It’s so frustrating trying to talk to Americans about foreign policy. Most recently, we have all these stories about China stopping western warplanes from entering Chinese territory being spun as Chinese aggression. As if flying armed jets less than 100 miles off the coast of a country you threaten on a near-daily basis isn’t threatening them. No one even questions why these jets are flying so near Chinese airspace. What business does a Canadian jet have off the coast of China, other than to threaten and intimidate? I mean, the most recent one was literally on a mission to intimidate North Korea. Fucking frustrating.
I personally know enough Burgerlanders to know that many of them want (more) war for the crude and simple reason that it’s exciting to them. When they were younger, they nodded along to Rush Limbaugh lamenting that the US military was supposedly becoming a “Meals on Wheels” service instead of performing enough atrocities to give him and his fans the giggles. That attitude never left.
One of my chuddiest relatives unironically quoted General Jack Ripper and said “an unused weapon is a useless weapon” without the slightest apparent awareness that Jack Ripper was a comically ridiculous caricature that wanted to destroy the world because he felt tired after sex.