it took you 4 days to respond and tell me about how bad i made you feel
yeah, you totally didn't read my 'opinion' on how you made yourself an ass by bashing the entire comm talking about things we already know
btw joe and hunter biden should be prosecuted. nobody cares you think they are cool.
evangelical exports + techbro shit + homegrown propaganda outfits = transplant of american style libertarianism into the latin american political context. there's already a tendency in the latin american right to believe that there's no such thing as political struggle. there's one, proper, way to administer the state and every shortcoming is down to corruption. libertarians take that (understandable) trauma with petty political corruption and fuse it with all the anti social, anti civilizational instincts of american libertarianism. only they try to implement their policies in countries that can't just cut taxes and print money for 40 years straight.
'we need to elect a guy who's already rich, maybe a banker. he won't steal money because he doesn't need to!'
the lasers can vaporize the dust so it still works
last i checked they wanted to make lasers for this
are there any other peoples that you'd like to see destroyed and weren't you satisfied with 'weakening unfriendlies' in the middle east?
oh don't get me started on american libertarianism in latin america
I think a good rule of thumb is to always remember that governments take action in order to preserve themselves in power. That's always the short term goal. Even before we are enlightened as to the weight, interests and institutinal power of a government like Nigeria's, we have to ask ourselves wether the current government would survive intervening, and wether it would survive not doing anything. This is what leads on to the right questions.
It reminds me of all the people online being surprised at the RAND study that pointed out how Japan probably wouldn't outright join a hot war with China over Taiwan. And why would they? 'The West' 'losing Taiwan' would not collapse the current japanese government. But having the home islands effectively blockaded from international trade during the war, while ruining future relations with China probably would. This puts international pressure and internal politics in their given places, without disregarding one or the other.
he's the frontrunner
We got ourselves an interesting substack, which addresses the crisis in Niger within the terms of local politics rather than just geopolitical jockeying that a lot of people including us tend to limit ourselves to. Some of the highlights are:
Nigeria is a geopolitical force in it's own right, with control over a number of multilateral organizations and wether intervention happens or not is really down the internal politics of Nigeria.
Nigeria is going through the motions to build up international legitimacy for an ECOWAS intervention, but it is recalcitrant due to mounting opposition within itself.
Unlike what some tend to believe, this opposition has nothing to do with pan african or anti imperialist solidarity. Rather the danger of further crisis and displacement right at the border. Not to mention how the president of Nigeria relies on a voting base from the north of the country, which is related to the people of southern Niger.
Unlike some have reported Algeria has not said that they'll intervene to save the Nigerien junta. They also just think that intervention will worsen the situation. So they are opposed to both the coup and invasion.
Understandably, the gut reaction of people in the region about military coups comes from the fact that nobody is holding out for a second Thomas Sankara. Everyone sees a military junta as a new kleptocracy in the making.
When people talk about Nigerien Uranium or Gold, they are oversimplifying the situation. Niger is a resource colony in the era of financial capitalism. Yes, there are french companies that exploit the shit out of Niger's markets. But the larger point is the unravelling of the Francophonie as a whole, on which so much of french finance relies on. France won't be without fuel for it's nuclear plants because they can just buy from Kazakhstan or Canada.
Incidentally the US doesn't really give a shit about France. It's all about the perceived geopolitical win of Russia's. A perception that is driven by protestors with Russian flags and false videos of Wagner planes touching Niamey. And even so, the Americans can't just tell Nigeria to intervene. If Nigeria was a puppet state it would have already moved in. The Nigerians will ultimately move in according to their own core national interests, and if conditions are ready for it.
That said, Nigeria's last ECOWAS intervention was in Gambia, and it seemed like it wasn't gonna happen until it suddenly did and the country more or less folded because of how illegitimate the government had become.
they would never attack germany. its too risky.
ok there were no risks involved. even if they bombed the pipeline, they will surely pay reparations.
ok they won't ever pay reparations. but its not like they have to. we were never going to use the pipeline anyways!
i wonder what's next
'our plan is to explode all the computers'
'bro i'm a decker thats my time to shine'
'scratch that we are cutting the power to the entire neighborhood'