US foreign policy

[fatlittlepig]

anyone here find US foreign policy extremely bizarre, why don't we learn from history. we have a president who is fairly intelligent, maybe even brilliant yet we intervened in Libya to engage in regime change leading to the current mess in that country, maybe even indirectly leading to the death of an US ambassador. gaddafhi if I understand correctly in recent years was taking concrete steps to be more responsible (I believe he even met with some of our top officials) then all of a sudden he had to go without any sort of post regime change planning.

now we are pushing for regime change in Syria without a clear plan for an endgame. I actually feel we are if anything supporting the wrong side in Syria, replacing asaad with rebels whom include radical Islamists including those who affiliate with al queda makes no sense. so we need PRISM to protect against al Qaeda as we arm them in Syria. we seem to have a long history of taking sides against those who are considered against us or our allies, it's bizarre to me. it seems the only rational actor on the Syrian issue are the Russians.

my question for intelligent discussion is how can someone as intelligent as Obama continue such destructive and asinine foreign policies. to me it just seems so strange.

 

[Matt1970]

Obama is brilliant?

 

[Herr Kutz]

Your second sentence discredits your entire post.

Try again.

 

[fatlittlepig]

Harvard law grad, constitutional law lecturer. yeah I think he's a pretty smart guy, but that's a side issue to my original post.

Your second sentence discredits your entire post.

Try again.

 

[Doppel]

He is smart but no point in getting caught up over that.

The problem is the US has a long history of intervention and a massive stupidly big Military. What military wants to sit around training? No, they want to flex their muscle from time to time. The gov is full of war hawks. and if you want to shrink military now you are weak on defense. Don't you love America, patriot?

 

[EagleKeeper]

Harvard law grad, constitutional law lecturer. yeah I think he's a pretty smart guy, but that's a side issue to my original post.

Your second sentence discredits your entire post.

Try again.

A major problem is that people that come from academia and never experience what the real world is make decisions based on what they were spoon fed by other academics.


There used to be a saying:
Those that can - do; those that can't - teach

Academics are sheltered a lot from the real world and see things as right/wrong with no wiggle room.

When they become a politician, they are smart enough to realize such; but are unable to apply such to their advisors.

 

[EagleKeeper]

He is smart but no point in getting caught up over that.

The problem is the US has a long history of intervention and a massive stupidly big Military. What military wants to sit around training? No, they want to flex their muscle from time to time. The gov is full of war hawks. and if you want to shrink military now you are weak on defense. Don't you love America, patriot?

By shrinking the military they save $$ in the short run and cost $$ when needed along with additional lives.

Everytime the system is cut; is it based on cost or need?
It takes time and extra $$ to spin up the system quickly.


No win situation

 

[poofyhairguy]

It is a long term problem that comes from publically pushing values not always in our best interest.

We profess to want democracy and freedom. But that creates a problem when the peoples aren't a part of our culture, and when they have their freedom they vote in leaders and rules that go against our interests politically. Or even worse, the democratic process and factioning creates instability that hurts our commercial interests.

What we really want in many places in the world IS a dictator that follows our wishes and not the wishes of his people, and who forces stability at the end of a gun. Problem is that is directly against the democratic values we lean on when we go nation building.

Back in the Cold War we could be hypocrites about it. The places who would bend to our culture got democracy, those who won't got dictators. In the modern world we lack the absolute power to force everyone to accept our two faces.

The closest thing we can get to that now is to allow areas where we are scared of democracy to fall under the influence of world powers who don't mind supporting dictators (aka China and Russia). Problem is that they then prop up leaders who support their interests, not ours.

The only other solution is what our two recent presidents have done- go all in on democracy and hope our soft power is enough to win over the peoples of that nation (aka "Give them something to lose"). The day their leaders fall start building schools, shopping malls, and McDonalds. Problem is this method is very expensive with questionable effectiveness.

 

[colonelciller]

A major problem is that people that come from academia and never experience what the real world is make decisions based on what they were spoon fed by other academics.

There used to be a saying:
Those that can - do; those that can't - teach

Academics are sheltered a lot from the real world and see things as right/wrong with no wiggle room.

this is so chock-full of ignorance it hurts

 

[colonelciller]

By shrinking the military they save $$ in the short run and cost $$ when needed along with additional lives.

Everytime the system is cut; is it based on cost or need?
It takes time and extra $$ to spin up the system quickly.


No win situation

Problem with that logic is that the US Military hasn't been "needed" since WWII. But since the US is an Imperalistic War-Mongering Nation and since there is ungodly profit for starting wars large and small all over the planet the US Govt. has little trouble writing fictional pretexts for the need to explode the bodies of humans (civilians be damned) since the end of WWII...

the US is constantly waging wars that are needed only by the corporations who profit from selling military hardware... it is a shameful thing.

 

[Anarchist420]

The defense/national security budget would ideally be zero, but anything less than or equal to a 1/3 of what it currently is would be a decent start.

Under President Hillary Clinton, we will have a world empire AND single-payer for everyone (but probably not socialized other than the VA) medicine and then the collapse from hyperinflation will come.

 

[brandonb]

Simple answer: Foreign interests control our foreign policy. I can't say more because last time I mentioned it, I got an infraction for being anti-Semite.

 

[OGOC]

A major problem is that people that come from academia and never experience what the real world is make decisions based on what they were spoon fed by other academics.

My friend has a finance degree. After getting his degree, he's for the most part been self-employed in the investment field. He recently told me what a joke his degree and most of his teachers were when it comes to reality.

What's the topic again? Oh, foreign policy.

Military Industrial Complex + petrol dollar + endless spending and debt considered to be a good thing = U.S. foreign policy.

We could also talk about things like certain central banks and which countries didn't have that certain kind until the U.S. went to war with them, but people might just chalk that up only as a conspiracy theory, and it's not really needed anyway to understand foreign policy, so I won't mention it.

 

[fatlittlepig]

Iran is another example of what i consider a strange and counterproductive foreign policy. we have basically declared war on this country - through sanctions which do two things: hurt the civilians of iran through economic destabilization, and harden the people and government of iran to further pursue a military nuclear program. in addition another country, israel (a nuclear power), has openly threatened to attack iran and has openly lobbied us to attack iran. In addition we have participated in cyber warfare to destroy iranian centrifuges and israel has assassinated civilian iranian nuclear scientists.

how does this type of behavior encourage a country to renounce a nuclear program. If I were the leader of iran i would double down on getting nukes ASAP, so everyone backs off.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Never confuse intelligence and education with principle and wisdom.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

We use our foreign policy to justify the growth of our government as whole. Nothing will change so long as we continue to do this and allow government to grow and grow and grow and find new reasons to continue growing at our expense.


OT: Not everyone in Ireland was happy about Obama's trip to Ireland or his faux claims of being Irish. This politician in parliament unleashes both barrels on Obama and then ends it with a headshot.

"Obama called "war criminal" & "hypocrite of the century" in Irish Parliament"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QIMucHfUMyg

 

[nextJin]

I'd love to see more predominant folks here on the forum comment on this subject. Not so long ago basically everyone laughed at an old Congressman who started saying this in the 1980's.

Eisenhower warned all of us and we ignored him, nothing is going to change here. Not until it is fiscally impossible to do will we stop which is ironic since we can print our own money and no one gives a damn about the debt.

 

[ivwshane]

I guess everyone forgot how our support to aid libya happened. Hint: it wasn't our idea and we didn't do anything by ourselves.

 

[fatlittlepig]

yes we were pressured by the UK, italy etc. -- NATO intervened but unfortunately I think the US funds the vast majority of NATO expenses and equipment/personnel therefore when NATO intervenes it basically means the US intervenes.

I guess everyone forgot how our support to aid libya happened. Hint: it wasn't our idea and we didn't do anything by ourselves.

 

[disappoint]

anyone here find US foreign policy extremely bizarre, why don't we learn from history.

No I don't find it bizarre. I find it very disturbing.

By it I mean your lack of proper punctuation. Was that supposed to be a question? Where is the question mark?

As far as U.S. foreign policy, they are just choosing from the right side.

 

[fatlittlepig]

best you can do is attack my admittedly poor punctuation "?"

No I don't find it bizarre. I find it very disturbing.

By it I mean your lack of proper punctuation. Was that supposed to be a question? Where is the question mark?

As far as U.S. foreign policy, they are just choosing from the right side.

 

[bradly1101]

Throwing guns at the problem never works. They always seem to get pointed back at 'us'.

 

[bradly1101]

The only reason we're even doing this is because of the misguided 'red line in the sand' that Obama drew about chemical weapons.

 

[disappoint]

best you can do is attack my admittedly poor punctuation "?"

No the best I did was answer your question. It seems you'd rather ignore that and attack what was admittedly a poor jab in jest.

I can't fault you for not knowing what I'm talking about when I said choose from the right side. I can only wonder why you wouldn't ask about it if you didn't understand what it meant.

 

[fatlittlepig]

I couldn't care less if he gasses Islamic rebels who are trying to take over Syria. it's been we'll documented that the chain of custody of the supposed evidence of chem weapon use is suspect at best. Assad had absolutely no incentive to use chemical weapons, while the rebels have everything to gain by having the world think that he did. it makes no sense.

The only reason we're even doing this is because of the misguided 'red line in the sand' that Obama drew about chemical weapons.