Ask Bin Laden if I'm an appeaser

[JeffreyLebowski]

Wait, so now that Obama got Osama, 9/11 wasn't masterminded by Bush???

 

[theeedude]

There is no doubt that Obama can slaughter brown people without loss of American lives better than anyone else. Its just when Obama slaughters brown people the lefties giggle and cheer instead of feigning outrage like when Bush did it.

Obama is slaughtering people who slaughtered Americans.

 

[Vic Vega]

Obama will be known as one of the great American presidents on foreign policy. In addition to his statement, he is also cultivating the future of US relations with a fundamental shift from a trans-Atlantic relationship with Europe to strong relationships with the emerging powers. He is a Pacific President re-emphasizing the Pacific aspect of America rather than the old, archaic, and failed Atlantic.

Elaborate.

 

[werepossum]

wait, so now that obama got osama, 9/11 wasn't masterminded by bush???

lmao! +1

 

[blankslate]

There is no doubt that Obama can slaughter brown people without loss of American lives better than anyone else. Its just when Obama slaughters brown people the lefties giggle and cheer instead of feigning outrage like when Bush did it.

Really?

No, it's not who is slaughtering "brown people"

It's the fact that Al-Qaeda leaders were in Afghanistan specifically in the Tora Bora area then before Bin Laden could be killed or captured we decided to invade Iraq...

To this day we have not found WMD that Iraq has not bought from other countries and furthermore there is no evidence that Sadam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11. We helped Iraq when they were at war with Iran.

Bush even later said that he didn't think much about Bin Laden. How the hell could any sitting president even say that? If you want to give someone the impression that you have forgotten them just don't mention them.

Basically what Bush did was vaguely analogous to sitting in a bar getting hit by someone then hitting them back... but midway through you turn around and walk over to a person you shared a drink with a few minutes ago then smack him in the face too even though he had nothing to do with the guy who hit you.

 

[Craig234]

I'm no fan of Obama, but I don't think Bush or anyone else would be handling things differently regarding Libya and Syria.

What were we really supposed to do in Libya? March in? With what? We're broke as a nation as it is. I don't think the US public would have allowed it.

Similar is Syria, but that's actually more difficult, because the coalition against Syria would be much harder to form, and unlike Libya, they're not all that isolated (think Iran!).

I think too many people forgot the example Reagan made when the marine barracks were bombed in Lebanon in the 80s. Hundreds of our nations finest blown to pieces by fundamentalist assholes, and we didn't go to war over it. We did the smart thing, we GTFO and said good riddance to them, with no additional loss of life.

Sometimes not getting into further overseas complications IS smart foreign policy. Policy is not necessarily defined by action, inaction can be a good concept as well depending on circumstances.

Obama has failed many times on many things, but foreign policy is not ripe territory to complain about.

Once again you're trying to be honest, but I think getting a lot wrong.

I'm just going to pick one issue, your version of Lebanon. You forget the response by Reagan at the time that we would NOT leave in response to the attacks.

Followed soon after by leaving, as you said.

From Wiki:

U.S. President Ronald Reagan called the attack a "despicable act"[17] and pledged to keep a military force in Lebanon. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who had privately advised the administration against stationing U.S. Marines in Lebanon,[18] said there would be no change in the U.S.'s Lebanon policy. On October 24, French President François Mitterrand visited the bombed French site. It was not an official visit, and he only stayed for a few hours, but he did declare "We will stay." U.S. Vice President George H. W. Bush toured the Marine bombed-site on October 26 and said the U.S. "would not be cowed by terrorists."

...Amal militia leader Nabih Berri, who had previously supported U.S. mediation efforts, asked the U.S. and France to leave Lebanon and accused the U.S. and France of seeking to commit 'massacres' against the Lebanese and of creating a "climate of racism" against Shias.[25] Islamic Jihad phoned in new threats against the MNF pledging that "the earth would tremble" unless the MNF withdrew by New Year's Day 1984.[26]
The U.S. Marines were moved offshore where they could not be targeted. On February 7, 1984, President Reagan ordered the Marines to begin withdrawing from Lebanon. Their withdrawal was completed on February 26, four months after the barracks bombing...

You call the bombers "assholes". For bombing these nice Marines just there for a cultural exchange, no doubt. Let's review Wiki's history of why the "assholes" did it:

Motivation

According to Robert Fisk, a major motivation for the bombing was the ill will generated by the Multinational Force (MNF) among Lebanese Muslims, especially Shiʿa living in the slums of West Beirut and around the airport where the Marines were headquartered, as they saw the MNF siding with the Maronite Catholics in their domination of Lebanon.[10] Muslim feelings against the American presence were "exacerbated when missiles lobbed by the U.S. Sixth Fleet hit innocent by-standers in the Druze-dominated Shuf mountains."[11] There was a growing feeling of frustration inside the Muslim and Druze community in Lebanon with US direct backing of Israel in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and other pro-Israeli factions within Lebanon. These factions had been responsible for multiple attacks committed against the Muslim and Druze Lebanese population.
Col. Timothy J. Geraghty, the commander of the Marines in Beirut during the incident, has said that "the Marine and the French headquarters were targeted primarily because of who we were and what we represented;"[12] and that,

"It is noteworthy that the United States provided direct naval gunfire support -- which I strongly opposed for a week -- to the Lebanese Army at a mountain village called Suq-al-Garb on September 19 and that the French conducted an air strike on September 23 in the Bekaa Valley. American support removed any lingering doubts of our neutrality, and I stated to my staff at the time that we were going to pay in blood for this decision.[13]"

Some authors, including Thomas Friedman point to the use of this naval gunfire as the beginning point of the U.S. forces being seen as participants in the civil war rather than peace keepers and opening them up to retaliation.[14][15]

Some analysts believe the Islamic Republic of Iran was heavily involved and that a major factor leading it to participate in the attacks on the barracks was America's support for Iraq in the Iran Iraq War and its extending of $2.5 billion in trade credit to Iraq while halting the shipments of arms to Iran.[16] A few weeks before the bombing, Iran warned that providing armaments to Iran's enemies would provoke retaliatory punishment.

So the US had just - following 26 years of a dictator they put over Iran - supported Saddam in an aggressive war against Iran (which led to a million casualties and included gas WMD attacks on Iranian schools). Now they were in Lebanon as 'peacekeepers' - but serving Israel's agenda (Israel, at the time, had been secretly serving the US as a middleman in the illegal selling of missiles to Iran to raise money for the illegal Contras).

The US had 'taken sides in the civil war', using its naval firepower to kill including the killing of civilians that had outraged people.

The Marines were there over the objections of the Secretary of Defense, and had done these bombings over the objections of the commander of the Marines.

Yes, I think calling them 'assholes' accurately gave both sides.

 

[Craig234]

Wait, so now that Obama got Osama, 9/11 wasn't masterminded by Bush???

More idiocy. The killing of Osama did not change the views of either side on the 9/11 'truthers'.

 

[CanOWorms]

Elaborate.

Please be more specific. If you're referring to the general thesis, then just do a basic Google search on something like "obama snubs europe" or "obama looks towards asia" for numerous articles on the subject.

 

[airdata]

Wait, so now that Obama got Osama, 9/11 wasn't masterminded by Bush???

Who was that even directed toward?

I don't consider myself a truther because I don't pretend to know exactly what happened.

I just think that people should also realize they don't know what happened either. Can you really believe a government that put together an official investigation that included the president and vice president refusing to be under oath, tons of blacked out testimony and more holes than swiss cheese.

It's just an interesting fact that the Bush and Cheney families stood to profit from all of the wars they were committing our country to.

 

[cybrsage]

Not having a shoe thrown at you during a press conference good... but it's pretty good.

You have to admit, Bush did have Matrix like reflexes there. And the look on his face was one of amused excitement.

 

[sportage]

"appeaser" ?
Yeah, sure.... Romney knows all about how THAT works!

 

[Fear No Evil]

You have to admit, Bush did have Matrix like reflexes there. And the look on his face was one of amused excitement.

Obama would probably place a federal ban on shoes if that ever happened.

 

[Rainsford]

A good litmus test for whether you're an unreasonable right-wing hack is whether you find a way to bash BHO for killing OBL. That was a true mission accomplished for all Americans.

I want to know whatever happened to the idea of politics stopping at the water's edge?

But then again, giving Obama credit for killing OBL would be like (some) lefties giving a Republican president credit for helping poor people. It's part of the Republican belief system for some Republicans that ONLY Republicans can be strong on national defense. Reality is shaped to reflect beliefs, not the other way around, unfortunately.

 

[cwjerome]

It's just an interesting fact that the Bush and Cheney families stood to profit from all of the wars they were committing our country to.

There is something deeply disturbing about a person who thinks two people will attack a country and plunge the US into a war with Iraq because their families might make a few bucks. Disconnected from reality and delusional come to mind. I couldn't take anything that person said seriously ever again.

It doesn't even pass the most basic common sense test. Assuming they were maniacal psychopaths (preposterous as that is) there are about 71 million ways to make some cash besides committing to a monumentally elaborate and difficult scheme such as this.

You're fucking nuts.

 

[Rainsford]

There is something deeply disturbing about a person who thinks two people will attack a country and plunge the US into a war with Iraq because their families might make a few bucks. Disconnected from reality and delusional come to mind. I couldn't take anything that person said seriously ever again.

It doesn't even pass the most basic common sense test. Assuming they were maniacal psychopaths (preposterous as that is) there are about 71 million ways to make some cash besides committing to a monumentally elaborate and difficult scheme such as this.

You're fucking nuts.

I agree, but this seems to be what politics has come to. It's not enough for the other side to be wrong or misguided...they have to be Batman villains.

 

[cwjerome]

I agree, but this seems to be what politics has come to. It's not enough for the other side to be wrong or misguided...they have to be Batman villains.

Amen, I can disagree with Bush or Obama -very strongly sometimes- yet I don't see the need to create an apostle of evil and invent the most fanciful conspiracies to discredit them.

 

[nageov3t]

I'd like to ask Osama bin Laden and the 22 out of 30 top al-Qaida leaders why the US is still nation building in Afghanistan instead of nation building at home.

 

[nageov3t]

A good litmus test for whether you're an unreasonable right-wing hack is whether you find a way to bash BHO for killing OBL. That was a true mission accomplished for all Americans.

I don't think a lot of people disagree with that.

but Obama opens himself up for criticism when he uses killing OBL as his only/primary foreign policy achievement.

 

[Rainsford]

I don't think a lot of people disagree with that.

but Obama opens himself up for criticism when he uses killing OBL as his only/primary foreign policy achievement.

I imagine he would, if that's what he was actually doing...

 

[cybrsage]

Obama would probably place a federal ban on shoes if that ever happened.

AND would have gotten hit smack in the center of his face.

 

[Craig234]

I don't think a lot of people disagree with that.

but Obama opens himself up for criticism when he uses killing OBL as his only/primary foreign policy achievement.

He has never done that. The comment here was a specific response to an 'appeaser' attack - and even it also cited '22 of 30 top leaders removed'. And I'm not a big fan of this talk.

 

[Craig234]

I'd like to ask Osama bin Laden and the 22 out of 30 top al-Qaida leaders why the US is still nation building in Afghanistan instead of nation building at home.

One answer is that they're not mutually exclusive, but Republicans are blocking nation building at home with or without Afghanistan.

 

[Craig234]

Amen, I can disagree with Bush or Obama -very strongly sometimes- yet I don't see the need to create an apostle of evil and invent the most fanciful conspiracies to discredit them.

Good, but you're awfully quiet when those on 'your side' do it.

 

[Craig234]

There is something deeply disturbing about a person who thinks two people will attack a country and plunge the US into a war with Iraq because their families might make a few bucks. Disconnected from reality and delusional come to mind. I couldn't take anything that person said seriously ever again.

It doesn't even pass the most basic common sense test. Assuming they were maniacal psychopaths (preposterous as that is) there are about 71 million ways to make some cash besides committing to a monumentally elaborate and difficult scheme such as this.

You're fucking nuts.

On the one hand, there's some truth in your point. On the other, you are oversimplifying the issue and overly dismissive.

In the late 1990's, Bush commented that he thought the thing that would most ensure a president's popularity was being a war president. When he took the office (meant in the bad sense), with low popularity ratings that were headed down, that quote became quite relevant - and the Iraq war shot his ratings up immediately.

There are 'industry loyalties' as well. Cheney's fortune was from Halliburton and he and Bush both had oil connections; their loyalties from decades in those industries, during 4 or 8 years in office, didn't just disappear - but I'm not saying they were a dominant factor by any means. But note similarly, when Hank Paulson resigned as chairman of the most powerful company on Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, to be Treasury Secretary, it probably wasn't *all* about public service. Same for the former Wall Street staff who are placed throughout the department. Funny enough, just this month it was revealed that during the financial crisis, Paulson was secretly feeding information to the big banks.

(There's also the anecdote of an insider who heard Bush on the phone in a panic with Paulson, saying Paulson HAD to tell him what he was doing, he's the President!

I think that really captures the culture - Bush was there to do their bidding and manage the public relations, and was not 'in the loop' on a lot.

For another anecdote, where do our most famous diplomat's loyalties lie? When Henry Kissinger was asked by our president to lead the commission on 9/11, and he had to reveal his list of the foreign governments he'd been working for, he withdrew from the commission to keep them secret.))

This is the 'revolving door' issue. How half of Congressmen - 400 in the last decade, with over 3,000 former staffers - left to the lobbying industry, with little doubt they knew those doors would be opened depending how helpful they were in office. Constantly pentagon officials leave to defense industry positions after approving purchases.

There was a whole range of reasons for the war in Iraq - you can read plenty of them forming a consensus it was the far right's top priority in the 'Project for a New American Century' document laying out the benefits, and that group of people largely became the Bush administration.

These people have not hesitated to align their interests with things like wars. A variety of former world leaders were involved in the Carlyle group, a major arms industry company that benefited from war and military spending. Just look at the Bushes - his grandfather was punished for helping the Nazi leadership hide their wealth, even as his son was fighting them in the war; W's father was the 'loyal' director of the CIA just after its great crimes were exposed and it had been behind things from organizing terrorism and assassination, including mass torture and assassination of civilians in Vietnam (25,000 civilians killed), and domestic illegal operations. What you call so 'heinous' it's outrageous isn't so heinous to people like that.

Neither the 'imaginary monsters' of some on the left nor the 'our honorable leaders would never do such things' ignorance on your side are correct.

 

[Karl Agathon]

There was a time where I thought the President might be one, now? No way! im especially impressed how he recently put troops in northern Australia for the symbolic purpose of belligerent Red China containment. I might just vote for the guy again.