I have been roundly informed that I am wrong about the Administration’s approach to the “Islamic State”. Since my position has been that our interests in Syria and Iraq do not rise to the level of war and that the Administration’s present tactics will not effect its stated objective (a view shared by most military experts who’ve dared to venture an opinion on the subject possibly including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, it’s a bit hard for me to see how.
If in a year’s time we have “degraded or destroyed” the “Islamic State”, I will freely acknowledge my error. I would remind people that the “Islamic State” actually controls more territory now than it did when we started bombing. I don’t know what will happen. We’ll find out in due course but it’s early to be proclaiming victory.
You are too kind.
The bombing had to be started to stop ISIS, and it needed to be started immediately. The bombing in conjunction with the world class fighters of good Syrian terrorists, Iraqi army, Kurds, and the Arab/Turkish army of ISIS supporters were going to exterminate ISIS. (The planners should have borrowed some of the Israeli magic fairy dust that allows their jets to defy the laws of physics.)
Ten minutes after the bombing began, we learned that the good Syrian terrorists were years away from being able to defeat anybody, but it did not matter because they allied with ISIS. The Iraqi army was still worthless, and they have since proved this again. The Kurds are fighting for the Kurds. The Arab/Turkish army is training in imagination land.
Furthermore, we have learned that weeks and months will be years and decades. President Obama will again mimic his much hated predecessor and pass along a war, and you all thought I was joking about the Putin Nobel Peace Prize.
The experts telling us this are the same experts telling us ISIS had to go, the Syrian rebels could take down Assad and ISIS. The Iraq army was a world class army as long as the US was there to back them up. They assured us that the countries that had been supporting ISIS were going to send an army to destroy it.
They told us how prescient President George Bush was. He knew permanent bases were needed, and he promptly agreed to pull all troops out. (They forgot how they assured the Iraqi withdrawal was engineered by President Bush. I did not. I have a long, long memory.)
Now after badgering a dovish president into a war, do any of you idiots think things are going to get better? Do you really think by badgering, bad-mouthing, name calling, and shit throwing for the next three years that he is going to do any better? I realize that Libya was ancient history to you, but it is a terrorist Disneyland. Are you happy?
I am pissed because I told you so, and now you are going to pretend like you knew this all along. You all do this shit all the time. The second thing is that it is going to be done half-assed. If President Bush f*cked it up, President Obama will do no better. It is not who he is, and like it or not, he is your president. Get over it. Frankly, I am tired of all the f*cking whining. Grow up, and grow a pair of balls.
President Obama is dumb as a bag of rocks. The man has never had an original thought in his head, and he has the intellectual capacity of a dead frog. Yeah, I said it. For all you Obama acolytes, I usually do not go hard on him because he is my president, but if you really think he is some intellectual genius, you need to get out more.
Forget what happens if Obama fails for the moment. What happens if he succeeds?
Say that the current strategy works and ISIS is degraded and destroyed in the next year. What replaces them? How likely is the Iraqi government to restore order in that area when they couldn’t keep control of it before despite all the efforts the US poured into the enterprise from 2003-2012?
And in Syria why should we expect a different outcome than Libya?
The problem is that I don’t think success _as_defined_by_the_President_ gets us to a better outcome than the current state of affairs, just a different one.
And to echo TB, why should we believe that the President who so badly misread the situation months and even weeks ago now has Olympian judgement on this matter?
(Seeing all the testimony intelligence chiefs provided to Congress earlier this year, it is clear that only Obama thought ISIS a joke.)
@Icepick
In Syria, ISIS is the only organization with any chance of removing Assad. It is either ISIS or Assad. In Iraq, I have no idea.
President Obama believes he is a genius, and he actually believes the crap that comes out of his mouth. If he says it, it must be true. If he predicts it, it will come to pass. When he is confronted with reality, he will discount reality. The only true reality is what and how he perceives the world.
I am sure you have met somebody who is dumb as a bag of rocks, but he thinks he is a genius. I am also sure you have worked for a few, and as the boss, these guys are a major pain. When the president of the US is one of these guys, it is a different level of scary.
He really believes that living in Indonesia as a child gives him some special insight into the Muslim world, and of course, his acolytes buy into this nonsense as well. He really believes that confessing sins, bowing, giving the world a hug, and buying them a Coke will lead to world peace.
Anybody with a smidgen of knowledge of history knows that the Jews went to the gas chambers because Hitler was upset about US slavery and not getting a hug. Genghis was not on a tear because he felt the Chinese were repressing him. The solution to the German Principalities and Duchies constant fighting was not a conference.
He believes the stupid crap that he says, and in his mind, it is all reconciled no matter how conflicting it may be. If you have trouble understanding, you are the idiot. Luckily, a few of his idiot followers are beginning to realize that something is amiss, and they are looking for somebody to blame.
I don’t know what he is thinking, but I suspect he is talking to multiple audiences. Talking tough to appease American hawks is kind of par for the course. The bombing should slow down ISIS. Then, the Iraqis need to decide what they want to do. If they don’t want to fight, then we shouldn’t either.
Steve
@steve
I don’t know what he is thinking, …
I can tell what my dogs are thinking by watching them. They think they are geniuses also, but they too are dumb as a bag of rocks. Knowing this, I correct their stupidity and keep them out of trouble. My wife on the other hand …
… Talking tough to appease American hawks is kind of par for the course. …
Here is a suggestion: He could grow a pair of balls. Next week, you will need a new excuse.
… The bombing should slow down ISIS. …
Are you trying to provide cover by appeasing the hawks? Here is a suggestion: You could grow a pair of balls. Next week, he will have a different (but in his mind no different) strategy.
…. If they don’t want to fight, …
When they ran away, you do not think that kinda, maybe, sorta answered the question? Nah. Let’s break some more shit, and pretend that we know what we are doing. We can blame it all on Bush. He is the cause of everything that is wrong in the world today.
Here is a suggestion: Use some magic fairy dust to make everything right. It should work as well as the dumb ass shit you all (both sides) have been pretending is going to work.
“He really believes that living in Indonesia as a child gives him some special insight into the Muslim world, and of course, his acolytes buy into this nonsense as well.”
On my application to business school I told them I played Risk and Monopoly as a kid, so I wanted to be a private equity guy………..
“Here is a suggestion: He could grow a pair of balls.”
Talking tough is not limited to American Hawks.
Steve
Steve, isn’t starting a war and deciding what you want to accomplish after the fighting has commenced a bad decision-making process?
Drew, I could count past ten with my shoes on so I went into math. If the career counselors had know my other talents & hobbies I’d have ended up in porn.
@steve
Talking tough is not limited to American Hawks.
American hawks actually believe what they say. I disagree with them, but they are not trying to appease anybody. None of them try to appease me or anybody else. They will even reluctantly support their political opponents.
President Obama’s acolytes have poisoned any dissent, and even if they wanted to think independently, they cannot, lest they become racists. Welcome to the world you have created. I hope all of you are happy. He is going to trash progressivism, but the price will be steep. Thanks.
One can blame Bush for getting into the Iraq war in the first place.
However, the SOFA arranged with Maliki in 2007, although undertaken during Bush’s presidency, it’s terms were heavily aided and abetted by a democratic congress who vigorously pushed for a clean, troop-free exit from Iraq, ASAP. And, that’s what they got. Bush, nonetheless, clearly expressed genuine misgivings about withdrawing troops too fast or in their entirety, in order to prevent the inevitability of chaos returning to an immature, newly formed government. But these warnings went unheeded by the administration succeeding his Even over strong admonitions from Leon Panetta, Obama’s own Secretary of Defense, along with similar ones from his generals and National Security Advisors, nothing was done deterring Obama from his predetermined departure goals.
Furthermore, with an eminent military withdrawal firmly on the horizon, the WH seemed to also withdraw it’s interest in actively maintaining it’s oversight in Iraqi affairs, preparing them for eventual long-term self-governance. Unlike his predecessor, who tasked Ryan Crocker to temper Maliki’s predisposition for Shiite dominance, and who himself frequently called Maliki facilitating an ongoing dialogue with him, the Obama Administration chose a cool, unresponsive approach with Iraq, seemingly unconcerned about their role of keeping a healthy Shiite/Sunni governmental balance of power in place. So, essentially 2009-2011 proved to be nothing more than a US hands-off waiting game to get out and be able to claim victory for ending the Iraqi war and the military presence there. Consequently, no efforts were realistically implemented to renegotiate the SOFA, as not having one, with an immunity provision, provided a convenient excuse for removal of all troops.
Now that Iraq has fallen back into disarray, the WH has changed from the 2012 electioneering slogans of ME victory to chastisement of others, regarding the real story of terrorists gaining territory rather than “being on the run.” And, instead of embracing hard lessons and learning from bad decisions, this president continues to play the blame backwards, as he cheers pulling our remaining troops out of Afghanistan in the near future. (although, as I understand it, this time they have gotten a SOFA worked out with the new government there)
Regarding ISIS, this president is again not listening to military advisors who think little of his present “degrade, destroy” strategy. Instead, he seems bent on following in-his-bubble consultants, having mutual ideological trajectories to his own, of getting out of the ME on a preset time table. Along the way out, Obama is merely demonstrating reluctant appeasement efforts, forming a symbolic coalition of countries conducting limited bombing missions of quasi important sites, that accomplishes little except (perhaps) stem the downward slide of his own pre-midterm poll numbers.
As usual, it’s more about political expediency than constructing a viable, well thought out, bipartisan plan.
@jan
It must be hard being a Bush apologist. I have as much sympathy for you as I do for the Obama acolytes, and I doubt they are feeling any love.
When the Obama worshipers were crooning about how the blessed one had gotten all the troops out of Iraq. The Bush apologists quickly and repeatedly pointed out that it was actually Bush who got the troops out. Reality sucks. Like you all said, President Bush pulled out the troops.
In trying to redeemed this mistake, a 2007 clip of President Bush predicting Iraq falling apart with a continued US presence. This means permanent bases. Permanent means long term agreements of 20 years at a minimum. This would mean that any agreement negotiated under President Bush should have gone through 2027.
He was too cowardly to do this. He was finished with Iraq in 2004, and it was only Sen. McCain that dragged him into the Surge. President Bush did not want his legacy to be the president who got the US permanently into Iraq. President Reagan would have negotiated long term agreements.
President Bush intentionally negotiated the early withdrawal, and he left any messes to his predecessor. If everything went well, he would claim success, but if anything went wrong, he could blame others. This is what the Bush sycophants did when the withdrawal seemed to be working, and now, they are unwilling to accept personal responsibility.
Personal responsibility is an interesting concept. Apparently, it only applies to others. The people that conservatives do not like are required to practice personal responsible, but those they worship are allowed to shirk all responsibility.
jan- We needed a political resolution. After all that time in Iraq we had none. If they wanted us to stay they should have had a public vote with a broad consensus that we should stay. otherwise we are just the foreign occupiers enforcing Shia rule with Maliki as dictator. We had little real influence on Maliki before Bush negotiated a deal to leave. We had even less after. We see the same thing in Afghanistan. We have not been able to change the political structure. Whenever we leave, 2, 5, 10, 20 years from now, they will revert.
As to Panetta, we have only seen excerpts. When we saw the excerpts from the Gates book we were told that Gates said Obama was awful. Then we read the book. I suspect we will find out that Obama wanted troops to stay, but not as much as Panetta. Not enough to make tons of concessions. Which is ok with me.
Steve
“It must be hard being a Bush apologist.”
Tasty, if being a Bush apologist, by your definition, is relaying a scenario that has been affirmed by others in the know, then there is little left to say.
Nonetheless, we could do a thread about the many things, both domestically and foreign policy wise, that I would concur Bush miserably mishandled. However, IMO, the repercussions of the ISIS threat and crisis in Iraq and Syria happened on the current government’s watch, and is more the result of the WH’s flawed assumptions and poor judgement calls than Bush’s.
Steve,
I agree that Panetta’s words were small excerpts. And, probably, on the whole, he thought well of Obama’s policies. However, officials on both sides of the aisle are having growing concerns with how he is managing the foreign policies of this country — the inappropriate issuance of a “red line,” being so ill-informed and surprised on so many foreign issues, conflicts and warring fronts, Libya’s turmoil, Benghazi’s tragedy to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, the border invasion, and now the explosion of ISIS in Iraq. He’s simply not handling these problems well, and people from all political walks of life are losing confidence in him.
I suspect we will find out that Obama wanted troops to stay, but not as much as Panetta.
I don’t think that will be the case. There is even a story out there today that Maliki was willing to issue an EO of his own allowing the troops to stay. But, Obama wasn’t interested in such a deal. Even before the SOFA expiration date was upon us, there was a growing call for Obama/Biden to get their act together that was met with silence from the administration. This president was diplomatically MIA between 2009 and 2011, regarding any and all diligent oversight and negotiations with Iraq. He wanted out, and that’s all he wanted.
@steve
… I suspect we will find out that Obama wanted troops to stay, but not as much as Panetta. …
Is this Stupid Sunday?
President Obama wanted the troops out. Had he not f*cked up Libya, Syria would not have turned into a mess, and Iraq probably would have been somewhat stable.
Like Bush, Panetta is trying to have it both ways. If he thought it was such a bad idea at the time, it was probably better to say something then. Waiting until everything fell apart and writing a book to cover your ass is a little telling. Had everything worked out, Panetta would be writing a book about how he was the one who told President Obama to pull out the troops.
@jan
… is more the result of the WH’s flawed assumptions and poor judgement calls than Bush’s.
This is apologizing for Bush. I laid out the case why he was directly responsible for the lack of troops in Iraq today. Period. If you want to whine about a lack of troops in Iraq, you need to blame the cowardly President Bush.
It would be nice if he would take personal responsibility for this failure, but that would require courage.
I wonder how long it will take before Americans realize that there is no such thing as a successful war of limited objectives.
Schuler, we used to know that.