Venezuela was eaten the day Palestine was eaten.

[The Grand Nudger]

Nope.  Being sick isn't an excuse for being a loony troll. I know alot of sick people who manage not to be Atlass.

[ReptilianPeon]

I would agree that being sick isn't an excuse for being a loony troll. I just don't expect him to be going out on the streets and protesting in his condition. He might be loony but I don't think he's a troll. From my experience, trolls wouldn't put as much time into defending their arguments as Atlas and he really believes what he says (a troll wouldn't necessarily believe what they post as they just want to annoy people).

[yragnitup]

Hezbollah’s Backing of Maduro May Shine Light on Links With Venezuela

Hezbollah’s explicit support for Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro could be the first step in confirming links between the South American nation’s government, the terrorist organization and organized crime groups.
Hezbollah’s backing comes amid one of the country’s worst political crises in history. 
“Everyone knows that the US objective is not to defend democracy and freedom, according to Washington, but to appropriate the resources of the country and punish all states that oppose US hegemony,” Hezbollah said in a January 24 press release transmitted by the satellite television station Al Manar from Lebanon’s capital Beirut.
In addition to the press release, Hezbollah’s support for Maduro was also evident through a January 25 visit that the leader of the terrorist group’s “Loyalty to the Resistance” parliamentary block, Mohammad Raad, had with Venezuela Ambassador to Libya Jesús González González.

“We came to express our solidarity with the Venezuelan people and their free will, and to condemn US interference in their affairs,” Raad said.
Hezbollah’s support for Maduro comes amid an international debate about the embattled leader’s alleged usurpation of the presidency and the acknowledgement of National Assembly President Juan Guaidó as interim president with the goal of creating a transitional government and having free and fair elections. The United States recently designated Hezbollah as a top transnational organized crime threat.
On the other hand, authorities in the United States and Israel recently exposed an alleged connection between Hezbollah and the Maduro administration. The link involves supposed negotiations of illegal food imports from the government’s Local Storage and Production Committees (Comités Locales de Abastecimiento y Producción – CLAP). Colombian businessman Alex Saab, Maduro’s partner in this business, is a key player in this relationship.

Hezbollah has manifested its relationship with the Maduro regime at a time when the entire international community has its eyes fixed on Venezuela amid the deterioration of the country’s democracy, the complex humanitarian crisis unfolding there, and the fear that the South American nation is becoming an axis of organized crime in the region.
But it is worth noting that claims about the presence of terrorist groups such as Hezbollah in Latin America have long made the rounds, without any “smoking gun” ever having been found.
Simon Fraser University Research Associate Benoît Gomis told InSight Crime in 2017 that the “threats posed by these groups has often been inflated, typically for political reasons, and how this has at times distracted from more pressing security concerns.”
This is not simply a matter of diplomatic support, as has been shown by other countries with a dubious democratic reputation — such as Turkey, Cuba or Russia — and allies of those who have ruled Venezuela for the past 20 years. Hezbollah has allegedly found a source of financing for its terrorist activities in the populist governments of Latin America, with Venezuela at the head. From there the organization has made links with criminal groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) guerrillas, as well as the Sinaloa Cartel and Zetas in Mexico.
However, reports that Hezbollah is mining gold in Venezuela to finance its own operations have so far remained unconfirmed. Certainly, the Maduro regime has made a lucrative side-business out of exporting Venezuelan gold to countries and groups that are ideologically opposed to the US. 
Unofficial reports based on intelligence information have alleged the involvement of Venezuela’s former interior minister, who controlled the country’s migration office, former vice president Tareck El Aissami, and other top Venezuelan government officials. These allegations pointed to Hezbollah’s deepening presence in Venezuela, which has never been shown before, and its activities with governmental agencies in the country, as was made clear by a CNN en Español investigation on the questionable delivery of Venezuelan passports to members of extremist organizations in the Middle East.

But what is Hezbollah doing in Venezuela? ABC in Spain journalist Emili Blasco has provided some possible clues based on investigations conducted by US authorities. These investigations suggest that the terrorist group has found a safe haven in Venezuela for other criminal activities, such as drug trafficking and money laundering, specifically from Margarita Island just north of the mainland in the Caribbean Sea.

Hezbollah may also have had some alleged involvement in training armed groups that supported the late President Hugo Chávez and now Maduro. Venezuela’s so-called “colectivos” — armed parapolice organizations linked to the Chávez governments —  could have received training from Hezbollah, police sources told InSight Crime. The colectivos have also recently closed ranks with Maduro in his effort to stay in power and prevent a change in the country’s political leadership.

https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analys...ist-links/

[WinterHold]

You can't have it both ways, 

Nobody sane in the west want to trade places with you, I get that part.

But if you claim your government sucks,  who are you going to get to help you over throw it? Russia and China are as much closed states as your theocracy. You go to them you'd just be replacing one form of oppression with another.

Your government is criminal? But so is Putin. So is Bibi, and so is Trump. So what the probem is, isn't between you and  I, but global greed and lust for power.

I'm sorry Atlass, but the truth still remains between the east and the west, be it between America and Saudi Arabia, or Britain and Turkey or Australia and Iran, the west, as imperfect as it is, STILL has far more opportunity for those living under our governments to keep checks on power.

I will NEVER CLAIM the west has been perfect in our global interactions.

---

If all parties are corrupted, you must become enemies to all of them, not supporting any of them too.
If you support any or your foreign policy dictates so; then you must remove any claim that you care about human rights in the constitution.
That's if honesty was a trait of the institution we speak about; Brian.

---

You're right, of course. 

American foreign policy has been evil for many years. 

The recent cutting off of aid to the Palestinians, and the open on-going theft of Venezuelan resources, are just the latest examples. But constant propaganda in the US makes most Americans unaware of the extent of the horror. 

Persuading people to face that is very difficult.

The secular method of taking political decisions in total isolation from morals is the main cause behind the U.S's evil foreign policy; when you strip morals from your decisions you automatically declare to everyone that the goal justify the means; even if the means were as dark as night.

---

But if you claim your government sucks,  who are you going to get to help you over throw it?

Atlas has really bad MS go easy on him. He can struggle to find the right medication for his condition in Saudi. Do you expect a heavily disabled person, who often struggles to leave his house, to start rioting  in the street or something?

MS doesn't affect intelligence. My mind is safe -and thank God for that-, the disease only affects the functions of the body.

We don't riot because the Saudi police, with American authorization, butcher us like sheep.
Thousands tried, and thousands are either dead or in prison right now.

I mean what I say, word by word.

---

Nope.  Being sick isn't an excuse for being a loony troll.  I know alot of sick people who manage not to be Atlass.

So, when somebody faces you with the ugly truth of western foreign policy, you automatically call them a loony troll?

---

I would agree that being sick isn't an excuse for being a loony troll. I just don't expect him to be going out on the streets and protesting in his condition. He might be loony but I don't think he's a troll. From my experience, trolls wouldn't put as much time into defending their arguments as Atlas and he really believes what he says (a troll wouldn't necessarily believe what they post as they just want to annoy people).

It's not the condition It's the fear of torture and getting butchered by the Saudi forces.
They killed and tortured hundreds of thousands who wanted to revolt here.
Even tweeting against them is enough to get you killed.

[The Grand Nudger]

The ugly truth of western foreign policy...not any singular policy but a network of nations with their own competing goals and interests, has nothing to do with your great satan fetishism. What you have and what you communicate on these boards isn't a window into that ugliness. It's a way to externalize your own country's domestic actors and motivations. The saudi police don't pick up the batphone and check with us when they want to kill their own.

I call you a loon because you're a loon. I call you a troll because you're the middle eastern version of a common alex jones.

[WinterHold]

The ugly truth of western foreign policy...not any singular policy but a network of nations with their own competing goals and interests, has nothing to do with your great satan fetishism.  What you have and what you communicate on these boards isn't a window into that ugliness.  It's a way to externalize your own country's domestic actors and motivations.  The saudi police don't pick up the batphone and check with us when they want to kill their own.

I call you a loon because you're a loon.  I call you a troll because you're the middle eastern version of a common alex jones.

Take a break from your "great Satan" broken record. We all know by now that Trump and his Oligarchs fooled the shit out of people and played the biggest scam in human history; convincing people around the world that "Islam is the monster"; not them.

Just like they once convinced everybody that the Japanese are the threat, just like their ancestors convinced the world that native Americans are the threat, and just like they will try to convince us now that China and Putin are the real threat.

Who are you fooling? we all know by now that local Arab leaders won't last a single day without western support. If Gog and Magog stopped supporting dictators, most of these dictators will fall in a single day.

The trick is old, and it was played so many times by the colonists (Gog and Magog) to invade the whole world and eat its resources.

[The Grand Nudger]

The ugly truth of western foreign policy...not any singular policy but a network of nations with their own competing goals and interests, has nothing to do with your great satan fetishism.  What you have and what you communicate on these boards isn't a window into that ugliness.  It's a way to externalize your own country's domestic actors and motivations.  The saudi police don't pick up the batphone and check with us when they want to kill their own.

I call you a loon because you're a loon.  I call you a troll because you're the middle eastern version of a common alex jones.

Take a break from your "great Satan" broken record. We all know by now that Trump and his Oligarchs fooled the shit out of people and played the biggest scam in human history; convincing people around the world that "Islam is the monster"; not them.

Lunacy.  Trump didn't do that, he exploited that work.... which had already been done, with islam and muslims accomplishing much of the heavy lifting.  

Just like they once convinced everybody that the Japanese are the threat, just like their ancestors convinced the world that native Americans are the threat, and just like they will try to convince us now that China and Putin are the real threat.

No one needed convincing after pearl harbor - it became a fact of the matter of the relationship between the nations, just as it was a fact of the matter in westward expansion.  

Who are you fooling? we all know by now that local Arab leaders won't last a single day without western support. If Gog and Magog stopped supporting dictators, most of these dictators will fall in a single day.

More lunacy.  Arab, and more broadly islamic dictators are and have always been wonderfully competent on their own, and they have thousands of years of history to show their cred - a great majority of which was absent of "western" support because the west was a godamned shithole that couldn't even support itself or was very literally at war for centuries with the islamic world.  Interestingly enough, it was competition with those very same dictators (over slaves and spice, cheifly) that initially drove the colonization of the new world (and even more interestingly, the demand for gold and silver in china).  

The trick is old, and it was played so many times by the colonists (Gog and Magog) to invade the whole world and eat its resources.

Except this isn't at all what happened.  Spain, for example, failed to extract significant amounts of gold from the new world - and not for lack of trying.  It was the invention of the patio process to refine silver which made the expeditions even close to profitable - but all for naught, because those resources passed through the hands of aragorn and directly to the east or..even more ironicaly, to the very enemies they sought to fund a war against with those resources. At the time, nothing that was produced in europe was in great demand where the items in great demand in europe were sold, aside from guns. So, the eventual terminus of this little experiment was that the colonizing powers suffered massive inflation and most of the goods extracted in the new world never so much as landed on european shores. They were shipped directly to buyers in the middle and far east. There was no way to justify the cost of convoyance (and it presented significant risk of privation). The extraction of the resources was only successful, in and of itself, with the assumption of the natives extractive methods and labor, which they;d employed long before we came and in turn had been developed to bolster their own pre-columbian imperial economies and the dictatorships which depended on them.

-and I've already explained all of this to you...the last time you decided to use the new world as pretext for bitching about secularism and murrica. In reality, it's just you lobbing a white supremacist fiction as a batshit rationalization for your anti-americanism. The rest of the world has never been some passive observer or powerless victim to an endless litany of white western crimes. Here's an interesting bit of trivia. I grew up down the street, about a half mile away, from where Narvaez landed in boca ciega bay in 1528. He was looking for gold, ofc. The natives immediately realized that they had a wonderful opportunity on their hands. So..for the next few years, they lead Narvaez around the gulf coast annihilating their tribal enemies..always promising that those other guys had the gold, that the gold was in the next town. There was never any gold, just the tribes enemies. Ultimately, only a few men of the eighty remaining (out of an expedition that began with six hundred) survived and made their way by land to mexico, back to then sovereign spanish soil. Those natives..like many others, failed to account for the longterm effects of their cooperation and complicity - but they very adeptly manipulated the europeans for a short term gain seen to be in their interests to the lethal exclusion of their fellow natives. We tend to view them as childlike innocents, but this is and has always been a conceit of ethnic supremacy and religious expansion - to infantilize the natives as a pretext for saving themselves from themselves as a justification for a colonial state of affairs.

The sad part is that it's been so effective as to have convinced -you- that your fellow people are spectators rather than the authors of their own continued misery. The islamic world collapsed, and in that vacuum home grown dictators saw an opportunity to use western resources in order to shore up their own claims to regional authority. Had they not gotten those resources, they would simply have butchered you some other way - as they'd been doing since the dawn of time. The house of saud..atlass.....is older than the us. They were dicking you and yours before we were a twinkle in some filthy rebels eyes. They have, and can, and will continue to use anyone at all to maintain this state of affairs, just as the natives of boca ciega bay did centuries beforehand and an ocean apart.

[WinterHold]

Take a break from your "great Satan" broken record. We all know by now that Trump and his Oligarchs fooled the shit out of people and played the biggest scam in human history; convincing people around the world that "Islam is the monster"; not them.

Lunacy.  Trump didn't do that, he exploited that work.... which had already been done, with islam and muslims accomplishing much of the heavy lifting. 

Trump is an insignificant actor, a clown chosen to propagate the voices of the Oligarchs who hired him, trying to win through populism when other means failed.
I use his name just to refer to his club; people nowadays recognize Trump more than they recognize the Oligarchs. That's the downside of using such a clown to represent the public image of your club.
Linking this to Islam and Muslims is the real trolling.

[The Grand Nudger]

Islam is monstrous and our oligarchs are assholes.  News flash, two things can be true.  

Just like maduro needs to go -and- our administration is incompetent.

It has literally nothing to do with your grand theory of the west. You may as well tell us that the west is making islamic frogs gay. In mere reality, the situation is more interesting than your loony theories..because we see a state of affairs in which the exploitation of a south american country is as much in the interest of the middle and far east as it was during colonization. An impressive return to form given the intervening years. Today they demand oil rather than precious metal and slaves...but, honestly, looking at the state of affairs for the common venezualan, that distinction might be entirely cosmetic.

[WinterHold]

Islam is monstrous and our oligarchs are assholes.  News flash, two things can be true.  

Just like maduro needs to go -and- our administration is incompetent.

It has literally nothing to do with your grand theory of the west.  You may as well tell us that the west is making islamic frogs gay.

A Tu quoque fallacy does not whitewash the blood off western history.
But it's enough to make you ignore the voices of the victims of the mad campaign of Gog and Magog.