One group that does sometimes touch upon this very lightly is Politico. Note this article ==> LINK. The article first notes that Obama has pledged as late as his inauguration in 2013 to end “a decade or war.” But they note that the number of conflicts in which Obama has involved us has actually increased. Right now, according to the article, the US take “lethal action” in at least five countries and has deployed US troops in three active conflict zones, including involving us in two Arab civil wars.
So much for peaceful Barry O.
Anyways, here are the conflicts the Politico article mentions, and the problems they are hearing from government insiders:
● Ukraine: In the Ukraine, the Russians are apparently planning another offensive and Team Obama wants to send anti-tank missiles. There is a worry that the Russians will consider this provocative.
● Yemen: In Yemen, Obama has supported Saudi bombing against the rebels as a means of preventing Iran from gaining control over the country. He has just recently sent naval vessels to the area to stop the Iranians from sending military supplies to the rebels as well. There is serious concern this will lead to a direct confrontation with Iran.
● Iraq: In Iraq, Obama has been bombing ISIS troops near Mosul and is apparently planning to send special forces to help pick targets in the next offensive planned for later in the year.
● Afghanistan: Obama has basically stopped the withdrawal from Afghanistan and given the troops expanded authority to conduct combat operations against the Taliban.
● “The Middle East and North Africa”: The article then lumps the fight against al Qaeda into one giant fight involving “the Middle East and North Africa.” Of course, there’s more to it than that... a lot more.
The left tries to dismiss this by blaming Bush. Indeed, intellectual whore Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress, which lies to support leftist causes, basically blames Bush and then says that Obama has done an “admirable job of managing the costs” of these actions. How about solving them rather than just managing their costs, Brian? I can manage the costs of a house fire by sitting on my ass, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good solution.
Interestingly, part of dirty Brian’s criteria for why Obama is doing so well is that the nation isn’t as divided as it was under Bush. Really? So if I throw a tantrum at your guy, but I hypocritically don’t throw the same tantrum against my own guy, then I can say that’s evidence that my guy is better? Wow, that’s intellectually dishonest... or stupid.
Anyway, speaking of leftist tantrums, note that you hear NOTHING about landmines... drone strikes... human rights at Gitmo... illegal wars... disproportionate use of force... rotten allies... fighting for oil... etc. Not a single leftist grievance made against Bush, each of which applies equally or greater to Obama, gets voiced anymore. Why? Because the left doesn’t believe this crap, they just use it as a weapon, just like they don’t care about the homeless, the spread of AIDS or income inequality when the left is in charge.
And lo, for he waseth elected and all the bad shit suddenly left the newscycle. -- Liberalus 4:20
Oh, and did you notice that troops no longer come home with PTSD, they aren’t suicidal (at a rate lower than the civilian population), they aren’t losing their jobs, the ranks are no longer filled with poor black kids dying for rich white Americans, their commanders suddenly care about them again and they aren’t being sent into the field under-equipped. It's a military miracle!
As an aside, here are some of the things Politico skipped, problems Obama is letting fester:
● Syria: Obama has been a little bit pregnant in this one, sometimes choosing to help terrorists against murderous dictators and sometimes declaring an avoidance on both their houses without really bothering to try to solve the crisis.
● Libya: Under Obama’s watch, Libya has imploded unchecked into a terrorist nest.
● Africa in toto: After emerging from millennia of darkness, Africa looked like it was trying to enter the modern world. Then Islam did its thing and now Africa is a basket case of religious killings and terrorist/rebel movements. US troops are involved in several countries, but not enough to solve any of the problems... just enough to supply weapons and act as targets.
● China: The Far East is having a serious problem and its name is China. China has been expanding its military, saber rattling, and doing things like occupying disputed islands. They just built a military base on one. They are slowly destabilizing the entire region to the point that dickless Japan is thinking about building a nuclear arsenal and an offensive military. Oy. Obama claims the US will stand up to China, but he’s ignored the problem.
● North Korea: SSDD.
● Honduras: Ha ha ha! We are almost at the six year mark since Obama declared the coup illegal and swore to bitchslap them... and they are still holding out.
Besides these, you have other problems like Mexico’s narco war and pending collapse, the continued teetering of Greece, the surge of immigration from Craplandia to various First World places, rebel movements all over the world, massive Islamic terrorism, etc. There are also future problems coming: (1) demographic bombs in India and China, (2) Chinese control over parts of Africa, (3) the Iranian bomb, (4) when Putin hits menopause, just to name a few.
Reagan once asked, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” If we ask this about Obama, the answer is that the world has gotten less safe every single year he’s been in power.
Wonderful.
25 comments:
"They are slowly destabilizing the entire region to the point that dickless Japan is thinking about building a nuclear arsenal and an offensive military."
Even more, it is reaching the point where Japan is finding itself moving closer to the nationalism of the 1930s and 40s. Essentially, they are re-growing male genitalia.
They might start even reproducing again.
By the way, Japan now has one of the largest navies in the world.
Libya is a basket casket, but it is a model of national stability compared to Syria.
Mexico is recovering because Nieto made the smart decision to side with the vigilantes and to begin privatizing Pemex.
What do you mean by, "North Korea: SSDD"
Same Shit Different Day.
Japan is quickly becoming quite a military power. And once they pull that genie from the bottle, it won't go back. I actually think that's a good thing because I trust the Japanese -- their interests are similar to ours, but it does make things messy.
Right about Mexico.
"Same Shit Different Day."
Ah.
Hong Kong tried to push back against the Communist regime in Beijing, only for Obama to do… did he even say anything? Nothing came of the protests by the way, the PRC is still in total control.
As for Honduras, Obama quietly recognized the conservative National Party government elected as a result of the coup in the November 2009 elections.
With Hondorus he tried to establish a foreign policy platform of "we won't support military dictatorships established by coups."
This hit trouble again in Mali, where his administration refused to support the dictatorship directly but supported it indirectly via France. Then came the 2013 Egyptian coup where they abandoned it altogether.
This, of course, is not counting all of the other governments established before his reign by military coups…
To quote something I said a few days ago:
There are people on the fringe who are sincere, but they are insignificant exceptions who are marginalized and ridiculed once their side seizes all the applicable levers of power.
------
Obama's plan to convert enemies into allies has predictably failed, so now he is fighting. He has not paid a larger price (he was the first prez to lose voters and win reelection and he lost Congress) because no one has any clearly better ideas.
Anthony, I don't disagree with your comment about the fringe, but I don't see this as a fringe issue. The reason I don't is that Democratic unity on attacking Republicans on foreign policy goes way beyond the fringe. Yes, groups like code pink are fringers, but the Democrats have been almost entirely unified in their attacks on GOP presidents on foreign policy. And now they've been uniformly silent even though the attacks they leveled against Bush (and Reagan and to a lesser degree HW Bush), have applied much more to Obama. That tells me this is all just political gamesmanship and none of it is sincere.
On the second point, I disagree. I don't think it's that there isn't a better or different plan. There definitely are better plans. The reason Obama is not paying a larger price is simply because the left protects him, and they are the ones usually trying to sabotage foreign policy and present the appearance of problems, and because the GOP likes a lot of what Obama is doing. So basically, the normal vandals have put away their spray paint and the opposition isn't opposing.
Kit, Ironically, Bush tried to stop dealing with dictators first and was called hopelessly naive. Then he abandoned the policy and they attacked him for dealing with dictators. Then Obama tried it and they acted like he was the first ever. Then he abandoned it and they went silent on the point.
And lo, for he waseth elected and all the bad shit suddenly left the newscycle. -- Liberalus 4:20
Exactly. I've recounted before the eye-opening conversation I had with some über-liberal friends back in my post-college days. They were virulently ant-Bush for all the reasons mentioned above. Because we were friendly, I was able to pry and eventually got them to reveal that they want an offensive military overseas--that it helps them sleep at night--they just don't want it in the news. And so, they held the Bush administration responsible for not hiding it from the media.
So instead of "walk softly and carry a big stick," the liberal preference is to "talk softly and swing that stick at everything."
Incidentally, I've come to the conclusion that libs harp on foreign policy when they don't have any resonant gripes at home. There's always some other country looking to provoke us or an ally, and it's easy to claim your political opponent is doing too little/much to assuage/provoke them.
Andrew,
My first point was that the fringe are the only ones who deeply object to X in all circumstances. I remember a conservative group which was briefly celebrated for going after Clinton for coverups. When it continued doing so against Bush, it went from conservative darling to idealists who needed to go away.
As for my second point, I agree that the liberal media is covering for Obama but that alone isn't what's saving him. The problem is most conservatives are just promising to do what Obama is doing but do it tougher and harder which would make threats melt before us (we could wipe out Iran's nuke program with a short bombing campaign).
tryanmax, You might be onto something. Liberals are huge at out-of-sight, does-not-exist. And "talk softly and swing that stick at everything" does seem to be the liberal way. It's amazing how much principle they can invent when they aren't in power and how quickly they dump it the moment it gets in the way of them using violence against people they don't like.
The one are where I would differ, if we actually do differ, is that I see more cynicism in their approach. I first noticed this with the homeless. When Reagan and Bush were in power, the MSM did a full-court press on the homeless. Every night there were stories about them and how they were just normal middle class people who got laid off by Reagan himself. There were 250 million of them and everyone had a 105% chance of being homeless so long as Republicans kept getting elected. This issue had as much coverage as any war.
Then Clinton got elected. Literally, overnight they homeless vanished. The stories stopped cold. Everyone in the country was happy and housed and fed. The day Bush W was re-elected, the stories started again.
I've seen this time and again from the left. Hence, I see extreme partisanship in these issues.
Anthony, That's true of our side... the fringes are the only ones who pathologically hate the opposition. But increasingly since Gore-Florida, even moderate Democrats have been opposed to all Republicans on principle sight unseen. It is the truly rare Democrat that I would trust to evaluate either side fairly. By comparison, I still see a majority of Republicans who will evaluate both sides fairly.
I agree that part of the reason Obama escapes so easily is that the Republicans are just offering the exact same thing Obama is. But I think the key, i.e. why there is no sense of disunity or chaos, is that the left gives Obama a pass on all of their issues and the fringe right isn't as capable of causing problems as the left. If Obama found himself under constant attack by the nightly news and protest rallies and his speeches were disrupted as happened to Bush, he would be seen as just as bad as Bush by the public. But the left is silent and the right has no idea how to do what the left does.
Andrew, you've lost me on what the difference is, so I think it's safe to say we don't have one.
tryanmax, I don't think we have a difference on this.
I was just saying that I think there is an added reason they hated Bush rather than just that he forced them to confront the reality of what they wanted, i.e. "kill the terrorists in a way I don't need to know about it." I think that is a rotten partisan-ness that has sunk in on the left and they now see Republicans as the enemy and automatically attack them with no effort made to work together where there is common ground.
Essentially, almost the entire left has become fringe, whereas our side still has a majority who are rational and whose goals are improving America first rather than destroying the opposition first.
Hopefully, that makes sense.
Oh yeah, the partisanship is a given. The position is inherently hypocritical, because the more logical target for blame is the media that reports the things they don't want to hear.
Don't you hate it when you both agree but, due to differing terminology or phrasing, find yourself disagreeing?
Off topic, but the only thing more idiotic than the Baltimore riots/looting is the reporters trying to play it down/justify it.
The pictures of those people attacking that car remind me why I carry an extra magazine for my Glock..there's no substitute for extra ammo.
I think Obama should host a beer summit to solve the Baltimore problem. He can invite a 1,000 rioters and 1,000 cops and get them all good and drunk and see what comes out of it! :D
tryanmax, The partisanship is startling to me because it wasn't always like this. There was a time when the vast center of both parties were actually fairly decent people.
Critch, Guns don't kill people, ammo does. So make sure you have plenty of ammo when the time comes.
"Critch, Guns don't kill people, ammo does. So make sure you have plenty of ammo when the time comes."
Haha!
This news out of Baltimore is disturbing.
LINK
"Police: Baltimore Gangs Threaten To ‘Take Out’ Officers"
True, the country is not openly polarized on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On race relations (and everything else), however…
Maybe the partisanship is a given to me b/c of my age. I gained political awareness during the Clinton years, when the right was gung-ho to impeach. Prior to that, I was vaguely aware that some people thought Reagan was a saint while others thought he was a devil.
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