Oh, and no one really calls the right racist if they honestly disagree with Obama. It's when they say things that are racist that they are called racist.
BS on this. No main stream politicians are calling them racist when they are not. But places like Kos, Huffington Post, and some of the more liberal leaning writers at actual publications all cry racism even when it's not there.
This statement requires some evidence before I take it as anything other than an attempt to marginalize and discredit left wing opinion writers.
I was in agreement with the responses in this thread up until I read Andrew Sullivan's take this morning.
Basically, Obama had an opportunity when he took office to shut down the war in Afghanistan. He instead decided to double down, at which point he took ownership of the war.
This is, at this point, Obama's war - because it was a war of choice for him, not necessity. The scale and ambition of this madness is Obama's scale and ambition, no one else's. This war is now his war, as much as Vietnam was LBJ's. And this is not because he inherited it. He inherited a critical window to cut our losses and get the hell out, with a minimalist Biden-style strategy to minimize, if not end, the threat.
tldr: Michael Steele is still a fool (and a far too easy target,) but there is a tiny hint of truth in what he is saying.
I was in agreement with the responses in this thread up until I read Andrew Sullivan's take this morning.
Basically, Obama had an opportunity when he took office to shut down the war in Afghanistan. He instead decided to double down, at which point he took ownership of the war.
This is, at this point, Obama's war - because it was a war of choice for him, not necessity. The scale and ambition of this madness is Obama's scale and ambition, no one else's. This war is now his war, as much as Vietnam was LBJ's. And this is not because he inherited it. He inherited a critical window to cut our losses and get the hell out, with a minimalist Biden-style strategy to minimize, if not end, the threat.
tldr: Michael Steele is still a fool (and a far too easy target,) but there is a tiny hint of truth in what he is saying.
If anything, I'd say it's nearly everyone's war, seeing as most everyone of voting age either voted for Republicans, who started and made the case for Afghanistan and have long promised to stay there until we "win", or we voted for Obama, who promised to pull out of Iraq and focus on Afghanistan. Steele is basically just wrong in trying to put it all on Obama.
If anything, I'd say it's nearly everyone's war, seeing as most everyone of voting age either voted for Republicans, who started and made the case for Afghanistan and have long promised to stay there until we "win", or we voted for Obama, who promised to pull out of Iraq and focus on Afghanistan. Steele is basically just wrong in trying to put it all on Obama.
Who started it really isn't relevant now. It is now Obama's war. He is in charge, he is calling the shots. What happens and the end results are something he owns. You can't just keep blaming the last guy and hand wringing.
He talked up Afghanistan in a blatant play to try and win votes and not appear weak. Now he's stuck in a situation that isn't turning out to well. But it's his decision to be there.
He should either get up and say "yeah I lied my ass off about that Afghanistan shit, but I had to if I wanted to get elected" and get out, or he should say "I don't know what I'm doing and had no idea the mess I was getting into" and then get out. Right now it just seems like we are dicking around in there for the same "can't afford to look weak" gibberish that went on before.
He is in charge, he is calling the shots. What happens and the end results are something he owns.
Just for my own sake, if you don't mind.
Lets say Obama loses re-election. Does the next President to come in get the full "what happens and the end results are something you own?" Or do what happens and the end result still belong to Obama? Is it basically that it's cool to just hand it off to the next guy and now it's his issue, or do years of mismanagement prior to someone's inheriting the issue get to play in to who the results are attributed to?
If anything, I'd say it's nearly everyone's war, seeing as most everyone of voting age either voted for Republicans, who started and made the case for Afghanistan and have long promised to stay there until we "win", or we voted for Obama, who promised to pull out of Iraq and focus on Afghanistan. Steele is basically just wrong in trying to put it all on Obama.
Who started it really isn't relevant now. It is now Obama's war. He is in charge, he is calling the shots. What happens and the end results are something he owns. You can't just keep blaming the last guy and hand wringing.
He talked up Afghanistan in a blatant play to try and win votes and not appear weak. Now he's stuck in a situation that isn't turning out to well. But it's his decision to be there.
He should either get up and say "yeah I lied my ass off about that Afghanistan shit, but I had to if I wanted to get elected" and get out, or he should say "I don't know what I'm doing and had no idea the mess I was getting into" and then get out. Right now it just seems like we are dicking around in there for the same "can't afford to look weak" gibberish that went on before.
Who started it is actually quite relevant since it speaks to the judgment and priorities of the people in charge. And it's bullshit to say that the previous guy can't take his share of blame for fucking things up. I wish people would fucking stop pretending that the failures of the Bush administration transferred totally to the Obama administration. Or, at the least, stop pretending that the past has no affect on the present.
It's also bullshit to call it Obama's War because he's only pushing for more commitment because we were all already there. If Bush hadn't started the War, Obama wouldn't be for it.
It's like blamming the Janitor for the mess because he's the one cleaning it up.
He is in charge, he is calling the shots. What happens and the end results are something he owns.
Just for my own sake, if you don't mind.
Lets say Obama loses re-election. Does the next President to come in get the full "what happens and the end results are something you own?" Or do what happens and the end result still belong to Obama? Is it basically that it's cool to just hand it off to the next guy and now it's his issue, or do years of mismanagement prior to someone's inheriting the issue get to play in to who the results are attributed to?
When the next guy gets elected he owns the mess. Look at it this way, when you are hired to do a job you are responsible for the outcome. Just because the prior guy screwed things up doesn't mean you can hand wring about it once it's your responsibility, especially if you were hired to clean it up.
He's the president, he's the commander in chief. He's calling the shots.
If the war is not over by the time he's out of office, it will be the next guys mess.
All this "but Bush" just makes his administrations seem like a bunch cry babies that can't take the heat and didn't know what they were getting themselves into.
It's like blamming the Janitor for the mess because he's the one cleaning it up.
Not at all. It's like when the board of directors fires off one CEO and then hires a new guy who claims he can fix it. Only to have that person jack things up even more, continue the same stupid policies and then whine when he's called out on not doing the job he was hired for.
In the corporate world if you pulled that you'd be fired for it.
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GoslingLooking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, ProbablyWatertown, WIRegistered Userregular
edited July 2010
It doesn't sound any less grating than the 'but Clinton' I was hearing right up to the end of Bush's time in office, and even now.
Hell, once in a while Carter gets a mention.
Gosling on
I have a new soccer blog The Minnow Tank. Reading it psychically kicks Sepp Blatter in the bean bag.
It's like blamming the Janitor for the mess because he's the one cleaning it up.
Not at all. It's like when the board of directors fires off one CEO and then hires a new guy who claims he can fix it. Only to have that person jack things up even more, continue the same stupid policies and then whine when he's called out on not doing the job he was hired for.
In the corporate world if you pulled that you'd be fired for it.
Except Obama never claimed he was going to end the war in Afghanistan. He claimed he was going to devote proper resources to ending it. Which he is doing.
This doesn't change the fact that Obama is only doing this because someone else started the war in the first place.
You are agreeing with Michael Steele man, do you know how stupid this means your argument is?
It doesn't sound any less grating than the 'but Clinton' I was hearing right up to the end of Bush's time in office, and even now.
Hell, once in a while Carter gets a mention.
Didn't you know, the Clinton era boom was actually the Bush I boom. The recession during Bush II's term was the Clinton recession, except the one that started in 07, that was the Obama recession. All the recessions during Bush I and Reagan were Carter recessions.
There's still a pretty strong meme of trying to blame stuff on FDR, even. Lately it's that Social Security is a ponzi scheme.
He is in charge, he is calling the shots. What happens and the end results are something he owns.
Just for my own sake, if you don't mind.
Lets say Obama loses re-election. Does the next President to come in get the full "what happens and the end results are something you own?" Or do what happens and the end result still belong to Obama? Is it basically that it's cool to just hand it off to the next guy and now it's his issue, or do years of mismanagement prior to someone's inheriting the issue get to play in to who the results are attributed to?
When the next guy gets elected he owns the mess. Look at it this way, when you are hired to do a job you are responsible for the outcome. Just because the prior guy screwed things up doesn't mean you can hand wring about it once it's your responsibility, especially if you were hired to clean it up.
He's the president, he's the commander in chief. He's calling the shots.
If the war is not over by the time he's out of office, it will be the next guys mess.
All this "but Bush" just makes his administrations seem like a bunch cry babies that can't take the heat and didn't know what they were getting themselves into.
It's like blamming the Janitor for the mess because he's the one cleaning it up.
Not at all. It's like when the board of directors fires off one CEO and then hires a new guy who claims he can fix it. Only to have that person jack things up even more, continue the same stupid policies and then whine when he's called out on not doing the job he was hired for.
In the corporate world if you pulled that you'd be fired for it.
This all assumes that the political opposition is going to be honest about their role in fucking things up. Democrats wouldn't have to keep talking about how Republicans fucked shit up if the very same Republicans weren't trying hard to rewrite history. Every dumb ass who claims Obama's actions are ruining America deserves to be reminded that the ruination was underway long before he took office. Seriously, only idiots think that long term problems can be fixed with short term solutions.
Also, Obama said explicitly that he'd double down on Afghanistan. If you voted for him and thought he'd do otherwise, you're just dumb. This is why your CEO analogy fails; the new CEO was hired on to refocus a major part of the previous CEO's platform, not end it completely. People are having buyer's remorse because they suddenly have little appetite for Afghanistan despite cheering at the idea of focusing on that theater.
The mental gymnastics that blame the recession on Obama would be amusing if so many otherwise intelligent people didn't believe in them
I wish Obama really were powerful enough to go back in time and use his magical POTUS powers to cause the recession. Maybe he could use those powers to fix up some shit.
The mental gymnastics that blame the recession on Obama would be amusing if so many otherwise intelligent people didn't believe in them
I wish Obama really were powerful enough to go back in time and use his magical POTUS powers to cause the recession. Maybe he could use those powers to fix up some shit.
Maybe he already has
He already used them to plant those fake birth announcements and forge his birth certificate.
I personally don't really care about Afghanistan one way or the other. I don't really have an opinion here or a side.
My take is that he either wanted to double down on it for the votes and not get smashed for being weak on national security, or that he had no clue what he was getting himself into. Hell both could be true.
But it's still his mess now. And his refocusing has gone abysmally. The McChrystal article was telling on what the military actually thinks of this administration. Now that kind of talk goes on all the time, especially when Democrats are in power, but that is some quality vitrol that goes past what was said about Clinton or Bush when I was in the service. So this isn't shocking, what is interesting is they felt strongly enough to say it in the open where they new it would come out in public. His firing of McChrystal was a brain dead response to it.
So while I don't have an actual opinion on whether we should be there or not. It is his war now and he's bungling the crap out of it, it's like amateur hour with this group, and there is plenty that is doing or has done that I can find fault with.
People are having buyer's remorse because they suddenly have little appetite for Afghanistan despite cheering at the idea of focusing on that theater.
I'd say this is so for those pretty far on the left. For the rest of the country it's more shock at how inept and chaotic everything has been.
Democrats wouldn't have to keep talking about how Republicans fucked shit up if the very same Republicans weren't trying hard to rewrite history.
And this is continuing on with the "bbbbb... but the Republicans" BS. All I see is when this administration is called out on any of it's multiple screw ups or failures everybody gets all defensive and starts the knee jerk "but Bush, but Republicans", it's pathetic. Own up to your mistakes and screw ups and stop trying to hide behind the big bad Bush.
Seriously it's like a bunch of kids on the playground crying and whining that little Timmy punched me first.
It doesn't sound any less grating than the 'but Clinton' I was hearing right up to the end of Bush's time in office, and even now.
And this is continuing on with the "bbbbb... but the Republicans" BS. All I see is when this administration is called out on any of it's multiple screw ups or failures everybody gets all defensive and starts the knee jerk "but Bush, but Republicans", it's pathetic. Own up to your mistakes and screw ups and stop trying to hide behind the big bad Bush.
He was a fucking terrible President who ruined the whole fucking country. Not something you can clean up in a year and a half.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
The mental gymnastics that blame the recession on Obama would be amusing if so many otherwise intelligent people didn't believe in them
I wish Obama really were powerful enough to go back in time and use his magical POTUS powers to cause the recession. Maybe he could use those powers to fix up some shit.
I personally don't really care about Afghanistan one way or the other. I don't really have an opinion here or a side.
My take is that he either wanted to double down on it for the votes and not get smashed for being weak on national security, or that he had no clue what he was getting himself into. Hell both could be true.
Mostly the first and a little of the second. His stance would've made more sense about 6 or 7 years ago.
But it's still his mess now. And his refocusing has gone abysmally. The McChrystal article was telling on what the military actually thinks of this administration. Now that kind of talk goes on all the time, especially when Democrats are in power, but that is some quality vitrol that goes past what was said about Clinton or Bush when I was in the service. So this isn't shocking, what is interesting is they felt strongly enough to say it in the open where they new it would come out in public. His firing of McChrystal was a brain dead response to it.
So while I don't have an actual opinion on whether we should be there or not. It is his war now and he's bungling the crap out of it, it's like amateur hour with this group, and there is plenty that is doing or has done that I can find fault with.
One problem with McChrystal and the other top brass is that they think they should be entitled to dictate strategy because they're military and Obama isn't. Another problem is that they are under the mistaken impression that Americans have the patience or the will to conduct an endless campaign in Afghanistan, so long as they keep pounding the patriotism and terrorism drums. And the third problem is that they think that the war chest for these endeavors will continue to be open and overflowing. None of these things are true.
People are having buyer's remorse because they suddenly have little appetite for Afghanistan despite cheering at the idea of focusing on that theater.
I'd say this is so for those pretty far on the left. For the rest of the country it's more shock at how inept and chaotic everything has been.
Inept? In what way? As far as I can tell, things have been progressing about as well as can be expected given the shitty nature of the Afghan government and the fact that Afghanistan was allowed to become a haven for insurgents and terrorists.
Democrats wouldn't have to keep talking about how Republicans fucked shit up if the very same Republicans weren't trying hard to rewrite history.
And this is continuing on with the "bbbbb... but the Republicans" BS. All I see is when this administration is called out on any of it's multiple screw ups or failures everybody gets all defensive and starts the knee jerk "but Bush, but Republicans", it's pathetic. Own up to your mistakes and screw ups and stop trying to hide behind the big bad Bush.
Seriously it's like a bunch of kids on the playground crying and whining that little Timmy punched me first.
What screw ups are you talking about? Please be specific.
"I don't really have an opinion, but hey everyone listen to my fatheaded opinion! Look at me condemn the guys doing the stuff I have no opinion on!"
Reach deep down, you may find a pair of balls. The problem is you then occasionally have to admit to your 'opinion' either being ill-informed or ill-formed. Hell both could be true.
Maybe we can get, "Don't blame me, I didn't vote!" next.
Obama's stance was mostly based on the assessments of the problems with both the Afghanistan and the Iraq wars from a few years back: Too few men, too little focus, too little of everything
Basically, Bush tried to half-ass the wars and it fucked them up royally. The idea, especially back a few years ago, was that these mistakes could be at least partially rectified by fixing those issues now, even if it was a bit too late.
Obama's policy was to pull out of Iraq and concentrate on Afghanistan, devoting all of the US's resources there to help out it's allies from post-9/11 who were still fighting the actual fight everyone in the world got on board for after 9/11. With the hopes that this could solve the problems there.
And this is continuing on with the "bbbbb... but the Republicans" BS. All I see is when this administration is called out on any of it's multiple screw ups or failures everybody gets all defensive and starts the knee jerk "but Bush, but Republicans", it's pathetic. Own up to your mistakes and screw ups and stop trying to hide behind the big bad Bush.
He was a fucking terrible President who ruined the whole fucking country. Not something you can clean up in a year and a half.
Agreed, but I am not going to get into anything beyond the scope of this thread.
Bush screwed up over 7 years in Afghanistan. No one is rewriting history here. When Obama took office, though, he had a choice. Much like Iraq, he could let the Bush plan fade into withdrawal and a support role, or he could increase our efforts there, maybe even change things up dramatically. He chose the latter option, without the dramatic change, and invested more troops and resources in what appeared to be an effort to replicate the outcome of the Iraq war (where some would debate whether or not we've been successful.) At that point, he invested himself, taking ownership of the current status of the Afghan war.
On that much, I agree, but the ignorant we have to ignore the state of the country when he took office stance drives me nuts. Gaaah.
Obama owns the current strategy in Afghanistan, with the caveat that Bush fucked it up so badly and limited his options to basically leave or escalate dramatically.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
And this is continuing on with the "bbbbb... but the Republicans" BS. All I see is when this administration is called out on any of it's multiple screw ups or failures everybody gets all defensive and starts the knee jerk "but Bush, but Republicans", it's pathetic. Own up to your mistakes and screw ups and stop trying to hide behind the big bad Bush.
He was a fucking terrible President who ruined the whole fucking country. Not something you can clean up in a year and a half.
And when Obama tries to pull back from the precedents he's set--the powers of the president for instance, he's either attacked for being weak or it's exploited by the GOP.
edit--And beyond that the war in Iraq was dying down by the point Obama got in, it's now up to the point where it's about economic aid. Afghanistan is not stable enough to just get up and go, and it's position in the middle of Central Asia was going to make it tremendously important even before the minerals came up.
But it's damn easy to point out that he's an idiot.
His job is just to fling shit and see what sticks. Granted he's going to say some goofy things in the process. As for bondage clubs and other things, has there been any evidence that anybody actually cares about those things? They are fun to laugh at, but I'm not convinced they are going to matter in the end.
His job is to raise money and win races.
Neither of those two things requires making completely non-factual statements about historical facts.
But it's damn easy to point out that he's an idiot.
His job is just to fling shit and see what sticks. Granted he's going to say some goofy things in the process. As for bondage clubs and other things, has there been any evidence that anybody actually cares about those things? They are fun to laugh at, but I'm not convinced they are going to matter in the end.
His job is to raise money and win races.
Neither of those two things requires making completely non-factual statements about historical facts.
In fact, saying obviously untrue shit only hurts them.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Keep in mind, again, our federal candidates, this was a war of Obama's choosing. This is not, this is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in. It was one of those, one of those areas of the total [horde?] of foreign policy...that we would be a background sort of shaping the changes that were necessary in afghanistan as opposed to directly engaging troops. But it was the president who tried to be cute by...flipping the script demonizing iraq while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan. Well if he's such a student of history, has he not understood that, you know, that's the one thing you don't do is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right? Because everyone who has tried over a thousand years of history has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways that we can engage in Afghanistan without committing more troops...
You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line"! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...
:P
Also, I was reading his Wiki page when I noticed this:
But it's still his mess now. And his refocusing has gone abysmally. The McChrystal article was telling on what the military actually thinks of this administration. Now that kind of talk goes on all the time, especially when Democrats are in power, but that is some quality vitrol that goes past what was said about Clinton or Bush when I was in the service. So this isn't shocking, what is interesting is they felt strongly enough to say it in the open where they new it would come out in public. His firing of McChrystal was a brain dead response to it.
What. The. Fuck. You, my friend, are the silliest of geese.
McChrystal stepped over one of the great lines in American society - the fact that the civilians control the military. And he got the exact punishment he deserved - resign, or face an Article 88. If you honestly think he was just voicing common views in the military, then that means that its long past due that we started cleaning out the flag officer ranks.
Or maybe you'd rather live under a Starship Troopers-style military junta?
But it's still his mess now. And his refocusing has gone abysmally. The McChrystal article was telling on what the military actually thinks of this administration. Now that kind of talk goes on all the time, especially when Democrats are in power, but that is some quality vitrol that goes past what was said about Clinton or Bush when I was in the service. So this isn't shocking, what is interesting is they felt strongly enough to say it in the open where they new it would come out in public. His firing of McChrystal was a brain dead response to it.
What. The. Fuck. You, my friend, are the silliest of geese.
McChrystal stepped over one of the great lines in American society - the fact that the civilians control the military. And he got the exact punishment he deserved - resign, or face an Article 88. If you honestly think he was just voicing common views in the military, then that means that its long past due that we started cleaning out the flag officer ranks.
Or maybe you'd rather live under a Starship Troopers-style military junta?
You obviously have never been in the military. Yes, it was (possibly) a mistake to do this in public. However trash talking your superiors is a time honored tradition. And if they are Democrats game on. Bill Clinton was soundly mocked at every given chance. That the military is trashing Obama is perfectly normal, that's par for the course and to be expected.
The fact that it came out in public means it was either a mistake, not likely, he wanted to resign and was looking for a way you, again not likely but possible, or he wanted to help tank Obama's cred, very likely. And your juniors don't talk trash in public unless they know they are allowed to. If I recall McChrystal even got to see the article and gave it the go ahead.
Firing him was stupid as he's one of the few people qualified for this sort of thing. You can't really clean ranks here, you won't find one senior office that doesn't trash talk in private, that's the entire senior leadership. McChrystal just said what everybody says in private in public.
It's up for debate if he wanted to resign or just wanted to take his shot at the administration. Either way he got what he wanted and it's now public that our military leadership thinks the current administration is a joke.
Military 1 Obama 0
We can debate all you want if the military should, or shouldn't be a political organization. But none of that means anything really. The military is a political organization. If they want to be cute about it they can just march out retired people to parade around talk shit about various issues to influence things. Or they can, like McChrystal did, fall on their own sword in order to get a point out.
I'm not sure how "we can't do our jobs because we're (apparently) a bunch of whiny, gossipy, partisan teenage girls" earned the Military a point there. You should referee FIFA games.
When our generals stand up and publicly go "uh, sir? You're wrong.." we should give them some attention. But we also need to sit down and figure out if they have a point, or if they're being gooses. Waah I don't like my boss's rules may not be an entirely valid complaint. "hey, strategically you haven't given me what we need for this mission" may be a perfectly valid one.
In this case from the non Obama stuff, our dear General comes off as just really, really whiny about everyone.
This situation is actually about Michael Steele, not necessarily the GOP. 'Cause according to the article I read about this (see the quote below) the GOP isn't happy with Steele's comments.
In an effort to make this thread PA's longest to match America's longest war, I bring you silly commentary on the Afghan war. Brought to you by GOP Chairman Michael Steele. Link.
WASHINGTON - Gaffe-master GOP honcho Michael Steele fought off the latest calls for his resignation Friday over an outburst against President Obama and Afghanistan war tactics.
Conservative bloggers went ballistic and Fox commentator and neocon guru Bill Kristol sent a "Dear Michael" letter urging Steele to perform "an act of service for the country you love: Resign as chairman of the Republican Party."
At a Connecticut fund-raiser Thursday, Steele rewrote the history of the Afghanistan war launched by former President George W. Bush after 9/11.
Steele said it was a war "of Obama's choosing ... not something the U.S. had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in."
Obama failed to understand that "the one thing you don't do is engage in a land war in Afghanistan," Steele said. "There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan without committing U.S. troops."
Steele, whose tenure as Republican National Committee chairman has often rattled party elders, began dialing back yesterday but did not apologize. He spoke of his pride in standing with the "mothers of soldiers lost at war," adding: "Winning a war in Afghanistan is a difficult task. We must also remember that after the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, it is also a necessary one."
"Michael is a disaster," a party elder told the Daily News, "but we need to get through the fall elections before we decide what to do with him."
Aside from the comments being silly as fuck, Michael Steele could kiss his ass goodbye politically. I don't think he understood anything he was saying.
That's a pretty common GOP strategy. Remember that guy who got in trouble for his BP apology? Every single republican that criticized him or distanced himself from the comment had already said the exact same thing on the public record. The GOP will always say things in progressively more widely viewed forums as a way to test out new slogans, and just hopes that nobody will notice anything but the latest case if it ends up being unpopular.
You obviously have never been in the military. Yes, it was (possibly) a mistake to do this in public.
Well I guess you can stop right there, since that was the entire basis for why this was inappropriate. McChrystal is perfectly within his rights to undermine the President to himself while he's perched on the crapper in his office.
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This statement requires some evidence before I take it as anything other than an attempt to marginalize and discredit left wing opinion writers.
Basically, Obama had an opportunity when he took office to shut down the war in Afghanistan. He instead decided to double down, at which point he took ownership of the war.
tldr: Michael Steele is still a fool (and a far too easy target,) but there is a tiny hint of truth in what he is saying.
NintendoID: Nailbunny 3DS: 3909-8796-4685
Tiny bit of truth, a mountain of hypocrisy.
Who started it really isn't relevant now. It is now Obama's war. He is in charge, he is calling the shots. What happens and the end results are something he owns. You can't just keep blaming the last guy and hand wringing.
He talked up Afghanistan in a blatant play to try and win votes and not appear weak. Now he's stuck in a situation that isn't turning out to well. But it's his decision to be there.
He should either get up and say "yeah I lied my ass off about that Afghanistan shit, but I had to if I wanted to get elected" and get out, or he should say "I don't know what I'm doing and had no idea the mess I was getting into" and then get out. Right now it just seems like we are dicking around in there for the same "can't afford to look weak" gibberish that went on before.
Lets say Obama loses re-election. Does the next President to come in get the full "what happens and the end results are something you own?" Or do what happens and the end result still belong to Obama? Is it basically that it's cool to just hand it off to the next guy and now it's his issue, or do years of mismanagement prior to someone's inheriting the issue get to play in to who the results are attributed to?
Who started it is actually quite relevant since it speaks to the judgment and priorities of the people in charge. And it's bullshit to say that the previous guy can't take his share of blame for fucking things up. I wish people would fucking stop pretending that the failures of the Bush administration transferred totally to the Obama administration. Or, at the least, stop pretending that the past has no affect on the present.
It's like blamming the Janitor for the mess because he's the one cleaning it up.
When the next guy gets elected he owns the mess. Look at it this way, when you are hired to do a job you are responsible for the outcome. Just because the prior guy screwed things up doesn't mean you can hand wring about it once it's your responsibility, especially if you were hired to clean it up.
He's the president, he's the commander in chief. He's calling the shots.
If the war is not over by the time he's out of office, it will be the next guys mess.
All this "but Bush" just makes his administrations seem like a bunch cry babies that can't take the heat and didn't know what they were getting themselves into.
Not at all. It's like when the board of directors fires off one CEO and then hires a new guy who claims he can fix it. Only to have that person jack things up even more, continue the same stupid policies and then whine when he's called out on not doing the job he was hired for.
In the corporate world if you pulled that you'd be fired for it.
Hell, once in a while Carter gets a mention.
Except Obama never claimed he was going to end the war in Afghanistan. He claimed he was going to devote proper resources to ending it. Which he is doing.
This doesn't change the fact that Obama is only doing this because someone else started the war in the first place.
You are agreeing with Michael Steele man, do you know how stupid this means your argument is?
Didn't you know, the Clinton era boom was actually the Bush I boom. The recession during Bush II's term was the Clinton recession, except the one that started in 07, that was the Obama recession. All the recessions during Bush I and Reagan were Carter recessions.
There's still a pretty strong meme of trying to blame stuff on FDR, even. Lately it's that Social Security is a ponzi scheme.
This all assumes that the political opposition is going to be honest about their role in fucking things up. Democrats wouldn't have to keep talking about how Republicans fucked shit up if the very same Republicans weren't trying hard to rewrite history. Every dumb ass who claims Obama's actions are ruining America deserves to be reminded that the ruination was underway long before he took office. Seriously, only idiots think that long term problems can be fixed with short term solutions.
Also, Obama said explicitly that he'd double down on Afghanistan. If you voted for him and thought he'd do otherwise, you're just dumb. This is why your CEO analogy fails; the new CEO was hired on to refocus a major part of the previous CEO's platform, not end it completely. People are having buyer's remorse because they suddenly have little appetite for Afghanistan despite cheering at the idea of focusing on that theater.
I wish Obama really were powerful enough to go back in time and use his magical POTUS powers to cause the recession. Maybe he could use those powers to fix up some shit.
Maybe he already has
He already used them to plant those fake birth announcements and forge his birth certificate.
My take is that he either wanted to double down on it for the votes and not get smashed for being weak on national security, or that he had no clue what he was getting himself into. Hell both could be true.
But it's still his mess now. And his refocusing has gone abysmally. The McChrystal article was telling on what the military actually thinks of this administration. Now that kind of talk goes on all the time, especially when Democrats are in power, but that is some quality vitrol that goes past what was said about Clinton or Bush when I was in the service. So this isn't shocking, what is interesting is they felt strongly enough to say it in the open where they new it would come out in public. His firing of McChrystal was a brain dead response to it.
So while I don't have an actual opinion on whether we should be there or not. It is his war now and he's bungling the crap out of it, it's like amateur hour with this group, and there is plenty that is doing or has done that I can find fault with.
I'd say this is so for those pretty far on the left. For the rest of the country it's more shock at how inept and chaotic everything has been.
And this is continuing on with the "bbbbb... but the Republicans" BS. All I see is when this administration is called out on any of it's multiple screw ups or failures everybody gets all defensive and starts the knee jerk "but Bush, but Republicans", it's pathetic. Own up to your mistakes and screw ups and stop trying to hide behind the big bad Bush.
Seriously it's like a bunch of kids on the playground crying and whining that little Timmy punched me first.
That crap was retarded as well.
He was a fucking terrible President who ruined the whole fucking country. Not something you can clean up in a year and a half.
fix'd
Mostly the first and a little of the second. His stance would've made more sense about 6 or 7 years ago.
One problem with McChrystal and the other top brass is that they think they should be entitled to dictate strategy because they're military and Obama isn't. Another problem is that they are under the mistaken impression that Americans have the patience or the will to conduct an endless campaign in Afghanistan, so long as they keep pounding the patriotism and terrorism drums. And the third problem is that they think that the war chest for these endeavors will continue to be open and overflowing. None of these things are true.
Inept? In what way? As far as I can tell, things have been progressing about as well as can be expected given the shitty nature of the Afghan government and the fact that Afghanistan was allowed to become a haven for insurgents and terrorists.
What screw ups are you talking about? Please be specific.
Obama could fix shit if he were God Emperor. Why, oh why won't Obama exercise his non-existent dictatorial powers and fix things yesterday?
"I don't really have an opinion, but hey everyone listen to my fatheaded opinion! Look at me condemn the guys doing the stuff I have no opinion on!"
Reach deep down, you may find a pair of balls. The problem is you then occasionally have to admit to your 'opinion' either being ill-informed or ill-formed. Hell both could be true.
Maybe we can get, "Don't blame me, I didn't vote!" next.
Basically, Bush tried to half-ass the wars and it fucked them up royally. The idea, especially back a few years ago, was that these mistakes could be at least partially rectified by fixing those issues now, even if it was a bit too late.
Obama's policy was to pull out of Iraq and concentrate on Afghanistan, devoting all of the US's resources there to help out it's allies from post-9/11 who were still fighting the actual fight everyone in the world got on board for after 9/11. With the hopes that this could solve the problems there.
[ed] I'll wander over there and look. Thanks, 'bum.
Agreed, but I am not going to get into anything beyond the scope of this thread.
Bush screwed up over 7 years in Afghanistan. No one is rewriting history here. When Obama took office, though, he had a choice. Much like Iraq, he could let the Bush plan fade into withdrawal and a support role, or he could increase our efforts there, maybe even change things up dramatically. He chose the latter option, without the dramatic change, and invested more troops and resources in what appeared to be an effort to replicate the outcome of the Iraq war (where some would debate whether or not we've been successful.) At that point, he invested himself, taking ownership of the current status of the Afghan war.
NintendoID: Nailbunny 3DS: 3909-8796-4685
Obama owns the current strategy in Afghanistan, with the caveat that Bush fucked it up so badly and limited his options to basically leave or escalate dramatically.
And when Obama tries to pull back from the precedents he's set--the powers of the president for instance, he's either attacked for being weak or it's exploited by the GOP.
edit--And beyond that the war in Iraq was dying down by the point Obama got in, it's now up to the point where it's about economic aid. Afghanistan is not stable enough to just get up and go, and it's position in the middle of Central Asia was going to make it tremendously important even before the minerals came up.
Neither of those two things requires making completely non-factual statements about historical facts.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
"I GOT THE FRIED CHICKEN" didn't really work out too well.
:P
Also, I was reading his Wiki page when I noticed this:
Small world.
What. The. Fuck. You, my friend, are the silliest of geese.
McChrystal stepped over one of the great lines in American society - the fact that the civilians control the military. And he got the exact punishment he deserved - resign, or face an Article 88. If you honestly think he was just voicing common views in the military, then that means that its long past due that we started cleaning out the flag officer ranks.
Or maybe you'd rather live under a Starship Troopers-style military junta?
You obviously have never been in the military. Yes, it was (possibly) a mistake to do this in public. However trash talking your superiors is a time honored tradition. And if they are Democrats game on. Bill Clinton was soundly mocked at every given chance. That the military is trashing Obama is perfectly normal, that's par for the course and to be expected.
The fact that it came out in public means it was either a mistake, not likely, he wanted to resign and was looking for a way you, again not likely but possible, or he wanted to help tank Obama's cred, very likely. And your juniors don't talk trash in public unless they know they are allowed to. If I recall McChrystal even got to see the article and gave it the go ahead.
Firing him was stupid as he's one of the few people qualified for this sort of thing. You can't really clean ranks here, you won't find one senior office that doesn't trash talk in private, that's the entire senior leadership. McChrystal just said what everybody says in private in public.
It's up for debate if he wanted to resign or just wanted to take his shot at the administration. Either way he got what he wanted and it's now public that our military leadership thinks the current administration is a joke.
Military 1 Obama 0
We can debate all you want if the military should, or shouldn't be a political organization. But none of that means anything really. The military is a political organization. If they want to be cute about it they can just march out retired people to parade around talk shit about various issues to influence things. Or they can, like McChrystal did, fall on their own sword in order to get a point out.
In this case from the non Obama stuff, our dear General comes off as just really, really whiny about everyone.
That's a pretty common GOP strategy. Remember that guy who got in trouble for his BP apology? Every single republican that criticized him or distanced himself from the comment had already said the exact same thing on the public record. The GOP will always say things in progressively more widely viewed forums as a way to test out new slogans, and just hopes that nobody will notice anything but the latest case if it ends up being unpopular.
Well I guess you can stop right there, since that was the entire basis for why this was inappropriate. McChrystal is perfectly within his rights to undermine the President to himself while he's perched on the crapper in his office.
Doing it to a reporter? Spank.