lol I'll forego pointing out that he was an excellent governor and simply point out that the same logic would make you a corrupt serial liar.
On the contrary, that's one of the smartest things Obama has done in foreign policy. Oil revenue allows ISIS to project evil and impose it on many more people; removing that oil revenue reduces ISIS' ability to impose evil on people. It's like removing a cancerous growth - it might hurt now, but it's best in the long run.One additional bit of info. The United States actively bombed the oil infrastructure that was controlled by ISIS. This represents America at war with EVERYBODY in that region. Don't pretend that America is not one of the reasons that people are fleeing Syria, WE ARE. We are doing our damnedest to ensure that the place is unlivable. Bombing infrastructure into nonexistence is unwarranted and immoral. We are NOT in a fight for survival. We should be working to decrease suffering rather than the opposite. Who going to pay for rebuilding what America has destroyed?
https://news.vice.com/article/bombi...-isnt-the-slam-dunk-you-might-expect-it-to-be
404 Error: Fish not found. I think we'd all agree that the Hildabeast is very familiar with Aleppo, as is Obama. Are the people in Aleppo better for that knowledge? Eight years ago they were oppressed; today they are living in hell with the guarantee that whichever of them survive this civil war will still be oppressed. If one wants a subject on which everyone in Syria can agree, the desire that America's leaders had remained ever-ignorant of Syria's existence has to be near the top of likely candidates. Remember, Bush set up the conditions that made possible ISIS in Iraq; Obama and Clinton made possible ISIS in Syria. While one can certainly find people in Iraq who are grateful that Saddam is gone and that they can have free elections, I doubt one could find anyone in Syria who is grateful for the Obama/Clinton intervention. Certainly not any in Aleppo.Excellent governor does not make for a great President, especially when he can't even name a single world leader that he admires. Oh, and Aleppo, remember that? There's not much to that Johnson you're hanging on to, that's for sure.
As far as your logic goes... aw hell, I'm tired of shooting fish in the bottom of a dry barrel.
...
404 Error: Fish not found. I think we'd all agree that the Hildabeast is very familiar with Aleppo, as is Obama. Are the people in Aleppo better for that knowledge? Eight years ago they were oppressed; today they are living in hell with the guarantee that whichever of them survive this civil war will still be oppressed. If one wants a subject on which everyone in Syria can agree, the desire that America's leaders had remained ever-ignorant of Syria's existence has to be near the top of likely candidates. Remember, Bush set up the conditions that made possible ISIS in Iraq; Obama and Clinton made possible ISIS in Syria. While one can certainly find people in Iraq who are grateful that Saddam is gone and that they can have free elections, I doubt one could find anyone in Syria who is grateful for the Obama/Clinton intervention. Certainly not any in Aleppo.
lol You'll watch, but you won't understand.This is called going off on a tangent, something some people do when they've got nothing to counter something that's been said about something they said. IOW, you've got nothing so it's off into the wild blue yonder!
Go right ahead, I'll watch...lol!
lol You'll watch, but you won't understand.
He makes it Mr. Obvious doesn't he? My parents cannot believe that I'm voting for Hillary and not Trump. My father is a supposedly devout Mormon who has his willful blinders on at full intensity as does my mother. Trump can do no wrong in their eyes and if he stood in their living room and molested a female family member they'd find an excuse to justify their continuing support of him. This is how brain dead Republican voters are and its really sad. Their confirmation bias is among the strongest I've ever witnessed and no matter of evidence to the contrary will convince them otherwise. Bill's revisal of GOP to grab our pussy's made me ROFL.News Flash, but not really.
Real Time With Bill Maher: Some very sobering things to say about Trump and the state of this race
Munchs on a PBJ.
He makes it Mr. Obvious doesn't he? My parents cannot believe that I'm voting for Hillary and not Trump. My father is a supposedly devout Mormon who has his willful blinders on at full intensity as does my mother. Trump can do no wrong in their eyes and if he stood in their living room and molested a female family member they'd find an excuse to justify their continuing support of him. This is how brain dead Republican voters are and its really sad. Their confirmation bias is among the strongest I've ever witnessed and no matter of evidence to the contrary will convince them otherwise.
My father gets upset when he spouts some party garbage and I ask him to produce proof to back up his claim as does my mother. He's also a Melchizedek priest for the church and over scheduling the Sunday school classes for his ward. This is why I mentioned confirmation bias before because no matter how much evidence is produced to prove a particular point if it is not the one they want to believe they will discard all of it for some outlier that says backs what they believe. They both have a tendency to get upset when my siblings and I will not go along with whatever they've chosen to believe. I possess critical thinking skills which I employ on a daily basis so I can arrive at a fact based conclusion on whatever I'm looking at. The Republican fantasy land they live in is beyond me and I refuse to participate in it. Could they be the missing link Darwin could never find???One of them is a church big wig. So I can vouch that they do like women...
Two American soldiers are documented to have died IN COMBAT in 1959, before JFK was elected, so, "military advisers" my hairy ass.Ike sent the first military advisers, but JFK sent the first combat troops, and Johnson first sent them into offensive operations.
I find this observation to be honest as I've seen it myself all too many times in my life. Funny thing is that the bible, which I do believe to be true, tells everyone including Christians (who are not the same as church actors or religious participants) that God's people perish for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6) and to prove all things and hold fast to that which is good (1 Thess. 5:21). God is telling people to exercise critical thinking skills and discern the evidence to determine what is appropriate which they absolutely will not do. I reject religion and the illusionary mind sets that it produces. When God tells people to dislodge their heads and see things for what they are then it says a lot to me. Religion says whatever it wants to if it will allow for them to retain control over a given population to serve as their steady revenue stream.I've seen religion drive people into making poor decisions over the many years I've been around.
You have a point, but outside of Communist and Islamicist dogma, surely self determination is as close to a universal societal ideal as one can get.
On the contrary, that's one of the smartest things Obama has done in foreign policy. Oil revenue allows ISIS to project evil and impose it on many more people; removing that oil revenue reduces ISIS' ability to impose evil on people. It's like removing a cancerous growth - it might hurt now, but it's best in the long run.
The United States is manipulating humanitarian concern in an effort to protect its proxy militias and its imperial regime-change project in Syria. The mainstream media and intellectual classes are dutifully falling in line, promoting a narrative favoring U.S. military aggression under the cover of “protecting civilians.”
Similar arguments contributed to the invasions of Iraq and Libya, exponentially increasing the massacres, chaos and proliferation of violent extremism within those countries. These “responsibility to protect” or R2P claims are hypocritical, designed to further the interests of conquest and domination and will lead to even more death and destruction in Syria.
The United States has no stake in the wellbeing of Syrian civilians, despite the condemnations of Russia’s offensive in Aleppo. This is clearly shown in the fact that the people that the U.S. is supporting are guilty of the same crimes that the U.S. accuses Russia and Syria of: indiscriminate attacks, targeting of civilians, destruction of schools, hospitals, etc.
Furthermore, the offensive in Aleppo is really no different from what the U.S. did in Manbij, a Syrian city northeast of Aleppo where the U.S. is said to have incorporated a “scorched earth policy” while liberating the city from ISIS this year by treating the civilian population “as if they were terrorists or ISIS supporters.”
Arguably the U.S. conduct was even worse, as the U.S. earned the distinction of launching the deadliest single airstrike on civilians out of the entire five-year conflict, massacring at least 73 where no ISIS fighters were present. But the Manbij operation elicited no moral outcry from the media and punditry, since these were deemed “unworthy victims” given that they were our victims and not those of our enemies. The same can be said about the U.S. operations in Kobani and Fallujah, whereby the entire towns were essentially reduced to rubble without any R2P uproar.
Before we armed and trained them, the "rebels" were in exactly the same position as dissenters in Saddam-Iraq, present-day Turkey, pre-civil war Syria or Libya, or present-day Iran. If they rise up, then yes, their government will murder them. Once we armed and trained them, the "rebels" were able to push the Syrian government into a full-fledged civil war. That's when government murder ceases to be a retail affair and transitions to wholesale murder and misery, and that's on us. If it's a moral imperative to give these people the right to self-determination, then morally the Bush method is much superior as it removes the old repressive regime at a much lighter price to the people we are supposedly concerned with empowering.
wait til Clinton embraces her true self in office. Maybe bland serve the big money centrism will win out. I sort of doubt it though at least unless of course you are actually in the top tiers of income levels
It's nice to see the "left" media acting exactly like the "right" media does when it comes to criticism of their guy (or gal) minimize the criticisms of them.
I'll buy the "this other guy is so insane that we have to hold our noses and vote for Secretary Clinton" but not the defense of her as some great (or even good) candidate that some here seem to labor under.
The "lesser evil" is exactly what she is. And she (as well as the rest of us) should be thankful that enough republican voters were insane enough to nominate Trump.
______________
Libertarian VP Candidate Admits Defeat, Tells Voters To Pick Clinton Over Trump
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bill-weld-tells-voters-pick-clinton-over-trump
oh boy
Libertarian VP Candidate Admits Defeat, Tells Voters To Pick Clinton Over Trump
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bill-weld-tells-voters-pick-clinton-over-trump
oh boy
Or she may be the Liberal Lion we thought Obama might have been.
Libertarian VP Candidate Admits Defeat, Tells Voters To Pick Clinton Over Trump
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bill-weld-tells-voters-pick-clinton-over-trump
oh boy
Meh. Military advisers do sometimes die in combat, as they are typically Green Berets and often in the field. Man for man, it's probably considerably more dangerous than being in a combat unit. In that sort of war anyway; lots of World War II infantry line companies experienced over 100% casualties in the first three months after D-Day.Two American soldiers are documented to have died IN COMBAT in 1959, before JFK was elected, so, "military advisers" my hairy ass.
That's a fair point, as we have no absolute authority to rule either way. I can only say that the whole of Western civilization (until the rise of progressives) has been aimed at maximizing individual empowerment and self-determination. I suppose one could make an argument that Islamic and Asian yearning for an authoritarian overlord is equally valid morally. In any case, that's clearly where we are all headed.Asian communist and Islamic societies are very influential and have undergone serious development in recent history. Who are we to say wholesale that they are wrong to relatively devalue self determination?
I don't oppose Hillary, because she's running against someone even worse. I just don't like her, and I refuse to play D.C.'s lesser evil game.Well it certainly isn't hurting you or I. I posted a link from people in Syria supporting the insurgency who state that the infrastructure bombing is hurting/killing ordinary citizens more than anybody else.
Most if not all of the insurgents who will replace ISIS are about the same as ISIS. I have included a link below to the some of the more powerful ones. Whichever takes over we will probably immediately begin bombing. We can keep playing this game until 90% of the Syrian population has moved to Europe/America OR we can try to stem the crisis. Stability (even under ISIS) is better than anarchy.
I love that in this entire war, America has the distinction of killing the most civilians in a single airstrike. Most people would call that terrorism, we call it giving Syria their freedom.
Clinton's foreign policy seems to dovetail well with what you want to happen. Why do you oppose her?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24403003
As to what I want, I very much wish we'd never gotten involved in Syria at all. However, Bush's bungling of the Iraq occupation and rebuilding coupled with Obama/Clinton's bungling in Syria have allowed ISIS to flourish. ISIS is a singular evil, and since we are partially to blame for its rise, we have to help decent people kill it off. That this will involve killing civilians is truly sad, but while war is an ugly thing, it is not the most ugly thing. Life under ISIS is orders of magnitude worse than life under Assad, or Hussein.
Syrian rebel groups backed by the U.S. and its allies “have committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, including abductions, torture and summary killings,” according to Amnesty International.
A report by the leading human rights organization details how extremist rebel groups have taken over large parts of major Syrian cities, in which they have created repressive theocratic regimes where critics are violently silenced and where religious and ethnic minority groups fear for their lives.
“‘Torture Was My Punishment’: Abductions, Torture and Summary Killings Under Armed Group Rule in Aleppo and Idleb, Syria” shows how the Syrian people have been caught between a rock and a hard place — with extremist rebels on one side and a brutal regime on the other.
The report focuses primarily on the governorates of Aleppo and Idlib, in the north of the country. Aleppo is Syria’s largest city, and the Aleppo governorate is the most populous.
Amnesty documented abuses committed by five armed groups that have controlled parts of Aleppo and Idlib since 2012. These rebels have been supported by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and the U.S.
Armed groups have repressed many Syrians who were themselves once supportive of the rebels.
“I was happy to be free from the Syrian government’s unjust rule but now the situation is worse,” a Syrian lawyer told Amnesty.