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Oh, please. Go and level North Korea if you're so worried about your taboos, followed by India, Israel and Pakistan. This is about 'we can and we felt like it and hey, it worked in Venezuela'. If it were actually a sacred do-or-die moment where the correct action was obvious, everybody would be on board.
The fact that America is increasingly willing to kill for a chocolate bar, with a significant contingent of Americans grinning and making finger-guns the whole way, is why the collective response of the rest of the world has been to treat you like a drunk who barged onto the subway with a gun on his hip muttering 'bang, bang' when he looks at people.
My comment about "taboos" was directed at the hostage crisis, which is one of the most egregious acts of terror ever committed against America and her people. The hostage crisis merits extreme violence, because a state that can not even respect embassies is already gone rogue. And if we respond with weakness that only invites more violence. That's what war is.
This bears no resemblance even remotely to anything under discussion. In 2026 America has toppled a violent narco state in Venezuela, bombed a rogue theocratic regime in Iran, and threatened the kleptocratic regime of Cuba. "Kill for a chocolate bar"? I really wonder what kind of news they print in Europe. If you can't even imagine American motivations as rational I do think this is analogous to TDS, because it's not hard actually to understand what America wants or why. The only incident I can think of that even vaguely resembles your remark is the Greenland incident, which as I argued in another post is (in part) a serious overreaction on the parts of the Europeans. We could argue about that too some more I suppose, but it really doesn't bode well if a priori America is to be treated as some kind of crazy cokehead cowboy psycho. (While the good rational Europeans are sending bombs to Greenlandic runways and cheering for Iran to keep the Straits of Hormuz closed.)
See what I mean? The fact that you disagree is treated as proof that you were right to disagree.
Then I mistook your meaning and I apologise. To be honest, I find the hostage crisis less compelling than the nuclear justification. It's a taboo so sacred, so utterly demanding of violence and death that America did nothing for 45 years except support Iraq, apply economic sanctions and blow up a couple of oil platforms? The weakness implied by turning a blind eye is so desperately dangerous that nothing similar has happened since that time?
I'm aware I'm slipping into sarcastic paraphrases and I apologise for that, especially since you argued in good faith in the other thread, but I just can't see this. It seems to me to be transparently self-serving justification that exists primarily because the Right/MAGA has a justified fear that if they show weakness then we will be back with the old regime of throwing conservatives to the wolves every time anyone gets performatively upset. I get that. I felt the same about Boris Johnson, especially when he was so obviously being targeted with smear campaigns over trivialities by scalp-hunters who loathed him. Nevertheless, he also had some fairly serious flaws. I hate to say it but even Keir Starmer is sort-of better (i.e. a hell of a lot stronger on immigration).
I regard myself as sane (he says wryly). Everyone including me broadly understood at the time why you (+ Britain) went to war after 9/11, because 9/11 was legitimately that awful. A hostage crisis that I doubt either of us are old enough to remember just doesn't seem on the same level to me. Not to mention that America's new habit of abducting or assassinating heads of state is considered pretty damn taboo in itself.
I get the lion's share of my info about America here. Some of it literally from you yourself. Everything that I have ever written about politics over the last five years is in my posting history on this very site - please look through and decide for yourself whether I am suffering from TDS. Like I said, I understand intimately why people on the right are inclined to roll their eyes at people wailing about Trump, and why they are so protective of him. I can only beg that you in turn consider that you are now dismissing serious worries from inside the tent (or at least adjacent to it) as TDS.
We did a lot against Iran in the intervening 45 years and Carter's weak response to the mullahs was considered disgraceful for generations. It was on TV constantly, Reagan's inauguration speech was played split-screen with video of the hostages boarding planes to come home. A huge part of the controversy over Obama's Iran deal was that it viscerally reminded many of that exact weakness.
Look I'm losing steam for this argument because I have other things to do today but I think you're a reasonable guy and I don't take any offense personally and I'm certainly not trying to insult you either. What I'm getting at in general, more or less, is that every time I talk to foreigners about America, especially Europeans, at some level they throw something up and fail to understand. (Actually I think Arabs and Asians tend to get it pretty well.)
But, from our point of view, it's the Europeans who are going crazy. This is debated within America and you'll find different perspectives but there has been total hostility to spending more on NATO, eliminating tariffs, Trump's warnings about Russian oil, Greenland, etc., even when what America is proposing is in Europe's best interests. Well, sure, America can be a loose cannon and hasn't always used its supremacy in the best ways (hence MAGA), but Europe beings to lose all right to criticize when they rely on us to defend them.
Because America doesn't care about Europe's criticisms at all. I'm reminded of Baudrillard's remark that he came to America hoping to get a different perspective on Europe -- and found that instead Europe vanished entirely. "I don't think about you at all etc."
Fair enough. I appreciate the well-wishes and I think this has been a helpful and productive conversation; I feel like I understand your perspective better now. I apologise
if I've beenfor being rude. I'm a little hot under the collar about this stuff at the moment.Let's leave the discussion about European military weakness for another time since I don't think either of us are up for it. As a brief TLDR, I think that there was originally an understated quid pro quo of 'America pays for Europe's defence, in exchange for free staging posts against the real threat Russia plus Europe not (being able to) do anything the Americans don't like' and that the agreement has broken down over the last twenty years due to various factors on both sides.
Interesting to hear. Not my history so helpful to get that perspective.
European governments do and say such stupid, stupid things. Closing Germany's last nuclear power plant in the middle of an energy crisis was stupid. Immigration policy has been stupid. Sending Labour volunteers to help the Democrats was stupid. Giving away the Chagos Islands, in defiance of the islanders' own expressed wishes, was profoundly stupid and self-harming.
Pretty much everything Vance said in his famous speech was correct despite the reception it got. The military, oil and tariffs stuff is a bit more complicated IMO but again let's save it.
The trouble from my perspective is that all the ridiculous and performative bleating has made it almost impossible to break through when Europeans are actually legitimately nervous and have a real point. I believe that the same is true inside America - Scott's essay You Are Still Crying Wolf was very prescient in that regard. Anyway, thanks for the talk.
EDIT: 2500 comments, get! I need a life.
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