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The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

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Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Yeah, because I fully expect him to lay out his entire plan to the American people.
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

SteveP said:
Seriously??

The joke was the clown in the tan suit that made that stunning revelation today.
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Neither Churchill or JFK really laid out plans there, they spoke in platitudes about their resolve. Had President Obama taken time to consider such a thing, he wouldn't have answered so bluntly. You're really missing the mark on this one.
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

joecct said:
Despite what many on Capitol Hill and K Street think, there is only one Commander In Chief.
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And yet the republicans feel the need to open their mouths and go herpaderp when Obummer does something they don't like.
 
SteveP said:
Seriously??

The joke was the clown in the tan suit that made that stunning revelation today.
Click to expand...

Yes, because suit color is clearly an important thing.

I hope he goes full don cherry at some point just to give you a stroke.
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

joecct said:
Pat - again.
http://m.townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/2014/08/29/has-hillary-ever-been-right-n1884592
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It's a good, substantive column, and I found myself nodding along to much of it. But I have to ask: has anyone ever been right in the Middle East and Central Asia? If the choices are all terrible, then by definition whatever choice you make is terrible. "The only way to win is not to play," which is Pat's choice, sounds attractive, but it risks poor outcomes also.

There are degrees of awful. Going into Afghanistan was less awful than going into Iraq which was less awful than going into Iran would have been. But on Syria, good lord, what do you do? In Afghanistan, when considering how much of a presence to leave behind, what do you do? How about Libya, where it sure looked like we had done the right thing in getting regime change without loss of a single American life, but then were caught with the boomerang of the power vacuum that was created? Was there a good choice in any of those cases? Is leaving the dictatorial strong man in place, as we do in Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Bahrain and UAE, a "good" choice? What about Yemen, where like Syria every one of the innumerable contestants looks like a human rights nightmare?
 
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Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Lyndsey Graham and John McCain want you all to know that they have a strategy for the Middle East. It's a secret though. The one thing they will tell you is it involves a lot of occupation and a lot of troops.
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

ScoobyDoo said:
Lyndsey Graham and John McCain want you all to know that they have a strategy for the Middle East. It's a secret though. The one thing they will tell you is it involves a lot of occupation and a lot of troops.
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"There is no exit strategy. We stay. Empire. Real empire. Nobody will fcuk with us again."
 
joecct said:
Despite what many on Capitol Hill and K Street think, there is only one Commander In Chief.
Click to expand...

Which is why they're suing him.

And before you complain that's a domestic matter, check out the lawsuit filed by most senators in the Tory Party when we had troops on the ground in the Balkans and the party that loves our military so much wanted to cut the purse strings WHILE THEY WERE IN THE FIELD OF COMBAT. A Democrat does that and he'd be hung for treason.
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

ScoobyDoo said:
Lyndsey Graham and John McCain want you all to know that they have a strategy for the Middle East. It's a secret though. The one thing they will tell you is it involves a lot of occupation and a lot of troops.
Click to expand...

Isn't about time for John to retire and spend time with grandkids or something?
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Kepler said:
It's a good, substantive column, and I found myself nodding along to much of it. But I have to ask: has anyone ever been right in the Middle East and Central Asia? If the choices are all terrible, then by definition whatever choice you make is terrible. "The only way to win is not to play," which is Pat's choice, sounds attractive, but it risks poor outcomes also.

There are degrees of awful. Going into Afghanistan was less awful than going into Iraq which was less awful than going into Iran would have been. But on Syria, good lord, what do you do? In Afghanistan, when considering how much of a presence to leave behind, what do you do? How about Libya, where it sure looked like we had done the right thing in getting regime change without loss of a single American life, but then were caught with the boomerang of the power vacuum that was created? Was there a good choice in any of those cases? Is leaving the dictatorial strong man in place, as we do in Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Bahrain and UAE, a "good" choice? What about Yemen, where like Syria every one of the innumerable contestants looks like a human rights nightmare?
Click to expand...
I largely agree. I would say in Libya that the nation, apart from Khaddafi's control, the nation's makeup and history tell us that there was little unity amongst the factions and tribes, and that once Khaddafi was out of the picture, chaos would ensue.

In today's world, where really, very large swathes of the world either don't care about humanitarian disasters/civilians being killed, etc. or don't have the means to do anything about it (too poor, ineffectual government, etc.), there just isn't a lot of oomph around the world to deal with violations of international law, be they violating Ukraine's territorial sovereignty, beheading religious minorities, etc. The U.N. may wail about things, but their member states, by their actions, as a whole, don't care a whole lot. Which puts folks who do care in a pickle. Bottom line is that this kind of stuff is going to continue happening, and the U.S. will have limited abilities to alter the course of such events. Even the most agressive, send in the troops, scenarios have been shown to not alter the fundamental realities on the ground and once we leave, which we will sooner or later, things largely revert to the same local strife taking place.
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Bob Gray said:
I largely agree. I would say in Libya that the nation, apart from Khaddafi's control, the nation's makeup and history tell us that there was little unity amongst the factions and tribes, and that once Khaddafi was out of the picture, chaos would ensue.

In today's world, where really, very large swathes of the world either don't care about humanitarian disasters/civilians being killed, etc. or don't have the means to do anything about it (too poor, ineffectual government, etc.), there just isn't a lot of oomph around the world to deal with violations of international law, be they violating Ukraine's territorial sovereignty, beheading religious minorities, etc. The U.N. may wail about things, but their member states, by their actions, as a whole, don't care a whole lot. Which puts folks who do care in a pickle. Bottom line is that this kind of stuff is going to continue happening, and the U.S. will have limited abilities to alter the course of such events. Even the most agressive, send in the troops, scenarios have been shown to not alter the fundamental realities on the ground and once we leave, which we will sooner or later, things largely revert to the same local strife taking place.
Click to expand...

I agree with all of this. It suggests to me that the policy of the US should be case by case, rather than governed by an attempted overarching principle. Tactical, rather than strategic. And that means that when Obama says "we don't have a strategy yet" he's being entirely reasonable. There can be no strategy. There can only be what we do in each set of circumstances. And that should be decided with full debate, full transparency and when a majority of the public agrees to a particular set of actions. The great danger to democracy of the Neoconservative Utopian ideology is also its great weakness when attempting to act in the real world -- it's not just a crime, but a blunder. That was the single most important lesson of Iraq.
 
Re: The Global War on Terror 5.0: Putin on the Risk

Kepler said:
I agree with all of this. It suggests to me that the policy of the US should be case by case, rather than governed by an attempted overarching principle. Tactical, rather than strategic. And that means that when Obama says "we don't have a strategy yet" he's being entirely reasonable. There can be no strategy. There can only be what we do in each set of circumstances. And that should be decided with full debate, full transparency and when a majority of the public agrees to a particular set of actions. The great danger to democracy of the Neoconservative Utopian ideology is also its great weakness when attempting to act in the real world -- it's not just a crime, but a blunder. That was the single most important lesson of Iraq.
Click to expand...
Maybe we should run on a ticket together! We might struggle to come to an agreement on social issues, but foreign policywise, we'd have a pretty united front!

While public sentiment is of course an important factor, I'm leery of just charting a course based on what the latest public opinion polls tell us the public thinks should be done. It's not like most of the American public even pays a lick of attention to Ukraine, ISIS, Libya, etc. (not when there's important stuff like the Emmys, college football starting, etc. going on!). There are times our leadership has to take quick action and not wait months or however long for a public debate to ensue. Of course the problem is we don't have leadership anywhere in sight that we have much confidence in making such decisions, and our recent track record, whether with a Republican or Democrat in the WH, does not fill one with confidence.
 
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