Obama’s Popularity in Arab World Now Lower than Bush’s

[Don Vito Corleone]

...and you believed the story about the Tonkin Gulf, the Watergate, the "I did not have sex...." or the nukes in Iraq.

Too funny!

Ahem - I am a relatively old codger for these boards, but the Gulf of Tonkin incident happened six years before I was born. I certainly did not believe President Clinton's denials and I didn't really believe there were WMDs in Iraq, though I was willing to wait and see (I was an active-duty service member at the time). I don't really see the nexus between those incidents and what you've described, however. You are essentially calling Robert Gates a liar based on what I gather is unsourced rumor. Pretty strong stuff for someone who is purportedly a retired military officer.

 

[fskimospy]

Well it's not like he can use google to search for more valid sources... he said it himself, google is in Obama's pocket and he's even implying google fakes things according to Obama's all mighty will.

I promise it's not the water in flower mound that makes him fucking mental. I lived there and drank the water and no one else was even CLOSE to as nuts as he is.

Some of my favorite people in the world are from Texas, it's ok. Every state has their share of village idiots that make the normal people look bad.

 

[a777pilot]

Ahem - I am a relatively old codger for these boards, but the Gulf of Tonkin incident happened six years before I was born. I certainly did not believe President Clinton's denials and I didn't really believe there were WMDs in Iraq, though I was willing to wait and see (I was an active-duty service member at the time). I don't really see the nexus between those incidents and what you've described, however. You are essentially calling Robert Gates a liar based on what I gather is unsourced rumor. Pretty strong stuff for someone who is purportedly a retired military officer.

Yes, that is exactly what I am doing. I am much older than you. Due to that Gulf or Tonkin resolution I did my time in Vietnam as a Marine Corps officer.

Tell me that the SecDef didn't lie then.

 

[KGB]

Some of my favorite people in the world are from Texas, it's ok. Every state has their share of village idiots that make the normal people look bad.

You shouldn't insult village idiots like that...

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Yes, that is exactly what I am doing. I am much older than you. Due to that Gulf or Tonkin resolution I did my time in Vietnam as a Marine Corps officer.

Tell me that the SecDef didn't lie then.

Again, though, you are the one promulgating a completely unsourced rumor as true with, as far as I can tell, no legitimate justification whatsoever. You just appear to be an angry old man who hates the President. I would never speak as contemptuously about any President as you are about President Obama.

 

[werepossum]

From your link:


They're not happy we killed Osama? Fuck them. Obama deserves a pat on the back for pissing them off. Too bad you guys are so partisan you can't see that.

Pretty much this. The things that piss off the Arab world are the things I want him to do. I do see the ironic humor though, considering the hype regarding his election, but it's predictable and it's good news.

EDIT: I have a massively hard time believing that Panetta, a career Democrat politician, would launch a manned raid into Pakistan, a sovereign nation that is nominally an ally, without specific authorization from the President. That operation stood a reasonable chance of going horribly wrong, and without specific authorization Panetta would have been pilloried should that happen.

 

[ProfJohn]

And this matters... how?

What is the point of the thread?

Since when does nutters on here care about what the muslim world thinks?

The point is that during the campaign we were told how Obama was going to fix our relationships in the middle east. That he was going to reshape our relations in the middle east.

From his major foreign policy speech during the campaign:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fpccga/

Burdened by Iraq, our lackluster diplomatic efforts leave a huge void. Our interests are best served when people and governments from Jerusalem and Amman to Damascus and Tehran understand that America will stand with our friends, work hard to build a peaceful Middle East, and refuse to cede the future of the region to those who seek perpetual conflict and instability. Such effective diplomacy cannot be done on the cheap, nor can it be warped by an ongoing occupation of Iraq. Instead, it will require patient, sustained effort, and the personal commitment of the President of the United States. That is a commitment I intend to make.

The fact that Obama is now less popular than Bush is just another example of his failure as a President.

As his own foreign policy advisor said during the campaign:
"The next president of the United States is going to inherit from George Bush an unprecedented series of messes,"
"The people who brought us this mess are not going to be the ones who fix it."

When is he going to start fixing it?

 

[First]

Obama is much more popular in the ME than Bush.

 

[a777pilot]

Again, though, you are the one promulgating a completely unsourced rumor as true with, as far as I can tell, no legitimate justification whatsoever. You just appear to be an angry old man who hates the President. I would never speak as contemptuously about any President as you are about President Obama.

I am old.

I am angry.

I do hate what this Fool, Bobo, the Post Turtle, is doing to this country.

I wonder what sort of comments about the President you made on this and other sites when Bush(43) was the President.

 

[Ldir]

This thread is just another example of my failure as a Propagandist.

FTFY

 

[Theb]

Both Bobo, the Post Turtle, and especially, his close adviser, Valerie Jarrett, were totally against this high risk mission. Their plan was to delay the mission by giving Mr. Panetta the authority to "call" the mission. The reasoning was that he would never have the courage to do this on his own. They were wrong.....as usual. But once the mission was successful, he, the Post Turtle, took full credit. What a dick!

What actually happened is that Obama, not wanting to risk the valuable members of Seal Team 6, parachuted into the compound himself (the two helicopters were remote controlled diversions. Upon breaching the compound Obama tied a red bandana around his head, tore off his shirt and moved methodically through the compound with an M4 in each hand. Killing terrorists and dropping one-liners.

Like all Sons of Krypton he possesses the power of flight so he put Osama's body in a duffle bag, and began the flight home. He did a barrel roll, dropping Osama's body into the ocean midflight.

His mission complete, he assumed the form of a turtle (as a nod to the second oldest political insult in the US) and swam home to his secret underground lair in Kenya.

 

[CitizenKain]

I am old.

I am angry.

I do hate what this Fool, Bobo, the Post Turtle, is doing to this country.

I wonder what sort of comments about the President you made on this and other sites when Bush(43) was the President.

Wow, old and dumb, what a winning combination.

 

[a777pilot]

What actually happened is that Obama, not wanting to risk the valuable members of Seal Team 6, parachuted into the compound himself (the two helicopters were remote controlled diversions. Upon breaching the compound Obama tied a red bandana around his head, tore off his shirt and moved methodically through the compound with an M4 in each hand. Killing terrorists and dropping one-liners.

Like all Sons of Krypton he possesses the power of flight so he put Osama's body in a duffle bag, and began the flight home. He did a barrel roll, dropping Osama's body into the ocean midflight.

His mission complete, he assumed the form of a turtle (as a nod to the second oldest political insult in the US) and swam home to his secret underground lair in Kenya.

I like it.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I am old.

I am angry.

I do hate what this Fool, Bobo, the Post Turtle, is doing to this country.

I wonder what sort of comments about the President you made on this and other sites when Bush(43) was the President.

You can go back and look. I can assure you you will not find anything contemptuous about President Bush, though I had many substantive disagreements with his policies. Indeed you will find that I was, in 2001 and 2002, supportive of him. From my perspective calling the President a "fool," or "Bobo, the Post Turtle," is gratuitously disrespectful to the office to which he was lawfully elected. Frankly you just sound like a bitter old asshole.

 

[sandorski]

This shatters Obama's dreams of being the next Caliphate.

 

[JSt0rm]

I see governmentworker777 has gone full retard again. How can someone have so little credibility and honor in life. Pathetic.

 

[blackangst1]

It's an excuse to bash Obama. It's perverse they're willing to side with Osama Bin Laden supporters if it means getting in a dig in at the President.

Really? So is that was the libs on this board were doing back during the Bush administration saying the reason the ME hates us is becuase of Bush's policies? They were siding with OBL? Or is that different? How about a refresher:

8/30/2004:

Despite your blind devotion to big/powerful government, there's a lot the government did to contribute to terrorist attacks against the US. Only a blind fool would turn away from that fact.

9/11/2006 in response to thread "Will we be safer from terrorists once Bush and his people are out of office"

In the long run, yes. Short term, no. Here's why: I think Bush's policies/actions/etc. have created more little terrorists and it will take some time for new administration actions to counter them.

from the same thread:

But unlike Clinton, Bush has done quite a lot to harm the international standing of the USA. More importantly, his administration has demonstrated wanton disregard for the laws and institutions that have made this nation great.

ProfJohn said it best about the middle east:

I don't think the terror masterminds are going to wake up the day after the election and say "ahh, Bush is no longer president, I guess we can't call the US the great satan anymore... now what do we do?"

Let's face it, they hate us and nothing we do will stop them from hating us.

Its interesting seeing the liberal responses here. They blame Bush for our unpopularity in the ME, but now, because the reason we are unpopular (for killing OBL) its justified.

Partisan hackery at its best. There are also many threads around election time in 2008 talking about how everyone hoped Obama would would extend a hand in the ME and create better relations. 3 years later, we are still hated. People need to understand we will always be hated as long as we're a democracy. Doesnt matter who's in power.

 

[fskimospy]

Partisan hackery at its best. There are also many threads around election time in 2008 talking about how everyone hoped Obama would would extend a hand in the ME and create better relations. 3 years later, we are still hated. People need to understand we will always be hated as long as we're a democracy. Doesnt matter who's in power.

We aren't hated because we are a democracy. We're hated because our policy towards these countries makes their citizens mad.

I'm not making a quality judgment on US policy, in fact I agree with much of it. The idea that they hate us because we're a democracy doesn't really hold up though.

 

[Pens1566]

Ah, equating invasion of a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and exacting justice on someone that did. Ok.

 

[woolfe9999]

Really? So is that was the libs on this board were doing back during the Bush administration saying the reason the ME hates us is becuase of Bush's policies? They were siding with OBL? Or is that different? How about a refresher:

8/30/2004:


9/11/2006 in response to thread "Will we be safer from terrorists once Bush and his people are out of office"


from the same thread:


ProfJohn said it best about the middle east:


Its interesting seeing the liberal responses here. They blame Bush for our unpopularity in the ME, but now, because the reason we are unpopular (for killing OBL) its justified.

Partisan hackery at its best. There are also many threads around election time in 2008 talking about how everyone hoped Obama would would extend a hand in the ME and create better relations. 3 years later, we are still hated. People need to understand we will always be hated as long as we're a democracy. Doesnt matter who's in power.

Actually you have a point here. There is some hypocrisy on the left in the treatment of this issue under the two administrations.

However, that doesn't make the point of this thread even remotely valid. The poll data cited was taken right after we offed Bin Laden, and there is no data prior to that all the way back to 2009. Since Obama enjoyed a temporary bounce in the polls at home for killing OBL, it's reasonable to assume he has sustained a temporary drop in the Arab world for the same reason. At most, it is inconclusive - we simply do not know how much of it is temporary and how much is not.

PJ's point is that Obama has failed to live up to his promise of increasing our favor in the Arab world, but he is basing that on a snapshot fallacy: a poll taken immediately after a major event which has an unfavorable view. Obama never promised that the US would have continuously higher approval. Nor did he promise high favor on a specific date, or immediately after a major event that has a negative view in the Arab world. In fact, PJ's quote has him saying it takes "patience," e.g. it happens over the long sweep.

Hypocrisy on the left? Perhaps. But the premise of this thread is bogus, pure and simple.

 

[Infohawk]

Really? So is that was the libs on this board were doing back during the Bush administration saying the reason the ME hates us is becuase of Bush's policies? They were siding with OBL? Or is that different?

There are definitely partisan hacks on the left (and I'm not going into whether your specific quotes are examples of that.) As Woolfe, points out it doesn't excuse ProJo in this case.

 

[ProfJohn]

There are definitely partisan hacks on the left (and I'm not going into whether your specific quotes are examples of that.) As Woolfe, points out it doesn't excuse ProJo in this case.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in the OP.

I thought that my comments would have been enough for you guys to understand my point:

How is this possible?

Don't the people in the middle east know that Obama won a nobel peace prize?

I thought he was suppose to be the savior that would change how the world looks at us?

A lot of people on the left and this forum truly believed that Obama was going to change the world. He would ride in on his rainbow unicorn and everyone would love us.

Obama over promised and the left ate it up. He did every thing but say "If we only talk to them they will love us" And the left believed him. They really thought that Obama could make the people in the middle east love us just by talking to us. And now reality is staring us in the face.

Our relationships in the middle east are no better today than they were when Bush was in office. In fact they may be worse. Obama screwed up in Egypt. We are on the verge of losing Pakistan (may not be his fault) and he has decided to get out Afghanistan for purely political reasons. (timing the withdrawal to happen right before the election)

You can debate whether his foreign policy is or is not a failure, but when it comes to achieving what he claimed he would he is a complete failure.

 

[her209]

Well it's not like he can use google to search for more valid sources... he said it himself, google is in Obama's pocket and he's even implying google fakes things according to Obama's all mighty will.

I promise it's not the water in flower mound that makes him fucking mental. I lived there and drank the water and no one else was even CLOSE to as nuts as he is.

When the VA docs removed his gall bladder, they took it upon themselves to lobotomize him too.

 

[senseamp]

I guess they don't like Muslims over there

 

[Infohawk]

You can debate whether his foreign policy is or is not a failure, but when it comes to achieving what he claimed he would he is a complete failure.

Except the part where he killed Osama Bin Laden. That trumps the part where he did not win over the hearts and minds of all Muslims.

I agree with you though (based on something someone else quoted from you elsewhere in this thread) that most Muslims are not going to be won over by anyone in this country winning an election. But if Obama's failed on winning over Muslims it seems like most of the failure is due to much of the Muslim world being unreasonable. So in the end it's hard for me to get angry at him for any of this. At worst he and his fans were a little naive about Islamic attitudes but it didn't really cost us anything we already had.