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On December 18 2016 03:03 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2016 02:49 oBlade wrote: One thing the president gave away on TV was the administration's failure to organize an international response in Syria when he was patting them on the back for doing what he claims is the best they could (droning terrorists and arming the opposition). Because putting together an international response wasn't an option. Well, it wasn't an option because they couldn't hack it. That's what that actually means. There's never a gift-wrapped way to move the world but a theme for most of this administration on any issue has been looking for a quick answer, realizing it doesn't exist, then giving up and using the perpetual campaign to sell the results as some kind of inevitability. Syria failed because the administration had no strategic vision for the region and how they would pursue it - or, for those more inclined to defend that course of action, they did a piss-poor job of communicating any such strategic vision to the public. People saw Iraq and the problem of direct involvement in an absurd quagmire, they saw Libya and the absurdity of involvement with no real forethought as to "the day after" and just noped all over another conflict that resembles either of them. When the US failed to provide any real endgame as to what would happen after Assad and arming rebel oppositions when taking a hard line on "Assad must go" that provided a golden opportunity for Russia to go and assert their own geopolitical interests in the area. If the US strategy were better that would have never happened. The only real difference between the Obama and Bush strategies in the Middle East is that Bush made an effort to fill the vacuum that he created. Obama never showed any interest in doing anything other than breaking shit.
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I was going to comment about how one is more expensive than the other, but then I realized that Obama is no champ on the debt either. Some of that debt is inherited from indirect military intervention costs, to be fair, but Obama certainly is no debt reducer.
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On December 18 2016 03:39 LegalLord wrote: I was going to comment about how one is more expensive than the other, but then I realized that Obama is no champ on the debt either. Some of that debt is inherited from indirect military intervention costs, to be fair, but Obama certainly is no debt reducer.
Obama has cut spending by a lot, and spending is a lot less than the Bush and is much closer to the Clinton era. But since we haven't had a president go to negative spending since Eisenhower, I don't really know what to expect from that.
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On December 18 2016 03:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2016 03:39 LegalLord wrote: I was going to comment about how one is more expensive than the other, but then I realized that Obama is no champ on the debt either. Some of that debt is inherited from indirect military intervention costs, to be fair, but Obama certainly is no debt reducer. Obama has cut spending by a lot, and spending is a lot less than the Bush and is much closer to the Clinton era. But since we haven't had a president go to negative spending since Eisenhower, I don't really know what to expect from that.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KJlCEh3.png)
I can't blame him for all of the debt since he did inherit some expensive liabilities, but the debt absolutely went way up under him, even compared to Bush. Trump is probably going to be even worse overall.
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On December 18 2016 03:13 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2016 03:03 LegalLord wrote:On December 18 2016 02:49 oBlade wrote: One thing the president gave away on TV was the administration's failure to organize an international response in Syria when he was patting them on the back for doing what he claims is the best they could (droning terrorists and arming the opposition). Because putting together an international response wasn't an option. Well, it wasn't an option because they couldn't hack it. That's what that actually means. There's never a gift-wrapped way to move the world but a theme for most of this administration on any issue has been looking for a quick answer, realizing it doesn't exist, then giving up and using the perpetual campaign to sell the results as some kind of inevitability. Syria failed because the administration had no strategic vision for the region and how they would pursue it - or, for those more inclined to defend that course of action, they did a piss-poor job of communicating any such strategic vision to the public. People saw Iraq and the problem of direct involvement in an absurd quagmire, they saw Libya and the absurdity of involvement with no real forethought as to "the day after" and just noped all over another conflict that resembles either of them. When the US failed to provide any real endgame as to what would happen after Assad and arming rebel oppositions when taking a hard line on "Assad must go" that provided a golden opportunity for Russia to go and assert their own geopolitical interests in the area. If the US strategy were better that would have never happened. The only real difference between the Obama and Bush strategies in the Middle East is that Bush made an effort to fill the vacuum that he created. Obama never showed any interest in doing anything other than breaking shit.
This is not exactly true. Getting his hands dirty and sending in troops to fix shit was 100% what Obama did in his first term. Then liberals started branding any and all deployment of troops as pure evil and suddenly Obama is caught in shitty position of being unable to send troops during a presidential race or else get democrats branded as Warhawks. Instead he got the worse of both worlds. Dems got labeled Warhawks anyway and the problems he tried using alternative means to solve remained unsolved.
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On December 18 2016 03:49 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2016 03:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 18 2016 03:39 LegalLord wrote: I was going to comment about how one is more expensive than the other, but then I realized that Obama is no champ on the debt either. Some of that debt is inherited from indirect military intervention costs, to be fair, but Obama certainly is no debt reducer. Obama has cut spending by a lot, and spending is a lot less than the Bush and is much closer to the Clinton era. But since we haven't had a president go to negative spending since Eisenhower, I don't really know what to expect from that. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KJlCEh3.png) I can't blame him for all of the debt since he did inherit some expensive liabilities, but the debt absolutely went way up under him, even compared to Bush. Trump is probably going to be even worse overall.
I know the debt has gone up--its been going up nonstop since forever. I think there's only ever been 5ish presidents that ever made the debt go down. The difference is yearly spending. He has cut down on his spending during his second term but the bailouts in his first term was a massive spike in spending.
I think the new deal and Reagan are the two biggest culprits to our debt increase. Which is why they're loved. The new deal funded liberal policies (conservatives be damned) while Reagan funded conservative policies (liberals be damned)
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I sort of wonder if the following political realignment is possible: Republicans become the party of the Trump supporters, Sanders supporters, and the religious right. Anti-trade, anti-immigration, populist, pro-workers, protectionist, supports universal healthcare and socialized education.
Democrats become the party of Hillary Clinton and establishment supporters. Pro-war, pro-minority, corporatist, interventionist, and globalist. Supports UHC and socialized education because that's something that is ubiquitously better.
It's no more of a contradiction than the current alignments.
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Interesting article on Iraq from last year:
The Iraq war wasn’t an innocent mistake, a venture undertaken on the basis of intelligence that turned out to be wrong. America invaded Iraq because the Bush administration wanted a war. The public justifications for the invasion were nothing but pretexts, and falsified pretexts at that. Source
Pretty damn good reason why the war was a bad idea. I'm curious if we have anyone here who defends the Iraqi invasion in full or in part among our posters here. It's probably the most visible example of the faults of an active military involvement in foreign affairs.
Also this article.
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On December 18 2016 03:55 LegalLord wrote: I sort of wonder if the following political realignment is possible: Republicans become the party of the Trump supporters, Sanders supporters, and the religious right. Anti-trade, anti-immigration, populist, pro-workers, protectionist, supports universal healthcare and socialized education.
Democrats become the party of Hillary Clinton and establishment supporters. Pro-war, pro-minority, corporatist, interventionist, and globalist. Supports UHC and socialized education because that's something that is ubiquitously better.
It's no more of a contradiction than the current alignments. The religious right and Sanders supporters as bedfellows would be more contradictions than current alignments. It's just the person of Trump that let the religious right set aside their preferred moral votes for a fighter in other topics and Sanders supporters/independents that could accept him for trade and populist positions. Like the exit polls that showed Trump supporters didn't like his temperament or grab-em-by-the-pussy comments, but still voted for him. Trump united for the moment, but the I don't see a longer realignment happening unless the Democrats really implode.
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On December 18 2016 01:02 LegalLord wrote: On the eve of Obama's presidency, I have to say that I probably give him more credit than he deserves. I see that xDaunt has a point where he says that if you wanted "hope and change" but got "the status quo" then by that measure Obama is a failure. He made some good progress on some issues (Cuba, gay marriage, previous conditions insurance) but had a few pet projects that ended unfortunately (Asia pivot and Obamacare) and toed the line on some rather poorly conceived policies (trade, NDAA and the Patriot Act, generally feckless and poorly planned FP involvement). He also had some really stupid "interventions" in other countries' affairs, including "back of the queue" and "red line in the sand" in the UK and Syria respectively.
In some ways Hillary Clinton is a slightly worse version of Obama. I'm starting to realize that it's Obama's campaign charisma more than anything else that convinced me to go along with it, on top of the brokenness of the Republican Party. Yet the pressure has evidently been against Obama, seeing as how the Republicans have been gaining quite goodly in Congress. Even against a broken Republican Party it seems that Clinton just couldn't push back against the populist pressure opposing her across the country. It is remarkable how much she tries to deny it by blaming anyone but her own campaign for losing to a clown. Just to cap off on what you were talking about on the status quo, Michelle's recent interview talked about how her husband campaigned on hope and change and after eight years, feels Americans just don't have hope. And really blames everyone else for that result.
We'll be stuck with the results of his "generally feckless and poorly planned FP involvement" for years. We're already seeing what Russia and China are doing after eight years of Obama FP. I don't know if Trump possesses the clear sight and fortitude to reverse the trends over four years. Taiwan is a signal that it might happen.
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I wouldn't blame "Obama's weakness" for Russia and China. They are simply stronger than they were 15 years ago, both economically and militarily, and they are capable of pushing for their own global interests. That the US opened a vacuum in Syria that Russia seems to have filled is true, and Team Obama can take the blame for his weakness there. That Russia and China seem to agree to work to create an alternative power structure to US hegemony is a reality among nations who reject the "Washington consensus" of the world. That Europe and the US both see a sharp, sustained rise in populism is probably partially the fault of leaders like Obama, who favor policies that leave important swathes of the population behind. It's a lot of things all at once, but the rise of Russia and China can't be blamed solely on poor FP.
I'd be interested to see how someone might tie the Ukraine situation to the populist wave in Europe. The connection is definitely not nothing, but it's hard to connect in a simple way.
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Hey, sometimes other nations take advantage of vacuums and it becomes much tougher to respond. It's disingenuous to say I blame him solely; the thrust is a stronger and planned approach to FP would have prevented the cascade of events like seizing territory in Ukraine or drones in international waters off China. And just how that Syrian situation gets worse and worse oh man.
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Don't think there was really any way to make Ukraine end well and there was definitely no way to expect that Russia wouldn't make a grab for Crimea. Perhaps what wouldn't be expected would be the effectiveness of Russian military ventures in the area but the fact that they would respond strongly to the coup should not have been in question at all. I suppose they could have hoped for winning in Donetsk with military force but that was clearly going to end in endless escalation (Ukraine is a pretty bad country and a long-term liability). And the drone glider is not something that is even worth considering in terms of military feasibility. But remember that both events took place on the borders of the other countries, far from the US.
The vacuum in the Middle East exists, and a European one might develop if Europe continues down the populist path. But it's not so much through Obama being weak as the relative position of the US (and its most loyal allies) as a world player being in relative decline, yet the worldwide commitments to those efforts have not seen a decline.
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On December 18 2016 02:51 LegalLord wrote:Delusion from the Clinton-Obama camp: Show nested quote +Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that the hacking attacks carried out by Russia against her campaign and the Democratic National Committee were intended “to undermine our democracy” and were ordered by Vladimir V. Putin “because he has a personal beef against me.”
Speaking to a group of donors in Manhattan, Mrs. Clinton said that Mr. Putin, the Russian president, had never forgiven her for the accusation she made in 2011, when she was secretary of state, that parliamentary elections his country held that year were rigged.
“Putin publicly blamed me for the outpouring of outrage by his own people, and that is the direct line between what he said back then and what he did in this election,” Mrs. Clinton said.
It is the first time Mrs. Clinton has publicly addressed the impact of the hacks since the intelligence community concluded that they were specifically aimed at harming her campaign.
“Make no mistake, as the press is finally catching up to the facts, which we desperately tried to present to them during the last months of the campaign,” Mrs. Clinton told the group, which collectively poured roughly $1 billion into her effort. “This is not just an attack on me and my campaign, although that may have added fuel to it. This is an attack against our country. We are well beyond normal political concerns here. This is about the integrity of our democracy and the security of our nation.”
In her remarks, she endorsed the proposal of a bipartisan group of senators to investigate the hacking and said the inquiry should be modeled on the commission set up after the Sept. 11 attacks. “The public deserves to know exactly what happened, and why, in order for us to prevent future attacks on our systems, including our electoral system,” she said.
Mrs. Clinton said the hacking was one of two “unprecedented” events that led to her defeat. The other was the release of a letter by James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, shortly before the election disclosing new questions about emails handled by her private server. The letter, she said, cost her close races in several battleground states.
“Swing-state voters made their decisions in the final days breaking against me because of the F.B.I. letter from Director Comey,” she said.
Mrs. Clinton first talked about the impact of Mr. Comey’s letters in a conference call with donors a few days after the election. Since the election she has kept a low profile, mostly appearing on social media in photographs by passers-by who have spotted her walking her dogs near her home in Chappaqua, N.Y. SourceShow nested quote +President Obama on Friday tied election-year hacks of Democrats to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and warned Republicans that “Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave” if he saw so many in the GOP expressing fondness for leaders in Moscow.
“Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin,” Obama told reporters at his final press conference of 2016. “I will let you make that determination as to whether there are high-level Russian officials who go off rogue and decide to tamper with the U.S. election process without Vladimir Putin knowing about it.”
The president promised unspecific and potentially secret retaliation against Russia, telling Putin, “We can do stuff to you,” and took pains to belittle Moscow’s influence over world affairs.
“The Russians can’t change us or significantly weaken us,” he said. “They are a smaller country, they are a weaker country, their economy doesn’t produce anything that anyone wants to buy except oil and gas and arms. They don’t innovate. But they can impact us if we lose track of who we are. They can impact us if we abandon our values.”
Obama pointed to a public opinion poll that, he said, showed 37 percent of Republicans have a favorable view of Putin, blaming the “fierceness of partisan battle” in the United States for driving Americans into the arms of a historic foe. During the campaign, Donald Trump often heaped praise on Putin, whom he labeled a stronger leader than the U.S. president.
“Over a third of Republican voters approve of Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB,” Obama said. “Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave.”
Asked whether his administration will provide evidence to back up charges of Russian meddling, Obama gave a guarded response.
“We will provide evidence that we can safely provide, that does not compromise sources and methods. But I’ll be honest with you, when you are talking about cybersecurity, a lot of it is classified and we’re not going to provide it, because the way we catch folks is by knowing certain things about them that they may not want us to know, and if we’re going to monitor this stuff effectively going forward, we don’t want them to know that we know.”
But he expressed disbelief that Americans would trust Putin’s word over statements from the U.S. spy community. His comments came shortly after it was disclosed that the FBI agrees with the CIA’s conclusions that Russia targeted Democrats with the aim of helping Trump win on Nov. 8.
“This is one of those situations where, unless the American people genuinely think that the professionals in the CIA, the FBI, our entire intelligence infrastructure — many of whom, by the way, served in previous administrations, and who are Republicans — are less trustworthy than the Russians, then people should pay attention to what our intelligence agencies say,” Obama said.
Obama said he had confronted Putin during a September meeting about the cyberintrusions, telling the Russian leader to “cut it out.” He said he had delivered a similar warning to President Xi Jinping of China, which U.S. officials have blamed for major cyberattacks against the U.S. government and American firms.
And he promised that Moscow would pay a price for its alleged interference.
“Our goal continues to be to send a clear message to Russia or others not to do this to us because we can do stuff to you, but it is also important for us to do that in a thoughtful, methodical way,” Obama said. “Some of it we do publicly. Some of it we will do in a way that they know but not everybody will.”
Trump and some of his top aides have played down the potential impact of Russia’s alleged actions and cast doubt on the CIA’s findings. Last Friday, Trump’s transition team dismissed those findings, saying in a statement, “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.”
At his press conference, Obama said the back-and-forth between the White House and the incoming administration would not hamper cooperation on the transfer of power.
“I think they would be the first to acknowledge that we have done everything we can to make sure that they are successful, as I promised, and that will continue,” he said.
Obama repeatedly emphasized the importance of a free and independent news media, but also took aim at the press over its widespread coverage of leaked emails linked to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
“You guys wrote about it every day, every single leak about every little juicy tidbit of political gossip, including John Podesta’s risotto recipe,” the president said. “This was an obsession that dominated the news coverage.”
As a result, he said, “I don’t think she was treated fairly during the election. I think the coverage of her and the issues was troubling.” SourceAt the end of the day, Hillary Clinton lost because of her position on trade, her willingness to continue a set of ineffective FP directions, and her ridiculous focus on minorities to the exclusion of the WWC. Any analysis of the election has to start with the issues that she lost on, not on which boogeyman to blame for her loss. Blaming Russia for your own problems doesn't make people forget about those problems.
You know I haven't heard Hillary's camp take any responsibility for intentionally elevating Trump themselves? Any chance that had something to do with her loss?
EDIT: Looks like her owners donors want some better answers too.
NEW YORK — When Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine greet the very top fundraisers and donors to their failed campaign at New York’s Plaza Hotel on Thursday evening, many of them will have one question in mind: Where’s the autopsy?
The call for a deep and detailed accounting of how Clinton lost a race that she and her donors were absolutely certain she’d win didn’t begin immediately after the election — there was too much shock over her defeat by Donald Trump, and overwhelming grief. Her initial conference call with top backers, which came just days after the outcome, focused primarily on FBI Director Jim Comey’s late campaign-season intervention.
But in the weeks since, the wealthy Democrats who helped pump over $1 billion into Clinton’s losing effort have been urging their local finance staffers, state party officials, and campaign aides to provide a more thorough explanation of what went wrong. With no dispassionate, centralized analysis of how Clinton failed so spectacularly, they insist, how can they be expected to keep contributing to the party?
“A lot of the bundlers and donors still are in shock and disbelief by what happened. They’re looking for some introspection and analysis about what really happened, what worked and what didn’t,” said Ken Martin, chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and a top campaign bundler himself. "It may take some time to do that, but people are still just scratching their heads."
Or, in the words of a Midwestern fundraiser who’s kept in touch with fellow donors, “A lot of people are saying, ‘I’m not putting another fucking dime in until someone tells me what just happened.’”
Source
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On December 18 2016 01:02 LegalLord wrote: On the eve of Obama's presidency, I have to say that I probably give him more credit than he deserves. I see that xDaunt has a point where he says that if you wanted "hope and change" but got "the status quo" then by that measure Obama is a failure. He made some good progress on some issues (Cuba, gay marriage, previous conditions insurance) but had a few pet projects that ended unfortunately (Asia pivot and Obamacare) and toed the line on some rather poorly conceived policies (trade, NDAA and the Patriot Act, generally feckless and poorly planned FP involvement). He also had some really stupid "interventions" in other countries' affairs, including "back of the queue" and "red line in the sand" in the UK and Syria respectively.
In some ways Hillary Clinton is a slightly worse version of Obama. I'm starting to realize that it's Obama's campaign charisma more than anything else that convinced me to go along with it, on top of the brokenness of the Republican Party. Yet the pressure has evidently been against Obama, seeing as how the Republicans have been gaining quite goodly in Congress. Even against a broken Republican Party it seems that Clinton just couldn't push back against the populist pressure opposing her across the country. It is remarkable how much she tries to deny it by blaming anyone but her own campaign for losing to a clown. What was actually achieved in Cuba? They restored ties but that's it really. Cuba isn't really reforming at all.
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On December 18 2016 06:34 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2016 01:02 LegalLord wrote: On the eve of Obama's presidency, I have to say that I probably give him more credit than he deserves. I see that xDaunt has a point where he says that if you wanted "hope and change" but got "the status quo" then by that measure Obama is a failure. He made some good progress on some issues (Cuba, gay marriage, previous conditions insurance) but had a few pet projects that ended unfortunately (Asia pivot and Obamacare) and toed the line on some rather poorly conceived policies (trade, NDAA and the Patriot Act, generally feckless and poorly planned FP involvement). He also had some really stupid "interventions" in other countries' affairs, including "back of the queue" and "red line in the sand" in the UK and Syria respectively.
In some ways Hillary Clinton is a slightly worse version of Obama. I'm starting to realize that it's Obama's campaign charisma more than anything else that convinced me to go along with it, on top of the brokenness of the Republican Party. Yet the pressure has evidently been against Obama, seeing as how the Republicans have been gaining quite goodly in Congress. Even against a broken Republican Party it seems that Clinton just couldn't push back against the populist pressure opposing her across the country. It is remarkable how much she tries to deny it by blaming anyone but her own campaign for losing to a clown. What was actually achieved in Cuba? They restored ties but that's it really. Cuba isn't really reforming at all. Mostly the acknowledgement that an age old policy of "sanctions until you change" didn't work.
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On December 18 2016 06:46 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2016 06:34 RvB wrote:On December 18 2016 01:02 LegalLord wrote: On the eve of Obama's presidency, I have to say that I probably give him more credit than he deserves. I see that xDaunt has a point where he says that if you wanted "hope and change" but got "the status quo" then by that measure Obama is a failure. He made some good progress on some issues (Cuba, gay marriage, previous conditions insurance) but had a few pet projects that ended unfortunately (Asia pivot and Obamacare) and toed the line on some rather poorly conceived policies (trade, NDAA and the Patriot Act, generally feckless and poorly planned FP involvement). He also had some really stupid "interventions" in other countries' affairs, including "back of the queue" and "red line in the sand" in the UK and Syria respectively.
In some ways Hillary Clinton is a slightly worse version of Obama. I'm starting to realize that it's Obama's campaign charisma more than anything else that convinced me to go along with it, on top of the brokenness of the Republican Party. Yet the pressure has evidently been against Obama, seeing as how the Republicans have been gaining quite goodly in Congress. Even against a broken Republican Party it seems that Clinton just couldn't push back against the populist pressure opposing her across the country. It is remarkable how much she tries to deny it by blaming anyone but her own campaign for losing to a clown. What was actually achieved in Cuba? They restored ties but that's it really. Cuba isn't really reforming at all. Mostly the acknowledgement that an age old policy of "sanctions until you change" didn't work.
Don't worry, I'm sure Russia and China will cede where Cuba did not 
Finger pointing and sanctions only go as far as people are willing to fear the sanctioner.
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Well with Russia and China they don't have any real reason to fear. No one on that level has to worry about an invasion.
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On December 18 2016 06:54 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2016 06:46 LegalLord wrote:On December 18 2016 06:34 RvB wrote:On December 18 2016 01:02 LegalLord wrote: On the eve of Obama's presidency, I have to say that I probably give him more credit than he deserves. I see that xDaunt has a point where he says that if you wanted "hope and change" but got "the status quo" then by that measure Obama is a failure. He made some good progress on some issues (Cuba, gay marriage, previous conditions insurance) but had a few pet projects that ended unfortunately (Asia pivot and Obamacare) and toed the line on some rather poorly conceived policies (trade, NDAA and the Patriot Act, generally feckless and poorly planned FP involvement). He also had some really stupid "interventions" in other countries' affairs, including "back of the queue" and "red line in the sand" in the UK and Syria respectively.
In some ways Hillary Clinton is a slightly worse version of Obama. I'm starting to realize that it's Obama's campaign charisma more than anything else that convinced me to go along with it, on top of the brokenness of the Republican Party. Yet the pressure has evidently been against Obama, seeing as how the Republicans have been gaining quite goodly in Congress. Even against a broken Republican Party it seems that Clinton just couldn't push back against the populist pressure opposing her across the country. It is remarkable how much she tries to deny it by blaming anyone but her own campaign for losing to a clown. What was actually achieved in Cuba? They restored ties but that's it really. Cuba isn't really reforming at all. Mostly the acknowledgement that an age old policy of "sanctions until you change" didn't work. Don't worry, I'm sure Russia and China will cede where Cuba did not  Finger pointing and sanctions only go as far as people are willing to fear the sanctioner. Interestingly, the Russian counter-sanctions appear to be having some measurable effect, as seen by the pro-Russian candidate victories in Moldova and Bulgaria. Though the sentiment is a lot more so "why are we suffering for someone else's war" rather than "these sanctions hurt us so much, we have to convince our government to change."
I guess the Iran sanctions could be called successful, though that is mostly because Russia and China don't want more nations to have nukes.
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On December 18 2016 00:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2016 18:40 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:On December 17 2016 16:32 Thieving Magpie wrote:On December 17 2016 15:42 Nebuchad wrote: A criticism of SA can't be only focused on their internal affairs. I mean, yeah, they're shitty there, but they've also done as much as they can to spread islamist extremism and fundamentalism throughout the muslim world (and beyond). You cannot forget that when you discuss their influence on the global situation. Would you rather: A.) Cut ties with the middle east and not try to make allies there. B.) Start alliances where you can and hope that after enough time passes (my guess is 100-200 years) the two cultures finds a middle ground and both sides end up happier for it. 200 years? Last i heard Saudi has maybe 30-40 years of oil left.And we all know that oil is harder to extract than the stuff they've already pulled out. Saudi gets 90% of it's revenue from oil, it will be a total minnow on the global political stage with a few decades and it is very unlikely the current monarchy will still exist.They will probably go back to being nomadic traders which to me is far preferable than the atrocities they are committing in Yemen right now in the name of globalism and the "war on terror". Can you name those Middle East countries who could ally with us with enough muscle to positively affect the region? I'm more of a non-interventionist. Even now, if the US cut all funding to "rebel" groups and pulled out of the mid east the situation there would be far better in a few years i think. Even Bin Laden was funded by the US in the 80s, to fight the USSR in Afghanistan.That is pretty common knowledge but without that US funding and support iof Bin Laden and his allies it is quite possible 9/11 would not have happened.
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