Comment by nickik | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nickik | Hacker News Reader

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Well, what your are arguing is essentially a conspiracy theory. That does not mean its wrong, but it does mean that there is a waste upper class that have a secrete agenda for the world. I don't think that explanation makes any sense.

> It's about strategic positioning to control resource routes in anticipation of the coming resource wars that everyone pretends isn't going to happen.

I don't know why that should happen. Even if it did, why would you care about the Middle East? Oil will no longer be a important resource and as long as it is the US has its own supply. A middle east that is unable to export Oil would mean LESS resources for china who I assume would be the enemy in that massive war you are predicting.

> because the Middle East destablization program

If they only want to destabilize the region there would be more effective ways to do it. It also assumes that all the people involved in for example the Iraq invasion were all lairs and all of them seem to be able to keep this secret even once they are retired. It also does not explain why the US send 100'000 people into Iraq to stop the civil war, it would have been far cheaper just to keep out and let things happen.

I see no evidence for this theory.

> they don't know how to handle a kind of world where any lone-wolf actor could do devestating things

Bomb building has not changed that much, Anarchist have killed far more people in the US then Muslim Terrorists. A small group of students started WW1.

> Africa is a war ground for precious minerals and metals (and some oil) and because the Chinese have been making big plays there the Americans want to balance out the power so they have a foothold when the minerals that go in that phone in your pocket become more scarce because China suddenly halted exports of theirs or something similar.

The US position on Africa has been extremely light touch. They operate with special forces for the most part. They don't attempted massive economic inroads or outright conquests that would be required if resource security was the main goal.

I agree about blowback.

The main difference between us is that I believe that it is stupidity and internal political intensives. Not some long running prepare for some future war. I don't think any such war will happen, politically, economically and there is the problem of nukes.

> upper class that have a secrete agenda for the world. I don't think that explanation makes any sense.

I don't think people will be able to ever understand whats really going on in the world until they understand it's true, and makes lots of sense. (not sure what you mean by "waste" though.) I have spent the vast majority of my time since I got out of the military tracing the big picture for myself based on the evidence, wanting to find the truth regardless of where it took me. Those who invoke variations of hanlons razor (it's all incompetence) or just say it's perverse results of bad incentives organically corrupting the system, simply haven't carefully examined the evidence. That being said, I do acknowledge two things that hamper my claims somewhat. First, when dealing with such issues I am often restricted to inductive logic due to a lack of hard evidence. Deductive logic is always preferable. Two, I know it's hard for claims such as mine to be taken at face value without better citations, but I do have many contextual citations that I simply haven't made public yet. I also understand such a vast scope means I still have a shitton of things to learn, and don't know everything.

> why would you care about the Middle East? Oil will no longer be a important resource

This is a line I have heard from the intelligencia that hasn't stood up to actual real-world tests. Like I said most of the oil issue was never about us actually having the oil, it was about us controlling who did get the oil. Likewise, I find it humourous that people have already bought the line about no needing oil hook line and sinker. It's simply not realistic to pretend a lack of potential depedence on oil in 2030-50 is going to cause us to suddenly give up our imperial ambitions. Oil is but a part of a much bigger game.

> If they only want to destabilize the region there would be more effective ways to do it.

What other than war, and especially civil and secretarian war comes even close to the same amount of destablization?

> It also assumes that all the people involved in for example the Iraq invasion were all lairs and all of them seem to be able to keep this secret even once they are retired.

First of all, yes, most of them were/are pathological liars. Second, the nature of compartmentalization creates a breeding ground for such abuses to be top down while middle-men ground-pounders (in this case military generals) have no clue about what's really going on. This is a variation of the fallacy I hear too often about "if X conspiracy theory is true, it would take Y number of people to be silent which is impossible/improbable and therefor conspiracy theory is false." Really, all you needed was a core group running the show, the rest tend to just do as told. (Bremer/Wolfowitz/Cheney/Rumsfeld part of core group)

> I see no evidence for this theory.

Then I don't think you have examined very much material relating to it.

> Bomb building has not changed that much. Anarchist have killed far more people in the US then Muslim Terrorists.

Modern threats are cyber, genetic, etc. That's the threat model shift many in the natsec industry are at least pretending to try to shift to, and even the most academic of the natsec group admits technology has rapidly shifted the equation faster than nation-states of been able to adapt. Ignoring this with such a flippant dismissal isn't a serious attempt at conversation on the topic.

> A small group of students started WW1.

History as written by the instigators. King Edward the 7th was the single man most responsible for WW1. I don't have time to get into this one though.

> The US position on Africa has been extremely light touch.

It has been, but it's not going to be for much longer.

> They don't attempted massive economic inroads or outright conquests

The American's haven't, but the history and modern history of Africa and it's current state is inextricably tied to the European colonialism and exploitation of Africa through "economic inroads" and "outright conquests". Rhodesia, Congo, Suez, Morocco, are all examples of this. Not to mention IMF/World bank explotation that creates the corruption and inculcates the extremism being fought. Hell, South Africa apartheid barely ended in 1991!

So your comment about the US is mostly true, but I'm also talking about the supranational oligarchy of the west as a whole, not just the US.

> The main difference between us is that I believe that it is stupidity and internal political intensives.

I dismiss Hanlons razor as an inherent logical fallacy, and the organic incentives angle simply doesn't match the evidence or fill the gaps needed to understand the global geo-economic/political games being played here.

Don't get me wrong. I see this response from intelligent people quite often, and I understand it because it's the safe academic viewpoint especially without all the contextual knowledge/evidence required to say otherwise, but I'm telling you now it's not the truth of the matter at all.

The pages of history are littered with conspiracy, and until people can stop trying so hard to dismiss it because of the negative modern connotations they won't be able to approach the evidence and follow it to the truth regardless of where it leads.

See part 4C. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-23/1967-he-cia-created...

I'm sorry but I'm not seeing your logic at all.

> King Edward the 7th was the single man most responsible for WW1.

I would actually be interested in that one.

I have only heard one person ever to blame Britain for WW1. That person was conspiracy theorist who believed in Anglo-Saxon elite that has a secret plan for world domination and they had it since 1066.

I myself have read quite a lot about WW1 and making Edward the 7th responsible is simply wrong.

I mean the conflict only went global when UK decided to enforce Belgian neutrality with a military response. Otherwise, it would have just been a regional war between France, Germany and Russia. The war would have been shorter and UK would have kept its empire for longer.

Not like UK intervening in WWI ensured peace or anything

When France, Germany, Russia, Austria and maybe possible the Ottoman empire fight a war its defiantly not in any way 'local'.

I really don't understand how people can blame Britain for join a war to enforce a treaty that Germany had was a signatory to, and had broken.

That seem like evaluation the two power with different moral standards. Britain tried everything in their power to bring people to peace talks, these peace talks were blocked by Germany and Austria. Then Germany is the first to violate borders and Britain eventually joins the war because they had a treaty and because the Germans behaved like animals in Belgium.

How can anybody make the argument Britain is at fault here?

From my understanding the problem was that Germany was growing very strong and threatening Britain's domination.

An interesting book about the topic is The Great Illusion By Norman Angell [1]

Saying a bunch of students started WW1 is quite absurd.

I did find some material pointing fingers at King Edward though, might want to take a look [2]

[1] http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38535/38535-h/38535-h.htm

[2] http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1995/eirv22n13-1995032...

> From my understanding the problem was that Germany was growing very strong and threatening Britain's domination.

That is an argument often made, but the evidence for it is basically speculation based on pure balance of power theory.

There is just one very big problem with that theory. Why would Britain not have the same issue with the US? The US was tracking and even outpacing Germany in growth and population, but Britain was willing to compromise with the US based on reasonable disagreements. Because the US did not overreach, Britain was content with losing influence.

The US for example promised not to annex Cuba and signaled that they did not have much interest in further expedition in the east. The also agree on how to deal with South America.

Germany on the other hand was different. They essentially tried and did everything to piss everybody off. Britain was in some cases actually prepared to agree with Germany, but Germany behaved so stupidly that they drove them in French hands.

Then Germany continued to behave like idiots so that eventually the arch enemies Russia and Britain agree to an alliance even when they had outstanding issues in Persia and other places.

Even then, once German soldiers were literally walking threw and destroying Belgium Britain only joined the war on a thin margin in parliament.

I really don't see how Britain can be made responsible for any of it. Britain loudly called for peace talks until right before WW1 and Germany/Austria refused any kind of talks.

> Saying a bunch of students started WW1 is quite absurd.

The caused a geopolitical event who's fallout caused the war. Of course they did not put on German uniforms and walked over the Belgium border.

> I did find some material pointing fingers at King Edward though, might want to take a look [2]

Seems to me that amounts to about a conspiracy theory. There is this Anglo-saxon elites conspiricy theory going around. Everything that happens was somehow planned and put in place by the British so they could profit form it.

I have read multiple very modern books that in detailed researched these diplomatic relationships and not a single modern historian seems to endorse this theory.

> An interesting book about the topic is The Great Illusion By Norman Angell [1]

He had some good points. His problem was to misunderstand the political economy of the countries. In the autocratic empires the people who have the power to declare and make war are not the same people who mostly profited from the markets.

The German and Austrian high officials were part of a separate culture where they actually look down on many business men and the newly rich, all they car about was power and honor. Looking at the Austrians makes this point quite clear, these people were not living in the same world that Angell was outlining.

Many German capitalist understood the problem and were against war, but they did not have the required influence.

Edit:

If you want to read one book on the subject I would recommend "The War that Ended Peace" by the highly respected historian Margaret Macmillan.

A conflict with the US would have been pointless I assume due to geographical reasons, very hard to send troops over. Meanwhile Germany was posing a threat quite nearby. But indeed there were very complicated times and it's hard to blame someone explicitly.

I agree with you about the King Edward material, feels a bit conspirative to me too. Although some political and economical points there make sense.

Thank you for the book reference, will check it out.

Btw, this discussion is a bit discouraging to me since I realise that not even after 100 years we can properly agree on some facts. Tech giants fighting fake news will have a big challenge.

A war with the US or Germany is pointless from Britain perspective. So is it pointless for the US or Germany. Nobody benefits.

Britain was perfectly willing to accept the rise of the US. They were willing to accept the growth of Germany until they started behaving very aggressively.

Germany could not defeat Britain in a naval race. They had already given up even trying before WW1. Why would Britain intentionally start a war, after Germany had already been defeated. That would only give them the chance to conquer France/Belgium.

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