All things Middle East related

[over the mountain]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

Yet he starts out by saying he believes he has the authority to take the military action without Congressional approval. You blaming congress for refusing to answer when Obama himself acknowledges he didn't have to ask is the ultimate example of passing off responsibility.

Hold your president accountable.

Could you imagine the daily outrage and calls for impeachment from republicans if Pres Obama did decide to unilaterally put US troops in harms way without the authorization of republican controlled congress? Imagine the feigned rage from o'reilly and cruz and mccain's blow hard wife every time a service member died -- "there is dead american blood on the president's hands!!" ... words like treason would be used.

Are republicans actually trying to spin this back at the Pres by saying he should have just violated the Constitution?

Wow.

maybe republicans should have put partisan politics to the side for once and worked with the Pres on this one.

[Chico23231]

Originally Posted by over the mountain

Could you imagine the daily outrage and calls for impeachment from republicans if Pres Obama did decide to unilaterally put US troops in harms way without the authorization of republican controlled congress? Imagine the feigned rage from o'reilly and cruz and mccain's blow hard wife every time a service member died -- "there is dead american blood on the president's hands!!" ... words like treason would be used.

Are republicans actually trying to spin this back at the Pres by saying he should have just violated the Constitution?

Wow.

maybe republicans should have put partisan politics to the side for once and worked with the Pres on this one.

Aside from military force...what about just leadership from the highest position in the land? give me a break....Obama been a disaster with the Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Israel, Iran, Russia.

Look around the world, hello, its on fire...your satisfied with his leadership?



This Cuba thing makes no sense...Fidel Castro to Obama: 'We don't need the empire to give us anything'

Its hilarity at its finest. Cuba is punking Obama now.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by over the mountain

Could you imagine the daily outrage and calls for impeachment from republicans if Pres Obama did decide to unilaterally put US troops in harms way without the authorization of republican controlled congress? Imagine the feigned rage from o'reilly and cruz and mccain's blow hard wife every time a service member died -- "there is dead american blood on the president's hands!!" ... words like treason would be used.

Are republicans actually trying to spin this back at the Pres by saying he should have just violated the Constitution?

Wow.

maybe republicans should have put partisan politics to the side for once and worked with the Pres on this one.

And if they did they'd be a disgrace. But that's neither here nor there. Fact of the matter is Obama doesn't need Congressional approval on this because the US isn't declaring war on another nation state. He doesn't need congressional approval for military action against terrorists.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by Chico23231

Anybody care that ISIS is using Chlorine and Mustard Gas against multiple cities within Iraq?

Our president let this happen. Let genocide happen. Remember that folks, remember it.

He was up in arms when Assad did it...haven't heard a word from that pussy in the white house about these attacks.

Couldn't agree more. We should have put boots on the ground long before this. In fact, we never should have pulled out of Iraq.

I still contend that the biggest failure of the Bush administration was not in toppling Saddam Hussein, but it was in the failure to build Iraq up to the point where it could police itself and stand on its own two feet. If that was never possible then Saddam should have been left in power.

But understanding that, Obama made a bad situation even worse by pulling our troops out. He left an even bigger power vacuum than Bush did.

Obama was dealt a very bad hand by the Bush administration. A point every democrat loves to acknowledge. What they don't like to acknowledge is you have to play the hand you're dealt, and Obama has played his like shit.

ISIS crossed a red line long ago, the chemical weapons usage is just the latest example. It's another example of impotent foreign policy.

[That Guy]

isis is a problem that is both bush and obama's fault. the problem is american's don't give a hist about foreign policy, so there's no real accountability or or push for spending a lot of effort there, and 90% of presidents come in with 0 foreign policy experience (being governors or senators). no one really votes for candidates foreign policy beyond stupidity like "we're going to build a wall."

what's your answer though? bomb them? cause we're already doing that. spend money fighting them? we're already committing billions to arm the shia fundamentalist militias and security forces fighting them (who also do bad things like torture, beheadings, etc). are you just asking for a press release?

it's not like america ignoring genocide is anything new either. when it happens in africa, the UN tries very very hard to classify it as anything else that's not genocide, cause once it's labelled as genocide, they'd be forced to do something about it.

not trying to be cynical, but either we're the world police or we're not. a lot of times when we go in to fix something, someone doesn't have the regional experience, makes a few really bad decisions, and actively makes things worse.

[Chico23231]

Originally Posted by That Guy

isis is a problem that is both bush and obama's fault. the problem is american's don't give a hist about foreign policy, so there's no real accountability or or push for spending a lot of effort there, and 90% of presidents come in with 0 foreign policy experience (being governors or senators). no one really votes for candidates foreign policy beyond stupidity like "we're going to build a wall."

what's your answer though? bomb them? cause we're already doing that. spend money fighting them? we're already committing billions to arm the shia fundamentalist militias and security forces fighting them (who also do bad things like torture, beheadings, etc). are you just asking for a press release?

it's not like america ignoring genocide is anything new either. when it happens in africa, the UN tries very very hard to classify it as anything else that's not genocide, cause once it's labelled as genocide, they'd be forced to do something about it.

not trying to be cynical, but either we're the world police or we're not. a lot of times when we go in to fix something, someone doesn't have the regional experience, makes a few really bad decisions, and actively makes things worse.

No your right, Bill Clinton ignored it twice. And after Rwanda, he pledge the US would never let it happen again.

The liberal media has waged a campaign to avoid it.

The Bush blame is way old by now...but I expect that from liberals. ISIS is a President Obama problem. He completely fucked it up...certainly the biggest fuck up of his Presidency. Its getting better, but not before costing lives in attacks here in the US, Europe, and Beirut with terrorist attacks. But that's selfish. We should be thinking about the hundreds of thousands lives lost in Iraq and Syria. This happened in Iraq, where we have invested so much in.

The President has been an absolute disaster in foreign politics. The world is on fire...I guess we should just sit back and let it burn. So funny how the left has completely shifted. So f*ck everybody else now? pathetic, 2 face folks these days.

Lets see, Ukraine, Europe, Syria, Iraq, Israel hates Obama...they have zero respect. The fucking pathetic Iranian deal.

Cuba has already told the President we aint changing for shit. Because they don't have respect for him. So we gain nothing and Cuba's ruling class will gain access to everything.

The President is a weak ass bitch....but you can dress it up anyway you like. Go ahead and rationalize it.

[Hog1]

Originally Posted by Chico23231

No your right, Bill Clinton ignored it twice. And after Rwanda, he pledge the US would never let it happen again.

The liberal media has waged a campaign to avoid it.

The Bush blame is way old by now...but I expect that from liberals. ISIS is a President Obama problem. He completely fucked it up...certainly the biggest fuck up of his Presidency. Its getting better, but not before costing lives in attacks here in the US, Europe, and Beirut with terrorist attacks. But that's selfish. We should be thinking about the hundreds of thousands lives lost in Iraq and Syria. This happened in Iraq, where we have invested so much in.

The President has been an absolute disaster in foreign politics. The world is on fire...I guess we should just sit back and let it burn. So funny how the left has completely shifted. So f*ck everybody else now? pathetic, 2 face folks these days.

Lets see, Ukraine, Europe, Syria, Iraq, Israel hates Obama...they have zero respect. The fucking pathetic Iranian deal.

Cuba has already told the President we aint changing for shit. Because they don't have respect for him. So we gain nothing and Cuba's ruling class will gain access to everything.

The President is a weak ass bitch....but you can dress it up anyway you like. Go ahead and rationalize it.

The absurdity of that statement.....knows NO bounds sir!
It would seem an impossible task to determine given the....voluminous body of work.

[That Guy]

its not a partisan problem, its a foreign policy problem. if bush hadn't invaded iraq, isis wouldn't exist. if bush hadn't fired the entire iraqi army, isis wouldn't exist, cause those people would have been gainfully employed. obama has blame to, i'm not saying he isn't, just that it's stupid to say this is 100% on obama, when he's not the reason we went there in the first place. ignoring iraq's constitution was a big mistake.

but what do you want to do? send troops en masse back into iraq? invade crimea and fight russia in a conventional war? what's the answer that we've all been missing?

[Chico23231]

Radical Islamic Terrorists....when are leaders within their religions gonna admit they got a serious problem?

[RobH4413]

Originally Posted by Chico23231

Radical Islamic Terrorists....when are leaders within their religions gonna admit they got a serious problem?

Are you referencing anyone specifically?

Leaders within Islam have come out and spoke against radicalism and admitted major problems time and time again.

Muslim Leaders Vow To Protect Rights Of Religious Minorities : Parallels : NPR

[Chico23231]

Originally Posted by RobH4413

Are you referencing anyone specifically?

Leaders within Islam have come out and spoke against radicalism and admitted major problems time and time again.

Muslim Leaders Vow To Protect Rights Of Religious Minorities : Parallels : NPR

There needs to be a movement within the Islamic Religion of "no more". When you have Isis who has now claimed 70 attacks in 20 different countries, obviously more needs to be done and whats being done now isn't working. We are talking genocide now...the scope has moved from terrorism to genocide. Folks, that's a leap and its a world problem.

Id really like to sit down with the people in the community where the 13th paris attacker was just found in Belgium. He was born and raised there...and its obvious to reasonable folks that this guy was protected and hidden within his community. This is an example what is wrong.

[over the mountain]

[That Guy]

some people are just fucked up :/

[That Guy]

all these armchair generals, the answer to everything is to go send other folks to die for you in another foreign war without any idea of what that actually entails.

we put troops in syria then what? topple assad's regime and get into a conventional war with russia? stay there forever? cause after assad or isis goes, someone has to fill that vacuum. right now we've shown we can't nation build effectively, and we don't have the patience to run a proper counter insurgency (which can take over 20 years).

the problem with iraq wasn't pulling american troops, it was the horribly mismanaged peace process and a series of very bad decisions about who to leave in charge and how to proceed with a bunch of very piecemeal and sometimes misguided rebuilding projects/goals. the violence in iraq went down when we put 100,000+ militia men on the payroll, and it surged back up when the iraqi government decided they didn't want to be giving money to sunni militias and stopped paying them.

[That Guy]

in an effort to try and articulate a bit better...

170,000+ people have died in iraq (over 60% civilians) since our involvement began there, and the security situation is worse than when we started, both locally and globally - in large part because we helped to create the conditions necessary for isis to form and gain strength (and because we didn't pay enough attention to the political situation).

you literally just said that if we did the math and thought that would be the result, we shouldn't have gone in, yet in the same breath are advocating doing the exact same thing in syria, which is lunacy.

1. drop a bunch of US troops into a country where everyone hates them, blow a bunch of shit up (isis, assad, misc extremist militias), possibly get into a real war with russia.
2. ????
3. profit?

syria is one of russia's foreign bases, they have a vested interest there, while we really do not. if you think we should be world police and fight everyone all the time en masse, that's fine, but i hope you're signing up to enlist, cause we don't have that kind of manpower or budget for endless war. taking a short view of dropping US troops in an area as some kind of panacea is a view that has no common ground with reality.

what we do have is small groups of trainers and specialists that help us extend power and influence and act as force multipliers among foreign powers/armed forces. right now, believe it or not, we're actually winning in syria. we're moving slower than we could militarily because of the slow political process on the ground (which militia is going to move into this position, who's going to control or police this area once isis leaves, etc). big isis leaders are dying 2-3 times a week, and the platoons on the ground are generally dissolving once engaged now without a real fight (fading into the populace or running away).

the problem after isis (or assad/isis if that's your view) is that anyone with money (like doctors, etc) has generally left if they could, and there are real problems with basic things right now, like not starving to death. what you really need is a humanitarian/peace keeping mission after those guys are gone, and the US military is not the best avenue for that, as they're seen as an interfering foreign power and not as someone that's honestly trying to help just for the sake of helping. you need people that speak the language, aren't carrying guns and body armor, and aren't directly involved in midnight raids and arrests if you want any real trust.

anyways, my 2 cents.