Smacks wrote:IIRC that was right on the back of Mogadishu, where the American government did intervene and received scathing criticism from home for endangering American troops. I'm not saying it's right, but it's understandable politically why they would shy away from repeating Mogadishu. That event probably shaped American foreign policy right up until 9/11.
Yeah, the screw up in Mogadishu led to US inaction in Rwanda and also in the Balkans, I believe.
And yeah, it is an explanation for why there was no action, but it certainly isn't an excuse.
Although, with all these things I'm always wary of how much the Americans alone take the blame for inaction. The rest of the developed world is just as skittish about sending in troops for humanitarian causes.
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whembly wrote:For realz... and that's okay bro.
All of our debates has largely been about the blue team vs. the red team.
It's not okay, because it's not true. I'm no fan of the Democrats. I see them as a fusion of unions and more general liberalism, held together with piles of corporate money.
For me, a guy who believes strongly in open markets and free trade, and a focus on policies that promote overall prosperity so that some money can be redirected to make sure everyone has enough, the Democrats meet maybe 20% of my own goals.
The Republicans, at least the more classical Republican party, they meet maybe 40 to 50%.
The issue is that the Republican party is simply not the party it once was. We could talk all day about when it started, and when the decline was finally, clearly in place, but the reality is that right now the Republican party simply makes no damn sense on any level.
I should note, by the way, that I'm talking about economic issues above. On social issues I'm much more aligned with the Democrats, but I've never really based my vote on social issues.
The US military absolutely kicked major ass and was successful in the initial phase of the Iraq War. Likewise, the war in Libya was successful initially by NATO (mainly France?) to remove Gaddahfi.
The difference is that there didn't seem to be any "plan" on what to do after we broke stuff in Libya. Whereas in Iraq, we had a plan... which damn near blew up in our faces which required several changes that eventually led to a largely pacified Iraq once Bush left office.
Yeah, but to repeat my point, Iraq was stable. If the US did nothing it would have carried on doing as it was. The US was free to spends years figuring out if it should do anything about Iraq, and if it should how it might leave something decent behind when it left. And if they fail to leave something as stable as what they attacked, then they need to called on that.
Whereas Syria wasn't stable. The Gaddafi regime was in open war. Events were in motion as plans were formed. Demanding a similar level of planning to what Iraq did and should have had is very flawed.
It's not a Republican narrative as much as it was the survivor's narrative. It's amazing that folks want to discount the aftermath reports of the survivors. Plus, the reports that the ambassador himself demanded more security that wasn't acted upon prior to that event.
And we could talk about who denied the increased funding for that security, but let's not have that conversation, because highlighting individual, very small mistakes in the wake of a disaster is fething tacky. I mean, if you want to start naming the Republcans who who shot down the spending increase, then you do that. But I won't be part of it.
A man was wrongly accused as the inciter of this raid. The full power of the government was used to find and accuse a "patsy". Remember, it was during Obama's re-election campaign when this happened, and so instead of being presidential and standing up to the event... they were simply trying to save face. That farce went on for weeks... and we have irrevocable proof that Obama/HRC/Staff.
That was absolutely disgraceful.
You just repeated what I said. One guy was blamed, wrongly, in the wake of what happened. If people kept that front and centre, and didn't drag anything else in, then no-one would really give a gak. It wasn't good, of course, but as a blight on a presidency, well if that's the worst thing a president ever did then he'd be a fething saint. And it is, of course, nowhere near the worst thing Obama has done.
But people try to make it a big deal, because they add this vague level of thought where because he did something gak in the aftermath, then somehow he should have been able to save the lives of the people who died. Which is
bs.
