EDIT: Correction, I was banned from Lemmy Zip, the confusion stems from my inability to see Lemmy Zip communities in the search anymore leading me to think it was Lemmy ML which has a community of the same name.
"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"
Welcome to MoG!
Meanwhile On Grad
Documenting hate speech, conspiracy theories, apologia/revisionism, and general tankie behaviour across the fediverse. Memes are welcome!
What is a Tankie?
(caution of biased source)
Basic Rules:
Sh.itjust.works Instance rules apply! If you are from other instances, please be mindful of the rules. — Basically, don't be a dick.
Hate-Speech — You should be familiar with this one already; practically all instances have the same rules on hate speech.
Apologia — (Using the Modern terminology for Apologia) No Defending, Denying, Justifying, Bolstering, or Differentiating authoritarian acts or endeavours, whether it be a Pro-CCP viewpoint, Stalinism, Islamic Terrorism or any variation of Tankie Ideology.
Revisionism — No downplaying or denying atrocities past and present. Calling Tankies shills, foreign/federal agents, or bots also falls under this rule. Extremists exist. They are real. Do not call them shills or fake users, as it handwaves their extremism.
Off-topic Discussion — Do not discuss unrelated topics to the point of derailing the thread. Stay focused on the direct content of the post, rather than engaging in arguments that lack mutual agreement.
Brigading/Trolling — If you're here because this community was linked in another thread, please refrain from maliciously voting, commenting, or manipulating the post in any way. This includes alt accounts. All votes are public, and if you are found to be brigading, you will be banned. Good-faith and honest communication is an exception.
Tankies can explain their views, but may be criticised or challenged for them. Any minor infraction of the rules may result in a warning and possibly a temporary ban.
You'll be warned if you're violating the instance and community rules. Continuing poor behaviour after being warned will result in a ban or removal of your comments. Bans typically last only 24 hours, but each subsequent infraction doubles the duration. Depending on the content, the ban time may be increased. You may request an unban at any time.
Most people would say "to [countries]" meaning "to the government of [countries]" rather than "to the region", especially since the context is explicitly the governments of China and Iran supplying others.
Not saying you're incorrect (though Egypt is not particularly filled with armed internal struggles last I checked), but that the wording definitely has implications that are easily read a different way than you meant.
Weathering the storm is different from working towards good relations with the US. Cuba has extended numerous olive branches, and at some point, we have to accept that it's not Cuba which needs to change course with regards to US-Cuban relations.
The issue of their domestic governance problems is... separate.
Honestly it would be nice if things were that simple, if the eastern bloc were only funneling weapons into their allies, but nope they're shipping guns and bombs into every nation they can in an attempt to install autocratic loyalists across the Middle East, Asia, South America, and I expect Africa soon.
That's the real problem is they're already waging war on the west.
And there have been high points and low points in the US-Cuban relationship which has recently worsened as USA tightened the Embargo under the 2nd Trump admin and now the Cubans are literally in the news article that comment is under cheering for literal War with the USA as the Castro family declares they are ready and willing to fight.
And all I'm saying is:
They don't need to have a war. They don't need to be fighting for the Chinese, for the Russians, the fucking Iranians for goodness sake. Cuba could just give trump a proverbial handy by agreeing not to militarize and help USA secure the surrounding waters, trade would return, and wait for the demented old fuck to fall asleep and forget about them. In a couple of years it would all return to as if nothing had happened.
... I'm talking about your wording.
Do you think Trump would accept that? Do you think Trump would limit himself to that? Especially with the Iran War looking less-than-successful? Do you think Trump, the knuckle-dragging fascist cocksucker, would take that as anything but a sign of weakness on the part of Cuba?
Appeasement is rightly condemned as a fool's errand when Russia is concerned; don't fall for the campist trap of applying double-standards to international politics based on whose team colors the current autocrat is wearing.
Trump put Maduro on trial, got gifted a second hand peace prize, and promptly forgot Venezuela existed. He's not a complicated man.
Obviously the situations on both fronts are more nuanced than that, with Venezuelan VP being open to negotiation with US oil executives who have been operating in the region for a long time, but the important part is that not only can things not worsen for the Cubans by trading one world power's protection for another but US citizens will not stand for a permanent occupation of Cuba, and if the GOP tries to hold power past their terms then it will be all of our problems together.
Russia wants to expand borders. The USA does not, it's just a sick partisan fantasy of the red ties.
The year isn't even over yet, much less Trump's term.
Yes, please remember that Maduro's kidnapping, the kidnapping of a sovereign head of fucking state, happened earlier this year.
Whose protection are they trading for? They've been aligned with China since the 90s and Russia since Putin's first election.
Abandoning their meagre current alliances for the prospect of throwing themselves at the mercy of an American political machine which has no concept of negotiation at present seems immensely unwise.
That's not much comfort to the thousands of Cubans who will die in the process.
I don't think "It's okay, because it'll either improve if Americans do the right thing (after doing the wrong thing 2/3 times in the past fucking decade), or else Americans will ALSO be screwed" is all that compelling an argument to Cuba. Or, for that matter, to Americans.
Handing Trump a 'win' on Cuba would be a great way to strengthen his hold on low-information centrists - of which there are too many in this fucking country - and strengthen the Cuban exile community in Florida whose death-grip on American politics have royally fucked us four times and counting in my fucking lifetime alone.
Hey @PugJesus. Can we also add a rule that also simping for Trump is not allowed? FiniteBanjo's arguments sound awfully like Trump simping.
I'm not a mod here.
It's not Trump simping, it's just the toxic result of decades of anti-Cuban propaganda in the US. I say this as someone who dislikes the totalitarian red fash regime of Cuba to begin with.
Well the USA has issued a warrant for Raul Castro so unless they want that flavor of violence they should be trying to deescalate.
I strongly believe that a voluntary deescelation of Cuba, with some public flattery and a couple small gifts, would resolve the situation with zero casualties. I think Trump is just that much of a fucking moron.
Right and wrong are one thing, but at some point you have to minimize harm. There is no need for war and mass death in Cuba, so we should be doing everything in our power to avoid it.
How did de-escalation work for Iran and Venezuela, again? How did it work for Palestine? Lebanon?
Why will it work for Cuba when it's failed in literally every other foreign policy crisis of this administration so far?
I think Trump is enough of a fucking moron to think that a mission accomplished banner in Havana would be a welcome addition to the war accolades he so desperately desires and delusionally imagines he has.
Sure. And point number one on minimizing harm would be preventing a US invasion. And you do that by making sure the US knows an invasion will be costly.
Tell me, if someone had offered this exact advice about demilitarizing to Ukraine regarding Russia in 2021, what would you think of that person?
Don't let the fact that Cuba is a shitty regime blind you to the fact that appeasement to dictators is a fucking sucker's game.
Iran absolutely has never attempted a deescalation in my lifetime. They're the epitome of "fuck around, find out". They sold death in every direction and now it's come back to them 10 fold, and it's not justice, it's horrible.
Maduro might as well have put a big neon sign above his head, his most famous speech these days are his "Come Get Me" speech mocking the idea of the USA apprehending him. I think a few days before the capture he was singing a different tune, being somewhat ambiguous to US investment for oil, but if we're drawing parallels to that event then it's not even worth discussion because that means the conclusion for Cuba is already set in stone as well, just like Venezuela's was months in advance, and I only hope that isn't the case.
You brought up Russia's actions, again, but I've already established that Russia wants to expand and the USA does not.
That's not a serious examination of international politics. Fuck, man, there was opportunity for outright realignment even after the fucking Iraq War. Even in the 2010s Rouhani openly espoused a reconciliatory line.
Fuck, man, have you forgotten the treaty that Trump ripped up?
... in which case demilitarizing would be immensely fucking stupid.
Putin wants wars to shore up his domestic legitimacy and power.
Trump wants wars to shore up his domestic legitimacy and power.
Institutions do not act in their own interests. Institutions act in the interests of the decision-makers, and between the minority status of the Dems and the fucking spinelessness of the GOP, the main decision-maker in the US with regards to foreign policy at the moment is Donald Trump.
The only difference between Trump and Putin is that Trump is significantly stupider. Not less malicious, not less opportunistic, not less willing to break formal-or-informal agreements with countries for the sake of militaristic fascist chest-beating.
Shit, that's fair, the Nuclear Disarmament Treaty. It just feels completely overshadowed by them arming Hamas to attack the music festival jump starting the genocide by Israel which is the defining event of the last 3 years, among a thousand similar operations stretching back decades.
In 2009 they had a spy convicted of smuggling NATO activity intel to Iran who presumably would resell it. Same year paid $32,000 for a hit in California on an Iranian-German dissident an activist. In 2010 in a port in Nigerian, an Iranian shipment of 13 cargo containers of guns, grenades, rocket launchers, etc was confiscated and not long after a smuggled stash of just under ~$10M USD equivalent, believe to be in connection to a large shipment of Heroin. In 2011 a car salesman from texas was shown to be in contact with the IRGC in a plot to bomb a restaurant in Washington DC. A couple of months later they attempte the assassination of Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Ambassador while in the USA. Around the same time they successfully assassinate security official Hassan M. al-Kahtani in Pakistan. The list of escelations of conflicts just keeps growing longer and longer, more and more every year after that.
Sure, but every regional power is playing those dipshit games. It certainly hasn't stopped us from aligning with Saudi Arabia - or Israel, for that matter.
The public-facing and clandestine ops sides of relations are often entirely divorced - hence why even close allies like the UK and the USA can end up supporting opposite sides in global spook shit.
Iran is hostile to our interests - but not nearly to the degree that US politics - especially Republican politics - have treated it as, and Iran's first and foremost interest in its international diplomacy is the preservation of its shitty Islamic Republic.
As far as "Let's not be enemies" goes, we already make far worse compromises. Neutrality with Iran is (or would have been, since that's a distant prospect now) more-than-worth an increased ability to refocus on China and Russia.