Hindsight is always 20/20. Where were these voices then?Originally Posted by USS Utah
Hindsight is always 20/20. Where were these voices then?
I might also suppose you didn't read the rest of what I wrote.
The point is we can sit around and whine about what happened in the past, but we can't change it and need to operate on how things actually are, not how we'd like them to be. Obama seems to be incapable of doing just that.
What exactly was your commitment in Iraq?
https://www.funker530.com/u-s-soldie...-iraqi-police/
Last edited by Devildog; 12-21-2015 at 11:13 PM.
I can correctly identify it on a map 50% of the time. What exactly do you think I'm being critical of?
Islamic State’s Deep, Poisonous Roots
http://www.wsj.com/articles/islamic-...ots-1451684170
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"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
I don't think FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, or either Bush would have called ISIS the "jayvee" or said that ISIS is "contained" when it clearly wasn't. I don't think any of them would have described the problem primarily as a law enforcement matter.
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"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Agreed those were very poor word choices. What policy difference would you make or should he have made if he had not said them?
P s. You forgot Clinton. Have you erased him from your memory?
Last edited by concerned; 01-08-2016 at 08:13 AM.
I didn't forget Clinton. Or Carter. I was listing those presidents who represented the USA's post-WWII internationalist foreign policy tradition. Clinton only flirted verbally and half-heartedly with that approach. Carter, Clinton and now Obama (especially Obama) are McGovernites. That's not a pejorative, just a description.
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"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Clinton not an internationalist? You either have erased him from your memory or you have a very specific and exclusive definition of internationalist to exclude him from your definition. Somalia, Kosovo, Iraq, etc. You are just using a label of McGovernite (whatever you tell us that means.)
Obama and the US military obviously underestimated the threat from ISIS, and were slow to react. But it is not clear to me that the strategy has not turned a corner. ISIS has significantly less territory than it had a year ago. the Kurds have taken the supply route to Mosul and significant territory in Iraq and Syria near the Turkish border. If the Iraqi's retake Mosul this year after retaking Remadi, esp. without any Shia militia participation, that will be huge.
ISIS is becoming contained geographically; containing the ability to export terrorism to Europe or the US is much more difficult, and probably can never be completely achieved, esp. without a political solution in Syria.
I think Clinton was a half-hearted internationalist. I don't mean McGovernite as a pejorative (you probably voted for him, I'm guessing). Maybe "non-interventionist" is the best term.
Anyway, here's a pretty objective report on Obama's foreign policy going into his final year in office. Looking at his four main objectives -- "a nuclear deal with Iran, restoring diplomatic ties with Cuba, a global climate-change agreement and a new trade pact with Asia," wouldn't you agree that the first three of those are goals George mcGovern would have loved?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/president-obamas-recent-foreign-policy-strides-a-fragile-legacy-1450624694
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
The thinking that Isis is being contained geographically is a dangerous one, I hope our foreign policy experts and leadership don't think that way any more.
Even if the contain the current geographic bounds of the major ISIS action, it will fracture and spread out in a much more smaller cell sort of operation. They are social media savvy and we have seen a number of ISIS motivated incidents in the US already. That part will get worse.
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When you've lost Tom Friedman, you've lost non-flyover country.
Does Obama Have This Right?
Snip:
Obama’s primary goal seems to be to get out of office being able to say that he had shrunk America’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, prevented our involvement on the ground in Syria and Libya, and taught Americans the limits of our ability to fix things we don’t understand, in countries whose leaders we don’t trust, whose fates do not impact us as much as they once did.
After all, the president indicated, more Americans are killed each year slipping in bathtubs or running into deer with their cars than by any terrorists, so we need to stop wanting to invade the Middle East in response to every threat.
That all sounds great on paper, until a terrorist attack like the one Tuesday in Brussels comes to our shores. Does the president have this right?
Last edited by LA Ute; 03-23-2016 at 03:45 PM.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
This isn't directly about ISIS/Daesh, but rather about the people running from those animals.
Scott Carrier is a resident of Utah, a producer of short stories for national radio programs, a former UVU professor, and now produces the Home Of The Brave podcast. (he is also the brother of David Carrier who is a biology prof at Utah).
He went to Europe to report on the Syrian immigrant crisis, and then travelled the length of the Balkan Route the immigrants are following. He interviewed people from a dozen different countries along the way, and the stories he tells are heartbreaking and compelling.
Give them a listen, beginning with Episode 25 (through 29). www.homebrave.com. These are perhaps Pullitzer Prize-worthy stories.
Also listen to his experiences in Afghanistan after the invasion with his young English-speaking translator (episode 6), and the follow-up where he brings the translator to Utah to attend UVU (Episode 7).
Great stuff. I promise you will enjoy them.
Der Spiegel on the Syrian debacle:
http://m.spiegel.de/international/wo...m/instapundit/The war has long since ceased being solely about Syria. The country has become Ground Zero of global geopolitics, an unholy mixture of Russia’s desired return to superpower status, an increasingly authoritarian Turkey, tentative US foreign policy, the Kurdish conflict, the arch-rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Islamist terror and the inability of a divided, crisis-ridden EU to do much of anything.
The war in Syria has transformed from a civil war into a world war.
It has long since reached Europe in the form of millions of refugees, terror attacks in Paris and attacks on tourists in Tunisia and Istanbul. And America, which has long been the leader of the West and guarantor of security in Europe, has refused to get involved. . . .
The man who could answer many of these questions is saying very little these days about Syria, despite the recent drama. In the past, Barack Obama has said that Assad must step down and he still refers to him as “a brutal, ruthless dictator.” At the same time, though, Obama is doing nothing to counter him and there are no signs that he has anything up his sleeve either.
The New York Times recently wrote that it is difficult to distinguish between Putin’s and Obama’s Syria strategies. Meanwhile, historian and journalist Michael Ignatieff and Brookings Institution fellow Leon Wieseltier lamented in the Washington Post, “It’s time for those who care about the moral standing of the United States to say that this policy is shameful.”
It is very clear at this point that the US has no strategy beyond its half-hearted efforts to provide training and arms to rebels — and to otherwise rely on negotiations. But none of this has born any fruit, as events in early February demonstrated.
Secretary of State Kerry worked for three months to get the warring parties to a negotiating table under the auspices of the United Nations — moderate rebels, representatives of the regime, Iranians, Saudi Arabians and Russians. But Moscow then turned around and launched its offensive right as the talks began. Within 48 hours, the Russian air force carried out 320 airstrikes in northern Syria alone. It was no coincidence that the storm on Aleppo began at that exact moment. The aim was that of destroying any possibility that the opposition would have a say in Syria’s future.
“All sides were aware that a continuation of the talks would become increasingly difficult for the opposition as the regime intensified its military offensive,” diplomats in Geneva said. After two days, the UN mediator Staffan de Mistura suspended talks. Right now, it doesn’t look as though the opposition will be prepared to return to Geneva on Feb. 25 as planned. And why should they?
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"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Dear der Spiegel;
Quit bitching about the lack of US involvement as you bang the war drum. You complained nonstop over the last 15 years about US involvement in the Middle East, and now you want America to escalate the situation because you fear Russian involvement? And yet somehow in the same article you claim the US and Russian goals are indistinguishable. The differences should be readily apparent by simply looking at the regimes the US and Russia choose to back, and with whom each country trades goods (and oil).
The US Military has forged itself into perhaps the most deadly and effective urban war machine in the history of the world. But this comes with a tremendous cost in blood and money, and an especially high cost in the lives of 'collateral damage'.
ISIS/ISIL/Daesh is at its core an ideology. The ideology spreads by either overrunning a new area, or through missionary propaganda to the outside world. Daesh already uses statements from US politicians and from US tv programs in their propaganda, and increasing the US involvement in the region will only serve to justify their extremist ideologies. Their stated goal is to fight a glorious war vs Western Civilization, which is anathema to their 8th-century CE idealism.
The best way to rid the world of this cancer is to 1) surgically cut it out where possible; 2) cut off its supply network and seize its assets wherever possible to starve it where it exists; 3) make life better for the oppressed people around the world for whom this movement would be more attractive than their current lives; and 4) get the word out that life under Daesh is horrible, even for true believers.
Germany is doing yeoman's work by allowing safe harbor for all refugees who can get themselves inside her borders. Continue to tell the horror stories of those who have escaped the atrocities.
Sincerely,
'Murrica
Do you like red or green Kool-Aid? President Obama serves both.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
This one is from the right. (Disclaimer: I don't own a gun, although I am thinking about it; and I don't belong to the NRA or any other such organization.) I think he makes some excellent points. That said, I am not crazy about the availability of assault rifles or the ease with which mentally ill people can get guns. We should figure out a way to do something about those problems, but both sides are soooo intractable.
Lashing out at a familiar bogeyman, the NRA, is far easier than looking our real enemy in the face.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...-isis-is-enemy
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Control is the buzz word, but I think most people would be shocked at how difficult it is to enforce our current gun laws
As a police officer I have no way to verify if someone I stop is prohibited from owning a firearm due to something like a mental illness.
With a lot of effort I can sometimes determine if someone is restricted for past criminal history, but it's a very confusing and difficult task.
Then we have to get a conviction, which now days is very hard. Jury's often acquit if there aren't fingerprints and DNA on weapons, even if we physically took the weapon from the suspect.
There are ideas out there, such as a license like a driver license that is verified yearly. This license wouldn't track what weapons you own or buy, it would simply alert authorities that you're legally allowed to own a weapon. But even something like this is too much for many.
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Thought-provoking piece here:
THE ORLANDO MASSACRE AND THE CRISIS OF HUMANISM
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite...2#.V18NtHErLIV
As usual I do not endorse everything this guy says. Most of it, though -- especially the point that interest groups tried to make this atrocity into something that fit their own political agenda:
The most striking thing about the reaction to Orlando is how speedily observers made it about themselves; how swiftly they marshalled this massacre to political ends, whether to the traditional political ends of promoting right or left agendas or to the ends of the new politics of identity and its obsession with cultivating narratives of victimhood. The bodies were still warm when political ghouls on the left were claiming the massacre as proof that we need greater gun control and clampdowns on homophobia, and political ghouls on the right were using it to push their case for greater border controls and clampdowns on Islamist speech. From across the spectrum, people used the remains of that blood-stained gay club as a foundation for the construction of their shallow political case: a deeply ugly spectacle.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Today, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia will pull its troops out of Syria. I don't quite know how to take that news, and I have no idea how the events in Syria will play out. It seems this would create a big power vacuum, and that could be a big problem.
This is huge news.
I heard he was leaving forces there, so it doesn't look like a total pullout. He's removing only the “main part” of Russian forces in Syria.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/wo...awal.html?_r=0And the Kremlin made clear it was keeping its new air base in the coastal Mediterranean province of Latakia, in addition to the naval refueling station it has kept nearby in Tartus since Soviet times.
Mr. Putin has a history of unpredictability and is known for public statements that do not always align with Russia’s actions. In eastern Ukraine, for example, fighting by Moscow-backed rebels has continued even though Mr. Putin has pledged to honor a peace treaty.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Not knowing much about guns, I defer to others as to whether this article is accurate:
The Next Time Someone Calls an AR-15 an Assault Rifle, Show Them This
http://www.ijreview.com/2016/06/6279...m_content=guns
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
The legislative definition of an assault rifle or weapon is so convoluted that it is a losing argument to try to classify them. Simply put it this way, there isn't a single law enforcement agency in this country that arms their soldiers or first responders with the same weapon that is legally available to most Americans and generally referred to as an AR-15 or sport rifle.
We're up to snuff, we never bluff, we're game for any fuss. Or at least we used to be.
Huh?
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that the military, SWAT, etc use select-fire rifles.
We're up to snuff, we never bluff, we're game for any fuss. Or at least we used to be.
This more recent Jeffrey Goldberg piece is very interesting (thank you, concerned). Excerpt:
None of this is meant to be an argument that Obama does enough, or does enough of the right things, in the struggle against ISIS. I could (and will!) write a critique of the administration’s tactical approach, particularly as it relates to Syria. And Obama could bring more emotional intelligence to bear on this problem: He is eloquent in condemning the fearmongers, but he sometimes fails to acknowledge the legitimate fears of non-racist, non-paranoid Americans who would prefer not to be killed by terrorists acting in the name of Islam. The United States is under intermittent attack from an organization called the Islamic State, which, as Graeme Wood has pointed out in this magazine, represents one, extreme, branch of Islam. There is no point in trying to convince Americans that what is happening is not happening. But neither is there a point in encouraging hysteria and division.
Privately, Obama expresses the deepest loathing for ISIS and other radical Islamist groups. ISIS, he has noted, stands for—quite literally—everything he opposes. Nevertheless, his approach to the challenge of Islamist terrorism is sometimes emotionally unsatisfying; it is sometimes insufficient to the challenge; and he himself is sometimes too fatalistic about the possibility of change in the Middle East.
Donald Trump’s approach, on the other hand, is simply catastrophic.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/06/obama-radical-islam/487079/
I gained an appreciation for Obama's views, if Goldberg has them right. (I still don't buy them all.) Why is this type of nuanced thinking hidden, while policy views summarized as "Don't do stupid sh** are made public? Even Hillary Clinton criticized that one. Anyway, it's too bad that it takes a sympathetic interviewer to articulate what the President of the USA really thinks about one of the central national security issue of our time.
Last edited by LA Ute; 06-20-2016 at 09:11 PM.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
It is called playing current US foreign policy like a fiddle.
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What would you do differently?
Russia obviously has a different set of priorities in Syria. They have an important Mediterranean naval base and an Air Force base in Syria, and of course they want to keep the current regime intact. They see the Assad regime as a valid stabilizing force in the region and as a valuable trade partner, who is under attack by those awful Kurds and other tribes, as well as ISIS. This was Russia's biggest military venture since the fall of the USSR.
In The West we see Assad as a stabilizing force, who is also a dangerous tyrant who attacks his own people (especially the Kurds), and who is perpetrating the continued occupation of Libya, continues to attack Israel, and is the terror-supporting puppet of Iran's mullahs. And sometimes he deals with trouble from ISIS.
The truth of Assad lies somewhere in between (and the statements made by Syrian refugees paint him as a monster-with-a-cause in the mold of Pinochet or even Pol Pot).
-------
A bit of good news: the top ISIS commander, the Chechen-born Abu Omar al-Shisani (born Tarkhan Batirashvili), was killed in an Air attack this week. Maybe US foreign policy is actually working.
Apparently.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/14/politi...nch/index.html
It sure is a good thing our foreign policy (with assistance from England, Germany, France, Russia, and all the IAEA countries) forced Iran to export all of their enriched uranium and to destroy 2/3 of their centrifuges.
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