Biden can't even warmonger properly lmao. Looks like Zelensky and Ukraine could be turning away from US and opening up some diplomatic channels with Russia.

US tried so hard to make this into a war but everyone seems to be getting sick of their sundowning ramblings.

  • SoyViking [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Why does the US seem to be so incompetent? They have all the resources they could ever wish for their schemes but somehow it always seems to fizzle out in some sort of humiliation.

    Is it American exceptionalism that makes them unable to realistically analyse the world?

    • Awoo [she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Old as fuck corpses running everything from top to bottom who have become high on the success of people who were massively more competent that came long before them combined with genuine very real disasters and crises that they think they can just ignore until they disappear.

      The problem with being so heavily propagandised is also that while the in-group might understand that it's all bullshit propaganda, 90% of the people in your organisation BELIEVE that shit. In the past many more understood it was propaganda bullshit and got on with their jobs properly. Now it's just idiots that don't know better throughout the entire structure.

      • SoyViking [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I I'm absolutely convinced about the propaganda part. The enforcers of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie have been getting high on their own supply and lots of them actually thinks that forcing through a war between Russia and the Ukraine will actually being democracy and freedom to the Ukraine and beyond. This dissonance between observable reality and ideological beliefs makes it very hard for them to make rational decisions.

      • Quimby [any, any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        The people at the top really do believe their own propaganda. Honestly, even more so than the people at the bottom.

    • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Yes. They're getting high off of their own supply. In the 60s and 70s, when the CIA could actually do things competently, the propaganda they pushed was about how evil the Soviet Union is and it's a dictatorship blah blah blah but if you read their internal memos they all knew that was a lie, and could operate with the worldview that was more similar to reality rather than the lies. Nowadays, many of the operatives buy the lies that were pushed in the 60s, the whole government apparatus believes the lies, and it's very difficult to operate competently in the world when everything you believe about it is a useful piece of American propaganda and nothing more. Combine that with the hereditary nature of American inequality, legacy admissions to universities, etc, and the entire bureaucracy of the State Department and others are filled with grade-inflated failsons who are only there by nature of birth and not ability, and that goes a long way to explaining the recent American lack of competence.

      • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        In the 60s and 70s, when the CIA could actually do things competently

        Not really, the CIA was just a bunch of rich failkids back then too. They fucked up Bay of Pigs. They never got Castro. Most of the "wins" the Deep State got back then were just the result of the US's sheer dominance post-WW2, and even then they were just bullying weaker states in their "wins". Now that that's gone, the rot is being exposed.

        • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          3 years ago

          The CIA absolutely was rich failkids back then too but they didn't buy their own supply and they did catch quite a few wins. Iran, Chile, Zaire, Guatemala, Indonesia, etc. And lots of other smaller operations worldwide. Haven't done much in recent years besides get their entire spy network wiped out in China, though.

          • LoudMuffin [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Haven’t done much in recent years besides get their entire spy network wiped out in China, though.

            Did they died?

            spoiler

            :sicko-blur:

            • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Yes. :sicko-crowd: :xi-reactionary-spotted: :xi-gun:

              The Chinese government systematically dismantled C.I.A. spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward.

              Current and former American officials described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades. It set off a scramble in Washington’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to contain the fallout, but investigators were bitterly divided over the cause. Some were convinced that a mole within the C.I.A. had betrayed the United States. Others believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used to communicate with its foreign sources. Years later, that debate remains unresolved.

              But there was no disagreement about the damage. From the final weeks of 2010 through the end of 2012, according to former American officials, the Chinese killed at least a dozen of the C.I.A.’s sources. According to three of the officials, one was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building — a message to others who might have been working for the C.I.A.

              Still others were put in jail. All told, the Chinese killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 of the C.I.A.’s sources in China, according to two former senior American officials, effectively unraveling a network that had taken years to build.

              • LoudMuffin [he/him]
                ·
                3 years ago

                According to three of the officials, one was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building — a message to others who might have been working for the C.I.A.

                Red fash moment :sicko-beaming:

                • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  Fascism is when you execute spies with guns. Democracy is when you execute spies with lethal injections. :very-intelligent:

      • captcha [any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        There's some actual discreet events where ideological narrative overtook factual observation. HW and Team B taking over the CIA would be the marker of that. However it now seems like honest "liberal" imperialists are in charge now and are realizing they can't do shit because it never worked like they imagined.

    • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Is it American exceptionalism that makes them unable to realistically analyse the world

      Yes, US foreign policy has always relied on America's exceptional position in the world. Namely, having access to so much material wealth in its own little corner of the world has allowed for decades of winging it and just "doing us" to work out no matter what As a famous joke goes:

      “A serious problem in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine.”

      The end of the Cold War made the American ruling class even more obstitnant and uncooperative with the rest of the world. The attitude towards Russia is emblematic of that. America won, the Yeltsin government of chaos backed by Clinton was supposed to be done-zo for those nasty Asiatic Russians (they're natural Authoritarians old bean, we learned that from our UK allies!)

      Now that the US is no longer exceptional, the classic playbook of "the US gets what it wants" is being exposed for the sham it is.

    • Teekeeus
      ·
      edit-2
      16 days ago

      deleted by creator

    • StuporTrooper [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Standard decaying empire moment. We're so used to being ahead, we just half-ass everything at best.

    • Quimby [any, any]
      ·
      3 years ago

      The answer is honestly very long and complicated, especially because it's likely a combination of many factors, ranging from lead exposure, to nepotism, to complacency, to culture... you could easily write a thesis on this, or even one aspect of it.