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Please guys, stay on topic.
This thread is about the situation in Iraq and Syria. |
On September 11 2013 14:33 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 13:28 Sub40APM wrote:On September 11 2013 09:56 xDaunt wrote:
Does anyone disagree that Obama would be in a better position politically than he is now had he simply kept his mouth shut on Syria? so what you are saying is, Obama is courageous enough to sacrifice some political capital and let Republicans insult him a bit to achieve a goal no Republican president has ever managed, the disarmament of Syrian chemical weapons? And he did it without costing one American life? Obama hasn't accomplished anything yet. To the extent that Syrian disarmament may happen, it could have been done much, much better in a way that wouldn't carry adverse consequences that Obama's course of action has carried. Yeah, there are many ways to skin a cat, but the best ones don't involve cutting off your thumb. And no, I'm not preaching what is obvious with 20/20 hindsight. I'm preaching what has been obvious all along once Obama embarked on this path. The critical mistake was drawing that red line with no intention of enforcing it. Every failure and adverse effect flows from that initial mistake.
Not to mention the red line itself was pathetic.
"You know, uh, if theres a whole bunch of chemicals uh being moved around or used thats a red line" or whatever
The key part here is, "whole bunch"
They were willing to accept chemical weapons use as long as the bodycount wasn't too high. On August 21st someone fucked up and killed so many people that Obama felt he couldn't just ignore it this time.
Who sets an ambiguous red line? Whole bunch... really? Assad probably just saw that as approval of light chemical weapons use
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On September 11 2013 13:28 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 09:56 xDaunt wrote:
Does anyone disagree that Obama would be in a better position politically than he is now had he simply kept his mouth shut on Syria? so what you are saying is, Obama is courageous enough to sacrifice some political capital and let Republicans insult him a bit to achieve a goal no Republican president has ever managed, the disarmament of Syrian chemical weapons? And he did it without costing one American life?
Lmao that's a nice twist right there. J. Kerry brought the "if they disarm right now, we're okay, but that's impossible" up and Russia and Syria simply took him on his words. You can hardly say that Kerry or Obama had any intention to actually do it. If Assad goes through with this, it's clearly just since he doesn't think he requires chemical weapons to win the civil war.
Admittedly if I was in Assad shoes I'd not be willing to drop my poor man's nukes when you have warmongering USA and Israel ready to go whenever.
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On September 11 2013 17:23 Zarahtra wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 13:28 Sub40APM wrote:On September 11 2013 09:56 xDaunt wrote:
Does anyone disagree that Obama would be in a better position politically than he is now had he simply kept his mouth shut on Syria? so what you are saying is, Obama is courageous enough to sacrifice some political capital and let Republicans insult him a bit to achieve a goal no Republican president has ever managed, the disarmament of Syrian chemical weapons? And he did it without costing one American life? Lmao that's a nice twist right there. J. Kerry brought the "if they disarm right now, we're okay, but that's impossible" up and Russia and Syria simply took him on his words. You can hardly say that Kerry or Obama had any intention to actually do it. If Assad goes through with this, it's clearly just since he doesn't think he requires chemical weapons to win the civil war. Admittedly if I was in Assad shoes I'd not be willing to drop my poor man's nukes when you have warmongering USA and Israel ready to go whenever.
How do you know that? It takes pure genius to act in a way that makes your enemies think they have beaten you while acquiescing to your only strategic goal. Obama has won a glorious victory for America while making the insecure Russians feel good about their continued and growing irrelevance to the world and their continued wasted investment into Syria.
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On September 11 2013 17:23 Zarahtra wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 13:28 Sub40APM wrote:On September 11 2013 09:56 xDaunt wrote:
Does anyone disagree that Obama would be in a better position politically than he is now had he simply kept his mouth shut on Syria? so what you are saying is, Obama is courageous enough to sacrifice some political capital and let Republicans insult him a bit to achieve a goal no Republican president has ever managed, the disarmament of Syrian chemical weapons? And he did it without costing one American life? Lmao that's a nice twist right there. J. Kerry brought the "if they disarm right now, we're okay, but that's impossible" up and Russia and Syria simply took him on his words. You can hardly say that Kerry or Obama had any intention to actually do it. If Assad goes through with this, it's clearly just since he doesn't think he requires chemical weapons to win the civil war. Admittedly if I was in Assad shoes I'd not be willing to drop my poor man's nukes when you have warmongering USA and Israel ready to go whenever.
Or Assad just keeps a stash hidden somewhere in a basement it's not like you will find it in this mess.
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On September 11 2013 17:47 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 17:23 Zarahtra wrote:On September 11 2013 13:28 Sub40APM wrote:On September 11 2013 09:56 xDaunt wrote:
Does anyone disagree that Obama would be in a better position politically than he is now had he simply kept his mouth shut on Syria? so what you are saying is, Obama is courageous enough to sacrifice some political capital and let Republicans insult him a bit to achieve a goal no Republican president has ever managed, the disarmament of Syrian chemical weapons? And he did it without costing one American life? Lmao that's a nice twist right there. J. Kerry brought the "if they disarm right now, we're okay, but that's impossible" up and Russia and Syria simply took him on his words. You can hardly say that Kerry or Obama had any intention to actually do it. If Assad goes through with this, it's clearly just since he doesn't think he requires chemical weapons to win the civil war. Admittedly if I was in Assad shoes I'd not be willing to drop my poor man's nukes when you have warmongering USA and Israel ready to go whenever. How do you know that? It takes pure genius to act in a way that makes your enemies think they have beaten you while acquiescing to your only strategic goal. Obama has won a glorious victory for America while making the insecure Russians feel good about their continued and growing irrelevance to the world and their continued wasted investment into Syria.
Yeah, because what we've seen over the last month is how Obama loves looking totally incompetent. He has been desperately trying to save face over his red line remark, I'm sure the first thing he wants to make everyone see is Russia making peace deals while he has been on the war path, mimicking GWB's Iraq while running as a peace president.
While this is indeed a positive step, to credit anything to Obama in that process except scaring Syria shitless with insane warmongering is just fanboyism imo.
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I agree with you Zarathra.
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Isn't that kind of what the US did to Saddam? Take away all his chemical weapons and then a couple of years later invade him on the basis he still had them?
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On September 11 2013 08:06 DeepElemBlues wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 07:45 xM(Z wrote:On September 11 2013 07:27 Kaitlin wrote:On September 11 2013 06:17 xM(Z wrote:
i don't know what problems people in here seem to have with B.Obama but for me he is the man because he didn't cave in to lobbyists pressure groups/warmongering; unlike Bush for ex. I guess that's one way to see it... if you're completely blind. President Obama was leading the charge for the attack and he couldn't drum up any support. Consequently, as I said, since he is absolutely unwilling to do anything which he can be blamed for, he is in the process of backing down. Kerry's comment was not a blunder; it wasn't even unintentional. he wasn't leading anything. he was bullshited about this from the get go; he was a puppet listening to his advisors, aka lobbyists/interest groups or whatever you have there. Obama number one cheerleader for bombing Syria But of course Boooooooooooooooooooosh The bullshit nonsense people will say so they can act like Obama is soooo different from Boooooooooooooooooooosh Jesus the man hasn't been president for 4 years and 9 months and you can't even tell that he isn't in the Oval Office anymore Barack Obama is zero difference from George Booooooooooooooooooooosh except he talked shit on George Booooooooooooooooosh and with a wink and a smile he says oh no things are different now and the less astute are sooooooo easily fooled by it just because they hate George Booooooooooooooooooooosh so much Obama could invade Iraq again tomorrow and say "hey this is different" and guaranteed there'd be people lining up ten deep to desperately explain how it wouldn't be the same as Emmanuel Goldstein I mean George Booooooooooooooooooooosh
hey dude!, those nobel peace prizes got to him  .
obama was played by his people but wasn't scared into anything as of yet. bush was scared into going to war. there is a big difference here.
i see this as an instinctive reactionary action triggered by lies by bush and thought over a bit (albeit after getting somewhat burned) decision making by obama.
the reasons for that are not worth mentioning/debating and are inconsequential for the mere mortals at this point. (i'd guess it was a US -> EU power play that he thought would nett him/american people some gains).
@Zarahtra: you look like someone that's being victimized by lobbyists. just watch the game, define its actors then take a stab at it!. it's all he said she said at this point. firmly believing in something/someone is illogical.
change the quality settings from Low -> Source and enjoy it.
@ DrCooper: that's a pretty good stab at it. as a nobel peace winner, starting a war would look pretty bad on his resume. besides, he only has a few more years left on his term and the interests of EU -> interests of US as far as syria goes; but then israelis ...
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On September 11 2013 17:47 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 17:23 Zarahtra wrote:On September 11 2013 13:28 Sub40APM wrote:On September 11 2013 09:56 xDaunt wrote:
Does anyone disagree that Obama would be in a better position politically than he is now had he simply kept his mouth shut on Syria? so what you are saying is, Obama is courageous enough to sacrifice some political capital and let Republicans insult him a bit to achieve a goal no Republican president has ever managed, the disarmament of Syrian chemical weapons? And he did it without costing one American life? Lmao that's a nice twist right there. J. Kerry brought the "if they disarm right now, we're okay, but that's impossible" up and Russia and Syria simply took him on his words. You can hardly say that Kerry or Obama had any intention to actually do it. If Assad goes through with this, it's clearly just since he doesn't think he requires chemical weapons to win the civil war. Admittedly if I was in Assad shoes I'd not be willing to drop my poor man's nukes when you have warmongering USA and Israel ready to go whenever. How do you know that? It takes pure genius to act in a way that makes your enemies think they have beaten you while acquiescing to your only strategic goal. Obama has won a glorious victory for America while making the insecure Russians feel good about their continued and growing irrelevance to the world and their continued wasted investment into Syria.
"Pure genius?" You aren't Obama's mother are you? I haven't seen anyone attach anything close to that label to Obama's actions on Syria. That's just crazy.
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On September 11 2013 23:36 Ghanburighan wrote:A great overview of the ongoing diplomatic clusterfuck.
Haha. I can't believe they actually used the term "clusterfuck." Even the liberal, Obama groupies at the New Republic get it.
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On September 11 2013 18:05 Zarahtra wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 17:47 Sub40APM wrote:On September 11 2013 17:23 Zarahtra wrote:On September 11 2013 13:28 Sub40APM wrote:On September 11 2013 09:56 xDaunt wrote:
Does anyone disagree that Obama would be in a better position politically than he is now had he simply kept his mouth shut on Syria? so what you are saying is, Obama is courageous enough to sacrifice some political capital and let Republicans insult him a bit to achieve a goal no Republican president has ever managed, the disarmament of Syrian chemical weapons? And he did it without costing one American life? Lmao that's a nice twist right there. J. Kerry brought the "if they disarm right now, we're okay, but that's impossible" up and Russia and Syria simply took him on his words. You can hardly say that Kerry or Obama had any intention to actually do it. If Assad goes through with this, it's clearly just since he doesn't think he requires chemical weapons to win the civil war. Admittedly if I was in Assad shoes I'd not be willing to drop my poor man's nukes when you have warmongering USA and Israel ready to go whenever. How do you know that? It takes pure genius to act in a way that makes your enemies think they have beaten you while acquiescing to your only strategic goal. Obama has won a glorious victory for America while making the insecure Russians feel good about their continued and growing irrelevance to the world and their continued wasted investment into Syria. Yeah, because what we've seen over the last month is how Obama loves looking totally incompetent. He has been desperately trying to save face over his red line remark, I'm sure the first thing he wants to make everyone see is Russia making peace deals while he has been on the war path, mimicking GWB's Iraq while running as a peace president. While this is indeed a positive step, to credit anything to Obama in that process except scaring Syria shitless with insane warmongering is just fanboyism imo.
Yes, its just your o, but its all about your perspective. If your preconceived notion is Obama is a terrible president then of course you will interpret the actions of the last month as his incompetence. If you just look at what he wants: no chemical weapons in syria and the outcome: Russia bends over backwards, scared of him and his rhetoric, to make sure there are no chemical weapons in Syria it looks like he did what he needed to do and all it cost him is a loss of face among people who already hate him.
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On September 11 2013 23:33 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 17:47 Sub40APM wrote:On September 11 2013 17:23 Zarahtra wrote:On September 11 2013 13:28 Sub40APM wrote:On September 11 2013 09:56 xDaunt wrote:
Does anyone disagree that Obama would be in a better position politically than he is now had he simply kept his mouth shut on Syria? so what you are saying is, Obama is courageous enough to sacrifice some political capital and let Republicans insult him a bit to achieve a goal no Republican president has ever managed, the disarmament of Syrian chemical weapons? And he did it without costing one American life? Lmao that's a nice twist right there. J. Kerry brought the "if they disarm right now, we're okay, but that's impossible" up and Russia and Syria simply took him on his words. You can hardly say that Kerry or Obama had any intention to actually do it. If Assad goes through with this, it's clearly just since he doesn't think he requires chemical weapons to win the civil war. Admittedly if I was in Assad shoes I'd not be willing to drop my poor man's nukes when you have warmongering USA and Israel ready to go whenever. How do you know that? It takes pure genius to act in a way that makes your enemies think they have beaten you while acquiescing to your only strategic goal. Obama has won a glorious victory for America while making the insecure Russians feel good about their continued and growing irrelevance to the world and their continued wasted investment into Syria. "Pure genius?" You aren't Obama's mother are you? I haven't seen anyone attach anything close to that label to Obama's actions on Syria. That's just crazy.
And you are a virulent Republican, so anything he would have done would have been wrong. Get involved in war: Obama is wasting precious American troops on a conflict we want nothing to do with ! Dont get involved in war: Obama is a coward showing lack of leadership! Get Russians to trip over backwards with scary rhetoric to disarm their Syrian allies of WMDs while continuing the terrorist loving Saudi Arabias and Qatars to pour billions of dollars to support terrorsts in Syria while also getting the Russians to piss away billions of dollars supporting an incompetent and incoherent regime: INCOHERENT! INCOMPETENT! EVIL!
Obama clearly did not want to be involved in a civil war, and he clearly wanted to control Syrian WMDs. and now he has accomplished both just by making a couple of speeches. In other words, he has achieved the excellence that Sun Tzu advocates.
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On September 12 2013 02:42 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 18:05 Zarahtra wrote:On September 11 2013 17:47 Sub40APM wrote:On September 11 2013 17:23 Zarahtra wrote:On September 11 2013 13:28 Sub40APM wrote:On September 11 2013 09:56 xDaunt wrote:
Does anyone disagree that Obama would be in a better position politically than he is now had he simply kept his mouth shut on Syria? so what you are saying is, Obama is courageous enough to sacrifice some political capital and let Republicans insult him a bit to achieve a goal no Republican president has ever managed, the disarmament of Syrian chemical weapons? And he did it without costing one American life? Lmao that's a nice twist right there. J. Kerry brought the "if they disarm right now, we're okay, but that's impossible" up and Russia and Syria simply took him on his words. You can hardly say that Kerry or Obama had any intention to actually do it. If Assad goes through with this, it's clearly just since he doesn't think he requires chemical weapons to win the civil war. Admittedly if I was in Assad shoes I'd not be willing to drop my poor man's nukes when you have warmongering USA and Israel ready to go whenever. How do you know that? It takes pure genius to act in a way that makes your enemies think they have beaten you while acquiescing to your only strategic goal. Obama has won a glorious victory for America while making the insecure Russians feel good about their continued and growing irrelevance to the world and their continued wasted investment into Syria. Yeah, because what we've seen over the last month is how Obama loves looking totally incompetent. He has been desperately trying to save face over his red line remark, I'm sure the first thing he wants to make everyone see is Russia making peace deals while he has been on the war path, mimicking GWB's Iraq while running as a peace president. While this is indeed a positive step, to credit anything to Obama in that process except scaring Syria shitless with insane warmongering is just fanboyism imo. Yes, its just your o, but its all about your perspective. If your preconceived notion is Obama is a terrible president then of course you will interpret the actions of the last month as his incompetence. If you just look at what he wants: no chemical weapons in syria and the outcome: Russia bends over backwards, scared of him and his rhetoric, to make sure there are no chemical weapons in Syria it looks like he did what he needed to do and all it cost him is a loss of face among people who already hate him.
I don't really dislike Obama so much as am dissappointed with him. Knowing the other option was a republican, he was the best option available. However twisting his huge public embarrashment to some victory is quite comical. This is actually one of the reasons I truly hate politics, people always have to have "their guy" and back him up no matter the insanely stupid or bad things he does, rather than call him out on it and try to make him improve. Congress is probably easiest to point at in that regard, if a republican was president, he'd surely do the same thing Obama is doing, but most of congress would switch sides.
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On September 12 2013 02:45 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 23:33 xDaunt wrote:On September 11 2013 17:47 Sub40APM wrote:On September 11 2013 17:23 Zarahtra wrote:On September 11 2013 13:28 Sub40APM wrote:On September 11 2013 09:56 xDaunt wrote:
Does anyone disagree that Obama would be in a better position politically than he is now had he simply kept his mouth shut on Syria? so what you are saying is, Obama is courageous enough to sacrifice some political capital and let Republicans insult him a bit to achieve a goal no Republican president has ever managed, the disarmament of Syrian chemical weapons? And he did it without costing one American life? Lmao that's a nice twist right there. J. Kerry brought the "if they disarm right now, we're okay, but that's impossible" up and Russia and Syria simply took him on his words. You can hardly say that Kerry or Obama had any intention to actually do it. If Assad goes through with this, it's clearly just since he doesn't think he requires chemical weapons to win the civil war. Admittedly if I was in Assad shoes I'd not be willing to drop my poor man's nukes when you have warmongering USA and Israel ready to go whenever. How do you know that? It takes pure genius to act in a way that makes your enemies think they have beaten you while acquiescing to your only strategic goal. Obama has won a glorious victory for America while making the insecure Russians feel good about their continued and growing irrelevance to the world and their continued wasted investment into Syria. "Pure genius?" You aren't Obama's mother are you? I haven't seen anyone attach anything close to that label to Obama's actions on Syria. That's just crazy. And you are a virulent Republican, so anything he would have done would have been wrong. Get involved in war: Obama is wasting precious American troops on a conflict we want nothing to do with ! Dont get involved in war: Obama is a coward showing lack of leadership! Get Russians to trip over backwards with scary rhetoric to disarm their Syrian allies of WMDs while continuing the terrorist loving Saudi Arabias and Qatars to pour billions of dollars to support terrorsts in Syria while also getting the Russians to piss away billions of dollars supporting an incompetent and incoherent regime: INCOHERENT! INCOMPETENT! EVIL! Obama clearly did not want to be involved in a civil war, and he clearly wanted to control Syrian WMDs. and now he has accomplished both just by making a couple of speeches. In other words, he has achieved the excellence that Sun Tzu advocates.
Huh? I'm not a "virulent republican," whatever it means. I sure as hell have never walked lock step with the party in my posting around here. I also have made no bones about the fact that we need to stay the hell out of Syria. At least on that point, I'm glad that Obama has shown little interest in military intervention, and I have even said as such in this thread (or maybe it was the US Politics thread, but whatever).
The point that you clearly are missing is that Obama could have done a much, much better job handling this affair than he did. In your superficial analysis of the situation, you are completely ignoring the costs and consequences of Obama's actions and errors. He has damaged American foreign policy interests with his incoherent and duplicitous rhetoric. I don't even see why you're arguing that he hasn't. Even the fucking New Republic (and take note of the MSNBC ads that appear on the site) gets it. Go read that article, then come back here once you fully understand the consequences of what he has done.
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Sub40apm is just one of those people who is beyond repair. No amount of disussion will help him if he thinks obama's foreign policy action( or inaction) on syria were "brilliant". Better to just drop it and get back to syria.
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If you really think that Russia is even slightly interested in pulling Assad's chemical weapons out or that Assad is interested in giving them up... then I have a bridge to sell you. Great location, right between Manhattan and Brooklyn.
I'll be the first to say that I am anti-Obama and I have an anti-Obama bias. But you've got to have some ROSE colored glasses to think that anything he's done so far was intentional, or that anything he's done so far will be effective.
You do realize that there is no way Assad or Russia are going to remove the CWs from Syria, right? What then? What will Obama do? What's his next move after they quibble around and do nothing with a grin on their face?
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On September 12 2013 03:21 xDaunt wrote:
The point that you clearly are missing is that Obama could have done a much, much better job handling this affair than he did.
What would be the best way to solve this? All parties involved are impossible to collectively please, and there was no way Obama could predict the reaction of the country (the country doesn't want war but CW is a good reason). To me, it seems like he was put into a very awkward position, and if there was a better solution, I'm not seeing it.
But if there is an obvious best way to have dealt with this, please do share.
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On September 12 2013 04:06 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 03:21 xDaunt wrote:
The point that you clearly are missing is that Obama could have done a much, much better job handling this affair than he did. What would be the best way to solve this? All parties involved are impossible to collectively please, and there was no way Obama could predict the reaction of the country (the country doesn't want war but CW is a good reason). To me, it seems like he was put into a very awkward position, and if there was a better solution, I'm not seeing it. But if there is an obvious best way to have dealt with this, please do share.
Saying that "Obama was put into a very awkward position" is one way to put it. The better, and more accurate statement, is to say that "Obama put himself in a very awkward position."
Like I said previously, Obama's original blunder that put him in the "awkward position" is that he drew the red line regarding the use of chemical weapons with no intention of enforcing it. He then compounded that error by failing to send a clear message on what the consequences of Syria's actual use of chemical weapons would be. Given all of the leaks and posturing before the media, Obama might as well have held a focus group on he subject for everyone to see. All of this demonstrated extraordinary weakness and lack of resolve.
So what should Obama have done? First, he never should have drawn the red line.
However, even having drawn the red line, he could have handled the situation better. The first thing that he needed to do was have a dedicated press offensive over the past year to make the case for intervention if chemical weapons were used. That way, he wouldn't have been caught flat-footed in the court of public opinion. After chemical weapons were used, Obama needed to issue a statement saying that he was waiting for confirmation that they were used and who used it before take any other actions. He should also have made it clear that military action was on the table if Assad gave the order. Once he received sufficient intelligence to confirm that Assad used the weapons, he would then have two options: either launch a preliminary, punitive strike and make and ultimatum afterwards with the threat of continued strikes, or make the ultimatum and work for a diplomatic solution (such as demanding chemical disarmament) to avoid war and military intervention.
Obama's root problem is that his message has been incoherent and inconsistent. Clarity matters in foreign politics.
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EPT
