Thread: Drone attack

Not really.
The US has in fact perfected this, for about 200 years.
The great majority of US economic growth and wealth has been based on vast indiscriminate resource-stripping on an unprecedented scale.

Timber.
About 500k scandinavians moved to the US, to help strip the vast "endless" old growth forests.
Pelts/furs.
Coal.
Steel.
-Railways.
Land, agriculture.
-- Phosphates, aka great dust bowl, dead rivers.
Oil.
-Ongoing.
Asphalt, gasoline.
-US highways.
Gold, endless minerals, ongoing.

For about half of above, I see nothing wrong with it.
In mostly empty country not being used, benefiting from the huge natural resources made great profits and good wages for huge popula.

Originally Posted by Milland

Pretty much the way most area "Powers" have behaved, the US neither invented nor perfected such acts.

In fact, about the only "benign" conqueror I can think of would have been the Romans [Aside from that, what have they ever done for us!?].

From Genghis to the Vikings to the Belgians, it's all rape and pillage in a day's work.

Originally Posted by hanermo

In mostly empty country not being used ...

Except for the people who were living here. Other than that ....

Originally Posted by hanermo

Not really.
The US has in fact perfected this, for about 200 years.
The great majority of US economic growth and wealth has been based on vast indiscriminate resource-stripping on an unprecedented scale....snip

What else was there to do 100-200 years ago? Not like we were generating ad revenue from tech revolutions in 1917.

Originally Posted by Cole2534

What else was there to do 100-200 years ago? Not like we were generating ad revenue from tech revolutions in 1917.

We cut down a lot of trees in the second half of the 19th century to create farmland.

The last 100 years, we have gained in forest. According to the US Forest Service we had 721 million acres of forest in 1920. In 2012 that number was 766 million acres.

I don't think we've harvested any old growth in the last 50 years. We cut down a lot of Spruce in the Tongass after WW2. That timber went to Japan to help post war reconstruction. That harvest was ended in the late 70's or early '80's, and the Tongass is mostly grown back today.

Originally Posted by MattiJ

Could be launched 20 miles away as well.

Patriot missile system is effective only for targets above 50 meters. Any half-arsed RC plane hobbyist can fly slow-ish drone below 50 meters.
And available technology has changed dramatically in last 10 years: Now you can get GPS guidance for pocket change or even ground scanning LIDAR.

Long range drones with large payload are bit larger project but not necessarily that far fetch even for dedicated "cave-men" with internet and common engineering sense. Ultralight construction plans are easy to find, something like Colomban Cri-Cri could carry 150lbs payload with +600mile range.

This is a newscast that shows Houthi commander taking credit for drone attack, he does not say, or the news doesn't tell us where the attack was launched from.
Fast forward to 1:35 for commanders statement.
YouTube

Originally Posted by Cole2534

What else was there to do 100-200 years ago? Not like we were generating ad revenue from tech revolutions in 1917.

Yeah, but ... if you had 100 old albums you could put them on fleabay as a lot and get twelve bucks for the whole mess, or sell them individually over time and get five bucks each. Building outhouses with clear vertical grain doug fir which we will never see again was kinda sad

Originally Posted by PeteM

OK . . . A dark matter asteroid will strike in the next 30 days. Or maybe Martians landing in space saucers, sucking all our oil out of the ground. Because VERY FEW expect this, the Dow has to go up to 50,000?

Typically when oil prices go up, those with oil benefit and industry in general suffers. Last oil crises I recall the Dow went down. This time we're more self-sufficient. My guess, and it's just a guess, is the Dow keeps going sidewise. Eventually (as in a few years), because of all the debt we're incurring and all the issues (climate damage, health care, inequality, education, financialization, military $$$ wasted, enemies created, US credibility lost) that we're not addressing, I'd expect another bust.

I agree with you on oil vs the general market, but disagree about the other issues. In fact, the very things like health care, inequality, financialization....these are things that will probably keep the market going up. Healthcare is a very profitable sector, financialization allows more assets to have money poured in, inequality just gets worse with these things. Having a medicare-for-all system will undoubtedly make the market go down because healthcare will take a hit in profitability - on the other hand, I believe we do need to reform our healthcare system to be more like those overseas. But suggesting it would make the general stock indices go higher is another thing altogether

Originally Posted by hanermo

Not really.
The US has in fact perfected this, for about 200 years.
The great majority of US economic growth and wealth has been based on vast indiscriminate resource-stripping on an unprecedented scale.

In terms of abusive behavior as a colonial power, the US is behind many European and Asian periods/leaders. Here's a little taste of what King Leopold of Belgium did: Why King Leopold II Should Be Remembered Alongside Hitler

Originally Posted by Milland

In terms of abusive behavior as a colonial power, the US is behind many European and Asian periods/leaders. Here's a little taste of what King Leopold of Belgium did: Why King Leopold II Should Be Remembered Alongside Hitler

Anyone that knows the least bit of history will not deny the use and abuse of colonial power. I understood hanermo's point being that the USA isn't as innocent as many would like to think.

The "everybody is doing it so I might as well too" is a feeble excuse.

Belgium is by far not the only guilty European country. Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands, France, Italy and GB can be added to the list and it is longer. It's only a question of how far to go back.

What might be more interesting is a list of the countries that have never done anything except "Mind their own business".

trumps got some bigger drones for the ayotollahs,only they are generally called cruise missiles,with few megatons to shine a light into their black hearts.

Can someone explain what gives the US leadership such a hard-on about trying to crush Iran? Seems to me that the Iranians have more than enough justification to feel aggrieved at the way they've been treated over the last 60 years or so.

Originally Posted by Mark Rand

Can someone explain what gives the US leadership such a hard-on about trying to crush Iran? Seems to me that the Iranians have more than enough justification to feel aggrieved at the way they've been treated over the last 60 years or so.

I found this thread useful to lay out some of the political dynamics in the region:

Chris Murphy on Twitter: "1/ Okay, in a few tweets I'm going to try to explain what's going on in Yemen today, so you have some knowledge to counter this claim that America needs to bomb Iran because the Houthis bombed Saudi Arabia. It's complicated, but now you need to know."

How accurate is it- I couldn’t say.
How many are well enough versed on the region to make the right conclusions?

Originally Posted by Mark Rand

Can someone explain what gives the US leadership such a hard-on about trying to crush Iran? Seems to me that the Iranians have more than enough justification to feel aggrieved at the way they've been treated over the last 60 years or so.

Some of it probably stems from the desire for Iran to not possess nuclear weapons. Beyond that, I have no idea. Not like the world needs additional instability in that area.

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by Mark Rand

Can someone explain what gives the US leadership such a hard-on about trying to crush Iran? Seems to me that the Iranians have more than enough justification to feel aggrieved at the way they've been treated over the last 60 years or so.

Iran is a huge sponsor of state funded terrorism.
They (leaders) have publicly said they don't recognise Israel and would love to flatten them.
I believe the yanks are protecting Israel (quite rightly so)

Originally Posted by Gordon B. Clarke

Anyone that knows the least bit of history will not deny the use and abuse of colonial power. I understood hanermo's point being that the USA isn't as innocent as many would like to think.

The "everybody is doing it so I might as well too" is a feeble excuse.

There were no excuses offered in my post, just the statement of fact that the US has not "perfected" any particular methods of exploitation of other countries. And you can add Japan, Russia, and China to the list of countries who've done some egregious things to their neighbors...

Originally Posted by hanermo

Not really.
The US has in fact perfected this, for about 200 years.
The great majority of US economic growth and wealth has been based on vast indiscriminate resource-stripping on an unprecedented scale.

Timber.
About 500k scandinavians moved to the US, to help strip the vast "endless" old growth forests.
Pelts/furs.
Coal.
Steel.
-Railways.
Land, agriculture.
-- Phosphates, aka great dust bowl, dead rivers.
Oil.
-Ongoing.
Asphalt, gasoline.
-US highways.
Gold, endless minerals, ongoing.

For about half of above, I see nothing wrong with it.
In mostly empty country not being used, benefiting from the huge natural resources made great profits and good wages for huge popula.

“ A unprecedented and indiscriminate” manner “of endless resources ” is how you put this. What you are describing is only proper utilization of a owned resource just like Europe has also done. We have not needed to move and so we are pretty good at managing our own natural resources. I detect envy perhaps? Nothing was ever ordered by Europe right? Europe was a market for resources and not indiscriminate as there was a demand and market in Europe forvthese things. What the heck could be wrong with that?

That is degrading considering the experience of those Scandinavian skills brought to America in this department. Europe needed to cut a lot of forest.

They (Scandinavians) were not the only group to take part in forestry. I believe most decided to become citizens and stay.

There was over all good and sustainable management of the American renewable resource of forests and lumber. Yes there was a period when shipping lumber to Europe that things went too fast. I have seen replanted forests decades old as a young child here. In fact the United States and Finland have a lot in common on the issue of harvesting forests and replanting them.

I wish you would climb off off our backs with the numbers you throw out randomly. I know this is a pastime. Give me a American mod again one day. Now it is more of the same here on this site.

Dead rivers, pollution, phosphates, and other things you describe have been addressed. I have not seen any burning rivers here so far and have not seen stripped acreage stripped indiscriminately of its lumber and what left stripped? That is not how renewable resources are done here. Too as mentioned by a couple of others who took issue to the way you describe this there was forest cut and farmland created. This is to feed people.

Israel.
The US politics and funding system has a lot of israeli people/money/influence, and israel is worried about Iran as a competitor if it got into the normal world trade system.

Iran is a 80M person rich, educated country that would immediately buy a huge amount of american goods and EU goods, leading to Iran becoming the leading regional power in a few years 5-10 trending 7.

Iran is not a state sponsor of terrorism on a mass scale.
Maybe saudi arabia, pakistan, but iran - no.

Originally Posted by Mark Rand

Can someone explain what gives the US leadership such a hard-on about trying to crush Iran? Seems to me that the Iranians have more than enough justification to feel aggrieved at the way they've been treated over the last 60 years or so.

To do business with Iran is more important than how Iran has actively threatened with Nuclear weapons and the out right arms they have sent out to kill people in the Middle East? Make money with a country whom regularly when protests occur there kills the unarmed protestors. It reminds me of the similar things we have seen happen in China. Ignore the dictators and extreme authoritarian leaders for making profits. Yep we own a bit of that also and human rights are not any longer a area of concern because it is easier to look away from it.

Iran has blood all over the region and it is quite obvious. Doing business with them is supporting actively the wars in the region.

Higher oil prices help the Global Warming crowd.

Originally Posted by hanermo

Israel.
The US politics and funding system has a lot of israeli people/money/influence, and israel is worried about Iran as a competitor if it got into the normal world trade system.

Iran is a 80M person rich, educated country that would immediately buy a huge amount of american goods and EU goods, leading to Iran becoming the leading regional power in a few years 5-10 trending 7.

Iran is not a state sponsor of terrorism on a mass scale.
Maybe saudi arabia, pakistan, but iran - no.

How can you say Iran is not a sponsor without laughing?

Not worth the effort responding to you really. Not many call your attitude which is nothing new in this forum.

No one will bother much to confront your bias. Guess you are pretty happen things are this way because you can increase your attacks.