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I was flabbergasted to read this morning that we are “
I’ll say this for Obama. When he goes all out, well, wow! 400 advisors. Man, that’s showin em sumpthing by golly. After all, it only took 300 Spartans to stop the Persians at Marathon… Oh, wait. That didn’t turn out so good for the 300.
#DontBeheadMeBro!
Hey look, I could be a national defense expert.
Now let me try domestic policy:
#TimeToElectAnAdult
We’re doomed, aren’t we?
Frankly the M.E. is beyond our comprehension, we’re always over our heads there, so it’d be nice if we could just forget about it and let them sort everything out. Unfortunately we don’t have that luxury because Israel wont march peacefully to its own suicide, the Shia and Sunni will not stop trying to kill each other, and will arm themselves eventually with nukes. So it would be nice to have a coherent policy vision about the place, the world and our role in it and a few adults in key positions here and there. How much of the unfolding global, domestic, and regional disasters can we reverse after almost two more years?
Because sending the US Army back into Iraq is unpopular in the US and the candidates are (electioneering) politicians.
Iow: because enough of you are not demanding a coherent response from them.
No, it is not beyond our comprehension. We don’t have another two years to wait.
Although a bet a bunch of our warriors are will to go and kick som. .. but even then ROE and all.
You hit the nail on the head, I think, Zafar. We are much more worried about Caitlyn’s ego/feelings.
Respectfully, I have to say that it would be time to quit pounding the panic button when it comes to the M.E. We probably have much more time than we are willing to admit at this time.
Wasn’t “leadership” supposed to be a sought-after quality in a leader?
Much more time before what? Before we have to go to war with an ISIS armed with every extant piece of military hardware from the Med to the Indus? Or are you figuring we won’t ever have to deal with this? I just don’t think they’ll get tired of these hijinks and apply to join the TPP any time soon, if that’s the hope.
This is a couple of weeks old, but here is a link to what Eugene Robinson said about Republican criticism of the President’s “policy.” Here is an excerpt:
Robinson is no friend to Republican candidates, but I don’t know what we should do, either.
It will probably take a hostage crisis or some such headliner atrocity to our attention and they probably know that too so they will probably avoid it for a little while longer.
What if I were to tell you that the one thing Vladimir Putin has succeeded in doing the last few years is show the world the US cannot indefinitely drop divisions of soldiers and Marines every time a situation not to the liking of the US happens. What if I were to also tell you ISIS understands this, to a degree, as well.
Right now, the rest of the world is waiting to see whether or not Saudi Arabia understands this.
A tried and test American reaction of ignoring a crisis in the making, then when things deteriorate even further (and don’t let anyone tell you things can’t get worse, because they always can and will) we look around at each other and ask why no one did anything sooner.
Of course it would be the job of our elected leaders to motivate and make the case for handling these kinds of things before they become so bad that the common man takes notice and begins to worry. That is why you have leaders, so that they can lead you not casually be swept up by the tide of public apathy.
…
I just can’t believe that our response to this is some collage students coming up with an App. No, actually I can believe it and it is mind boggling. Do they really think Candy Crush is any competition to having your own personal 15 year old sex slave? Do they think that the men who go out to join ISIS just haven’t been hugged enough?
Putin wouldn’t stand in our way on this one for a second. They’re as much a threat to him as to us.
400 trainers, eh? The modern way I guess.
Does anyone else suspect that next month we’ll have hundreds of Iraqi soldiers wandering around the desert saying “I’m an INTP, what are you?”
I don’t understand all the handwringing about what to do. There is a hostile military force on the ground, in formation. Smashing it is what our military was built to do, and what it does better than any military force in history. No, we are not good at fighting terrorists disguised as civilians who fight by burying mines on roads and killing random civilians. No, we are not good at nation building. But this, we are very very good at.
Go in with overwhelming force. Kill everyone standing under an ISIS flag. Blow up all of their equipment. Destroy their headquarters. Kill their commanders. Then get out. It will take less than a week.
The Iraqis and Syrians can deal with the aftermath. It can’t possibly be any worse than it is now.
Yep.
Oh surely this is so. Heck we might not ever have to do anything. After all it is hard to picture ISIS building a fleet large enough to cross the ocean and attack us here. We can always throw out all Middle Easterners, ban Islam, and just retreat into Fortress America. Hey it might even be nice.
Frankly, I think we could have said this (and in fact did) about nearly every psychotic totalitarian regime ever. Who really thinks the Nazis would have invaded New York? The Soviets never did either, and probably couldn’t have despite their vast armies. I highly doubt a bunch of desert fanatics have much of a chance either. Of course if your nation can be reached by a car from Syria you might have something to worry about. Sucks to be them I guess. Should have founded their nations on a different continent.
So when should we start to worry? If this isn’t the time, when is? What is our “line in the sand”? What atrocity, depravity, or conquest by ISIS will we not let stand?
Yet Putin very much stood in our way when it came to going into Syria in the first place, in 2013. And he more than stood in the way of unified NATO action in Ukraine.
Don’t think the rest of the world, including ISIS and Iran, is oblivious to that, and doesn’t take notes accordingly.
Or a flight.
Iraq, in addition to being a country (sort of) with lots of oil and the site of a couple of wars and a US occupation and ISIS and Iranian intervention and yadayadayada, also provides a rich source of domestic political point scoring in the US – at this point in the electoral cycle the last seems to dysfunctionally dominate the other definitions.
Unless candidates are pressed to respond to Iraq without using it as an object lesson in Republican idiocy or Democratic fecklessness I don’t see that changing in the near future. The shining seas are dangerously effective as insulating borders.
I don’t know Valiuth, people really seem into Candy Crush.
It’s probably at least a good part of the explanation.
When Assad was the target. Assad is now under practically under siege in Damascus.
This isn’t Ukraine. This is, among other things, a flood of Chechen fighters.
Iran is a different story.
You don’t thnk the rest of the world hasn’t heard that same song you just played? You don’t think the rest of the world is quite copacetic with the US not being able, in some way, to draw that “line in the sand?”
No, it really can be worse. Let’s not do this ‘work it out as we go along’ thing again because we always always always get something awful that we didn’t but should have expected.
ISIS is made of desert Sunni Syrians and Iraqis (and foreign fighters) and has taken over Sunni-majority desert territories in Syria and Iraq. They have no chance of expanding elsewhere, except maybe south towards Saudi Arabia, the vast Sunni desert.
What if “work it out as we go along” is the only true course of action to take?
Well then I guess we’re doing okay.
I don’t think they have invaded anyone by plane. It seems to me they prefer Toyota trucks. Still that’s three continents they can drive to, and something like 2/3 of humanity they can enslave.
Yes, I know. Our cycle of hindsight induced flagellation is hard to break, especially in the backdrop of a nostalgic past and counterfactual delusions.
Most people though haven’t been offered a sex slave. I would like to think most people would refuse the offer, but I think we both have our doubts about how true that is.
I highly doubt it is sufficient and it might not even be necessary.
Yes. But I’ve got to say–having just flown through Rome–that my flight experience wasn’t enhanced by the thought that ISIS was just a hop, skip, and a jump away from my airspace and helping itself to Syrian RPGs. You only need to take down a few fully-laden aircraft to turn the international air traffic system to chaos.