Obama deposits two 2,000lb. bombs in ISIS bank

[chucky2]

Yeah, I remember Harvey with his cut and pastes. And others who made these points. It may surprise you if you don't read mainstream press that liberals have been criticizing Obama for killing too many civilians in drone strikes, targeted assassinations, etc. Example:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/opinion/americas-shameful-human-rights-record.html?_r=2

That is Jimmy Carter's editorial in the NYT.

More? How about the decidely left wing Human Rights Watch complaining that Obama is not honoring his own policies by killing civilians with drone strikes.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/19/us-yemen-drone-strike-may-violate-obama-policy

I would agree that the criticisms were more shrill during the Bush years. Then again, we were also killing more people during those years. We did, after all, have a ground force in two Islamic countries.

They may be making some half hearted noises but they ain't out in the streets sob screaming, protesting, invading the news cycle with "sharp minded" analysis 24x7, on the popular TV shows making light of Obama's brown people exterminations, etc. For the Nobel Peace Prize winning Messiah, and for how much Obama has continued to kill the shit out of brown people, the degree of scream sobbing hysteria is a virtual silence. If you take just P&N, more virtual silence. That's how we know it was all BS hypocrite BDS all the Bush years, because of these folks really cared like they professed they did, they'd still be doing it with the same intensity and dedication they applied to their BDS fueled meltdowns.

We certainly agree on the second part of this, that the execution was botched. May have been botched even worse in Afghanistan than Iraq.

I'd say something like, Considering how much help Afghanistan needed I'd agree, but then, look at the Iraqis and how much pent up bloodlust they had to let out. Afghanistan is 1000 years ago poor and mind F'd, and Iraq is more modern and mind F'd. We needed to state we'd be there 30 years, first as the US and then as the UN, and call it a day. Zero chance of that ever happening though...voters wouldn't go for it.

So you think it doesn't impact the security of the US and its western allies to have the most militant jihadist group in the world control an entire state with billions in resources? Really? I recall when everyone was so concerned about "state sponsored terrorism." Now we have a terrorist group which IS a state. The group, BTW, wants to continue attacking the west because it believes that this will provoke the US to invade and Allah will then intervene and vanquish the infidels. Which means that if we stop bombing them, they aren't going to stop attacking us. We will see many more like Paris if they are allowed to persist for as long as it takes the Arabs and Kurds to topple them. They will attack us until either a) their apocalyptic vision actually happens, or b) they are annihilated. Since I think b is a little more likely to actually happen, I'd rather not just sit and wait for more attacks. These attacks will keep coming and the isolationism you espouse will become increasingly untenable. We may as well accelerate their demise sooner rather than later.

Let them attack the West. It's not our problem. Simply don't let any of them in, let SA and Israel and UAE and even Iran go deal with crazy Muslims. There are plenty of countries over there that have the Mil firepower to go in and battle ISIS, we did our good deed with Iraq (and Afghanistan). Let the Iraqis lift up their balls and go take their country back. How many attacks has the US sustained from ISIS? How many times have we attacked them? All those bombs we're dropping, you know where ISIS is right? In towns where civilians are. Notice the complete lack of Civ casualty reports? Funny that eh?

 

[woolfe9998]

Let them attack the West. It's not our problem. Simply don't let any of them in, let SA and Israel and UAE and even Iran go deal with crazy Muslims. There are plenty of countries over there that have the Mil firepower to go in and battle ISIS, we did our good deed with Iraq (and Afghanistan). Let the Iraqis lift up their balls and go take their country back. How many attacks has the US sustained from ISIS? How many times have we attacked them? All those bombs we're dropping, you know where ISIS is right? In towns where civilians are. Notice the complete lack of Civ casualty reports? Funny that eh?

I think we're talked out on the hypocrisy issue, but I have to address this. We've had 6 attacks in the US directly inspired by ISIS and its success in the ME. The most recent being the slaying of 14 people in San Bernardino. The worst western attack was, of course, Paris, that one done directly by ISIS. Suppose the next Paris scale attack is in a major US city? You just want to wait for these incompetent Arab armies to oust Isis while we continue to sustain attacks and do nothing about it? Worse yet, without our intervention, they may continue to expand their territory and become even stronger. As of today they are making further gains in Syria in spite of Russia helping Assad. Notably, however, in Iraq, where we are more directly involved in helping the regime fight them, they are not making gains but gradually suffering losses. And our bombing of the bank and other financial measures have caused them great difficulties. And all this territorial gain and capturing of resources only makes them more able to carry out even larger scale attacks. It isn't just an Arab problem.

This is just raw, irrational isolationism at its worst. Like in the late 1930's when so many Americans said that Nazi expansionism was a European problem, not ours. The reality is even then we did not live in a world where the problems of one region could be entirely compartmentalized. It's even more true today.

 

[Jaskalas]

Simply don't let any of them in...

Our border is wide open and even if it wasn't... it's a bit late to pretend Islam isn't in America.
If there's a festering disease of genocide calling to them from across the planet... we'd best go in there an excise the cancer. To preserve the host and ourselves along with them.

 

[Zorkorist]

I think Donald Trump is right, and we have to stop Muslims from entering the country. Their ideas of Sharia Law, are just too opposite of our ideas of freedom.

-John

 

[Moonbeam]

Our border is wide open and even if it wasn't... it's a bit late to pretend Islam isn't in America.
If there's a festering disease of genocide calling to them from across the planet... we'd best go in there an excise the cancer. To preserve the host and ourselves along with them.

You should have a care. What if your argument is stead of being cowardly were actually persuasive. You realize, I hope, that to some people I'm sure, you look like the cancer.

 

[werepossum]

I think we're talked out on the hypocrisy issue, but I have to address this. We've had 6 attacks in the US directly inspired by ISIS and its success in the ME. The most recent being the slaying of 14 people in San Bernardino. The worst western attack was, of course, Paris, that one done directly by ISIS. Suppose the next Paris scale attack is in a major US city? You just want to wait for these incompetent Arab armies to oust Isis while we continue to sustain attacks and do nothing about it? Worse yet, without our intervention, they may continue to expand their territory and become even stronger. As of today they are making further gains in Syria in spite of Russia helping Assad. Notably, however, in Iraq, where we are more directly involved in helping the regime fight them, they are not making gains but gradually suffering losses. And our bombing of the bank and other financial measures have caused them great difficulties. And all this territorial gain and capturing of resources only makes them more able to carry out even larger scale attacks. It isn't just an Arab problem.

This is just raw, irrational isolationism at its worst. Like in the late 1930's when so many Americans said that Nazi expansionism was a European problem, not ours. The reality is even then we did not live in a world where the problems of one region could be entirely compartmentalized. It's even more true today.

Well said. I favor isolationism myself, but isolation in the face of an existential threat is simply capitulation. We're already engaged with ISIS; the only things we can do now are win, lose, or draw. Assuming we utterly defeat ISIS and another head doesn't spring up, then isolationism again becomes a valid option.

Our border is wide open and even if it wasn't... it's a bit late to pretend Islam isn't in America.
If there's a festering disease of genocide calling to them from across the planet... we'd best go in there an excise the cancer. To preserve the host and ourselves along with them.

Also well said.

 

[MrPickins]

Video of the bombing:

http://time.com/4183056/isis-bank-cash-fall-from-sky/?iid=obinsite

Makin' it rain.

 

[zinfamous]

Well said. I favor isolationism myself, but isolation in the face of an existential threat is simply capitulation. We're already engaged with ISIS; the only things we can do now are win, lose, or draw. Assuming we utterly defeat ISIS and another head doesn't spring up, then isolationism again becomes a valid option.


Also well said.

agreed with all of those.

Further, to ignore the US's near-absolute responsibility for creating ISIS, for creating the current turmoil in the middle east, for creating all of the problems that are now being absorbed by Europe, is patently arrogant.

I'd support a policy that forces any ignorant dipstick American that claims "this is their problem!" to "volunteer," suit up, and go deal with it now over in the ISIS country that the US created.

We have to deal with it directly. ISIS is our monster more than anyone else's. Even the most ardent Bush-knob-schlober has to admit that Sadaam would have stamped that shit out post-haste.

 

[werepossum]

agreed with all of those.

Further, to ignore the US's near-absolute responsibility for creating ISIS, for creating the current turmoil in the middle east, for creating all of the problems that are now being absorbed by Europe, is patently arrogant.

I'd support a policy that forces any ignorant dipstick American that claims "this is their problem!" to "volunteer," suit up, and go deal with it now over in the ISIS country that the US created.

We have to deal with it directly. ISIS is our monster more than anyone else's. Even the most ardent Bush-knob-schlober has to admit that Sadaam would have stamped that shit out post-haste.

Pretty much. And while I'm no Obama supporter, he did eventually learn. We're now only training & supporting the Kurds - the enemy of our enemy - rather than the next great democratic government which invariably devolves into the next brutal dictatorship. Even if we end up having to commit troops against ISIS, that's still as much Bush as Obama. Not toppling Saddam means Obama never would have moved against Assad, which means no ISIS. Even today, they are stronger in Iraq where they have fairly widespread support than in Syria where they are taking advantage of a civil war. And more importantly, their income base, banking, and C3 are heavily weighted toward Iraq. ISIS in Syria only would be much poorer and therefore much less powerful, with very limited ability to project power or stay in the fight for the long haul. Even the Mujahideen gotta eat until it's time to explode for the glory of Muhammad, peace be on him.

Hopefully the next President, whomever she may be, learns from Bush's and Obama's mistakes and starts out on Day One knowing that there is no Western-friendly, rational democratic government just waiting to be installed in any Muslim nation. You can choose from a Western-friendly brutal dictatorship, a Western-hating brutal dictatorship, or a mob which will become a Western-hating brutal dictatorship*. And there's maybe a 1 in 4 chance that the Western-friendly brutal dictatorship you choose doesn't dissolve into one of the other two anyway. Your best option is to simply blow up what we need to blow up and let the locals piece the society back together however they wish.

* Here I'm using dictatorship as inclusive of Islamic theocracies ruled by the Council of Crazies.