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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   26858 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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Maduro’s party preferred making a deal with America to dying.

Has Delcy actually done anything that benefits America and goes against their interests? So far it seems like sanctions shuffling or limited sanctions relief with oil being redirected to US refineries. I'm not plugged into what the flow of drugs looks like at a statistical level, but it sure doesn't feel like there are fewer drugs around.

If Iran was ruled by people with the character and belief system of EU bureaucrats they would have surrendered on the day, shaking their heads.

Has this ever come true? The same was said about Ukraine wasn't it, that surely they would surrender their fake bullshit country? I don't know what country has ever actually surrendered under bombardment without even a threat of ground invasion.

I don't know what country has ever actually surrendered under bombardment without even a threat of ground invasion.

WW2 Japan surrendered with only threat of ground invasion (declaration of war from USSR) but no actual ground invasion happened on it's mainland, both atomic bombings had been cited as part of the reasons for surrender

Aside from Okinawa which was already mentioned, the atomic bomb was also the culmination of years of fighting and Japan losing ground. All of their cards had already been played and discarded.

Depends how you score Okinawa as part of Japan, no?

And certainly Japanese ground forces were joined in battle before the surrender.

Okinawa

Have a look at the map, saying Okinawa is part of mainland Japan is like saying Hawaii is part of mainland US, perhaps some will say you are correct, but in this discussion I believe it is fair to say that Hawaii is not part of mainland US and Okinawa is not part of mainland Japan

It's closer to Tokyo than I am to Florida. It's less than half the distance from Hawaii to California.

Actually it's nearly perfect to the distance from Puerto Rico to Islamorada, Florida.

So if an army fielding over a million ground troops took Puerto Rico with the express intent to take Florida, that would be the parallel.

If Trump were demanding Iran's unconditional surrender with 1.8 million troops stationed in the middle east and the express intent of occupying Iran, I'd believe that Iran might surrender. Currently the USA has 50,000 total troops in the middle east, with less than half of that in fighting ground troops.

Japan notably was still invaded on the ground in WW2. See the Battle of Okinawa which was the bloodiest battle of the pacifiic war. ”Mainland” makes rather less of a difference when the entire nation consists of islands.

Nonetheless the Japanese fought tooth and nail and the Allies had to spend significant troops to win ground (with 12k killed and 40k wounded) and couldn’t simply bomb Japan to submission. Mainland or not made no difference to that.

Do you see US being willing to deal with even a fraction of that number in Iran? I sure don’t.

Has Delcy actually done anything that benefits America and goes against their interests? So far it seems like sanctions shuffling or limited sanctions relief with oil being redirected to US refineries. I'm not plugged into what the flow of drugs looks like at a statistical level, but it sure doesn't feel like there are fewer drugs around.

It's not like Maduro was incredibly uncooperative either, he was even helping out with deportations. I've yet to hear anyone explain what major concession Delcy made that Maduro was obstinate on.

Who knows, maybe it was actually a rescue operation to free Maduro from the Cubans, give him an easily beaten trial to avoid the resulting political turmoil of flipping on a bunch of big public pledges (that the real elite in Caracas don't give a damn about) and then return him once things have calmed down.

I've yet to hear anyone explain what major concession Delcy made that Maduro was obstinate on.

The darkly cynical answer (that Rodriguez has allowed a substantial amount of Venezuelan oil money to be paid into a bank account in Qatar which is controlled by Donald Trump but operates outside the US laws concerning custody of government funds) remains the most plausible.

Before Maduro was taken out, Trump was imposing a naval blockade against Venezuelan oil exports. After Maduro is taken out, Trump permits oil exports as long as he gets to keep a large part of the money. It looks like Maduro was not willing to accept those terms, and Rodriguez clearly is.

Tribute. It's called tribute.

In my country we call it Danegeld.

I don't know if Trump thinks he can stop the tide rising with a wave of his regal hand, but he certainly expects his sycophantic courtiers to tell him that he can.

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