As jarring revelations make Trump’s handling of the Iran debacle look even worse, a foreign policy expert explains how the president’s deranged conception of “strength” is making us weaker.

Donald Trump has once again stepped up his threats to entirely wipe out Iran, but it somehow isn’t forcing Iran to make the deal he wants. The emptiness of the threats is embarrassing enough. But now, CBS News has published a series of extraordinary photographs of American bases and equipment abroad badly damaged by Iranian attacks. These pictures were leaked by anonymous U.S. service-members who did this because the truth about Trump’s war is being suppressed. As one put it: “This is major damage to our ba…

  • Aqivex@fedinsfw.appEnglish
    71·
    2 days ago

    Demilitarization is just a (admittedly big on account of how counter to the long running paradigm it would be) single step.

    The next 5 presidents will have a lot of work to do over the next 20 years…in the as of now extreme hypothetical thought exercise where the country is steered towards actually being an honest member of the global community.

    This hypothetical can’t even happen as long as the fascism is on active display mind you, so that means it would have to be thrown back into the shadows (most likely imo) or finally fully eradicated (I fucking wish).

    But after all that, the next 20 years of US history would need to be a lot of demilitarization, a lot less meddling in the affairs of other countries with the sole goal of “How does the US come ahead of absolutely everyone?” and a hitherto unknown for practically the entire country’s history period of “What do we negotiate to make a better world in which the US thrives because the world was made better?”.

    In addition to a lot of work and money spent to recoup any semblance of soft power back, and a lot of loss in easy political wins.

    The soft power can’t even begin to pretend to be restored without a lot of spending on public education and I don’t just mean schooling for children.

    Extensive outreach to deprogram the ‘might is right’ and other assorted fascist/racist bullshit out of the population would be required, because it’s easy as shit for other countries to see when there’s no political will in the American people to force its leaders to carry through with something.

    Fuck, I could stay here all day, but it’s also kind of depressing. It’s not impossible, none of it.

    But the hurdles to fix this fuckery? Hella.

    Maybe with some dragon gold hoards in the people’s Treasury, and some nice and fancy dragon scale armor, it would be easier. Grinding boss fights for XP tends to make the journey easier 🗡️.

    That probably should be one of the earlier steps and sure would show the world some commitment.