Politics Thread

xu82 · 04-06-2017, 10:15 PM

Originally Posted by waggy

There will never be peace in the middle east, and the US will never leave the middle east. Add 2&2 together and what do you get?

Pi?

Juice · 04-06-2017, 11:40 PM

Here's an interesting article written by a writer/doctor who is the son of Syrian immigrants: https://theringer.com/syria-barack-o...y-853644abdd1b

Caf · 04-07-2017, 04:31 AM

It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.

-DJT

lol

**Masterofreality** · 04-07-2017, 06:02 AM

Originally Posted by Caf

lol

Why LOL?

It actually would BE in the National Interest.

**Masterofreality** · 04-07-2017, 06:18 AM

Originally Posted by boozehound

I agree with this.

With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, W's decision to invade Iraq was very much the wrong one. When viewed through the lens of the information we had available at the time, I think it becomes much more understandable. I continue to believe that George W Bush is a good person who was doing what he thought was right. I think he was a compassionate man who cared for others. I don't necessarily feel the same way about Rumsfeld, Rove, and Cheney - which I think was part of Bush's problem.

Hussein was a brutal dictator who we believed had weapons of mass destruction. He had a decades-long history of atrocities against his own people. We had intelligence that said that the people of Iraq were yearning for democracy. The young people were supposed to lead the way to a functioning democratic system. The first war was easy, this time we were simply going to get rid of Hussein and help them set up a functioning democracy. It didn't go as planned.

Yessir Booze. And yeah. We did go after Afghanistan too. People forget that we had Bin Laden trapped in a freaking cave before he somehow slipped out. I think that the belief was that we'd be able to find Bin Laden and quickly get troops out of Afghanistan and that the popular opinion in Iraq was in our favor. Of course in retrospect, the hundreds of years of sectarian conflict mucked all that up and Al Milaki was a horrible first leader who tried to screw both the Kurds & the Sunnis. Messy stuff it became.

I fully agree with the assessment of Bush. Not any fan of Cheney, but the popular narrative that Bush "lied" to start a war is BS. Inaccurate Intelligence that the British also believed? Yes. Not the first time spies were wrong and won't be the last.

Caf · 04-07-2017, 07:22 AM

Originally Posted by Masterofreality

Why LOL?

It actually would BE in the National Interest.

It's about as vital to our interest as stopping the spread of communism in Vietnam was.

This sells better as a humanitarian action. To say it does anything for the national security of the United States is a huge stretch.

**boozehound** · 04-07-2017, 08:00 AM

Originally Posted by Caf

It's about as vital to our interest as stopping the spread of communism in Vietnam was.

This sells better as a humanitarian action. To say it does anything for the national security of the United States is a huge stretch.

This is my opinion as well. If anything we have been made less safe by this action, at least in the short term. That doesn't necessarily make it the wrong action, but it opens up a level of risk to the US, particularly with respect to Russia, that didn't previously exist.

As I stated in an earlier post - I'm torn about this action. Factually I know that this isn't likely to do any good for the people of Syria. Emotionally, I like sending a message that gassing women and children won't be tolerated. It depends on where we go from here. If we dramatically escalate our involvement than this was probably a bad move, if we simply are sending a message that we won't tolerate the use of nerve gas on innocent people than I'm more OK with it.

This will be interesting to follow. Russia is obviously not happy, but I'm not sure they will take military action against the United States in retaliation or anything like that. The United States has the ability to devastate Russia both economically and militarily.

Finally, from a political aspect, this is a brilliant move from Trump, at least in the short term. The Democrats are already criticizing him for not seeking congressional approval, but I'm not sure how many people will really care. More importantly, he has been taking a ton of heat regarding his ties with Russia. Taking an action that is a direct affront to Russia / Putin gives some added credibility to the claims that he is not in Russia's pocket.

**X-man** · 04-07-2017, 09:06 AM

Originally Posted by Masterofreality

Yessir Booze. And yeah. We did go after Afghanistan too. People forget that we had Bin Laden trapped in a freaking cave before he somehow slipped out. I think that the belief was that we'd be able to find Bin Laden and quickly get troops out of Afghanistan and that the popular opinion in Iraq was in our favor. Of course in retrospect, the hundreds of years of sectarian conflict mucked all that up and Al Milaki was a horrible first leader who tried to screw both the Kurds & the Sunnis. Messy stuff it became.

I fully agree with the assessment of Bush. Not any fan of Cheney, but the popular narrative that Bush "lied" to start a war is BS. Inaccurate Intelligence that the British also believed? Yes. Not the first time spies were wrong and won't be the last.

He "somehow slipped out" because we pivoted into that bogus war in Iraq, the one Wolfie and the Bush neocons wanted to establish a Western-style democracy as a beacon of democracy for the Mideast. Of course that smacks of "nation-building", which W insisted he was against, so the trumped up WMD rationale was created as a reason to go after Saddam. But I blame Congress and the media (particularly the NYTimes and Washington Post) for falling for that crap.