Obama's Foreign Policy

[boyst]

 

And Hillary will be quite happy to continue her hawkish path that neocons and hawks are positively giddy about.

 

Buckle up for more war, more destabilization of the ME on the Saudi's behalf, more red-baiting with the potential of a nuclear exchange because we haven't learned a thing in 15 years of non-stop war.

amazing that trump is so stupid he continues to look like the war monger all while Obamas admin and foreign policy continues to make it look like trump is the dangerous one. Just. Sad

[Deranged Rhino]

amazing that trump is so stupid he continues to look like the war monger all while Obamas admin and foreign policy continues to make it look like trump is the dangerous one. Just. Sad

 

That's been the plan for over a year now as the DNC/WikiLeaks documents make clear.

 

Look at how the media is covering Aleppo vs Mosul, it's a near perfect analogy. Both are major battles against terrorist insurgents. In Mosul we're bombing a bunch of terrorists who are hunkered down in civilian sectors and killing a bunch of civilians in the process. In Mosul the civilian deaths are for the greater good of destroying ISIS and entirely blamed on the terrorists for using the civilians as shields. It's not the west's fault. In Aleppo the Russians are bombing terrorists (funded and trained by the west) who are hunkered down in civilian sectors and killing a bunch of civilians in the process. But in Aleppo it's the Russian's fault for intentionally killing civilians, not the terrorists (who we train, fund, and support) fault for using human shields. Thus, Aleppo is a humanitarian disaster and the Russians are committing war crimes while Mosul is just the USA doing its part for the greater good.

 

The hypocrisy knows no bounds. Jingoism trumps rational thought, as we see evidenced on this board over and over again.

 

Hillary is the more dangerous of the two candidates in a real world sense. She has a track record of using military might to destabilize countries and has shown every intention of doubling down on this track record by declaring war in Syria (no fly zone = declaration of war), Yemen, Ukraine if she can make it happen, and eventually a regime change in Moscow itself.

 

That's going to end well for no one.

[boyst]

 

That's been the plan for over a year now as the DNC/WikiLeaks documents make clear.

 

Look at how the media is covering Aleppo vs Mosul, it's a near perfect analogy. Both are major battles against terrorist insurgents. In Mosul we're bombing a bunch of terrorists who are hunken shields. Thus, Aleppo is a humanitarian disaster and the Russians are committing war crimes while Mosul is just the USA doing its part for the greater good.

 

The hypocrisy knows no bounds. Jingoism trumps rational thought, as we see evidenced on this board over and over again.

 

Hillary is the more dangerous of the two candidates in a real world sense. She has a track record of using military might to destabilize countries and has shown every intention of doubling down on this track record by declaring war in Syria (no fly zone = declaration of war), Yemen, Ukraine if she can make it happen, and eventually a regime change in Moscow itself.

 

That's going to end well for no one.

yes I know this. And that's what is troubling. My office coworkers saying trump is a maniac and dangerous but Hillary is stable and will take charge without being in Putin's pocket... is hilarious. She doesn't want to be but she is Putin's puppet because that's what he needs. Putin turning the world more anti american allows easier access to the allies already alienated by the US.

Further, your assumption that Clinton wants the war is only questionable because of those people. Why would Hillary really want a war with Russia? They see no reason.

 

Obama so perfectly accidentally got this country so poorly respected across the globe with his red line, with his YouTube terrorists, with his entire agenda being weakened by sheer arrogance and an inability to be an effective president that we now have to hope that someone who lived with another president only slightly better than this one will get it right.

 

We are america. We are !@#$ed.

[Jobu]

I will just leave this here...

 

The stillborn legacy of Barack Obama

[IDBillzFan]

I will just leave this here...

 

The stillborn legacy of Barack Obama

 

Save for the Supreme Court, the best thing to do is to take what has been an embarrassingly disastrous eight years of hope and change and chain it to Hillary to choke on for a single term. It's partially her mess anyway.

 

As I've said before, at this point, the GOP needs to ignore the Oompa Loompa and fight like hell for the House and Senate so you can at least stall whatever crazy will come from Hillary.

[Jobu]

 

Save for the Supreme Court, the best thing to do is to take what has been an embarrassingly disastrous eight years of hope and change and chain it to Hillary to choke on for a single term. It's partially her mess anyway.

 

As I've said before, at this point, the GOP needs to ignore the Oompa Loompa and fight like hell for the House and Senate so you can at least stall whatever crazy will come from Hillary.

 

If we get another Sotomayor or two on the court. It's done.

[Deranged Rhino]

The Fallacy of a ‘Goldilocks’ War Policy

 

“If Mr. Bush was judged to be too assertive,” writes Baker, “many here consider Mr. Obama too restrained, and hope to see some middle ground.”

Baker quotes James Jeffrey of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy as articulating the same theme: “Bush’s excessive use of military force disillusioned the American political base for engagement. Then Obama’s timid use of military force disillusioned the American regional diplomatic base in allied governments.”

(snip)

The invasion was the first major offensive war that the United States had launched in more than a century. The whole notion of forcefully bumping off regimes one doesn’t happen to like (assuming it is not, like World War II, the denouement of a war started by someone else) has not been part of internationally accepted standards of state behavior since the Peace of Westphalia.

But the frame of discussion in the United States has shifted so much that today “regime change” gets talked about as if it were just another tool available to policymakers in dealing with disagreeable foreign governments.

A full sense of where Bush’s policies fall on a spectrum of alternative ways to use military force cannot be gained by looking only at what his immediate successor has done in struggling to get out from under the ill consequences of those policies. A truer range of alternatives would include other ones more in line with America’s traditions when it was not searching for monsters to destroy [a warning tracing back to President John Quincy Adams].

Such a fuller framework not only would show the extremity of Bush’s approach to military force but also would show President Obama’s policies to be either close to the middle of the spectrum or perhaps even more on the Bush side of the middle than on the other side. For some observers not stuck inside the current framework of American discourse (and observers that matter include more than just an “American regional diplomatic base in allied governments”), “restrained” would not be the first adjective that comes to mind in describing some of Obama’s use of force.

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/27/the-fallacy-of-a-goldilocks-war-policy/

[GG]

For the Putin apologists in the crowd.

 

Russia gets tossed from UN human rights commission.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/28/politics/russia-loses-seat-un-human-rights-council/index.html

[Deranged Rhino]

For the Saudi apologist / Jingoists in the crowd:

Russia kicked off U.N. Human Rights Council, but Saudi Arabia was re-elected The Saudi absolute monarchy, which bombs Yemen, beheads dissidents and supports extremists, remains on U.N. council

 

http://www.salon.com/2016/10/28/russia-kicked-off-u-n-human-rights-council-but-saudi-arabia-was-re-elected/

 

 

 

...But please, keep on holding up the UN as a beacon of morality. That's working as well as you trying to tell other people what they do or don't do for a living.

 

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

 

THE U.S. AND RUSSIA ENSURE A BALANCE OF TERROR IN SYRIA

 

Despite the failure of revolution everywhere but Tunisia, outside powers seized with alacrity on Syrian dissent to bring down a regime whose cardinal sin was its affiliation with Shiite Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia. While Syrian protestors sought relief from a security system that inhibited their basic rights, the outsiders who rallied to them, notably Saudi Arabia and Qatar, hardly stood as models of freedom and elected government. Syrian activists at first demanded reforms within the system and later a change of leadership without destroying, as the U.S. had done in Iraq, the state itself. The sheikhs of Riyadh and Doha, however, wanted to replace Bashar al-Assad with someone from the majority Sunni community who would enforce a style of dictatorship closer to their own Wahhabi beliefs and hostile to Iran.

By mid-2012, Phillips writes, the opposition was divided into no fewer than 3,250 armed companies. All attempts at unifying them failed, in part because local warlords sought loot rather than national victory and the outsiders refused to coordinate their policies. The traditional invaders of the Mideast — Britain, France, and the U.S. — became, in Phillips’s words, “prisoners of their own rhetoric.” Phillips accuses the U.S. of a “significant historical knowledge gap on Syria” and brands as “inexcusable” Obama’s reticence to consider contingency plans when his belief in Assad’s imminent demise did not come to fruition. Saudi Arabia, in Phillips’s view, overestimated the rebels’ strength while underestimating Assad’s. Saudi Arabia was not alone in that miscalculation. Yet, Phillips argues, Obama resisted the arguments of those, like Hillary Clinton, urging direct American military action even at the risk of war with Russia.

[Deranged Rhino]

The De Facto US/Al Qaeda Alliance

 

In other words, the U.S. government and its allies have smuggled sophisticated weapons into Syria to arm rebels who are operating in support of Al Qaeda’s new military offensive against Syrian government forces in Aleppo. By any logical analysis, that makes the United States an ally of Al Qaeda.

 

The Times article also includes a quote from Genevieve Casagrande, a Syria research analyst from the Institute for the Study of War, a neoconservative “think tank” that has supported more aggressive U.S. military involvement in Syria and the Middle East.

“The unfortunate truth, however, is that these U.S.-backed groups remain somewhat dependent upon the Al Qaeda linked groups for organization and firepower in these operations,” Casagrande said.

The other unfortunate truth is that the U.S.-supplied rebels have served, either directly or indirectly, as conduits to funnel U.S. military equipment and ordnance to Al Qaeda.

One might think that the editors of The New York Times – if they were operating with old-fashioned news judgment rather than with propagandistic blinders on – would have recast the article to highlight the tacit U.S. alliance with Al Qaeda and put that at the top of the front page.

Still, the admissions are significant, confirming what we have reported at Consortiumnews.com for many months, including Gareth Porter’s article last February saying: “Information from a wide range of sources, including some of those the United States has been explicitly supporting, makes it clear that every armed anti-Assad organization unit in those provinces [of Idlib and Aleppo] is engaged in a military structure controlled by [Al Qaeda’s] Nusra militants. All of these rebel groups fight alongside the Nusra Front and coordinate their military activities with it. …

“At least since 2014 the Obama administration has armed a number of Syrian rebel groups even though it knew the groups were coordinating closely with the Nusra Front, which was simultaneously getting arms from Turkey and Qatar.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/29/the-de-facto-usal-qaeda-alliance/

[Deranged Rhino]

Putin-Obama trust evaporates

 

A month earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who chooses his words carefully, told Russian TV viewers, "My good friend John Kerry ... is under fierce criticism from the U.S. military machine. Despite [Mr. Kerry's] assurances that the U.S. commander in chief, President Barack Obama, supported him in his contacts with Russia (he confirmed that during his meeting with President Vladimir Putin) apparently the military does not really listen to the commander in chief."

 

Do not chalk this up to paranoia. The U.S.-led coalition air strikes on known Syrian army positions killing scores of troops just five days into the September cease-fire — not to mention statements at the time by the most senior U.S. generals — were evidence enough to convince the Russians that the Pentagon was intent on scuttling meaningful cooperation with Russia.

(snip)

Speaking of such pretexts, it is high time to acknowledge that the marked increase in East-West tensions over the past two and a half years originally stemmed from the Western-sponsored coup d'état in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, and Russia's reaction in annexing Crimea. Americans malnourished on the diet served up by "mainstream" media are blissfully unaware that two weeks before the coup, YouTube published a recording of an intercepted conversation between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the U.S. ambassador in Kiev, during which "Yats" (for Arseniy Yatsenyuk) was identified as Washington's choice to become the new prime minister of the coup government in Kiev.

This unique set of circumstances prompted George Friedman, president of the think-tank STRATFOR, to label the putsch in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, "really the most blatant coup in history."

It's time for Western politicians and media to learn their lesson and pay attention to the statements coming out of Russia. Ask yourselves: Why all this hype now?

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-putin-obama-20161030-story.html

[Deranged Rhino]

Syrian army says rebel bombardment of Aleppo killed 84 in three days

 

Syria's army said on Monday the Nusra Front and what the army called other terrorist groups had killed 84 people, mostly women and children, in Aleppo during the past three days, in a bombardment that included chemical weapons and rocket fire.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-aleppo-idUSKBN12V1DX

[DC Tom]

Syrian army says rebel bombardment of Aleppo killed 84 in three days

 

Syria's army said on Monday the Nusra Front and what the army called other terrorist groups had killed 84 people, mostly women and children, in Aleppo during the past three days, in a bombardment that included chemical weapons and rocket fire.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-aleppo-idUSKBN12V1DX

 

 

Point of note: "chemical weapons" in this context is a very broad term that can include tear gas, incendiaries, smoke, or even illumination.

 

Syria's a Soviet-style military. Their definition of "chemical weapon" tends to be far more inclusive than Western definitions.

[Chef Jim]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/17/politics/obama-europe-germany-angela-merkel/index.html

 

"The 1980's are calling..............

[GG]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/17/politics/obama-europe-germany-angela-merkel/index.html

 

"The 1980's are calling..............

 

Is that speech for real?

[Nanker]

He dusted it off from his 6th grade class presentation on Civics.

[dpberr]

As I've said in previous posts here, a dialogue and working with the Russians would have been Nobel peace prize material in *any* decade but this one.

 

IMO, the Europeans are weak and cheap. They complain about the Russians but not scared enough apparently to meet their obligations in funding NATO, this allegedly indispensable, absolutely vital organization.

 

"Whoa, whoa there you silly Americans! You mean we actually have to pay for tanks and stuff every year?"

 

There's no chance Merkel is going to win a fourth term in a country overrun by lawlessness brought on by her weak immigration policies.

[keepthefaith]

He dusted it off from his 6th grade class presentation on Civics.

He's still talking wealth redistribution, but veiling it a bit differently than usual.

[DC Tom]

He dusted it off from his 6th grade class presentation on Civics.

 

Along with the rest of his foreign policy.

 

I keep telling myself "At least Trump's can't be worse." Then I remember it's Trump. If there's a way to have a worse foreign policy, the Candied Yam in Chief will find it.

[Nanker]

Actually I think Trump is holding all the cards - for now.

None of the world leaders with the possible exception of Bibi have a clue as to how he's going to act and react.

I think if he states a position, sticks to it (big IF there), and negotiates as rigorously as he's said he will, he should earn some respect on the world stage.

They've got to be shaking their heads right now not knowing what he's going to do.

Only he really knows, and he might wing it.

 

I'm going to sit back and watch the Alpha male perform.

Edited November 18, 2016 by Nanker