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BigWaaagh wrote: This whole Libyan debate is a bad penny that just keeps showing up. "It's a failure.", "It accomplished nothing."...bullgak! A terrorist sponsoring, genocidal dictator is gone. Bravo! Genocidal response by said dictator stopped. Bravo! A coalition government IS making progress. Bravo! Still, it's a mess because the country is being used as a chew toy between factions that split from after the revolution and are being backed by rival foreign national sponsors to further their agenda in the theatre. Throwing this on Obama or Clinton or NATO or the UN is just gak! This isn't WWII, there isn't a pretty and neat finish and so it's a failure. Oh, grow up! Wake up to the reality of that area of the world and realize we can only impact so much and as such, are probably not going to be getting the nice and tidy results some fantasy-hoping critics think are possible.
Going around the world starting wars with sovereign nations because we've decided that their political leaders are bad people, bombing their infrastructure, creating a power vacuum and leaving that nation a shambolic, bloody mess in the throes of civil conflict isn't my idea of a reasonable, necessary and beneficial foreign policy. There are plenty of governments out there that sponsor terrorism, there are regimes that conduct genocidal pogroms, ethnic cleansing and massive human rights abuses right now, should Trump start dispatching carrier groups around the glob to remove those governments with bombing campaigns and then leave the surviving populace to fend for themselves as best they can?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
skyth wrote: You keep on using that word like you know what it means. I do not think it means what you think it means.
*shrug* Then we've reached a fundamental misunderstanding and failure to communicate.
You use ally, as if that doesn't mean a partner in a mutually beneficially alliance but instead means one country can use another to go perpetuate a bombing campaign on somebody the way a manager sends an intern out to get coffee. The US is not the errand boy or leg breaker for our "allies." We don't just go hurt people so that politicians in other nations can keep their hands clean of the mess they want us to create. There was no existential threat to anyone in Libya that needed to be eliminated, it was just EU politicians wanting to flex some muscle that they let go to flab decades ago so they asked us to do it for them and consequently made our PotUS look like a chump.
But that's the rub, isn't it? If in Syria, just for example, had we just said, "Civil War, it's Syria's to deal with." Obama, or whoever, would have been lambasted as weak on terror, a failure for not standing up to the Russians and a monster for not doing something to alleviate the outrageous suffering of the populace. On the other hand, should it be, "Mobilize the War Machine and let's get the Middle East road show to visit Syria.", in which case we'd be in a clusterfeth and probably hated by even our most moderate Muslim allies. It's a no-win. That's why I find much of this armchair quarterbacking as little more than a means for partisan cheap shots. Obama walked a line of gradual involvement in a situation that had no good guys, LOTS of bad guys and a humanitarian disaster that's still being felt in the West. Doing nothing was not an option and that left us with only a bad or worse option to try and manage.
You're changing the subject to Syria to counter an argument against Obama getting us involved in Libya.
If the primary reason for getting us involved in a Syrian civil war is because the Republicans would have criticized Obama if he hadn't then that's really an argument against getting involved at all. It certainly doesn't cast Obama on a good light if he got us militarily involved in Syria just to appease Republicans. Russia is going to support Assad, they have to because they need Assad in power to protect Russian/Gasprom interests and oppose the Qatari pipeline. We're not going to fight a war with aRussia just to get rid of Assad so we shouldn't waste our time money and lives on half measures. We didn't cause the civil war there and we can't stop it so I don't feel like we have any obligation to the Syrian people and I'm not willing to go to war for them.
I've changed nothing. I've previously responded in length to our involvement in Libya, on this website. I'm not going to go there again and the points being made, whether it's Syria, Libya or any of the other foreign policy "failures" being painted on Obama is that the area of the world in question doesn't allow for pretty and tidy results. It just doesn't and all this finger pointing is, well, pointless. And as far as your last bit about our not owing an obligation to the Syrian people, well, I view them as humans first and most of the world does care when their fellow humans are suffering. The difference with us, is that we can maybe do something to help and depending on your view of altruism, should do something to help.
Wasn't it your response to your libertarian POTUS candidate's monumental *derp* on Aleppo that you said something to the effect of, "Aleppo? Who cares? It's just this week's headline."...off on that a bit, I'd say.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/03/20 20:32:05
I like how Trump was using his Twitter account during the Comey hearing as a running commentary as if he were engaging with an episode of The Walking Dead. Doesn't he have stuff to do? Evidently not. He's got people for that stuff.they are the best, the greatest.
Not sure you can afford to keep paying for all his holidays.
... have ISIS been defeated yet BTW ? Or has that masterplan failed to materialise as well ?
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
reds8n wrote: Not sure you can afford to keep paying for all his holidays.
pshaw... better that than him camping out in the Oval Office with a pen.
... have ISIS been defeated yet BTW ? Or has that masterplan failed to materialise as well ?
There's an increase of activity into Syria and Iraq related to that... so, that might be it. Plus, Trump's has been on record to "not announce" the actual plans.
Which bothers me in that, he's continuing the use of The War Power Act that Bush & Obama used... eventually, he'll need Congress' input.
And it is still the masses clammering to shut a man up.
Here's a novel idea instead. Do what I do, and just fething ignore him.
Dakka can shut you up for violating their terms of service, as can Twitter. What your calling for though is for a private company to take steps to shut this mans voice down, because you don't like it. Not because he's violating anything, just because you don't like it.
If you can't see the difference, that is the problem.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/20 21:21:51
But that's the rub, isn't it? If in Syria, just for example, had we just said, "Civil War, it's Syria's to deal with." Obama, or whoever, would have been lambasted as weak on terror, a failure for not standing up to the Russians and a monster for not doing something to alleviate the outrageous suffering of the populace. On the other hand, should it be, "Mobilize the War Machine and let's get the Middle East road show to visit Syria.", in which case we'd be in a clusterfeth and probably hated by even our most moderate Muslim allies. It's a no-win. That's why I find much of this armchair quarterbacking as little more than a means for partisan cheap shots. Obama walked a line of gradual involvement in a situation that had no good guys, LOTS of bad guys and a humanitarian disaster that's still being felt in the West. Doing nothing was not an option and that left us with a bad or worse option to try and manage.
Obama's choice was to declare Red Lines, then pretty much ignore when they were crossed. That definitely made us look weak. After that, he implemented limited strikes with massively restrictive ROEs and permission chains going all the way to the White House for targets/target sets which the theater commander should have been too high a level for approval. Basically he declared objectives yet tied the hands of the folks he tasked to achieve those objectives, again, making us look weak. He also picked the wrong guys to send support to in many cases, in large part because of how difficult his policies made it to run decent source/HUMINT ops in theater. Frankly, it would have been hard for him to feth it up much more.
Using restraint when the use of military force is being exercised on a foreign, sovereign nation...particularly when there is another Super Power involved...is hardly "weak". It's called prudence and I think you need to learn the difference.
Russian was not in Syria when the red lines were crossed. Nor were they there when we commenced the bombing campaign, they came in after it all started. Partly because they realized we were weak and ineffective so they COULD come in and help prop up Assad.
We either had a vested national interest worth putting $$$ and lives on the line for, or we did not. If not, declaring red lines was wrong, ignoring the crossing of those lines made us look weak. If we had a valid natioanl interest we needed to allocate the resources to seeing the objectives required to protect those interests be accomplished. Our half assed bombing with massively ineffective decision loops in the targeting chain did not do that. Again, making us look weak. Not putting in the effort to help the correct rebels (if there were any) and instead getting caught helping DaIsh and AQ affiliates sure as gak made us look bad. Spending millions to train up literally a handful of guys who proceeded to get their asses handed to them made us look weak and squandered a lot of resources.
Every time a terrorist dies a Paratrooper gets his wings.
Breotan wrote: Is there a petition I can sign to get Twitter to close President Trump's account?
Let me know if you find one, I'd be in.
So wait... I'm confused... you don't want Trump to waste his time on Twittah or the golf course?
...seems to me, that it's the best interest for some that he *isn't* doing some governing stuff.
What I want is Kasich in the Oval Office, but that didn't work out because the most qualified GOP candidate didn't scream and wave his arms in the air like a gak and get all the attention. Now what I want, is it to be Wednesday so I get on with my plans to meet some friends at Adepticon for dinner that I haven't seen since last year.
But that's the rub, isn't it? If in Syria, just for example, had we just said, "Civil War, it's Syria's to deal with." Obama, or whoever, would have been lambasted as weak on terror, a failure for not standing up to the Russians and a monster for not doing something to alleviate the outrageous suffering of the populace. On the other hand, should it be, "Mobilize the War Machine and let's get the Middle East road show to visit Syria.", in which case we'd be in a clusterfeth and probably hated by even our most moderate Muslim allies. It's a no-win. That's why I find much of this armchair quarterbacking as little more than a means for partisan cheap shots. Obama walked a line of gradual involvement in a situation that had no good guys, LOTS of bad guys and a humanitarian disaster that's still being felt in the West. Doing nothing was not an option and that left us with a bad or worse option to try and manage.
Obama's choice was to declare Red Lines, then pretty much ignore when they were crossed. That definitely made us look weak. After that, he implemented limited strikes with massively restrictive ROEs and permission chains going all the way to the White House for targets/target sets which the theater commander should have been too high a level for approval. Basically he declared objectives yet tied the hands of the folks he tasked to achieve those objectives, again, making us look weak. He also picked the wrong guys to send support to in many cases, in large part because of how difficult his policies made it to run decent source/HUMINT ops in theater. Frankly, it would have been hard for him to feth it up much more.
Using restraint when the use of military force is being exercised on a foreign, sovereign nation...particularly when there is another Super Power involved...is hardly "weak". It's called prudence and I think you need to learn the difference.
Russian was not in Syria when the red lines were crossed. Nor were they there when we commenced the bombing campaign, they came in after it all started. Partly because they realized we were weak and ineffective so they COULD come in and help prop up Assad.
We either had a vested national interest worth putting $$$ and lives on the line for, or we did not. If not, declaring red lines was wrong, ignoring the crossing of those lines made us look weak. If we had a valid natioanl interest we needed to allocate the resources to seeing the objectives required to protect those interests be accomplished. Our half assed bombing with massively ineffective decision loops in the targeting chain did not do that. Again, making us look weak. Not putting in the effort to help the correct rebels (if there were any) and instead getting caught helping DaIsh and AQ affiliates sure as gak made us look bad. Spending millions to train up literally a handful of guys who proceeded to get their asses handed to them made us look weak and squandered a lot of resources.
Firstly, Russia was a concern from the get go over there and hence, once again, the absolute necessity of prudence. Honestly, we have the de facto strongest military in the world and outspend the next 7 nations combined, but we're "weak". That's ridiculous. As far as the less than spectacular results, well, if you've been following the thread, "Welcome to the Middle East"!
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/03/20 21:26:14
Trump drops to #544 on Forbes list of billionaires. They estimate he's lost around a billion dollars in net worth since this time last year due to the fact that the majority of his wealth is due to Trump Tower and nearby buildings which have been performing poorly relative to other areas over the past year. Guess that explains why Trump has been heading to his own resorts on all his weekends, trying to drive up their value
djones520 wrote: And it is still the masses clammering to shut a man up.
Here's a novel idea instead. Do what I do, and just fething ignore him.
Dakka can shut you up for violating their terms of service, as can Twitter. What your calling for though is for a private company to take steps to shut this mans voice down, because you don't like it. Not because he's violating anything, just because you don't like it.
If you can't see the difference, that is the problem.
Well durring the campaign some of his tweets were seen as calls to incite violence, he could have had his account revoked at any time.
I think its you who dont see the difference between a privately owned forum and the 1st Amendment.
A Town Called Malus wrote: Trump drops to #544 on Forbes list of billionaires. They estimate he's lost around a billion dollars in net worth since this time last year due to the fact that the majority of his wealth is due to Trump Tower and nearby buildings which have been performing poorly relative to other areas over the past year. Guess that explains why Trump has been heading to his own resorts on all his weekends, trying to drive up their value
Any bets on when Trump will go on a major twitter rant about it?
I think he just keeps padding his pockets with the weekenders to Trump properties and the continued ensconced Wife and jr. in TT-NY taxpayer cash drain.
djones520 wrote: And it is still the masses clammering to shut a man up.
Here's a novel idea instead. Do what I do, and just fething ignore him.
Dakka can shut you up for violating their terms of service, as can Twitter. What your calling for though is for a private company to take steps to shut this mans voice down, because you don't like it. Not because he's violating anything, just because you don't like it.
If you can't see the difference, that is the problem.
It's sort of difficult to ignore the most godamn powerful human being on the godamn planet. He makes waves and all. Put your head in the sand, fine. Get kicked in the ass, nobodies fault but your own.
djones520 wrote: And it is still the masses clammering to shut a man up.
Here's a novel idea instead. Do what I do, and just fething ignore him.
Dakka can shut you up for violating their terms of service, as can Twitter. What your calling for though is for a private company to take steps to shut this mans voice down, because you don't like it. Not because he's violating anything, just because you don't like it.
If you can't see the difference, that is the problem.
It is believed that he is currently violating the Presidential Records Act of 1978 by deleting twitter posts he has made while president.
So I am not sure what you are talking about, but we have reasons for wanting his twitter account blocked.
BigWaaagh wrote: This whole Libyan debate is a bad penny that just keeps showing up. "It's a failure.", "It accomplished nothing."...bullgak! A terrorist sponsoring, genocidal dictator is gone. Bravo! Genocidal response by said dictator stopped. Bravo! A coalition government IS making progress. Bravo! Still, it's a mess because the country is being used as a chew toy between factions that split from after the revolution and are being backed by rival foreign national sponsors to further their agenda in the theatre. Throwing this on Obama or Clinton or NATO or the UN is just gak! This isn't WWII, there isn't a pretty and neat finish and so it's a failure. Oh, grow up! Wake up to the reality of that area of the world and realize we can only impact so much and as such, are probably not going to be getting the nice and tidy results some fantasy-hoping critics think are possible.
Going around the world starting wars with sovereign nations because we've decided that their political leaders are bad people, bombing their infrastructure, creating a power vacuum and leaving that nation a shambolic, bloody mess in the throes of civil conflict isn't my idea of a reasonable, necessary and beneficial foreign policy. There are plenty of governments out there that sponsor terrorism, there are regimes that conduct genocidal pogroms, ethnic cleansing and massive human rights abuses right now, should Trump start dispatching carrier groups around the glob to remove those governments with bombing campaigns and then leave the surviving populace to fend for themselves as best they can?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
skyth wrote: You keep on using that word like you know what it means. I do not think it means what you think it means.
*shrug* Then we've reached a fundamental misunderstanding and failure to communicate.
You use ally, as if that doesn't mean a partner in a mutually beneficially alliance but instead means one country can use another to go perpetuate a bombing campaign on somebody the way a manager sends an intern out to get coffee. The US is not the errand boy or leg breaker for our "allies." We don't just go hurt people so that politicians in other nations can keep their hands clean of the mess they want us to create. There was no existential threat to anyone in Libya that needed to be eliminated, it was just EU politicians wanting to flex some muscle that they let go to flab decades ago so they asked us to do it for them and consequently made our PotUS look like a chump.
But that's the rub, isn't it? If in Syria, just for example, had we just said, "Civil War, it's Syria's to deal with." Obama, or whoever, would have been lambasted as weak on terror, a failure for not standing up to the Russians and a monster for not doing something to alleviate the outrageous suffering of the populace. On the other hand, should it be, "Mobilize the War Machine and let's get the Middle East road show to visit Syria.", in which case we'd be in a clusterfeth and probably hated by even our most moderate Muslim allies. It's a no-win. That's why I find much of this armchair quarterbacking as little more than a means for partisan cheap shots. Obama walked a line of gradual involvement in a situation that had no good guys, LOTS of bad guys and a humanitarian disaster that's still being felt in the West. Doing nothing was not an option and that left us with only a bad or worse option to try and manage.
You're changing the subject to Syria to counter an argument against Obama getting us involved in Libya.
If the primary reason for getting us involved in a Syrian civil war is because the Republicans would have criticized Obama if he hadn't then that's really an argument against getting involved at all. It certainly doesn't cast Obama on a good light if he got us militarily involved in Syria just to appease Republicans. Russia is going to support Assad, they have to because they need Assad in power to protect Russian/Gasprom interests and oppose the Qatari pipeline. We're not going to fight a war with aRussia just to get rid of Assad so we shouldn't waste our time money and lives on half measures. We didn't cause the civil war there and we can't stop it so I don't feel like we have any obligation to the Syrian people and I'm not willing to go to war for them.
I've changed nothing. I've previously responded in length to our involvement in Libya, on this website. I'm not going to go there again and the points being made, whether it's Syria, Libya or any of the other foreign policy "failures" being painted on Obama is that the area of the world in question doesn't allow for pretty and tidy results. It just doesn't and all this finger pointing is, well, pointless. And as far as your last bit about our not owing an obligation to the Syrian people, well, I view them as humans first and most of the world does care when their fellow humans are suffering. The difference with us, is that we can maybe do something to help and depending on your view of altruism, should do something to help.
Wasn't it your response to your libertarian POTUS candidate's monumental *derp* on Aleppo that you said something to the effect of, "Aleppo? Who cares? It's just this week's headline."...off on that a bit, I'd say.
We spent a ton of money moving a vast amount of resources halfway around the world for the express purpose of launching a half assed bombing campaign that netted no positive change and prolonged a disastrous civil war and the reasons you've given for that being a worthwhile foreign policy is because Russia was already involved in Syria and because the Republican would criticize Obama if he didn't do something. Getting involved in Syria but not doing nearly enough to actually thwart Russia's propping up of the Assad regime accomplishes nothing other than showing the world that we're only interested in opposing Russian interests with a token effort for the sake of domestic political expediency. How is that a show of strength? We totally could kick Russia's ass but we're not going to, we're going to let Russia keep doing whatever it wants but we're like totally watching them and if Putin's not really careful then we might maybe do something about it, possibly.
As for the humanitarian crisis there, yeah, that's way beyond our ability to fix and we're actively making it worse. We're aiding the anti Assad forces just enough to drag out the conflict creating more death and destruction but not doing enough to actually topple Assad. If we never got involved in Syria then Assad would have won the civil war already with Russia's help. He'd still be in charge, but he's already still in charge and we aren't going to change that, but the violence would already be over. Instead we're contributing to the problem, bombing people we hope are the real bad guys, arming people we hope are the real good guys and doing both ineffectually. In the meantime we let a tiny fraction of 1% of the 22 million Syrians apply for the 18-24 month long vetting process of being accepted as a refugee immigrant to the US. We accepted less than 39K Muslim refugees in total in 2016 and that was the most Muslim refugees ever accepted in the US. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/30/key-facts-about-refugees-to-the-u-s/
We spend billions of dollars bombing their country and prolonging their civil war when the outcome is never in doubt and doesn't pose any serious threat to the US but we allow a handful of refugees from the conflict to immigrate to the US so we're totally helping. Syria isn't a better place now because of our bombing campaigns there. If we were having a positive effect on their country there wouldn't be an ever increasing number of them trying to flee from it.
djones520 wrote: And it is still the masses clammering to shut a man up.
Here's a novel idea instead. Do what I do, and just fething ignore him.
Dakka can shut you up for violating their terms of service, as can Twitter. What your calling for though is for a private company to take steps to shut this mans voice down, because you don't like it. Not because he's violating anything, just because you don't like it.
If you can't see the difference, that is the problem.
Twitter is a private company that acts in its perceived best interests and makes it's money primarily through advertisement. Consumers can express opinions and advertisers often react to this. Why do you hate free markets?
BigWaaagh wrote: This whole Libyan debate is a bad penny that just keeps showing up. "It's a failure.", "It accomplished nothing."...bullgak! A terrorist sponsoring, genocidal dictator is gone. Bravo! Genocidal response by said dictator stopped. Bravo! A coalition government IS making progress. Bravo! Still, it's a mess because the country is being used as a chew toy between factions that split from after the revolution and are being backed by rival foreign national sponsors to further their agenda in the theatre. Throwing this on Obama or Clinton or NATO or the UN is just gak! This isn't WWII, there isn't a pretty and neat finish and so it's a failure. Oh, grow up! Wake up to the reality of that area of the world and realize we can only impact so much and as such, are probably not going to be getting the nice and tidy results some fantasy-hoping critics think are possible.
Going around the world starting wars with sovereign nations because we've decided that their political leaders are bad people, bombing their infrastructure, creating a power vacuum and leaving that nation a shambolic, bloody mess in the throes of civil conflict isn't my idea of a reasonable, necessary and beneficial foreign policy. There are plenty of governments out there that sponsor terrorism, there are regimes that conduct genocidal pogroms, ethnic cleansing and massive human rights abuses right now, should Trump start dispatching carrier groups around the glob to remove those governments with bombing campaigns and then leave the surviving populace to fend for themselves as best they can?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
skyth wrote: You keep on using that word like you know what it means. I do not think it means what you think it means.
*shrug* Then we've reached a fundamental misunderstanding and failure to communicate.
You use ally, as if that doesn't mean a partner in a mutually beneficially alliance but instead means one country can use another to go perpetuate a bombing campaign on somebody the way a manager sends an intern out to get coffee. The US is not the errand boy or leg breaker for our "allies." We don't just go hurt people so that politicians in other nations can keep their hands clean of the mess they want us to create. There was no existential threat to anyone in Libya that needed to be eliminated, it was just EU politicians wanting to flex some muscle that they let go to flab decades ago so they asked us to do it for them and consequently made our PotUS look like a chump.
But that's the rub, isn't it? If in Syria, just for example, had we just said, "Civil War, it's Syria's to deal with." Obama, or whoever, would have been lambasted as weak on terror, a failure for not standing up to the Russians and a monster for not doing something to alleviate the outrageous suffering of the populace. On the other hand, should it be, "Mobilize the War Machine and let's get the Middle East road show to visit Syria.", in which case we'd be in a clusterfeth and probably hated by even our most moderate Muslim allies. It's a no-win. That's why I find much of this armchair quarterbacking as little more than a means for partisan cheap shots. Obama walked a line of gradual involvement in a situation that had no good guys, LOTS of bad guys and a humanitarian disaster that's still being felt in the West. Doing nothing was not an option and that left us with only a bad or worse option to try and manage.
You're changing the subject to Syria to counter an argument against Obama getting us involved in Libya.
If the primary reason for getting us involved in a Syrian civil war is because the Republicans would have criticized Obama if he hadn't then that's really an argument against getting involved at all. It certainly doesn't cast Obama on a good light if he got us militarily involved in Syria just to appease Republicans. Russia is going to support Assad, they have to because they need Assad in power to protect Russian/Gasprom interests and oppose the Qatari pipeline. We're not going to fight a war with aRussia just to get rid of Assad so we shouldn't waste our time money and lives on half measures. We didn't cause the civil war there and we can't stop it so I don't feel like we have any obligation to the Syrian people and I'm not willing to go to war for them.
I've changed nothing. I've previously responded in length to our involvement in Libya, on this website. I'm not going to go there again and the points being made, whether it's Syria, Libya or any of the other foreign policy "failures" being painted on Obama is that the area of the world in question doesn't allow for pretty and tidy results. It just doesn't and all this finger pointing is, well, pointless. And as far as your last bit about our not owing an obligation to the Syrian people, well, I view them as humans first and most of the world does care when their fellow humans are suffering. The difference with us, is that we can maybe do something to help and depending on your view of altruism, should do something to help.
Wasn't it your response to your libertarian POTUS candidate's monumental *derp* on Aleppo that you said something to the effect of, "Aleppo? Who cares? It's just this week's headline."...off on that a bit, I'd say.
We spent a ton of money moving a vast amount of resources halfway around the world for the express purpose of launching a half assed bombing campaign that netted no positive change and prolonged a disastrous civil war and the reasons you've given for that being a worthwhile foreign policy is because Russia was already involved in Syria and because the Republican would criticize Obama if he didn't do something. Getting involved in Syria but not doing nearly enough to actually thwart Russia's propping up of the Assad regime accomplishes nothing other than showing the world that we're only interested in opposing Russian interests with a token effort for the sake of domestic political expediency. How is that a show of strength? We totally could kick Russia's ass but we're not going to, we're going to let Russia keep doing whatever it wants but we're like totally watching them and if Putin's not really careful then we might maybe do something about it, possibly.
As for the humanitarian crisis there, yeah, that's way beyond our ability to fix and we're actively making it worse. We're aiding the anti Assad forces just enough to drag out the conflict creating more death and destruction but not doing enough to actually topple Assad. If we never got involved in Syria then Assad would have won the civil war already with Russia's help. He'd still be in charge, but he's already still in charge and we aren't going to change that, but the violence would already be over. Instead we're contributing to the problem, bombing people we hope are the real bad guys, arming people we hope are the real good guys and doing both ineffectually. In the meantime we let a tiny fraction of 1% of the 22 million Syrians apply for the 18-24 month long vetting process of being accepted as a refugee immigrant to the US. We accepted less than 39K Muslim refugees in total in 2016 and that was the most Muslim refugees ever accepted in the US. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/30/key-facts-about-refugees-to-the-u-s/
We spend billions of dollars bombing their country and prolonging their civil war when the outcome is never in doubt and doesn't pose any serious threat to the US but we allow a handful of refugees from the conflict to immigrate to the US so we're totally helping. Syria isn't a better place now because of our bombing campaigns there. If we were having a positive effect on their country there wouldn't be an ever increasing number of them trying to flee from it.
Yeah, it's a mess. Thanks for confirming what's already been said over and over, and isn't the point of debate. Very insightful. Again, realistically, what was the option before us? Do nothing as you obviously suggest because if we just took a knee "the violence would already be over."? That's a hell of a bit of prescience there. Unfortunately, that doesn't really have any application in the real world.
Mozzyfuzzy wrote: You see I was totally making a reference to him cosying up to Gaddafi previously... honest
That's funny one . You got me to laugh out loud, literally.
I wonder if I will get called on my championing for Iran some more. Maybe in the religion threads? “Hybrid, I see you criticize religion. But did you know that's it's forbidden to do so in IRI? Ah, it should be the free right of every nation to ban criticism of religion!”
"Our fantasy settings are grim and dark, but that is not a reflection of who we are or how we feel the real world should be. [...] We will continue to diversify the cast of characters we portray [...] so everyone can find representation and heroes they can relate to. [...] If [you don't feel the same way], you will not be missed"
https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1268665798467432449/photo/1
a) Comey and Rogers responded several times that 'there's no evidence that the election was hacked'.
b) We've known this since last summer, but Comey did confirm that there's an active investigation of whether or not Trump orbit was actively colluding with Russia.
c) I liked the exchange with Comey where he's explains why he doesn't just correct,infactual classified information in the media. Cool Hand Luke there...
d) Both Comey and Rogers both said that there are no evidences to substantiate Trump's claim of being wiretapped.
e) Gowdy is such a Hoss... he tried to get Comey to confirm or deny if he reported to Obama over Flynn's call with Russian Amb.... and Comey refused to answer.
f) Speaking of Flynn... Gowdy also stated that only a few people in the government could 'unmask' a US citizen during a FISA wiretap, and thus leaked the details of Flynn's communication to the media. (even noting that there were nothing improper of Flynn's conversation).
Looks like the whole 'collusion with Russia' narrative is going to die out... and the whole Trump blaming UK and Obama for wiretapping him is going to keep on sucking the oxygen.
Also... watched a bit of the Gorsuch hearing. Nothing happened really, just a bunch of posturing between Ds and Rs, with a nice intro by Gorsuch. The Q&A fireworks is tomorrow.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/21 02:57:47
My point about Obama's foreign policy was supposed to be along the lines of 'every President has his weak areas and that was his' compared to domestic policy Obama's foreign policy is lacking. I didn't want to start a de-railing of the thread into Libya.
I'm waiting for the memoirs from this administration:
I'm Always Right and You're Always Wrong - Sean Spicer
How I Survived the Bowling Green Massacre: A Tale of Hope and Truth - Kellyanne Conway
Why Women and People of Color Suck: The White Man's Burden: Steve Bannon
How to Win Friends and Influence People - Donald Trump
It will be an amazing time for readers.
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
Ahtman wrote: I'm waiting for the memoirs from this administration:
I'm Always Right and You're Always Wrong - Sean Spicer
How I Survived the Bowling Green Massacre: A Tale of Hope and Truth - Kellyanne Conway
Why Women and People of Color Suck: The White Man's Burden: Steve Bannon
How to Win Friends and Influence People - Donald Trump
It will be an amazing time for readers.
Speak Softly - An Urban Pick: Ben Carson
-------------------------------------------------------
"He died because he had no honor. He had no honor and the Emperor was watching."
I watched the House intelligence committee yesterday, focusing mainly on the accusations of British intelligence 'spying' on Trump for Obama, and what a spectacular waste of time it has been for the US officials involved in cleaning up this gak storm.
They were trying their best to stifle the anger. That much was obvious. Everybody involved knew the allegations were ludicrous, but because it's the POTUS, they had to waste time and oxygen running around pretending there might be some 'substance' to them.
Trump tweets, it goes political, it spreads across the Atlantic, and then annoys and embarrasses a key ally, and the Trump administration is made to look like a bunch of amateurs, just to save one man's pride
And we're only two months in...
God help us when something serious happens and Trump has to act presidential...
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
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