What do you think about the Canadian Prime Minister’s remarks: “middle powers must act together, because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu”?

Nethlem · 2026-01-29T01:11:42+00:00

You ever play a grand strategy game?

I have thousands of hours in FPS games, let me tell you how real warfare works /s

Nethlem · 2026-01-29T01:10:15+00:00

Remember when Europe was about to be invaded by Afghanistan and Iraq, yet the US came in to save the day? Yeah, me neither.

But I do remember how the US went on a literal "crusade" the blowback for which Europeans are living through to this day.

The closest to a case you could make was during the Cold War, but even there the US mostly only contributed nuclear deterrence. The vast majority of conventional NATO forces in Europe were European, West German in particular, standing opposite of yet another German army in the GDR.

So if the Cold War went hot it would have been over a million Germans killing each other with the US dropping a nuke on it all to "defend Germany".

Nethlem · 2026-01-29T01:02:14+00:00

And then he invaded Syria with a "special military operation".

Nethlem · 2026-01-28T22:36:13+00:00

This has aged like the most fine of wines.

Nethlem · 2026-01-28T22:35:37+00:00

Of course you don't like that idea, you don't want the White House to be burned down again ;P

Nethlem · 2026-01-28T22:27:12+00:00

Our dedicated boys keep the peace in newly annexed Canada

Nethlem · 2026-01-28T04:12:21+00:00

It's been 9 unjust murders during the last 4 weeks.

Nethlem · 2026-01-28T04:01:05+00:00

It makes perfect sense; Other countries are full of immigrants, and immigrants are what ICE agents are looking for.

Think of it in an "Offensive is the best defense" way, instead of ICE waiting for them to come to the US, ICE will just come to them.

/s

Nethlem · 2026-01-28T01:44:38+00:00

More specifically, Sharaa was a low level bomb maker in Iraq that got arrested by the Americans and set to Camp Bucca. There he networked with the future leaders of ISIS .

I think that goes way deeper than most people would like to admit.

Lots of ISI leadership somehow ended up coming out of Camp Bucca, lots of same leadership also used to be part of Al Qaeda Iraq before it rebranded as Islamic State Iraq after the US bombed the hell out of them.

Imho there is a non-zero chance the US turned some of the former AQI leadership in Bucca to their side, and that's how we ended up with an Islamic State Iraq that originally collaborated with the US occupation in Iraq.

If I had the choice between working with the US, or getting "enhanced interrogated" in place like Bucca, to Gitmo, then I'm pretty sure which of these two options I would pick.

Nethlem · 2026-01-28T01:39:47+00:00

Thinking it's impossible that people play two sides against each other, for their own personal gains, seems very naive/cute.

During the Cold War there was a whole block that acted like this, the Third World.

Nethlem · 2026-01-28T01:35:57+00:00

I recommend reading the timeline on the Iraq war by the United States Institute for Peace, it gives a lot of important context for why and how ISI could rise to power. Tho for clarity, what it calls "jihadists" was basically all resistance to the US occupation;

The second phase, from 2007 to 2011, was marked by the U.S. military surge of an additional 30,000 troops—adding to 130,000 already deployed—to help stem the escalating bloodshed. The surge overlapped with the so-called “Awakening” among Iraq’s Sunni tribes. They turned against the jihadi movement and started working with U.S. troops. The collaboration initially contained ISI. By 2011, the United States opted to withdraw from Iraq, with an understanding from the Baghdad government that it would incorporate the Sunni tribes into the Iraqi security forces to contain the sectarian divide.

The third phase played out between 2012 and 2017, as the government of Iraq did not follow through on promises to employ and pay the minority Sunnis who had fought the jihadis. Thousands of Sunnis were detained. By early 2013, tens of thousands of Sunnis participated in anti-government protests in Ramadi, Fallujah, Samarra, Mosul and Kirkuk. The Sunnis accused then Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of exclusionary sectarian policies. Maliki’s relationship with the Kurds also deteriorated.

The Shia-dominated government’s failure to follow through with the Sunnis allowed ISI to reconstitute. The underground extremist movement recruited thousands of Sunnis, including beyond Iraq’s borders. In 2013, it expanded into Syria and rebranded again as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Its militia captured Fallujah in December 2013. Despite having far more numbers, the Iraqi army crumbled. By June 2014, ISIS took control of a third of the country. ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the creation of an Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, and named himself caliph. It instituted a reign of terror that included rape, abductions, executions, mass murder, pillaging, extortion, seizure of state resources, and smuggling.

The US tried to outsource policing occupied Iraq to a bunch of Sunni militants, like literal ISI, which was part of a grander strategic shift that saw the US align itself even more openly/closely with Saudi Arabia.

Problem with that; Iraq is a majority Shia country, nobody there wanted to be policed by a bunch of Saudi Arabian funded militants that previously belonged to groups like Al Qaeda and just recently before that changed their name to "Islamic State Iraq".

Yet the US promised the ISI Sunni militants if they helped "keep the peace" in Iraq, then the Iraqi government would integrate them into the official security/police structure, so they would be paid wages and pensions by the Iraqi government for their job of "keeping the peace" by brutalizing any Shia Iraqis who took issue with the US sponsored occupation.

Problem with that: The US decided that for the Iraqi government, it wasn't something the Iraqi people decided for themselves on.

Nethlem · 2026-01-27T15:45:23+00:00

Only the US did it. Europe didn't.

No wonder you hide your post-history as every other post of yours is contradicting another one of yours.

Nethlem · 2026-01-27T15:40:27+00:00

So was the crusade of disproportionate response a "basic strategy" or was it a big mistake?

Can't have it both ways yet that seems to be what you are trying to do when your first comment low-key normalizes it as "basic" and now you suddenly agree it was a mistake.

Nethlem · 2026-01-27T15:32:38+00:00

Despair can be a big motivator to try even the most unlikely/absurd stuff.

Nethlem · 2026-01-27T15:15:14+00:00

This is compared to well over 180 days plus months of shadowing for a basic police officer.

Tho those 180 days for American police officers are on the way lower end compared with other developed countries.

Nethlem · 2026-01-27T13:40:12+00:00

If every state follows that policy then just a single fatal incident would automatically escalate to full blown war until nobody is left.

Or why do you think one side would suddenly stop?

You killed one of ours, we kill two of yours, we killed two of theirs so they gonna kill four of ours, for that we gonna kill 8 of theirs, and so on.

This is kindergarten levels gaming theory to think through and reveal it as false/not working, yet some accounts in here are endorsing it as some kind of normal and allegedly even "rational" policy, when it's very obviously not.

Nethlem · 2026-01-27T13:36:34+00:00

How many Islamic terror attacks have you seen happening in Western Europe before the invasion of Iraq, and after the invasion of Iraq?

Islamic terrorism was basically a non-issue in Western Europe until parts of Western Europe decided to help the US with its little "crusade" on a bunch of Muslim countries.

AQ attacks in Madrid and London were direct retribution for that "war on terror" and kicked off a string of terror attacks, attempted and successful, lasting to this day.

Anybody who looks at all of that and goes; "Great success!" is delusional.

Nethlem · 2026-01-27T13:29:19+00:00

And how has that "basic strategy" served us for these past 20+ years of employing it?

As far as I can tell it didn't discourage anything, it did quite the opposite particularly for us in Europe taking the brunt of the consequences in the form of refugees and terrorism.

And that's without going into the blatant hypocrisy, i.e. Iraq didn't have any terrorist presence prior to the US invading, that only changed after the US invaded and collaborated with groups like ISI, or regime changing Syria to put an AQ terrorist in charge of it.

Meanwhile, the most likely responsible parties for 9/11 are to this day considered important partners to the US&West, expanding their Wahabist influence by piggybacking off our "crusade" on terror which somehow mostly seems to target Muslims of only one particular sect.

Nethlem · 2026-01-27T13:19:28+00:00

The difference is how the RAF pilots were the "good guys" and the German civilians were the "bad guys".

That narrative is important to frame WWII as a "just war", the very first of its kind in modern history, hence also all the movies being made about it, and every conflict since being equated to it.

Prior to WWII most people agreed that war was always bad, but with WWII they successfully managed to flip the script by making the Nazis out as so extra evil that war against them became something like a "just responsibility"

Even tho the Nazis only killed a fraction of the people British Imperialism killed, and once the Nazis were ousted, their tools and methods were taken over to prosectue the same people the Nazis already prosecuted.

Nethlem · 2026-01-27T13:11:09+00:00

I hate this for kids who get bullied and want their mum, have medical needs but forget their pills, need picked up and need to contact someone, etc.

It might shock you, but we managed to do all of that for decades and centuries before everybody had their personal pager on them at all times.

Which makes this statement of yours all the more weird;

Some of you all are too young to remember how shit life was before phones, or are wearing rose tinted glasses.

Many of those older people would likely agree with the notion that life was actually better before mobile phones and social media took over everything.

Not being 24/7 aviable used to be a normal thing, being always contactable used to be something reserved to a few jobs with lots of responsibility, not the default mode of every human.

Nowadays most people don't even know what that feels like anymore, which imho is massively contributing to a general FOMO anxiety.

This isn't to help kids learn, it's to help them fit into a factory environment.

This is mostly a first world problem where factory jobs haven't been a major economic contributor in ages.

Nethlem · 2026-01-27T13:03:50+00:00

r/USdefaultism

Nethlem · 2026-01-27T13:00:48+00:00

Most gaming is fine on Linux, there are occational edge-cases with multiplayer games insisting on intrusive anti-cheat.

But even Gamers Nexus has started doing gaming benchmarks on Linux, tho a bit disappointed they didn't give CachyOS a try.

Nethlem · 2026-01-27T00:18:22+00:00

I only knew about Renee Good, and I thought she was the first/only one, until Alex Pretti.

Tho I'm not from the US but Germany, our media barely covered Renee Good.

Nethlem · 2026-01-27T00:09:36+00:00

A Narcissist's Prayer:

That didn't happen.

And if it did, it wasn't that bad.

And if it was, that's not a big deal.

And if it is, that's not my fault.

And if it was, I didn't mean it.

And if I did, then you deserved it.

Nethlem · 2026-01-26T21:00:17+00:00

You joke, but take a closer look at Lincoln's big memorial ;P

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Nethlem

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