Does this War make my Butt look big?Follow

Drone strikes are largely ineffective at doing anything at all, except allowing the president to claim he's doing something. Which appears to have worked (for some people). It's the same sort of policy Clinton engaged in, where he'd drop some bombs somewhere now and then to make it appear as though he was being tough, meanwhile the problems just got worse.



Obama's foreign policy approach has been nearly non-present. Being "active" isn't the same as being "effective". And he's been very very ineffective. More to the point, he has a clear pattern of adopting a "wait and see" approach, which inevitably results in negative results. He's so afraid of making a mistake, or being seen as meddling, that he's failing to take any action at all, resulting in others making all the decisions and gaining power and influence. And those "others" are not other Western powers, but various extremist groups seeking power in the region.

When a popular call for change happened in Eqypt, Obama hesitated. As a result, we sat at the kids table while the Muslim Brotherhood came to power there. Honestly, we lucked out with that one (almost certainly with an assist from the CIA), in that the military basically reasserted control and removed the Brotherhood from power. Had Obama acted, we might have been able to influence the outcome so as to have a moderate non-military leader friendly to the US gain power instead.

When a rebellion broke out in Libya, again Obama hesitated. Once again, he appeared primarily motivated by the need to not appear to be influencing world events (which makes you wonder what the **** he thinks foreign policy is supposed to be about), and a fear of "arming the bad guys". As a result, the revolution nearly failed, only succeeding when he finally decided to help out. Of course, by then the leaders of the rebellion were already firmly entrenched, giving us little to no say over who came to power (and effectively ensuring that the "bad guys" were now armed), and what influences other groups might have. Combine that with a desire to not appear as though anything was wrong, he failed to acknowledge (even internally) that Libya was chock full of powers that didn't like us or want us there. Shockingly, when we later attempted (one can assume) to exert some influence in the country, our ambassador was killed (the whole Benghazi attacks that everyone on the Left loves to downplay). Total disaster. Totally avoidable.

When a rebellion broke out in Syria, once again Obama hesitated. Same motivation at work. Same failed approach. Only this time, he's still hesitating. Still allowing a conflict to continue unabated. And since we didn't get in on the ground floor and arm folks who later might just be friendly and appreciative, the rebels who rose to the top were those armed via the black market, getting funding from splinter arms of Al Queda, various wealthy dissident Arabs pushing a Caliphate deam, and other "bad guys". Surprise! So now we have heavily armed folks spilling out from that conflict into Iraq and taking territory.

And as a side combo to that, he was so desperate to "not be Bush" that instead of actually gradually drawing down forces in Iraq based on conditions on the ground (which would require being held to account if things failed after we left), he chickened out of the whole process by just failing to renegotiate a status of forces agreement with Iraq, effectively requiring us to exit without having to go though the political annoyance of actually showing that we'd finished what we started there. So, as a result, we left an Iraq that still was not quite able to hold its own, right at the same time that those pesky rebels in Syria, we'd allowed to be armed by random bad guys who hate us, were looking for more territory to take.

Hell, you can't make up a story of a series of f-ups worse than this. If Tom Clancy (king of the "crazy what if" scenarios) had pitched this to his editor he'd have been laughed out of the room and told to come up with something a bit more realistic. Maybe fringe Japanese businessmen still **** off about WW2 seeking revenge on the US and engaging in a super convoluted combination of hacking the stock exchange, disabling the Pacific Fleet during training exercises, and building nuclear weapons under the guise of communications satellite launches to accomplish it all, maybe? That's so much more probable.


Obama has become the Hesitator in Chief. There's a point where you move from taking time to make a good decision and into "making things worse by your indecision", and he's well past that point now. He seems to be deliberately choosing to make the US as irrelevant on the world stage as possible. And while that may sit well with the "US is bad!!!" crowd, it's absolutely at odds with the job he's been elected to perform. No matter how much you may not like the US meddling in world affairs, his policy of "hope things work out ok" is far far worse. We're seeing it get worse right in front of our eyes.

He's the biggest foreign policy failure we've ever had as president. By a long shot. To be fair, Carter only got one term to **** things up, so there's that. Obama has more or less lurched from one foreign policy disaster to the next though. It would be laughable if the cost weren't things like civilians being beheaded on Youtube.

Edited, Sep 15th 2014 4:53pm by gbaji

Lol! I knew when I wrote that, that some numbskull would make this sort of comment.

Obviously, the videos aren't the biggest cost (well, obvious to some of us). That's just the most direct outward sign to a bunch of complacent people that things are going horribly wrong. The real "cost" is that we've basically got a non-aligned military force running around holding territory in two nations in the Middle East, basically building their own pseudo-nation based on principles which even the most liberal of liberals (especially the most liberal of liberals) would cringe over. The rise of Isis (or Isil, or IS, or whatever) is a pretty direct result of the US failing to act in the region. Now, if you like what they're doing and what they stand for, then by all means applaud Obama's brilliant foreign policy. But if you're sane, and think that these guys aren't the kind of model that civilization should be built on, maybe you should get past your own wagon circling and acknowledge that his policy is failing.

The world is *not* a better place without the US involving itself in it. That's not arrogance, or stereotypical manifest destiny BS, it's truth. We've seen this over and over. Maybe someday some other nation/culture will rise that has the combination of social ideology, economic and military power to do what the US does as well or better, but this is not that day. Right now? When we fail to act, things slip into chaos, and people who think that "obey us or get beheaded" is a great way to impose order will be the ones rising to power.

Edited, Sep 15th 2014 5:04pm by gbaji

ISIS/L Is a reactive entity, in the same way that the Iranian Revolution was a reactive entity. Both of these theocratic states (state-in-formation for ISIS/L) are symptoms of two things, a regional power vacuum, and desire for revanchism against western puppet regimes. They are a direct result of US intervention (in destabilizing the Iraqi state) where we created a vacuum, inadequately filled it with a weak puppet, who privileged a different minority without backing it up with autocratic strength. As an aside, with the Egyptian coup, these groups were told the democratic process is more or less useless for them to utilize.

I got that. But I'm talking about what happens when no western power steps in at all. I think it's silly to talk about global powers influencing things only and ignoring that if no one does that at all, then local powers take over.

Which is precisely what we're seeing in the region. I don't think anyone in the "US shouldn't meddle in the ME" camp actually thinks that some other western nation should be doing it instead. This is not an argument about "US vs France/England/whatever". It's "Western power versus local power". This is about a foreign policy viewpoint which believes that the folks in the ME should just be left alone and absent meddling from us evil western powers (or any non-local power for that matter). So yeah, I think it's more appropriate to talk about the local powers that will fill that vacuum than some imaginary global power that doesn't exist (doubly so, since that's exactly what has actually happened).

As bad as some might think US meddling is, the absence of our meddling seems to be far far worse. That's what we're seeing right now. And no, it's not really about westerners being beheaded. That's what has gotten the largest share of news in the west. ISIS has been using beheadings (and other brutal actions) as a means to punish people who don't do what they want in the region for as long as they've been operating. They use that tactic against anyone who resists them so as to scare the next town into accepting their rule. And it's been working.

It's the worst example of might makes right, but because they're "local", it's ok? I don't get that. We've taken anti-hegemony to a nutty level here.

Edited, Sep 15th 2014 7:19pm by gbaji

Y'know who else beheads people in the Middle East, like, all the time?


Our BFF's: the Saudis. I wonder why Pubbies don't cry about that more often?

Gee. If only we had some document or set of documents which discussed the differences between punishment (especially capital punishment) by a sovereign nation and its citizens, and treatment of civilians by a party to a conflict in the region where said civilians live then we could clearly see how absurd your response is. Oh wait! We do.

This is actually the direction you want to go? You honestly think we should ignore ISIS beheading people who fight them or question them because Saudi Arabia uses beheading as a form of capital punishment? That's... insane. How I feel about SA's capital punishment (or penal system in general) has zero bearing on whether or not I believe we should take action against a rogue military force running around a nation executing soldiers who fight them and civilians who dare to oppose them. Doubly so when said nation is one we were just previously involved in and left in a fragile state under BS circumstances (so we're kinda responsible for making sure this sort of thing doesn't happen).


Look. Whether you agree with US involvement in Iraq in the first place, I would hope you agree that having already involved ourselves in Iraq, we're responsible for the outcome. We toppled the Hussein regime. We fought against insurgents for 4+ years while helping to build a replacement government. We promised them that we'd stick around until they were able to maintain a stable country by themselves. Are you remotely under the illusion that the government of Iraq is handling this, or that Iraq is "stable"? Our leaving directly lead to this happening. Say what you will about the violence level while US troops were there, things have gotten much worse since we left. We forced Malaki to run to his base for support when we left. This caused the rift (well, made one that could have been healed in time to explode). This created the opening ISIS needed to enter in such a brazen manner.


We can sit here and debate all the minute little causes and effects involved, but the fact is that had the US negotiated a status of forces agreement in Iraq, we would have maintained forces there, and ISIS would not be there. So the poor downtrodden people of Iraq would be free to complain about US forces meddling in their affairs rather than being forced into slavery by ISIS under threat of extreme violence. Is the US perfect? No. Are we far far far far far better than the alternative? Yes. But I suppose it's easy for us to complain about this from the comfort and safety of our internet armchairs. We're not the ones whose villages are being overrun by ISIS forces. We have the luxury to wring our hands over the issue of using our military in Iraq and whether we're mistreating a few prisoners at Abu Ghraib, or whether that squad of soldiers could have double checked that building a group of insurgents just ran into before shooting for potential civilians at risk. We have that luxury because people aren't rolling down our streets and telling us to submit to them or die.


Honestly, we don't know what that sort of world is even like. We're so far removed with regard to the things that we think are "horrible" that it's almost laughable. Nothing the US has done in Iraq comes close to what ISIS is doing right now. It's silly to even attempt to create a comparison.

Edited, Sep 15th 2014 7:50pm by gbaji

Is that what conservatives are about? Causing problems and blaming other people for them? That's what you're doing here. You're ignoring that Obama wasn't the one that created the power vacuum. You're ignoring that Obama wasn't the one that negotiated the withdrawal deadline from Iraq in 2008. The funniest part about that one is if the administration ignored the deadline you'd have ******* and whined about that instead and how it was the worst thing to ever happen in the history of ever. You're not making a point, though. Democrat does something, pretend-conservative gbaji has to complain about it, regardless of what it is.

Not doing anything might be bad, but history has shown that involvement in the Middle East always makes things worse. Conventiently ignoring that they told us to get the hell out and we agreed in 2008. Yes, all those minute little causes and effects that let's you ignore history. What the US did put ISIS in a position to do what they're doing now. No amount of ignoring those "little causes and effects" can really change that. Again, conveniently ignoring the withdrawal deadline agreed upon and signed by the Bush administration. I can't imagine why you wanted to hand wave all those "little causes and effects."

The vacuum is created when you remove the power, not when you put it there. Obama removed the power, and created the vacuum.



No. I'm properly recognizing that as complete BS. We had a "draw down" plan, which included in it the assumption of a negotiated status of forces agreement which would allow a set number of US troops to remain in Iraq to continue to assist in stabilizing the nation and otherwise dealing with exactly the sort of situation which is going on right now. The Bush plan rested on this happening. For Obama to fail to negotiate that key element of the plan, while sticking with the withdrawal and then blame it all on Bush is ridiculous in the extreme.

That you would buy it, hook, line, and sinker, is predictable, but also equally ridiculous.



I'd have argued (as I am now, and many conservatives have been for a couple years now), that Obama should have hammered out that status of forces agreement prior to the deadline. That's the failure. The withdrawal that you're talking about happened because of the expiration of the previous agreement. The plan always assumed that we would negotiate a new agreement with Iraq. But when Obama took office, he failed to do that. Quite spectacularly, and quite deliberately. That puts the current condition squarely on his shoulders.



That's not even remotely true. That may be what the dovish "get out of the ME at all cost!" pundits you've been listening to may have said, but that's simply not true. The original SOFA was a face saving gesture at best. It was pretty openly acknowledged by all sides that it was intended to be followed up upon with a more permanent negotiated force agreement. Secretary Gates said quite clearly at the time that he expected the US to retain at least 10 thousand troops based in Iraq for the foreseeable future.

The Iraqi government's position is a bit less clear, but given the scrambling the Malaki government had to do after our forces left, I think it's clear that they expected the US would extend it or renegotiate it, and were surprised when we didn't. It basically left them in a lurch and very clearly led to some more or less disastrous results. So yeah, I think it's reasonable to assume that had we opened up channels to renegotiate the agreement, they would have gone alone with it. For obvious political reasons, they could not be the ones to initiate such a conversation though. Hence, why Obama choosing not to do this kinda screwed the pooch for everyone.

That's a pretty clear case of him just not having a clue about foreign policy. He seems to actually think that what a foreign leader says publicly is what they actually want to have happen. What an idiot.



Right. The US under Obama did this. See how this constitutes a massive foreign policy blunder?



And not ignoring the fact that everyone involved assumed that the deadline would be renegotiated from day one. No one thought or expected or wanted the US troops to actually leave by 2012. The only people who wanted it were people like those behind ISIS and other dissident factions seeking to capitalize on said vacuum. That's the point here. Obama should have been the "bully" and pressed for a new SOFA. Because sometimes you have to do the right thing, even if you get painted as the bad guy for doing it. Bush understood this. Obama doesn't have a clue. And as a result, things are going quickly down the drain in the ME.


At some point "blame Bush" has to stop working as an excuse for these kinds of failures. We're 6 years into Obama's administration, right? I mean, even if we accept that Bush made the initial mistake, wouldn't it be Obama's responsibility to correct for it and do the right thing once it's apparent that it is a mistake? He had 3 full years to do this and failed. How is that not his mistake? It's an agreement. It's not set in stone and immutable. He could have changed it if he wanted to. He chose not to. To blame Bush for this is absurd.

Wrong.Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.Wrong. Wrong. Well, as soon as we stop suffering for Bush's failures, we'll stop blaming his administration's monumental failures. But it's cute how often you try to do the whole hypocritical reversal thing. Accuse people of doing what you're doing.

Anyway, there's no debate or argument. You're wrong, history and facts disagree with your political bias and hypotheticals. It's really that simple.

People have short memories. I had an minor spat with a co-worker about two weeks ago about it. In case you are wondering how the argument went it was something along the lines of: " but but.. nine eleven changed everything". It is hard to argue with a meme that is so ingrained.

The vacuum is created when you remove the power, not when you put it there. Obama removed the power, and created the vacuum.

Removing Saddam created the vacuum. We had this discussion 10 years ago and I said "It'll be radical theocracy". You assured us democracy would prevail and the liberated masses would be forever grateful.

Which one happened again?