It's a shitty election cycle. Most of the candidates are terrible.

This may shock Americans who have their own peculiar definitions for "liberal" and "democratic," but the Liberal Democratic Party that has mostly dominated Japan's political life for decades ranges from somewhat to very right wing. The current prime minister is on the more nationalist end of the party's spectrum.

Are we supposed to be surprised that they''d prefer most of the Republicans?

>>73691
"Very right wing party" that happens to support and prop up universal single-payer healthcare and robust senior entitlements.

People have their own definitions for "right/left/liberal/conservative/etc." because the standards of reference for these things change country-by-country. There's no such thing as an objective, international standard for such things, contrary to what a bunch of college freshmen finishing their first political science course might tell you.

Like most other countries the Japs have agreements and disagreements with the administration and that wouldn't change with Republicans. Dems and Reps like to pretend they have foreign policy differences, but the truth is very little has changed for a very long time on that front. Bibi or Japan or whoever else might think they want a Republican because of how much they bluster about being "strong", but practically they have very few differences with Obama. Press them on what they would actually do differently about ISIL or China or Russia and they fold like a house of cards in an earthquake.

That doesn't mean the current direction by Obama is the right one, but it may be the only one because Americans don't want another war, especially not a REAL one with the likes of Russia or China.

>>73692
>Americans don't want another war
They might if you can sell them a proper war involving most manufacturers switching over to making munitions a la WWII instead of the little skirmishes with too many rules that have gone on since then.

I've heard everyone from my grandfather and his Vietnam buddies to people doing tours in Iraq and Afghanistan talk about how they'd have a chance of winning more quickly if the people upstairs just let them do their jobs.

>>73694
Well yeah, we'd also be able to win easily if we just nuked the ISIS-controlled areas into glass. The conflict is the same, it comes down to whether or not people have the stomach for a situation where we're killing women, children, and old men wholesale for... what exactly? So that Iraq and Syria might one day have a stable, pro-western government? To put an end to terrorist attacks that kill a tiny fraction of the people that car accidents kill every year?

In any case it's not about what military people want, it's about what is expedient for politicians right now.

  >>73695

Islamic fundamentalism is nothing new. If anything, we've made a grave error in assuming the strategic considerations previously held by the UK and France.

The British faced numerous Islamist and anti-colonial movements, to varying degrees of success. The British lost in Afghanistan, whereas the US seems to have at least completed its stated objectives of bringing the 9/11 perpetrators to justice, or extra-justice. Churchill was also not shy about using toxic gas.

The bottom line is these are centuries old conflicts that we have inherited, and for which the the US cannot be given the majority of blame. We are simply newcomers. Like the carpetbagger shitting bricks at a 2.0 earthquake in California, the current public discourse is cringe comedy at best.

It is with respect to history that we make the claim Bush committed one of the classic blunders: never get into a land war in Asia, twice!

>>73694

What exactly is 'letting them do their jobs'?

>>73696
Others might have been at this "try to build nations in the middle east" thing longer than us, but that doesn't mean we're newcomers. Obviously the political realities of the middle east is important, but the mistakes of the Bush Admin were much more fundamental. Even in hindsight it's hard to believe that they could be this retarded, but it seemed as if they sincerely believed that removing Hussein would be met with cheers from the Iraqi populace and that the new government would be democratic, fair, respectful to minorities, and be pro-western. It would be over in a month and W would be forever known as the Bringer of Liberty and be elected to seven terms. The whole political strategy seemed to be built on wildly unrealistic assumptions.

But now I find people making similar unrealistic assumptions regarding ISIL, that we can go in there with our superior army ISIL in a month, replace Assad in Syria, breakup Iraq into three countries and everything will be fucking peachy. No, it won't end like that, so stop these fucking rose-colored fantasies already.

>>73701

It's easy for us to agree that Bush was foolish, but Saddam was a problem he inherited from his daddy, and their foredaddy's before em.

That's the classic problem with inductive reasoning, it always leads to the SAME SAME SAME. Though, Bushism can be considered an 'abduction' as the argument is held hostage to a premise of hope and faith.

Also to stay on topic with the thread, one might remember who the front runner is for the Republicans. I mean the Japs have cool scat porn, but if they think so low of us (that we could elect a THIRD Bush), we've got some issues.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ludx_lil-bush-jeb-gets-smart_fun

>>73700
I've heard anecdotes about soldiers having Osama bin Laden in their sights back in the 90s but being denied permission to take the shot.

I think the consequences of that decision are plane to see.

  >>73706

9/11 wasn't even the first time they attacked the WTC.

>Hurr durr there was no way we could have foreseen Al-Qaida would do something they've been trying to do for a decade

>>73706
I heard Bin Laden and the then president of the united states were ballza buddies in the 80's.

>>73706

>>73706
Billy Waugh watched him for months for the CIA and apparently had chances to kill him but was told not to. He jogged by bin Laden's compound every morning.

>>73710
What you have to keep in mind with that is how the USA had different foreign policy objectives at the time. Among those objectives was pissing off the Soviet Union, and mujahideen stirring shit up in Afghanistan had that same goal, so of course they got along in the 80s.

>>73724

The Romans had stated policy goals of fucking up with Persian hegemony, and boy did that backfire in a way that, you know, almost completely ended civilization as we knew it.

The parallels are eerily similar.

The first American president to visit China was Nixon, a Republican.
China and the GOP have a lot in common. Keep the little people in their place. Money has privelige, etc.