I'm implying there's a select few running a communist insurrection campaign - Bob Iger is one of them.

Frankly, I don't know why this story had any more legs than an off-comment on an MTV reality show.

But then I don't understand TV.

And John Bolton, who was there and not anonymous, said it wasn't.

And you know he loves Trump.

My impression is there could be shades (very subtle shades) of truth to one or two comments and Trump sometimes makes his points in an inartful way. ' Fair, but again, that's where I think it's worth reiterating that there is literally no reason to believe any of this.

On the world war 1 "who were the good guys comment" I think it's a fair point.

Fair, and it often is percieved that way (wrongly in my opinion) in popular understanding.

But to be blunt, I'm going to go out on a limb here and go with "the side that didn't start this war in spite of being given almost everything they wanted in an ultimatum, go on to kill a higher proportion of Serbs than Hitler or post-Yugoslav warlords like Tudjman did, grotesquely violate international law, genocide Christian minorities like the Armenians and Greeks, and then keep poking the US until it got fed up with it."

WW2 was a clear cut example of Hitler trying to conquer Europe and exterminate the Jews and other ethnic groups.

Well ,Hitler is only part of the story. At the very least there's also the Japanese, Soviets, and Mussolini.

But WW1 was basically just an example of what happens when a bunch of countries have interlocking alliances and instead of a way to deconflict, an assassination of an Archduke triggers a dominoe effect of alliances who are now at war but with no clear objective, who spend the next four years slugging it out in a muddy field with no strategy but to capture the next trenchline and kill or drive off the enemy.

This is the common story, and it grits my teeth each time I read it.

Firstly:

But WW1 was basically just an example of what happens when a bunch of countries have interlocking alliances and instead of a way to deconflict...

This is not true if one studies (and not even that particularly deeply) it.

The "interlocking alliances" were less locking than they're often portrayed to, and- above all- were held together by mutual interest. Which meant they could (and would) be broken when applicable.

In particular, the Italians responded to attempts to activate the Triple Alliance by pointing out that the Triple Alliance was (in text even if not exactly in intent) a defensive alliance, pointing out that the Austro-Hungarians and Germans were waging a war of aggression, and telling them to go F-k themselves in a creative way.

Morever, there WERE ways to de-conflict, and they WORKED several times in the years leading up to it. Whether it was the "Triple Intervention" of Germany, Russia, and France against Japan diplomatically, the Fashoda Crisis, or the Panther Conflict.

The problem is, deconflicting meant somebody had to be willing to step back.But by the middle of the 20th century's second decade the Central Powers were no longer really interested in doing so. After Germany (to say nothing of Austria-Hungary_ had seen their mixed socialist-absolutist political and economic systems repeatedly humiliated by Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, the US, and (of all countries) Serbia, If you want a laugh (and useful tools to disprove the "But SANCTIONS" excuse for communist dictatorships' failures) take a gander at the so called "Pig War" the Habsburgs tried to use to destroy the Serbian economy and how it wound up doing the exact opposite. This was repeated time and again with things like the Habsburgs' being forced to drop sanctions on Serbia, Germany being kicked in the nads and forced to withdraw from Morocco, Ottoman genocides helping to lead to an international series of wars against it from 1911-1913, only for it to get some back after Bulgaria alienated even its allies with nonsense like plans to crown its King Tsar in Constantinople and take land from its fellows...

Basically you had very fossilized, very tyrannical governments that increasingly sucked in the PR department and were now increasingly worried at not just the advance of capitalist prosperity in the West, but the West's financing of Russian industrialization which led them to believe they would soon be overrun. So you had a bunch of paranoid, apocalyptic loons who are the intersection between George III and Karl Marx getting tired of being made to look bad, and who believe that if they are going to wage war (as is their ancestral sport and dominant in their world view) it has to come soon. Hence how Conrad von Hoetzendorff spent years advocating for an unprovoked invasion on Serbia even before the Sarajevo murders.

And the US joined that war late because we didn't want to get involved.

Very true, as is appropriate. Unfortunately, we got involved because the Germans (in particular) kept poking us with a bayonet with things like financing anti-American guerrillas like Pancho Villa and Haitian"Cacos", sinking our ships, and so on. In early 1917 when they walked back even the limited guarentees on their behavior that they ahd given, the US had had enough, and even a power mad, Prussophile Prog like Wilson could not suffer his former idols' abuses any further.

I could certainly believe a war critic like Trump would ask what was the moral mission of the US in WW1 and an honest person would answer there wasn't really one. Perhaps, and honest people can disagree wtih it, but I do think that is not the accurate thing. For all of the very justifiable grievances people have with Wilson, Versailles, and so on, I do think the moral mission was simple:

The American people deserve better to be sucked around with by some crowned dictators across the sea.

And the US could hardly thrive in a world whose "rules of the road" were dominated by a bunch of power mad idiots whose claims to legitimacy came from 17th century Absolutism, economics came from 19th century Marxist Sphincters, and sense of fair play came from "My way or the Highway."

My problem with the Atlantic is that without sources and with zero context to each quote (and there certainly is none) we can't really get a feel for what was said, who heard it and whether they are twisting it or interpreting it honestly.

Well said. Even if you theoretically grant literally EVERYTHING in the article, there is still no reason to believe them. They provide no sources to us, only insist they have some behind the curtain. It's pathetic.