That, in turn, would help with both those intermediate steps towards a caliphate.

First, building the organization. Recruiting for organizations like ISIL is tough, because you need to find people willing to face near-certain death, either as part of carrying out a terrorist attack, or at least within a few years as part of fighting against vastly superior military forces. How do you convince someone to give up his life that way? You need him to be very angry, to become suicidally radicalized. Trump will help. Trump has repeatedly called for discrimination against Islam within the US, and he has proven to be a rabble-rouser who is great at bringing out the bigoted worst in his followers. That will win groups like ISIL a steady stream of recruits within the US. Trump has also called for war crimes against Muslims abroad -- tortures worse than water-boarding for suspects, and even targeting the innocent families of suspects. That will produce the kinds of horror stories that get people abroad lining up to fight for ISIL, the same way Bush's conquest of Iraq, and the Bagram and Gitmo torture scandals helped set the stage for the rise of the Islamic State in the first place. Terrorist recruiters will have a never-ending supply of images of the mangled bodies of children, killed by the Americans. Only, if Trump gets his way, it will be actual murder, rather than collateral damage. It'll become much easier to recruit terrorists when the US itself is putting a stamp of approval on terrorism as a legitimate means of fighting.

Second, driving wedges between enemies. As has been well-documented, the Bush era was one when decades of work by the US in building a coalition of allied nations was largely undone. US approval ratings among our leading allies plummeted, and even though they've come part-way back since Obama took office, they're still nowhere near where they were. Bush made cooperation with the US politically toxic among the populations of foreign nations, and thus made foreign leaders much more reluctant to work with us. But that's nothing compared to what Trump is likely to do. His neo-fascist rhetoric horrifies people in countries that have experience with fascism, including Spain, Italy, and Germany. He will drive them away far faster than Bush did. And, facing that increasingly divided front, ISIL will find they have more room to operate.

If I were the leader of ISIL, I'd be far more worried about Hillary Clinton becoming president. Clinton is popular abroad, making cooperation with the US less politically toxic for foreign leaders. In Europe, for example, nearly 60% of poll respondents said they believe Clinton will handle world affairs appropriately -- compared to just 9% for Trump. Clinton's approval ratings are particularly high in Germany, Europe's biggest and most powerful nation (79 percent). From the perspective of ISIL, she'd be very bad news -- making the effort to stop them more coordinated and effective. She'd also make it tougher to recruit in most nations, because potential recruits wouldn't be stewing in a cultural stew of extreme dislike of the US and the West. They also are less likely to be handed piles of new propaganda about the people we're torturing and kids we're murdering.
1) I agree with your basic initial premise. Americans tend to go authoritarian when we get hit by terrorism. Look at how many Ds and Rs voted for the Patriot Act. That's just one small slice of that embracing of authoritarianism.

2) Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama are authoritarian. Examples: health care, gun control and business regulations. Well, let's add a wink and a nod to the business regulations aspect. We all know corporate interests own both Hillary and Obama.

3) A terrorist attack will also do something else. It will hurt the incumbent party. As we watch the Middle East disintegrate and remember things like Obama's red line, Hillary's Russia reset, war for oil in Libya, wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan going on indefinitely, increased terrorism worldwide, Obama's "lead from behind" silliness, it's clear we have atrocious foreign policy calling the shots. So a terrorist attack certainly helps Donald Trump for that reason. And it also makes his ban on Muslims make more sense. After all, what country in their right mind would go out of their way to import people with a high concentration of America-hating Muslim extremists? The answer of course is one run by corporate globalists like Obama and Hillary.

4) As for who foreigners want for the US- I don't like telling other countries how to vote and I damn sure don't give a shit what other countries want in our internal politics. If anything, the fact that Hillary leads there is a reason not to vote for her. Why? This strikes at the very core of why Trump is popular. Foreigners and foreign nations are going to prefer the presidential candidate that will act more in their best interests. Trump has made it clear he's tired of us being played for fools.
 

Dawg

President
Supporting Member
Appears Arkady now supports Martial Law and Θ as Dictator...........also sounds like you may be a ISIS leader.

(Only Θ uses ISIL)
 
C

Capitalist

Guest
Terrorist attacks tend to push the American public in an authoritarian direction, and Trump's appeal is squarely authoritarian. I believe a big enough successful attack in late October, on US soil, would usher Trump to the presidency. That, in turn, would help with both those intermediate steps towards a caliphate.
Assertion without evidence.

The Middle East is littered with authoritarian rulers and yet they have managed for decades to keep the caliphate out. So your assertion that a more authoritarian US government would lead towards a caliphate is by way of Tinkerbell's wand, not reason.

First, building the organization. Recruiting for organizations like ISIL is tough, because you need to find people willing to face near-certain death, either as part of carrying out a terrorist attack, or at least within a few years as part of fighting against vastly superior military forces. How do you convince someone to give up his life that way? You need him to be very angry, to become suicidally radicalized. Trump will help. Trump has repeatedly called for discrimination against Islam within the US, and he has proven to be a rabble-rouser who is great at bringing out the bigoted worst in his followers. That will win groups like ISIL a steady stream of recruits within the US.
Why are you so intent on appeasing irrational suicidal murderers? It's more futile than trying to speak reason to a drunk person. Suicidal bombers and homicidal truck drivers et al need to be killed, not appeased.

Your approach won't be making any friends in the world of jihad.
 

Zam-Zam

Senator
If I were a leader of ISIL or of some other international Islamist group, I'd be planning a major attack on the US for shortly before the election (the last week of October would be ideal). Here's my thinking.

From the perspective of someone trying to bring about a caliphate, or at least to chisel out power for extremist Islam, there are a couple priorities. One, is building the organization: you need a steady stream of recruits and money. Two, is driving wedges among your enemies: dealing effectively with international terrorism takes coordinated efforts among the leading nations. A well-timed terrorist attack on the US would serve both those purposes.

Terrorist attacks tend to push the American public in an authoritarian direction, and Trump's appeal is squarely authoritarian. I believe a big enough successful attack in late October, on US soil, would usher Trump to the presidency. That, in turn, would help with both those intermediate steps towards a caliphate.

First, building the organization. Recruiting for organizations like ISIL is tough, because you need to find people willing to face near-certain death, either as part of carrying out a terrorist attack, or at least within a few years as part of fighting against vastly superior military forces. How do you convince someone to give up his life that way? You need him to be very angry, to become suicidally radicalized. Trump will help. Trump has repeatedly called for discrimination against Islam within the US, and he has proven to be a rabble-rouser who is great at bringing out the bigoted worst in his followers. That will win groups like ISIL a steady stream of recruits within the US. Trump has also called for war crimes against Muslims abroad -- tortures worse than water-boarding for suspects, and even targeting the innocent families of suspects. That will produce the kinds of horror stories that get people abroad lining up to fight for ISIL, the same way Bush's conquest of Iraq, and the Bagram and Gitmo torture scandals helped set the stage for the rise of the Islamic State in the first place. Terrorist recruiters will have a never-ending supply of images of the mangled bodies of children, killed by the Americans. Only, if Trump gets his way, it will be actual murder, rather than collateral damage. It'll become much easier to recruit terrorists when the US itself is putting a stamp of approval on terrorism as a legitimate means of fighting.

Second, driving wedges between enemies. As has been well-documented, the Bush era was one when decades of work by the US in building a coalition of allied nations was largely undone. US approval ratings among our leading allies plummeted, and even though they've come part-way back since Obama took office, they're still nowhere near where they were. Bush made cooperation with the US politically toxic among the populations of foreign nations, and thus made foreign leaders much more reluctant to work with us. But that's nothing compared to what Trump is likely to do. His neo-fascist rhetoric horrifies people in countries that have experience with fascism, including Spain, Italy, and Germany. He will drive them away far faster than Bush did. And, facing that increasingly divided front, ISIL will find they have more room to operate.

If I were the leader of ISIL, I'd be far more worried about Hillary Clinton becoming president. Clinton is popular abroad, making cooperation with the US less politically toxic for foreign leaders. In Europe, for example, nearly 60% of poll respondents said they believe Clinton will handle world affairs appropriately -- compared to just 9% for Trump. Clinton's approval ratings are particularly high in Germany, Europe's biggest and most powerful nation (79 percent). From the perspective of ISIL, she'd be very bad news -- making the effort to stop them more coordinated and effective. She'd also make it tougher to recruit in most nations, because potential recruits wouldn't be stewing in a cultural stew of extreme dislike of the US and the West. They also are less likely to be handed piles of new propaganda about the people we're torturing and kids we're murdering.

If I were a misguided liberal, I might post some drivel about what I would do if I were an ISIS leader, and frame it so as to try to benefit my misguided liberal views.

Of course, if I did that, most people would probably see right through it, so it would largely be a waste of time and effort.
 

Drumcollie

* See DC's list of Kook posters*
If I were a leader of ISIL or of some other international Islamist group, I'd be planning a major attack on the US for shortly before the election (the last week of October would be ideal). Here's my thinking.

From the perspective of someone trying to bring about a caliphate, or at least to chisel out power for extremist Islam, there are a couple priorities. One, is building the organization: you need a steady stream of recruits and money. Two, is driving wedges among your enemies: dealing effectively with international terrorism takes coordinated efforts among the leading nations. A well-timed terrorist attack on the US would serve both those purposes.

Terrorist attacks tend to push the American public in an authoritarian direction, and Trump's appeal is squarely authoritarian. I believe a big enough successful attack in late October, on US soil, would usher Trump to the presidency. That, in turn, would help with both those intermediate steps towards a caliphate.

First, building the organization. Recruiting for organizations like ISIL is tough, because you need to find people willing to face near-certain death, either as part of carrying out a terrorist attack, or at least within a few years as part of fighting against vastly superior military forces. How do you convince someone to give up his life that way? You need him to be very angry, to become suicidally radicalized. Trump will help. Trump has repeatedly called for discrimination against Islam within the US, and he has proven to be a rabble-rouser who is great at bringing out the bigoted worst in his followers. That will win groups like ISIL a steady stream of recruits within the US. Trump has also called for war crimes against Muslims abroad -- tortures worse than water-boarding for suspects, and even targeting the innocent families of suspects. That will produce the kinds of horror stories that get people abroad lining up to fight for ISIL, the same way Bush's conquest of Iraq, and the Bagram and Gitmo torture scandals helped set the stage for the rise of the Islamic State in the first place. Terrorist recruiters will have a never-ending supply of images of the mangled bodies of children, killed by the Americans. Only, if Trump gets his way, it will be actual murder, rather than collateral damage. It'll become much easier to recruit terrorists when the US itself is putting a stamp of approval on terrorism as a legitimate means of fighting.

Second, driving wedges between enemies. As has been well-documented, the Bush era was one when decades of work by the US in building a coalition of allied nations was largely undone. US approval ratings among our leading allies plummeted, and even though they've come part-way back since Obama took office, they're still nowhere near where they were. Bush made cooperation with the US politically toxic among the populations of foreign nations, and thus made foreign leaders much more reluctant to work with us. But that's nothing compared to what Trump is likely to do. His neo-fascist rhetoric horrifies people in countries that have experience with fascism, including Spain, Italy, and Germany. He will drive them away far faster than Bush did. And, facing that increasingly divided front, ISIL will find they have more room to operate.

If I were the leader of ISIL, I'd be far more worried about Hillary Clinton becoming president. Clinton is popular abroad, making cooperation with the US less politically toxic for foreign leaders. In Europe, for example, nearly 60% of poll respondents said they believe Clinton will handle world affairs appropriately -- compared to just 9% for Trump. Clinton's approval ratings are particularly high in Germany, Europe's biggest and most powerful nation (79 percent). From the perspective of ISIL, she'd be very bad news -- making the effort to stop them more coordinated and effective. She'd also make it tougher to recruit in most nations, because potential recruits wouldn't be stewing in a cultural stew of extreme dislike of the US and the West. They also are less likely to be handed piles of new propaganda about the people we're torturing and kids we're murdering.
What do you mean by "IF" and "WERE?"
 

Barbella

Senator
If I were a misguided liberal, I might post some drivel about what I would do if I were an ISIS leader, and frame it so as to try to benefit my misguided liberal views.

Of course, if I did that, most people would probably see right through it, so it would largely be a waste of time and effort.
 

Drumcollie

* See DC's list of Kook posters*
Sounds like maybe you are contemplating this undertaking. I'm sure ISIS will welcome you with open arms...
Isn't this that grand global scheme thinking like Lee Harvey Oswald when he went to Russia...that we are making a difference when in reality you just at best wind up being used?

Oswald wrote in his diary in January 1961: "I am starting to reconsider my desire about staying. The work is drab, the money I get has nowhere to be spent. No nightclubs or bowling alleys, no places of recreation except the trade union dances. I have had enough."[71] Shortly afterwards, Oswald (who had never formally renounced his U.S. citizenship) wrote to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow requesting return of his American passport, and proposing to return to the U.S. if any charges against him would be dropped.[7


on June 1, the U.S. Embassy gave Oswald a repatriation loan of $435.71.[74] Oswald, Marina, and their infant daughter left for the United States, where they received no attention from the press, much to Oswald's disappointment.[75]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald

I am sure there is some grandeur in this thinking as if he is one of them...yet they really just laugh at him behind his back...till eventually he is either blown up for 72 virgins or realizes he's been duped...of course he cant admit this here...but deep down there seems to be some glorious intent which will never be realized.
 

Arkady

President
1) I agree with your basic initial premise. Americans tend to go authoritarian when we get hit by terrorism. Look at how many Ds and Rs voted for the Patriot Act. That's just one small slice of that embracing of authoritarianism.
Agreed. However, just as a side note, I wasn't as hard on people who voted for the Patriot Act initially, given the structure of the act and the timing. I opposed it, but I can see how people would have thought that getting something strong in place, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, was a good idea, even if it didn't get all the details right. It was drafted to sunset starting at the end of 2005, so a politician could have voted for it with the idea that it would go away automatically, and down the road cooler heads would have the chance to draft something better. I was much less forgiving for those whose heads never cooled down, even years after 9/11. It was the extension and expansion of the Patriot Act that was really unforgivable.

2) Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama are authoritarian
From a libertarian perspective, they lean too heavily on state-centered ideas. But, I don't think that's the same as authoritarianism. For starters, the hallmark of authoritarianism is a hostility to interest groups. That's the very first of Juan Linz's famous four-part 1964 description of Authoritariaism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism

For example, the Nazis methodically eradicated or marginalized all competing centers of power -- outlawing labor unions and guilds, competing political parties, fraternal orders, church groups, student movements, etc. Everything was moved under the party -- for example, the Hitler Youth replaced pre-Nazi children's social groups. The Democratic Party, by comparison, spends a huge amount of its time pandering to interest groups. It's often criticized for being little more than a collection of interest groups (gays, blacks, Hispanics, Jews, teachers unions, trial lawyers guild, etc.) That concept of the Democratic Party is so well established as to be characterized as an "old adage":

https://books.google.com/books?id=kOAdDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq="democratic+Party"+"collection+of+interest+groups"&source=bl&ots=0g5Mo1hxeV&sig=e4_EHCWoU2PqA2cKJUeQATHM_rA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjo1fj_pP3NAhUCCj4KHatLD7QQ6AEIQDAF#v=onepage&q="democratic Party" "collection of interest groups"&f=false

So, the Democratic Party is diametrically opposite to authoritarianism in that aspect.

With regard to the other three aspects of authoritarianism, I think a case can be made against the Democrats on each, but I think the case is stronger against Trump in each case.

3) A terrorist attack will also do something else. It will hurt the incumbent party.
I don't believe that's necessarily true. Consider 9/11 as an example. That's the biggest terrorist attack in our history, and it followed directly on the heels of a bunch of really inexcusable errors by the Bush administration (e.g., prioritizing a month-long vacation at his Texas mansion over holding even one "principals meeting" on terrorism, shelving the Hart-Rudman report, ignoring the Clarke-Tenet plan for taking the fight to Al Qaeda, etc.). What was the result? Bush went from having low and falling approval ratings to having the highest approval ratings in history, pretty much overnight. Why? I think that the attack triggered the authoritarian impulse among the cowards in our country (which is to say among the large majority of people in our country), and Bush was well positioned to capitalize on that, as the current leader and, more importantly, as the head of the authoritarian party.

As for who foreigners want for the US- I don't like telling other countries how to vote and I damn sure don't give a shit what other countries want in our internal politics
Of course we ought to consider what other countries want in our internal politics. That doesn't mean we have to defer to them. But what they want should be one consideration among many, because our ability to work with them in the future matters, and who we have as our leader is going to matter in determining how successful we are at getting their cooperation. There are other considerations, of course, and maybe those others outweigh that one, such that we should go against what other nations think. We shouldn't hesitate to do so when it's the right thing to do. But we shouldn't rule entirely out of consideration such an important factor.
 

Arkady

President
The Middle East is littered with authoritarian rulers and yet they have managed for decades to keep the caliphate out.
I suspect that extremist authoritarianism could, in fact, help to keep extremist Islam under control, in much the way Hussein's brutal regime did in Iraq. If you have government spies everywhere, and you regularly torture your own people for information, and you have the attitude that when in doubt, just execute someone, and you don't hesitate to gas whole villages if anyone there steps out of line, that kind of authoritarianism can work. I just don't think we are willing to go that far, nor should we. But, short of that kind of state-run terror campaign to suppress Islamism, I think lesser acts of authoritarianism will just make things worse -- aiding the terrorist recruiters and fracturing the global coalition we need to address the problem effectively.

Why are you so intent on appeasing irrational suicidal murderers?
What makes you think I am?
 

Arkady

President
If I were a misguided liberal, I might post some drivel about what I would do if I were an ISIS leader, and frame it so as to try to benefit my misguided liberal views.

Of course, if I did that, most people would probably see right through it, so it would largely be a waste of time and effort.
If a liberal were to do that, and a conservative showed that he lacked any rebuttal at all, wouldn't it actually support the liberal's viewpoint?
 
Couldn't agree more. There's hackery...and then there's full on "present your backside grab-ankle" hackery.

Arkady is beneath even capture by cartoon.
He's toeing the line hard alright, right down to the use of the honorific term "ISIL", favored by Obama/Clinton, and all Islamic theocratic stooges everywhere.
 

Lukey

Senator
Agreed. However, just as a side note, I wasn't as hard on people who voted for the Patriot Act initially, given the structure of the act and the timing. I opposed it, but I can see how people would have thought that getting something strong in place, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, was a good idea, even if it didn't get all the details right. It was drafted to sunset starting at the end of 2005, so a politician could have voted for it with the idea that it would go away automatically, and down the road cooler heads would have the chance to draft something better. I was much less forgiving for those whose heads never cooled down, even years after 9/11. It was the extension and expansion of the Patriot Act that was really unforgivable.



From a libertarian perspective, they lean too heavily on state-centered ideas. But, I don't think that's the same as authoritarianism. For starters, the hallmark of authoritarianism is a hostility to interest groups. That's the very first of Juan Linz's famous four-part 1964 description of Authoritariaism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism

For example, the Nazis methodically eradicated or marginalized all competing centers of power -- outlawing labor unions and guilds, competing political parties, fraternal orders, church groups, student movements, etc. Everything was moved under the party -- for example, the Hitler Youth replaced pre-Nazi children's social groups. The Democratic Party, by comparison, spends a huge amount of its time pandering to interest groups. It's often criticized for being little more than a collection of interest groups (gays, blacks, Hispanics, Jews, teachers unions, trial lawyers guild, etc.) That concept of the Democratic Party is so well established as to be characterized as an "old adage":

https://books.google.com/books?id=kOAdDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq="democratic Party" "collection of interest groups"&source=bl&ots=0g5Mo1hxeV&sig=e4_EHCWoU2PqA2cKJUeQATHM_rA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjo1fj_pP3NAhUCCj4KHatLD7QQ6AEIQDAF#v=onepage&q="democratic Party" "collection of interest groups"&f=false

So, the Democratic Party is diametrically opposite to authoritarianism in that aspect.

With regard to the other three aspects of authoritarianism, I think a case can be made against the Democrats on each, but I think the case is stronger against Trump in each case.



I don't believe that's necessarily true. Consider 9/11 as an example. That's the biggest terrorist attack in our history, and it followed directly on the heels of a bunch of really inexcusable errors by the Bush administration (e.g., prioritizing a month-long vacation at his Texas mansion over holding even one "principals meeting" on terrorism, shelving the Hart-Rudman report, ignoring the Clarke-Tenet plan for taking the fight to Al Qaeda, etc.). What was the result? Bush went from having low and falling approval ratings to having the highest approval ratings in history, pretty much overnight. Why? I think that the attack triggered the authoritarian impulse among the cowards in our country (which is to say among the large majority of people in our country), and Bush was well positioned to capitalize on that, as the current leader and, more importantly, as the head of the authoritarian party.



Of course we ought to consider what other countries want in our internal politics. That doesn't mean we have to defer to them. But what they want should be one consideration among many, because our ability to work with them in the future matters, and who we have as our leader is going to matter in determining how successful we are at getting their cooperation. There are other considerations, of course, and maybe those others outweigh that one, such that we should go against what other nations think. We shouldn't hesitate to do so when it's the right thing to do. But we shouldn't rule entirely out of consideration such an important factor.
You seem genuinely surprised to find out a (smallish) "temporary" government program not only turned out to be not temporary, but also continues to expand in scope. This is ironic, considering all the progressive policies and programs that you praise and support have all followed the same operating model. It is what it is...
 

Drumcollie

* See DC's list of Kook posters*
From a libertarian perspective, they lean too heavily on state-centered ideas. But, I don't think that's the same as authoritarianism. For starters, the hallmark of authoritarianism is a hostility to interest groups. That's the very first of Juan Linz's famous four-part 1964 description of Authoritariaism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism

.

So we are to define the democratic party from 1964 when the whole country is in a state of racial turmoil because Democrats still wanted segregation and the only way to change that was Republicans and their civil rights Bills? Remember just 7 yeas earlier in the civil rights bills 43 Republicans senators vote for civil rights and 0 Republicans voted against versus Democrats which voted 29 for 18 against....100 percent for versus 62 percent for and 38 percent against and this does not include the House vote.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/85-1957/s75

So if 1964 defines the Democrats..then the party is still a bunch of racists.
 
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