Cory1848

I would say that there are entrenched interests in most states -- I prefer that term to “deep state,” and I would agree that entrenched interests can have real power and are generally outside the purview of elections. In China, if you want to call the Chinese Communist Party a “deep state,” up to you, but calling it the “Chinese Communist Party” is more accurate. In Russia, a “deep state” was certainly developing as wealthy oligarchs snapped up state assets after the fall of communism, but they’ve mostly been co-opted by a stronger force. In Thailand, no comment. In the US, there are certainly entrenched corporate interests who routinely purchase politicians, and maybe that’s what you’re thinking about. But these are ad hoc alliances, not long-standing institutions. The term “corporate interests” is much more accurate. In short, it’s not quite as simple as you make it out to be. And I would suggest not blindly latching onto every conspiracy theory you read about online.

Hey Dolf, my wife spent a career as a US diplomat, ending up in the Senior Foreign Service, where she had daily interactions with ambassadors, officials at the highest levels of the bureaucracy (including intelligence officers), and state and federal elected officials on foreign missions. In your addled imagination, she was in the thick of the deep state, but in reality, she was simply at the upper end of a typical bureaucracy of civil servants trying to do their jobs. Really, that’s all it was. So you’re getting your information from what, “videos”? Maybe you’re mixing up “deep state” with foreign policy blundering, I have no idea, but really, you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. I do. Reading your fevered posts here, I’d suggest a few weeks away from social media.

Conspiracy theory much? To imply that what happened on 9/11 was propagated by anyone other than those who actually did it, al-Qaeda, is to spit on the graves of the 3,000+ Americans and others who died on that day. Shame on you.

Just listen to yourself. “Islamist savages.” Sure, some Muslims are violent thugs, simply because they’re human, and violence is a uniquely human trait. Many non-Muslims are violent thugs, too. Did you know that twice as many Iraqi civilians were killed during the initial “Shock and Awe” campaign of Bush II’s unprovoked attack on that country, as died on 9/11? Or, for a specifically British example, there’s always Colonel Reginald Dyer, who ordered his troops to fire on a peaceful crowd at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar in 1919, killing as many as 1,500. The number surely would have been higher had Dyer been able to get two armored cars into the bagh, but the entry gate was too narrow. Just one episode of the UK’s centuries-long “assault” on the developing world during the era of colonial settlement and exploitation. The statement “We have met the enemy, and he is us,” used by everyone from Walt Kelly to Oliver Stone, comes to mind: trying pondering on that for a few moments at least before launching into your next racist screed.

You may be right -- she said in the video someone posted above that when went, she thought she was going to “make a family,” but there would have been such a gaping power imbalance between her and the men who were handling her in Syria that she likely had little say in the matter, and even the British judge who ruled against her admitted that there was a “credible suspicion” that she’d been trafficked to Syria for “sexual exploitation.” In any event, I seriously doubt that she poses any threat to British national security -- if anything, she may need some therapy!

While I totally encourage young people to travel off the beaten track, to experiment with different lifestyles, to “feel their oats” (if that’s the right expression), joining a terrorist gang and having their babies is probably stretching it. John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban,” comes to mind -- I think he spent nearly 20 years in a US jail and was recently released. That said, I agree with you: I think that the UK should demonstrate why its culture is superior to that of ISIS (or religious extremism of any stripe) by showing mercy to this woman.

That must have been really interesting, and beautiful. I traveled to Russia a few times in the 2000s (Saint Petersburg, Novgorod, Moscow), and if times now were happier, it might indeed be a nice place to live (but I’d sure as heck learn the language). I found these cities, superficially at least, very cosmopolitan and “European.” Of course, visiting Saint Petersburg and Moscow would be like only visiting New York and San Francisco in the US; in Siberia, I’m sure you had a much broader experience (and I’ve read that Yakutsk is the coldest city on the planet). I trust that the Russians will find some way to end their current nightmare and get back on a more integrative, progressive track ...

Well, following from that logic, there’s also the issue of Thingamabob’s Thai connections. I am a convicted liar and suspected Estonian asset, but I’m alleging that there’s something fishy -- even impeachable -- going on here, and I’m just going to throw out there that there are lingering doubts that my allegations against Thingamabob are false. All of this may be of no substance, but the Thingamabob crime family should be more thoroughly investigated if only to clear Thingamabob of any wrongdoing. If Hunter Biden (an individual, not in politics and not a member of any “crime family”) did something wrong, I believe that’s being investigated separately. But this so-called impeachment inquiry has only two purposes -- to smear Biden for as long as they can drag it out, and to placate Trump’s tender ego.

So what? I'm an American and I've nevertheless heard of Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, and Kingsley Amis. Leon Uris may not be in the same league in terms of literary heft, but his book is relevant to the topic. And I didn't realize there were such things as "UK threads" here (??)

He would criminalize the scoring of presidencies and arrest presidential historians.

On its release, the biggest best-seller in the US since “Gone with the Wind.” Made into a Hollywood blockbuster directed by Otto Preminger and starring Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint. Hardly “specialist reading material” as the original post claims.

I have no wish to respond to any of this, except to say that you are indeed “up to your neck” (to use your phrase again) in addlebrained paranoia and conspiracy theories. And your last statement is the ugliest of all: racism is a psychological disorder, and fascism and Marxism are failed experiments in the construction of societies, but “Muslim” describes a major world civilization. That you would equate the latter with the three former is worse than depraved. Good luck with all this; I hope you find your way out somehow.

Somebody asked you, “What’s your solution [to the ‘Islamic problem’]? Forcible conversion of 1.8 billion people? And those that refused to convert?” You answered, “Use your imagination.” The first user then asked you, “Why don’t you spell it out for me?” A third user then jumped in, saying, “Here, this is how you do it,” with a link to the Koranic verse describing lopping off heads. You then responded to this third user’s solution with: “Excellent post.” You’re doing a great deal more than “question[ing] the virtue of certain muslim [sic] teachings”: you’ve stated that wholesale massacre would be “excellent.” “Bigot,” “racist,” and “Islamophobe” are not “silencing words”: they perfectly describe people like you. In several of your previous posts in this thread, you’ve proudly worn your hatred and racism; why are you trying to walk it back now?

You’ve described Islam as a “death cult,” condoned forceful conversion of the world’s Muslims (all 1.8 billion of them), and for those who refuse to convert, suggested using guidance from a Koranic verse as a final solution (which describes “striking people in the neck” -- more beheadings, I see). If you’re looking for a death cult, you don’t need to look any farther than your bathroom mirror. I’m sorry I called you “a piece of work.” A mate’s troublesome girlfriend might be “a piece of work,” but she’s still a human being, isn’t she. Given the bottomless hatred and racism you’ve so proudly announced here, you’re something else entirely.

OK, whatever. You can make up your own meanings for words if you wish; there’s no law against it. The few other people I know who make the same specious argument you’re stubbornly insisting on do so specifically to water down the meaning of antisemitism, and thus cast doubt on its very existence. You may think that what you’re doing sounds clever, but in fact it’s insidious.

The “less well educated”? The “actual meanings” of words? I’m sorry, but you’re no linguist; in fact, you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. People can make up new meanings for words all they want, but that doesn’t make them “educated” -- it just means that they’re stubborn for no good reason.

In plain English, “antisemitism” means hatred of Jews. You’re completely obfuscating the matter by talking of Semitic languages, etc., which is an entirely different thing (does “antisemitism” then also mean hatred of Ethiopians?). Don’t get all tangled up in semantics -- trust the dictionary; trust more than a hundred years of conventional usage. You don’t determine these things; half a billion native English speakers do (collectively).

People in the UK, including Jewish people, have the right to express support for whoever they like.

Wow, you’re a real piece of work. You’ve obviously never met a Muslim person, and you wrote somewhere that you’d only ever met a couple of Jewish people. Meantime, you seem obsessed with female genital mutilation and beheadings. I dunno; I can only suggest that you crawl out of your cave at some point and try interacting with some actual people.

I made no mention of ethnicity; I specifically referred to the Israeli military, and I would further narrow that down to military and political leadership. I’m sure that many if not most Israeli soldiers on the ground in Gaza are increasingly horrified by the circumstances in which they find themselves. My post was in rebuttal of the original poster’s excusing antisemitism in Britain because of Israeli actions in Gaza. I was calling out his own antisemitism in making such an argument. I’m sorry if you misunderstood.

What do Jewish people in the UK have to with the Israeli military's actions in Gaza? The former are largely British subjects; the latter Israeli.

I'm sorry, it's the Republican House members who are changing their tune every other day depending on Trump's instructions. The blow-by-blow is covered extensively in the news, so you might want to check your sources of information.

I talked about just that in another post that you may have missed; I'm not going to repeat myself to you.

Couldn’t agree more. The idea that humans spend so much effort building machines with no purpose other than to kill other humans is insane -- it’s literally insane. And we should strive for a world in which such industry no longer exists; alliances such as the EU and NATO, and their gradual expansion, are steps in the right direction. Unfortunately, we’re not there yet, but we do have an opportunity to contain one particularly bad situation (in Ukraine) before it spreads. And it *will* spread. You may not be interested in the war, but the war, if left unchecked, will eventually be very interested in you. As history teaches.

Of course! Either way! Border security and foreign aid are entirely separate issues! In fact, there is currently a standalone foreign aid bill before the House, and their line now is they won’t accept it unless it’s connected to legislation on border security -- even though they had just such a combined bill two weeks ago, and they didn’t bring that to the floor, either. The only reason that *nothing* gets through is because Trump believes that the country going to hell benefits him, Trump, politically, and the cowards running the House will do whatever he says. It’s plain as day. As for “giving billions to foreign countries,” yes, it’s aid, not a loan. But the aid in the form of weaponry comes directly from US arms manufacturers, benefiting US workers, so the money in a very real sense stays in the country. Say what you will about the military industrial complex, and I’d agree with much of it, but that’s not the only factor driving world events, and the situation on the ground in Ukraine requires our assistance for a host of reasons, the greed and corruption that characterizes the arms industry (and many other industries) notwithstanding.