[Megathread] Bernie Sanders 2016

[Gray_Matter]

Kissinger is purely a demon, him, Kagan and her will only make more corpses and do so gladly.

These are blood thirsty types. At least rapists and murderers generally are aware of their nature, none of those two know it.

You didn't answer my question. "Did you even know who Kissinger was before Bernie mentioned him?"

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and look at cubas healthcare system....so is that really a bad thing?

If it was so great in Cuba then why were people desperate to get out? Also, have you seen any pictures of Cuba lately. It's stuck in the 60's.

[Skroe]

I would expect no less from such vile creatures, much as I do not find myself that surprised by the elite business leaders worshiping at the alter of Rand.

Rand's record is pretty great, so if you're a data driven purpose rather than an ideological one, yeah, you will "worship".

But more to my point, I'm seeking to illustrate that as such a highly specialized field, it's not like a President Bernie would be able to have mooks off the street staff his foreign policy. He would be forced to deal with the exact_same_people.

In fact, that can be said of almost ANY developed country for countless highly specialized subfields. Small "experts" communities as a part of anything involving good governance over ideological governance.

Neither of them are realists, Kissinger for example, counter to Most academic realists at the time thought the Vietnam War a foolish waste of U.S. resources, for example, yet Kissinger prosecuted that war with enthusiasm during his tenure as national security advisor and secretary of state. “Realism” is only about national interest defined in terms of security and control with the manipulation of power the means to gain relative advantage in a system determined game of utilitarian calculation. “Existentialism” focuses on spontaneous action and will operating free of strict rules or structurally dictated regularities. Kissinger was not a realist in any respect, except in the minds of sociopaths. Kissingers beliefs were essentially that the purpose of American power, then, is to create an awareness of American purpose. We can’t defend our interests until we know what our interests are, and we can’t know what our interests are until we defend them.

In Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam, Angola, Mozambique, and elsewhere, Kis*singer plunged into the chaos as a result of his circular logic. He is the ultimate antirealist, trying desperately to make the world in his image (in which massive bombing would break the will of its targets) rather than the reality he was living in.

“I refused to believe that a little fourth-rate power like North Vietnam does not have a breaking point,” he said of Vietnam, we lost by the way. Eventually the soldiers stopped really fighting, you know those people he once called dumb animals to serve foreign policy desires?

Okay, this is basically not a serious... rant... you have here. I think both that you don't have much of a clue what "realism" actually is, and that you don't actually know what Kissinger's record is beyond Vietnam. But then again, neither does Sanders. "Kissingers beliefs were essentially that the purpose of American power, then, is to create an awareness of American purpose. " is a (barely sensible) claim completely undermined by the practical outcomes of Kissingerite foreign policy, like deepening and exploiting the sino-soviet rift.

Saying Henry Kissinger isn't a realist is a very strange hill to die on. But then again, this has been a very strange electoral season. We've seen know-nothing Russian sympathizers and radical leftists like Katrina van Heuvel and the Nation try to redefine Realism to give Bernie Sanders something resembling a coherent foreign policy system to paper over the fact that he simply doesn't have one.

I'll just leave this here:

http://time.com/3275385/henry-kissinger/

When Henry Kissinger talks about world order, to some it might seem as if he is living in a previous century. The 17th, perhaps. Beginning with his Harvard doctoral dissertation 60 years ago, he has extolled the concept of international order that was established in 1648 by the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. Instead of being shaped by wars of religion and the death spasms of the Holy Roman Empire, Europe’s international system was thenceforth based on independent nation-states, each sovereign over religion and other issues in its own territory. States would not interfere in the internal affairs of other states, and order would, ideally, be maintained by clever statesmen who focused on national interests and curated a balance of power.

Kissinger’s appreciation for order, he later recalled, came after his family fled Hitler’s Germany in 1938 and arrived in New York, where he realized he did not have to cross the street to avoid non-Jewish boys who might beat him up. Kissinger became an exemplar of the realist, as opposed to idealist, school of diplomacy, someone who believed that a foreign policy that is overly guided by moral impulses and crusading ideals was likely to be dangerous. “The most fundamental problem of politics,” he wrote in his dissertation, “is not the control of wickedness but the limitation of righteousness.”

Kissinger’s fellow students in Harvard’s government department scoffed at his choice of topic. The atom bomb, they contended, had fundamentally changed global affairs. One snidely suggested he should transfer to the history department.

Likewise, we are tempted to raise an eyebrow at the news that Kissinger, now 91, has produced another paean to the Westphalian system, his 17th book in 60 years, this one titled simply World Order. Respect for sovereignty? How quaint! Hasn’t he heard that in the 21st century, threats respect no borders, the world is flat, and we have a humanitarian duty to protect people in places where regimes are repressive? That is why we rejected realist thinking for a “Freedom Agenda” that included invading Iraq to make the Middle East safe for democracy, toppling Muammar Gaddafi in Libya under a humanitarian banner and seeking (well, at least until ISIS came along) to do the same to President Bashar Assad in Syria.

Hmmm…upon reflection, maybe throwing out the Westphalian system, forsaking the principle of respect for sovereignty and letting idealism overwhelm *realism wasn’t such a good idea after all. And if that’s the case, then Kissinger’s World Order doesn’t seem dated at all. The U.S. might do well to heed his prescription that it alloy its idealism with a new dose of realism. “Westphalian principles are, at this writing, the sole generally recognized basis of what exists of a world order,” he notes.

Kissinger’s book takes us on a dazzling and instructive global tour of the quest for order, from Cardinal Richelieu to Metternich and Bismarck, the Indian minister Kautilya of the 4th century B.C. and the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman, and a succession of American Presidents beginning with Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, all culminating in a world order based on sovereign nation-states at the end of World War II. “By the mid-20th century,” Kissinger writes, “this international *system was in place on every continent.”

When he was the co-pilot of American statecraft as Richard Nixon’s National Security Adviser and Secretary of State in the early 1970s, Kissinger was able to manipulate the levers of this system with a mastery that would have mesmerized Metternich. Eschewing our differences in ideologies and values, he forged a détente with the Soviet Union and an opening to China, then played off both to create a triangular balance of power that preserved the U.S.’s influence after its retreat from Vietnam.

But sustaining such a values-neutral pursuit of strategic interests is difficult in a democracy that celebrates its moral exceptionalism. “The United States has alternated between defending the Westphalian system and castigating its premises of balance of power and noninterference in domestic affairs as immoral and outmoded,” he writes. Because he and Nixon failed to weave in the idealism that is ingrained in the American DNA, popular support for their realist edifice was precarious, as if built of bricks without straw. Kissinger was attacked by moral idealists of the left and, more notably, by the nascent neoconservatives and ardent anticommunists on the right. Reaction against his realism contributed to the elections of both Jimmy Carter and then Ronald Reagan.

Although Kissinger routinely notes the importance of America’s idealism, he almost invariably follows with the word but. “America would not be true to itself if it abandoned this essential idealism,” he writes. “But to be effective, these aspirational aspects of policy must be paired with an unsentimental analysis of underlying factors.” This “yes, but” balance, with the emphasis always tilting to the but sentence, pervades Kissinger’s analysis and peppers every chapter of his book.

The need for a renewed realism, Kissinger convincingly argues, is especially true in the Middle East, where jihadists have shattered the nation-state system in their quests for global revolution based on extremist religious values. This dangerous upheaval was facilitated in part by the U.S.’s morally motivated but strategically dubious decisions to support regime change and Western-style democracy in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Afghanistan and Syria.

On Afghanistan, Kissinger supported the initial attack on al-Qaeda and its Taliban protectors, but he looks back skeptically on the broader mission that had evolved by 2003. “The central premise of the American and allied effort became ‘rebuilding Afghanistan’ by means of a democratic, pluralistic, transparent Afghan government whose writ ran across the entire country,” he writes. But this “radical reinvention of Afghan history” was not achievable. “No institutions in the history of Afghanistan or of any part of it provided a precedent for such a broad-based effort.”

Likewise on Iraq, Kissinger initially supported the mission to topple Saddam Hussein, but he says, “I had doubts, expressed in public and governmental forums, about expanding it to nation building and giving it such universal scope.” He blames George W. Bush and his Administration for pursuing idealistic crusades that ignored earthly realities. As Bush put it in a 2003 address, “Iraqi democracy will succeed—and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Tehran, that freedom can be the future of every nation.” This ideal was, Kissinger notes, unmoored from realities. “To seek to achieve [American values] by military occupation in a part of the world where they had no historical roots,” he writes, “imbued the American endeavor in Iraq with a Sisyphean quality.”

Despite heart surgery this year, Kissinger at 91 is a lion in a prolonged winter. Four decades after he last served in government, he is a fixture on the New York–Washington Acela, and he makes regular trips to Russia and China, where he is still accorded meetings with top leaders. His analyses remain prescient. Just as the showdown over chemical weapons in Syria was building last year, Kissinger was at a New York City dinner where various military and intelligence experts were discussing what might happen. Kissinger predicted that Russia would suddenly step in and offer a way to resolve the chemical-weapons issue, since it and the U.S. shared a strategic interest in not having such weapons fall into terrorist hands. Two weeks later, that is precisely what happened. He also argued that it was a mistake to make the ouster of President Assad’s regime a policy objective without knowing what would replace it, because that was likely to lead to a chaotic civil war dominated by the most radical of the jihadist forces.

For his undergraduate thesis in 1950, Kissinger tackled “The Meaning of History.” At 383 pages, it attempted to tie together the philosophies of Immanuel Kant, Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee, while roping in ideas from Descartes, Dostoyevsky, Hegel, Hume, Socrates and Spinoza. It was topped off with a section called “A Clue From Poetry,” featuring Dante, Homer, Milton and Virgil. At one point he declared, “Descartes’ cogito ergo sum was not really necessary.”

Kissinger ends his latest book on a different note, one of humility—a trait that for most of his career he was better at humorously feigning than at actually possessing. “Long ago, in youth, I was brash enough to think myself able to pronounce on ‘The Meaning of History,’” he writes. “I now know that history’s meaning is a matter to be discovered, not declared.”

The key to Kissinger’s foreign policy realism, and the theme at the heart of his magisterial new book, is that such humility is important not just for people but also for nations, even the U.S. Making progress toward a world order based on “individual dignity and participatory governance” is a lofty ideal, he notes. “But progress toward it will need to be sustained through a series of intermediate stages.”

A bit too nuanced for you, or Bernie Sanders. But there it is.

[Theodarzna]

You didn't answer my question. "Did you even know who Kissinger was before Bernie mentioned him?"

I've known who Kissinger is since i was 17. So about 10 years now.

[breadisfunny]

You didn't answer my question. "Did you even know who Kissinger was before Bernie mentioned him?"

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If it was so great in Cuba then why were people desperate to get out? Also, have you seen any pictures of Cuba lately. It's stuck in the 60's.

because fidel castro executed dissentors or sent them to prison. he also hoarded a lot of the gdp generated by cubans for himself.

[Skroe]

I've known who Kissinger is since i was 17. So about 10 years now.

And this begs the question, how can you have known of a man of his stature so long and get him so completely wrong?

You're far too ideological.

[The Iron Fist]

I wouldn't read too much into what Skroe says about Bernie Sanders guys 'n gals. He acts as though his information is objective and fact based, but it's not. He chooses to cherry pick articles he agrees with and discard the ones he doesn't agree with by painting them as fringed or biased. Skroe's Sanders views are very subjective and biased as his philosophical views (Libertarian) are very different from democratic socialism.

[Skroe]

I wouldn't read too much into what Skroe says about Bernie Sanders guys 'n gals. He acts as though his information is objective and fact based, but it's not. He chooses to cherry pick articles he agrees with and discard the ones he doesn't agree with by painting them as fringed or biased. Skroe's Sanders views are very subjective and biased as his philosophical views (Libertarian) are very different from democratic socialism.

What the...?

I'm a Libertarian now?

Well that's a new one.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/search.p...rchid=30436163


http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...n#post28550359

"Except Tea Partiers are absolutely fucking out of their minds, and libertarians aren't any better.
Sincerely,
A Centrist Republican who wants his party back and the loons put back in the asylum."

Because libertarian nutcases from Texas whose views represent the minoirty OF THE minority, can't be allowed to throw showboating stunts, and thereby embarass the United States internationally.
The US had it's name dragged through the mud twice in the fall, once by Barack Obama and his idiotic handling of "that time he ran his mouth about a red line with regards to Syria"*, and once by Ted Cruz, who is more opportunistic fraud than patriot.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...n#post26529132

And you share the country with a lot of people who disagree with you, so don't expect to get your way. You compromise, because Libertarians are a minority in this country. Always have been, always will be.

Let's take for example, Washington's warning about entangling alliances. Commonly invoked by isolationists and libertarians. It's a pretty dumb invocation though. Have you seen the map of the world in 1800? Washington could assume that position because the world he lived in had more white space on it than colored subdivisions. He lived in a world so big, Antarctica was note eve known to exist and trans-continental travel was called "exploration". He had the privilege of being able to live in a time when entangling alliances were something to be avoided. His beliefs on them have no relevancy to the modern world

If Russia had any sense, they would tap that, put that on youtube, and rile up our Tea Party / Libertarian idiots who only think with their balls.

Well you live a very weird libertarian lifestyle that is totally un-appealing to people living in the 21st century. I got my first job out of my university from connections I had via LinkedIn. By denying yourself use of these technologies, you're denying the opportunities that go with it.

And frankly, that just gives everyone else around you a big competitive advantage versus you.

This thread is shitstorm bait, but whatever. The libertarian crazies will soon make a cameo.

But yes, generally I do.

I will elaborate when this thread goes to hell later today.

So please tell me how you got me all figured out, Iron Fist.

[Gray_Matter]

because fidel castro executed dissentors or sent them to prison. he also hoarded a lot of the gdp generated by cubans for himself.

Hence my comment to Theodarzna. You can't complain about Clinton admiring some things that Kissinger did but then be perfectly happy with Bernies attitude towards Castro.

[stomination]

Skroe is a staunch conservative.

As for the argument...I believe Iron fist was saying that Bernie's policies are more closely tied to Libertarians than social democrats. At least thats how I read it.

[Skroe]

Skroe is a staunch conservative.

As for the argument...I believe Iron fist was saying that Bernie's policies are more closely tied to Libertarians than social democrats. At least thats how I read it.

That's not at all how I read the last sentence... he's contrasting my purported 'libertarianism' with Sanders' 'social democractic' beliefs.

As for me, 'Staunch conservative' isn't exactly right either, at least in the national sense. Massachusetts republicans are an odd bunch. I'm pro-choice, pro-gun control for example. I'm for a generous socials safety net and progressive taxation.


Center-Right conservatism looks a lot like like Center-Left liberalism if all we pay attention to is sloganeering on the hot topic issues. My 'conservatism' comes out when we talk about tax reform, medicare, medicaid and social security.

Fundamentally I think the never ending drama between the forces of "big government" and "small government" is a load of crap. Only a tiny minority of Americans care. What Americans want is effective, efficient government. Not too big, not to small, offering the services they want at an affordable price with good management and enough of a safety net there to protect them. It's a highly technocratic view of how government should work, but that's what we have in Massachusetts and why Republicans do well in a deep blue state (we have a Republican governor, and have had many recently). We're a moderating force against unchecked liberalism. Neither has the whole answer but together we do. We're ranked one of the best run states in the union, with a healthy budget outlook last I checked, so we're doing something right.

I know Sanderistas were surprised they lost Massachusetts. They shouldn't have been. The large college age population and working-class areas were offset by the huge number of moderate-liberal / moderate conservative suburban voters west of Boston.



And this is the map for governor in 2014 (who is Republican).



There isn't a lot of overlap. It under scores Massachusetts, like much of America, is 'purple' at a certain level of resolution of voting patterns, and it really is based on the candidate if you'll have left of center voters vote for right of center candidates, and vice versa.

[The Iron Fist]

Skroe is a staunch conservative.

As for the argument...I believe Iron fist was saying that Bernie's policies are more closely tied to Libertarians than social democrats. At least thats how I read it.

I worded it rather poorly, but what I was attempting to say, in my sleep-deprived brain, is that some of Sanders' views are more Libertarian (focusing on domestic policy over foreign policy, like closing many overseas military bases) than Democratic Socialist (aka New Deal Democrat), both of which Skroe loathes as he himself is a warhawk and a conservative.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

I'm beginning to consider stepping out of politics myself.

I used to one day think that the common man should be a part of them but I've begun to believe that the common man actually does more to unhinge and damage our entire system with his ignorance than help it along. It's why the political class clamor for our votes. We're fools and easily manipulated ones at that with a tendency to be lacking in education of even our most recent history. We put the worst kind of people in power and demand the worst kind of legislation. Time and time again.

Be it "liberal" or "conservative" or some obscure outsider we often lack the necessary knowledge and understanding to make the right choices. Hell, most of us are ignorant towards the world outside of the United States and the harsh reality of our existence. Even those of us that travel are often coddled and kept safe within tourist traps. We scream for peace when such mantra would likely gain us the stark opposite and worse than even our ongoing conflicts.

I only know that socially we need our freedoms maintained. To be able to speak freely, act freely, and to have those rights protected accordingly. That knowledge or dissenting thought should never be oppressed under any circumstance. If you lose those basic tenants, you lose everything. Economically, foreign affairs... I can't even begin to really grasp at the complexity that the modern era has brought with it. It's nuance layered over nuance.

I've been a conservative. I've been a libertarian. I've been a liberal. I've been everything all at once. It's a bit much and unless you do SERIOUS fucking studying(and even then likely limit yourself to accepting you only know so much) you really don't have a fucking clue beyond the obvious. Only to have that knowledge tainted by ideology and perspective anyway... but at least you had the basis to start with.

[Skroe]

I worded it rather poorly, but what I was attempting to say, in my sleep-deprived brain, is that some of Sanders' views are more Libertarian (focusing on domestic policy over foreign policy, like closing many overseas military bases) than Democratic Socialist (aka New Deal Democrat), both of which Skroe loathes as he himself is a warhawk and a conservative.

Skroesec the War Hawk.

April 2013:

Probably happened, but its pretty clear exactly what Obama meant by "red line". He's talking Saddam Hussein-style gassing of a town. The random shell being thrown at a random position doesn't count (and nor should it). We shouldn't launch a war because some Syrian Captain was a moron.

But in any event, no matter what, this is so not our fight. Ongoing Syrian turmoil weakens everyone we dislike without costing us much of anything. We're strategically well served by the continuing instability.

In any event, our focus needs to be on our ongoing East Asia build up, where things that matter actually happen. Syria being as it is, being better or being worse is tragic of course, but it doesn't change the world. It's not big picture enough and America should be focused on big picture global and regional security.

September 2013:

Send a message. That is why, if you remember my original post in the original thread, I took the position of "We shouldn't do this because Syria is not a vital strategic interest sans Chemical Weapons, but IF we do this, we do it from the air excessively and big"

The message needs to be, not so much for Assad but for others who would do this, if you cross international norms and American red lines, we'll hit you extremely hard. We'll deprive you of your ability to project governmental power outside of your compounds, your ability to control your country and borders, your ability to rule, and your ability to fight. We'll destroy their air fields, their major barracks and most importantly, their logistics centers. We'll deprive them of billions of dollars and decades worth of military investment.

It is to send a message that crossing this line is not worth what it will cost a country.

If we don't do this, there is no reason for Iran or North Korea, or anyone in the future, to think the US will stick to its word when it says there will be consequences. It's worth noting that after the Iraq Invasion, Libya/Quadaffi started to cooperate and gave up his nuclear weapons program. I only mention that because in contrast, a couple of years later, after the Iraq War turned into a long hard slog, those problems started to be used for propaganda and policy purposes by a veritable whose-who of rogue states as reasons for why the US is in fact, a paper tiger. Of course it was complete bullshit, but there you have it - tangible evidence things like this DO matter.

So we need to do this, if we have any hope in future years, when we confront Iran and North Korea and say "the red line, it's a foot infront of you, don't cross it", them believing. Because really... what would you rather? Crossing that Red Line with Syria to send a message, or not doing it and then having to cross that Red Line in a much larger way in a decade with North Korea?

And there is China to think about too. Our foreign policy and defense cooperation with them has plenty of red lines they respect.

The fault of this lies partially with Obama. He got let his mouth run at a press conference as he does sometimes and said something he shouldn't have that put us in the stupid position of defending American credibility in a region whose strategic importance is only depreciating by the the year. And now people will die for it. If that doesn't show why the Presidency is the most powerful office in the world, I don't know what does. But this entire affair has brought out the side of Obama I like least. Any other President would have struck Assad days ago, and they would have been right to. A vote from Congress for a punitive action is an appallingly stupid thing that not even his advisors were on board on apparently until he announced to them he was going to do it.

The idea that America should only use its military power against direct threat's is antiquated and hasn't been policy in over a hundred years, if it's ever been. Defending American interests is perfectly legitimate grounds for military action. It's something we've done hundreds of times, and we will do again. Syria is not an American interest in the slightest. But the Chemical Weapons prohibition is, as is our credibility. How important is that? Let's not forget the US Invaded Iraq to kill Saddam's Regime at it's very heart, and geared up expecting chemical warfare that never came. Saddam had Chemical weapons... lots of them. And he had a history of using them. But he didn't, not even to survive. That says something about this prohibition and why it is important. If there is no response, that calculus could easily change in the future, and that most certainly is an American interest, wouldn't you agree?

April 2014:

No. Attacking Syria would have been a waste. What critical national security objective is or was at threat in Syria? Not a single one. If anything, Syria being bloodier, nastier and longer helps rather than hurts us. We discretely arm and supply the Syrian rebellion, and it keeps sucking in in manpower and resources of nearly everyone we don't like in the world (Iran and Russia most especially). It's been very successful for us, to that end. Why should we do Russia and Iran a favor and end the Syrian war for them?

The problem is Barack Obama. Over Syria, he made a litany of mistakes that call into question is basic competency. He's doing it again in Ukraine too.

First, he let himself get controlled by events, rather than control events. Two years ago, in the tail end of a press conference, he runs his mouth and sets a red line - something Presidents are NEVER supposed to do for the sake of not cornering themselves like he did. This was an honest to god case of a guy talking out of his ass in front of cameras. Then, a year later, the press holds him to account on his red line. Instead of one of the handful of easy and low impact ways to wiggle out of what should have been a gaffe, he escalates it and tries to get UN approval, NATO approval, then congressional approval, for a war no one really wanted.

All because he did something very dumb.

This theater of the absurd was topped off by by former Senator, John Kerry, a rather detestable and egocentric man in most ways, going around telling the world how strikes would be "unbelievably small". Seriously... what the hell? Then what is the mission aiming to accomplish? Powell Doctrine 101... go big or go home. Rumsfeld ignored that sound advice, and it took 3 years to fix the Occupation of Iraq. And now Kerry was talking about pinpricks?

Then there is the military support to the Syrian rebels. Like Ukraine, President Health Care there eschews giving aid that can actually kill people. We've been talking about "Lethal Aid" for two years and they're just NOW getting TOW? Ukraine is similar. They've been asking for military aid. Obama has refused and is offering MREs. Not the US Government. Not the US Military. Obama. He just doesn't want to do it for some reason, against pretty much all sane advice.

Meanwhile he let John Kerry pretty much waste a year on the Israeli / Palestinian issue and achieve nothing, to such a degree the New York Times just ran an editorial telling Obama and Kerry to say, essentially "fuck it" with the process.

Honestly between this stuff, and the Obamacare website being the most high profile IT clusterfuck of our time, the man's basic competency is called into question. I really regret voting for him. If Hillary runs for President, she'll first need to answer for that "Russia Reset" nonsense that everyone realizes is a crock of shit. She'll then need to pretty much reject the more public aspects Obama's foreign policy legacy, one she helped craft (ironically the less publicized side of things is pretty perfect). I'd still pull for her over the far right crazies who shouldn't be allowed within a light year of the Presidency.

November 2014:

Hey that's why I didn't want Obama to intervene a year ago and only did so reluctantly after he ran his mouth and created that red line. Until Ukraine, the Russian foreign service spent it's entire time on Syria. It bled Russia and Iran of immense amounts of resources and money. Hell for 3 years, looking the other way as Arab states built the insurgency in Syria and or providing indirect support was strategic genius.

So... "war hawk"? Just because I believe the US should spend on defense and pursue an assertive foreign policy founded on forward defense, and engage in actions to protect its interests, does not mean I'm looking for the US to get into another military conflict. Quite the contrary actually:

November 2015:

Nonsense. Utter nonsense.

Maybe you haven't read my posts, but I've been extremely consistent in one thing: the United States should NOT overreact in any kind of conflict with ISIS. Every carrier in the Persian Gulf, every warplane in Turkey, every dollar spent over Syria, is one of these things not spent in Asia-Pacific against China, or Europe against Russia. US defense planning with respect to China and Russia MUST be our bread and butter. And to Obama's credit that has certainly been the case. As much as I just ripped Obama a new one, he is in the Philippines this week and as a direct result of negotiations held, the US Navy is closer than it's ever been in reopening the Naval Base at Subic Bay (which until the early 1990s, was the largest defense facility in the world outside the United States, and a mere 500 miles from Chinese territory). That is where the US needs to spend it's effort.... keeping China down and Russia out.

Another thing I've said is the US can't be drawn into any kind of highly kinetic large ground war until at least mid next decade. The Iraq Wars were extremely damaging to the US military. It skipped an important upgrade cycle and our technological edge was cut roughly in half. We have 187 F-22s because of the Iraq War and funding shortfalls. We're going to have an attack Submarine shortfall in the mid 2030s because of Iraq War funding related cutbacks. What does one have to do with the other? Because in the Mid 00's, money went for things needed for the War - like MRAPs and paying for the occupations - and not for modernization, and things like building a new submarine to replace the 30 year old one at the end of it's safe service life (just like a worn down car). Fortunately it's looking like almost any Presidential candidate aside from Rand Paul will approve an acceleration of modernization, given that the only blockage, is again, Obama, and his stupid $1 trillion / 10 year defense cut that won't last past 2017 and a new President.

So how does this jive with what I wrote? I'm not eager in seeing 150,000 troops occupy Syria for the next decade. That would be the stupidest thing this country would do. If we were to do anything involving ground forces at all, I'd do go with what other retired generals have proposed - the kind of suggestions Obama pretends don't exists because they are the third way options that make him look helpless- and send in 20,000 troops to Raqqa on a purely punitive expedition with very loose rules of engagement, in a do over of the highly successful Operation Phantom Fury (the pacification of Fallujah in 2004). But frankly, I'd rather not. I'd rather the US diplomatically get the Turks and the Saudis to do it.

My outrage with Obama ironically, is mostly diplomatic. The contrast between what the British/French did after 9/11 and what the Obama Administration has done in the last week, is beyond the pale. It is embarrassing as an American. It's a kind of emotional betrayal as someone who has been to Paris several times and considers it one of his favorite cities in the world. It is a true political betrayal as well, because the British and the French helped us when we needed it, and instead this bizarre behavior by the Obama administration has made it an obstacle.

What should we be doing? The US should be writing the UN Security Council Resolution on behalf of France, authorizing military action, and rallying global opinion. We should be their front man. We should be rallying NATO under Article V to give France support. Dropping more bombs isn't what is needed at this point. We should be putting pen to paper as being the leader of the free world and helping our wounded friend that has a foreign service a fraction of the size of the American one. From this can come negotiations on the future of Syria - free of Russian intrigue; getting the Turks, Saudis and West on the same game once and for all, and maybe - j ust maybe - a joint multinational punitive expedition to ISIS's capitals (no occupations). But that would be tertiary. What France needs right now is not military help but political help.

But we're not going to do it, because because seven years of smooth talk from Barack Obama has been largely bullshit. "Leading from Behind"... "A re-emphasis on diplomacy". "America is back!" (remember that one?) "reconnecting with our European Allies". "Smart Power" What self serving, ridiculous, arrogant nonsense. None of that was ever true. All it was was a cover for a radical redefinition of American foreign policy that has the US massively scale back it's international commitments to something akin to a country a fraction of the US's power, influence and size, - because Barack Obama and his supporters do not value them and would rather spend the money and energy on domestic programs. Which is not his decision to make.

So don't make this about rushing to war. I've been on this forum, the one who has warned consistently against going to stupidly hunt dragons in Syria, when the only winners of a big US deployment there is Russia and China. This isn't about some kind of massive show of force. Vladmir Putin can engage in meaningless crap like that. This is about the United States being a worthless ally. We're utterly worthless, something I'm ashamed to say, because our President, will not change his narrow agenda to adjust for world events that are not in his control. It's not anti-liberal. It isn't anti-Democrat. Because Hillary was, thanks to the testament of many others - a bulwark against this kind of policy. No... it is anti-radical, and Obama is exposed plainly as one.

This is extremely complex stuff and my views on it are necessarily extremely nuanced. War hawk? Those idiots who want to go slay dragons and send other people's kids to play superhero in Syria are the war hawks. Those idiots who would recklessly expend American power, treasure and lives for extremely questionable ends are the war hawks.

But at the same time the US should not and cannot shy away from it's unique and critical role as the guarantor of global security (largely through political, economic, naval, air and space power) and the security of our allies. The United States shouldn't recklessly use it's power. But when it does, it should be prepared to do so in an extremely decisive fashion. And equally when it is pushed, it should push back, hard. Bullies like Vladmir Putin only understand one type of language.

[Deleted]

The math is not in Senator Sander's favor.

I guess that will be seen in the coming primaries, seeing as though Sanders has not given any indication of stopping his campaign before all of the primaries have concluded.

On another note, Cenk ripping the Daily News hatchet job apart nicely here:

[Deletedaccount1]

On another note, Cenk ripping the Daily News hatchet job apart nicely here

You could apply that video to almost every single interview that Trump does every day.

[Skroe]

I guess that will be seen in the coming primaries, seeing as though Sanders has not given any indication of stopping his campaign before all of the primaries have concluded.

On another note, Cenk ripping the Daily News hatchet job apart nicely here:

Neither did Clinton, and in 2008 she was about 100 delegates closer to Obama than Sanders is now. She dropped out June 8th 2008.

But really, this has been "Checkmate in 5 moves" since, at the very latest March 14th.

And the "Daily News Hatchet Job" was Sanders being caught doing, what most of us knew, in that he talks mostly out of his ass. Every time he villifies "Wall Street", someone needs to yell at him with "and what about over 60% of Americans 401-k's?"

Sanders is a cheer leader for sloganeering, feel-good liberalism, and that's all it's ever been. It's wafer thin.

[Deleted]

More on the hilarious hatchet job interview of Bernie, and how the interviewers didn't seem to know jack themselves:



It seems to have had an effect though, just not the one Daily News was hoping for.

[Skroe]

More on the hilarious hatchet job interview of Bernie, and how the interviewers didn't seem to know jack themselves:

It seems to have had an effect though, just not the one Daily News was hoping for.

The Sanderistas right now. This is a much more accurate video.



You know what the Sanders campaign problem is? They haven't a clue about how to take one on the jaw. And they expect him to be President?

Here's some free advice. Sanders had a bad interview. So the fuck what. Live to fight another day. But you folks can't help yourselves. Sanders is flawless! It's OTHER people who are wrong. So you make it worse.

BernieBros are strategically inept.

[Shadowferal]

Skroe is a staunch conservative.

o...I dunno...

If he supports Clinton then he's against the TPP and Wall Street, among other things.
Of course if he's hoping that she's lying about her positions, then he fits in with Cheney's and Rumsfeld's little glee club:

[Skroe]

o...I dunno...

If he supports Clinton then he's against the TPP and Wall Street, among other things.
Of course if he's hoping that she's lying about her positions, then he fits in with Cheney's and Rumsfeld's little glee club:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/15/politi...e-now-opposes/

I'm not going to link them all, but there are 45 specific circumstances of her backing TPP.

Why is she saying she's against it? Because it's a political free lunch. She gets to feed some bullshit to a Democratic Base who knows better. TPP will pass in the lame duck session in December, and it'll be a crime with nobody's finger prints on it. She gets to make some promises about reviewing it when she comes into office - which she'll never follow through on. And even in the unlikely case it didn't pass in the Lame duck, she can request some superficial changes, call it a major change, and say it's a good deal, just like that. It would of course, be bullshit.

She should absolutely be against TPP at this point... because the point is to win the nomination among people hostile to it.

It's exactly the same reason a pro-choice liberal Republican name Mitt Romeny decides to become pro-life when he stopped being Governor and started to run for President.

Both are politicians speaking to their auidences.