You do know that this was not the pretext for the invasion, or? (Those weapons were accounted for in the old reports to the UN, the pre-text was that Saddam was developing NEW WMD's) That he HAD chemical weapons was never disputed.
And I ONLY used this as a reason for what I posted about the dividing of nations by politicians and parties.

BUT your post shows what I was aiming at, perceived reality ;)
People hear something and they already jump to a conclusion. If wrong or right, doesn't really matter. (not saying you do it all the time ;) )

But just think a bit about it. In older days people would discuss and not start a discussion with words like "republican conspiracy " ....just discuss....(not being offended by the way ;) )
Sometimes a discussion will end up with we agree to disagree, BUT this seems not to happen anymore.

Divide and conquer.

i just bite it
it's for the look, i don't light it

No love for the haters, the haters
Mad, 'cause I got floor seats at the Lakers
See me on the fifty yard line with the Raiders
Met Ali, he told me I'm the greatest

Yes, he is pretty much right.
There is no reason to fight over what was "the only" or "decisive" factor in the election, but he had an important point. My summation would be "Clinton was campaigning in the world that she believed exists; Trump in the world as it really is", but that's just another point of view of the same thing.
Simply put, Clinton's campaign was convincing of already convinced as if she really believed that vast majority of potential voters are already "Liberal True Believers". As if silenced opposition=eliminated opposition. As if just admit that Trump voters could have same valid reason to side with him would be betrayal of the principles. In this matter, she deserved to lose.

I didn't found Pie too abrasive. Perhaps that is the core of the problem. The Liberals in (perhaps honest) attempt to make the world better place created their own Pleasantville and then forgot how to deal with harshness.
From where I stand, the whole "political correctness" movement is similar to The Prohibition or War on Drugs. It seems to me that USA politics has been always focused more on the ideal "moral values" than a practical results compared to European; "working solution" of the problem isn't good enough for USA, it has to be also "pure" and "uncompromising" - who cares that it stops to work.

let's read some of that investigation that you linked there, shall we? if you wanted to support @Goodaltgamer's argument, you certainly picked the right article ;)

yeah, as I said, he has some valid points. I absolutely agree with you on that.

I just feel that the way he makes his argument much better highlights the problematic discussion culture that we have. Particularly in the internet.

I mean, if you look at the reactions to the elections you find a rather large group of people who insist that they "won't start being nice to these racists, just because they've won. We got to continue to fight them. NO tolerance to racism,bigotry and sexism. ..."

Go up to these people and strike up a conversation. Starting with the thesis of the video: "it's your fucking stupidity that is responsible for the election result."

Do you think that this will lead to a productive discussion ? Rather unlikely. People will usually go into defensive mode when presented with these kind of attacks. And most likely respond in kind.
At which point you can stop the conversation and go back watching cat videos on youtube ;)

So what does it say about society that an argument gains the most attention only when wrapped in an angry rant ?

you german is weird people for me i'll never understand how you think - IF you think... in the past your people said "NO tolerance" to jews and there was murder. now you say "NO tolerance" for racism, and merkel imports terrorists in EU. i think that every idea no matter how good it would seem, if you take it to extreme, it will always be bad. kabbalah the religion of Israel says that evil in its most abstract form is an excess of virtue - like love for instance. love is good but if i fuck your mother in the ass too hard, her asshole breaks, she dies and i killed the woman i loved most :'( see? that's bad

Officially, the US is still at War (Afghanistan) though I suspect most folks have already forgotten about that.

As for relative peace, the international situation can change pretty quickly. When a new president (and accompanying state department) is sworn in, it usually takes him and his staff some time to get used to things and it's not uncommon for leaders of other countries to start prodding the new administration just to see how they react. This will be especially tempting with Trump due to the fact that he's a political noob with less foreign policy knowledge than the average high school student whose statements have been all over the place.

Then there's what's left of IS who've been breaking out the non-alcoholic champaign at the news of Trump's victory. I hope I'm wrong about this, but it wouldn't surprise me if there's a terrorist attack in the US shortly after Trump's inauguration that's specifically geared at seeing just how much of an overreaction he can be provoked into.

We've had terrorist attacks during the current administration, but they refuse to acknowledge them as such. They like to call them "lone-wolf attacks" and only reluctantly admit when the person is tied to radical Islam..

I don't know if I'd call those provocation attacks though. (and if they were they didn't work) They were indeed essentially "random" attacks with no real goal aside from inflicting carnage.

One example of a very effective provocation attack was 9/11. There was the death toll of course, but the primary goal was humiliating the US by striking at spots with a strong symbolic value and provoking the country into a costly and extensive operation abroad. (Bush was more than happy to oblige and then some)

A true provocation attack wouldn't just be an attacker walking into a nightclub or shopping mall and shooting or blowing up the place, it'd be an attacker inflicting mayhem in a place like one of Trump's properties, just to get under his skin and make him forget his isolationist tendencies.

It's not just Trump that is the worrying part, it's the kind of people he will put in very powerful positions that is equally as disturbing.

Thanks for the link.

Yeah they still are, but not at any stage which requires much decision making. AFAIK they're slowly withdrawing and that process has already been initiated.

Yes he can be very entertaining to prod but other than that, the US isn't in any sort of diplomatic crisis (more than it usually is) where Trump can do much damage by being rash. I certainly wouldn't want him as President during the Cuban missile crisis or any such situation. So I still think that if the US wishes to experiment with Trump's brand of politics (whatever it is, and its clear they do from the election results), this is the best time to do it, rather than say having President Hillary now and having Trump or a Trump-like leader at a more volatile time.

Has ISIL ever directly planned and attacked the US? From what I know, its mostly been Islamist minded young men doing the attacks independently and IS claiming responsibility. Not that that is somehow better but I'd imagine its very difficult for them to coordinate an attack with multiple terrorists and weapons from outside the US.
That article is literally listing out quotes from the new White House Strategist (whatever that is) that the author considers to be wrong without even stating why. Basically he's taking quotes out of context and then not even explaining why he thinks they're wrong. Ie saying nothing more than ''You're wrong'' and leaving it at that.

And Trump's VP is probably much worse. He probably forsaw attempts being made on his life and appointed someone worse than him as VP as life insurance.

Well, I'm happy that Americans will get the brunt of the idiocy this time around. Instead of what generally happens, that you export your greatest asset overseas instead. Perhaps this will make you see why having a political process like this isn't a good idea, when you actually suffer from it personally.

Or not, and you can just decend into chaos and depression. Whatever works.