forrestreid

Éire Abú! (Not really into team sports so I put up a pic of Rhys McClenaghan, one of our hopefuls for Paris 2024)

I am looking forward to reading your trip report Taikonaut. Thanks for making the effort, in my opinion trip reports are the best part of this site. I’ll be particularly interested to see how you get on in your trip to Ilha Grande. That is a side trip that I’ve been considering for my future travels to Rio. Taking a guy there is something I’ve gotten very tempted to do also, although, like you, I had a feeling maybe it was not the best idea for a newbie. However if you take somebody I’ll be fascinated see how it goes.

Yep, It will almost certainly end badly, in that Ukraine will be either physically destroyed or will be forced into a humiliating surrender. Extending to WWW III and ending up with the use of nuclear weapons is less likely, thankfully. By the way, I think the Taiwanese are very well aware that the USA is not going to physically intervene in any invasion from the mainland, and probably has a greater understanding of this than the Ukrainians had. But, like Russia, I think China may be surprised surprised at the strength and depth of the sanctions that take place. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chinese government took pause from what a strong defense of their country Ukrainians are putting up, beside despite being hugely outnumbered by Russia.

But in general in this topic, the main thing to keep in mind is there is a tragedy unfolding now in Ukraine. I dont disagree that many aspects of US foreign policy in the last twenty years (such as the invasion of Iraq or the the support of the extremist Likud position on the occupation of Palestine) have been shameful, but to harp on about these issues in a thread such as this, while also minimizing the blatant use of cluster bombs, the intentional targeting of civilian targets and the confirmed use of vacuum bombs THIS VERY WEEK in Ukraine, in a blatant attempt to shift the narrative, is unsavory. And I must say that the way in which what I would call "foreign policy leftists" from the USA, in particular, tend to frame this is very irksome to me as a European. The main geopolitical issue at hand is Russia (or the current ruler there at least) trying to regain the position in Ukraine that it had in Tsarist times. One can argue whether that is a good or bad thing (personally I think it is bad), but one thing it actually has rather little to do with is what the USA were up to in Iraq in 2004 or in Nicaragua in 1985. But if you read many threads on Ukraine with posts from US (not just here) "foreign policy leftists" seem to be ranting on about irrelevancies such as what Billy Kristol said onetime, or how much Blackwater might make out of Ukraine, or whatever. The sense in which they are not engaging with the lived reality of an international world system in flux, or the biggest single refugee situation since WW II, is frustrating. It seems like in their head they are still arguing with that annoying fellow student who was a foreign policy hawk in a university seminar in 2006.

To extend this argument a bit, if the US were to, say, threaten Iran with devastating missile attacks unless it halted its nuclear programme, presumably the Iranian government should be regarded as being "not halfway intelligent" if they did not immediately accede to the request, as otherwise they would find themselves in a war with a nuclear power? Just how generally should this principle be applied?

I understand why people are nervous about the threat of nuclear war. It is not something you can take chances about. But if you look objectively, America under Biden is demonstrating a considerable degree of restraint with its support for Ukraine struggle, for this very reason. Biden has opposed Russian aggression with sanctions and some arms to Ukraine. But he is very clearly said that, as Ukraine is not part of NATO, the US and NATO will not get involved in assisting Ukraine with either troops or a "no fly zone". In fact, the United States has even decided that simply allowing the Polish Mig fighters to be transported from Rammstein to Ukraine would be too much of a provocation. I do not like the fact that all this is helpful to Putin. But I do accept that Biden’s motives are genuine in not wanting to extend to conflict. I think Biden has clearly shown that Russia will have absolutely no genuine excuse to extend the conflict to a confrontation with NATO, or God forbid, a nuclear war. But some posters on this site, and others I read, seem to be very exercised on this point and keep going on about how Biden may be about to bring us all to the brink of global nuclear war. Interestingly, I have noticed on this and other sites that they seem to be the same posters who are very exercised about the plight of Russian speaker in Luhansk and Donetsk. A coincidence I am sure

If you think this is a good argument to persuade people to not support the Ukrainian people in their fight against Russian imperialist aggression, I am afraid that you are wrong

Well congratulations Tassojunior, you are now reduced to using the excuse of every thug and bully: "Look, if you had given me your lunch money when I asked you first, you wouldn't have a bloody nose now. Why do you have to make it hard for yourself?"

Just a bit of context on the figures of deaths in the Donbas conflict that Tassojunior quotes in almost every post. The number of civilians who died in the Donbass conflict went from over 2000 in 2014, to 26 in 2019 and 27 in 2020. This was a more or less frozen conflict in military terms. In the wake of the Russian invasion last month, more civilians are being killed every hour in Ukraine than died annually in the Donbass conflict in recent years. Obviously every death is more than just a statistic, but Tassojunior quoting the figure of 14,000 overall in the conflict is misleading when many posters who are unfamiliar with the Donbass conflict may assume it was still going at that sort of level. Also remember that the conflict was started when Putin unilaterally invaded Crimea and aided an insurrection in the Donbass region. Perhaps the most famous incident in the early years was when Putin, with incredible recklessness, sent Buk missiles to the rebels, along with people could operate it, and they promptly bombed a civilian aircraft out of the sky, in the Flight MH17 tragedy. Another issue that Tassojunior continually raises is the failure of the Minsk process. However, the failure of the Minsk II process was not purely a stubborn refusal by Ukraine to accept a fair deal from Russia. Although France and Germany tried for several years to get the Minsk instruments to work, they came up against what has been referred to as the “Minsk conundrum.” This is how Al Jazeera explains the problem. I’m just using Al Jazeera here as example of a news website that wouldn’t be necessarily pro-Western. “Ukraine sees the 2015 agreement as an instrument to re-establish control over the rebel territories.It wants a ceasefire, control of the Russia-Ukraine border, elections in the Donbas, and a limited devolution of power to the separatists – in that order. Russia views the deal as obliging Ukraine to grant rebel authorities in Donbas comprehensive autonomy and representation in the central government, effectively giving Moscow the power to veto Kyiv’s foreign policy choices. Only then would Russia return the Russia-Ukraine border to Kyiv’s control” Full article here: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/9/what-is-the-minsk-agreement-and-why-is-it-relevant-now The real stumbling block was that Putins real aim was never rights of self-government for Donbas, but instead his demand that the terms of the agreement would result in the Donbas region having a veto in international treaties and agreements by Ukraine, which would result in Ukraine being prevented joining NATO or the EU, even if a huge majority of the rest of country wanted to. In other words, Putin would have control over Ukraine is foreign policy, despite the policies of whatever person was elected democratically as the President of Ukraine.

If you look at the other videos, Tenten is quite the cutey as well...

I remember seeing that performance, but what I understood was that she was not an actual woman, but an old ladyboy who got the job from a kathoey mamasan who had been a bit of a protegee of her in her younger days, and felt sorry for her. I believe her name was "Auntie Nong" - there was an interview with her in this book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ladyboys-Secret-World-Thailands-Gender/dp/190537948X

Sounds like he was going around areas that Christianpfc is an expert on...

I got the same - strong warnings to "only continue at your own risk", etc

He took to Mykonos well, lol

Where, on the Telegram group?

Just for the information of the perplexed, Micheál Martin is the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister)

The above quote from Jeff Tiedrich is a reminder of one of the more depressing aspects of the Kabul fiasco. It has shown that public discourse in America seem so degraded after Trump that many Democrats are incapable of admitting that Biden does deserve some criticism for the disastrous way the evacuation is gone, and lash out in response with basically say nothing more than “Who cares, he is better than Trump at least”. Now, it goes without saying, any Republican politicians who were were backing Trump’s policy last year (as they all were) to abruptly cut and run from Afghanistan have absolutely no standing to criticise Biden in any way. However, from I’ve seen of America, there is a lot of criticism coming from mainstream journalists and retired veterans regarding the way the evacuation has been handled, and a lot of Democrats seem to be responding by treating those people as if they were Mitch McConnell. I think that ten years ago of the Democratic partisans would have been better able to handle criticism of a Democratic president. In fact I would actually blame Trump for a lot of degradation in public life that has happened and has ended up in with Democrats telling nonpartisan experts to “kindly sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up” when independent voices point out problems (now, in fairness Mr. Tiedrich may have been responding to a Republican yuck instead of a credible critic in the above, I have not followed the thread - however, the above tweet reflects a lot of the sort of thing that Democratic hacks are coming out with). And I speak as someone who thinks America should have been out of Afghanistan a decade ago. I must say I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to be Irish rather than British over the last few weeks, witnessing how little the American defence establishment seems to care what the British or any other of their Allies think of the withdrawal. Here in Ireland we are very aware that the American establishment hardly knows the name of Micheál Martin, and we are happy with that.

That difference between those examples and Afghanistan is, that, unlike in South Korea, Japan, or Germany, the few thousand troops left in Afghanistan were obviously vital for the government staying afloat. If the USA pulled out all its troops from Germany tomorrow, obviously Germany would be more vulnerable to foreign enemies, particularly Russia, but I don’t think the government would automatically collapse and the country sink into anarchy. When you have such a situation in place regarding US troops, as was obviously the case in Afghanistan, well, it basically means that the US was in a de-facto colonial position. So it was all the more necessary that America would have a cold and clear look as to whether it was worthwhile maintaining its troops in Afghanistan. Although casualties were very low since the numbers were reduced, there were still a few, and the American air support was regularly bombing Taliban positions far the Afghan government. This situation could not have remained Indefinitely. You could argue that the cost to the US of maintaining the force it did it for the last few years was quite small, compared to the benefit of not having the Taliban in power. However, having the situation carry on indefinitely was obviously not acceptable Biden, with the speech about how he was very aware of the fact that he was the fifth president to be sending American troops to Afghanistan, and he would not be leaving it for his successor deal with. All that does not negate the fact that the way the US let things collapse is shameful. At the very least, America should give refuge to all the Afghanis that were put in danger by the roles they took up in Afghanistan over the last twenty years, from cooks in US military bases to women who became news presenters and are now cowering for fear of a kick at the door. Obviously the US government were taken very much by surprise. I read that the CIA told Biden that the Taliban would take six to twelve months to overthrow the Afghani army, and he believed it. Another success for their analysis!

It looks like the US is finally getting the finger out. According to a CNN report today: "The Biden administration is working to finalize an agreement with Qatar to temporarily house thousands of Afghans who worked with the United States and their families and are fleeing their country as the security situation deteriorates, according to a source familiar with the ongoing discussions. The source said it could be as many as 8,000 Afghans but cautioned the deal is not final. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/13/politics/afghanistan-us-qatar-siv-translator-housing/index.html Let us hope they finalise the deal very quickly the way the Afghanistan army seems to be collapsing. As the US has an airbase in Qatar, two and a half hours flying time from Kabul, they could presumably airlift out the 8,000 pretty quickly once they get going

I don't think the UK necessarily gets the gold star here. According to a report on the BBC "Newsnight" programme a few nights ago, there are a lot of Afghans who have a claims for asylum in the UK due to their work in helping the British forces who are being denied that. It stated that Britain was only allowing direct employees to claim asylum on the basis of having helped British forces, but not allowing Afghans who worked for contractors who supplied services to UK forces to do so. Also, it was claimed that the Home Office is insisting that any Afghans who have a blemish on their work record be left to the tender mercies of the Taliban. Newsnight interviewed a worker who had worked for the British Army as a translator, but is being denied a place on the evacuation flights because he was sacked from his job for using marijuana (an allegation which he strenuously denied). Because of this, it is claimed, the Home Office is refusing to let the British Embassy offer him refuge.

Some very arty shots there!

Hi Latbear4blk. Glad you took my criticism in good spirit anyway. There is a lot of food for thought in your opening post, though I think in general my own critique of what you say is that you are thinking about people’s lived experiences a bit too politically, (a bit like religious conservatives who criticise what they see as the “gay lifestyle” from their worldview, except from the opposite perspective) rather than as a criticism of any of your particular points. Enjoy your trip back to Buenos Aires.

Firstly let me say that I enjoyed the drawings by Marcelo Pombo, Latbear4blk And I agree to considerable extent with many points made. I too hate to see any misogyny or racism in the gay community, and I feel a bit uneasy when I see the likes of Amazon sponsoring their gay staff to walk in the Pride parade. Whilst not wanting to deprived the staff of their “day out” I cannot help feeling it implicates the gay community in unconditionally supporting the likes of Amazon. And I also hate the current trend of some who want to make a Pride parade more respectable by excluding those who parade in leather gear and as part of kinky groups and so on. However I think some of your statements are be a bit overblown. For example what you said about gay people being offended at being addressed playfully as women. In my experience no gay was ever really offended by that, unless there was a straight person addressing him and the gay man was concerned felt he was perhaps being undermined or insulted. And I’m sure a man who identified as queer would not appreciate being referred to by feminine nicknames by a straight guy who he (the queer identified guy) felt was trying to subtly undermine him in some way, despite his abjuration of the fake masculinity of the “gay”. I think the reaction of people in such cases depends more on the situation than their ideology. Also, your example of gay men in the gay bar being jokingly disparaging about women struck me as rather weak as a critique of gay identity. You may think it crass or not funny, but how do you know when the gay man is expressing his privileged position in the misogynistic patriarchy, or just being crass? I think there is an innate repulsion towards the sexual organs of the gender you’re not sexually interested in. I imagine there something similar regarding lesbians and men’s sexual organs. Of course in that case one can make the point that the lesbian joke isn’t from a (relative) “position of power”, But perhaps also you can read too much sociological meaning into peoples jokes. And general terms regarding terminology, I sometimes wonder if this is just a natural progression in the generations . I think there is a general tendency for one generation of a particular group to see the terminology last generation as being insufficient. In the early 70s, “gay” was seen as something of a radical word. The gays rioting at Stonewall were rejecting the compromises of the earlier generation who had referred to the movement as the “homophile” movement. You had a somewhat similar situation in the black community, with the move from Coloured to Negro it to African-American etc. How much of this is a genuine insight into the deficiencies of the terms in question, and how much is just each generation thinking it knows better, I don’t know. To be honest, your article felt to me a bit like somebody who is dissatisfied with a lot of the conservatism of a general gay culture (as I said I sympathise to a considerable degree) and attaching that critique to an ideology (being “gay identified”) that you ascribe to homosexual men of many different views and politics. Some of your arguments are in danger of disappearing down a bit of a rabbit hole, I fear. For instance I understand your point about the celebration of “coming out” putting pressure on men who might feel they can’t, or are not confident enough in their identity to do so. But that doesn’t negate the point that in general, that it’s better for sexual minorities that homosexual men come out rather than not. So the argument would be, is the pressure on gay men to come out a “progressive” pressure (the more gay men out the better), or is it better embrace a queer identity and it says “I don’t have to come out because I wasn’t already in”. That idea might seem logical from the perspective of a post-graduate seminar discussing a Judith Butler article, but I think it’s hard to argue that in the real world downgrading coming out would not have a conservative or regressive effect for sexual minorities. And to turn the tables on you a bit, your handle would seem to indicate that you are a Latino who is into black men. Could this not be seen as fetishising a different race, which could be seen as rather dehumanising of them? If I were the sort of university seminar lesbian who is in to that type of thing, I am sure i could work up 1000 words tearing into you as the worst sort of Latino racist who sees black men as dildoes (pingas) for his pleasure rather than men in their own right, who writes articles criticising the dreadful cis-heteropatriarchy of the term "gay" to cover up his own guilt at his own cis-heteropatriarchal racist fantasies of.....(you get the idea). To be honest this is something that one could spend a whole evening and several glasses of wine discussing, if we met up in real life, but those are some of the issues (or could I be as grandiloquent as to say “internal contradictions”) that struck me from your essay anyway.

Oprah has seemingly announced that it is not the Queen or Philip. I would bet on Charles - he is a bit cerebral well as a bit insensitive so he might have mused about it out loud without realising it would cause such offence. I would think William and Kate would have the sense to realise that any discussion those lines would be very poorly taken. I just heard some clips so don't quite understand it all. I wasn't sure what their issue was about the Royal security protection being taken away. Before they left their role as "working Royals" their security worldwide would have been provided by the Metropolitan Police, and paid for by the taxpayer (once Beatrice and Eugenie reached eighteen their Royal security was removed, so I have heard, as they decided not to be working Royals). So when Harry and Meghan left for a private life they would have to have had some kind of private security arrangement anyway. The taxpayer wouldn’t be paying any more. So what they are arguing about really, is how much Charles would pay for their security rather than make Harry dip into his mothers nest egg. So for that reason the whole "I just wanted my son to be safe" line went down a bit poorly with me. I am sure Charles wanted Archie to have good security too - the only question is who was going to pay for it.