> which they used to help establish friendly dictatorships across Eurasia, from East Germany, to China (simultaneously, the US put an arms embargo on the legitimate government who were fighting the communists)
How did Russia establish a friendly communist government in Hungary in 1919 when it had no troops there? Actually England armed the Romanians to overthrow the Hungarian communist government.
Of course, the US, England etc. invaded Russia and fought the Red Army during/after World War I with the Polar Bear expedition etc.
Stalin dissolved the Comintern during World War II, and the Communist Party USA dissolved as a political party as well at that time.
With Albania and Yugoslavia, Red Army troops passed quickly through a small corner of Yugoslavia and offered little help to Tito.
Insofar as China, the Soviet ambassador as far as I know was the only one who accompanied Chiang Kai Shek to Taiwan. Mao took China back from the Japanese with little help.
Greece probably would have become communist after World War II, but for the Truman doctrine and US involvement, Russia did not get involved at all.
Moscow's lack of support helped in the breaks in relations - with Yugoslavia, Albania and the Sino-Soviet split.
The New York Times and Haaretz reported in the summer and autumn of last year (just prior to the current flareup), Netanyahu had sent the Mossad head to Qatar in order to convince them to send money to prop up the Hamas government in Gaza. As Netanyahu said publicly in 2012, he wanted Hamas strong and the Palestinian Authority and Fatah weak, as the PA was pursuing measures at the United Nations.
You're pointing the finger at the State of Palestine and "any Muslim country", when the real supporters of Hamas for years has been Israel and Netanyahu.
The person you are replying to didn't imply that it was military aid. They said it was to strengthen Hamas and weaken the Palestinian Authority. I have no idea if that's true or not, but it's a different claim than you are challenging.
> You're pointing the finger at the State of Palestine and "any Muslim country", when the real supporters of Hamas for years has been Israel and Netanyahu.
You said true things before about Netanyahu propping up Hamas, and he certainly has a lot to answer for.
But you then went way too far in this statement. The "real supporters" or Hamas are not the Israelis or Netanyahu. They existed before Netanyahu, and they're armed and funded to massive degrees by Iran. And while Netanyahu certainly had a certain symbiosis with Hamas, and used them to weaken the PA, Hamas is its own organization; the diversion of the funds that Netanyahu helped secure them to creating the October 7th attack was certainly not anyone's desire except Hamas's own.
Very narrowly defined the DoD spent ~$750 billion in 2023 (over 800 billion). This doesn't count over $300 billion in veteran's benefits. Nor does it count Department of Energy military nuclear expenditures, nor tens of billions of military/intelligence spending in non DoD departments. Then when we look at the $800 billiom interest on the debt, a chunk of that is for unpaid military spending from last year and the years before.
This idea that military spending is not a large chunk of the budget is only when one has a very, very narrow definition of military spending.
The military and defense related spending absolutely is a very large chunk. I think your accounting is fair and better than mine. I did not mean to imply that defense funding was "small", only that defense funding is not the overwhelming gorilla that many people seem to think it is.
Should point out the PM for Pakistan who spoke out about religious extremism, Imran Khan, was jailed after "Lettergate", the US's efforts to have him ousted as PM (which succeeded, he is in jail now). The crackdown on the Internet followed that.
So all of this is in line with US policy. The US instigated a coup to warp their democratic processes with foreign efforts, causing a chain of events for this to happen.
Khan may have spoke out against this (almost all politicians there do) but he was far more loved by the Islamists and everyday Muslims than the secular army who overthrew him
Its just better to have Generals in charge in Islamic countries (esp ones with Nukes). Look at what happens when Ayatollahs are sitting on the throne for too long. Thankfully Arab Spring ended with Generals in charge of Egypt instead of the braindead Muslim Brotherhood or Israel would have been fighting islamic fanatics on that front too.
A few decades ago, a French minister was being interviewed on US TV about the French nuclear power program. He was asked how France had managed to get all their nuclear plants approved and built. He said, "We had a vote in the Chamber of Deputies. I understand you do things differently in America."
Hey taxpayer! You don't like the estimated $1.5 trillion going to Lockheed Martin for their hunk of junk F35? Then you're just like Forbes, Bloomberg, the Washington Post and the other anti-American ChiComs who are saying all this because "they need it to be shit".
Your rant is almost as inspiring as the Palantir CEO's flag waving speeches where he rants against the anti-America crowd who question why their tax dollars are flowing to his company.
At least Lenin was actually trying to give people peace, land and bread, and was arguably a real step up from the Czarist regime, until Stalin came along after Lenin's death. Trump's actions and words have made it abundantly clear he only cares about himself, not the American people.
When the wealth created by those who work at the New York Times is sent out in dividends to those who do no work or create wealth there, what is performance of these rentiers?
You're arguing on the side of the rentiers and parasites who do not work, and lecturing about "low performance".
It's the people doing the work's purview to discuss performance, not the parasites.
Why were those "rentiers and parasites" ever involved? Why wasn't the NYT (or any other Thing) just created by the workers without their involvement? The answer in practice is that they provided value by providing the necessary capital to build the thing, and they did so in return for a cut of the future wealth earned by the thing. It's arguable that the wealth inequality that set the initial conditions for this is out of hand, but given the starting conditions, how else do you make big things?
Nothing forces you to go work for those so-called “parasites” if you don’t want to. You are perfectly allowed to start your own worker-owned journalism collective if that’s what you prefer.
How did Russia establish a friendly communist government in Hungary in 1919 when it had no troops there? Actually England armed the Romanians to overthrow the Hungarian communist government.
Of course, the US, England etc. invaded Russia and fought the Red Army during/after World War I with the Polar Bear expedition etc.
Stalin dissolved the Comintern during World War II, and the Communist Party USA dissolved as a political party as well at that time.
With Albania and Yugoslavia, Red Army troops passed quickly through a small corner of Yugoslavia and offered little help to Tito.
Insofar as China, the Soviet ambassador as far as I know was the only one who accompanied Chiang Kai Shek to Taiwan. Mao took China back from the Japanese with little help.
Greece probably would have become communist after World War II, but for the Truman doctrine and US involvement, Russia did not get involved at all.
Moscow's lack of support helped in the breaks in relations - with Yugoslavia, Albania and the Sino-Soviet split.
What you're saying is rather ahistorical.